...And Into The Fire

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

8/10/96:

    Chapter 1

"Hi Fox." Oriana said as she came through the front door.

I looked up from where I sat on the couch, with five PADDs
laid out on the coffee table. Oriana was dressed in a pair
of jeans and a lose shirt that really didn't help hid
anything. Her hair was pulled back into a pony tail. She was
hefting in a shopping bag with a loaf of bread sticking out
the top.

"Shopping I take it?"

She nodded, setting the bag down next to her feet. "Ya, a
bit."

Pulling myself off the couch I walked over to her, and
looking in the bag. There was a few cans and jars, as well
as the bread, all labeled in what looked like Oria's written
language. "You went home for it to."

She grinned, "Well, I had a client this morning, so I
decided I should pick up some stuff for dinner tonight."

I nodded. "Something special?"

"Yep, Crex," she said.

I winched as the translator mangled the word she actually
said into the word I heard. "What's the occasion?"

She shrugged, causing her shirt to shift a bit off one
shoulder. "None really, I just felt like it."

I patted her on the back, and picked up the bag. "Well then.
I'm sure it will taste great. I'll take this up to the
kitchen for you."

She grinned wider, her set of small fang-like incisors
showing. "Thanks Fox."

"No problem." I said as I went up the stair case. A few
minutes later I came back down to find the lioness looking
over the PADDs.

"What is all this?" She asked.

I leaned against the banister. "Information on the ship. We
have a projected finishing date of three weeks, it all goes
as it should. All thanks to you."

Oria raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, all thanks to
me?"

I grinned. "Simple, you got that computer up and running,
and now that I've hooked him into the computer system for
the bay, and teached it how to use all the new equipment.
Well he's working on a lot of the repairs himself now. In
fact, there is very little I need to do now, out side of
supervising."

She nodded, and was about to say something when the phone
rang.

"I'll get it," I said, taking two bounds over to the all the
communication equipment. I could only think of one person
who would call me on the phone, and only one reason. I
feared that call in my own way.

Picking up the phone I said, "Hello."

"Fox, it's Page." Came the voice on the other end. She was
panting as if out of breath.

I felt myself pail a bit, turning away from Oria, I lowered
my voice. "What's wrong?"

"I just talked to Rachel, had to run to the phone. Fox, the
next Council session starts in twenty minutes."

I paled even further. "I'll be there." I said, the hung up
the phone. Turning back around to face Oriana I said,
"Something has come up. I gota run for a bit. I'll be back
soon as I can."

She gave me a concerned look. "Fox who was that on the
phone, and what's going on?"

I picked up my army jacket from off the chair where I had
set it a couple months ago after the last time I wore it
(We're both a bit of slobs, it shows some times). Pulling it
on I tried to explain. "It was a friend. Something important
is going on, and have to be there."

She walked over to me, then placed her index finger right
between my eyes again. "Fox..."

I looked at her. "I have to do this."

She nodded. "I know. Don't do anything stupid, ok?"

I nodded, breaking the contact with her finger. "Ok Oria."

She stepped out of the way, and I slipped out the front
door, and entered the fire...

* * *

I paced across the floor of the viewing room over the
Council's chambers. I had run back here after calling Fox,
and now was waiting for him to arrive.

I stopped in front of the window, wring my left paw with my
right. Below me the different seats where starting to fill.
About half of the third level seats where taken, and three
or four of the second level. All three seats in of the first
level members where empty.

I watched the members file in for a couple minutes, then sat
down in one of the chairs, threw my head back, and closed my
eyes trying to calm down.

I had learned a lot from my Grandfather (actually, adoptive
Grandfather. He adopted my mother, and a few years, and a
one night stand later, there was me). He had told me many
things as I was growing up, giving me many lessons.

One of his old sayings came to mind as I sat there. 'Page,'
he would say, 'there are times to panic, and times not to
panic. If you are panicking it's the wrong time.'

It was, the first time I heard it, just a corny phrase. But
it had helped me a lot after I had gotten wrapped up in all
this.

I hadn't seen him in nearly two years, sense I came to Prid.
He was there as I left, along with my uncle, Adric, who was
my age (his twin, and my aunt, Romona wasn't able to make
it).

The last thing he told me was 'trust what you believe.' He
was always cryptic that way.

I was interrupted in my reminiscing by a swift knock at the
door. Moving over to it and look out a small peep hole.
Outside Fox stood, looking a bit more rumbled then usual.

I opened the door, and let him slid into the room. "With
five minutes to spare." He said a bit under his breath.

I nodded, and sat back down in the chair. He followed suit
and sat down in the chair opposite me. He was his usual
self, wearing a pair of blue jeans from his world that where
always bunched a bit around his feet. He also had on a
yellow white t-shirt with a couple rips in it, and his
off-green jacket that he had always worn before his exile.
His black hair was a mess as usual, and sprung into a curl,
his beard didn't look much better. His glasses where hanging
a bit on his nose, and slightly askew, but he didn't notice.

He looked back at me, clearly worried, and reached up with
his right hand, and hook his finger around the ever-present
collar he insisted on wearing. It was a thin brown thing,
and looked as ragged as the rest of him.

"I don't suppose we can here what's going on down there?" He
asked.

I nodded, and reaching over to a small table I turned on one
of the three switches that where there. As I flicked it down
there low roar of a pre-council session came into the room.
Mostly it was different voices, blurred together so much it
was hard to hear any one voice.

We sat there for a few minutes waiting for the session to
start. Fox had closed his blue eyes, but still looked
worried.

Hell, at the time I wasn't any better, but I was showing it
by wringing my paws together again. The general condenses of
all four of us, me, Fox, Rachel, and Rathal, was that shit
was to hit the fan today.

Fox and I where broken out of are thoughts, as a loud
pounding come from the floor of the Council. Looking out the
window I could see Rachel standing in her normal place as
Council Head, with the Ancient on one side, and the third
first level member on her other side.

She had banged down with a large wood rod, which had the
effect of summing the Council to order. As she sat down she
made an announcement as to the point of the day and year,
and that the Council was called to order.

Fox and I both watched as one of the third level members
read off all the things pending for the Council for the last
session. She was about to start on one of them when a second
level member stood.

"Council Head. I would like to put a proposition before the
Council to be voted on before we proceed."

"and what is that?" she asked, her whispering voice barely
picked up and sent to the viewing room.

"A motion for the disbanding of the Council, and to put
control of the multi-verse into the direct and total domain
of the Hammerheads, effective immediately."

Rachel paled a bit in her ears, at the same time, I saw from
the corner of my eye, Fox slowly rise out of his chair.

Below us another second level member stood. "I second that
motion."

I gulped, this was it, this was there move, and the final
confirmation that the Hammerheads where in control of all
this.

I looked over to Fox, and saw that he was gone. Glancing
back I saw the door slowly closing. He had ran when the
motion was seconded. That made sense, they wanted him _both_
dead, and under there control, he had to get out of the way.

Looking back down at the Council floor, I saw that the vote
was proceeding. I didn't have to wait to know what the
resultes would be.

One other thing my Grandfather always said was, 'You will
know when it is time to run, things will tell you.'

Right then I couldn't agree with him more, so I ran.

* * *

Fear, that was the only why that I could describe was I was
feeling. Pure abject fear. Looking down from my place as the
Council head, I could see all the other members. Most where
looking a bit pale, as if they had eaten something
distasteful. A few where looking as confused as I felt right
then. The last couple hand fulls... they looked happy.

Glancing down at the computer board, I watched as the last
of the votes came in. It was just exactly what we feared, 70
votes for, 22 against, and with the full majority.

I looked over my shoulder at the Ancient. The old human gave
me a look, but sat silent as ever. I slowly stood, I'm sure
the other Counselors could see by how I held my ears, that I
didn't like the outcome.

"the vote is 70 for, 22 against," I said, the whisper in my
voice lower then I usual use. "as this is a motion that is a
major effect to the council, a 75% majority is needed. And
has been reached. The motion is passed."

There was a collective release of breath around the room, a
few of the now ex-Counselors started to rise.

"I wouldn't try and leave if I where you." A voice said
behind me. I slowly turned around to face the owner of the
voice.

"Jenner." I said, stopping whispering.

The human gave me the flat toothed grin of his, and some how
made it look menacing. "Oh yes, who else would take over
your little joke of a government?"

I crossed my arms. "Twenty other people at least."

He laughed, not the maniacal laughter that I expect, but a
barking laugh that sound more in place on a hyena then a
human. "Rachel, your are a fool, and an idiot."

I stood, "Really?"

He nodded. "You see, I was suspicious of you. But when your
little brat got into are computers. Well, it was easy to
find you." He leaned forward. "You see, I also have control
off the guards, and right now there in your secret little
observation room, arresting her."

I growled at him.

He clicked his tongue. "Oh, you poor little Vixen. If you
had only left well enough alone. Look at there at your
Council."

I looked back over my should, only the members he didn't
control where still there. The others had filled out the
doors. Rathal was there was well, looking as calm as ever.

"You see," Jenner explained. "I control you now, and all
this. I only have a few lose ends to clean up." He nodded at
the Ancient and the third first level member. "Take those
two with the others."

He looked back at me as two guards took the other two off.
Now it was just me and him on the top level. The other
counselors where being escorted out.

He grinned. "Now, you where smart enough to find me out,
abet barely to late. Now, I may save you life, if you tell
me who the other in your little group is." He paused. "And
yes, I know about Cutter. He's a bug that should have been
squashed a long time ago."

I took a step back to the end of the desk that was between
the levels (that and a 5 foot drop). "Just us three."

He shook his head. "Maybe I'll just make you my slave
instead of killing you, I like my toys to have spunk." He
looked back over his shoulder at the two guards who flanked
him. "Arrest her."

The two guards came at me fast, but I had already planed a
quick escape. I pushed back, grabbed the desk, and jumped
over it down to the second level.

I landed hard, but keep going down to the third level, the
guards right behind me. With a final 'oof' I jumped down to
the floor of the chamber, and ran as hard as I could,
hitting the giant oak doors with my shoulder, forcing there
massive weight open, the only way I could at a dead run.

I ran out of the room, my shoulder screaming in pain. Behind
me I could hear the two guards yell, as well as one I had
passed going out of the doors.

Pushing myself as hard as I could, I pushed myself through
the halls, and out into the waiting room for the Marble
Hall. I ran through it as fast as I could, and past three
more guard who where apparently looking for me.

Through the outer halls of the Hall I ran, until I jetted
out one of the side entrances, and into the city proper, and
on the surface.

I paused for a second. I could hear the guards running maybe
ten seconds behind me. Glancing around all I saw where
buildings and three sides, no underground entrances, and the
Park.

I looked back behind me at the Park. It was a massive park,
a giant circle, 10 miles accost, and was completely over the
Marble Hall. It had lots of places to go and not be noticed.

I turned on my heel, and ran past the entrance to the Hall.
Pushing my way though the mid-day crowds. I finally got to
an entrance of the Park.

There was at least a hundred feet of clearing before there
was anything I could hide behind.

Glancing back I saw about 20 guards working there way
through the crowd, and getting closer.

"Shit." I mutter, and started to run accost the grass. By
know I was cradling my right arm, when I hit the door with
my should it jarred my arm enough that it was now numb.

Half way to a stand a tress, I heard a passing hum, and the
ground next to me exploded. Glancing back, I saw what I
expected. The guards had plasma riffles, and where shooting
at me.

There was another blast next to me, so close that the shock
wave kicked me off my feet.

The instant I hit the ground, I tried to scrabble to me
feet, the guards where seconds away, and I wouldn't be able
to get to my feet in time. Still I had to try.

As I started to get to my feet, I saw that the blast had
actually carved out a ten foot deep hole (5 or 6 guards must
have hit that spot at one time). At the bottom, I saw the
explosion had unearthed part of the Hall's ducting system,
and had also loosened one of the panels.

Hopping it was enough I rolled to my side, and into the
hole. Bumping down the side, I landed on top of the duct.
There was a low groan from the piece of metal I was sitting
on, then it gave way and fell into the pure blackness of the
duct systems, taking me along for the ride.

* * *

"Oriana!" I called as I ran through the front door of are
house. I looked around quickly, She wasn't in the main room.
I check the lower patio, then upstairs on the deck. After a
quick check of both bedrooms, I decided she was down in the
cave.

I ran as much as I could down all the steps, and it took
three minutes to get to the cave, and I already spent 10
getting back from the Hall to the house.

"Oriana!" I called as the lift sank down to the floor. She
was hunched over the work bench, doing something. When she
heard my voice and jumped. She turned to look at me, hiding
what she was working on, but I didn't care about that.

"Come on, we got to get out of here."

She tilted her head. "Why?"

I stayed on the lift as is came level to the floor. "Come
on, I'll explain on the way up!" I waved for her to come
over.

"Fox, this is a bad time..." she started.

I nodded. "Be worse if you don't. All hell has just broken
loose, and we have to get to safety."

She looked at me, then back over her shoulder. "Fuck" she
said and ran over to me.

As she got onto the lift I hit the lever to send the lift
back up, and started to give her a quick overview of
everything that had happened sense I got my exile completely
removed.

Finishing my story, we where heading up the stairs, only a
few feet from the top.

"Where are we going to go?" she asked, panting a bit.

I glanced back. "Anywhere! But we have to go before it's to
late." I said busting out into the living room. I stopped
for a second to catch my breath when a voice behind said.

"It's to late."

The voice was deep, and rocky, and I knew it ALL to well.

Slowly I turned around, to see, standing in front of the
door, a large human, dressed in a one piece jumpsuit, he
must have stood 7 feet tall, and was totally bald.

"Grasion..." I said under my breath.

    Chapter 2

I ducked around a door, and into my work room, panting a bit
to catch my breath. I was trying to think of something to do
to save my fur, I doubted that the guards I had passed would
not be able to figure out where I had vanished to.

I flipped on the lights in the small room, blinking as the
came on. The room was as it always was; mostly one large
desk facing a bank of monitors. The desk was made up of
mostly different keyboards and other input systems.

I sat down in the chair at the desk, and tried to think of
what I needed to do. Different thoughts went through my
mind, but most hinging if I could live through the next few
days.

Rubbing my temples a bit, I tried to think of any way I
could live. Clearing from the guards reactions as I passed
them, they where already looking for me. I was just lucky to
have gotten away before the saw where I was going.

That couldn't last though. This room wasn't even suppose to
exist, if they had traced any of my cracking they probably
knew where it was. It would only be a matter of time before
they showed up looking for me.

Some how I needed to be able to move around without the
guards seeing me, but with a huge tail that came with being
a skunk, that was kind of hard.

I made a quick glance at the air vent in the ceiling, and
decided against it, that was to small for me to get into
anyways. What I really needed was some kind of disguise.

That's when a bit of the panic in my mind cleared, and I
remembered something. The Matrix chip! Fox had given it back
to me after he came back from Gratin, instead of given it
back to the R&D guys, and keep it for myself.

Getting up off the chair, I walked around the desk to the
monitors. Counting over three, and up four, I found the one
I wanted. Digging my claws under the casing, I popped the
front of it off, revealing the layer of mini-mirrors that
produced the flat screen picture.

Reaching inside I pop the Matrix chip out of a dead socket
that I had keep it in. Grabbing a cir-trics controler off my
desk, I slid the chip into it.

As the chip locked, it gave a slight beep, saying the
controller was activated, and running through my translator
chip. Raising the control to my muzzle. "Load up structure
for Otter, sex female, other characteristics based on true
form."

It buzzed at me, then said on the controller readout,
"Unable to comply, mass overlay incomplete."

'Fuck!' I thought. The error was simple, my tail was to big
to be covered by form I asked for, the pains of having a
tail that is as big as you are.

"Adjust form to centaur."

There was a beep, and the control said "Form loaded."

Putting the control around my wrist, I spoke the activation
command into it.

In a second my vision was filled with the explosion of light
the activation produced, and I found myself a bit taller
then before (or at least I perceived it as such, it is easy
to make mirrors out of force shields).

I nodded to myself, and went out the door, trying to decided
what to do next.

* * *

As the metal panel landed, I rolled off as fast as I could.
Seconds later another plasma bolt smashed into where I had
landed, sending melted metal in the air.

I wasn't in the a position to stay where I was. So, as fast
as I could with a numb arm, I worked my way through the duct
work.

Behind me I could here the guards entering the ducts as
well. I pulled myself into an off shoot just as light filled
the metal tunnel. I hear someone call out, and the noised of
people moving.

I keep pulling myself along, holding my arm close to my
chest to protect it. If they did see me, I needed to find a
place to duck into before the got to the offshoot.

The darkness was enveloping, the only light was behind me,
and it wasn't helping to light my why. It was pure luck that
I slipped, and smashed into the grill.

I felt along the vent, hopping I could get it off and try
make good my escape before the guards caught up to me.
Finding a lip to the vent, I dug my claws in under it, and
started pulling.

It only took a few seconds to yank the vent off, even with
only one arm. I scrambled inside, and tried to pull the vent
back on.

It was harder to get it back on then it was to take off.
Pulling it hard I managed to get it wedged in, as well as
ripping off a small chunk off fur.

I was just in time to, as I pulled my paw away from the vent
a light shined down the tunnel. Slowly I turned around in
the large duct, and worked my way deeper into the bowels of
the Hall.

* * *

I couldn't believe all of what Fox had been telling me.
Corruption in the Council, control by the Hammerheads, and
how he was involved in it. It was a bit overwhelming.

I agreed with him, we did need to get to someplace safe,
before it was to late.

Now there was that human, standing in front of the door. He
was big, not muscular, but big. A few inches under seven
feet, and had as much hair as a fish. But the thing that
struck me was his skin. It was white, not a darkish white
like Fox's, but white as in albino white.

Fox gave him one glance, and said "Grasion..."

"Fox," the other human said. "It's been a long time."

Fox sneered at him, I mean he actually curled up his lip,
and sneered! "Not long enough." He replied. "I though you
where in a prison on Driek."

Grasion laughed, "I was, I was, no thanks to you."

He raised an eyebrow. "Come come, do you really think I
would let you lose on any place that has an atmosphere?"

"It took me almost a year to escape from that hell hole."

"Not long enough." Was Fox's response to this statement.

Grasion looked over at me. "And who is this lady? Get tired
of human women?"

"My name is Oriana." I said.

He walked over to me, and put his hand on my chin. "Lovely
face. You have good taste in your bed partners Fox."

I moved back a step, pulling my chin from his grasp. "The
last thing I want is to have sex with him," I said, "At
least while he's human."

He laughed, the looked back at Fox. "So, surprised to see
me?"

"Always. I always hope I never have to see you again."

He laughed again. "You've crossed me, you will always see me
again."

I gave Fox a quick look. "Who is he?"

This caused Grasion to fain surprise. "What, you haven't
told her about us? I'm hurt."

Fox looked at me. "My version of the Master."

"What?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Everyone should have an arch-enemy, he's
mine."

Grasion laughed. "That's right, and it was so nice of the
Hammerheads to asked me to take care of you. Something I'm
all to happy to do."

Fox took a step forward, looking pissed. "Oh really? The
last three times your tried you ended up getting screwed."

He nodded. "Yes, but this time my plan is a bit different.
You see, I'm not going to try and kill you."

