Cory

I stopped to rest a few blocks away from the factory where there were no street lamps and no signs of life. Slumping down behind a building, I slipped the mask off and felt my face and shoulder where the man had clawed at me. My hand touched wet blood, but the pain of the injuries hadn't set in yet. My nerves buzzed so much that I felt like my body was shaking.

Just a few more blocks, I thought, ignoring the fact that I had no plan once I got there. My mouth felt like cotton; I was desperate for a drink, but there was nothing around to help with that. I stood up, leaning heavily against the wall for support. Even with the mask off, I still felt dizzy. In the blackness of the night, I couldn't see the ground to know if it was tilting or not. There was no moon or stars or city lights to give me any guidance. I pushed off from the wall to keep walking, but started falling toward my right and had to sit back down. My head and shoulder began to throb and a dull ache crawled through my muscles.

"It's not even worth chasing you if you're going to be this easy to catch," a voice said. I looked up to where it had come from, but couldn't see anything. "Did you find my mask useful?" he said."I'm going to need that back."

"You can take it back," I said. "It wasn't all that great. I think it leaked, too." I was confident that he was right in front of me, but I couldn't see him at all and my nerves were too loud for me to feel his presence.

His hand gripped my hurt shoulder, sending a burning sensation up and down my back. I gritted my teeth. "You are quite the little pain in the ass, aren't you," he said, digging into my skin with his talons.

I would have pulled my gun, but I had no idea where to aim. The darkness was so thick that I wondered if I had lost my vision. So once again, I focused myself on affecting his nerves. If I could make him collapse, then I could hold his head in place while I shot him.

I grabbed his wrist, where the skin was normally much more tender,making it an ideal place for a psycho-physio connection. "You guys don't wear gloves, huh? I thought I saw you in gloves earlier. I guess you're hands are just that ugly."

He snorted and tightened his grip on me, causing something to crack.It probably would have been painful, if my nerves weren't so preoccupied with trying to get through to him. He leaned in close enough for me to feel his breath on my face. "I could break all your bones right now with this hand."

With my left hand, I grabbed my gun as quickly as I could and shot at the place where his breath came from, deafening my ears and his with the barrel so close to our heads. But he was too quick and dodged it, letting go of my shoulder and pulling away. For a moment,I felt relieved. But with his pressure off my shoulder, the pain flooded in. All my blood drained out of my head, and I collapsed on the ground for only a second. When I regained consciousness, he had picked me up by my hurt shoulder and held me like a piece of trash to throw away.

Once again I grabbed his wrist and tried to make a psycho-physio connection with him. He had no awareness of what I was doing, which made it just a little bit easier than breaking through. But I found it hard to have any impact on his nervous system, when I couldn't keep myself from panicking. My ears rang from the gunshot and the static. My head throbbed and my shoulder burned. I desperately fought for control over my senses.

Thinking that I was just trying to squirm away from him, he laughed and said, "You're much too weak to fight back."

"Well, I know that," I said. "You're twice my size." Talking back to him actually boosted my confidence just a little. Maybe it distracted me from all the horrible parts of this situation. Either way, I had a moment of clear, focused thought, and got him to relax his grip on me, letting me fall to the ground. I kept my hand on his wrist and worked on changing his attitude about fighting me just like Mikkel had done the other night with those Townies, but that was a much more difficult task and he twisted his hand out of my grip.

A gunshot cracked through the air, echoing off the empty buildings all around us. I couldn't tell where it came from or who it was aimed at, but it missed us both. My attacker pulled away from me and turned around to find the source. I grabbed at my waist for my own gun, but couldn't find it. It wasn't on the ground, either, or at least, not that I could feel. My short blade sword was my next thought, but with my right arm in this condition, it was just as useless as a heavy stick. The darkness became much more terrifying with another unknown shooter on the loose, but I no longer knew which direction to escape in, and my body was too weak to go anywhere. I pushed myself up to the nearest wall and curled into a ball, holding my shoulder tight to stop the bleeding.

Another gunshot went off, but I still couldn't tell where it came from. It hit the Unmarked soldier—I don't know where—but didn't hurt him at all. He charged toward the source of the gunfire, leaving me alone in the blackness. I heard three more shots. One hit the wall about a meter above me, causing little pieces of brick and dirt to rain down on my head. But two of them hit the Unmarked. I heard him grunt and fall to the ground. Then footsteps echoed through the streets, stopping when they reached the Unmarked soldier. One more short to the head and the soldier was dead. Then the footsteps came toward me, stopping to pick something up from the ground. Before he even touched me, I knew it was Miles. He had a very distinctive feel—like soft sheets or a warm bed.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

"No," I said. "I think my shoulder is broken."

"Come on," he said, taking my hand and trying to help me to my feet. "Let's get you out of here."

