out of reach, out of time[open]

[Tally]

They called them the lead rooms, though the name was misleading.  There was very little lead in the walls.  Mostly they were a mixture of other metals and synthetic substances with a high attenuation coefficient.  They absorbed thought.

Roman stood in front of the door leading into the lead rooms.  He flashed his wrist under the door scanner and it slid open.

He couldn't believe he was here again so soon.  It was by Scheherazade's orders.  A few Pilots had to go through the Axis Point a second time.  Discrepancies.  Pilots cutting corners or getting lazy with their responsibilities.  The typical complacency you expected people to settle into when circumstances were easy.  Every few months the dragons would get hardassed about it and make them all shape up again.  It would hold for awhile, then the whole process would start over again.  But this time, with Temple still MIA, the dragons wanted every detail to be squared away so they could focus their attention elsewhere.

That wasn't why Roman was here.  No, he had to play security for the Pilots going through.  They liked to have two Pilots on standby for these routine screenings, and Roman would be relieving Letendre.  He'd get to stand there for four hours with Blaine Clé for company, listening to the young Pilot gush about...dandelions or folk music or whatever the hell his infatuation was this week, all while waiting for Sade to get out of the Axis Point.

He stepped into the tomb and the door closed behind him.  He felt the silence as all psychic chatter in the Citadel outside was shut out.  This was the point of the lead rooms.  Thought wave attenuation.  Nothing got in, nothing got out.  Whether they needed to keep a Pilot's thoughts contained or keep outside thoughts from intruding, this is what the lead rooms were for.  Trying to reach past the walls was like casting your thoughts into an oblivion.  They absorbed and dissipated most of the electromagnetic spectrum.  As a side effect, no radio waves got through either.  They had to use hard lines to communicate.  

Roman passed his wrist under a scanner on the wall and the intercom dialed into Scher automatically.  "All right, I'm in.  Confirm connection."

"Confirmed," came her mechanical, rasping voice.  Letendre's, Clé's, and Sade's dragons would all be on the same line, as those three were also somewhere in here.

They would be able to hear everything that went on within the lead rooms.  Even knowing they were still in communication, the hollow feel of the place made Roman feel both claustrophobic and adrift at once.  The walls were a light, uniform gray.  Two exits opened back out into the 279th floor of the Citadel.  The other went to the Axis Point.  The lead rooms themselves made a circle, with two dozen cells jutting off from the main hallway, not all of them necessarily designated for containing Pilots or other psychics under military arrest.  Some were equipment rooms or used for interrogations.

All of the doors opening off the hall were shut.  From one corner, a surveillance camera watched.  It was very quiet within.

[Rhi-Rhi]

That morning when Siren woke him up to tell him that he had to go back to the Axis Point, Gabriel just about had kittens.

It was only after he had done a fair amount of freaking out, swearing up and down that he was working harder, that the dragon clarified, mind voice amused: no, actually, not to get probed. Just to go play security for the Pilots that were getting probed again.

That made him feel better, even if it made him want to get all growly on Siren for making him squirm. Sucks for those other Pilots, but gods above, that was better than him. His head ached and his stomach churned at the mere idea of going through that again. He would die. He still wasn't too excited about going into the Lead Rooms, though. They were creepy. Too quiet. Too isolated. Too confined.

He generally gave them a wide berth. He was claustrophobic enough as it was, and with the added loneliness of the place, it was enough to drive him batty.

Siren gave him his check-in time and the Pilot he would be relieving, along with the name of the Pilot that would be joining him on security duty, and Gabriel committed it to memory. Then he promptly fell back to sleep.

He must have gotten distracted somewhere between waking up and getting absorbed into World of Warlocks to pass the time because when he minimized the screen to check the time on his computer, his heart lunged into his throat. Craaap! He was going to be late! Then he probably would get probed. He leaped from his chair, bolted out the door, and took off running. Some habits were harder to break than others, and Gabriel had always been punctuality-challenged. He hardly ever walked to his destinations--running was his main mode of transportation.

The lifts felt like they were going slower than usual today, but that was just his imagination. As soon as he reached the floor the Lead Rooms and Axis Point were on, he raced out the doors and came to a stop by the entrance, panting and pausing only for a second to catch his breath. He waved his wrist impatiently under the scanner, the door slid open, and he lunged inside and collided with Roman. He had to grab onto the back of his shirt to keep them both from toppling over.

...Wait, Roman?

He hadn't heard anything about Roman being here. Darien Velasco was supposed to be the other Pilot he was on watch with, and he sure wasn't one of the Pilots they were supposed to be relieving. "Wh...what're you doin' here?" he gasped out, still winded from his mad dash. Eerie silence closed around him as the door slid shut, and he shuddered as he was left only with the sounds of his own thoughts and breathing.

It never occurred to him that he'd gotten his AMs and PMs mixed up.

[Anonymous]

Thin long fingers grasped the bridge of Danica's nose as she stood in one of the hallways of The Citadel. She breathed heavily as she stood there. That Axis Point has succeeded in a few things. One was giving her the chance to sleep for the next several days without getting bothered even once. The next was stirring and ripping up some memories and putting them on the front screen of her mind that she didn't want to think about.

She was wearing a tight black t-shirt, a jeans, and a pair of fluffy looking boots. She was dressed down compared to how she normally dressed herself. Professional was the last thing on her mind today. She just didn't have the energy. Flashes of memories, emotionally and mentally tired her. Like her mind was working on its own and not consulting her at all.

Every time a candidate walked by her head simply raged. Their memories they were broadcasting all over the place, their emotions. It just reached into her and ripped wounds open. Her mind running a mile a minute connecting them to things that had happened to her. She just couldn't get her mind to concentrate long enough to do anything about it. Then Roland's voice was in her mind, scolding her.

"Danica, Dani, Dani." She would have rolled her eyes if it didn't hurt.

"Roland, what is it?" She was not happy at all, and it showed all over her mind and her voice.

"You know, the lead rooms might be a good place. Until you get yourself under control." Her eyes lit up and she sent him a feeling of gratitude. She felt a little silly not thinking of that herself. That's why the dragon got the big bucks though right?

She pushed herself up off of the wall with her thin arms and walked over to the vending machine close to the elevator. She pressed her thumb to one of the pads on the machine. A little screen above it lit up with her name scrolling across it. Two waters and a fruity bottled tea dropped out of the machine. Then the screen was scrolling again as she bent to pick them up.

'Thank you Pilot Noble Blake.' Even the machines were military.

She pressed the button for the elevator and once inside leaned against the wall again. She opened the tea and swallowed a gulp down. So delicious. Her throat felt tons better now. As she went up the levels in the elevator it got quieter and louder as she passed people on the floors.