Fox raised an eyebrow at this. "How do you intend to do
that?"

The albino cocked his head. "Simple. You see, your at least
six-hundred miles from civilization. A _long_ walk."

Fox paused for a second. "Yes, a very long walk." He spoke
the words very slowly, and coldly.

Grasion took a few steps back to the door, reaching back and
opening it. "I think you shall find it very hard to do.
Until then," he gave a deep grin, "your out of my hair. So
to speak."

With that, he turned and walked out through the teleport
curtain.

I looked back at Fox, "What did he mean, a long walk?"

He didn't say anything, just looking out the door at the
teleport curtain.

Looking at it my self, I saw it thin a bit, rippling, and
slowly fade out until it was just the wall behind it.

Then I understood. The house was built in deep forest, and
as spoken, six-hundred miles from everyone else. The only to
and from anyplace else was through the teleport curtain.
Everything went through it, including communications.

Yes, it was a going to be a long walk.

    Chapter 3

I sat in one of the many hundreds of metal tunnels that made
up the ducting for the Hall. 'This is not where I expected
to end up when they told me I was appointed as the Council
Head.' I thought to myself as I rubbed by right shoulder.

Over the past hour of crawling and wondering through the
ducting, the feeling had slowly come back to my right
shoulder and arm, and it hurt. I suspected that I might have
broken it when I hit the door.

After the pain had gotten so bad I had to stop and try to do
something for it. Sadly though, during one of my sharp
turns, I had snagged a piece of metal on my pants and ripped
out my pocket, and had lost the aspirin I always try to
carey with me.

Rubbing it was all I could do to help the pain, and it was
working a bit. I was also slowly curling the fingers of my
paw, or at least it felt like I was. It was so dark I could
not see anything, even with my night vision.

Resting my head against the wall, I listened, swiveling my
years back and fourth, trying to here any kind of noise.

I knew that the duct systems, being as large as it was,
always was being worked on some place. At any hour of the
day there was always a crew working on the system, some
place.

My hope was to try and fine one of those teams, then follow
them out, as I was sure they would be looking for me as well
as fixing the system. There was only one problem with this
plan. There was at least five-hundred miles of ducting in
the Marble Hall, and only a small section was being worked
on at any given time.

I was counting on the fact that the system was so quite that
the sounds would echo enough for me to pick them up. I had
already heard a few, but echoes have a tendency to echo the
wrong way, and I usual followed that wrong way.

Faintly, in the distance I heard a low pounding, it sounded
like metal hitting metal.

Slowly I moved along the tunnel in the direction it seemed
to be coming from. I keep moving, crawling along slowly,
favoring my left arm. I made a few twists and turns, and the
pounding stated to get louder.

I made one final turn, and found myself on the edge of the
cliff. Before me was a huge vertical shaft, going down in
the darkness, and going up to a faint light source about two
hundred feet up.

The light looked like it was coming from some kind of
catwalk, and the pounding was clearly come from there too.

Now, the question was how was I suppose to get up there?

* * *

I watched, in what could be best described as abject horror,
as the teleport curtain faded out into the dark wood of the
small entry way.

With a side glance I saw a close to the same look on Oria's
face, her eyes opened wide, her mouth hanging open a bit.

Slowly I walked into the aclove, bent down, and open the
control box for the curtain.

It was empty. The only thing left was a few dangling wires.
If Grasion had removed a fuse, or broken some wires, I could
have fixed it. Even if one side of the curtain was shorted
out, the other side could support it.

But he had ripped out the inter control panel for the
system, there was no way I could repair it, or even try to.

Slamming the cover closed, I leaned back against the other
wall, and put my face in my hands, pushing my glasses up
onto my head.

I felt Oria place her paw on my shoulder. "Fox?"

I dropped my hands and looked up at her. "I'm sorry for
dragging you into this. I should have told you before, got
you to safety. Sent you along with Ken."

She squeezed my shoulder a bit. "Why didn't you?"

I sighed. "I don't know why I didn't tell you sooner. I
still don't know why I didn't tell you in the first place."

Sitting down next to me, she took her paw off my shoulder,
and dropped it onto my leg. "Didn't you trust me?"

I looked down. "Well, after the bliss thing. Not fully, no."

I felt her squeeze down on my leg, and slight pin pricks
from her claws as they came out, and pushed through my jeans
and against my skin. "Really? I hurt you that much?"

I nodded. "Not that much, but with you in debt to the
Hammerheads... well, I feared what they may find if they
called it in."

She nodded, her claws retracing, still squeezing my leg. "I
don't know what to say about this."

I looked back up at her, right into her green slitted eyes.
"Don't say anything, not yet. There is a lot to do, will
have time to talk about all this later."

She blinked, "What things to do, we're trapped here."

"Yes and no. It is a long walk to anyplace close, but Prid
was chosen for the abundance of folds it possessed. We're
bound to run into one sooner or later."

Releasing her grip on my leg, she folded her paws on her
lap. "How long do you think it will take?"

I shrugged. "Hours, days, maybe we'll have to go all of the
six-hundred miles. I don't know if there is even a fold
around here, and Prid is to large to have ripples."

She nodded. "I see."

I closed my eyes, and started to think. "Worse case
scenario, we have to walk the whole way. Let's see, now I
know I can walk a bit over 7 miles in three hours. More
accurately twelve kilometers."

"How do you know that?" She asked.

I opened my eyes, fishing out my spell-checker from my
pocket. "Bloomsday." She gave me a strange look, but I keep
on thinking.

Turning the spell-checker to the calculator mode, I punched
in 600, and using the built in conversions, made it into
kilometers.

"Six-hundred miles is nine-hundred sixty-six kilometers,
rounded up. Divide that by 12." I punched in the needed
number. "That's Eighty point five three hour blocks. Now
assuming we can walk at least 9 hours a day." I punched a
few more buttons. "That's approximately 26 days. And we will
be walking," a few more buttons pressed. "22 miles a day."

I looked over at her. "Think you can handle that?"

She looked down at her feet, then back up at me. "Will we be
able to eat as we go, or carry food with us?"

I shrugged. "I believe Prid has plants from the original
forty worlds that sponsored it's Terraforming. We can eat
some of them, but I think we had better bring along one of
the scanner PADDs with us, and load it with the multi-verse
flora and fauna database. I think I have a copy around here
somewhere."

Oria looked at me, and gave me this little smile that spread
her cat lip a tad, it was kinda cute, and had a bit of
come-hither look about it. "Foxer, we can do this."

I blinked. She hadn't called me Foxer in a long time, but it
made me feel better. "Thanks Oria." I said.

And she was right, we could do this. We had to...

* * *

'Damn!' I though to myself, moving back around a corner.
After wondering the halls for a time, I had decided to go
back to my apartment, only to find a trio of guards
ransacking it.

I ran my disguised paws through my hair. I had been using
the Matrix for a time now, but I was to clumsy with to make
myself look convincing as a centaur.

I turned around, and wonder back down the hall. I felt lost
and afraid. I had to do something, anything. I had to try at
stop the Hammerheads, even if I was the only one of are four
left alive. I had to try.

Wringing my paws a bit, I keep moving the the halls. I had
already tried to get to Fox, but I had found all his
communication lines down, and his teleport curtain smashed
to bits. Someone really did a job on it, making sure it was
totally unusable.

I couldn't think of anywhere to go, I didn't know anyone in
the city around the Marble Hall, and I doubted the doors out
would be open.

There was no other way then the ten exits to get out of the
Hall, it was completely self contained, even with a large
hydroponics garden and gravity generators. It could survive
even if they rest of the world was destroyed.

Everyone in the Hall was trapped hard, and under the control
of the Hammerheads. I didn't know if the rest of Prid was in
there control, or even knew about what happened. But I was
sure that soon they would be.

Turning a corner I smashed the side of my sudo-flank into
the sharp edge of the corner. Getting fed up with the whole
disguise I nearly yelled, "Matrix off," into the controller.

The light flashed into my eyes, and I found myself me again.
Grumbling to myself I walked down the hall a bit until I
found a utility room. Pulling out a few pieces of small
metal, I used one of the skills my Grandfather had insisted
on teaching me. Picking locks.

It only took a couple minutes to pop open the lock, it
wasn't a very complex one. Sliding inside the room I gently
closed the door behind me, and locked it again.

Flipping on the light, I found myself in a large room, about
sixty feet long, and twenty wide. Both walls where covered
with think and thin piping, as well as meters of all sorts.
The far wall was entirely made up of the dull grey metal of
the air duct system for the Hall.

Leaning against the door, I slid down to the floor, being
careful of my tail. I though over my options of thinks I
could do. I knew that there was no hope of getting a portal
controller, not only did I not know how to use one, but I
didn't have the implants so I could live through it, and I
had no idea where to get the temps I would also need.

I had no options. I was trapped in the Hall, no way to get
out, I didn't even know if my friends where alive or dead. I
slowly put my head in my paws and started to cry.

    Chapter 4

"What the hell is wrong?" I yelled, smashing my fist into
the table in front of me.

My companion looked up. "Your asking me? Hell, I don't even
know how it all works let alone what's gone wrong."

I sank down on the the floor, resting my head in my
foreclaws. For the past hour I had been trying to contact
are third party member, as she was running an errand on
Prid, but every time I tried to open a small portal to have
her check in, it fell apart from feedback. "It's like the
whole verse has it's folds blocked."

Steven raised an eyebrow, "Can that be done?"

I shrugged, "I have no idea. In theory yes, but in
actuality, I don't know."

He raised his other eyebrow, and went back to his book.

I shook my head, 'Why did Fox have to stick me with him?' I
thought as I looked over my companion.

Steven was a lion-morph, in his early 20es. He had this
large fluffy mane of hair that wrapped around most of his
face, except under his chin, and hug about collar length.
Single kneed, and had the usual shaped tail flicking behind
him. His fur colouring was normal light yellow, with dark
brown for his hair, and the tuft on his tail.

He was in a pair of shorts, and a lose shirt. Not that it
was a bad thing, then temperature on this world must have
been 100 degrees fahrenheit.

He's full name was Steven Mason. Apparently a friend Fox had
meet an a cruise or some such a few months ago. Fox had
apparently gone and seen him a month ago, and asked him to
stay at this place, along with another friend. I guess he
planed to bail out here when all was said and done. Him
sending me here was more in way of protection for me they
anything else.

Sighing, I stood, and leaned against the window, looking out
side. This verse was souly populated by otter-morphs, thus
only the missing member of are party could go out in public
(it was her home verse anyways). A lion would look attract
attention, but a half-dragon would attract a lot more. Thus,
in the past three weeks I've only been able to go out at
night, and I still had to be careful.

Needless to say, I was board out of my mind.

I felt Steven set his paw on my shoulder, just above my
wings. "Ken, you all right?"

I nodded, twirling one of my clawfingers around, making it
leave a trace of magical light in the air. "I'm worried
about Kalie."

I felt him lean up against me a bit. "She's been gone a long
time."

"Ya, two hours over schedule."

I looked at him. "Something must have happened to keep her
on Prid. Something she can't get past."

Steven nodded, his hair flicking around his face a bit. "I
guess you need to get that portal open."

I looked back over to the table, where a modified portal
controller was laid out along with a com laser setup. Only a
few feet away, at the edge of the small apartment, was a
fold.

"I know, but as I said. It was like it was blocked off. The
feedback that I'm getting is collapsing the fold. Even the
most powerful natural known wouldn't be able to keep it
open."

He looked at me, right into my eyes, with a deep level on
sincerity. "Listen, your the mage here. Can you just, I
don't know, shuffle the feedback over to the side or
something."

I paused, thinking for a few seconds. Then glancing out the
window and the slowly setting sun. "Maybe... A slight
temporal spell, nothing to big to need a full circle. Just
enough to keep the portal out of sink with the feedback.
That may just work."

I grinned at Steven. "We'll need some supplies."

He nodded. "Can you make a list?"

I tilted my head a bit, I really wasn't allowed out of the
apartment, so Steven would have to do the shopping. "I
should be able to. You do have a translator chip?"

He tapped the back of his head in response. "Fox insisted
that I get one. And Kalie had me download the language, did
you do the same."

Nodding, I waved my foreclaw a bit, dismissing it. "Ok, I
have about an hour to make the list. You get together what
money you can, and finding something to cover yourself in."

Patting me on the back, right between my folded wings, he
said. "Right on it." and then dived into the back room.

Sitting myself down at my work table, I pulled out a fresh
piece of paper from the stack on the floor, and slowly
started to write out what I needed for the spell.

* * *

Wiping the tears off my muzzle, I took a couple of ragged
deep breaths. I had to think, I couldn't just give up like
this. Another of those things my Grandfather always told me
was, 'Never give up, it's just another way of saying you
didn't try.'

So I couldn't give up. I was in this position where I had to
do something, anything at all. If I was the last one of us
left alive, or at least free I had to do something.

I chewed my lip a bit, I just had no idea where to start.
The first thing I had already decided to do was to get out
of the Hall, but that was already not an option.

'How about communications?' I though to my self. They might
not be cut off out of the Hall. Maybe I could get a message
out, or at least find out what was going on.

Standing, I started to walk down one of the walls of piping.
It looked like most everything for this area of apartments
came through this one room. I hoped there was a video-phone
conduit around, or at least a data-wave line.

I was even luckier then that. Tucked away in the back of the
room, I found a box of different maintenance tools,
including one of those line checkers for the video-phones.
You know, they kind that let you use the line or just listen
in. As a bonus, it looked like it could work on the
data-wave lines that where scattered through the room.

Sitting down next to a near by tube, labeled as a 'Phone
Trunk' I opened the accesses panel. Inside was a large
panel, covered with about two-thousand clips for the
portable unit I had found.

Picking one at random I slip the connection over it. The
unit light up, and showed my static, as well as a read out
of the phone number for it.

Nodding to myself, I turned off the micro-camera, and dialed
Fox's number. Hopping maybe he had somehow got the com-lines
back up to his place.

All I got back was a "No Line" notice. Grimacing, I punched
in another number. This time one out of the Marble Hall.
Near instantly the static faded, and was replaced with a
single message, blinking on the screen. "External
Communications have be Shutdown."

"Damn!" I yelled, yanking the connection off of where I had
it. The Hall was blocked even over the communication lines.
I considered trying the a data-wave connection, but they
went out of the Hall the same way.

Closing the unit, I slid it into it's caring case that I had
found it in. Then paused to think for a second. There was no
way into the Hall, and no way out. That, at least to me,
implied the Hammerheads didn't have full control yet.

'Well, the Hall is a city unto it's self' I though. I knew
from pilfering records there where at least a two-hundred
thousand people living in the Hall. If I where trying to
take it over, I would want to make sure they where on my
side before I tried for the rest of Prid.

But surely the Hall being closed would cause a panic. It's
the seat of government the all of Prid, and a few of the
other worlds, as well as a trading mecca. Most of the
industry on Prid would shut down, or be disable, with the
Hall being closed.

I paused in my thought for a second, wondering how many of
the industries on Prid where under Hammerhead control, or in
collusion with them. They could start trying to get the
population on there side.

Surly though, there had to be people who knew what happened.
All Council sessions where transited out on one of the video
channels. And all the local Media hangs off of it like they
did back home.

So they question becomes, "How do you keep it just on Prid?"

"That's easy," I said, speaking aloud, "Keep anyone from
leaving."

But how could anyone be keep from leaving. About 10 percent
of the population is certified to use the portal
controllers.

The it hit me, when I was going through the Hammerhead
database, I came on more then a few references to a
Magic/technology mix, that was suppose to generate some kind
of feedback loop in the ether.

The ether was an old way of describing the folds, and if
they where able to do that, everyone was trap on Prid.

I started wringing my fingers again. It was looking bleaker
and bleaker, even if I wasn't right. I needed to verify all
of this, and try and find some allies, but how?

Looking down at the cir-trics controller around my wrist, a
grin slowly spread accost my muzzle.

One thing my Grandfather loved to say was, 'When you get to
a point where there is no way to win, you may just have to
change the rules until there is.'

I was going to do him proud, I was going to cheat.

* * *

Fox was an interesting person to be around, especially at
times where he felt he had to move fast.

This was one of those times. In the past ten minutes, while
I got together a few days worth of food, some clothing, and
a few minor things, he had pulled out some back up clothing,
rain clothing, shoes for me, the flora and fauna database, a
compass, some hiking clothing, a control for me, and three
sets of temps implants.

There was only two things I question in all of that. Why did
I need shoes, my species didn't use them, and I didn't like
them. And why the temps.

"The shoes are for extra safety, and the temps are just in
case."

"Just in case of what?"

"Just in case." He said while putting the stuff he had into
his backpack, along with three more PADDs. Zipping up the
back, he slug it over his shoulder. The compass in his hand.
"Ready?"

I nodded, I had also changed into some clothing that was a
little more durable for hiking. "I guess."

He nodded back, glancing around the house a bit. Then
sitting up from where he had been on the couch he headed for
the slider, and out onto the dock.

He only paused to for a few seconds to check the compass.
"That was is north-east." He said, pointing I that
direction. "The nearest town is in that direction."

He started off, walking around the large lake that was
behind our house. I matching his pace with mine, trying to
keep it brisk.

With a final glance over my shoulder to the house, I shook
my head a bit, hopping to some day see it again.

Looking forward again, I keep walking just behind Fox. A few
minutes after starting out, we entered into a large forest
area. In the distance the twin suns of Prid slowly where
falling from the sky.

Looking to the sky, to the stars blotted out by the suns, I
prayed to Thyrn, the one true God of my people. I prayed
that we would live through all this, some how.

    Chapter 5

I sat at the edge of the drop off, my arms wrapped around my
legs, watching the silhouette of someone on the cat walk
above. I was barely in the duct, in fact my tail was hanging
down into huge shaft.

I had been sitting there for at least an hour, watching the
person above me do what ever they where doing. The small
light with them casting a long shadow onto the walls of the
shaft.

The pounding that had brought me here had stopped, and I
really didn't know what the person was doing. The catwalk
just spanned the huge shaft, but wasn't (as far as I could
see) in a position to work on anything.

I looked back down the way I came. Then down at my paw where
some fur had been ripped off when I was trying to get that
first vent back in. I had left a trail of scraps of fur and
clothing, and probably a strong sent. It was only a matter
of time before the guards found me.

Pulling my arms a bit tighter around my legs, I let out a
quite sigh. There really wasn't much I could do in this
situation. The tunnel that I used to get here was a long
strait one. I really didn't want to go back down it as I
didn't know how close the guards where.

Looking down into the depths of the shaft, I felt the air
blow past my face, ruffling my fur a bit, and pushing on my
ears. Slowly I looked back up at the catwalk. I had already
considered trying to climb up the walls, but there where so
slick I wouldn't have been able to do it back when I still
practiced daily.

There was only one thing I could do, as I saw it. Call to
who ever it was on the catwalk, and hope they could come and
get me, or tell me how to get up to them.

Cupping my paws around my muzzle, I called out. "You, on the
catwalk!" I could here my voice echo in the huge vertical
shaft, and inside the smaller horizontal shafts.

The person on the catwalk shifted, and knocked the light
off. I watched it descend about fifty feet before it came to
the full extension of the cable it was attached to. It
snapped to a sudden stop, then slowly started swinging.

