Faeyt was relieved to see Sinclair again. He wouldn't admit it but he thought for a moment that the man might ditch him, but not only did he return but he had brought back something that would serve to brace the doors. He reached up with one arm and grasped the handle, able to guide the heavy toolboxes descent and that's when Sinclair made mention of the hissing sound.

Filtering out the cacophony, Faeyt focused on the noise and his eye immediately widened when he recognized what it was. "Holy shit!", he exclaimed as he quickly jammed the toolbox between the doors, "Its the hydraulics!"

The man quickly scrambled up through the narrow opening and at the same time the car shifted, narrowing the gap. "F**k!" Screamed Faeyt as he lunged forward and gripped the only thing that he could, which just happened to be Sinclair's ankles. All he needed was something to brace his upper body while he pulled is legs through and the weight of the man served well. He had just pulled his legs free when the hydraulic breaks slipped and the elevator car fell. It descended only a few meters before the safety breaks engaged and brought it to screeching halt, but it was more than enough distance to close the gap and sever anything caught in it.

"Thanks." Said Faeyt as he released, Sinclair's legs and rolled over onto his back. His adrenaline levels were already subsiding leaving him with a euphoric sense of calm. "And, thanks for coming back." he added as he rose to his feet, looking around at their dimly lit surroundings. "I guess we should head this way." Faeyt suggested pointing toward a door with a sign on it that represented a stairwell.

As the two men made their way down the corridor the door ahead of them suddenly began to rattle as if someone on the other side was attempting to open the apparently locked door. Simultaneously, Faeyt raised a hand to his temple and winced in pain. It felt like a fire-cracker went off in his head and a small trickle blood issued from his nose.



Raiko was just about to respond to Indigo's question when he doubled over and raised a hand to his temple. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth as a wave of pain rushed through his mind. The mental storm ended as quickly as it had begun but had took its toll on the man; Raiko looked drained, the colour drawn from his face.

"Boshun has found them." Whispered Parsefal as he rubbed his temple and checked his nose for blood of which he was thankful to find dry. "She's in a stairwell, at the floor that the two rogue omegapath's are on but the door is locked."

Raiko was quickly recovering. He knew he had just suffered a psychic-seizure, but he couldn't know precisely where the omega-wave came from. It could not have been Boshun, the two of them had worked together for so long that their waves were perfectly compatible, it had to be one of the rogues. Leaning back in the seat, while performing a breathing exercise, Raiko remained silent and touched the directional map on the dashboard revealing the destination to agent Nichukha.

Despite the omega waves invading Sinclair’s mind he managed to keep a bit of momentum to carry both himself and Faeyt away from the blocked door. The young man was certainly more distracted by the pain that struck him as well, but luckily he could be urged into the right direction by Sinclair.

“There’s another door on the other side.” He announced to his ally.

This door had no convenient sign like the previous door, but anything leading away from those chasing them would be welcome, even if it wasn’t a set of stairs. Sinclair had to guess and rely on his previous walk through the darkened room, with its light barely flicking on in time for him to see where to guide them.

“You think the door will hold?” Sinclair couldn’t help but wonder as he heard it being violently assaulted by Beshun with kicks and bashes. If she could get through they might be in trouble, they wouldn’t be allowed to make a wrong turn and get themselves cornered.

No matter what the agent would decide to do, either bash through the door, or find another way to keep on their tail, the two of them had reached the door after a frantic run through the room. Without any hesitation Sinclair lunged at the door knob and prayed the door would swing open or he’d end up running into it head first.

Wisely the door got out of the man’s skull and opened into a corridor. Thankfully it was lit, though they couldn’t see very far to either side. Still, the left was the obvious choice since that would take them further away from Beshun. They slammed the door shut behind them and took off towards the end of the corridor where it once again went in two different directions. Skidding to a halt Sinclair looked to the left, finding a long hall with two men near the middle, leaning against the wall, having a smoke. The right on the other hand was clear and had Sinclair’s preference. He pointed Faeyt to the right, since he still had momentum and only followed after looking back to the men and the way they came to see if anything was coming after them from either way. Much to his chagrin, the two men punted away their smokes and followed them, but at least no one had yet emerged from the maintenance room behind them.

