Volume II - Episode 36 Where: Melbourne, Australia When: 1 month and 2 days after E-Day, 7:13 am My second night in a row without any sleep. It was starting to take its toll. My mind was a blur. I struggled to focus on any single thought for more than a few seconds at a time. My limbs felt like they were filled with lead. My lips were so dry that the corners of my mouth had begun to crack and bleed. I needed sleep. I needed a reprieve from my brain. There were, I guess, three major things running through my mind. The first, of course, was homesickness. I missed my unit. It had been my safe little suburban castle for almost ten years, my oasis from the terrors and stresses of the outside world. It had everything that I needed: food, shelter, computers, entertainment, electricity, all of my books and games. And I'd been chased out by a couple of alco bogan thugs. And now I needed to find a new home. The second thing I couldn't stop thinking about was, naturally, Jessica. Where the hell was she? Was she still alive? Why had she dropped off the donkey at my front door and never come back? Would I ever see her again? And the third thing, the thing that kept me awake now more than anything else, was the spectacle I had watched unfold in the CBD just a few hours earlier. Apex Tower, filled with light, filled with people, its roof crowned with two powerful searchlights that had swept across the inner western suburbs with so much intent and malice. And the short but brutal gunfight that had followed. Who were those people living in the tower? How many of them were there? What was their purpose? And who...or what, had they been shooting at?