As it swung I could see the full extent of the shaft. It was
about a hundred feet square, and had hundreds of shafts
leading off of it. I wondered where the all lead, and how
deep I was into the Hall.

Looking back up I saw the person on the catwalk looking over
the side at me. Or at least looking in silhouette. "Hello?"
He said. His normal voice echoing as badly as mine.

"Down here!" I said. Knowing that with all of the echoes the
guards would have a much easier time finding me.

The person on the catwalk turned his head, and looked in my
direction. I could barely make out a pointed ear on his
head. "I think I see you, what are you doing down there?"

"I'm..." I stopped, I really didn't want to tell him (the
voice was male) that I was running from the guards. "I'm
lost."

He shook his head. "Nice trick that."

"Do you know how I can get up to you?"

He nodded. "Yes. I hope you have strong arms." Then he
vanished on the catwalk.

I heard him walking around above me, then a rope ladder fell
from the catwalk. Rolling out it stopped about two feet
below the shaft I was in, and just out of reach.

"There you go." He said, pulling his light back up.

I looked at it, then slowly reach out for it, sticking a leg
back to try and keep balanced. Finally after having my
fingers brush it four or five times I was able to get a hold
of it.

Pulling it closer to me, I gripped the rope rungs of the
ladder. Slowly I pulled my self out of the tunnel with just
my arms until I was able to swing one leg out, and catch my
foot on the ladder.

Putting the other leg onto it, I felt the ladder swing
sideways a bit, away from the shaft, then back again. I
gripped so hard onto the ladder I was sure you could see my
knuckles turn white through my fur.

I pulled myself up the ladder, keeping my eyes looking
strait up, and trying not to think of how far the drop was
below me.

After what seemed like hours, but was probably no more then
five minutes, I finally reached the catwalk. Pulling myself
off the swinging rope, I scrambled onto the metal, and
rolled on my back.

Laying there I panted, looking up into the distance.
Suddenly a furry paw held a fork above my face, with a piece
of white meat hanging of the end. "Bird?" The person holding
the fork asked.

Rolling my head back, I saw the person who had throw down
the ladder. He was a fox, and in poor condition. There was
black and brown streaks through his white fur, his clothing
was little more then rags that looked like they might have
once been a suit.

One of his ears was mostly gone, the end shredded off a bit,
the other ear was tipped with a splotch of black fur, as
well as the tip of his muzzle.

He grinned, showing he had at least a full set of teeth.
"You look hungry. Are you going to eat?"

I nodded, moving myself into a sitting position. Then taking
the fork from him, I nibbled a bit on the meat.

He looked me over, then went back to the rest of the bird,
which was cooking on some sort of grill.

Flipping the bird over, he said. "My name is Marn, what's
your's?"

"Rachel," I said, finishing what was on the fork.

He moved over a bit, giving me room next to his grill. "Well
Rachel, feel free to rip off a slap of food to eat."

I moved next to him, picking up a knife, and cutting of some
of the bird.

He grinned at me again. "Now look at this. You just ran into
me, and now where playing buddy-buddy. Neither one of us
knows the other, yet here we are sharing a meal. Doesn't
that seam a bit strange to you?"

I nodded. "Very strange, but considering you didn't react to
my name, I guess your safe enough."

He tilted his head a bit. "Reacted to your name? What,
should I be bowing at your feet or something?"

"No, I'm sorta being chased by the Hall's guards."

He tilted his head the other way. "Oh, and you're hiding in
the air system? Not a very smart choice, if I do say so
myself."

I shrugged. "I didn't have much of a choice in the matter.
Though you're one to talk."

He pointed his fork at me. "Oh contrar. I wasn't running
from anything. I accidentally opened one of the service
entrances in the Park above. Went exploring... and well,
here I am."

I nodded, taking another bite of the cooked bird. Looking
him up and down again, I asked. "How long ago was that?"

"Two years I now believe."

I looked at him, and scuttled away a bit. "How did you
survive in here?"

He pointed up. "About a thousand feet above us is one of the
big fans for the air system. It sucks more the a few birds
in every day, enough to live by."

I looked up the shaft. The Hall had five big air fans, each
one on top of there own little mountain. They where used to
keep the air flowing most of the time.

"Strange thing though," Marn continued, "a few hours ago, a
pair of huge doors close over the fan. Otherwise you would
be able to see the stars.

I nodded, looking back at him. "Where did you get the other
stuff?"

He shrugged. "Here and there. Every know and then I'll run
into an old work sight during my explorations. They leave
some of the most interesting things here."

I looked at the light. "And where are you getting power?"

He tapped the catwalk. "There's a power line right under us,
I just plugged the light, and the grill, in."

I nodded again, setting the fork down. "Have you tried to
find a way out?"

He nodded. "Yes, I've tried a lot. These halls here," he
pointed to the hallways on both sides of the catwalk, "are
just bigger the normal ducts, with stairs. There still the
same complex maze as the normal ducts. I've been exploring
them sense I got down here. I leave a mark here or there. So
I can find my way back."

I was about to say something else, when he put a finger to
his muzzle. I stopped, and listed. In the distance I could
here voice.

Marn looked at me, the got up, and pushed passed. Grabbing
the rope ladder, he started to pull it up, folding it in a
small pile on the catwalk. Finishing, he moved back over to
me, and shut off the light, plunging us into darkness.

* * *

I pulled the carrying case for the video phone equipment
over my shoulder. Then check to make sure I didn't leave
anything behind, I slipped out the door, and in the hall.

I moved slowly down the halls, every few feet, ducking into
a doorway, and making sure the rest of the hallway was
clear.

I was only being this careful as I just wanted to get to
where I was going, I didn't have to worry about anyone
thinking I was me. Simply put, I had found a form in the
Matrix chip that would be a perfect mask for me. A
skunk-morph, more accurately a male skunk-morph.

Slowly I worked my way up a few levels, finding the lack of
people inside the Hall strange. 'They must have moved
everyone someplace.' I thought to myself, ducking around a
corner.

Eventually I made my way just outside of the council
chambers. Taking a deep breath, and hopping I was right, I
turned and walked into the waiting room.

It was empty.

Letting out a breath I didn't even know I had been holding,
I slipped inside the halls of the Council. Moving through
them with practiced ease, I slowly made my way back to an
unmarked back room.

Sliding my paw along the frame of the door, I heard a slight
popping sound. Reaching down I slowly twisted the handle,
and pushed the door open. With a final glance I slipped into
the room, and closed the door behind me.

I found myself in the small office where we had convinced
(forced, if you ask him) Fox to join are conspiracy against
the Hammerheads. Only a few times after that had the office
seen use, and that was what I was counting on.

When Rachel had made this small office, she had certain
things out of the ordinary added. One was the hidden lock,
another was the anti-bug system, there was one specific
thing that I had come to that room for.

Sitting down behind the desk, I turned on the video-phone,
and dialed an number outside of the Hall.

There was a pause, and the static cleared, showing a
'Ringing' message. Quickly dropping the connection, I leaned
back and grinned.

This was what I wanted. All of the communications in the
office went over two data lines, dedicated souly to this
office, and where totally separated from the rest of the
Hall's communications.

And they weren't blocked...

    Chapter 6

I held my breath as I slowly heard the voices start to come
closer. Next to me I could feel Marn as he rested his paw on
my knee.

"Shit!" one of the voices yelled out, becoming clear enough
to understand.

"What's wrong now?" another one asked.

The first voice let out a bit of a grunt. "It's a drop off."

"Let me see, move over." the voice paused, then let out a
low whistle. "If she came this way, she might have just
crawled right over the edge."

"What are you going to tell the boss?" The first voice
asked, a little fainter.

There was another pause. "Well, her sent isn't on the
ducting around here. I think we should tell them it looks
like she may be dead, but we can not confirm it."

"Sounds good to me." the first voice said, fading out again.

There was something else said by the second voice, but it
became to faded to understand. Risking a peak, I looked over
the edge of the catwalk, and down into the shaft. Below I
could see a spot of light in one of the ducts fading into
nothing.

I let out a low sigh.

"Hey, what did you do that there so hot to nab you for?"
Marn asked, turning the light on a bit.

I looked at him, "Don't worry, I'm the good guy."

"Well to you maybe, but I don't know about the rest of the
world." he said, crossing his arms a bit.

"Very well then." I said, and proceeded to tell him.

* * *

I leaned back against a large tree, and nibble at an apple
like fruit Oriana had found. Slicing off a bit with a pocket
knife I had grabbed before we had left, I slowly ate the
green fruit.

Oria was a few feet away, tending to a small fire, and
rubbing her feet.

"See why I brought the shoes." I said, popping another piece
into my mouth

She gave me a dirty look, and continued rubbing. "I'll get
used to it soon."

I wasn't one to talk. After spending about fours hours
walking before the suns and set, and my feet where bothering
me too.

Popping another slice into my mouth, I reached into my
backpack and pulled out a small PADD I had brought. Then sat
down to do some writing.

"What are you doing?" Oria asked.

Lowering the PADD, I said. "Trying to get some writing done.
I have a few things I really need to get done in the next
month or so, and I appear to have the time."

She rolled her eyes, and looked up to the sparse scattering
of stars above us. "Interesting life I'm leading." She
muttered.

I grinned. "Your not the only one."

She nodded. "I guess..." she paused, as if waiting for
something. "Fox, back at the house, you refereed to... that
man, as your version of The Master. What did you mean by
that?"

I started chuckling under my breath. "A bit of a pun of my
life I guess."

She looked at me from accost the fire, pulling her legs to
her chest, and wrapping her arms around them. "Could you
explain it?"

I shrugged. "Sure, but I doubt you will understand it all.
You know how I always refereed to the meddling I did as
Doctoring?"

She nodded.

"Well, you see, back on Earth there's a TV show called
'Doctor Who'. The main character in it, who's name is the
Doctor, does exactly what I do, meddle."

Oria 'ahhed'. "I see, so you named your meddling after
that."

I nodded. "Yes, though I'm a far cry from the Doctor. The
point is the main big arch-enemy in the series is called The
Master. So Grasion, being my arch-enemy, and also a natural,
is therefore my version of The Master."

She shook her head a bit. "That has to be the silliest
reasoning I've ever heard."

I smirked. "You haven't heard me talk about religion yet."

That caused Oriana to react, she strained a bit, and looked
me right in the eye through the flickering flames of the
fire. "If your logic about it works in the same way, I don't
want to here it."

I blinked, and sat back a bit, taking another slice of the
apple. "What prompted that reaction?" I asked.

She slumped down a bit. "Fox..." she paused. Then with a
sigh she pulled something out of her pack. Then walking
around the fire, she sat down next to me.

"Look at this." She said, handing it to me.

Pushing my glasses up on my noise, I looked over it. It was
a necklace made out of a small black silk rope that was tied
together. Sliding free on the rope was a small pendant made
out of what looked like pewter.

Carefully carved onto the pendant was the outline of a
lioness dressed in a kind of toga that barely covered her
rather oversized breasts. Folded behind her back was what
looked like a huge set of feathered wings.

I looked over to Oria, "What is this?"

She gently took the necklace from my hand, and pulled it
over her head. "It's a pendant of Thyrn, the one true god of
my people."

I raised an eyebrow. "You found a god? Wow." I'm sure I
looked as amazed as I felt.

She nodded slowly. "More as he found me after..." she
stopped, suddenly looked very pale though her fur.

I placed my hand on her shoulder. "She found you after
what?" I asked, correcting her mistake.

She gulped. "Fox... while you where gone, something happened
to me. It changed me a lot."

"Oh," I said under my breath. "Was that why you mellowed a
bit while I was exiled?"

She gave a small nod. "Yes... Do you know how my people move
from continent to continent?"

I shook my head. "Flying?" I asked, thinking about what
happened to TWA-800 back on Earth.

"No... we have a... under water train system."

I nodded, "and...?"

She gulped again. "Well, about 6 months before you came
back, I was going to see some family in one. Something
happened, and the train derailed and crashes partly out of
the tube."

I blanched, I had a feeling about where this was going.

"The tube flooded, and the water presser flooded the first
two cars before the pressure doors could close. The third
car was already half full of water from the first seconds of
the water exploding in. The pressure door to the forth car
had closed as well, and the door between the twenty-seven
people in the third car and the water was slowly leaking."

She wrapped her arms around her legs, and looked to the
ground. "I was in the fourth car, which was mostly empty,
just me and two others." She paled even more. "We where down
there for two days, we barely had any air left by the time
the three of us where rescued."

Looking up at me, I could see she was crying. "Fox, there
was only four cars in the train. There was no where I could
go, there was nothing I could do... For most of the first
night and day, we could here the survivors in the other car,
yelling for us to open the door, prying at it, scratching at
it."

I saw a haunted look in her eyes. "I heard them beg and
plead as they slowly drowned to death. Some nights...I can
still hear them in my dreams."

She shivered, I could think of anything to say, so I wrapped
my arms around her, and held her tight.

"One of the other two," she continued, nearly in a whisper,
"one of them was a priest of Thyrn. We shared a hospital
room together for a week. She told me about her believes,
and some of the stories of Thyrn. It was a way to cope..."
she trailed off, crying into my shoulder.

I just held her, not able to say anything to her. The only
thing I could do was comfort her.

Eventually she cried herself to sleep in my arms, not
wanting to wake her, I just sat there holding her, envying
her for being able to do just that, until I too fell asleep.

    Chapter 7

One thing I have to say about the media, it's great for
passing around miss-information. You give them half of a
fact and they will concoct a story that fits what they want
to hear. The fact that it may not be anything like reality
doesn't have anything to do with it.

This was something that was becoming very clear to me as I
sifted through the news feeds coming from outside the hall.
Apparently the Hammerheads had cut of the communication
lines right before the Council meeting had started, so know
one on the outside knew what they had done, only that
communications had been lost.

The Hall being closed twenty minutes later didn't help
anything. Most business that relied on the Hall closed, and
a few others tried to get new trade centers set up.

Then the folds started to collapses on themselves when they
where opened, and with Prid being as far as it was from the
next system, they where the only way off. Panic started,
some rioting, the usual response to something like that.

To top it all of, a couple hours later some information
leaked out, totally fabricated information I'm sure, that a
terrorist group had tried to take over the council and the
Marble Hall, and that the Hammerheads where fighting them
off.

Shutting the computer off, I leaned back in my chair a bit.
'The only people the Hammerheads are fighting are the ones
don't want then in charge' I though to myself.

It was a safe bet that they where feeding this to all the
other people that had been trapped in the Hall, where every
they had rounded them up at. I just wondered why they where
going to do with the few Council members who knew what had
happened.

Standing, I stretched out my arms wide, at the same time
bending forward, and stretching my tail as well. Most all
the chairs made on Prid where for people with smaller tails,
and they nearly all pinched a nerve in mine.

Sitting down on the edge of the desk, I tried to think of
what to do next. Slowly rubbing the side of my head (I had
spent three or so hours in front of the computer screen, my
head was hurting), I tried to think of what to do next.

What I really needed to find out was what had happened to
the others. All I knew is that the teleport curtain to Fox's
house was down, I didn't know anything about where he,
Rathal, or Rachel was at, or even if any of them where
alive.

I sighed, I didn't know where to go from here. I had all
these things I needed to know, and I had no idea what to
_do_ to achieve them. It wasn't like I could just waltz up
to a guard and ask them for what I wanted to know.

Then something blinked on. All the communications lines, the
phone and the data-wave, all of them where still locked down
(I check just minutes before), but with all the guards
moving around, they must have had some kind of way to
communicate with each other.

I grinned to myself. A plan was starting to form.

* * *

I slowly drifted awake as someone started to shake me on the
shoulder. Slowly opening my eyes I didn't see anything.
"What..." I started to say, when I felt a finger press
against my muzzle, and heard Marn whisper, "voices."

I nodded a bit, remember where I was. I guess I had fallen
asleep while Marn though over everything I had told him.

Below us, I could here voices grumbling and yelling. It
sounded like five or six different people. There was also a
kind of a mechanical sucking sound.

"how long?" I whispered.

"a couple hours." He replied. "from what i was able to see,
it looks like there checking the walls. they'll be up here
soon, so we had better go."

Looking around, it was then that I noticed, in the defused
light from the searchers below, that all of Marn's small
amount of things had been removed from the catwalk.

He slowly stood, being careful not to make a sound. Then
slowly headed down the catwalk. I followed him, doing my
best to be quite.

After going for about five minutes, and turning a few
corners. Marn reaching into his clothing, and pulled a flash
light out. Flipping it on he bent down and slowly worked his
claws into the metal.

He paused a second after he had his claws dug in, then
slowly, panting hard at the exertion, he pulled the metal
panel out of the wall.

Behind it was a tunnel, carved into the solid rock the Hall
was built in. I suddenly wondered how far under ground we
where. I knew the height of the shaft we had just been
wasn't a good measure, as it came out on top of a small
mountain.

I watched Marn crawl into the dirty tunnel, then look back
over his shoulder. "I hope you like crawling backwards.
There's no room to run around in here, and you have to pull
the panel back on."

I looked at him, then down at the panel, which had handles
welled to the back from some reason.

"Come on!" he hissed.

I nodded, glad that the tunnel was only a few inches above
floor level. Getting on my paws and knees, I slowly started
back into the tunnel, my feet and tail brushing against his
as he crawled forward. When I was almost totaly into the
tunnel, I reached over, and grabbed the handles of the
plate. Then moving back a bit more, I slowly yanked it back
on. I gave it ten or so hard yanks to make sure it was
tight.

Looking back over my shoulder, I saw how little room I had
in the tunnel. It was about three inches above my shoulders,
making it about two and a half feet tall, and maybe three
feet wide.

Slowly I worked my way backwards, until I was caught back up
with Marn, who had keep going while I had closed then panel.

"What is this." I asked, already feeling cramps forming,
adjusting myself so I was on my elbows instead of my paws.

"Some kind of service tunnel." He said, his voice a bit
faint. "I've found four of them. There cooler in here, so
there is airflow around the panel, each time I though I
found a way out, I was wrong."

I winched as I knocking my head against the top of the
tunnel. "Who made them?"

"I think they may have had something to do when the Hall was
built. I really don't know. The point is though that it's
hidden, and it bends and turns enough to keep as hidden from
any searchers."

I sighed. "I don't think, if there following my sent, they
probably will find it strange when it suddenly stops, a
little more checking and they will quickly find this
tunnel."

He chuckled a bit behind me. "Not really, before I went to
wake you, I sprayed a sent defuser around the last turn."
The turn was a four-way connection of ducts. "It will take
them a time to find out which way you went, and then to find
you."

I paused for a second, rubbing my upper arm. "Where are we
going?"

"To the center duct." he said.

I did a quick calculation. "That's four miles from the other
ducts. I hope we don't have to go the whole way in this
tunnel."

"Nope," he called back. "Just two miles."

I could feel all the blood running from my face. We had been
in the tunnel already, for what felt like half an hour, and
maybe had gone a hundred yards. Two miles was a long way to
go.

I winched as I hit my head again, 'I hope it's not _to_
far.' I though to myself.

    Chapter 8

I slowly creeped through the corridors of the Hall, keeping
close to the walls, trying not to be seen. I had spent the
past few hours working my way down into the center of the of
the, heading towards it's largest room.

