"Caught him again, trying to escape while the camera in his room malfanctioned, we really have to repair it, it's becoming worse and worse, we can't even trust what it's showing now"

The guard at the cameras exclaimed.

"At least he'll be sleeping for a long time now that the doctor has tranquilised him"

Another guard said as they saw the face down person sleeping in his room, wearing a strait jacket. He had tried to escape thrice already, every time the camera would mulfanction, but to their good fortune the second camera, all the way down the hall was still fine, since it was difficult for Chris to hack it, since it was too far away.

-It's a good thing the doctor didn't have any problem with him

-You saw him leave and he even smiled at us while he was leaving

-Wasn't he a bit too young to be a doctor?

-Don't know maybe I've seen too many medical drama on TV, but he seemed fine to me

-Should we look into this?

-If you want to wake him up, be my guest, he might have another one or two escapes left in him

-Whatever...

Chris at the time had escaped disguised as a doctor, the personel of the facility disregarded him, since he didn't distract them from what they were doing and since it was early in the morning they had a lot of work to do.

Only thing that gave him away would be him being too handsome, but he was wearing a doctor's robe like themselves, maybe he was new, but he seemed to be in a hurry as he passed the corridors towards the exit, as if he knew the place inside out, from time to time listening to his cheap wrist watch as if it was broken.

At the hotel there was a slight unrest created by a car getting stolen by Tian, George and Xiao. What followed however was two other vehicles getting stolen and all the foreigners escaping, it would probably take an hour or more for the police forces to find them and the chase to begin, the most however confusing thing was that all three vehicles took different roads.

David and Christin were the first to arrive at the destination, they stopped farther away and went on foot to their destination.

"Is Rachel Keller inside?"

They asked at the door.

"Who is it so early in the morning?"

She asked still half asleep.

"Aren't you the mother of Aidan?"

This was a risky move, but David would take it non the less.

-Are you fron his school?

-No, we're from parenting control, tasked to see if there's been house abuse or not

-Those busibody teachers, come right up...

With a ring the door opened and before long they were inside holding her and her son hostages.

=Objective No 2 - Keep Aidan hostage for 48 hours=

The others who were still on the road to the place were cursing whoever got there before them. Tian was really angry, because their plan almost failed because of Samson stealing a car before them, then David did the same, leaving them the last to leave.

David however was shocked to see the person that arrived second, it was non other than Chris.

"Sorry to be late guys"

he said at the door smiling like an idiot, god knew how he found the right adress.

Probably the Empress did it for him, otherwise it was impossible for him to have thought out to look in the phone book even they only came up with it because of George, whom told them about the terminator using the same method.

"How are you here?"

Christin asked him as he got up, even more surprising was that he was even armed with a gun, it might not have been the perfect weapon for his hand he had before, but he did have a pistol on him.

"look out that's loaded, I took it from the agents while they weren't looking"

He said which made this even more troublesome than it should have been, before it was a simple, held them hostage situation, but now it had escalated into a held them hostage under a gun.

David took the gun and told him to shove it, he really didn't want to have to use it, since it would alert the police that they were now armed.

"That's mine!"

Chris said like a kid whose toy was just taken away, only to get a punch in the face.

"Now sit next to her like a good child, we're taking you hostage as well"

David said with a smile of newfound confidense as he had a plan.

"What the fuck are you doing!"

Another punch made Chris understand that David didn't wish to talk with him and that maniac was even armed now, it was all Christin's fault for giving him the gun.

Christin didn't even look apologetic, she looked at him as if she was looking at an idiot.

It wasn't long before other idiots came in banging at the door, they however had a better reception, since they didn't bring guns into this.

"Where'd you get the gun?"

Jonas asked terrified since he knew that having a gun wasn't a good thing in their situation.

"That idiot brought it here, together with special agents, I wouldn't be surprised if in a matter of hours we were swarmed by a special tasks unit"

David said, while pointing his gun at Chris whom was reduced to a hitting bag for him, a bit of petty revenge for fucking his girl, but also because he was too noisy.

"I'm part of the group..."

Chris said, but non had it with him, at one point he goes solo and now he wants to be part of the group, is he mad or something, maybe they should have kept him in the ward, for everyone's safety.

With a Kick David tried to shut him up.

"I don't know how this death game works, but I don't want to die because of him!"

"Calm down, we only have 3-4 more objectives, we can do it, all we have to do is hold them hostages for 2 days and then probably go somewhere before the final 1-2 missions and we will survive"

Jonas said and then approached Rachel and Aidan whom were terrified.

"Let me explain what's going on, we are participants in a death game, if we don't do what we're told we will die, we were told to hold you hostage for 2 days, after that we'll be leaving.

Rachel silently nodded, still terrified by the torture that other guy underwent before her eyes, even more terrifying however was how fast he recovered from his injuries.

"Tell me is he retarded?"

David asked, pointing at Chris.

"How should I know, I've only been one mission with him and he had always a way of making the NPCs like him somehow"

Jonas said seriously.

"Come on why would you want them to like you, they'll only be here for one mission, who gives a shit"

It was partly true if you didn't know about followers, but even if you knew it didn't really matter since followers cost points and points didn't come easy.

"It's not that simple, after the mission comes rewards and NPCs can be part of the rewards"

Jonas said, not knowing how else to explain points and the store to him, in his mind he thought that David like himself cared nothing about points.