She stepped out of the elevator as it stopped her bottles in hand. She was heading to the lead rooms not even thinking that Roland might have something else up his...scales. Which he normally did when he did something that seemed entirely for her benefit. She probably should have caught onto that by now.

These hallways already seemed quieter. She let out a long sigh of relief. Her shields had been so busted up. She could almost see them like fragments of glass in her mind. She set to piecing them back together as she walked towards the doors. It was so much easier to do this up here. Normally this place was eerie. Though she didn't dislike the place as much as some of the other Pilots.

She waved her wrist under the scanner and the door slid open. She stopped when she saw...Gabriel and Roman...standing very close together in a somewhat weird position. She arched a brow at the two of them.

"Sorry boys...am I interrupting something?"

[Tally]

Roman shifted his weight.  A terminal was set into the wall to his left, and he activated it with a pass of his wrist beneath the scanner.  His personalized modules popped up, among them his schedule and Scher's position.  Outside of the Lead Rooms, a Pilot could see all this mentally, through their dragon, but here he had to work it manually.  A flick of his finger over the hoverscreen and his scheduled time in the Lead Rooms was trashed.  He glanced over the rest of his schedule then closed it all down again.  From across the room, the camera watched.  Without the mental connection, the cameras were the dragons' only way of keeping their eye on what transpired here.

"Hey, Cross," Roman called out.  "Your watch is over.  Time to shift guard."

His voice echoed off the far wall, followed by near complete silence.  The only sound was the faint rush of air through the Lead Rooms' ventilation system.  It was...unnerving.  And it wouldn't have been boasting to say that not much could unnerve him.  Here, alone, he could admit to himself that he found the Lead Rooms creepy at times.

The three Pilots must have been in one of the containment rooms.  Roman opened his mouth to ask Scher which one when the door opened behind him.  He jumped slightly, startled, but only had enough time to turn his head and catch a glimpse of Gabriel in the corner of his eye before the kid barreled right into him.

Roman threw a hand against the wall to catch himself, then had to close his eyes and take a couple of deep breaths.  He didn't need this right now.  Didn't need the awkwardness or the temptation to fall back into old patterns.  There was the distance of formality between them now.  Roman intended to keep it that way.

"Nice, Tierney."  What else could he say?  What else should he say?  This was the first time they'd even run into each other in days, albeit because for a good while Roman had been deliberately avoiding him.

As Roman struggled for words, the door slid open yet again.  Danica this time.

"No, nothing," he snapped, detaching himself from Gabriel and stepping away.  Roman was in full uniform for once, standard issue firearms and all.  Wearing it made it easier to step into rank.  "What are you two doing here?  This isn't a party.  Clear out or go do what you need to do.  Scher!  Where's Cross?"

"Pilots Sade, Letendre, and Clé are in containment room eleven."

Yet Roman hedged.  Seemed like he should at least try and regain some of the rapport he and Gabriel had lost.  No, the rapport he'd purposefully sabotaged.  Things would never be the way they had been—inappropriate, limitless, challenging—but there must have been something to be salvaged.

[Rhi-Rhi]

When Roman detached himself, Gabriel stepped back to put a little more distance between them and shoved his hands into his pockets. It hadn't been entirely Roman's fault that they hadn't seen each other in days; Gabriel had done his part to avoid the other Pilot. He didn't know what else he could do but give Roman his space and hope that he came around again. If Roman had just been pissed off, that was easy enough to deal with, but when he started pulling rank...Gabriel's hands were tied.

The coldness hadn't eased up any. He was still just Tierney, this was going on a lot longer than it ever had before, and Gabriel was realizing more and more just how thoroughly he had fucked up.

He'd gotten too comfortable and he'd finally crossed a line he couldn't come back over.

Gabriel took a deep breath and shrugged uncomfortably, but he kept his expression blank. "I'm on guard duty, sir," he said, and glanced over at Danica. Her comment would have been funny some other time, like a week or so ago, but right now he just didn't need to be reminded of what they had lost. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, wishing he could be anywhere right now but here and not knowing what the hell to say or do, but that was when Scher answered Roman.

Gabriel's attention snapped back onto Roman. "Wait, Darien's not here?" he asked, furrowing his brow. "I was supposed to relieve him..."

Great. Just wonderful. Raley, Cross, and Roman all in the same place together. Just what he needed right now, two sick fucks and an ex-friend. It was that last thought that made his stomach clench, though. Was that what they were now? Were they still friends? Or were they just colleagues now?

He shoved the thoughts out of his head and filed them away for later, then busied himself with checking over his firearm, even though he already had. He wasn't in uniform, but it was guard duty so he had come armed. No thinking now. Right now, guard duty. At least Danica and Blaine were here; maybe he could latch onto Blaine. Talking about curtains or carpet or something would be a great distraction for the next few hours. "Who am I relieving now?"

[Anonymous]

Has she missed something? Her eyes looked between the Pilots. There was something strange going on with the two of them. Weirder than usual. She could feel the sadness coming off of Gabriel just by looking at him. She could also see Roman acting rigid and hiding behind that shell they all so relied on. Probably only the Pilots would know he might be bluffing just a bit. Her lips down turned slightly. She did not like to see Gabriel upset, she genuinely liked the Pilot. Though most people couldn't help but like that cute, cheery attitude.

The phoenix bit her lip to keep back a rude remark at Roman as he barked an order at her. Danica was well aware he ranked above her, but it still ruffled her feathers. She was not a candidate by any means. Danica had made her way here, and she was going to stay. Whether Roman liked it or not. Well, she hoped anyway. Plus Gabe looked like he needed someone else here, to keep him from thinking too much and being melancholy. she knew he would do it for almost any other Pilot.

She gave a half nod to Roman out of respect, her headache was still beating in her temples.

"I came up here to let my mind stretch and relax somewhat. It's all jumbled right now. I hope you won't mind sir." Se pushed her hair back from her eyes as she met Roman's. She really hoped he'd find it somewhere in that dark soul to let her stay up here. Her eyes looked over his face. She couldn't really help but look at Roman. While she hated to be ordered around, it sparked something in her as well coming from certain people. He just had that dark attractive quality. Not the sort of man you take home to Mother, or marry. The kind you wanted to tame but knew there was no way in hell you could.

She couldn't keep the slight smirk of her lip down. Her eyes turned to Gabe watching him mess with his firearm. Despite him being a Pilot it had always seemed odd to see him with and especially as a weapon. She knew personally every single one of the Pilot's was trained, deadly, dangerous. Some just seemed to be able to hide all that. Luckily most of them were actually sweet.

If they hadn't been, they'd probably be the most dangerous.

Her eyes drifted back to Roman and she held a small smile on her face.

[Anonymous]

Well, fuck.