The basic idea of my plan was simple, intercept there
communications. They had to be using the Hall's core
communication lines, as the make up of the walls, and the
size of the Hall made any other type of communication
useless.

There for, with all the secondary lines in the utility rooms
down (which was the only way to shut down the internal lines
like they had, even if it was the longest), all there
communications had to be routed through one hub. There was
only one place left for that to be done at, the Hall's data
center.

The first, and rather hard part, was getting there. Even
using the Matrix, I really wasn't safe. There still where
guards wondering around, and I had watched them collect a
few other people who had been wondering around the Hall. Now
I didn't know where they were being taken to (my guess was
the main auditorium, it was big enough for a couple
hundred-thousand people), but my guess was, it was to
heavily guarded to get out of.

I still didn't understand why they were rounding everyone
up. I doubted it was just to find me. Implied that they may
be looking for someone else, or it was part of there cover
story.

I though all this over as I slowly moved down the hallway.
Thus I was totally off guard when I felt an arm wrap around
my neck, and what felt like a gun pressed against my left
temple. "Don't move." I female voice whispered in my ear.

"Why would I do something like that?" I whispered back,
talking in my normal voice, and not trying to fake a male
voice to match my disguised.

"What are you doing here? You're not one of the guards that
have been patrolling around here." The person holding me
said, her voice sounding a bit perplexed.

"Glad you noticed."

She let go of me. "Turn around."

I turned, keeping my hands to my sides. Behind me stood a
female otter-morph. She was maybe five foot five, and was
dressed in a dark silk shirt, and shorts, her thick tail
hovering behind her. In her left paw, pointed at me, was a
gun.

"Who are you?" She asked.

I put my paws behind my back. "I should ask you the same
thing." I said, slowly pulling a pen out of my back pocket.

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Maybe, but I have the gun."

I nodded, then with a quick flick of my wrist threw the pen
down the hallway, where it landed against a door, ringing
out.

The otter turned her head for a second to see what it was,
then in a quick move I brought my paw up, and wrenched the
gun from her paw.

"Now, are you finished with this bullshit?" I asked,
inspecting the gun. It wasn't any of the high-tech guns,
just a good, reliable projectile gun.

She grinned a bit. "Nice move."

I smirked a bit, putting the gun in the waist of my pants.
"Thanks. Who are you?"

She shrugged. "No reason not to tell you. My name is Kalie."

"I'm Page." I said.

She chuckled a bit, "Page, is that a bit feminine?"

"Yes. Now come on, before someone finds us." I stared back
down the hallway.

Behind me, I heard her pause for a second, the start to
follow me. "Where are you going anyways? You know a way
out?" she whispered.

I looked back over my shoulder at her. "This is definitely
not a way out."

She wrinkled her forehead a bit. "Then why the hell should I
go with you?"

"Because from your reaction." I said, turning a corner. "You
want to be caught as much as I do."

"True..." she said, keeping up with me.

We walked down the corridor a bit, until I found the door I
wanted. The door wasn't marked, and didn't have a complex
lock. The only real clue that is was special was that it was
the only door on that side of the hallway for a long time.

Gently I typed in a code on the keypad that I had retrieved
months ago from the computer system. There was a low pop,
and the door unlocked.

Slowly I pushed the door open, and steeped into the room.
Kalie followed after me. She took about three steps into the
room, and muttered "Holy shit."

I turned from locking the door, and stood next to her, and
had about the same reaction.

The Marble Hall's data center was vastly huge, much bigger
then I originally though. We stood on the floor, and could
see cables and conducts all over the place. The room was at
least a thousand feet long, the same wide, and 5 floors
tall.

There where things scattered all over the place, at least
ten of the e-class main frame computer where sitting around.
Each one monolithic in size, being 4 stories tall, fifty
feet wide and long. There was also banks and banks of pure
memory storage. I had to guess I could see at least fifty of
the two-hundred terabyte storage systems.

And all over the place, above us, on the walls, and under
are feet, where miles and miles of Data-Wave cabling, along
with the video-phone system cables. In the very center of
the room, was one of the huge air ducts, the side I could
see (all 200 feet of it) was totally unobstructed. As this
was in the center of the Hall I guessed it had to be the
center duct.

"What is this place?" Kalie asked in awe.

"The Hall's data center." I said in a low voice. "Everything
in the Hall's network is stored here, as well as backups for
every company on Prid, and a few off. This also has the
routing to the external data links, and the ship to space
dish, not to mention the primary hub of all the Hall's data
lines. There are five other centers like this on Prid, each
one an near prefect echo of the other."

She let out a low whistle. "What are we doing here then?"
She asked.

I gave myself a slight grin. "To tap into the Hammerhead's
communications. Considering the have all the utility hubs
shut down, it all has to be going through here, and we can
also re-establish the external links out of the Hall as
well."

Kalie looked at me. "Wouldn't this be guarded then?"

I blinked. "Oh dear." I said. That was something I hadn't
considered.

"Actually yes." a voice said behind us. "Now turn around
slowly."

Before I could react, Kalie turn fast, her left side
brushing against me. As her turn ended, she used her
momentum to quickly drop to one knee. Then I heard her gun
go off right next to me, and the sound of a large mass
hitting the ground.

Slowly I looked down at Kalie, who was still in position,
her gun held prone in her paws. I quickly checked my belt,
and found that it was the same gun she had before. She must
have taken it from me when she turned.

A few feet away a large bear was lying on the floor, blood
slowly pooling under his head.

"You killed him!" I said.

She looked at me, standing, putting her gun in a hip holster
that I had missed before. "It was necessary."

I raised an eyebrow. "You let me take the gun away from
you."

She nodded, giving me a very full, and pointed, grin. "Of
course, do you think I would fall for that little trick you
pulled?"

I grumbled. "Well then, search his body, and see if you can
find some kind of radio or something."

She nodded. "Yes sir." she said.

"Not sir, madam." I corrected her.

She raised an eyebrow. "Could have fooled me." she said.

I remember then I still had the Matrix active. Raising the
control to my muzzle, I deactivated it. After the now
familiar blast of light I presented myself to her. "See."

She grinned. "Nice toy that." She said, then headed to the
body.

I turned and looked out over the massive room. This was a
place I could like.

* * *

I stretched my arms out, as I rested against the metal wall
of the air duct at the far end of the tunnel we had spent
the last four hours crawling through. Marn was next to me,
pounding the metal panel that covered it, back into place.

I rubbed my shoulders a bit. "Gods, I've got cramps."

He nodded in the low light of the flashlight he had. "It's
not an easy trip."

I rocked my head back and fourth a bit. "I don't suppose you
have anything to eat on you?"

"Not a bit." he said. "Sorry."

I slowly stood up, feeling my knees pop. "So where do you go
from here?"

"That way." he said motioning down the hall.

"Let's get going then." I said, starting down the duct.

Behind me I heard him scramble to his feet. "Be careful,
this close to the center there are a lot of off-shoots."

I looked over my should at him, I was about to say
something, when my left foot found nothing under it. Before
I could try and catch my balance, I smashed my knee into the
floor, and tumbled face first into the air shaft.

As I plunged into darkness, I felt myself it the side of the
duct, and starts to tumble down it. Apparently it wasn't a
strait shot down, but at a sharp angle. I rolled and tumbled
in the darkness for a few minutes, every now and then
hitting the sides.

After one sever smash, I felt myself crashing side ways
hard. A few seconds later I landed hard in another duct.

I slowly rubbed myself, feeling batter and bruised, though
nothing felt broken. Looking around the duct I had landed
in, I saw that I was in a small duct,  I was back to
crawling again. On the up shot though, ever few feet was a
small one foot wide, by six inches tall shaft, that went
about three feet, then stopping in a grate. Each one had
some light shining in from them.

'At least I have light' I though to myself.

Above me, from the shaft I had falling down, I heard some
loud crashing banging, and a few grunts. My guess was that
Marn was coming down the same way, trying to find me.

I moved back a few feet, to be out of his way when he
landed. After waiting a few seconds, there was a loud clang
as the light he had been caring fell out of duct.

'Fuck!' I though to myself. Some where in the fall, he must
have gone a different direction then I had. Picking up the
light, I stood up, getting my head in the shaft. "Marn?" I
called out.

Echoing around the shaft, I heard his voice call back.
"Rachel, where are you?"

"I'm in a duct that has vents along it."

I heard him grumble a bit. "Can you feel which way the air
is blowing?"

I paused for a second. I could lightly feel the air
streaming past by body, ruffling my fur through the rips in
my clothing. "Yes."

"Good, head in the direction it's blowing from, that will
take you to the center duct." His voice instructed.

I nodded to myself. "I'll meet you there." I called.

"Good, now get going." His voice said, getting weaker.

I got back on my paws and knees, and headed into the moving
air. I was glad that even though I was back crawling, this
tunnel was large enough not to cause me to cramp up.

    Chapter 9

After spending half a day walking in the heat of twin suns,
I was absolutely grateful to come across a stream. To hot,
and dry to worry about using my paws, I pulled off my
backpack, fell to my paws and knees, and started to lap up
the water with my tongue.

Next to my I saw Fox do much the same thing, though he
scooped the water up with his hands, his body not being made
to drink as I was.

After the water had run though his fingers for of five
times, he finally just dunked his face into the stream.
After a few seconds he came back up, his face, glasses,
beard, and the hair that always seemed to be in his eyes,
dripping wet.

He let out a sigh, and flopped back onto the ground. I spent
a few seconds longer, before I to rested on the soft grass
next to the stream.

I glanced over at Fox, who was drying his glasses of on his
shirt. His army jacket throw on top of his pack. "I need a
nap." I told him.

He chuckled, putting his glasses back on and looking over at
me. "I'm starting to agree with you."

I sat back up, and started rubbing my feet. That morning,
Fox had tried to get me to wear the shoes he had brought for
me, but I waved him off. I was starting to wonder if he had
a point.

"Oria," Fox said. "I'm sorry about this morning, but I
didn't want to wake you."

I giggled a bit to myself. I had woken up still held in
Fox's arms, and rather enjoyed it. It was only when I moved
to get some breakfast, about ten minutes after waking up,
that I woke him up. He had looked sheepish, and blushed
some, but hadn't anything about it.

I shrugged. "It's ok Foxer, it was kind of comforting
considering."

He sat up, nodding a bit. "Well, some times the best help is
just _to_ listen."

I nodded back. That was when I noticed Fox's pack. He had
dropped it so that it was on the far side of him, and had
put his jacket on it. What I saw was a grey and white fox
sitting right next to it.

"Foxer," I said, "slowly turn around."

He raised an eyebrow, and turn his head. When he saw the
fox, he let out a little gasp. "Is that what I think it is?"
He asked, his voice a whisper.

I nodded, moving next to him. "Ya, it's a fox. I saw another
one this morning, so I checked the database. Then strange
thing is, it's not listed as being transplanted to Prid when
it was terraformed."

He turned to look at me, then looked back at the fox, who
was look back at him. "I've never actually seen one before."

I patted him on the back gently. "Well you have know."

Once again he looked at me, grinning. "Well, I guess maybe
there are a few perks to this walk."

I raised an eyebrow. "Maybe not, look."

"Wha--" he started, as he turned to looked where the fox
was. I saw was, because now the fox was running out of the
small clearing, it's tail flowing behind it, with Fox's
jacket in it's mouth.

"Shit." Fox said, and in one move, jumped to his feet,
grabbed his pack, and started running after the fox.

The instant Foxer started running, I grabbing my back, and
followed him. Both of us where at a dead run, and I could
see flashes of the fox's tail in front of us.

After a few short minutes, thou not short enough for Fox, he
was wheezing terribly, the fox ran through a thick clump of
bushes. I pushed my way through, pulling Fox with me.

The instant I got through the bushes, I gasped. We where on
the outskirts of a large clearing. In the center of which
was a small, log house. Nothing much to look at, but sitting
in the front door was a young human, looking about twenty
years old or so. He was bent down, petting the grey fox on
the head. "What you got Sierra?" He said, taking Foxer's
jacket from it's mouth.

I tapped Fox on the shoulder, as he was half crouched,
looking at the ground, panting hard. Looking up, he saw the
young man. "Holy..." He mutter, still trying to catch his
breath.

By now the man had finished looked over the jacket, and saw
me and Fox. "Hello," he called. "Is this yours?"

"It's mine." Fox said, slowly standing. His gasping for air
finally slowly down.

The human walked over to Fox, and handed it to him. "Sorry
about that, Sierra has a tendency to grab things, and run
back home with them."

Fox nodded, rubbing his side. "I see. Who are you by the
way?"

The human grinned. "Everyone call's me Mike."

"Well Mike, I'm Fox, and this is Oriana."

Mike raised an eyebrow. "Fox... Cutter?" He asked.

Fox nodded. "The one and only."

He grinned. "Well the come inside, let me offer you a
drink."

I looked over at Fox, who was looking back at me. "What do
you think Oria?" He asked.

I shrugged. "I think we could use more a rest then we got
back there."

He nodded back, then looked at Mike. "Thank would be great."

Mike grinned, then started back to his house. "Come on
then." He said, waving his hand for us to follow. Which we
both happily did.

* * *

It was a long crawl to the center air duct. Though quick
compared to the fours hours I had spent in the cramped
tunnel on the first two miles of this trip. The second half
was a rather strait crawl, and only took about an hour and a
half.

When I finally reached the center duct, I balked a bit,
finding myself once again at a drop off. I could see squares
of defused light on the far side of the duct. Each one from
the same type of feeder air duct I was in. Though they ended
at the same level I was. The only light I could see below me
was for four large inset grates, one on each side, about
thirty feet below me.

Turning the flash light on, I shined it down the duct. It
didn't dissipate into the darkness, but stopped at a metal
floor about sixty feet down. 'Wait a second, if that's the
bottom of the shaft...' I paused in my thoughts. '_I don't_
want to know how far I fell back there.'

"Marn?" I called out.

There was a pause as it echoed for a second, then I heard
him call back. "Where are you?"

"Down at the last row of ducts."

There was a pause, then I heard some scrambling. "Shine the
light up."

I turned the flashlight on, and being very careful not to
fall out, I shined it up the wall.

"Over to the left." He instructed.

I started moving that way, when he called again. "No my
left!"

Moving the light the other was, it wasn't long until I found
him. He was about five ducts over, and twenty feet above me.
"Ok," I said. "Now what from here?"

I saw him grin, "We get to the ground. There had to be a
door down there. I've just never been this low before."

"And how do you plan to do that?" I asked.

He grinned wider. "Safety net." Then with a heave he pushed
himself out into the open air of the duct.

I was paralyzed as I watching him fall pasted me, and into
the darkness of the shaft. I was sure a fall of about eighty
feet would have killed him.

Sighing to myself, I was about to try crawling back, when I
heard him called up to me. "I'm all right."

Shining the light down to the bottom of the duct, I saw him
there, grinning like a fool. "How--" I started.

"There's a grav-field down here, it's to catch any workers
if they fall. But the speed it can absorb is limited, that's
why I didn't use it before. A fall from to high up, and your
still vulpine patti."

I shook my head. "Stand back." I said. Then with a gulp, I
held onto the flashlight as tight as I could, and dived into
the open air.

For the first few seconds I plummeted, my speed getting
faster, just as I had expected. About ten feet from the
ground, I suddenly felt myself get pushed upwards. A second
later I landed on my tail with a slight thump.

Standing up, I handing him the flashlight. "How did you know
that was there anyways?"

He shrugged, running the light over the walls of the duct.
"I didn't."

"What?!"

He looked over his shoulder at me, and grinned. "Well, they
use the same kind of thing in high construction. There was a
good chance they used the same thing in the ducts as well. I
was just never low enough to test it."

I shook my head, my hair and fur blowing in the moving air
of the duct. That brought a thought. "Where the fans shut
off too?"

He paused, and looked at me again. "Huh?"

"When they closed the tops of the ducts, did the fans stop?"

"Oh, no. But there unlike to cause the air movement down
here."

I blinked. "Then what?"

He turned keep moving the light over the walls. "Well, the
Hall is what, a ten mile circle, about sixty floors deep.
That's a lot of duct work. Well, some of it's hot, and other
places it's cold, and that changes the air temperature, and
cold air sinks, hot air rises. So, in the end, you get
wind."

He paused for a second, then sighed. "Shit! There isn't an
exit down here! I though for sure they had to have been
one."

I looked at the dull grey walls, and rubbed my chin. "There
may be. I remember reading someplace that when the Hall was
being built, by the same people who terraformed Prid, and at
the same time. Well, these people add some... intruder
safety features on there own. I believe one was hiding the
doors on the inside of the ducts."

Marn digested this for a few seconds, then grinned. "That
explains why I could never find a way out. Perfect! Now how
do we find it?"

I was about to respond, when a gun shot echoed from the
outside of the duct. I looked at him, and he shut his
flashlight off. "was that for us?" He whispered.

Out side of the duct, echoing through one of the big grates,
I heard some voices talking. "don't think so." I whispered
back.

We waited there for at least ten minutes, listen to the
voices wax and wane in the distance. Then, suddenly, one of
the voices yell, and I could clearly make out what was being
said. "Got you, you son' bitch!"

I blinked. I knew that voice, it could only belong to one
person. Page.

I grabbed the flashlight from Marn's paw, and ran to the
nearest wall. Then started slamming the butt of the
flashlight against the wall, causing a deep metallic
ringing.

I keep at it, quickly pounding out a signal Fox had created
for us, made especially for this type of situation. So, with
Marn now next to me, looking at me like I was crazy, I
tapped out 'SOS'.

    Chapter 10

I followed both Oria and Mike inside Mike's house. Pulling
my jacket on, I was still panting a bit, and really did need
to sit down for a spell.

Mike offered both of us a chair at a small table. I pulled
one out with my foot, and sat down. Resting my shoulders on
the table, I asked. "I don't suppose you have any Rithen
tea?"

He chuckled to himself, pulling out a few glasses. "Sorry,
not a blend I like. The most I can offer you is some water."

I shrugged. "No big deal."

Oria grinned at me from accost the table. "You and your
tea."

I grinned back. "Hey, I love it, some of the best stuff I
ever had."

She raised an corner of her mouth. "I'll have to try and
convert you."

"To...?"

She giggled a bit, more of a chuckle actually. "Oh, you'll
see when you see."

Mike sat down in another chair, setting a glass of water and
ice in front of each of us. "As much as I love this witty
repertoire, I think in front of me is not the right place."
He gave a deep grin.

Oria grinned, and leaned back in her chair, sipping at her
water. I just shook my head.

"So, what are you two doing way out here, a long hike?" He
asked.

I nodded. "Back. I have a place out here, about a days walk
south-west. Twenty miles I would say."

He chuckled. "Ah, my only neighbor."

I grinned. "Well, my house is large enough. Maybe we can
have a small party someday."

He smiled back at me. "I hope so, though it is a long walk.
I don't suppose there is a faster way?"

"Maybe, are current problem is are teleport curtain is
toast. When we get that fixed." I shrugged.

Mike grinned a bit. "Now that is an interesting problem.
Lack of maintenance?"

I shook my head. "A less then nice enemy. Destroyed the
equipment on are side, I assume he did the same to the
other."

"Have anything to do with all the shit going on?"

