Chapter Fifty-Three

The Investigators

Cris and Gerald pass by Evan’s Home a few times before driving up to the gate. With their thermal monocular they can see the fuzzy indications of at least five people through the walls. Three of them appear to be laying down upstairs and two are sitting downstairs in the living room. Since the property is gated, they can’t just drive on in unannounced. Gerald shrugs at Cris and pulls his phone out. He holds Evan’s business card out in front of himself and dials the number.

“I’m just gonna call the guy, see if he picks up.”

Cris noses the car up to the gate and puts it in park. “Good luck.” He watches one of the heat signatures sit forward to take their phone out of their back pocket and look at it. “Looks like they’ve picked the phone up, did they answer?”

Evan looks at the caller’s number for a few seconds. It’s local, but he doesn’t recognize it. “This is Evan. May I ask who this is?”

“This is investigator Gerald Curry. My partner Cris Freneaux and I are working on a rash of supposed robot-involved murders of late. I was hoping you might be able to answer a few questions for us.”

Evan stands up and waves Mikel over to him before putting the phone on speaker. “Alright gentlemen, I’ll see what I can do. What can I help you with?”

“For starters, how about you open up your front gate. We believe it would be best if these issues are sorted out in person. Now, we can keep this gathering small and quiet, or I can bring a bunch of my friends and make it a party. Whatta ya think? Oh, and we do know that all your pals are in there, so how about everyone just stays put, ok?”

Cris watches Evan turn to the man sitting near him and put his other hand over the phone. Gerald connects his phone to their console computer and runs the sound through a signal conditioner so that they can still pick up what they’re saying on the other end.

“Sounds like they know you’re all here. It’s just the two of them out there, but they sound like they would rather keep things quiet if they can.”

“Well, they’re here, they found us. Might as well get it over with. I don’t want to drag Clarice through any more than I already have. I guess this is the end of the road, huh.”

When the big gate opens, they drive in and step out of the vehicle with their rifles in hand. They recognize Evan when he greets them out in the driveway. He keeps his hands out and away from his side while they approach him. Even though he looks quite harmless, they keep their rifles shouldered as they scope the place out.

“Are there any robots in the house?”

“Robots? Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

Gerald is not in the mood for any silly business at the moment. “Robots, fuckin’ mechanical beings, dude! Are there any in the house?”

As Evan slowly climbs the steps up to the front door, one at a time, he looks back at them. “Three, there are three of them among us.”

When they enter the house, Mikel is causally sitting in one of the recliner chairs in the living room, waiting for them. Evan motions for them to sit down across from the two of them and leans in towards the group with his elbows on his knees.

“The girls are all asleep upstairs. No one else knows you’re here yet, so please don’t shoot anyone if they happen to come downstairs. No one here means you any harm.”

Mikel hates cops, even more than rats. He would almost rather a couple dozen of them show up to take him in than just two. It’s shameful. He hates how two of them think they can just walk in and expect them to all give up without any resistance. They think they can intimidate all of them like a couple of thugs.

“You’ll get what you came for, so long as everyone stays classy.”

Gerald is already wanting to stomp Mikel’s ass, just for the way he looks, but Cris is asking him to keep cool with that look of his. “We do intend to keep things civil, so long as you let us. We don’t need to cause any more damage than what’s already been done. Now…”

Before they have the chance to start in with their questions, Mikel interrupts them in his usual loud voice and continues with what he wants to say.

“Here’s how things are going to go, officers, if you want anything out of us at all. You’re going to let us tell you how things actually went, from start to finish, and without interrupting. Then… you can ask your questions. We can even do it all separately if you want. All you’ll get is the truth.”

“Cris sits back on the couch and holds his upright palm out towards Gerald, but for the whole group. He’s already annoyed, but he’s doing his very best to not make things worse. “Whatever, but I’ll have to record you if it’s gonna be a whole damn thing.”

Even with Cris being as accommodating as he is, Mikel is still being kind of an ass. “Not if you want all of the good stuff you’re not.”

He starts the beginning of his story with when the prototypes showed up, and how he and Ray used to treat them like shit. He leans to the side a little, to look around Cris and up the stairs. His voice gets a lot quieter.

“Me ‘n Ray hated em for what they were, the first of what we were sure would become a new order that would wipe us all out. They looked like us, talked like us, and even acted like us. They had real emotions, and that’s how we hurt them.”

