"We have to get them out."

They were moving onwards and upwards from the room where they had met the former cop, occasionally passing by more sickly people in either direction, but none stopped to talk to them. At one point they came out into an area with no work going on and no-one around save a solitary figure, a stick-thin form lying back against the wall and barely breathing. Coming closer to him, Triss was horrified to see thin tears of blood trickling from his eyes, eyes that stared blankly ahead. Smoke came up beside her, taking in the scene for himself, and she turned and laid her head on his chest for just a second. Recomposing herself, she turned to Shade. "Surely there's something we can do for these people," she asked, but Shade told her there was only one thing that could be done for this man, and it wasn't their place to do it.

"We have to get them out."

Sometimes, they could hear gentle weeping coming from the workers, a soft sound that belied the weight of their suffering. On one floor, a gently keening woman working on the cabling within a wall suddenly feel sideways. Richter ran to help her, cradling her head in his arms, but she managed to say only one word - "Daniel" - then passed away as he held her. Richter stared down at the pale face, sores visible around the hairline, and he whispered "We will get him for you. We will get him out." He gently laid her head to the floor and they continued on. In the room behind them the other workers didn't even look up from their tasks.

"We have to get them out."

This refrain was repeated and repeated by Kala as they walked, a phrase she mumbled constantly as if it were a protective mantra.

"We will," Smoke said when she started saying it, but she had just continued to chant it as if she heard no reply. Triss had given a look of concern to Smoke, then fallen back to walk with her. Shade and FX increased their pace to join him.

"I don't think she's doing too well," said FX, concern in his voice.

"We need to keep an eye on her. She hasn't been through what we have. Maybe Alden did change us more than I thought," replied Shade. The pair's animosity towards each other had disappeared in the seriousness of the situation. "And we will get the people out. That's why we brought her with us. After that, she goes with them, and we go on ahead." FX nodded in agreement.

Meanwhile, behind them Triss was trying to calm the twitchy Kala.

"We have to get them out."

"I know. We will, we will."

"We have to get them out." Kala was looking down at her hands, trembling as she walked.

"Don't worry, we'll find the captives, get them out, and then everyone else can leave through the hole we made."

Triss put a hand to Kala's shoulder for comfort, but she shrugged it off and looked her straight in the eyes.

"You don't understand!" Kala was nearly wailing, eyes wide, and Triss saw the terror in them. "We have to get them out! We! I'm doing my best not to run here, but... but..."

Kala had stopped walking, and the men ahead and behind stopped too, maintaining their distance but watching.

"I'm scared! How can you all be so calm?"

Triss grabbed her by both shoulders, shaking her slightly to make her raise her head to make eye contact.

"Listen to me," Triss said forcefully, "We are all scared, ok? I'm terrified. This is crazy, this whole thing is crazy, but these people are dying, slowly and painfully. We need you, Kala. You are the one who is going to free these people. You. We can't do it without you. So keep it together, and remember that there are children depending on you. Alright?"

Kala looked into Triss' eyes and must have found some reservoir of courage there, for she straightened up, wiped the tears that had welled up in her eyes away, and smiled.

"Alright. I'm sorry..." Triss shook her head, no apology needed, "I just got scared for a second. Let's go find them, shall we?"

They came to the area of the tower where the prisoners were kept an hour or so later. Shade had questioned some of the workers on their location, though most had refused to tell them. Trying to free them would only get them killed, they said - the guards didn't need an excuse to pull the trigger. A few, though, had given them a general direction, one not much different from the path they had already been following. Smoke began flowing away and ahead, exploring different corridors until he eventually spotted a group of men in the military fatigues they had seen on their last visit, standing either side of the opening at the end of a hallway. The men were keeping some kind of record of those who went in and out on what appeared to be tablet computers, though Smoke didn't go close enough to see for certain. Returning to the others, he led them towards the area, and now they were gathered just a few tens of metres from the guards, hidden by the bend of the corridor.

"I couldn't see behind them," whispered Smoke. "There may be others, I'm not sure."

"Then we need to be quiet when we take them down," said Shade. "Smoke, how far around the bend are they? From how far will they be able to see us?"