There wasn't much else Liv could say.  There wasn't much else, point of fact, he could let himself say, or think, or feel.  He was juggling probabilities in his head.  Probability: damnably more brutal and determinate than possibility and impossibility.  He had maybe a 3% chance of getting through the Axis scan unscathed.  Then again, about as much as anyone had, really, anyone.  Maybe a 28% chance of surviving as a Pilot.  Extend those numbers six years and the numbers dwindled to 11%.  Factor in luck... he never did.    

One good thing about the Lead Rooms.  Falstaff was out of his head.  Booming mic creak:  New Guard shift, new guard shift.  It echoed and fell, with the clink of feedback, into silence.  Liv didn't quite recognize the synthetic voice; it was someone's dragon, not his.  Old Failsafe didn't like the apparatus he needed to vocalize.  

"Been a pleasure, then," he said, exaggerating a subservient accent.  He flicked a glance upward at Cross, sardonicism writ large in eyebrow, nose, and lip.  "As always."  The words came out a little garbled around the long-lasting breath mint he'd been sucking for the past hour.  He worked it back and forth, cheek, cheek, and finally, throwing his head back, swallowed, casting an eye over his two companions.  What were they worried about, anyway?  He was going to run?  Hack into the axis using pyrokinesis and a toothpick?  What--it was Dental Hygiene Day.

Cross sat across from him, employing the blank, belligerent stare of Typical Lackey Guard.  He at least would be crowing.  The shaggy-headed lunk had never liked Liv, but then, he was just the uncreative sort to save his enmity for easy targets.  Liv, Gabe.  

Liv was sprawled across one hard bench, set in at the corner.  He'd drawn his knee up and played nervously with a crease in his pant-leg, watching the fabric roll and unroll.  It shimmered a little, silver on black; his vest was silvered leather--he frowned down the furrow of a stubborn crease--over a white undershirt, which stuck unpleasantly to the skin under his arms.  Sweating already?  It's the innocent ones who worry, innat, eh?  At least he was well-dressed and well-coiffed, half the battle toward self-esteem right there, and self-esteem was half the battle generally, wasn't it?  No, actually, not at all.  Damn, Livvy, know you're cracking up when you're playing your own Dragon.  

He didn't look at Raley, by far the more reviled of the two Pilots.  Instead he let his gaze drift, heavy-lidded and provocatively nonchalant, away from Cross... down over his body... across the blank walls.  

The depths of despair tasted precisely the same as anything else.  Minty.

[Tally]

"Oh holy gods, finally."  Raley rubbed at his face and groaned.  He'd been anxious for the guard shift change, oh...only since about five minutes after arriving.  Time was relative?  A-fucking-men.  Four featureless walls and a maddening mental quiet that made him want to scream or sing or jump up and down—all of which he had done amidst the agonies of boredom.  He'd done a lot of pacing, too, and talking to himself.  Cross had been no help, still and oddly pensive for most of the time.  He was no fun anymore, not like he used to be, not like when they were candidates.  Took everything way too seriously these days.  And Liv?  At one point Raley had thought of prying his mouth open and taking that mint for himself—he hated mint but that wasn't the point—but for once he'd checked his impulses.  

This wasn't the day to be instigating fights that might get his schedule altered.

Raley peeled himself up off the floor where he'd spent the last half hour lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.  "Bye now.  Y'all have tons of fun with Rosales."  Gods above.  That made him feel damn near lucky.  How long had Rosales been a Pilot?  Over a decade at least and every year that stick up his ass just got bigger and bigger.

A saccharine smile to Liv as he made his way out.  "I'll stop by your place later and see how you're recovering."

He wouldn't pass that up if someone paid him.

Left alone with Liv, Cross stirred at last.  He got up and stretched his arms over his head until his back popped then wandered around the room to stretch his legs.  "He can be such a fucking idiot," he muttered.  Funny how your opinion on people could change.  Raley had been more than a friend when they were candidates; he'd been an accomplice, an ally.  Lately Cross just wanted to tell him to grow the fuck up.

He caught Liv's eyes in the reflection of the two-way mirror.  "Don't get too comfortable.  Blaine should be almost done in the chair, then you're next."

On the other side of the Lead Rooms, Raley turned the corner and only just stopped the surprise from registering on his face or breaking his stride.  The fuck?  There were too many people in here.  He checked his watch as he drew up beside Roman.

"You're not on duty today, I am," Roman snapped at Gabriel.  Sir?  Ouch.  He couldn't remember the last time Gabriel had called him that.  He hated the hollow sound of it.  "You're not relieving anyone.  You've got your schedule wrong.  Check the terminal, find out where you're supposed to be and then get out."

"And you," he added, turning to Danica.  "Stay on the north side of the rooms if you have to be in here.  I don't want you hanging around the Axis while we're moving Pilots in and out."

Roman didn't give them the chance to respond before walking away.  If they had sense enough, they wouldn't go mistaking what he'd just said as anything but orders to be followed.  He was in one of those moods, bristling and sour and expecting nothing short of wordless, prompt obedience.  It did not bode well for Liv.

Raley was left looking between Gabriel and the terminal screen.  He checked his watch again, mind racing.  126 seconds left.  "I'll just use the other one," he muttered, and followed Roman around the corner.

[Rhi-Rhi]

Awkward, awkward, awkward.

Gabriel stared at Roman's back for a moment, the impulsive, boundary pushing and rule testing side of him tempted to go after him even though he more than knew better. Weeks of silence and avoidance and the guy still wasn't over it, and it was slowly driving him insane--and it was even worse now that they were in the same freakin' room but still separated by so many intricate little piles of...well...bullshi t and rank and moodiness and stuff. What more was he supposed to say? He'd contemplated learning how to say 'sorry' in a few other languages; maybe that would help, because Common hadn't. So far he had two down.

The side of him that knew better, recognized Roman's moods, and acknowledged that this was neither the time nor the place won. Just give it up. Now wasn't the time. Maybe it never would be the time if they only ran into each other under these kinds of circumstances--and wasn't part of that his own fault, anyway?

Wuss.

Gabriel was left standing there with Raley, but it took Raley speaking up for him to register it. Awkward. "You do that," he mumbled, shooting him a glare just because he could and because his mood had plummeted. He made his way to the terminal and logged in, eager to get out of this damned room and back outside where it was loud and distracting.

The silent treatment was getting to him, and the silence of the Lead Rooms was weighing down on him. Even orders counted as silent treatment, because orders didn't count as talking.

[Anonymous]

The Phoenix took a deep breath as Roman walked away. Her eyes followed him slowly. Her headache returned stronger once the distraction was gone. She had to physically bite her lip to keep from getting the last word. It was obvious one Roman Rosales was not in the mood, not that he ever seemed to be. Once Roman was a distance away she looked back towards Gabe.