Both of the investigators look at one another, clearly on the hook with curiosity. Evan sits back with his arms folded in front of him and is obviously upset. He didn’t know about any of this. “That’s just awful, Mikel. What the hell did you do to those girls?”

“Well, for starters, we tormented and shamed Five-One in ways that I will not repeat. Then we murdered her.”

Cris scoots forward in his seat and almost interrupts. When Mikel’s eyes dart over to him, he sighs and flicks his hand at him. “Fine! Go on then.”

“So yeah, we gunned her down out on the street and we were gonna do the same thing to Five-Two. Somewhere in-between, Five met Aaron, the guy who ended up being Valerie’s boyfriend. He figured out what was going on and told Five to stand up for herself.”

A big grin forms on Evan’s face and then he quietly laughs to himself. He can’t help himself but tell that part. “When Ray accosted her, she broke his arm right in half. That’s pretty much when she learned that she had a life of her own.”

Over the span of an hour, Mikel goes through Marco’s involvement, his kidnapping of Five, Arma killing Ray, and how there ended up being a third one being made. By the time he and Evan get to the part where Valerie gets kidnapped and what it took to rescue her, Cris is hunched over, staring at the floor. He is focused and listening carefully while he runs his hands over his shaved head.

Gerald has been pretending to be bored and messes with his phone every once in a while as if this is the same-ol story everyone barfs up day-to-day. Neither he nor Cris bothers asking any of the questions they were saving up. Things have gone well past the point of their prior curiosities. Even though Mikel’s story was pretty raw, he is still able to find some amusement in all that’s happened. When he turns to Cris, he is smiling, of all things.

“Well, by the book, I don’t see how any of them are even worth bringing in. We’re way past that point. I think, what, maybe Clarice is the only one that wouldn’t serve a bunch of time.”

“By the letter of the law? They have crossed so many lines, they can’t all be counted.”

Evan interjects worriedly. “Past the point of bringing in? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” They completely ignore him.

Gerald pulls his rifle across his lap, a little closer to himself. “Things will have to be… simplified.”

Cris finally addresses Mikel. He looks at him rather untrustworthily and then half glances back over to Evan. “None of you can share any of this with anyone else, other police, no one… ever. Handling this is going to take some serious and specific judgment. Spreading this shit around will go about as well as…”

Gerald finishes his sentence. “Spreading actual shit around. Do not make this difficult, and do not piss us off. We have more than enough authority and evidence to just smoke all of you right here. So just don’t.”

A random shadow flits across the floor in front of Mikel while they’re talking to him. Both of them swing their rifles around the room and then up to the second floor, trying to find where it came from. Gerald holds his sights on Aaron, who is standing at the top of the stairs. “There’s the big ass son of a bitch. You stay right there dude!”

Aaron stares down at them and thumps the bottom of his fist against the wall next to him to wake the others up. The vibration carries through the entire house. “We have company.”

Arma is the first of the others to come up behind him in the hall, Alexis is soon after, then Five and Clarice behind her. Valerie only cracks her door and peeks down the hall to see what’s going on. Aaron looks back at her and holds his hand out with his palm face down. His voice is quiet and calm towards her. “Get dressed and just stay put, sweetie.” Clarice can tell something big is going on and rushes into her sister’s room to be with her.

When Mikel stands up, Gerald does too. “What’s goin’ on?” No one answers him but everyone else is carefully listening for something.

Aaron speaks to the investigators while he’s looking out the window. “You guys should probably prepare yourselves to stand your ground.”

“What the hell does it look like we're doing!” Both he and Cris have their rifles and ghostly holographic combat sights activated. Neither their heads nor even their eyes move. It’s as if they have been glued to their guns and can only look down the lengths of them.

Evan’s eyes are as big as saucers as he scoots around, looking for things to defend themselves with. The best he can do is find a big antique meat cleaver and some other large knives from the kitchen. The muffled sound of breaking glass comes from within the garage and Gerald moves to go check it out while Cris stays to keep watch over the others. There’s only a short spell of commotion in there after he closes the door behind him. Everyone’s eyes go wide when they hear some crashing around and then some yelling.

“Get on the ground mutherfucker! Now! Do …not… move!”

A minute later he returns with a derelict in handcuffs and carelessly throws him down on the floor in front of them. “You’ve got a rat problem in your garage, Evan.” He’s surprised when no one laughs, but the level of tension in the room does drop off completely.

Aaron shakes his head at Marek when he looks down at him. “What the hell are you doing here, stupid?” He pauses and looks at the investigators suspiciously, then back to Marek. “And how did you find us?”