“Just keep going.” Such was Sinclair’s advice to Faeyt as he ran out in front of him, he wouldn’t be far behind, and there certainly wasn’t any need to slow down and find out what the men behind them wanted from them.

Sinclair could only guess they weren’t happy about two men who came running out of the maintenance room like that. Sinclair could venture a guess to what kind of people they were now dealing with, but even if he was wrong they wouldn’t want to sit around and answer their questions. Getting off the maintenance floor and into a residential or business floor would make things easier for them. Hopefully Faeyt’s sense of direction would lead them there quickly, Sinclair followed as closely as he could, but he didn’t quite have the pace. Faeyt knew well enough he couldn’t run all out and expect him to keep up, so he made sure not to run too fast and threw back a glance at him as well as the two men chasing them from time to time.

As they ran through the building Sinclair heard the distinct sound of a toilet flushing. Before he could even ponder on the matter a door in front of him began to open and there was little he could do to avoid running right into it. Luckily he reached the door before whoever was coming out the door had gotten very far and knocked it so hard that it promptly closed with a whack. A rather upset woman charged out a moment later and eyed Sinclair while holding her nose with one hand and blood running down her face.

“Ey! Chelle!” Sinclair heard one of the men chasing them shouting out to the woman. “Look out, we got two clowns down here!”

“Bit late for a heads up, Grant!” She yelled back as the two passed her. “Run faster you fat lards!” She shouted after them as she grabbed a hold of her communicator and joined the chase as well.

“We’s just the muscle!” The second man apologized for their inability to catch the two omegapaths so far.

“Only muscle I ever see you exercising is your goddamn jaw, Barry!” Chelle was quick to respond before she turned her attention to her communicator instead.

Sinclair was getting a bit nervous as the people chasing after them was increasing at a rather frightening rate these past few minutes and hoped to get away from these people as quickly as they could. It went from just one to at least three, but he had a bad feeling they hadn’t seen the last of whoever was behind that locked door in the maintenance room.

“Any luck with finding a way out of here!?” Sinclair hoped desperately Faeyt had about found a set of stairs or something else that would give them some much needed breathing space.



Indigo couldn’t be sure what the significance of the omega wave was she and Raiko experienced, but it was a clear signal to hurry things up to her. She shook off the pain as quickly as she could and focused on getting to the latest coordinates as quickly as she could make her Lightningbird go. Her regard for safe driving was once again right out the window and she was giving it her all for the final few meters that separated them from their destination.

A heartstopping minute and a half later Indigo parked the car with squeeling wheels and jumped out of her car in front of the building Beshun had led herself and Raiko to.

The vacant corridor echoed with the sound of twisting metal. The maintenance door buckled, and burst open revealing a small, yellow haired woman, her right leg just descending from the kick that had knocked the heavy portal off one of its hinges. Loryann, was positively fuming. To come so close to her target only to be hindered by a reinforced door unhinged her as well, but there had been something else that had impeded her; an 'omega wave', and a damn powerful one! She doubted those two jokers could have emitted such a forceful attack, but stranger things had happened, so she would be on her guard. Fortunately, she had sensed the presence of three local law enforcers who had given chase, all she had to was track them down in order to locate her quarry and redemption would be hers.



Faeyt was starting to regain his strength. Whatever hit him had temporarily scrambled his perception and balance but all that was starting to come back, although the pain in his head persisted. It would seem that, Sinclair had fortunately not suffered the brunt of the strange phenomena as he had. Had he not, Faeyt feared they would be custody, but the wiry man had been able to keep them moving just long enough for the larger man to regain his senses.

Looking back over his shoulder he could see the enforcers were gaining and an energy surged within him, propelling his legs faster. Unfortunately, at his current pace he would soon leave his comrade in the dust, and that simply would not do. As both of the men, frantically searched for an alternate route, Faeyt luckily found one, but he didn't feel that Sinclair would be very appreciative of this new course, but it was the only way.