"Well he is just a ray of sunshine today." She closed her eyes for a moment grabbing the bridge of her nose her forehead crinkling in pain. Axis was just calling up horrible things. Memories she did not want to remember. It was like Axis point was a giant horrible cat that she was allergic to. She kept catching flashes of things. The worst part of the whole thing is that she could not remember some of it.

The flashes were fading, not pushing to take up her mind completely but sometimes those brief memories popping up quickly were worse. She's see a face she could not put a name with, a place that she would never remember being, doing things she did not remember doing. There was just too many things in there. The important memories were still there casting clouds over the smaller lost ones, but the smaller ones were the ones that needed the light.

She needed to throw away some of these memories, her mind was too packed. It was time to take inventory and cut what was not needed. Spring cleaning of the memory banks. They were just too packed full. Broken little memories she had no use for. Her eyebrows pulled together even more then she opened her eyes and took a slow deep breath and looked back to Gabe.

He seemed sad, grumpy even. She put a hand on his arm. Her mind could wait for a little while, he looked like he needed someone. Despite Danica's cold attitude sometimes she could be a sweetheart, though it was very rare with most people.

"Something wrong hon?"

[Anonymous]

Still in a faded crumple in the corner, still counting down the fluttering pulse of seconds.  Still sweating.  Can be such a fucking idiot.  That's new, he thought, sliding upright against the wall, glancing not at Cross but at his reflection.  Goddamn two-way mirror was giving him a headache, a real headache.  Metaphor overload, or was that one a metonym?  The quiet had been creeping up on him, too.  Liv wasn't safe in silence.  He relied on lots of camouflaging static to keep down all the, all the... shit.

Eyes fastened on his dim blue double in the mirror and the intimation of whoever lurked on the other side, Liv took several breaths.  His fingers were still twisted in the hem of his vest; he fumbled a toothpick from his pocket and twiddled it back and forth, pricking a finger on the tip.  Chill thyself, Livvykins, the worst they can do is...  Haha, that was the biggest fuckin' joke of them all.  

Funny that Cross had a break with Raley, from what he'd remembered they were tight as two tits could be.  Liv found his thoughts had edged toward jagged and thoroughly unfunny cruelty.  Never mind.  Poor Blaine, he'd have a headache after this one.  Poor Blaine, even though it--wasn't his fault.  Well, some would say everything's your fault, everything, even the things you don't intend.  Blaine had just been following orders, and Liv could hardly ask for suffering that wasn't his own.  And he might have done the same, but he was a jerk, whereas Blaine was a good guy.  Go figure; he was.  Fuck.  Blaine, Blaine.  Liv stuck the toothpick between his teeth.

At length he shoved himself to his feet and meandered wall-to-wall behind Cross.  "Thanks, Cross," he said, staring at the same point in the mirror.  Funny how eye contact in mirrors worked: you both looked at the same point, and you thought you were looking at each other.  Just so metaphorical.  "You're a pal.  So why's he a fucking idiot, anyway?  Got my theories."  Crack.  He bit down on the toothpick.

[Tally]

Roman made it nearly around the second corner when his eye roamed to the terminal screen and he stopped dead.

Several paces behind him, so did Raley.

What had caught Roman's attention was a flicker.  Just that, no more, but the rapidity of flashing text and numbers struck him as wrong.  Glitches happened, of course they did.  With this much dependence upon technology, shit went wrong all the time.  But it all went wrong on the back-end.  How many fail-safes and flags and checks must a glitch have to get past to show up on a terminal screen in the Lead Rooms?  "Do you know what's wrong with this thing?"

Raley gave him a surly shrug in answer.  The entire screen flickered then, and suddenly it wasn't just one odd window flashing through text faster than he could read it, but multiple windows opening and closing all on top of one another.  His eyes couldn't keep up with them all.

"Scher!  What's going on with this terminal?"

"279-E is functioning as normal."

The stuttering flow of application windows continued on the screen.  None of it was anything he could make sense of.  Maybe Gabriel... "Well I'm looking at it and it's not normal."

"A moment."  Silence, during which he considered that the spasmodic terminal concerned him far less than the dragons' inability to detect the problem.  "Roman, nothing appears to be wrong with that terminal.  What are you seeing?"

"Shit Scher, I don't know."

Raley hovered.  He checked his watch.  Fuck.  Nearly thirty seconds too early.  Ain't it always the way.  Now what?  Roman between him and that terminal, and Gabriel and Danica waiting at the exit he needed to take.  Complications, obstacles.  He deconstructed them, broke it all down into pieces he could handle, saw himself where he was and where he had to get to and what it would take to get him there.  Make a decision.  Plans broke down, expectations derailed.  Improvise.  He shed all the tension in his body and assumed stillness.  Readiness.

"I'll go check the other screens and tell Gabriel to see what he can make of it." Raley said.

Instead he drew his gun and pulled the trigger four times.  Four bullets in Roman's back.  Four sprays of blood on smooth terminal casing.

A heartbeat later, the alarm sounded.  Lockdown.  Damn, that was fast.  He flew into a sprint, past Roman's body in its pooling blood and around the corner in time to catch Cross bolting out the door.  Not fast enough, man.  Not as fast as Raley.  He shot Cross's hand off his gun grip and sent two more bullets ripping through his gut.  His fallen body blocked the door from closing.

Still alive? As Raley stepped over him, Cross looked up at him with wide eyes.  He clutched at his stomach and blood had welled up in his mouth but his eyes were sharp, flashing.  Didn't need to be psychic to read the hate there.

Only Liv now.  Raley took quick aim on his lower leg and shot him.  Cripple him physically before he could be a problem, put some pain in between Liv and his pyrokinetics.  "Not a spark, or I'll shoot you in the face. Okay?"  Could bullets move faster than fire and thought?  Guess they'd find out.  With one foot Raley shoved Cross out of the way of the door and it slid shut.  It would be locked from both sides now.  No one in or out.  The dragons thought they had him trapped in this room.

He swung his arm up and shot out the camera, then returned it's aim to Liv.  By now the entirety of the Citadel would be at a standstill, save for the Pilots, who the dragons would have mobilized to deal with him.  Nearly every available Pilot converging upon one point, leaving the rest of the Citadel covered only by standard personnel.

He could still make this work.

[Rhi-Rhi]

A few clicks later, and Gabriel had his schedule. Damn. How the hell did he screw that up? He committed it to memory--hopefully it would stick, he was better with weird symbols and strings of code than he was with timetables--then jumped when someone touched his arm. Swinging around to look, his eyes met Danica's and he almost did a double take. She looked oddly concerned--which meant he'd probably been acting more mopey than he'd realized. Crap.

"Huh? Oh, no. Just, uh...kinda claustrophobic." He smiled and shrugged; it was true enough, and he saw no reason to dig any deeper than that. The full truth sounded pathetic. "I'm fine. I'm leaving, anyway."

Gabriel turned back to the terminal to log out, then stared.