“I am here for Alexis, where is she? What’d you do to her? I swear if you’ve turned her into a robot too, I’ll…”

“How did you find us!” Everyone startles upright at the sound of his monstrous growl. It makes Marek almost shit his pants, even from across the room. The last time Aaron yelled like that, a lot of people died.

“The fat guy, Gabriel! The guy from Werker, he’s the one we’ve been getting all our information from! He knew you’d be here, so I made him bring me.”

The expression on Aaron’s face goes from a fierce outrage, to complete disappointed disgust. Everyone is looking at him. They all look to his hands when they hear a creak come from his fists tightening up. “I fuckin swear to god…”

At the mention of her name, Alexis shoves her way to the edge of the upstairs railing, to see who it is. “Marek! You’re here?” She stalls and almost turns to run when she sees two investigators with rifles pointed at her. Her head is shaking, and she knows it’s all over now. Her eyes well up as she looks down and lets out a forlorn, drawn-out “noooo.”

Gerald grabs Marek’s handcuffs and yanks him over into one of the lounge chairs next to him. Cris sits down again. “Alright, you little shit, start from the beginning. Tell us everything.”

Marek sits quietly, giving the two of them the impression that he’s waiting for something. The two of them see this bullshit all the time. The rat wants something in return, they always do. Vagrants don’t play by any rules and they’re not easily intimidated.

“Just tell you everything? Ha!”

Just before Gerald rifle butts Marek in the ear, Cris raises his hand, signaling him to hold off. Marek looks up behind him to see what was about to happen. He knows he has no civil rights, especially in the presence of investigators. Gerald makes the kind of gesture of un-cuffing him, but still keeps his rifle closely aimed at his head.

“This is about as nice as we’re gonna get, bud.”

Marek looks up to Alexis and then back to Cris. “Fine, but the only way you’re gonna get me to talk is if you promise, no matter what, she goes free. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She didn’t do anything.”

“Go on then.”

Just as Marek settles in, to tell them his side of the story, a huge crashing sound comes from the far end of the house. It’s the sound of one of the heavy oak doors being kicked in right off its hinges and slamming down on the floor. A heavy thumping noise starts closing in on them right away. Mikel immediately panics.

“Aw, fuck!” he starts dodging about left and right, not sure which direction to escape in.

Arma yanks the heavy tungsten alloy knife out of its sheath around her waist and stands at the edge of the loft railing. “There’s more than one of them!”

By the sound of the stampede coming in through the back rooms, they expect there to be up to four or even five of them. Another door from the adjacent den is launched right off its hinges into the living room. Like Mikel, Five is on the verge of a meltdown too. She is making panicked noises and poises herself in a crouch, ready to bolt. Evan staggers over to the base of the stairs, yells her name and tosses the big cleaver up high to her. She instinctively catches it by the handle as it flips through the air at her.

Arma clanks her knife against hers and gives her an encouraging nod. “He’s gonna feel it a little more this time around.”

Aaron grabs hold of the railing and leans forward to look down below. He has no idea what’s going on. “Evan, is there a safe place for the girls to hunker down, can you get to them?”

While Evan is scrambling up the bottom stairs, the first dark body is charging into the living room. Paul has a big double-bladed ax and is already swinging it. Cris freezes for only a second, stunned by the speed of the thing blasting into the room. Gerald is already going at it, belting out half a magazine of rounds as fast as he can pull the trigger. Muzzle flashes light up Paul’s glossy black skin, flashing white and yellow.

A string of bullets land in the robot’s thigh and up one side of its waist. Even though it’s movement is immediately disrupted by the damage, It’s momentum is already too great to be stopped. It goes down, slamming into Marek and the chair he’s still in, sending him end over end. The two of them spill out onto the floor and slide to a stop.

Within only two long strides Cris stands over the first black robot and points his rifle down at it. Before he finishes shouting “stop” a big arm and ax sweep around at his legs. Luckily he is standing close enough that his right calf stops the handle of the ax before the blade cuts his other boot and ankle in half. He is still knocked down, landing back on his shoulders. While everyone is reacting to the first, the second and third Pauls barge in.

An explosion from outside the house catches everyone in the room off guard. A ball of fire and black smoke rises into the early night where Cris had parked their cruiser. The walls and everyone inside look all the same bathed in the warm orange light. A second later, the car falls to the ground, upside down in flames. There’s a huge mob of rioters outside, spilling in over the walls of the property.

