Roark grimaced. "You don't say."
"Sorry about that, Roark."
Roark moved his horse forward enough to shake the man's hand. "How are things, John?"
"Believe it or not, pretty lively."
Roark's eyebrow lifted. "Oh?"
"You didn't happen to drop off a couple of cryo-cubes earlier, did you?"
Roark shook his head.
"Yeah," John said, "I didn't think so."
"Why do you ask?"
"Three of them walked into the settlement a couple of hours ago, said they'd been freed from a place up north of here and dropped off at the boundary line."
Stefan shrugged when Roark turned to look at him.
"Did they come out of the Denver facility?"
John frowned. "Yeah, how'd you know?"
"We found evidence of someone being up that way," Roark replied as he shot Stefan a quick glance. "We thought it might have been someone else."
"It might have been the guy who freed them."
Stefan sucked in a breath then quickly moved up until he was right next to Roark and John. "Did they say who that was?"
"The guy didn't give them a name. Just got them out of the stasis tubes, helped them get on their feet, explained that the world had gone to shit, then brought them here. Ralph, one of the cryo-cubes, said the guy brought them to the edge of the boundary then took off after pointing them in the direction of the settlement."
Stefan swallowed tightly as he glanced back at Roark. He wasn't surprised to find a frown on his face. Stefan was just as confused.
"Roark, I got to tell you, these guys weren't the first cryo-cubes dropped off here. We had another two show up last week out of a facility in Boulder. They pretty much had the same story."
"Can they describe this guy?" Stefan asked. Hoping.
John shook his head. "They said he wore a mask and a hood the entire time."
Damn.
"And he didn't give them his name?"
John shook his head again. "No, he never did."
"Any idea why he dropped them off here?" Roark asked.
"Well, since the Colorado Springs settlement was wiped out, we're the only settlement between Billings and Mesa Verde. I hear they just started one up by Salt Lake City, but there are no cryogenic facilities up that way. Guess the Mormons didn't believe in cryostasis."
"A lot of people didn't think they would do any good," Roark explained.
"Or they couldn't afford them," Frankie added on, a glower on his face. "They should have been free to anyone who caught the virus."
It was clear that Frankie had strong feelings on the matter, and considering he'd been in cryostasis for ten years, that made sense. Stefan suspected anyone who'd either been in cryostasis or had someone they cared for put in cryostasis had strong feelings about the matter.
Stefan prayed he never became a popsicle.
