"Look, if I killed someone

  everytime I wanted to," her voice trailed off as she read the chalked message on the cinderblocks, "There wouldn't be many people left." 

  "Hey now." 

  "But not me I'm your favorite son, right?!" 

  The voices echo'd in the passageway, then coffin'd in a dank room with sparse furniture covered in sheets.  The sheets were a tapestry of dust and mold.  "Clear," a man said and moved on through the labyrinth.  "Guess you can put those away ladies," another man said of everyone's pistols drawn.  "Mine doesn't have any bullets," the redhead's lips poised into an ultimate position of suspended reality.  "Here take these," a veteran correspondent shook three from his and dumped them from a paw of a hand not much movable after slamming it as a sledgehammer.  We'd run into a 2x4 blockade in a tunnel and with very little time to spare before troops exchanging a spit of territory, we'd had to get through.  The man shoved the revolver back into his waist band.  Some sort of luggage strap cinching pants to his new size.  "Not a lot to eat in these parts," he said to the watching.

  Ahahahaachooo.  

  "I'll get the maid to bring some tissues." 

  "What was it like?" 

  "Reeyahd.  Sounds sexy." 

  "I think it sounds like

  The man who'd gone first into the room was again standing in the doorway.  Other, somewhat shuffling footsteps were making way towards.  The man did not seem alarmed. 

  "Like a knife's edge.  War on the other side of a flat mountain face of glass." 

  "Bulletproof I'm sure," someone chortled. 

  The man shone a floodlight of a flashlight on us.  "For fuck's sake," a raspy whisper commented. 

  "This is where they were?" 

  One of us waved.  "Nice to see ya too." 

  "The brothers.  In there like it weren't nothing but a thing." 

  Above ground poisonous gas weapons had been preventing inspectors from signing off on above-board "nuclear activity". 

  The woman with a mass of gray hair entered the room one hand in vest pocket, the other holding onto a briefcase.  "Don't come any closer," the red-haired woman growled.  The briefcase was laid on top of a covered piece of furniture.  The taller woman turned, took two steps closer.  Removed hand from pocket and held it out towards the gun pointed at her.  "You don't know what happened out there," she shoved the gun towards somewhere else but resettled it on the woman.  A threat.  The taller woman considered the shorter woman, then said, "You're a bloody mess.  I can guess." 

  "Am I?  You've still got your eyesight then?" 

  "It's coming back.  Slowly but surely." 

  "Got any tampons in there?" She pointed the gun at the briefcase.  "I hate when the stores are all boarded up before a flight." 

  A tsk.  "Why don't you look for yourself?" 

  The woman set the gun down beside the briefcase.  Rooted a small flashlight from an inner pocket.  Spotlighted both objects.  Put the butt end of the flashlight in her mouth, wiped her hands on the back of her pants, and clicked the briefcase buckles.  Hands pulled clear plastick'd manuscript from its nest.  "Inshallah." Dust and pebbles fell from the ceiling of the passageway as a pair of hard cart wheels passed by.  "What does it mean?"  

  "We must go," said the man in the doorway.  "Cart lays a glow-in-the-dark line.  Many feet follow."