A sharp noise jolted Aaron out of his sleep. The sun streaming through the windows of the hotel room highlighted the ringing cell phone on the nightstand. Aaron grabbed the cell phone and, without looking to see who may be calling, flipped it open and put it up to his ear.

"You screwed me!" Dubenich's loud voice shocked Aaron out of bed.

"What?"

"The designs never got to me," Dubenich screamed through the phone.

Aaron immediately became upset and defensive, "No, I watched them go out."

"I don't know what you saw but I got nothing. NOTHING!"

Aaron rolled his eyes, "Look, I told you you couldn't trust them."

"It is not my job to trust anybody that is what you were here for." Dubenich decreased in volume and got more aggressive, "I am freezing the payments. I am freezing all the payments."

"Look, look, I can come over there right now. We can straighten that right now." Aaron grabbed a pair of pants out of his suitcase and pulled them on while digging for a shirt.

Dubenich snapped back faster than he had before, "No, no, no do not come here. My company has an old aircraft facility outside the city and I will text you the address and you will be there in one hour." He hung up and then, from his office at Bering Aerospace, took a calm sip of his coffee.

~

Aaron walked through a warehouse that seemed to be abandoned. There was no furniture or machines and the thick layer of dust on the floor was not conducive to any actual sneaking.

A large room in the middle held two people arguing with raised voices.

"You wanna tell me what happened with the designs?"

"What makes you think I know what happened?" Kath's distinctive voice huffed. "Stupid."

Aaron entered the room and almost huffed a laugh as Blake stood, the gun in her hand levelled at Kath's head. Kath was standing with a displeased expression on his face, completely unconcerned about the gun pointed at their face.

"Look, forget you, man. I bet you did it when we were coming down from the elevator," Blake said, her voice sounding vaguely frantic.

Kath grinned, annoyed, "Yeah, that makes sense doesn't it? You had the file every second."

"Hold up Kujo, I did my part, I transferred the files-" Blake was interrupted.

"You better get that gun out of my face..." Kath warned, his voice gruff and intimidating.

Blake cut in, "What did you do?"

Kath finished his threat, "or else I'm gonna feed it to you."

Aaron finally decided it was time to interrupt. Kath was seeming more and more agitated by the accusations and Blake genuinely looked like she was ready to shoot them. "Hey!"

They both turn, Blake training the gun onto Aaron and Kath turning his body towards the man who just interrupted their argument.

"Did you do it? You're the only one that's ever played both sides," Kath asked Aaron.

Aaron sighed, "Yeah, well you seem pretty relaxed for a guy with a gun pointed at him."

Kath rolled their eyes, "The safety's on."

Blake turned, her face screwed up in annoyance. "I'm not falling for that, come on."

"No, no, actually he's right, the safety is on," Aaron noted. He pointed at the gun and watched with thinly veiled amusement as Blake checked the safety. Deciding that having the gun in play was really messing up the flow of conversation, Aaron grabbed it from Blake and disassembled it, tossing the pieces to various corners of the room.

"Are you armed?" Aaron asked Kath.

Kath shook his head and spoke very solidly, "I don't like guns." He then seemed to notice something behind Aaron and nodded his head towards it.

Aaron turned to find Symona, holding a gun in one hand with a very pronounced pout on her face. "My money's not in my account. That makes me cry inside my soul."

"Okay, Symona," Aaron said, reaching out to softly lower her gun. "Now, did you come here to get paid?"

Blake laughed, "Hell no. Transfer of funds, man. Global economy."

"It's supposed to be a walk away. I'm never supposed to see you again," Kath muttered, raising his head to the crumbling ceiling in utter annoyance.

"Then the only reason you guys are here is because you didn't get paid. And you're pissed off," Aaron laughed, his eyes betraying a level of insanity. "As a matter of fact, the only way to get us all in the same place at the same time is to tell us that we're not. Getting. Paid."

Simultaneously the whole group realises what is going on. The shock blossoms on their face as they begin to run through the warehouse. Kath and Blake bring up the rear and, as the group leapt down a small flight of stairs, Blake tripped.

Kath could feel the heat on his back but he still paused his running to help Blake to stand and evacuate the building as it blew up behind them, sending debris, and the four of them, flying.

~

Aaron's eyes opened to see the boring panelling of a hospital ceiling. He jolted up but was yanked back down by the pair of metal handcuffs trapping his right hand to the hospital bed.

"You don't like hospitals?" Kath asked from his spot opposite Aaron on a similar hospital bed. Kath had already picked the lock on his pair of handcuffs and was rubbing his wrist to stimulate blood flow to the area.

Aaron shook his head, "I really don't."

From the vent between their beds, Symona's voice emerged, "About time you woke up."

"What?" Aaron muttered.

The other hospital room was exactly the same as Aaron and Kath's in layout but Symona was walking around, tossing her handcuffs from hand to hand, as Blake yanked on the handcuffs that kept her stuck in the hospital bed.

"Cops and firemen got there just as we were waking up," Symona said, clearly annoyed at the escalation of the situation.

From his hospital room, Aaron asked through the vent, "Where are we?"

Blake responded, "County hospital. Local cops responded to the explosion." She lifted up her wrist for Sym to pick the lock, but Symona ignored her, continuing her pacing.

"Have we been processed?" Aaron asked quickly, trying to form his escape plan.

Kath waved his inky fingers at Aaron, giving him a sharp grin. "They faxed our prints to the State Police."

"If the staties run us, we're screwed," Blake inputted.

Symona looked at her, "How long would that take?"

"Thirty, thirty-five minutes depending on the software."

Kath sighed, "They printed us twenty minutes ago. So unless we get out of here in the next ten minutes we all go to jail."

"Yeah, all right. I uh..." Aaron began but trailed off. He needed a moment to figure out a plan using the tools he had with him.

"I can take these cops," Kath shrugged, uninterested in helping the rest of them escape.

"Don't you dare," Symona hissed. "You kill anyone, you screw up my getaway."

"Wait, hold up. I'm still handcuffed here." Blake rattled the handcuffs against the metal bed frame. "I can't even go to the bathroom. I gotta go."

Aaron lifted his head up, and the plan fully formed in his head. He began to take charge of the situation, "Okay, Symona, get me a phone. What we're going to do is get out of this together."

"This was a one-time deal," Kath huffed, their voice gruff and annoyed.

"Look guys, here's your problem," Aaron began. "You all know what you can do, I know what all you can do, so that gives me the edge. It gives me the plan."