"Where's Dr. Gore and his helper? And how did you get out? I was coming to rescue you. It was going to be so romantic and then you were going to kiss me—on the lips this time."

"I don't know where they are. I'll tell you about the rest later.Let's get you out of here." Even with his help, I couldn't move fast or at all really. So he put his gun in the back of his pants and picked me up, being careful not to hurt my shoulder any worse than it was. My forehead touched his chin and my arm rubbed his, but he didn't seem to notice all the static that was in me, which was good because there was a lot of it. I drifted off to sleep in a sea of white-noise.

The first thing I heard when I woke up was Mikkel and Miles arguing in another room. It was comforting to have such familiar sounds again and know that both were safe. Markus was sitting next to my head,stroking my hair.

"What are they fighting about?" I asked him.

He looked down at me in surprise. Then said, "I don't really know.Miles said something about Mikkel starting all this and now the Serpent army is involved and... now the fields are on fire."

"What fields?"

"The SBS fields."

"Why is that a problem?"

"I don't know. But Miles seems really upset about it."

"Where am I?" I used my good arm to prop me up to a sitting position on the couch I had been laying on.

"Don's house."

I looked over my injured shoulder. My shirt had been taken off, my shoulder bandaged, and my arm put in a sling. "So that's why I'm cold." I said, looking around for a blanket.

"You're cold? Here," Markus pulled his shirt off. "Take my shirt." He threw it over my head and pulled it down around me.

"Now you're gonna be cold."

He shrugged. "I'll be fine."

"Isn't there a blanket or something?"

"Oh!" Markus said, suddenly remembering. "I'm sitting on it."He stood up to reveal the blanket he had been using as a cushion on the hard, wooden chair.

I rolled my eyes and smiled. "Here," I said, taking his shirt off of me with my one, good arm. "Take your shirt back. I'll use the blanket."

He smiled sheepishly and put his shirt back on. I took the blanket and started to unfold it, when Miles came into the room saying, "...I don't care what you think, Mikkel, you started this whole damn thing and now you're going in there to fix it!"

"I hardly see how this is my fault. I never did anything to the Unmarked or the SBS."

"You started a firefight on their territory! Twice! I'm not having this argument with you. You're going in there. You're not some...high and mighty king that can just send his army into a place while you sit back and drink wine. You're going in there and you're getting Dr. Gore and Piper out! That's it!"

"Well then, if you insist," Mikkel said. "You'll just have to come with me. Otherwise who knows if I'll be able to find them in time."

"Oh, you will. You will because you have to." Then he turned tome and dropped his voice into something sweet as he bent down on his knees to see me. "How are you; are you alright?" He asked me.

"You tell me," I said. "You're the one that patched me up,right?"

"Yes, but I honestly can't tell how bad it is. Does it still hurt?"

"Probably," I said. "But it's all gone numb now."

He shook his head. Then turned back toward Mikkel. "Where is that man? How long does it take someone to buy some food?"

"In the middle of the night with no car?" Mikkel said. "I'm guessing it'll take him a while."

"How did you get away from the SBS?" I put my hand on Miles's cheek to force him to look at me and maybe get a peek at the truth through his nerves. But my static was acting up and I was much too tired to deal with it.

He gently took my hand off his cheek and placed it back on my lap—with a smile to try to make it seem less like a rejection. "I'm not completely useless," he said. "I did go through training just like all of you. And I have my certain... talents."

Behind him, Mikkel smiled a devilish smile that was so big, I could see it in my periphery. When I looked up at him, he dropped the smile and shook his head like he was innocent of all thoughts.

"Well," I said, turning back to Miles. "I'm glad you're safe.You look like they didn't hurt you at all."

"My wrists are a little sore," he said, looking down at his wrists, which were bruised a deep purple and green. "But nothing like what you went through." He put his hand on my good shoulder.The static buzzed between us, but he smiled for me and didn't pull away, though his jaw did tighten a little.

"I don't suppose you're gonna kiss me now," I said.

Miles didn't respond right away. His eyes got a worried look in them, but he kept his smile and tried to think of something to say. A strong feeling like a polarized magnet went through his hand—as if he was physically repelled by the thought. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Finally he just shook his head.

Mikkel

Miles was being an asshole to everyone that night, and the little bit of convenience store food that Don brought back didn't help. He transformed into a full adelige snob when he saw it. "What is this?" he said to everyone, pulling out cold sandwich wrapped in plastic. "A sandwich? Its soggy and old. The lettuce is limp."

Cory came up beside him and jabbed him in the ribs with her good elbow. "Don't be an ass, Miles. Don went all the way to Midtown to get this for us. If you want a fresh meal, you can go back home and wake Ingrid up."

Miles finally looked up to acknowledge Don standing in the room. The poor man had a limp smile like a deflated tire on his face.