As Faeyt stepped out into cool light, the wind whipped through his hair. He stood upon a platform at the edge of an abyss that fell for hundreds of stories; the opening of a great sun-port that spanned for several city a blocks, a great hole in the ceiling of the sub-core, that was the foundation of the mid. Attached to the platform was a narrow path of metal grates suspended from the lower edge of the massive square opening, barely wide enough for a man. All that protected one from falling to their death in the high winds that were sucked downward in subterranean realm, was guide wire on each side, which a maintenance crew would obviously attach safety lines to. At least a hundred meters or so away, the two men spotted a ladder, ascending up the edge of the sun-port; which was probably a hundred meter climb to the surface of the mid-core.

"Shit." Was all, Faeyt could say as he peeked over the edge of the platform and tested the strength of the walkway with a touch of his foot. The walkway, swayed a little from the push, which deterred the men all the more.

Faeyt turned around and met, Sinclair with a nervous stare. Then quickly closed the door behind them and barred it shut by sliding a heavy piece of cleaning machinery in front of it and wedged against the railing. No one was going to be getting through the barrier any time soon, but now they had no choice but to take the swaying path of doom.

Faeyt exhaled and prepared himself. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a coin, flipped it in the air and held it covered on the back of his hand. "You call it my friend." he said to Sinclair.

Peter's head still dully ached from the "omega attacks" that day. The strain from carrying the crate didn't help either. Once or twice during his wandering down the street he had to swallow his pride and set it down for a moment, rubbing his eyes and wiping sweat from his brow. The image of the young man he had met still flashed in his mind, the strange look on his face, the way he took off so quickly... The boy briefly wondered if the whole thing was some kind of test. To the Omegapaths of the Sector, facial expressions were no means of communication. They were bred and raised to be nothing more than soldiers who did as they were told without any pesky emotions. Peter himself was a rare breed whose own powers and intellect interfered with his training, making him think at just too high a level to know he needed out. Unfortunately, many social cues most people take for granted were still a mystery if not completely lost on the young boy's mind. As far as he was concerned, he simply now had a mission to get the crate back to the young man to figure out what to do with it since the woman turned out to be trouble.

But where did he go?

Lifting the crate again, the young boy centered his weight and trudged on through the darkened streets until he made it to one of the sun-ports and paused again. The faintest of light washed over him and he took in its warmth like he was looking at some picture of a long-lost memory. Even the halls of the Sector facility hadn't been as cold and dank as the sub-core. Peter tilted his head back and squinted up at the port leading into the Mid-core.

Then he furrowed his brow and squinted harder...

... no, those were definitely people up there...

Setting the crate down, Peter stared up at the figures for another long moment. He tried to search through his mind as though hoping he could tap into his powers and conveniently verify what he was seeing. Alas, the omega-waves were not that merciful. Still, although he had no idea who the other one, that first one really looked like him. He decided to take the risk as he moved over the crate and let one hand slide slowly towards his gun hidden within his thin, inside-out jacket.

"Hey!" he called up to them.

“Heads.” Sinclair quickly said, trying not to think too much about the daunting task that would be ahead of them. All he cared for was getting this game of chance out of the way and pray the coin showed heads. There was no way he was going over that tiny bit of metal with just the guidewires to grab a hold of. There was also no way Faeyt was going first willingly either, or he wouldn’t have eyed him so nervously nor gone for the coin toss.

A bump could be heard coming from the door behind them. The two men and the woman had caught up with them and were testing the door. So far, it didn’t budge.

“Owww.” Barry whined, hurting himself trying to force the door open.
“Big baby!” Chelle complained, and suggested; “Give it a kick.”
Another loud thunk followed, with little effect.
“Owwww.” Barry whined again.
“What a waste of space you turned out to be!” Chelle continued to complain.