I slowly nodded. "Yes. What shit exactly?"

He paused for a second. "Well, lets see. For one, the Marble
Hall is total closed off from the rest of Prid, all portals
are collapsing in on themselves, the only noise out off the
Hall is that some kind of major terrorist group has take
over the place."

I put my head in my hands. "Anything else?"

He shook his head. "Not much, some rumors that most of the
Council was involved. Also some partly confirmed reports
about the HammerHeads trying to stop them."

I groaned. "Nice plan. They keep up this kind of information
feed, and when they come out, there heroes, and control of
the multi-verse."

Mike raised an eyebrow. "The Hammerheads?"

I nodded. "There running this from the word go."

"And Jenner?"

"Looks like he's running it."

Mike leaned back. "Well, I always did think he was a bit.
megalomaniacal when I was growing up." He said, sipping at
his water.

"He's your brother?" Oria asked, sounded a bit aghast.

He shook his head. "No, he's my father."

I put my head back in my hands. "I should have seen that
coming."

He chuckled. "Yes, you should have."

"I don't suppose you can help us get back to the Hall." Oria
asked.

"Well... I do have a teleport curtain into the Hall, but I
haven't used it sense the communications died."

I looked up. "How do you get news if you're lines are down?"

He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "I have a big dish
in the back. It picks up some of the stuff bouncing off the
atmosphere."

I nodded again. "Now about the t-curtain?"

He stood up. "Right that way." Then walked out of the
kitchen.

We followed.

* * *

I pulled myself up the ladder, onto the second floor of the
Hall's communication center. Below me I could here Kalie
doing something to the door. Which was, as far as I could
see, the only door into the place.

Walking along the second level, which really was just a
large grate like floor move most of the room, I headed to
one of the five rooms on the floor.

Ducking into the first one, I found myself into what looked
like some kind of archive room. Shaking my headed, I moved
accost the floor, to the next room.

"Bingo," I muttered, finding myself in a control room.
Sliding behind one of the chairs, I ran over the control
board. It wasn't much different then other ones I had used
before. I made a quick check, and found that all the
external links where active, showing that they had to be
physically cut elsewhere.

I also saw that one of the video feeds was being shunted
into the archive room, and that the ship to space dish
(which is rather badly named, but it was for a space ship)
was out of sync with anything above the Hall.

Cutting off the shunt, I slid the chair over to the audio
board, and set up a channel scan. I doubted they where using
the video links for there communications, because with the
utility rooms shut down, they where less then reliable with
there routing, about half the time, they didn't get out of
this room. It was an inherent fault in the system, never had
been tracked down.

Running through the scan, I hopped that the random scan
would stumbled upon one of the channels they where using. If
it didn't... well there where over fifteen-hundred-million
different auto channels in the system. It could take months
to find it.

I ran my fingers over the desk in front of me, watching
useless information pour over the screen. Behind me I heard
the door open, turning I saw Kalie walk into the room. "What
are you doing up here?"

"Trying to find any of the com channels they use."

She nodded, sitting down backwards in a chair, her tail held
behind her. "Any luck?"

"I don't know. I'm hopping we'll get lucky."

She grinned, and held out a watch. "Will this help?"

He sighed, taking it from her paw. "No, I doubt a watch..."
I trailed off, it wasn't a watch, it was something better.
"A wristcom."

She nodded, grinning wider, showing me the points of her
teeth again. "Yes, the guard was wearing it."

"Keyed to his DNA I assume?"

She nodded again. "Yep, I already tried to get pasted it.
Nothing doing."

I grinned myself, and picking up a screwdriver that was
laying around, I started to pry of the back. "Kalie, a
question. How did you learn that little trick you pulled on
the guard?"

She leaned forward a bit. "Advanced training."

I raised an eyebrow, "for what?" I asked, still working on
the back.

She leaned closer. "Lantra ground based army, rapid recon,
group seven, e-point, retired."

I blinked, finally forcing the back off. "Retired?"

She nodded. "Well, discarded. The war toned down, and with
my three months of AWOL," she shrugged, "even being in
e-point doesn't keep you from being sweeped under if they
fell the need to."

"Sorry." I said, a bit weakly, pulling out the wristcom's
tuner chip.

She grinned again. "Hey, it's nothing bit. Those three
months where some of the best of my life, and also partly
why I here."

I slipped the tuner into a slot on the audio-board that was
made for it. "Oh, what did you do, go gallivanting off with
Fox?"

She laughed. "You know Fox!?"

I looked over at her, as I sent the tuning information on
the chip into the channel scan. "Ya, we're sort of in this
together."

Kalie blinked. "Shit, your the Page he keeps taking about,
the computer genius!"

I grinned. "I'm flattered he talks about me like that, but
I'm just an expert, not a genius. Now why was he telling you
about me?"

She shrugged. "He was explaining why he needed me, and
another of his friends, to watching Ken for a time."

I blinked this time. "What, your who he sent Ken to?"

She nodded. "Ya, Ken, Fox and I sort of worked together for
a time."

I was going to reply, well actually, trying to think of how
to, when the computer beeped at me. Turning around I
watching as the display started listing different channels
it had found usage on.

I smashed my paw down against the desk. "Got you, you son'
bitch!"

Kalie slide over to me. "Now what to we do?"

I grinned, "Well now--" I was cut off as Kalie clapped her
paw over my muzzle. Holding a finger to her muzzle, she
slowly let go. "Do you here that?"

I listened, in the distance, I could here a faint pounding.
"Yes..."

Kalie stood, pulling her gun already in her paw. "I think
someone is coming."

I shook my head. "No, I know that pattern. It was something
Fox had us learn. 'S.O.S.' he called it."

"It sounds like it's coming that huge air vent in the center
of the room."

I nodded. "I though I saw a door into it when climbing up
the ladder."

She nodded. "So did I."

I stood, and started out of the room. "Who have to get who
ever it is out." I called behind me.

As I ran, I could here Kalie following me.

    Chapter 11

Marn grabbed my wrist, and held it tight. "What the hell are
you doing?" He hissed.

"That was Page," I said in a low voice.

He paused for a second, loosening his grip on my wrist a
bit. "Are you sure?"

I nodded. "She has a very memorable voice."

He slowly let go of my wrist. "Do you think she heard that?"

There came a low pounding against the wall, a response code
that went with the original one I had used. "I say that's a
yes. Now all we have to do is have her find an exit."

I felt Marn rest his paw on my shoulder. "How long do you
think it will take."

I shrugged. "No idea. I'm rather sure the doors have a code.
Knowing Page she already has it, if not she'll get it."

I saw Marn grin in the dim light of the duct, enhanced by my
night vision. "Sounds like my kind of girl."

Patting him on the back, I said. "I don't think your her
type. Come to think of it, I don't even know her type."

He let out a short laugh, then gave me a grin. Seconds
later, there was a low thump, and a small part of the wall
next to us opened inward, letting in a shaft of light so
bright that I had to cover my eyes.

It took a few seconds for the glare to fade from my eyes.
Slowly dropping my paw, I saw a familiar silhouette in the
doorway. "Page?" I asked.

"Rachel, are you all right?" She asked, "And who's that with
you?"

I didn't responded, just slowly walked over to her. Holding
her at arm length, I gave her a slight smile, then hugged
her. "Glad to see you're ok. Jenner said he already had
you."

She broke the hug, and grinned. "Come on, lets get you some
place with light." She glanced over my shoulder. "And your
friend."

I followed her a few steps out the door, and found myself in
a HUGE room. "What is this?" I asked, standing in awe.

"This is the Hall's communication center." A female otter
explained. "I'm Kalie, nice to meet you."

I grinned wide. "Your the infamous Kalie? Fox has told me a
lot about you."

Marn spoke up. "I suppose I should conclude the
introductions. I'm Marn."

I saw Kalie tip her head at this, and a strange looked
passed over Pages muzzle and ears, but it only lasted a
second.

I broke the sudden silence. "Page, do you have any
information about the others?"

She shook her head. "I'll I know is that Fox's Teleport
Curtain is down."

"Last I saw, Rathal and the Ancient where herded out with
the other Council members. Jenner doesn't know about them
yet, or at least isn't sure. I don't know."

Page grinned. "Well, that's why we're here. All the
communications there using are being bounced through here. I
have the start of a tap setup already."

I grinned. "That's great, I hope we can do something with
it. Have you scanned all the internal cameras, to see if you
can find anyone?" As I said it, I noticed that Kalie had
steeped away a bit. She was pressed a paw lightly on her
neck, and whispering to herself.

She snapped her fingers. "No, I didn't think of that, but
it's a good idea. Would be able to confirm if there holding
everyone at the main auditorium."

That caused me to pause. "Everyone?"

She nodded. "It looks like they've rounded everyone up, most
likely to make a bigger impact with what they want everyone
to believe."

I saw about to reply, when I saw something. "Where's Kalie?"
I asked.

Page turned and looked around. "I don't know," she turned to
Marn. "Did you see where she went?"

He shook her head. "No, I was watching you two." He pointed,
"but I think she dropped something."

Page let out a low gasp when she saw what he was pointing
to. Sitting on the floor was a gun, on top of a note. Page
walked over to it, and pulled the paper out from under it.
She lifted it to her face, then paused as, I assume, she
read it.

She lowered the note. "Kalie said she's going to get some
friends, and not to worry, but to keep going with are plans.
For defense she left us one of her guns." She paused. "One?"
she asked to herself.

Marn walked over, and gently picked the gun up, pointing it
at the ground. "So, do we go after her?"

I shook my head, feeling my hair flip around. "No, if Kalie
is half of what Fox told me about her, she'll be ok. Right
now, Page, you have to tell me all you've found out so far."

She nodded. "Come on up to the control room, and I'll fill
you both in." Then she started up a near by ladder.

* * *

I stood behind Fox, as Mike punched a few buttons on a code
pad, that was on his wall. There was a low his, and a large
metal door split down the middle, and spread apart. In the
space behind it was a small 4 by 4 room, with the familiar
glitter of a teleport curtain on the back wall.

Fox looked at Mike. "Slight over kill?" He asked.

Mike shook is head. "With what's going on? No." Then with
that he walked through the curtain, and vanished. Fox
shrugged, and went through himself. I started forward
myself, when Sierra pushed passed my legs, and through the
curtain. "Silly fox." I mutter, as I went through myself.

On the other side, I found myself in a match for the room I
had left. Though in this one the door (a normal one this
time) lead out into a hallway. Mike was already standing in
the hall, and Fox was behind him. Sierra was standing next
to Mike's feet.

Mike nodded to himself, then bent down and petted the fox a
bit. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"He followed you." I explained.

Mike shook his head. "He's never even gone into my house,
let alone through the curtain. I don't think I'm the one he
followed."

As if in reply, Sierra licked Mike's paw, then went over to
fox, nuzzling his legs a bit.

Fox looked down at him, then back at Mike.

Mike grinned. "I think you have a fox, Fox."

"Are you sure you want to give him to me?" He asked.

"He's not mine, he's his own. If he want's to go with you,
well, he will." Mike shrugged. "Trust me on this one. He
some how followed me over two moves around Prid."

Fox nodded slowly. "You sure?"

He nodded, pushing past me into the small room. Bending down
he opened the control box for the teleport curtain. "I'm
sure." Then he ripped out a small piece from the equipment.
There where a few sparks, but it was momentary.

"What are you doing?" Fox asked.

"Shutting down this side of the curtain, though leaving the
communications. My father was a way of bringing family into
his battles, and I want none of it this time. So I'm make
sure the curtain is down as long as the Hall is closed." He
stood back up, closing the panel.

Fox put his hand out to Mike. "Well, thanks for you help,
you saved us a months worth of walking."

Mike shook the offered hand. "Hey, no problem, just promises
to come and visit some time."

"No problem with that." I said, leaning forward a bit.

He grinned. "Well, I hope to see you two later. And take
care of Sierra." Then with that, he turned on his heal, and
when back through the curtain. A few seconds later it
flickered, and faded out of view.

Fox slumped a bit, his grin fading. "Ok, now we have to stop
Jenner."

I put my arm around Fox's shoulders. "We can do it."

He sighed. "I hope so."

"So, what do we need to do first?" I asked.

He paused for a second. "I guess, find where Jenner is, and
see how protected he is. We also need to find his second in
command, this has to much momentum to stop easily."

I patted him on the back. "Where do you think he would be?"

He looked up. "Um..." He pounded his fist lightly on his
thigh. "My first guess would be there normal HQ, but that's
out side of the Hall." He looked at me. "The Council
Chamber. It's would be my first pick."

"So, now that you decided that, we do what?"

He started walking. "We go there, and try and a see if
that's where he is."

I followed him. "And we will know that... how?"

"We just will." He stop walking for a second. Then looked
over his shoulder as Sierra, who was sitting in the hallway.
"Come on, you're the one who decided to come with us."

I could swear that the fox nodded before starting after us.

    Chapter 12

Kalie's homeworld, Lantra, was perfectly suited for otters,
at least in my opinion. It was hot, humid, and wet. It was
as if the whole planet was one giant rain forest.

Naturally, otters had no problems with all the water, it
just rolled off there fur, and that was also the reason for
there minimalist take on clothing. General being two pieces
for the females, and one piece for a male.

So you can see where someone in a full length cloak would
stick out, even in the middle of the night. Which was
exactly how it was the night before when, in the pouring
rain, I had gone out and collected all of the different
stuff Ken had on his list.

But that was last night, and right now i'm going to focus on
noon the next day, where things started to get interesting.
I (Steven Mason if you have forgotten from Ken's quick
interlude into this chronicle Fox is making us write) was
just getting out of a long COOL shower, and finally feeling
like a lion again.

Thus, I was only wrapped in a large towel was I walked out
of the bath room. Not to very much of my surprise, Ken was
still at his work bench, trying to move the feedback around
a few seconds, so he could open the Portal to Prid.

I flicked some of my still wet mane out of my eyes.
"Anything new?"

He sighed, looking up at me. "Some... well a very little
some. I've got it narrowed down, but I still have a large
range of possibility to go through."

I nodded. To my understanding, Ken was trying to find the
wavelength (or whatever he called it) that the spell (as far
as HE could tell) that was blocking Prid's folds was running
at. Apparently with out getting it just right, he was
intently out of luck.

Pulling on a pair of underwear and shorts, I threw my towel
in the corner. "Any idea how long it will take?"

He shook his head, and flexed his wings a bit. He was
getting frustrated. "No, my idea for narrowing it down as
proved to be useless." He grumbled a bit under his breath as
another test fold collapsed.

I pulled on a t-shirt. "Maybe you should take a break, get
some sleep, you never know, the answer may come in a dream."

He gave me a flat look. "Steven... I... I'm worried about
Kalie, I just can't sit and not doing anything." He hunched
back down over the table, and did some adjustments to his
spell.

I sat down next to him. "Are you in love with her?"

He shook his head. "No, and before you ask, we weren't
lovers either." He chuckled. "Hell, Fox was easier to get
into bed then she was, and both he and I tried."

With a final nod, he flicked a switch on the disassembled
controller. There was a pause, and a small fold started to
from in the corner. There was a flick as the colour fluxed
from blue to green.

Ken sighed, and turned away, expecting it to collapsed as
before. Suddenly there was a ripped of colour over the fold,
and it turned light blue.

Ken gasped. "The spell causing the feedback is down." He
said. Then there was another colour changed, but back to
green, and then the fold collapsed into a flash of white
static.

"Did you do that?" I asked Ken.

He looked back, shaking his head. "No, I just said the field
was shut down, then it went back up. It must have been
dropped to let someone through. This is great for us."

"Why?"

"Well," he explained, turing back to his bench. "You see, I
still have the old parts of the equipment set up for trying
to narrow it down." Gently he pulled a glass slide out of
it's holder. On it was a spot that was blood red. "So we
have the exact setting I need!"

With a grin to himself, Ken took another slide out of a
second holder, and set it on the workbench. Then he slid the
first slide into the now empty holder. With a few mutter
words, he activated the portal controller.

Instantly, the fold blurred, and created a small portal that
staid light blue.

"You got it." I said.

He nodded. "We got it." Then reaching over the equipment, he
flipped on a second device. There was a flash, the a
communication laser was shot into the open fold. The only
evidence of it's existence was the yellow light showing up
on the dust specs as the flitted through the beam.

Ken picked up a small two-way radio, and talked into it.
"Kalie? Are you there?"

After a few seconds, there was a low buzz, and Kalie's voice
floated over the radio. "Ken, is that you?"

"In the scales. Steven and I found a way around the
interference with the folds."

There was a low chuckle. "Good... Then we're going to need
you two here. Can you open any fold, or just the one to are
com-laser?"

Ken paused. "Should be any fold, why do you have a specific
one?"

"Yes, standard Prid verse number, fold slash BA."

The half-dragon nodded. "Well be there in ten minutes, can
you meet us there?"

There was a pause. "On my way," Kalie said. "And good luck.
Kalie out."

Ken dropped the radio, then reached over and shut off the
com-laser, and the portal controller. The he looked over at
Me. "Steven, did you bring any guns?"

"Um, just my plasma gun, but it's more for show really. Not
something that you can use for more then a quick defense."

Ken nodded, fiddling with some of the actual spell
components. "Well then, get one of Kalie's spares for
yourself. I'll have to pick one up when I can."

I grinned, and went to work.

* * *

"So there it is in a nutshell." I explained, sitting down in
one of the chairs that litter the control room. Rachel, and
her friend Marn did the same.

Rachel looked a lot worse for wear. The afternoon before she
had been dressed in a pair of deep blue slacks, and a light
blue blouse. Now most of the left leg of her slacks where
gone, the right was partly shredded, and what was left of
her blouse was a dirty black, as well as her orange-red fur.

I let out a loud yawn. "This is all starting to catch up
with me." I said slumping down in my chair.

Rachel looked at me, rubber her right shoulder, where a
nasty bruise was showing through her fur. "Have you had any
sleep?"

I shook my head. "None."

She grimaced, as her paw ran over the bruise. "Right now,
that's something we have to put on the back burner. Can you
find the controls for the cameras?"

I nodded, my paws flipping over a few controls. "Right here,
I saw them, but just ignored them." I started flipping
through the different places the internal cameras where set
up, finally getting it stopped on the auditorium. There were
fifteen cameras set up inside it, all controllable. Each one
was showing the same image.

A room full of people, overflowing the seats, all look the
worse for wear. "There they are." I said, leaning back a
bit.

"Amazing." Marn said, leaning a bit closer. "Are there
cameras like this in all the rooms in the place?"

I shook my head. "All the major gathering spots, like there,
all the trade rooms, the Council room, and many others."

He nodded, rubbing his chin. "Interesting..." I said to
himself.

Turning in my chair, I faced the control board where I had
the tap setup. Most of the channels I was watching showed no
activity, one or two did quick flashes of use. A few quick
checks proved them to be check-ins. I set the computer up to
look for any long communication, or repetitive checks with
no response, we didn't want them getting suspicious of us by
not having the guard Kalie killed check in.

Right at that second, I got amazingly lucky. Just seconds
after I set the watches up, I got a flash on one channel.
Quickly I flipped it onto the speaker in the room.

The first thing that came over it, was the tail end of
someone saying something. It was just the last bit of the
last word, and I didn't hear enough to recognize it.