Cris kicks away from Paul, scooting himself across the floor and up against the wall. He tries to call out on his radio, but he’s not even given a chance. The second Paul with the long sword is already closing in on him. Gerald can’t make a shot with Mikel in the way either. Before Cris can get his heavy rifle back on target, Paul is already lunging at him with the tip of the sword. He only just deflects the blade with the side of his rifle while Mikel throws himself against the machine, helping knock it aside.

The hardwood floor and underlying beams give in a wave and nearly break when Aaron, Arma, and Five all jump down into the middle of the room from over the upstairs railing. Aaron immediately targets the injured robot on the floor while Five and Arma block the third one from heading upstairs. Paul wildly swings his ax at them, smashing it through the banister, shelving, and everything else he touches with it.

Five screams and manically hacks at Paul through the air with her cleaver. He’s taken aback by the wild rage she’s lashing out at him with and begins backpedaling away from the stairs. While Five has him distracted, Arma sinisterly stalks forward with her knife, poised for a dangerous strike that she’s already calculated. Paul can hardly keep up with both of their movements going on at the same time. His grotesque exposed eyes dart back and forth between the two of them. They can see that he’s afraid of them now.

When Paul catches a glimpse of smoke billowing in down the hallway behind him, he tries to turn and make a break for it. Just as he turns, Five makes a bold move at him. With her cleaver raised overhead, she leaps for him. From underneath, he takes a desperate swing at her in defense. As Arma screams out “NO” Paul’s ax blade slams in under Five’s jawline. It shaves the meat off of one whole side of her face and sends her reeling into the wall.

With his arms now wide open through the swing, Arma makes her move. With one hand wrapped tightly around the handle and the other driving the butt end of it, she runs the tanto point straight through the front of his core. The stout blade bursts through his battery and even pokes out the back of his body. She pulls back on the knife hard, but it doesn’t come out, the saw teeth are bound up in his flesh.

Paul only gawks at her in shock while she slams her knee against his chest to get the thing free. The impact between the two of them launches him back against the hallway wall and down onto the floor. The last thing he sees before blacking out is her standing over him, so violently hacking away at his body. She has always had such rage and for him most of all.

Fire begins raging down the far end of the hall where the smoke was pouring in. Dozens of rats smash in the windows along the side of the house and start leaping into the rooms from outside. Only a few of them are stupid enough to come directly at Arma. After the first few of them get cleaved and bludgeoned to the ground, the rest retreat back to throw things at her.

When one of them raises a flaming jar of liquid, she turns and runs. The jar strikes her in the back but bounces off her soft muscles. It still breaks open on the floor, engulfing Paul’s body, and sending flames straight up the walls. All she can hear over the roaring flames is dozens of people shouting “They’re in here!” The power goes out just in time for her to escape back into the main room where the others are.

In the living room, Aaron is still on top of the first Paul. They’re wrestling over the big ax he came in with. He has hold of it and is trying to force it down into Paul’s chest. It’s quite difficult for him to fight another robot with the same body as himself. They’re almost at a stalemate but since Paul has already been shot a couple of times, Aaron can gain the upper hand. Paul’s tactical vest and the skin on his chest has been completely shredded to ribbons and flayed out in a mess, but he’s still fighting back strong. All of the reinforced filaments in his skin, muscles, and tissues are incredibly difficult to cut through. The whole thing is an immense struggle.

With each bodily thrust downward Aaron cuts deeper into Paul’s chest, weakening his ability to hold him back. Once his chest and arms are rendered useless, he finishes him off by prying his head off of his body. Cris and Gerald nearly run out of ammunition by the time the one with the sword stops moving. The dark body lays motionless in the corner, looking like something out of a slasher film. Its muscles are peeled outward, and most of the tissue on its skull has been spalled off.

Cris is back up on his feet and tracking blood all over the floor. His calf is not sliced too deeply for him to walk, but he’s clearly hurt. He and Gerald have finally managed to reach out on their radio for help. Their commands for the rats to get out are still going completely unanswered. More and more rioters begin pouring into the room in front of them. With only the quickly growing firelight in the hallway to see by, they are staying wary about storming the living room in the darkness.

Abruptly, a great deal of screaming comes from upstairs. It’s mostly from the rats that’ve ascended the rear staircase, but it’s not only them that are in trouble. Even more, fire starts to erupt on the second floor, shedding light across the ceiling and walls of the living room. As the screaming gets closer, bodies start raining over the upstairs railing and pilling up on the floor down below. Everyone is stunned as they watch Five and Alexis up there, tearing through countless assailants.