It was going crazy.

"...The hell?" At first glance it looked like some classic pop-up virus. He'd had that happen before--back before he was a Pilot, before he was even a candidate, on an old home computer...which these were not, and the implications sent a little chill down his spine. He didn't know what he was seeing, but--this shouldn't be happening. Any errors should have already been caught and dealt with. They didn't get viruses. Not without tamper--

Gunfire broke the dead quiet, echoing off the walls, and Gabriel whirled and drew his gun as the alarm went off. He heard the locks click into place. Lockdown, locked in. Shit, shit, shit...he looked at Danica and flicked off the safety.

Three more shots rang out from the back, and by then he was in motion, running hard down the path Roman and Raley had followed. Another shot sounded, more distant than before, and then silence. Finality. He reached the corner and slowed, because there was nothing like a blast to the head as you rounded a bend. So far nothing, quiet...not that he could hear much of anything over the alarm. He slipped around the corner and froze.

At the far end of the room, Roman lay face down in a pool of blood.

"Roman!" Fuck caution. He ran.

Warm, sticky wetness stained his knees as he dropped down beside him and checked for signs of life, felt his neck with trembling hands. Still alive. Still breathing. He didn't care if it was a trap. "We need medics, now! Roman's down!" he shouted as he rolled Roman onto his side and pushed up his shirt, knowing that the dragons would hear. Gods, how many times had he been shot? He'd never seen so much blood; it was coming out both sides. As he yanked off his own t-shirt, he looked to Danica. "Danica, check up ahead."

Who was still alive? Who was the shooter? He didn't know and didn't have time to worry about it, not with Roman bleeding out right in front of him. He at least had the presence of mind to tell Danica to do it, rank be damned. Gabriel tore the shirt's seam with his teeth, and then ripped it down the grain. He balled both sides up and pressed one hard to the wounds on Roman's back, and the other to his chest, trying to keep everything in. The fabric grew wet and heavy at an alarming rate.

Stay calm, don't freak...won't do him any good, keep a clear head...

Roman was still breathing, but barely, and when the initial burst of mind-numbing adrenaline began to wear off as Gabriel knelt there, he started to realize that he was dying. That he might actually die. The possibility had never occurred to him before, not seriously. Of course he thought about it; it was always a threat, but it never felt real. It still didn't feel real that Temple was gone. It felt like he could still come back any day now, because he'd never seen the body to prove he wouldn't.

This was real, though, and with hot blood on his hands and clothes and Roman's body failing right before his eyes, hardly able to hear his breathing now...that proved it. He was dying. The fabric was soaked. It wasn't stopping. Gabriel could feel himself shivering, his own breathing short and shallow, and he strained to listen for signs of life.

Then he couldn't make it out at all.

"Roman? Roman!" Cold panic seized him by the throat, tightened in his chest to the point of pain, and for a second he couldn't breathe. Oh gods, he was gone. That was it. He was gone. Gabriel moved automatically, rolled Roman onto his back, pressed down on the cloth on his chest, and breathed into his mouth.

He didn't know when the locks clicked open and the medics arrived, cleared for entry. It felt like hours passed, but it was really only a matter of precious seconds. He moved out of the way so they could work, watching but not really seeing. It passed by in a blur and all he could really think of was that stupid fight and that he'd avoided him and now...

Don't die, please don't die...

[Anonymous]

At first Danica was putt off slightly by Gabriel's quick reply. She must have crossed a boundary, after all they did not know each other that well. Just ran into each other now and then. Then he drew her attention to the terminal. Her stomach knotted instantly, her Seeker instincts going into overdrive.

"Roland, this terminal in the lead rooms..."

Then gunshots...they cut through the silence in the rooms like a knife.

She looked to the terminal once more then took off after Gabe a few steps behind him. She slid around the corner after him her eyes locking on him then following his eye line as he screamed. Her eyes widened and she took off after him. Roman, no, no. She barely knew him but...she still did. As a Seeker she did not know many of the Pilots personally. They were viewed as outsiders in a way, always snooping. She still felt connected to them all though, in one way or another. This was her family, and someone had invaded it.

She stood over Gabe for a moment watching him. Her heart was beating fast and hard against her chest. All the blood...she let a breath out and grabbed the gun Gabe had discarded and took off down the hall as Gabe yelled for her to do it. She found as door standing between her and her destination but then her eyes went down and she found Cross. Her stomach twisted further and she ran to him setting the gun down next to her. Her thin fingers found his neck looking for a pulse. It was still there. She ripped his shirt open and saw the wounds.

Blood was coming out from him too, but he looked like he had more of a chance than Roman did. She started to use his shirt to block the wound her hands getting covered in blood. The knees of her jeans absorbing some of it off of him and the floor as well. In her mind she called for Roland.

"Medics here as well Roland! Cross is down too. Alert the Seeker cells, this is most likely Gospel." She hissed the words. "Pass the camera footage on too the Seekers as well, have it ready for me to look at when I get out." Then she returned her attention to Cross.

"Cross, Cross. It's Danica. You're with me aren't you?" She put one hand on his face the other still moving to check the wounds. This didn't look good, but it looked survivable. She looked into his eyes, anger was apparent there from before.

"Done Danica, but he's out of our sights now. He shot a camera out."

"Who was it Roland, who's on the footage?"

"Raley Sade." Roland was obviously busy with the dragon things, with mobilizing the pilots, with scanning everything, seeing where it came from, checking Raley's files. Her heart was beating faster as she looked at Cross.

"Cross! Stay here. You're not going anywhere." Then the other medics were there and moving. She glanced back seeing other gathered where Roman and Gabe were. She closed her eyes for a moment taking a deep breath. Cross was in the hands of far better medical trained than she was.  She knelt down picking up the gun. Now she needed to get through this door.

[Anonymous]

For a split second Liv wasn't sure what it was.  Crack.  Crack.  The intercom system muffled the gunshots into staticky hiccups, and then everything snapped into place.  Cross jerked upright and took off running, but the last thing Liv wanted to do was go toward the danger.  He stood, fingers clenching, heart jacked to drumroll tempo, back to the wall.

And then two more gunshots, much closer, and Cross staggered sideways.  Liv caught one generalized mental blast of agony and anger and then--oh, shit--Raley Sade.  He stepped over Cross as the sidesliding door butted ineffectually against his body.

Why the fuck was he coming in here?

The lockdown siren wailed.

Once Sade had made it inside, Cross had slithered the rest of the way out.  He left a red trail, but Liv wasn't paying attention to that.  The door shut.  His eyes darted up past Raley's outstretched gun hand to catch his eye.  That was some fucking purpose.  Fuck.  He didn't want to die.  

Bang.  