There was a second, and a female voice come over the
speaker. "Base here, what exactly do you mean one's gone?"

The first voice, a male, replied. "Just that, the old one, I
look away for a minute, and when I looked back in, he had
vanished."

"Did you check the room?"

"Yes sir, all the seals held, and no evidence of any more
attempts to escape. It is if he just vanished into thin
air."

There was a pause, then the second voice said. "Did you see
anything of note before this happened?"

"Um... yes I did. He and the elf had spent the last two
hours talking to each other separated from the rest of
them."

"You elf is Rathal, and if he spent so much time talking to
that old one," the voice paused again. "I'm going to send
three guards down, Jenner will want to talk to him. Base
out." There was a click, and the channel shut off.

I slowly turned to Rachel. "He's alive."

She nodded. "And someone has decided that he IS in on this.
That also sounded like the Ancient they where talking about.
If he's escaped..." she paused. "Well, I don't know if we
will see him again."

Marn put his head over Rachel's shoulder. "Well, if his a
friend of yours, I suggest we go pull of some kind of
rescue."

Rachel looked at him. "First we don't know where he is,
second we don't know where they will take him, and third, if
we found out one of both of those, how are we suppose to get
him. Run in gun blazing!"

He grinned. "Come on, if this group is as large as you said,
they'll need some place to gather, right?"

She nodded. "Right."

"That big?" He said, pointing his finger at the monitor,
that still was showing the auditorium.

I looked at Rachel. "I'll start checking all the different
places that have cameras. Though we may get a better chance
by listen in on them."

She gave a slight grin. "I'll do that. I suggest you find a
place to lay down, and get some sleep."

I nodded, sliding my chair away from the control boards,
letting her slide in. "You know how to use it?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes."

"Good," I said nodding. "I'm be in one of the other rooms."
Then I slid out the door.

I was too tried to try and fight Rachel, and didn't want to
anyways. Also, yet another bit of my Grandfathers numerous
about of advice he had given me was, 'In a hard situation,
when you can get sleep, get it. You may not know when the
next chance will be.'

I always though it was nonsense, but right now I couldn't
agree with him more.

    Chapter 13

I have to say, after my night of fiddling with a spell, it
felt good to go through the fold. On the other side I found
myself in a long metal hallway. Steven steeped through
behind me, with a shake of his head, he pulled the temp
implants off his ears.

"Your not much for fold-walking are you?" I asked him,
chuckling.

He shook his head. "No, gives me an instant headache."

I shrugged, "You may just be more telepathic then most."

He rolled his eyes a bit. "So, how long do you think we'll
have to wait until Kalie gets here."

I closed my eyes for a second, and did some quick mental
math. "Knowing her, about know."

"Right as always dragon." I heard Kalie say from behind me.

I turned. "Not always, I've been know to be wrong at times."

She grinned. "More then a few." She lowered her eyebrows
when she saw Steven. "Is that one of mine?"

Turning, I could see him blush in his ears, adjusting the
gun's holster a bit, which was clipped to his pants. "Um,
yes. Ken told me to bring it."

She gave me a displeased look. "Your far more qualified to
use a gun then he is, why don't you have one?"

I held up my foreclaw. "Wrong size."

She closed her eyes. "Sorry, I forgot." Open her eyes again,
she started down the hallway. "Come one you two, we have to
go back to the others."

"Others?" Steven asked, followed me as I followed her.

She nodded. "Yes, things have gotten interesting." Then she
started to gives us a run down that lasted until we arrived
in what she said was the Hall's communication center. What
ever it was, it was huge.

I had to admit, I was in quite aw. Though Steven didn't
looked to fazed. I guess a sight like this one where common
in his verse.

Going up a ladder, she walked over to a small room. Then
motioning for us to stay out side, she slipped into the
room. There was a bit of a conversation that I decided to
ignore, then she stuck her head out. "Come on in." she said.

Going inside, I found myself in a small control room.
Sitting in front of one set of controls was a vixen (who,
from Kalie's story, I assume was Rachel). She looked like a
mess, and was clearly favoring her left arm. On the other
side was a thirtyish looking white fox (Marn I guessed) who
looked as bad as the vixen, though he wasn't exactly doing
anything. Both of them where looking at us.

Rachel spoke up. "So you're friends of Fox?"

I nodded. "I'm Ken, and this is Steven."

She paused for a second, then smiled a bit. "The mage?"

I nodded again.

"Fox has told me about you, get in here, it's nice to have
reinforcements."

I moved in, and sat down in one of the chairs, though
sitting backwards, as it wasn't made for my type of tail. I
saw that Kalie did the same. Steven sat down my Marn.

Kalie turn her chair a bit, and held her paw out. "My gun."
she said.

Marn picked up the gun that he been sitting in his lap, and
handed it to her. She quickly checked over it, then reached
around, and put it into a holster on her belt, that was
colours so as to blended into her fur.

She looked over at Rachel. "So, what exactly are you doing?"

"I'm going through all the internal cameras." She explained,
already back at her work. "We're trying to find where the
HammerHeads are working from. I've gone through about three
hundred cameras so far. I never knew this place had some
many hallways!"

She rested her chin in her paw. "Well... where would you
work from?"

Rachel shrugged. "That Council Chamber I would guess."

She leaned forward. "So, can you check there?"

She paused, then punched something into the computer. After
a few seconds the pictures on the screen changed from an
empty hallway to what I assumed was the Council Chambers. It
was empty.

Rachel shrugged. "Well, it was worth a shot." And started to
get onto another camera.

"Wait." I heard Steven say. "Do you see that, down in the
corner."

Instantly, everyone in the room leaned forward. "It looks
like some kind of animal." Rachel said. I agreed, I wasn't
sure exactly what kind of animal it was, but it clearly was
an small animal. The animal moved into the center of the
room, and skampered of screen.

"Now where did she come from?" Marn asked.

Rachel didn't say anything, but watched as two people walked
into view. It looked like a lioness and a human. The human
was where some kind of green jacket that I recognized.

Rachel, Kalie and I all knew who he was at the exact same
time, but only Kalie said who it was. "Fox."

    Chapter 14

I gently pushed the door to the Council Chambers open with
my shoulder, planing on peaking in. Not that it work
however, because as I got the door open a few inches, Sierra
forced his way through them, and into the room.

I froze for a second, and after a few seconds, when I didn't
here any shouting, or gun shots, I sighed, and pushed my way
through the door. It was as I had expect, empty. Even Sierra
had skampered off someplace.

I shook my head, sitting down on the edge of the table that
was stood in the center of the floor. Oriana pulled out one
of the chairs, and sat down herself.

"Now what do we do?" I asked no one in particular, resting
my elbows on my knees, and my chin in my hands.

Oria patted me on the back. "Well Fox, where else could they
be?"

I shrugged. "How should I know, this place is monstrously
huge, there are thousands off rooms. It may be easier to
wait for them to grab us, then try and find them."

I heard her growl a bit under her breath. I looked over my
shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "What was that for?"

She stood, and looked me right in the eyes. "You're giving
up before you even try."

I threw my arms out into the air. "I tried, and look where
we are, trap in the Hall, no idea of where the bad guys are,
let along the good guys. And with you and me only, the
chances of winning are less then nothing."

She paused. "Fox... do you remember Sinth?"

That brought me up short very very quick. Sinth was mine and
Oriana's last adventure together, before she had me return
her to her home. Some bad things happened there, and it was
one of the first times I ever really faced almost sure
death, not to mention kill someone. Not an easy thing for a
sixteen year old to take.

After that I was in the same kind of blue funk. I was sure
everything I had done was worthless, and that for all my
meddling, all I had done was hurt people. I had seriously
considered just going home, and forgetting that I ever walk
the folds.

Oriana decided she couldn't take it any more, and had me
take her home. Leaving me with a parting wish to see me
again. The next day I went home, planing never to open the
fold again. Maybe a week later, I meet again with a nice
young women, who I had ran into a few days before at the
mall. She asked me what was wrong, and I looker her in they
eyes, and told her. It was the first time I had ever told
anyone on Earth about the folds.

She believed me, and finally convinced me to show her the
fold, and days later she convinced me to show her Prid (this
was back before Ted let me use the house), I did, and things
got better from there.

She was Becky.

I looked back up at her. "What are you saying?"

She placed her paw under my chin, and raised my head until
we where eye to eye again. "I'm saying that this is not the
time, just like there. After it's over then you can mope,
but right now, as far as we know, we're the only one in any
kind of position to stop the HammerHeads. Out of both of us,
you're the leader, you've been in more scrapes then I have.
I mean, it's not like we've gone adventuring sense we got
back together."

I grinned a bit. "Me, the leader?"

She gripped a bit harder with her paw, and nodded my head.
"You have the experience."

"Oriana--" I stared, but she cut me sharply off.

"No, Fox right now you're the leader. I don't care how much
you hate it, or think you're unqualified, but you ARE in
charge."

I took a slow breath. "Alright, if you say so, but I am no
leader."

She gave me a wide grin, her cat lip stretching a bit. "Fox,
you'll do fine, trust me."

"Well then, why don't you lead your selves along in front of
me." I voice said.

Slowly I turned my head. Standing in front of the door was a
human guard, who was aiming his plasma gun at us. I stood
up, and dropped my hands to my side. "Where to?"

He grinned. "If I'm nice, to a cell, if I'm not, well then
it won't matter to you."

I rolled my eyes. "Great, a guard with a sense of humor."

The guard frowned. "Now that hurt. I like to think my
comments are deep and witty."

As I was trying to come up with some stinging rebuttal to
that, Sierra, who had somehow found his way up onto the desk
for the third level, took a flying leap into the air, and
landed on the guards outstretched hand.

The impact knocked the gun to the floor, and distracted the
guard. Instantly my mind when into neutral, and my body took
over. I stared running at the guard, closing the distance in
only a few seconds, and by the time he noticed me, I had put
my shoulder into his rib cage, and forced him hard against
the wall.

There was a dull thump as the back of his head impact the
wall, and then he slumped down over me.

I took a step back, and the guard fell to the ground,
unconscious. As my mind started to kick back in, I reached
down and check his pulse.

"Well, he's still alive." I stated, more to satisfy myself,
then to explaining it to anyone.

"See," Oria said, moving beside me, "I told you, you could
lead."

I shook my head. "That wasn't exactly a leadership decision.
It just happened."

Saying that, I bent down, and pulled off the guards jacket,
and then shirt. Holding the plane white shirt up, I said.
"Could you rip this into some strips."

She grinned. "I can do better then that." Then, taking the
shirt, she unsheathed the claws of her left paw, and
proceeded to maul the shirt.

I shook my head. "Thanks." Then grabbing a handful of the
stripes, and proceeded to tie the guards legs and hands
together, then tie them together into one large knot. Then I
used another piece, and gagged him.

"There, that should keep him busy for a while. Come on, lets
get him hidden under the desk." Oria helped me lift him up,
and over the first level desk, then I forced him under it.

Then I sat back down on the table, I petted Sierra a bit,
who was now rubbing my leg. "Nice trick, care to tell me how
you got up there?"

His response was to curl up at my feet.

"He's a bit like a cat, isn't he?" Oria said.

I shook my head, grinning a bit. "You get the feeling, that
of the three of us, he knows the most about what's going
on?"

She laughed. "Fox, knowing the kind of people you usual run
into, yes."

That caused me to snicker a bit, which caused me to almost
miss the sound of a low beep. I raised my hand, stopping
Oria's laughing. "Did you here that?"

She paused. "Maybe."

The beep came again, and Oria nodded. "That was it."

I jumped off the table, being careful of Sierra. "It sounded
like it came from the guards jacket."

Both she and I walked over the the jacket, and I bent down,
to look closer at it. It was the usual guard jacket, a dark
brown, with a few pockets, two specifically made for the
plasma gun charge packs. Over the right breast was suppose
to be the symbol of the Council, but it had been torn off.

I started going through it, when I heard a muffled voice
say. "Fox."

Looking at Oria, she shrugged. "That was not me."

"Fox, we're using the guards radio." the voice came again.
Reaching inside the jacket, aiming for where the sound was
coming from, I pulled out what looked like a walky-talky
from Earth.

Pressing the talk button, I said. "Who's there?"

"It's Rachel." The voice said, clear as a bell, and
definitely sounding like her. Though, considering what was
going on, I wasn't going to believe it to quickly.

"No offense, but I'm not exactly in a situation to believe
that."

There was a pause, then someone else spoke up. "Then can you
believe me?" It took a second to place the voice.

"Kalie, what the hell are you doing here?"

I heard her laughed over the connection. "I was on a supply
run, and got trapped when all the folds stopped working."

I chewed on this for a second. "And the others?"

"We're both here." I heard Steven say.

I ran this over in my head. I doubt they could fake Steven's
voice, mainly because they didn't know about him. The points
for this being the real people where starting to add up.

"What about the other three?"

"Page is here with us, sleeping." Rachel said. "The Ancient
as apparently vanished, and Rathal has been captured by the
HammerHeads, and last we heard, to be escorted to see
Jenner."

I chewed on my lip for a second. "Listen, where are you guys
at."

"We're in--" Rachel stated, but was cut off. Then there was
a silence for a second, then Kalie came on. "Fox, I just
realized, this is not the securest of channels."

I ahhed. "Well then, I guess your going to have to come get
me."

"Yes, but first you I need you to do something."

I glanced back over my shoulder at Oria. "What?" I said into
the radio.

"Take your groundless fear, and ground it. Kalie out." There
was a pause, and then a light spattering of static.

I stood there for a second, pondering that, then slowly put
the walky-talky into my jacket pocket.

"What did she mean by that?" Oriana asked. I was surprised
that she didn't ask who Kalie was, but then I remember that
they had meet once.

I didn't say anything, just chewed on my lip. Then after a
few seconds, it dawned on me. "That's not on any of my
records." I said, as I stared to rub my chin through my
beard.

"What's not?" Oria asked.

Looking at her, I grinned. "My fear of elevators, that's not
on any record, and I've never told anyone in the
HammerHeads."

She slowly nodded her head. "So we need to take an elevator,
but to where."

I didn't answer it. "Ground... well we're underground, maybe
she means ground level." I paused. "Nah, none of the
elevators go there. What else could she have meant?" I keep
turning it over in my head.

Oria looked down. "Hey, what are we standing on?"

"The floor."

"And under that?"

I shrugged. "Then floor below us."

"Right, then what's under the lowest level?"

"Twenty miles or so of bedrock I would guess, and then
lava."

She nodded. "So, technically, the lowest level is on the
ground."

"Well yes, but I don't see..." I trailed off, I saw exactly
what she was getting at. "Ground it, of course."

I turned and hugged her. "Oria, you're brilliant! I could
kiss you."

She grinned, and blushed a bit in her ears. "I'll remember
that."

Letting go of her, I grabbed the guards jacket, and threw it
over the first level desk. "I know where the nearest
elevator is, it's right out side of the lobby."

"Well then, lets go."

I stared off, finding that Sierra was already sitting by the
door waiting for me to open it. With I grin, I pushed it
open, and we were off.

    Chapter 15

I yawned a bit, still tired, not really able to get any
sleep for the hour or so I tried. With another yawn, I
pushed my way into the control room.

Inside Rachel was sitting at the video control board,
flipping through different cameras. In front of the audio
board was a what looked like a dragon, and sort of sitting
off to the side was a lion-morph.

The lion looked at me, and raised an eyebrow. "Hello."

Rachel and the dragon turned. "Page," Rachel said. "I though
you where sleeping."

I sighed, sitting down. "I may have gotten a few minutes of
sleep, I'm not sure. Now, who are those two." I tipped my
head in the general direction of the pair, "and where is
Kalie and Marn."

She grinned a bit. "The dragon is Ken, the lion is Steven."

I nodded. "The Ken Kalie was watching?"

"The same."

I glanced at Steven. "And you must be the friend she
mentioned. Now, not exactly to pry, but how the hell did you
get here?"

Ken grinned at me. "I got lucky, and made a spell to work
around the jamming."

I blinked, remembering what I had read about the spell to
block the floods. "Even with techno-magery?"

He slowly nodded. "Yes, even then."

Nodding, I gently started to wring my paws again. "So where
are the other two."

I heard a chuckle behind me. "Getting somebody."

Instantly I recognized the voice, turning I saw, leaning in
the doorway, Fox.

I didn't say anything, instead I jumped out of my chair, and
have him a hug. "I was worried, after I found your t-port
curtain down."

He hugged back. "You were worried?"

I grinned, and let go. "Where's Oriana?"

She poked her head over Fox's shoulder. "Right here."

Taking a step back, I waved for them to come inside. Fox
came in, and Kalie after him. Oria and Marn stayed outside
the door, as the room was about as full as it could easily
get.

Fox propped himself up on a unused control board. "So, how
did you guys find me?" He asked.

Rachel grinned a bit, her right shoulder looking terrible,
deep black through her fur. "It was Marn's idea."

Fox looked over at him. "Oh?"

He grinned himself. "Well, it was a simple idea, we didn't
know exactly what channel number the guard was using, so we
sent a ping down all of them."

Fox raised an eyebrow. "How did you know about the guard?"

"That was my fault." Steven said. "We had turned on the
cameras in the Council Room, and where about to shut them
off when I saw an animal go accost the floor. Pausing a
second we saw you show up, and then we just watched."

I heard Oriana giggle a bit. "Yes Fox, he definitely knows
more the us."

Everyone in the room gave Fox a look that said, 'what does
she mean?'.

He shook his head. "I'll tell you later. Now Marn, you said
you had sent a beep down all the communication channels?"

Marn nodded. "Yes, we watched for when you reacted, that
narrowed it down to about ten, as we weren't sure of the
exact time. Then we beep down each one, one at a time, until
you responded."

He nodded. "And then when you started to tell me where you
were, Kalie realized that it was an open channel."

Marn crossed his arms. "Exactly," he said, apparently not to
happy about not thinking of it I guess. I wasn't to sure
about what had gone on myself to be truthful.

Fox looked over at Kalie, who was sitting next to him. "Nice
clue you gave me, though Oria cracked it before I did."

Kalie shrugged. "I knew it was something you would figure
out."

Fox nodded again. "Ok, now that we've gotten that
explanation out of the way, any luck on your searching
Rachel?"

She shook her head. "I've gone over every camera, nothing at
all."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

She nodded. "Double checked it, I went over every camera on
the list."

That statement suddenly steered a memory. "What about off
the list?"

Rachel blinked. "What?"

"The cameras for the old trade floor for the Geza
Cooperation."

The Geza Cooperation was a larger company, that spanned
three united verses (in there own universe, each was about
ten light years apart, and they only had one council
member). The Geza Corp was a joint venture here on Prid to
make trading easier, as there universe didn't support the
physics of the known faster then light drives. About five
years ago they went bust then a major war broke out, and
apparently sent all three cultures back to the iron-age.

"How would I look at that?" Rachel asked.

"Allow me." I said, moving over next to her. Punching a few
buttons, I manually typed in the camera numbers. "They
should still be there," I explained, "as it's a pain to
remove them."

I pressed a few more buttons, and the screens switched to a
semi-large room that had been divided into cubicles, and
there was a lot of people in there, moving around, doing
things.