Things seemed to calm down on the other side of the door, so Sinclair turned his attention back to Faeyt and the coin. Faeyt managed a small smile having seen the result of the coin flip. What could possibly be good about the outcome? The only good outcome would be heads, if you asked Sinclair, clearly anything else would be downright awful. And of course it was quite awful.
“Tails…” Sinclair muttered, “Crap.”
Faeyt’s slight smile turned into a sympathetic frown, but he was clearly relieved it wasn’t going to be him who’d have to go over the world’s worst bridge first.
“Crap.” Sinclair said again as his eyes followed the wonky bridge to the other side. Even without anyone trying to cross the damned thing it swayed in the wind and made a disturbing grating sound. When the wind really picked up you could see bits of the bridge shudder and rattle, making an even more unsettling sound. The ladder going up on the other side seemed alright, but somehow Sinclair was convinced it’d be a lot worse when he got a look at it from up close. Clearly this day would go from bad to worse, at least he couldn’t see it getting any better. Maybe going first and finding the bridge collapse below him would be a good thing. A merciful end to a horrid day. Falling a few hundred stories only to become a very thin layer of mushed flesh and blood seemed like a relatively nice way to end it all.

“Where does this door lead?” Sinclair could hear the woman asking from behind the blocked door.
“Nowhere.” Barry said.
“Well, it goes outside.” Grant nuanced his colleague’s answer, “Which goes nowhere… Though…”
“What?” Chelle wanted to hear the full story.
“There’s this suicidal maintenance bridge across the sun-port out there.”
“Where does that go?” Chelle wanted to know.
“I think its attached all the way across to the Vauxhard building.”
“Isn’t that Frenchy’s territory?” Barry pondered out loud.
“Damn straight it is.” Chelle knew, “This is a great big mess!”
“Nah, nah.” Grant shushed the woman’s outburst, “We’re friendly with Frenchy, right? I hear the boss’ man Albrook is in the building, he’ll get Frenchy to take care of these bozos lickety-split.”
“Unless they’re Frenchy’s men.” Chelle was quick to point out.
“Yeah, well... Then we’re screwed.”
“No shit. Let’s hope Albrook is in a good mood and doesn’t shoot us for f-ing up.”

Faeyt and Sinclair looked at one another and shrugged after hearing the three discussing behind the blocked door. Sinclair had a pretty good idea in what kind of a rotten situation they had gotten themselves in to, but he wasn’t going to waste any time sharing his thoughts with the young man. Maybe he was wise enough to understand it by himself, and otherwise it wasn’t about to matter. What mattered was getting across and up to the Mids. Up there Frenchy wouldn’t be as much a factor as he probably was down here, nor was this Albrook fellow. The Mids were reasonably safe and lawful. Of course, he had been marked as a criminal now, but hopefully they could avoid being accosted by any police agents.

“Right…” Sinclair said and slowly moved up to the gently swaying bridge. “Let’s get this over with.”
Sinclair conjured up as much confidence as he could and tried to find the will to see him across the giant chasm.
“Best not follow me too closely.” He said to Faeyt, “Let’s not stress the bridge too much if we can help it.”

That sounded sensible, didn’t it? If he’d just calmly get on to the bridge and steadily made his way across with a firm grip on the guide wire nothing could possibly go wrong. Construction workers did these kind of things all day long, surely he could do just as well as a bloated brainless gorilla, right? While trying to put as little thought into endeavor as possible he stepped onto the bridge. It immediately reacted by swaying, shuttering and making disapproving noises due to the weight coming onto it. Sinclair however refused to be intimidated and just kept putting one foot in front of the next. Slowly but surely he inched across the drop and through the gusty winds.

His only mistake was to let his gaze wander towards his feet, confronting him with the dazzling height he found himself on. A hefty gust and an unstable grate sent him scrambling for the guide wire and nearly saw him falling off.
“Ffffffffffff…” He nearly cursed into the wind, but felt he was better off focusing on getting both his feet back on the bridge, which was now swaying quite heavily. It took him a few frantic seconds, but soon he had recovered and glanced back at Faeyt who had been gasping at the frightful sight of his near fall.
“It’s alright! I’m fine!” He yelled, though the heart throbbing in his throat clearly indicated he wasn’t. Still, it didn’t matter what he said, in these winds it wasn’t like Faeyt could hear him. So Sinclair decided to motion with his arm to get the man to follow him across.

