Quick blurb on damage modeling: Bullets and lasers are deadly. Very deadly. Had Aaron put that very well rolled bullet in Markus's neck, Exodus would probably be out of the game. As you may or may not have seen with the mutant horde fight a few pages earlier, human flesh doesn't stand up very well to weapons of war. Albeit, the mutants were unarmored and the armor will help, people are still very squishy and there is an almost definite possibility that somebody isn't going to make it out alive.