He felt an impact and flinched, more from the look on Raley's face than the pain, which didn't hit until a second later.  At first there was only impact and the feeling, which felt as removed as a noise, of shattering bone.  One leg gave way, and Liv toppled back onto the corner bench, hands scrabbling at the walls.  Shot.  Oh fuck oh fuck oh steady, Liv, he told himself, hissing through his teeth.  Hasdrubal had taught him what to do with pain, and what to do with panic, because if you ain't dead you focus on staying that way.

He felt one wild spike of hope when Sade swung his gun up to the camera and then it smashed with a crack that sent pain through the mess of his leg and pain and the gun had swung back on him.  The siren had faded to a background, playing blue spikes on his nerves over the pain.

"Okay."  Liv froze, back caught in the corner, good leg braced on the floor.  The other leg felt ... he didn't want to think about the feeling.  Something burning slid down it, and needles of pain radiated wetly out from something that felt like cracked greenwood sounded.   Please to not kill me.  He was completely fucked.  Not the time to think of a plan, not the time to crack wise, not the time to think, not the fucking time to... "I'll do whatever you like."  

He clamped down as hard as he could on the edges of his pyrokinetic control.  It was not the time to lose control.   Death felt very close, very deep, very redblack, and very fucking possible.  His brain worked wildly, on its own, like frenetic clockwork, to figure out some way he could... some... if he threw himself forward or... no.  I don't want to die.  He met Raley's eyes but didn't say more.

[center:3ovpawf9]__________________[/center:3ovpawf9]

"Lead Rooms."  

Calliope sent the immediate impression of what had happened.  Pilot Sade, Roman shot, Danica, Gabe Tierney, Cross shot--lockdown.  Clang, sirens.  Alesku didn't bother with curses, just turned from the terminal he'd been working on and threw himself into a dead run, down the hall.  The Lead Rooms were two flights up, but the Dragons were rounding up all available, and he'd be there for damage control, if nothing else.  He skidded to a stop in front of the elevators and got out the disc of electrostatic armor, which, when he clamped the thing to his chest, spread over his body like liquid, then solidified.  Test this thing out in real combat.

He scanned into the elevator and sent a jolt of power through the system, forcing them to maximal speed.  On the right floor, he sprinted down the hall, relocking the elevator as he went.  

"Sade's in one of the rooms with Sulo.  He's shot, not dead.  He's also shot out the camera."

"Anything else?"  Alesku ran his hand under the scanner and shoved through the doors to the lead rooms, thanking the Gods for his Seeker status.  The medics had already gotten there.  Cross down, Roman down...  

"Danica.  He's in there?"  He motioned sharply toward the door and tugged his blaster out of its holster.

[Tally]

"Let's see...ummm."  Raley scratched his head with the barrel of the gun before letting it hang at his side.  Not relaxation, oh no.  His nerves were popping, sparking.  He paced but watched Liv in his peripheral vision, one part of his mind racing for the next step and the other minding Liv's movements, his posture.  No psychic shenanigans, not right now.  Not for him.  Against Liv he put his trust in the physical, and in the gun he held.  And, above all else, in Liv's sense of self-preservation.

First: to get out of the room.  Which he knew how to do.

Second: to get to a terminal and pull through his part in this.

But his chip would be locked out of every door in the Citadel.

He bared his teeth at Liv.  How desperately he wished he had the time to give Liv the attention he deserved.  Dig his thumb into that bullet wound.  Shove shards of his own shin bone beneath Liv's fingernails.  Stuff the gun in his mouth and make him eat a bullet.  Yeah.  He shivered, enjoyed a wave of rippling pleasure...

Focus Raley.  That door could open any second.  As soon as the dragons felt they had enough manpower on the other side.

Two long strides and he caught Liv by the hair, pulled him up away from the bench.  He pressed the gun to Liv's head, then thought better of it.  There was shooting yet to be done, and he not in possession of an infinite number of bullets.  That, and killing Pilots had been the opposite of what he was supposed to to.  Low key, that had been the goal.  Minimal impact.   So he flipped the gun over and clubbed Liv in the head and let him drop, limp, to the floor.

Kneeling upon Liv's elbow, Raley pulled his combat knife from its sheath.  His own chip wouldn't work, so he'd just need another one wouldn't he?  He angled the knife perpendicular to Liv's arm, just above the wrist.  One hand flat on the ridge of the blade, the other on the handle, he leaned his weight down upon it and felt it slide through skin and muscle before snagging on bone.  He slammed the heel of his hand down on the blade.  Sawed it back and forth.  Ooh, that made the most fascinating sound.

"Thanks, Liv," he said aloud once the knife had made it past the bone and slipped through the rest of the connective tissue to leave Raley with one neatly transportable working chip.  He had to waste two more bullets to shoot out the intercom system.  Just as important as cutting off the dragons' visual line was ensuring they heard nothing of what was said next.

Raley faced the mirror.  "I'm gonna need a little help here."

Not even a second passed before his reflection scowled at him.  "What did you do?  The Citadel is in lockdown!"

"I sort of had to shoot Rosales."

"Roman!"  The reflection's face registered shock, then anger.  "Is he alive?"

"What do you care?  Anyway, I wouldn't have had to if your set up wasn't thirty fucking seconds early."  Raley raised Liv's hand—in the mirror, his reflection did not mimic the move.  "But I can still input the sequence if you get me to a terminal."

"I can't risk anyone seeing you."

Raley was very aware of the closed door to his left.  The Lead Room silence had become a double edged sword.  Just as they couldn't tell what he was doing in here, so too was he unaware of just who or what they had out there waiting for him.  What they might be sending through the door at him any second.  "On the 203 floor.  An entire wing under renovation.  The bathrooms there will be deserted.  And they're conveniently just two doors away from a terminal."

His reflection, the person wearing his reflection, didn't share in Raley's satisfied smile.

"Oh come onnnnnnnn.  It's a good idea, you know it is."  His eyes flicked to the door.  "Didn't you say this may be the only opportunity?"

Another few moments of unblinking silence.  "This is your last chance," his reflection said at last.  And it reached a hand out of the mirror, still Raley's hand, except again it wasn't really.  Not his reflection, not his hand.  Who are you?  Elijah?  It would have made sense.  How else could the old Imperial have disappeared into nothing, unseen, undetected by anyone or anything, unless it was through the mirrors?

Raley took the hand and was pulled through.  He wished he could see their faces when they opened that door and found him gone.

[Rhi-Rhi]

On her way to the Lead Rooms, Axiom gave her the rundown. Sade had gone berserk. Rosales and Letendre, both shot down with injuries to the torso; Keziah passed them on her way down the hall and had to step aside as they were carted toward the elevators, Tierney with them. Neither looked good, from what little she saw of them. Macario had just arrived, and was in position with Blake, Axiom continued. Sulo...condition unknown. Confirmed injured, shot in the leg, but his status remained undetermined beyond that and the fact that he was locked in with Sade; the camera had been shot out and the intercom as well.