"About 20 meters, I think," answered Smoke. "It's hard to tell when I'm vapour."

"Too far for safety, then. I need you to distract them, while I get close enough to lock them down."

"Why don't we just go in there and I'll smash them down," interrupted FX, Richter nodding in agreement at this plan.

"We don't know how many people are behind them, and we don't want to alert any more people to our presence than we have to," said Shade, a touch of exasperation apparent in his voice. "The quieter we can do this the better." FX shrugged and wandered back to Nick and Kala.

"So, this a good idea then, Nicky-boy?" he asked. Nick nodded faintly.

"Let's just get it over with," Nick said, loud enough for the others to hear.

Smoke turned to face down the corridor and rapidly burst out into a cloud that filled the hallway, spreading back past where Nick, FX, and Kala stood until a barely visible mist hung around them. The mist drifted slowly around the bend. They heard the guards’ voices from further away.

"You seeing this mist, Joel?" came a voice. "Think it's them?" A beep followed by a crackle of static that signalled a radio being activated.

"HQ, we've identified a..." the second voice was cut off as Shade flew around the corner, shadows racing across every surface of the corridor ahead of him.

FX and the others came around the corner a few seconds later. Smoke was standing behind the two guards, form not yet back to normal but instead a cloud in the shape of himself, wreathed in whirling streams of steam. The guards were standing between him and the group, their faces obscured, heads wrapped in the same pitch-black shadows FX had seen Shade do to himself after the fall from the tower. Shade was speaking, seemingly to the air in front of him.

"Don't try to move. You have no way of knowing what's in front of you. Now, put the radio down."

The guard holding the radio opened his hands and the radio dropped to the ground, clattering on to its face. Muffled by the ground, a query could be heard squawking out of the speaker asking for a status update.

"Well, they're bound to figure out what we're up to now," said Triss. "We'd better move fast."

So saying, she marched up to the two paralysed guards and swung her mallet into the back of the first one's head. The guard collapsed, swiftly followed by the second as Triss turned her attentions to him. Triss leaned down and checked they were both still breathing, then looked back at the group.

"What?" she asked to the nonplussed others. "We don't have enough time as it is. Let's do what we came to do."

The hall behind the guards was narrower than the openings they had found elsewhere, a long aisle punctuated with branches off to the left and right every 30 meters or so. On either side of the aisle were gun-metal grey walls with rows upon rows of steel doors stretching into the gloom. There were multiple levels to the area, a walkway of grated metal a storey above the bottom aisle, connected by a set of stairs to the side of the entrance where the guards had stood. Barely visible through the grated walkway, another walkway even higher was visible, and there was no reason to think there wasn't another one above that.

"It's a prison," growled Richter. "That's what this is, a prison."

"Then it's time for a jailbreak," hissed FX, the spark of rebellion once more in his tone.

Without waiting for the others, he ran over to the first room, pressed his palms to the lock, and sent out a massive pulse of sound that reverberated around the room, echoing off into the darkness ahead and above, developing and changing as the groans of metal joints added to the chorus. He stared in shock at the door, which stood untouched and unmoved.

"Um, so, yeah, that didn't work..." he said, turning to the others and putting his hands guiltily in the air as they took their hands from their ears and regained their footing.

Richter stepped forward.

"Maybe there is enough moisture in the air that I can..." he started, reaching down.

Just before his hand reached the lock, the door swung open. Startled, he turned towards the others, where Kala was emerging from behind a raised platform next to the stairs.

"There's a bunch of levers back there marked levels 1 to 5," she said, smirking.

The entire of the first level's doors swung open simultaneously. At many doors there was no sign of movement, but from a few heads peered cautiously around. Most of the heads were painful even to look at, skin unhealthily pale, sallow and sagging, clumps missing from tangled, knotted hair. Kala, Triss, Smoke, Richter and FX strode down the corridors, leaving Shade to study Nick, who made no move to help and was clearly, to Shade's watchful eyes, in distress. The others began leaning into rooms and calling for their occupants to move, rarely getting a reply. In each area, barely large enough to justify the term 'room,' were two or three sickly individuals, skeletal forms lying on floors, barely lucid, and unable to move. Slowly, a crowd gathered around Shade and Nick, but just tens of people where the rooms held more than a hundred. They swayed as they stood, eyes unfocussed and seemingly barely comprehending where they were. It was clear many were simply following the orders they had been given, rather than seeking their freedom.