When Clarice reaches the top of the stairs and tries to run down, dozens of more rats flood into the room to intercept her. It looks like a giant cauldron of churning human bodies has been dumped in on them. People seem to be flowing in like an avalanche, and some of them are shouting obscenities at her.

“Don’t you be scared, sweetheart, we’re gonna save you for later! We’ll be real nice to ya!”

With fresh magazines loaded, Cris and Gerald’s rifles bark out fire and lead into the whole mass of people swarming in at them. It seems like, for every muzzle flash that lights up the dark room, there are new heaps of bodies stacking up on the floor.

Having been overrun, Alexis leaps over the railing in a cannonball onto the pile of bodies below. After crawling across the dead, she scrambles on all fours to the door of the garage. Realizing Valerie is still up there, Aaron runs for the stairs, calling out for her. Without any ammo left, the investigators can’t do anything to stop the river of crazies that turn for him. Even his chilling yells are muffled by the mountain they’re forming on top of him.

A skin-crawling sound of what seems to be the mix of a cry and a scream is now coming from the loft. A grizzly sight steps out of the flames that are consuming the second floor. Five’s skin and muscles are peeling apart in flames while she drags an unconscious Valerie as best as she can behind her.

With all the strength she has left in her failing body, she hurls her down the stairs towards Mikel and Marek. They catch her as she tumbles to the bottom and pull her away. Five leaps over the edge onto the swarm of people that are burying Aaron. They all scream in pain as her molten polymer flesh sheds off on everyone she touches. Bodies spill across the floor in a breaking wave to get away from her, helping Aaron smash his way back out from under the heap. After frantically elbowing and hammering people everywhere around him, he finally breaks free. His face and bald head and arms are covered red in blood.

He grabs hold of Five, who is now only smoldering on the floor and throws her over his shoulder. He charges the garage fire door and blows it down with his shoulder on the way through as if it were only made of balsa. The rest of the group scurries through the doorway after him. Inside, he shouts at Runner, commanding it to get out of the back of the truck.

Every time someone tries to run in through the doorway after them, Marek drops them with one of the big axes he picked up. He can’t believe he is murdering his people for the very robots he was meant to capture, but he can’t stop now. They’re all in such a frenzy, they’ll tear him apart right along with the others if he does.

Mikel fires up his truck, puts it in four-high, and keeps the turbo spooled high. Three of them jump in the front and four in the back of the cab, leaving no room left inside. Arma has to pull Five up into the bed with herself where she lays down and wraps around her. Aaron slams on the side of the truck and shouts at Mikel

“Get ‘em the hell out of here! Go!”

“I’ll head to Ray’s place. I don’t know where else to go!”

The truck barrels through the garage door in reverse, wrapping the whole thing around the back of the truck. Everyone inside can hear the heavy thumping sounds of bodies bouncing off of the garage door as they use it to plow through the throng outside.

Unable to see exactly where he’s going, Mikel slams on the brakes, launching the door farther out into the crowd behind them. When they look back, the thing is on fire and still leaning up against what is sure to be a large pile of rioters. With a clear path in front of them, he rolls smoke off all four tires, whipping it around towards the driveway gate. The rioters are smart enough to flee the second time around, but the rest of the truck’s windows get broken in by things being thrown at them on their way through the gate.

Aaron commands Runner to tear apart everyone still within the property walls, and as quickly as it can. He picks up the ax that Marek had thrown down on the floor and stands there for a moment trying to focus his mind on what he has to do. He is so completely overtaken by such an extreme rage now, he can hardly think for himself. All he wants to do is rip people apart until there are none left.

When someone barges in after him from the living room, he grabs hold of them around their collarbone, crushing it. With every bit of strength he has he body-slams them into the spare fridge in the garage. The whole thing tips over, sending cans of cold beer skitter across the floor.

Feeling the heat inside him and that feeling of warning nagging at him, a flash of memory comes across his mind. He remembers that he’s supposed to drink if he gets hot. He feels hot. He grabs a couple of the beers and crushes them open in his hands over his face. He downs as much as he can until foam starts pouring back up out of his mouth.

Trying to regain a sliver of his rational mind, he thinks of Valerie and how much he loves her. If the rats kill him now, he’ll have to start all over from when he was first woken. He wonders if he would ever find his way back to her again and he thinks about how they tried to rape her.

“It’s time to finish this.”