Sinclair turned back to the direction in which he still needed to go a great distance across the depths of the Subs, but quickly started moving his shaking feet forward.
“Don’t look down.” Sinclair kept telling himself. “Don’t look down. Don’t look down.”
And he slowly but surely got ever closer to the Vauxhard building and the stairs leading up to the Mids.

Faeyt leaned over the railing, watching his new found partner with an expression not unlike one bidding farewell to a friend as they embarked on a voyage. Perhaps he was about to take one, the man considered, and at that pondered his own apathy toward the dire situation. Where were his feelings? In that moment he felt for nothing; all the world could burn up around him and he could care less. He actually smiled then, despite the tense situation before him... 'so this is what it was like to be dead and alive and at the same time.'

The weight of the world once more fell upon the large man's shoulders as the call of a small voice snapped him back to reality. Sinclair's acrobatic journey across the narrow suspension bridge all at once sent chills down his spine and as he turned his eyes downward to where the call had originated he saw that odd boy. He was, standing atop a building, which also served as part of a roadway, passing beneath the immense sun-port.

Faeyt waved. "Hey, back." he shouted and unfortunately gave Sinclair a start that he really didn't need at that point in time, "Sorry," he immediately apologized to the tense man, "it's that kid again, and he's got your crate."

Faeyt looked back down to the kid and pointed to the ladder near the end of the of the edge of the sun-port under which the suspension bridge hung. At the end of the bridge was a precarious looking platform from which a metal stair case lead up to a ladder. The metal rungs climbed up a distance of approximately six stories to the lip of the sun-port and a door to what was apparently the Vauxhard building in the mid-core. "We're heading up." he told him.

Faeyt had no idea, how the kid was going to meet them, there was no way across the gap and he could see no quick way for him to readily meet up with them. The Vauxhard building, did however extend down into the sub-core and perhaps there he could make his way up to the surface... if he was lucky.

After his brief conversation with their mysterious third, Faeyt stepped onto the suspension bridge and immediately his added weight caused it to sway. He had figured that Sinclair was now far enough ahead to not suffer the tremors of his foot steps but apparently the bridge was less stable that he had assumed it to be. It creaked and swung back and forth, and Faeyt was beginning to wonder if indeed this thing was even used anymore. It was very rusty and in a serious state of disrepair, but as Sinclair was already passed the point of no return he followed.

Slowly making his way across the narrow bridge, balancing along the narrow walk way and white-knuckling the cable side guards, Faeyt considered what the security guards had mentioned about the Vauxhard building. They had said a name, 'what was it?... Albrook?' Yes that was it. The context in which they spoke it denoted that he was of some importance, possibly part of another corporate security force. CSF's ran rampant through mega-cities, just about all corporations had their own internal police forces and while most were just and truly added to the overall policing of the city, some were corrupt and existed only to serve themselves. Hopefully this was not the case, but Faeyt had his doubts.

Peter's eyes followed from the bridge where his lost comrade was and tried to see where it stood in relation to building level. He then picked up the crate again and headed towards the building that looked remotely closest. From there, he'd just have to work his way over using stairs and elevators and possibly rooftops though he wasn't immediately sure how jumping was going to go with the enormous crate.

"I'm coming up!" Peter called, the soldier coming out in his young voice. "If you can move towards me, I can get your crate back to you and then jump across!" As he said this, he began searching the seeming heavens for a place where he might be able to jump, but it was too high to really tell. He'd been trained in moving across buildings however and had a good understanding for how the cities were connected. He knew he'd find a way over, he just wasn't sure where the way was at the moment.

Lifting the crate, he gave Faeyt a wave to make sure he saw him, and then started off towards the first building.