"Two points Page," Fox said, "that has to be them."

"Where is that exactly?" Kalie asked.

"5th level, office address w2718."

Fox looked around a bit. "Question, is there anyplace we can
go to? It's a bit cramped in here."

I stood up, "Well, I think there might be a conference
room." The I moved pasted everyone, and out of the room,
after a quick walk over to a largish room nearly opposite of
the one and only door into the Communications Center.

Opening the door, I flipped on the lights. "Bingo." I said
to the others, who had followed me. The room consisted of a
table with ten chairs around it, and a couple computer
consoles on one wall. The only other thing in the room was
some papers scattered over the table.

We all moved into the room, each taking a seat, both Kalie
and I turning ours backwards as was normal for us.

"So, what do we do know?" Steven asked.

Fox grinned a bit. "Don't worry." He said, then whipped off
what looked like a blue print from the table. Holding it up
he announced. "I have a plan."

I happily joined in the course of groaning, as well as
throwing some of the paper laying around at him.

* * *

I bravely withstood the bombardment of small bits of paper,
not that it was that hard, the only really thing I was in
danger of was a paper cut.

Setting down the blue-prints, I crossed my arms. I didn't
have a plan per-say, but I did have an idea. I was banking
on Kalie's experience to help we with most of the details.

Finally everyone stopped throwing things at me, and relaxed
a bit. "Ok, first things first. What exactly are our assets
here?"

"With the gun that Steven brought over, we have five total."

Page paused, then fiddled a bit with what looked like a chip
controller that she had strapped to her wrist. Taking it
off, she set it on the table. "That's the Matrix chip,
though the power on the controller is dead, I'll need to
find out a way to recharge it before it can even be
removed."

I chewed my lip a bit, that Matrix would help some, but I
wasn't sure how much. "Anything else?"

"Well," Rachel said. "We have the ship to space dish, we can
control that from here. If we can get it locked onto a
satellite, we could send a message out."

"And tell then what?" Steven asked. "I doubt anything we can
say won't fit nicely in with what the HammerHeads have
already leaked out."

I saw Ken slowly tilt his head a bit. "Well then, maybe we
could send out the truth."

Page looked at him. "How do you mean?"

He slowly rubbed his chin. "I seem to remember reading
someplace that all the Council meetings for the past fifty
years are recorded. I assume the last one was as well. If it
is, it should clearly show the true order of events."

"Maybe Ken," Rachel said, "but how do we keep it from being
called a fake."

Page looked up. "The archive encoding, it includes the date
and time it was recorded, and is normal transmitted along
with any rebroadcast."

"Well that's all fine and good, but is it in the archive?" I
asked.

She stood. "Let me check." Then ran out of the room.

I nodded to myself. "Ok, now that we know that. Who can use
a gun, out side of Kalie of course?"

"I can," Marn stated. "I'm rather good at it."

"I should be able to as well." Rachel said, "Though I will
be less then perfect, as I'm better with my right paw, which
right now hurts to much to lift."

Ken spoke up next. "I have some training, but none of the
guns you have will work for me, wrong shape, size and
balance."

"Steven?"

He shook his head. "Give me a target fifty feet wide, and
I'd have a fifty, fifty chance of hitting it at point blank
range."

Nodding a bit, I finally turned to Oriana. "I've never asked
you."

She shrugged. "I have some experience, I can usual hit my
target."

"That about covers me too." I said. "Anyone know about
Page's skill?"

There was silence for a second, then Rachel spoke up. "I
remember her once saying that she never bother to learn."

I nodded. "Ok, now that we know that, the big question.
What, exactly, is are objectives here?"

"Get that transmission out." Steven said.

I nodded. "That's an easy one, though I'm sure you will have
this place flooded with guards in ten minutes from the time
you first send."

"Not to be to insulting," Ken said. "But even if we get that
message out, what would be the point?"

"Are you kidding?" Steven asked.

"I don't think so," Marn said. "If you think about it, it
makes perfect sense. Even if we get the archive played, and
it gets passed along to everyone on Prid, the HammerHeads
are still safe in here, and they still are jamming the
folds. The only way the rest of the multi-verse would know
about what is going on would be what ever information they
sent out."

"Which makes one of are priorities to shut down the field."
I said.

"Something that we have no idea about where it's at." Kalie
stated.

Ken shook his head. "It's in the control room."

Kalie looked at him. "How do you know?"

He paused. "Fox, remember me telling you I had done some
spell components for the HammerHeads."

I nodded. "Yes?"

"One of then was aimed at interface with technology, though
a control board that was mounting inside the control room
the Hall."

I grinned a bit. "Along with the door controls."

He nodded. "I would suspect so."

I tapped my chin a bit. "Alright, that is an advantage.
Anything else?"

"Rescuing Rathal." Rachel said.

I paused. "You did say he was being taken to see Jenner."

She nodded. "Last we heard."

I nodding my head once, over exaggerating it a bit. "Well
that, that does proceeded to take care of it's self then
doesn't it."

"What do you mean?"

I ran my hand over my chin. "The number one priority is
capturing Jenner."

"Are you crazy?" Rachel asked.

I shook my head. "Kalie, I'm sure you can explain it better
then I can."

She nodded. "Well, if I understand what you're saying. Then
general understand is that Jenner has been planning this for
a long time. There for it would make sense for him to have
multiple escape routs planed. He would show up again a short
time later, underground of course, and starting working with
the rest of the escaped HammerHeads to try this again."

"There for we need to either capture or kill him, even if it
does appear that we will have to go after him in the center
of the current HammerHead base."

I leaned back. "That explains it."

There was a pause for a few seconds, then Page came back
into the room, and sat down. "It's all on record, from the
original motion, to Rachel's escaping."

Rachel rubber her should. "Well then, I think we have a
plan."

I licked my lips. "Not fully no. Page, can you use one of
those computers back there to check out cameras at the
HammerHeads base?"

She moved over to one of the computers, grabbing another
chair on her way. After a few moments she announced, "yes."

"Good, play around, I want to know exactly where Jenner is
staying, and the nearest door to his location."

"Got it." She said, and went to work.

I turned back to the rest. "Ok, we have three things to do,
we need to split up for that. The first obvious choice to me
is that I'm going after Jenner, Page stays here, and Ken
goes to shut down the spell jamming the folds."

Kalie nodded, this statement was souly aimed at her, and she
knew it. "I say that Rachel stays here, with her arm in that
condition she would be useless on the move. Though she
should be able to defend the door easily, there are a few
good positions. Along those same lines, I say that Steven
stays here, he's a none combatant right now."

"That makes sense, I do want you with me of course."

"Of course." She said, grinning a bit. "Then I say that Marn
goes with Ken."

I nodded. "And Oriana?"

Kalie paused for a second, chewing her lip. "Well, I would
rather have three people with us, as we will be the most
open team. She comes with us."

I glanced at Oria. "Anyone have any objections to there
position."

No one said a word for a few seconds. Then Marn spoke up.
"What about the subject of communication?"

I pulled out the walky-talky from my jacket pocket, and set
it on the table. "We have this, and Page has the system as a
whole."

"There is also the guards wristcom." Page said, not looking
over her shoulder. "Now that I know the channels there
using, I can but it back together and one party can use it."

"You keep the hand unit." Marn said. "I'll take the
wristcom."

I nodded one more time. "Now, one final thing, what is the
exact timing?"

"I've already come up with that." Kalie said. "I think it
would be best we all get into position, and Ken and Marn
act's first, they open the folds, and the Hall's doors if
they can. Then Page starts the transmission, and we take on
Jenner when it hit's the local media."

I blew through my teeth. "Think we can do it?"

Everyone around the table slowly nodded.

Standing, I suddenly realized that what ever I said next
would probably go down into the annals of history, and be
quoted for centuries to come (at least if we won).

"Well then, let's go."

I don't like to be quoted.

    Chapter 16

I slowly walked out of the conference room along with the
others. But instead of following Page back into the control
room, I moved over to the cat walks railing.

Standing there, looking out at the huge computers, I gently
rubbed my shoulder. The pain had finally faded a bit, but
was still forefront in my mind, and I had started to lose
the feeling in my finger tips.

"I need to see a doctor." I mutter to myself.

"With that, yes." Kalie said, as she moved next to me. She
leaned forward, gently resting her paws on the railing.
Unlike how I felt, she looked calm and collected. Though
that mostly was from how the oils in her fur helped keep it
flat.

I glanced over at her. "Think we can do this?"

She paused for a second, then slowly said. "I believe we
can, if nothing major goes wrong."

"Such as?"

She shook her head. Then reaching behind her, pulled out a
small gun. "Here, take this."

Reaching over, I gently took it from her. It felt heavy in
my paw, and awkward, as I was used to using my right.

"That's the only gun I carry that's molded for the left
paw."

I nodded, looking over it, getting a quick idea how it
worked (which was easy, all projectile guns are basically
the same design). Making sure the safety was on, I put it
into my pants pocket.

Kalie then held out two clips. "Each one holds twelve
rounds. And the gun is fully loaded, with one in the
chamber."

I took the clips as well, I put them into my other pocket.

"Use it sparingly, ok? I don't have any more for that size
of gun."

I nodded, going back to rubbing my shoulder. "I don't think
it should be to hard. I can only see one door in or out of
here."

She nodded herself. "Yes, but they could also come in
through the airduct like you did, or through an entrance we
didn't know about. You will have to be ready for that, and
don't be afraid to give the gun to Steven if you need to. He
may not be able to shoot well, but that may just be enough."

I looked back over the railing, and into the room. "When
they told me the new Council Head, I never expect end up
like this."

Kalie looked over at me. "How did you become the Head
anyways. Fox was always a bit vague on that bit of
information."

I laughed, and winched as another flare of pain shot through
my shoulder. "Through a very delicate, and scientific
processes called 'Pot Luck'."

She paused for a second, then grinned slightly. "And exactly
how does this system work?"

"As far as I know, they pick a name out of a list of every
person who has a representative in the Council, directly, or
indirectly. Then there background is looked into
extensively, and if they have any kind of past history of
trying to do anything political at all, the process starts
all over."

Kalie closed her eyes, then chuckled. "So it's based of the
idea that anyone wanting to be Council Head there for was
unqualified."

I grinned. "Yes."

She opened her eyes, and looked at me. "You know, that may
just be the perfect way of getting a political office."

"I have to admit, it's a lot more interesting with Fox
around. Usually he gets into some sort of mishap or another.
Though sense he's come back, he hasn't done much
adventuring."

Kalie nodded. "I had better go get with him actually. We're
going to start as soon as Page has the communications set
up."

I grinned. "Go then, and good luck."

She paused. "To you as well, as I think we will all come
under fire before this is over."

Then with a quick grin, she turned and walked away.

I looked down over the edge of the catwalk, to where the
door into the huge room was. "I'm going to need it."

* * *

I watched as Marn looked down over the gun Kalie had given
him. "Simple thing." He muttered.

I cocked my head a bit, as I adjusted my satchel a bit. It's
something I always where when I do anything, in fact it's
about ALL I where for that matter. It's usual contents where
a few small personal items, a few general purpose spells,
and some small spell components.

"Naturally," I said. "The best designed projectile gun
follows a simple design."

He nodded, attached the gun's holster to his slightly ragged
belt. "It's not my preferred weapon."

"Let me guess, high plasma?"

He shook his head, then with a flick of his paw, unsheathed
his claws. "These dragon, souly these."

"I see, and for your information I'm a half-dragon."

He shrugged, handling the spare clip Kalie had given him.
"Half, full, it doesn't matter. As long as we do what we
need to do."

I crossed my arms. "You don't like me much do you?"

He grinned a bit. "And your as subtle as a twenty ton
boulder. Actually, I don't know yet, and I think this isn't
the time to find out."

I nodded. "Well then, I rather think we should embark then."

He nodded, "Yes." Then grabbing the sides of the ladder,
slide down it to the floor below.

"Show off." I muttered, climbing down the ladder myself.

Marn was already heading for the door as I stepped off the
ladder. I was about to run a bit to catch up with him, when
he stopped next to Oriana, who was waiting by the door.

I didn't here what they said, but I saw him give her
something. I didn't get a chance to see it as I walked
pasted her, as Marn had starting walking again, and was
already into the hallway outside.

As I passed her, I nodded my head. "Good Luck."

She grinned. "You too."

Then with that I was out the door, and following Marn.

"What did you give her?" I asked.

He shrugged. "The extra clip. She'll need it more then I
do."

I paused. When Kalie had been handing out the guns, she only
keep one clip extra for herself, and only gave one to Marn,
as they where the best shots of the grope. To Fox, Oriana,
and Rachel, she gave two. I guess it makes sense in a way
for Marn to have given his extra to the one with the least
ability, especially if he was trained in some form of hand
to hand combat.

"I hope you know what you're doing."

He gave me a very toothy smile. "Me? I know what I'm doing.
I just hope you know what you will be doing."

On that note, we continued on to our goal.

* * *

I slowly handled the extra clip Marn had given me as he
left. He hadn't really given me time to protest him giving
it to me. He just said, "take this," and shoved it into my
paw. Though I think I understand his reasoning actually.

Fox, Kalie, and I had the most to do the any of the others.
where as the other two groups just had to do one thing, then
stay alive, we had to stop Jenner, which meant going into
the heart of the HammerHead base, and also to find Rathal if
we could.

All in all, it was a lot to cover, and with Kalie being the
only one really good with with a gun, it was a lot harder.

I slipped the spare clip into a pocket, as Fox came down the
ladder, followed by Kalie. "Find out what you needed?" I
asked him.

He nodded. "We will still have to go through half of the
base, but it looks to be easy."

"Easy in the way that it's just duck and cover around fifty
bad guys," Kalie said, "as opposed to going in shooting."

I paused, felling the weight of the gun in my pocket. "I do
prefer the easy way."

Fox nodded. Then pulling out the radio he had, he spoke into
it. "Is everyone ready?" He asked.

"Everything is on line here." Page said of the link.

"Already on the way." Came Marn's response.

Fox nodded. "Good, let's get this done." Then he slipped the
radio back into his jacket pocket. Walking over to the door,
he opened it. "Shall we?" He asked.

Kalie shook her head. "Of course." Then walked pasted him,
into the hallway.

I shrugged, and followed.

* * *

Flicking a switch on the control board, let out a slow sigh.
"Now we wait." I muttered to myself, leaning back a bit.

"Everyone is on there way," Steven said as he came into the
control room. "And I locked the door the way told me to do."

I nodded. "Good. I have everything ready here, the tape is
cued up for transmission, and the dish is aligning with the
nearest satellite. All I have to do is press a button, and
the message gets out."

Steven sat down in one of the other chairs. "So now we wait
for Ken and Marn to drop the jamming field, then we send
this out to the multi-verse."

I nodded. "Yes, and I HATE waiting, I never had the patients
for it."

He leaned forward a bit. "Funny, it was one of the things I
was always good at. I've been told I have the patients to
wait for the end of the universe."

"What do you do?"

"How do you mean?"

"Your job, how do you earn a living?"

He shrugged. "This and that, I work odd jobs here and there.
Get's me around, and I have some fun at times to. I also
seem to have the luck to keep winning contests of some sort
or another."

I chuckled. "My grandfather used to know someone like that,
described him as 'Being protected by the patron saint of
fuzzeled souls'."

He snickered. "You don't get more fuzzeled then me."

I smiled. "You haven't seen my grandfather in the mornings,
now THAT is fuzzeled!"

He shook his head. "I take it you grew up with your
grandparents."

"Well, yes and no. You see, they adopted my mother, who had
me. At the same time as my Grandparents had twins. So all
three of us where raised as brother and sisters, when the
other two where actually my Aunt and Uncle. In fact, my
Grandfather was about thirty-six when I left."

"Would it be much of a pain to ask how old you where when
you left?"

I paused. "I was just a week away from my seventeenth
birthday."

"Your family let you come here when you just sixteen!?"

I nodded. "Yes, it was necessary. I was needed here, they
all knew it. My grandfather said it was the hardest thing he
had ever done in his life, even if he knew it was the best.
That was almost two years ago. I'll be nineteen in a month."
I suddenly found myself trying to hold back tears.

"Have you talked to them at all?"

"I can't. Not directly, there are two many things involved
with it." I sighed, lowering my head a bit.

Steven rolled his chair over next to me, and patted me on my
back. "I'm sorry."

I looked up at him, starting to cry. "Don't be please, I'll
be back with them in a few years, when I'm done here."

He reached around and hugged me. "How could anyone let you
do this without any family ties at all?"

I took a breath. "It was what we needed to do. It was that,
or send someone else daughter, and he couldn't live with
himself if he did that. So I volunteered, knowing all that
it entailed."

He gently ran his paws through my hair. "You're very brave
then."

I shook my head. "That wasn't the reason, far from it
actually."

"What is it then?"

My reply was interrupted by Fox's voice echoing over the
radio. "Page, Marn. We're almost to the HammerHead base. Are
you two ready?"

Running my sleeve over my noise, I hit the transmit button.
"Everything is set here, ready at any time."

"We're almost to the control room." Marn said.

There was a pause. "Ok, we're going to go in. Marn, get into
the control room now, and I want you to wait a couple
minutes before opening the doors. I don't want any of the
good guys coming in who think _we're_ the baddies."

"Got it." Marn said over the link. I did the same.

As I closed the link, I turned to Steven.

"And so it begins." He said, "I'll go tell Rachel."

As he left the control room, I nodded. It was beginning, and
ending.

* * *

I creepped down the hallway along side Marn, keeping close
to the wall. "Just around this corner." I said.

He nodded, pulling the gun out, and flicking off the safety.
Holding it gently in his right paw, he moved up to the
corner.

Looking back at me, he said. "I don't suppose you have a
small mirror?"

I reaching into my satchel, and pulled one out. "You
wouldn't believe how much there needed in my magic."

He didn't say anything, just took it from me. Then holding
it in his left paw, he gently slid it around the corner in
such a way, he could see what was down the hallway.

Pulling it back, he slipped it into his pocket. "Two guards,
one on each side, and there not expecting anything."

Then with a grin to himself, he swung around the corner. He
paused for less then a second, then fired off four quick
shots. Dropping the gun a bit, he said. "Come on." Then
started down the hallway.

I followed him into the short hallway to the control room.
At the end, on either side of the doorway, the two guards
laid, dead. I gulped, and diverted my eyes away from the
bodies, and the blood that was rapidly covering the floor.

In front of me Marn slowly moved up to the door. Reaching
down he gripped the handel, and slowly turned it until there
was a soft click.

The in one move he shoved the door open, and dived to the
side. I dived to the floor myself as a plasma bolt barely
missed my head.

I watched as Marn turned, and steeped in front of the door,
firing twice more in quick succession. I saw the guard on
the other side of the door fall to the ground, more blood
pooling under his chest.

Carefully steeping over the body, he went inside the control
room.

Standing, I walked inside was well, gingerly stepping over
the body as well. Marn was holding a young technician (a
tiger that looked about fifteen) against the wall, he had
one arm against the kids neck, and was patting him down with
his free paw.

Glancing back at me, he said. "Close and lock the door."

I paused, looking down at the body of the guard. Then with a
gulp, and put my foot against his head, and shoved him out
into the hallway. As soon as he was out of the way, I
slammed the door shut, and started punching in some numbers
on the keypad next to it. There was a low buzz for a second,
then the door locked.