Keziah found that part strange. A shot to the leg could be fatal if it hit an artery, but you didn't shoot someone there to kill them; you did it to cripple them. Were they going to be dealing with a hostage situation? And if so, why?

The medics passed, and Keziah took off down the hall, long hair whipping behind her.

What could Sade hope to gain from this, and in the Lead Rooms of all places? The place was a dead end, he was trapped, and he couldn't possibly think he'd come out of this alive. Unless that was the whole point--he'd snapped and gone suicidal, and wanted to go out in infamy. Too cowardly to take his own life and so was trying to force their hand. It happened. Who knows.

Or it was plain and simple Gospel stuff, but those guys were subtle assholes, usually. Unless he was a diversion--gutsy, man--but the dragons were watching. If something was happening elsewhere, they would know. Right now, the dragons had directed them to deal with the situation here, and that's what she would do.

...Or she was giving him way too much credit and he had just gone on some sadistic rampage. Whatever. 'Why' wasn't her problem; that was for the Seekers and psychologists.

The door slid open for her before she even reached it, courtesy of Axiom, and Keziah drew her gun and jogged inside. In her head, the dragon guided her--not with words or thoughts, as neither could reach her here, but with wordless suggestions planted into her brain. She didn't need to be told where to go; she just felt that she should turn here or head over there, not that it wasn't obvious that she was on the right trail. A pool of blood with smears and bootprints marked where one Pilot had fallen, and when she came around that final corner--there they were. Danica and Alesku, weapons drawn, staring at a closed door. More blood painted the ground there, too, and she fixed her weapon on the door, ready to fire when it opened if it came to that.

They were in place. It was all on the dragons, now. Keziah drew a deep breath, single eye fixed on the door, and let it out slowly, muscles relaxing as she found that strange, calm place her mind went whenever faced with imminent danger. Who knew what he had waiting for them on the other side?

Alright, Sadist. Bring it.

[Anonymous]

The phoenix felt like baring her teeth at the door, at the camera while she waited. She was twitching with adrenaline and ready to find a body to beat a lesson into. Her hands were slightly sweaty and beads of it were on her temples, nerves and anger apparent on her face. Where was the back-up? They needed to get through this door...now. Then Alesku came up beside her. She felt a bit of calm wash over her, a feeling of being prepared. One of her own.

"Yes." Her voice was low, still a hiss of anger and poison. She gripped the gun harder, two seekers would be enough for them to let the door up right? When it appeared to not be moving she gripped the gun harder. She reached for the whips of flame she might need if the guns weren't good enough. It crackled on the edges of her mind the darkness being lit up in the cave. She could feel her body grow warmer. The marking on her body would be glowing slightly.

"Roland!" She yelled louder, getting impatient. Her voice was met with nothing in return however. Just a cold silence that sent a chill up her spine.

They couldn't have...it's not possible....but what if?

Then another Pilot was beside her, Keziah? She only recognized her from the trademarks she had seen when going through the files of the new Pilots. Three had to be enough to at least let them in and Sulo was on the other side. Maybe dead, maybe bleeding to death, maybe fighting for his life, maybe even helping the traitor. She was about to scream up at the intercom again when Roland's voice came over it.

"Opening." His voice was tinted with anger, frustration. She returned her attention back to the door however, now that she could get passed worrying about the dragons. As it started to come up she rose her fire in her mind a little higher. Then it came up enough for her to see...

Nothing.

Nothing but Liv on the ground in another pool of blood.

"What the fuck?" She cursed under her breath but rushed in. She slid onto her knees across the floor landing next to him her pants absorbing more blood. She reached for his wrist to take his pulse as she looked at his face, he was unconscious for sure. Then her hand slipped. She tried to grab fingers, but there was nothing. She looked down and her eyes went wide. She swallowed in deeply and pulled her shirt off over her head quickly and tied it and knotted it around his arm right about the...wound. Though that was putting it way too lightly. She checked his neck for a pulse. It was there...but only just.

"MEDICS!" She felt her stomach rolling from the smell of the blood all over her and him. She lifted his eyelids checking to see if he was awake at all. He was gone. She growled. They better get here soon. She wasn't sure if she should cauterize something like this. She looked over him for other wounds, there was a trickle from his head and in his leg another wound. She winced. This was just barbaric, she had seen some horrible things, but this knocked some other back down the countdown.

"Liv, hon? Are you with me?" She knew he was unconscious, but it always seemed to help when you talked to them.

[Anonymous]

Liv felt paralyzed, sluggish.  His eyes wouldn't open, his brain moved in a sticky torpor.  His body floated somewhere outside.  He couldn't move, but he could feel.  The red-hot hook of pain dragged out of black nothingness.  His eyelids flickered, beyond control, a spasm, and let in a flash of red light.  With the inevitability of a scene half-glimpsed through your fingers, he felt something sawing at... something.  Grating pain.  In flashes.  It was gone.  Grinding meat--gone.  The throb of blood pumping away--gone.  It was cold, a cold kind of ocean, with stinging salt.  Gone.

Somewhere inside, he felt unconcerned, with the weak, gray grasp of unconsciousness, it was all...

One eyelid flickered.  Words floated past.  Somewhere there was the worst pain he had ever felt, but it didn't matter.  He caught the sideways, distorted, blurry glimpse of Raley Sade and half a sliver of reflected face, holding something bloody, but the reflection wasn't doing what Raley was.  It blinked back to black.  The pain increased in pitch until he could feel it soaking his body in fire, but no no, he felt mostly annoyance, somewhere, because it was all pushing him farther away from things.  Thing.  Deeper into the crackling ocean of pain.  Just the blaze running along his nerves, an electrical fire and branches and he heard a tiny noise.  Himself, whimpering.  He felt cold and rubbery behind the heat of agony.  One eye open.  Splashes of red, they looked gaudy, like spilled water or silk or something.  And Raley Sade, disappearing into the mirror with a ripple that strung its way across his retinas and then coated them with blotches, afterimages, nothing.

There was a number somewhere in his head.  Liv liked numbers, but he couldn't remember this one.  Pints of blood in the human body.  Haha.  It was very cold.  Something fuzzy and prickling with agony buzzed out a laugh in the back of his head and then the fuzzy gray swarm had come back over his eyes and

Nothing.  

[center:31emqvd3]___________________ ___[/center:31emqvd3]

Alesku took a step back from the scene and squinted, assessing the situation.  The damage to Sulo looked severe.  So he hadn't been an accomplice--or at very least things had gone badly wrong for him.  Quite a lot of blood had spread out on the floor.  He was missing a hand.  Danica had rushed in, of course, but Alesku remained wary.  It wasn't impossible for a Pilot to hide, even in a the restricted space of the Lead Rooms.  But Sade shouldn't be able to.