Shade's contemplation of Nick's unconscious tics and twitches was broken by the sound of Smoke's distressed voice yelling from further down the hall. As soon as he heard the yell, Nick's eyes instantly leapt to Shade. Though expecting some sort of reaction from Nick, Shade was still surprised and disturbed by the sorrow in his eyes. Nick whispered "go...," and Shade sprinted in the direction of the yells. He came to their source a few seconds later, to find Smoke crouched over a figure, blocking most of the form with his back. An incomprehensible babble of words poured from his mouth.

"It's him it's him it's him, we told him we'd get him out and we... it's him it's him," Smoke said, voice barely a whisper.

"What are you talking about?" asked Shade. "Who is it..?"

He found his words faltering as a cold dread crept down his spine. He stepped around Smoke, a breath caught in his throat. Yes, he knew who it was. The skin was pulled taut over the skull, the eyes almost nothing but dark, black pits, and the lips were so blistered and cracked that his face was almost unrecognisable, but the silver hair and large, aquiline nose were all he needed to confirm what he already knew.

"Lou..." Shade's words choked in his throat, barely vocalising.

"We told him we'd get him out," said Smoke, still crouched over Lou's withered frame, voice now flat and dead.

"He only got caught because he was with us. We told him we'd get him out..."

"We still can," replied Shade. "We can still get him out."

Smoke stood up, and the two looked at each other eye to eye. Both of them knew there was no hope for the man that lay at their feet. He was too wasted, breath coming in weak, shallow gasps, and blood had ceased to seep even from the open sores on his legs.

"He doesn't die here," said Shade, voice resolute.

Smoke nodded and picked Lou up, as gently as he could, then stepped out of the cell and headed back to the gathering point. Shade stood in the cell for a moment staring down at the blood and filth that slicked the floor and closed his eyes, clenching his fists and letting out a long, deep breath. Then he followed Smoke.

It turned out that the horrors of the first level were the worst they would encounter. Those prisoners on level 2 were notably healthier than those on level 1, and those on level 3 healthier again, though it would not be possible to call any of these captives healthy. Level 4 was empty, and level 5 only contained around 50 prisoners, comparatively strong.

Within what felt like an eternity, but according to their watches was a mere half hour, they had a group of all those who could move in one of the cavernous halls they had passed on their way up. They had left a larger group of people behind, broken bodies that failed to respond to the entreaties of their would-be rescuers, too tired and too sick to move. Kala had been close to hysterics when she realised they were unable to rescue all these people, and the rest of the group were barely able to keep her from trying to pick up the dying.

"We can't move them!" Shade struggled to keep his voice calm. "I'm sorry, but there's no way! They're too broken, too weak."

He grabbed Kala by the arm and span her around from the room she was facing into, in which a pair lay, hand in hand, face down. One was clearly not breathing, and it was obvious the other would not be soon either. The matching wedding rings on the hands showed that this was a couple, though reduced to such a state that it was impossible to tell what gender either of them had once been. This was the state of the corpses Shade had spent so long with in the gutters below the tower, though it seemed with construction so near completion they were just being left to rot in their cells now.

"We came to save them, didn't we? That's why we're doing this!" Kala was sobbing.

"Listen, Kala," he said. "There's nothing we can do for these people now, but there is something we can do for the others outside. There is something you can do." He relaxed his grip on her arm. "Let's go, ok?" he said softly.

Kala took one more look into the room, a tear rolling down her cheek, then turned and walked away.

They gathered the group around as best they could and explained the situation. Kala was going to lead the rescued back to the hole through which they had entered the tower, and take them as far across the city as she could. Though the worst had been left in their cells, there were still plenty of the sick, tired, and dying, and there was no way they had the energy for such a long journey. To counter this, Kala would use her abilities to remove their weight, and they would be carried by those healthy enough to do so. She had gathered the healthy in to explain.