"Do you earn more points if they like you?"

David asked seriously.

"No, but you see, there's a store where you can redeem points for NPCs that like you or something, might sound useless at our current state, but in the future followers are important"

Jonas said, but it was of no use, since the other hadn't seen the store himself and couldn't imagine all the things one could get with enough points.

Back in the living room, Rachel and Aidan were seated next to a beaten up Chris. At first they were skeptical and thought this was an act to earn their pity or something, but at some point they understood that the person was sort of stupid.

"Don't cry, everything's fine, I'm part of the group, once Tian comes they will change mind"

Chris said to Aidan, whom was looking at him with pity, Rachel on the other side just kicked him in the face.

"Don't worry, I'm a super human, these injuries are nothing to me"

Chris continued, causing much annoyance to the mother whom wanted him to just shut up and not make the situation any worse than it already was.

"Let me show you one of my super powers, I can hack electronic devices, for example your radio"

Chris said, it was of course the Red Empress who did the hacking.

"Suspect Car moving down XX street, anyone please..."

Chris didn't understand why the Empress would hack into the police frequences.

"Suspects, one caucasian male and two asian, male and female"

The radio continued giving the cops information about Tian and the others.

They were the last people that hadn't arrived yet, they took the supposed fastest route, the most direct, not knowing how bad traffic can be in the morning. The others took runabout routes and were there faster than them.

"Suspects have left their stolen escape vehicle and should have left on foot"

The radio continued as if they were cracking onto them, only a few steps behind.

"Lost suspects between XX and YY streets"

The radio went on, while they saw Chris talking to his wrist watch telling it to put some music on or something.

"Could you call the police?"

Rachel asked him a bit skeptical about his super powers.

"I would have loved to, but I'm with them and the police will make our life difficult, you see we're part of a death game, if we do what they tell us we get to live, if not we die, it's not that I don't want to help you it's..."

Rachel was having a headache just listening to his explainations, he could have just said "no".

"Can you switch on the TV as well?"

Aidan asked, mostly out of interest, like a child that had found something interesting.

"Of course, why listen to the radio when you have a TV"

Chris said, but all the TV showed was The Red Empress' face.

-I told you to just stay in the ward, why did you have to make it difficult for everyone

-It's not as bad as last time, at least I'm not going to turn into a zombie this time

-I would be more assured if you were a zombie in a zombie apocalypse than beaten and restrained in someone's house

Rachel and Aidan were shocked as they saw him having a dialogue with their TV. Things were only getting weirder by the passage of time, if the others could be called wanna be burglars, this one looked like an alien out of the movies.

"Could you help us?"

Rachel asked the TV or the person whom was talking through the TV.

"Don't bother, she's not going to help, to begin with you're in no danger, our mission is to keep Aidan here for 48 hours, then we will probably leave"

Chris stated the facts of the matter.

-Leave where, why do you need to keep my son here for 48 hours?

-It's simple, if we do as we are told we get to live, otherwise we'll be killed

-Why, who are you people?

-A bunch of strangers whom were told to do as told or die, we get a new objective every time, this time is no different, truthfully if you cooperated we wouldn't even have to hold you, after all, it's Aidan that we have to keep hostage for 2 days

-Are you afraid for you life?

-Like fuck, I'm more alive than I've ever been in my life

-You sick bastard!

She answered with a kick in his face, which he came to really dislike about her, it wasn't however her fault that the only way to reach him was with her foot to his face, it was as if they were intentionaly tied together this way.

"We've lost the suspects if anyone sees a tall caucasian man, wearing a ... and two rather tall Asians a male wearing ... and a female wearing ..., report to the station"

With this note the door bell rang once more and the last people of the group had at last made it to their destination.

Jason was met with a fist in his face as Tian entered.

"You motherfuckers! We were nearly caught because of you bastards!"

"It's not our fault you decided to take the most bussy road"

David said nonchalantly.

"So everyone made it, that's good, if only we had that idiot's hacking fairy maybe we could know what the police are doing right now"

Tian regretted not puting Chris in their plans, because the hacking A.I. could be of some use when going against people.

"That wacko came here before even them, he escaped from his ward and came here with a gun"

David stated showing the gun, only to have it snapped from his hand by two greedy hands.

"You had a gun, at last we have a standing against the police, I don't doubt they will be sending special forces before even the first day passes"

Tian said.

"That's not how the police operates"

David retorted.

"This is all a fake world created for this survival mission, they don't care about logic, once we're located by the police, there'll be a siege coming our way"

Tian said with confidence as he checked how much ammo they had, just this one clip.

"You know he's telling the truth"

Rachel said as she came out of the living room untied and angry at them.

"Who is she?"

Tian asked annoyed.

"I'm Aidan's mother, I heard about your situation from that annoying idiot and I will help, but I request you don't do anything stupid, we will stay here for 2 days and then you can leave us alone, we won't call the police if you won't hurt us, also no guns"

Rachel said while extending her hand for a handshake.

-I'll promise that unless you betray us we won't harm you for these 2 days, but Aidan stay here with us, no school for 2 days is that fine with you?

-I'll call for a sick leave for him, two days aren't the end of the world for us, unlike you people

-how much do you know?

-The full story, that blabbermouth told me everything, even that you were all victims of abduction, if it's alright I would like to take an interview from you for the next two days.