Missing a hand--his right hand.  He'd seen death and injury before, but it always rocked you a little.  There was no psychic presence in the room other than Sulo's.  There was no presence at all.  No physical presence, no electrical field.  Sade's abilities, familiar to him as were all of the Pilots', shouldn't have let him stay there undetected or move himself out.  

"It's clear!" he said sharply, letting the medics forward into the room.  They had to struggle to get their apparatus through the narrow doorway, and Alesku motioned them in impatiently.  Danica had Liv for now, but he'd like her with him.  First, however, where the hell was Sade?

His right hand.  Alesku addressed Calliope, raising his voice so she could hear over the intercom system.  "Block Sulo's chip from the system.  Block it from the whole system."  His voice came out a hoarse, terse bark.  He glanced aside at Keziah and Danica.  "He's taken it.  I don't know why."  

  Sade had gotten out somehow, but he'd needed the hand to get further?  Alesku looked sharply at the Lead Room.  The bench, the undisturbed wall... one far corner was spattered with blood.  The two-way mirror to the other side--idiots.  We were idiots.  Sade had shot out the camera, but they hadn't even bothered to turn the corner to the little-used observation room.  They might have caught him if they had.  Too used to letting the Dragons surveil.  He could find no trace of Raley nor his modus of escape.  

"He's not here--I think.  Where is Sade?"  Addressing the Dragons aloud, Alesku started for the door, antsy without Calliope's presence in his head.  The intercom wasn't fast enough.  But--

"Record of a swipe through F137-00289.  We're sending all available Pilots."  

He stopped.  They had him.  Never mind how.  It could be a ruse, Alesku supposed.  He could still be here somehow.  But Sulo's chip?  Quick decision.  Leave someone behind, or.... he raised his voice.  "Get everyone injured out now and--is Blaine in there?--I want these rooms locked, and I want the terminals shut down.  Danica, Keziah?"  Damn it.  Running in circles.    

How had he done it?

[Tally]

Raley was thrown from a bathroom mirror on a lower floor of the Citadel.

"Ass."  He glared at his reflection and picked himself up off the floor.  He'd managed to keep hold of Liv's severed hand through the trip between the two mirrors, which had been way less exciting than he'd hoped, just a few moments of darkness  shattered by glinting silver before he was spat out the other end.

The bathroom door was, like every other door in the Citadel just then, locked.  A swipe of Liv's chip took care of that.  The door slid shut and locked again behind him.  The corridor was silent and eerie.

He figured Liv's chip was good for exactly one use, which he'd just used up, so he dropped the appendage to the ground.  All he really needed was the terminal in the opposite wall.  Those wouldn't normally be functional for just anybody during a lockdown either, but the same affliction that had bugged out the terminals in the Lead Rooms was at work in this one as well, the screen flickering and cycling through cryptic popups faster than his eyes could follow.

Which meant his window was still open.

He had to hurry though.  He slipped off the main panel beneath the terminal and used his knife to scrape away the plastic insulation.  Fucking direct technopathy, needed a physical connection for him to do anything at all.  He used his teeth to pull one of his gloves off then grasped the copper wire in his fingertips, launching into the rigid intellect of the terminal.  The code he had to plant was quite simple, just a hundred lines or so, but the benefit of being a technopath meant he didn't have to think in code.  He could just tell the AI what he wanted and it would do the interpreting for him.

It took all of ten seconds to plant the code and watch it disappear into the greater Network.  It was so small and so humble there would be no finding it amidst the billion other anomalies and bugs out there.  

So the code ran off and hid, and Raley sat back against the wall to die.

To his right a heavy door cut the corridor in half.  To his left the hallway continued on until it hit the outer wall of the Citadel, where it turned a corner and kept on.  There would be another door around the corner.  He was trapped, and they would be guessing he was here after the use of Liv's chip alerted them to the location.  Which should be happening about now.

No point in delaying the inevitable.  It was gonna really piss them off to get here and find him already dead.  That thought kept a smile on his face even as he pressed his gun to his temple.  Pay attention, now.  He didn't want to get the wrong angle and lie there twitching and alive.

An immense roar suddenly rent the air and nearly startled him into pulling the trigger.  It came again, the sound of a dragon in the throes of rage—Scheherazade?  Or Cross's dragon?—and the floor shook beneath him.  Raley scrambled to his feet as something pounded on the outside wall of the Citadel.  Claws ripped through the metal and the wall glowed white hot from dragon fire.  Green scales and battered silver showed through the tears in the wall.  It was Scheherazade, and she may have been among the smaller of the dragons but it didn't lessen the sight of her, eyes glowing, destroying the floor and the wall of the Citadel in her desperation to get to him.

Raley had dropped his gun and pressed his back into the wall.  She forced her head into the corridor and saw him.  She stilled for an instant, lips drawing back from rows of white teeth.

She unleashed a roar so loud it hurt, forcing a scream out of him as he clamped his hands to his ears.  He opened his eyes in time to see her push further into the interior and draw in a great breath.

Shit shit shit!

There was nowhere to go.  He turned and shielded his face as dragonfire shot down the corridor, too far away to reach him but the heat of it turned the hallway into an oven.  He curled into a ball, suffocating, his whole body burning.

Another collision shook the Citadel, and the heat dissipated.  For a few moments, Raley couldn't make himself move, trembling on the floor as he listened to a peal of metallic crashes and draconic roars somewhere outside—somewhere far from him.  Scheherazade was gone.  It was that realization that let him pick his head up and eventually stagger over to retrieve his gun on shaky legs.

He put his back to the wall and skirted close to the gaping whole in the Citadel wall so he could get a look outside, placing a hand on the torn metal and jerking it back with a hiss when it burned his bare hand.

It looked like a war zone out there.  Smoke rose from half a dozen buildings, and a spire from the shopping center across the way had buckled and fallen against the Citadel wall not twenty feet from him, creating a bridge of ruined and twisted steel.  Trains and cars had veered off their airpaths and railways, creating one hell of a clusterfuck of vehicles in the sky around the Citadel.

On the roof of a nearby building, Scheherazade fought three other dragons as they tried to subdue her madness before she destroyed half the city.

He would never get this chance again.  Heart pounding, Raley scrambled over the shredded Citadel wall, clambering over hot, melted metal to the collapsed spire.

That is a long fucking way down.  And no time to consider it, either.  He took the uneven surface nearly at a run, making it to the other side just as an immense shadow crossed over him—the golden dragon Absolute, descending to help control Scheherazade.

Someone, somewhere, would have seen him crossing to the other building, which meant the Pilots would know about it mere moments after.  His one advantage was his head start.  He was on a significantly lower level than most of them would be, and already outside of the Citadel.

His one option was to reach the undercity.

Raley shot out a window and climbed inside.