"Now remember," said Kala, voice calmer and demeanour in control now she was once again doing what she had done so many times before, "Though those you are carrying will have no weight they will still have mass. Keep a strong hold on them, ok - do not under any circumstances let them go. A lot of them look like they couldn't take even a slight knock. Now, pass me your hands."

One by one the small group held out their hands, which Kala pressed her palm to briefly.

"There, I've taken about 40% of your weight off too. That should let you go for longer yourselves. But be careful," she emphasised, looking at each member of the group. "You still have the same muscle mass, so do not jump! You'll go shooting off hells know where."

So saying, she turned to her Advanced comrades as her audience slowly broke up and began aiding the weak. Even with their weight so much lighter, most still moved like they were struggling against gravity.

"I'll get them out of the area, then I'll come back. How will I find you?" she said, out of the blue.

Shade shook his head emphatically.

"No, you're to take them as far away as you can. You aren't coming back," he said.

"Yeah, you're doing your part getting these people out. We'll deal with Alden," added FX.

Triss raised her eyebrows as she looked at the pair.

"Oh, such gentlemen," she said, rolling her eyes. "But they do have a point. Kala, your job is to get these people to safety, ok? Not across the water, not to the next block, but safety. Get them to a hospital. There's not many hospital staff these days but there's gotta be something..."

Her words were cut off by the sound of the first shot.

Smoke was standing back, trying to keep out of the way, and so he had a clear view of the bullet that flew through Triss's back, a flash of movement that pierced her spine, which instantly shimmered silver. There was a scream from Kala, his view of her blocked by Triss, who was swiftly spinning around. Smoke was faster, turning to face the direction of the shot as another rang out. Emerging from an opening in the wall, one of the corridors branching off from the room, a cluster of forms in military uniform quickly spread out and took cover behind the various crates and machinery scattered around. Smoke thought he counted about five or six in the few seconds they were visible. From over and from the sides of the crates pistol barrels appeared, firing blindly. The first bullet to pass through Smoke caused him to reel back, hand grabbing at his chest where it had pierced, until he managed to collect himself and realise he was completely unharmed. A sense of overwhelming power came over - they couldn't touch him! - which was quickly broken by Triss's shout.

"Smoke, stop them!"

Looking back over his shoulder, he saw Triss sprinting towards the sources of the shooting, and even as he was watching a bullet passed right through his back and out of his chest, slamming into one of the figures they were here to save. The man, one of the weaker ones anyway, fell backwards quietly into a crumpled, motionless heap.

More bullets slammed into the walls around the survivors, sparking and ricocheting. Finally reacting to the situation - all of this took just seconds, but felt like hours- Smoke turned and ran towards the attackers, bullets passing ineffectually through his body. He was barely aware of the rocket that shot past over his shoulder, exploding violently somewhere behind him.

Triss was already amongst the attackers, a limp form at her feet as she swung her hammer into the temple of a second. Smoke went for a third, throwing a right hook that smashed his opponent to the ground. A fourth was suddenly upon him, rifle brought down over his head so the barrel was pulled tight against his jugular, choking him. Smoke gasped for air, arms flailing for purchase behind him as purple spots flashed in front of his eyes. Suddenly, the rifle clattered to the floor and the weight on his back was gone. Richter stood there instead, steel bar at his side. Smoke thanked him, wheezing as he tried to get his breath back. Without warning, Richter swung the bar over his head and straight down on Smoke, who staggered and fell backwards to the floor, hands held up to defend from the blow.

Smoke opened his eyes a few seconds later. Above him, Richter stood, leaning towards him. His right arm was held out in front of him, and Smoke's gaze followed it down, passed the elbow to where his hand still held the steel bar, which ran out and down... into Smoke's chest, which was a roiling grey cloud of smoke.

"Qu'est-ce que tu fais?!" he shouted, the anger in his voice carrying the meaning of the words to Smoke. "You are a bloody imbécile! You cannot be strangled, you cannot be harmed. Now get up."