I let out a breath, glad that the system was designed to
auto-lock if the wrong code was given, though I suspected
this wasn't the way it was intended to be used.

I walked over to Marn, who still had the kid pined against
the wall. "What are you going to do to him?" I asked, a bit
worried.

"Don't worry," he said, "this kid isn't a threat. No need to
kill him." With that he hit the kid the butt of his gun.

Stepping back he let go, and the kid fell to the ground,
though he was still breathing. Bending down, Marn said.
"I'll tie him up, you drop the field."

I nodded, and moved over to the controls. Pushing a chair
out of the way, I found the control I was looking for, right
where I remember it being at before when I was first shown
it.

Glancing at it for a second, I flipped two switched. There
was a beep, and the single light on the control went out.
"That should do it."

Marn nodded, the activated the wrist-com. "The field should
be down Fox."

There was a pause. "Check that, I just got a fold open. Page
start the transmission."

"Right." Page said.

Marn nodded. "Fox, there is something else."

"What?"

"When I came in, I found the technician in here on the
radio, calling for help. They know we're here."

"Damn," Fox muttered over the link. "Just sit tight, we need
you too get the doors open, and to make sure the jamming
field stays down."

Marn nodded. "Got it Fox." he said, the deactivated the
wrist-com.

I looked at him.

"Don't look so worried, everything is still under control."

I hoped he was right.

* * *

Slipping the radio back into my jacket, I looked over at
Kalie and Oria. "You two heard that, are you ready?"

Kalie nodded, her gun at the ready. Oria looked a bit pale,
but nodded to.

Reaching over, I opened the door we where standing next to.
Giving it a genital push, it swung inwards. Giving a glance
inside, I found myself in a disused corner of the
HammerHeads base.

Slipping in, I motioned for the other two to follow. As soon
as they got inside, I closed the door. We where in one of
the many cubicles of the base, though this one was empty.

Glancing around the corner, I nodded, then quickly moved
accost a small hallway into another cubicle, though this one
wasn't in a corner as the other one was and the walls of it
where raised, giving us room to crawl under.

Kalie and Oria did the same thing, getting us into position
with out a hitch.

I nodded to myself, leaning back a bit. "Right," I
whispered, "we have to crawl about fifty feet to get to
Jenner's office. From what Page showed me, it looks to be
mostly empty space, but there are a few that are in use."

"What about finding Rathal?" Oria asked, also in a whisper.

I chewed my lip. "That's not as easy as I would like it. To
do that we would have to split up, and with out Kalie, you
and I are generally defenseless."

Kalie nodded. "I agree. How ever it goes, one of you two
will be in series danger, or both if I go alone. We need to
stay together."

"Ok then, I guess we stop Jenner first."

"Right," Kalie said.

I was about to start under the partition, when I heard
Page's voice call my name over the radio.

Pulling it out, I turned down the volume on it, though
turned up the gain on the microphone. "What is it Page?"

"I've got a transmission coming back to use over the
satellite from the outside. They want to talk to the person
in charge here."

"Fuck," I muttered. "We'll have to make it damn quick. Put
who ever it is through."

There was a pause, then a female voice said. "Who am I
speaking to."

"Fox Cutter," I replied. "Who's this?"

"Jenthra Lee," the voice responded. "I'm head of the police
force for the city outside of the Hall. What the hell is
going on in there?"

"You clearly have seen the transmission, so why do you need
to ask?"

"Listen, I'm not in the mood to take any back-talk. Right
now all hell is breaking lose, and I need some answers."

"Well your first answer is you can open folds out again. The
second is that in about twenty seconds the doors to the Hall
will open. Get you're forces to the HammerHeads base in
here, and down to the communication center, they will
probably be under attack by then."

There was a pause. "Why should I listen to you?"

"Because, you have no choice. Now I'm up to my neck in all
this, so I don't have time to talk. But you have to get a
force IN here, and you also need to get the truth out
there."

"The truth is already out."

Somewhere in the room, I heard someone hell. "Holly shit!
Boss, you have to see this!"

I grinned, apparently the media was already re-broadcasting
are re-broadcast of the Council Session. "So I noticed."

"I just got a report that the doors are open, we're moving
in now." Jenthra said over the radio.

"Good, if you need anything more, talk to Page, I already
have enough to deal with. Fox out." With I stuffed the radio
back into my jacket.

Kalie looked at me. I gave her a nod, then started crawling.

It took about five minutes to go the fifty we needed, much
faster then I had expected, but most everyone was acting
panicked on the other side of the room. I was crouched about
five feet from the door to Jenner's office, ready to make a
quick run to the door, and then inside. I didn't expect to
see the door fly open.

Diving back into the cubicle, I saw Jenner march pasted, not
even noticing me. "What the hell is going on?" He called out
into the room.

There was a pause, as I assumed he was seeing the broadcast
from outside of the Hall. Quickly I motioned to the others,
and ran over to the door, diving into the office.

I pull the door until it was almost closed, though still
watching. I could see Jenner down the room, looking at one
of the screens. "Damn it, where the hell is this coming
from? I though all the communication lines out of the Hall
where cut?"

"They are sir," someone I couldn't see responded. "They must
be using the dish."

He turned and looked at who ever spoke. "How can they do
that unless..." He paused for a second. "Get a battalion of
guards down to the communications center, they have to be
transmitting from there."

As I watched another voice spoke up. "Sir, the guards on the
second level are reporting that a force from the outside has
entered the Hall. And we also got a message from the control
room that someone had forced there way in, we already have a
force of guards sent to take it back."

Jenner slowly turned to the second speaker. "It's to late
for that now, isn't it." He paused. "I want that control
room, now! It may be the only way to salvage this
situation."

He then turned, and stomped off somewhere else in the room.
Slowly I pulled the door closed, and looked at Kalie and
Oria. "Now we wait." I said, leaning back against the wall.

Kalie and Oria did the same, and all in a position so he
wouldn't see as when he came back into the office.

Things where going according to plan.

* * *

I winched as I heard a plasma bolt slam into the door into
the control room.

Marn heard it to, and moved over next to me. "That door
won't last a minute."

I nodded, "So, what do we do?"

He looked at me, then shook his head. "We get out of the
way." He explained. Then grabbing my arm, he pulled me over
to where he had the kid tied up at.

Flipping over one of the few tables in the room, he position
it in front of us. Getting down, he said. "You stay down
here, let me handle this."

Before I could responded, then was a loud exposition as the
door exploded inwards into the room.

Instantly Marn was kneeling, head and shoulders above the
edge of the table, carefully shooting at the guards. He was
making sure to hit his mark, as he only had what was in the
gun, and I doubted that was very much.

As he took another shot, he used his free paw to pull of the
wrist-com. Throwing it down to me, he said. "Get help."

I nodded, activating it. "Page, I don't suppose you could
get some of the force from outside around here." I asked,
knowing about Fox's conversation, as it was transmitted over
the wrist-com as well as to Fox's radio.

"I'll tell them." Page said.

"Thanks." I said, deactivating the wrist-com.

As I did that, Marn dropped down. "Handing me the gun Kalie
gave him, he pulled out a plasma gun from one of his other
pockets.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"From the kid." He explained. "Now you sit here while I go
get more." Then with a quick grin, he rolled out from behind
the the table and started shooting again.

I looked around the edge, and watched him as he moved. He
was moving erratically, but gaining on one of the fallen
guards. I was surprised that the the three guards squeezed
into the doorway where all missing him.

Finally one of the guards pushed his way into the room, and
Marn instantly nailed him in the chest with a plasma bolt.
As the guard fell joined the three other bodies on the
floor, I understood why they where all staying in the
doorway.

As Marn got closer to the bodies, he started firing at the
door in rapped succession. The guards that where there dived
out of the way. Before the could recover he was picking up
the guns from the fallen guards.

With a final blast, he fried out the door again. Then turned
and ran to the table, getting behind it just as a blast went
over are heads.

Picking up a new gun, he moved back up over the table and
started shooting again.

"Who exactly are you again?" I asked him.

He grinned. "My name is Marn."

"Yes, but Marn who?"

He chuckled, taking a few more shots. "Wouldn't you just
love to know?"

I growled, getting the feeling that I've meet this guy many
years before, but I couldn't place him at all.

Suddenly there was a series of plasma bolts, they sounded
like they all come from outside of the room. Marn stood and
let out a loud 'woop'. "Nice timing you guys." He said. "You
can stand up Ken."

Slowly I stood, standing just inside the room, over the
bodies of the guards, was five people, covered in what
looked like half a foot of armor plating. One looked at me,
then pulled of his helmet. "I take it you are the two we
where sent to safe?"

I nodded.

The guard looked around. "Three minutes later, and you would
have saved yourselves."

Marn shrugged. "I doubt that, they learned quick enough that
if they come in, they die. They where just going to get me
to waste everything I had, then come in and take us out."

I sat back against the wall, and rolled my eyes. I hopped
the others where having a better time of it then I had just
had.

* * *

I waited, pressed up against the wall of Jenner's office. It
had been ten minutes sense we had come in, and Jenner hadn't
returned. I was hoping I hadn't guess wrong in assume his
planed escape route was through his office.

So far everything had gone according to plan. I had just
finished talking to Page who had told me that Ken and Marn
where safe, and the police force from outside had reached
the communications center already. So now we where the only
ones left with anything more to do.

Personally, I was surprised that it had gone so well. I
expect some injuries though all this, but so far, everyone
of are group had escaped unscathed.

Just as I was thinking this, I heard an explosion though the
wall. "They must be here." I whispered.

Kalie nodded, and Oria looked a bit off color, I wasn't sure
how she was going to hold up in this, I was wondering if
maybe I should have left her in the commutations center.

I was about ready to call it quits, and assume Jenner had
found another way out, when the office door flew open, and
he burst into his office.

The suit he had been wearing was singed in places, and the
skin of his arm looked like it caught the edge of a plasma
bolt, as it was severely burned, and covered with blood.

Shutting the door behind himself, he ran over to his desk,
looking at the floor, not noticing us. "How the hell did
they get in." He asked under his breath.

I took a step forward. "My guess is someone opened the
door."

He slowly looked up from his desk. "Cutter," he spat out.
"How the hell did you get back here?"

I grinned. "Oh, you know, the same way I always do."

He smashes his fist onto the desk. "Yes, the way you always
do! You always find a way out, or get rescued, or something!
How the hell do you do it!"

"Luck is my guess." Kalie said, her gun pointing right at
Jenner. I pulled mine out as well, holding it in his general
direction. Oria was still where she had been standing, the
inside of her ear's pail. I could easily tell she was
scared. Probably as much as I was, if not more.

He stood behind his desk, glaring at us. "Now I wish I had
keep your friend around."

I raised an eyebrow. "Grasion? Let me guess, he didn't like
your style of running this?"

He gave me a half smile. "Of course. Though his style was to
remove me first, so I removed him."

"You killed him?" Oria said, I was surprised she said
anything.

He laughed. "No, I just drugged him and sent him through the
fold to someplace a bit more convenient. He's to useful to
just kill."

"That's how Ken got back here." Kalie said.

"Oh yes, there was always that risk." He grinned. "But I was
willing to take it."

I took another step forward, still holding the gun, but
pushing the safety off with my thumb. "I really think we
should stop the chit-chat. There is a police force outside,
and we're in here. You're not getting away."

He chuckled. "Oh Fox, you know me better then that." Then he
hit something on his desk. There was a soft explosion, and
the room was suddenly filled with a cloud of dark smoke.

Next to me I heard Kalie fire off two shots. The same
instant a muffled scream came from Oriana. I moved over to
where she was, only to find wall. "Damn!" I yelled.

The smoke was starting to clear out of the room, and into
the air vents. As it cleared I could see Kalie a few feet
from me.

"I think I found where he went." She said, pulling down some
kind of tapestry from the wall. Behind it was clearly a
door.

She looked over it, and the control panel next to it.
"Scanner panel, just have to shoot it and the damn thing
will open." With a grin she raised her gun up, there was a
quick flash, and some kind of shutter closed over the panel.

"Shit!" she yelled. Lowering her gun. As she did the cover
opened again.

"What was that?" I asked, moving next to her.

She grumbled. "The damn thing is a smart panel, if it sees
anything that could be destructive aimed it, it closes."

Raising my gun, I watched it close. Then opened again as I
lowered it. Placing my left hand over it, I raised my gun
again. "It's not closed."

"Yes, it can't see the gun, but what are you going to do,
shoot your hand?"

"Yes." I said, then pushing the gun against the back of my
hand, fired it twice. I felt the bullets rip though the
bones of my hand, and into the panel under it. Pulled it
back, I winched.

"Fox!" Kalie said.

"It's a prosthetic." I said, finding that it had shut down
with the palm open, and thankfully had stopped the pain.
"Get the door open."

Kalie grabbed the door, and quickly pulled it open. We where
about a minute behind Jenner and Oriana.

Behind the door was a long hallway, at the end Oria was on
the floor, rubbing her head, behind her a pair of doors
where closing.

Running down the hall, I bent down next to Oriana. "Are you
ok?" I asked her.

She nodded. "I'm fine, he grabbed me, that's all."

I nodded. "Kalie, can you get those doors open?"

She didn't say anything, she just grabbed the doors, and
started pulling apart. They easily slide back into the wall,
reveling an elevator shaft.

"Damn." I said, looking inside. The car was below us, and
slowly descending. The only way I could see it was the
flashing lights. The shaft it's self was made for four cars,
and was large.

I looked at Kalie. "Thirty feet would you say?"

She nodded. "Fox, what are you thinking."

"I'm thinking you should get the guards." Then with a deep
breath, and a pray, I jumped into the shaft.

It was a quicker fall then I expected, I hardly had a chance
to see the roof of the elevator come up to meet my, before I
had smashes into it the trap door on the top of the car,
forcing it open with my weight, and falling into the
elevator car it's self.

As I landed, I felt a sharp crack in my right leg as it
broke from the fall. Above me I watch the lights on top of
the car swing away, and smash into the side.

Jenner started at me, then in one move, lunged hard,
grabbing me around the neck, smashing me against the wall.
"Damn you!" he yelled, slamming my head back against the
second set of doors in the car.

With my good hand, I tried to reach for the gun, which had
been knocked from me when I landed. As I tried for that, he
pulled my head back, and smashed it into the elevators
control panel. Sparks flew around around my head, and I felt
blood start to run down the back of my neck.

He smashed me back again, screaming at me. "I'm sick of you
getting in the way of my plans! It ends now!"

Holding me against the panel with one hand, he reached over,
and slowly pulled open the elevator door. I could feel the
cold air blowing into the car from the shaft.

He pulled me over a foot, and pushed my head out of the car.
"This time you WILL die!"

I was trapped, and I knew it. The chances of me getting out
of this alive where slime, but I had no choice. Grabbing his
burt and bloodied arm with my good hand, I shoved my
destroyed prosthetic into the fallen lights.

It didn't work exactly as I expected, but it still worked. I
felt the power surge through my body, and into Jenner's as
well. He started violently shaking, and his grip on my neck
loosened.

I pulled my left hand out of the lights, and punched him
hard into the gut sending him back a bit. I sent a second
punched into his face, then pushed him off onto the floor.

Rolling over him, I moved into the corner. In the process
finding where the gun had landed. Picking it up, I aimed it
and Jenner. "Are you so sure about that?"

I looked up at me, blood running from his mouth and nose.
"Yes!" he yelled, and lunged at me. Instantly I fired it at
him, missing him competently.

He pulled at the gun, forcing it away from both of us. Then
he brought his fist down onto my leg, right where it had
broken.

I let out a howl of pain, as he pulled me forward, towards
the open door of the car. "This is the end for you!" he
yelled in my face, and stared force me out of the car.

Through the blur of pain in my mind, I did the only thing I
could think of, I brought my left keen up hard into his
crotch.

He let out a howl of pain, and buckled over on top of me. I
felt my self start to slid backwards into the shaft. I
scrambled with my good hand, grabbing onto the lip of the
car door.

It was barely enough to hold me weight as both Jenner and I
fell over the side of the car. I swung around sideways
nearly ripping my arm out of it's socket, but Jenner didn't
have that much luck. He fell pasted me down into the shaft.

I started to swing in the open air, the car had stopped some
time during are fight, and I had no idea how far away help
was.

My grip wasn't that strong either, and was getting weaker by
the second. There was no way that I was going to be able to
get into the car with out any help.

Looking down at the darkness below me, I was kind of glad I
wasn't afraid of heights. I shook my head as I felt my grip
slip even more.

Closing my eyes, my arm felt like it was on fire. I was sure
I was about to die.

Then in true movie style drama, just as my hand was about to
slip off and I was to fall to my death. I felt a strong hand
wrap around my upper arm.

Looking up, I saw someone in police armor holding onto me.
With out saying anything, I raised my left arm

The person grabbed my other arm, and with a massive heave,
pulled my partway into the car. Scrambling a bit, I worked
myself the rest of the way in. "Thanks, but do you think
could have cut it any closer."

The person in the armorer pulled of there helmet, to revile
that she was a rather pretty looking female human. "I could
lower you back down and we could try again."

I shook my head. "I don't think that will be needed. You're
Jenthra Lee I take it."

She nodded. "Come on, lets get you back up there."

"That would be a good idea."

* * *

I stood next to Kalie, watching the police force arrest the
last few remaining HammerHeads. "We did it." I said in
wonder.

Kalie nodded. "We did, didn't we?"

"Excuse me?" One of the police asked, stopping in front of
us.

"Yes." Kalie said.

"We found somebody."

"Rathal." I whispered.

"Where is he?" Kalie asked.

The guard nodded. "Over there," he said, point to an open
door, leading into a dark room.

I started running, moving past a few of the guards, finally
arriving where the guard had pointed.

In the light from the outside room, I could see Rathal. It
wasn't pretty. He had been severely beaten, and tortured,
and was covered in blood. I had to look away, there was a
lot more that I saw, but I never want to remember it.

"Thal?" I said.

I heard him cough. "Oriana?" I heard the elf whisper.

I nodded, moving next to him, but keeping my eyes closed.
"You can call me Oria if you want."

I heard him try and chuckle. "We won I take it."

"Yes, we won."

He coughed again. "Good."

"Oh my." I heard Fox say behind me. Looking back, I saw him
walking with the aid of the of the police officers, he was
batter, and had blood all over his clothing. "Thal?" he
said.

I heard 'Thal try and chuckle again. "Fox, you did it."

"Yes." he said.

"I told you, you where in this up to your neck."

"It's over though. Jenner's dead."

I heard Rathal cough again. "Good." He said, almost a
whisper. "Very good." I heard him take in a ragged breath,
and then nothing.

Kalie walked pasted me, and bent down next to 'Thal. I
assume she was checking his pulse, as I was till looking at
Fox.

Kalie spoke, her voice very somber. "He's dead."

Fox slowly nodded. "It is done." He whispered. Then
collapsed against the police officer that was holding him
up.

Slowly she lowered him to the ground, moving him away from
the. I ran out next to him. "Is he ok?" I asked.

The officer nodded her head. "He's just pasted out from the
pain."

I gently placed my paw on his face. "Good, let him get some
rest, he's earned it."