Runner blasts out ahead of him and immediately goes for the closest group of people charging toward the garage. The first two that get hammered by its claws are torn into badly and flung across the yard. There are so many rioters running around, it works as hard as it can to keep up with them all. In a spinning fury, it mauls people like a bear, swatting at them, stomping them on the ground, and ripping entire limbs off. The machine has no idea what atrocities it’s committing. It’s simply doing as Aaron had instructed it to.

After what the rioters have done to his family, Aaron is boiling over with more hate than what is even humanly possible. His every move and thought are drenched with rage. He can feel his very mind distorting, to support such savagery. He can sense the compassion that he once had slipping away into a darkness where it will not return from. He barges out into the mob of people still amassed out in the driveway.

Each swing of his ax takes down multiple attackers at once. Like inside the house, he can feel his frame loading up with the force he’s unleashing into everyone he contacts. Their breaking skeletons give way to his every movement. Each time he crashes into someone, he can hear the snapping and popping of their body giving way. Spitefully, he keeps going. As long as they keep coming, he will keep taking them down. One way or another, it will all end.

Eventually, the clamor of screaming and howling changes. It’s not the sound of a fight anymore at all. When there are no longer any more people left within reach, he slows down and looks out across the whole of Evan’s property. Everyone is either fleeing through the front gates or not moving at all.

When he looks at the carnage around him, he starts to realize what he’s doing, and how bad it’s gotten. He stops and tries to bring his mind back from the abyss of chaos he’s been free-falling through. It feels as if he might burn to the ground with so much anger. That alarming feeling in the back of his mind is now very serious.

Steam from the blood all over him is pouring off of his skin into the cold night air. When he looks around himself, and back to the house, only dead and wounded are still there. The ground at his feet has become sticky with blood. Everything has gone horribly still.

When Runner comes scampering back to him like a happy dog, two terrified youngsters at his feet start to wail, begging to be spared. He looks down at them with a scowl. Neither of them is out of their teens yet and one of them is laboring to just breathe while the other is holding him in his arms. Both of them are covered in blood. A good portion of one’s scalp is torn open and his nose is badly broken.

It tears at him to see them in such a way and an image of their faces, while he was attacking them, flits across his memory. Even though he feels terrible, unquenchable anger still stirs in him, and he snarls at them.

“What? What the fuck are you doing here! Thought you were gonna tear down the machine, have a wild night, show the world that you exist! Did you think you were going to make some kind of a point in showing up here tonight?”

When he leans down over them intimidatingly, they whimper and look away. “Nooo, don’t, please.”

He wonders what they might’ve done if they knew they were going to get away with it. “Would you’ve raped and murdered my friends if I hadn’t been here? Is that what you came for, a good-ol’ time? What the fuck did you think you were gonna do here… HUH?”

The two both cringe and start to bawl again, knowing it’s going to be the end for them. He looks at the black bandannas hanging from their necks, soaked in their blood and it makes him want to rip their little heads off. He wonders what could’ve possibly been going through their little rat brains. He can’t fathom just what a stupid, stupid attempt this was for them to change their lives for the better.

Their crying is increasing, making him continue to feel like a complete monster. They’re so scared, they can’t even open their eyes. Their arms are over their faces and they’re scraping on the ground, trying to inch away from him. He looks around at everyone else who is doing the same thing and throws his ax away out into the darkness. He listens to it clatter across the paved driveway while he watches the ground itself move with wounded bodies everywhere. He speaks sternly, and loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Go home and never come back.”

With a sad face of his own, he climbs up onto runner and canters it out onto the street. Riot officers are still in the distance, trying to clear a path for the fire department through all the fleeing people. He is too upset to take Runner fast at all this time around. He only walks it through the darkness of the park without anywhere in mind to go. The nauseous feeling of having a low battery has him worried about where he can even go.

After wandering down a couple more dark alleyways, he stops at an unexpected sight. There is a big white Werker van parked right in the middle, blocking his way. When he dismounts and opens the double doors in the back there’s a chubby guy with shoulder-length curly red hair tied up in the back. There’s no one anywhere else in sight.

At the sight of Aaron, covered in blood, the man starts trying to scream through the gag wrapped around his face. He is squirming enough to likely hurt themselves so he reels him out of the back, dumping him out into the alley. Unintentionally, the back of the guy’s head hits the pavement when he lands on the ground, knocking him out. Even though the man is obviously not a rat, he has no intention of rescuing him. The most he’s willing to do is free him of his restraints and roll him over out of the way. He loads Runner into the back of the van and drives away.