"Just eat the damn food and stop being cranky," Cory said. She grabbed a sandwich, but unwrapping it with one hand proved to be difficult. She tried using her injured hand, but it was obvious that any use of that (arm or the hand attached to it) was painful.

"Guess your arm's not numb anymore, huh, Cory?" I said, reaching out to assist her efforts. I could feel her upset nerves before I even touched her. They fired off signals uncontrollably like live wires on the ground, making her whole body a hazard zone. No wonder Miles didn't want to kiss her. I didn't even want to touch her. But the amount of energy she was wasting through her nerves, and what damage it might cause her brain and spinal cord, started to worry me.So after I unwrapped her sandwich for her, I took her hand and helped her calm her nerves down while she ate. The static subsided and her body relaxed—perhaps a little too much. Before she wad done eating, she passed out on the floor.

"What the hell did you do to her?" Miles said, snatching her hand away from me and kneeling down to check her over.

"I helped her relax," I said. "She was so tense, I thought she was going to implode."

"Just stop trying to manipulate my wife!"

"I'm not trying to manipulate her!" I raised my voice to match his. "I'm trying to help her in exactly the way that you won't!"

Miles shot up and stepped over her still-sleeping form to get right up in my face. He wasn't posed to punch me, but I could tell he was thinking about it. "You don't think I want to help her?"

"Guys," Markus said, putting his hands out between us to break us up. "It's rude to fight inside. If you're going to do that, take it outside."

No sooner had he said it than we heard an explosion coming from across the bridge. Through the window, we saw a fireball rise in the air above the SBS factory. I couldn't tell if that was a good sign or not. In either case, the Serpent army had certainly gone all out on this one. Whatever Marcel had said to the Advisory had worked like a charm and in only two hours, the Serpent army was in the South end lighting things on fire and shooting off their guns at who knows who.

Whatever they were doing, I didn't want to be anywhere near it. I had no faith in them to not shoot me, even if they knew who I was.No, it was best to stay put and wait for things to calm down.Besides, it was quite likely that the SBS wouldn't bother to torture or kill Dr. Gore and Piper while all this was going on. They had more important things to worry about. My biggest concern was how much damage the Serpents were unwittingly doing to the important bits of the South-End like the factories and the shipyard and the farms.Setting the wrong thing on fire could do a lot of damage to the whole city of Easternport.

Cory didn't stir at all on the floor. Miles finally picked her up and took her back to the couch while Markus and I stared out the window at the fire burning in the South-End. Don went to sleep a little before sunrise. By the time the sky turned pink, Miles was asleep on the floor next to Cory, and black smoke billowed out of the SBS factory. It made me wonder what had happened to the Unmarked guys. Miles had said he had killed one of them. He said it took over half his ammunition to do it, too, but I knew that was because he was a terrible shot.

Cory finally woke up by the time I decided to eat the last of Don's food for breakfast. He had an egg left and some bread with green and white spots on it. I cut those off with a butter knife. "You're going to pay him back for all the food you've eaten, right?" she said in a low voice. Miles still slept on the floor and Markus had fallen asleep in his chair by the window.

"Sure thing," I said. "Just as soon as all this is over and I can get the House of Cards going."

"No," she said, "You need to pay him before that."

"Well, that'll be a little difficult now, won't it." I cracked the egg over a frying pan. "See, I'm kind of broke at the moment.But how about this: you help me do some raiding down there—watch my back and all that—and you and I can walk away with enough money to pay back Don and maybe get Ingrid a nice, new dress." I gave her my winning smile, but she was not so easily swayed. Not anymore, anyway.Miles had tainted her against me.

"You really want to run into that whole mess?" she said.

"Well, we still have to save Dr. Gore and Piper, don't we? If we can get to them before the Serpents do, then we get to be the big heroes of Easternport. And if we hit up the docks on the way back—I know where they keep their stash—then all the better, right?"

"You really can't do anything selflessly, can you." She grew cold on me, like the previous night had completely wiped the friendliness out of her. Like she no longer trusted me. It stung a very particular place in my chest.

I shook my head in disbelief. "My dear, Cory, how could you say something like that with such coldness? Everything I do is for the good of everyone. It just so happens that I am included in everyone.Does it lessen my good acts just to know that I do good for myself while I do good for others? I saved you at the same time that I saved myself—both last night with the Jaggars, and last year with the Masters. How can you fault me for being able to do two goods at once?"

She shook her head and sighed. "Stop trying to twist everything.You're hurting my head."

"Would you like some bread and honey?" I asked, holding out apiece of mold-free bread. "I'm not actually sure if there's honey.As dismal as this man's kitchen is, I doubt there's even butter."

She took the piece of bread and ate it plain.

"I hope you won't get upset with me for feeding myself at the same time that I offer food to you," I said. She may not have conceded the argument, but I had won.

She rolled her eyes at me and kept eating. Her nerves were much more settled than the night before. For that, I was glad.