Richter threw the bar to his side and offered Smoke a hand up.

The shooting was over now, the final attacker of what turned out to be five on the floor in front of Shade, who stood with a rifle to the captive's head. Triss was close by, binding the wound on Kala's arm where the bullet meant for Triss had struck, while Shade was interrogating the man.

"Why did you attack us like that? It made no sense. You could have waited for us to come to you," Shade said, pushing the barrel hard against the man's skull.

"You can't shoot me with that, you know. It's locked to my skin and blood type. Latest thing," The man's voice was a southern drawl. Shade looked down at the weapon in his hand, pointed it towards the wall further away and pulled the trigger. Nothing.

"I can still stove your head in with it, though," he said, swinging the barrel back against the man's head. "Why attack like that?"

"Because he said he was fed up waiting for you." The man spat. "I don't want to be here, none of us did. He's got our families up there. The son of a bitch told us to burst in and shoot as many as we can, he even said that for every one of you or the prisoners we kill, he'd release one of ours." The man spat to his side, rage and disgust at himself apparent in his voice. "They're not even military," he continued, nodding over to the unconscious forms of the other attackers. "Goddam desk clerks, wouldn't know how to aim a weapon if you showed 'em. Still," and he chuckled at this, "Sally nearly got your boy."

Smoke jerked back at the name, and he stepped over to where the other four unconscious forms had been gathered. Two of them were indeed women.

"He gave them that rocket launcher to see if they blew you up or themselves. He thinks this is funny." They looked over to where the rocket had impacted into the wall, tearing a chunk out but not penetrating to the outside. Mercifully, it had been aimed too wildly to hit anyone.

"Alden?" asked Smoke. "Why is Alden sending desk workers to fight us?"

"Alden?" said the man, staring quizzically at Smoke. "No, this ain't nothing to do with Alden, boy. This is Reanes. He's always been a bit nuts, but he's gone completely overboard now. And..."

The man looked around at the group, taking them in.

"...you ain't got no chance."

They tied the five up using the cables strewn around the place. Kala had already begun directing the survivors down the corridor that would eventually lead to their escape. Moving them out had taken on a new urgency now attackers could reappear at any moment. Smoke and Shade both looked to the fragile body lying near the exit, chest barely rising from shallow breaths, and Smoke beckoned Kala over.

"Please take care of him. For us. We wouldn't have got this far if he hadn't kept us all together in the early days, and now we need to be there for him."

Kala stared down at Lou's broken form.

"I'll get him out," she said solemnly. "There's got to be somewhere left in this city they can help him. I'll get him there as soon as possible."

She touched her hand to Lou's shoulder, and his breathing came deeper as the weight of his chest lessened. Picking him up gently under his knees and shoulders, she turned to join the group already snaking down the tower. Lou's eyes flickered open, moving slowly towards where Smoke and Shade stood.

"You made it..." he said, voice a whisper. Smoked stepped towards him.

"Kala's going to get you out of here, Lou. We're going to finish this, you can count on it. Just... fight, ok, Lou? Fight so we can all meet up when this is over."

Lou's head shifted the tiniest degree, a slow nod, and then his eyes closed again as he once again lapsed into unconsciousness.

"Go, Kala. We'll find you when this is over." Triss came up to them as she spoke, placing a comforting hand on Smoke's back.

They watched as Kala disappeared down the corridor, heading hurriedly to the front of the slowly crawling line, then turned to the way the attackers had come from.

"Well, we know they're up that way," said FX. "No time for us to try the other routes. I say we go up there and beat the shit out of them."

"I'm afraid FX is probably right. We don't have any more time. The pulses are getting extremely close together."

Even as Shade finished his sentence, the tower rumbled in a rising crescendo, ending in a loud, high-pitched whine and, now they were higher, the crackling sound of arcing energy.

"We need to go. He told us, before, that they can't do anything against FX, and now they're going to find out they can't do much against the rest of us, either. We'll get Reanes, then we'll get Alden. Let's go."

Shade looked towards Nick, who said "It'll be alright" in a whisper only he heard, and they headed up.