The sewers ruined their daily schedule-though they all knew exactly what time it was, they became so accustomed to the darkness of the tunnel quickly that they decided to just move on, even when it was supposed to be night outside. Alex Mars kept thinking that the moment he had gotten into the tunnel had been as if he had just fallen into a rabbit hole, because they were suddenly living lives completely different and separate from the world they had known outside. But he didn't fret, because he knew that in that moment in the 'outer world', the Military may have started to go really violent on the people and the Raiders may have already set off for the desert themselves to get to the country as soon as possible. Both thoughts sent a strange pang of some feeling that made him want to groan 'fuck', but since it might create seem frustration among the others-who were silently walking, keeping their thoughts to themselves-he didn't groan 'fuck'.
So on they went, keeping thoughts to themselves, day and night going unnoticed, legs starting to get wobbly, eyes starting to fall down, and finally, their heads to exhausted to go on to keep their thoughts to themselves-which, by that time, had all transformed into one single, unified one: Sleep.
Though only a few kilometers were left now, they just 'all fell down' and huddled against each other's, using legs and feet as pillows, they each went to wherever in the world they usually went when they were asleep.

Alex Mars found himself waking up at 7 in the morning to the sound of old water dripping down somewhere that he definitely didn't want to stick his head in to find out. The others were still splayed over on themselves on the dirty, decades-old cement floor, snoring and drooling in their own individual ways-Miles was completely flat on the ground, Melanie was leaning on the giant water tank, and Lyra was leaned against the smelly wall. He thought of making his waking up as a thing that had never happened and was trying to go back to sleep when it occurred to him that he had no sleep left in him and got up, pulling his still-asleep bones and joints awake with a single jolt of his knees and feet to get himself erect and standing.
He just felt as if he was back in that house where Ryan Marvick had once lived-on the second floor, where he had been all alone and had used his ability to just lead him anywhere with the most clues on who had lived there. Everyone else was asleep and only sound(alright, just forget about the exits of the horrid smell for now) with him inside the underground tunnel.
And his ears seemed eager and ready to be used to full extent after so long, as if it was ready to leap and show him what it got under its sleeve.
So he let them be, and closed his eyes like how he had done it that last time, inside the house.
With no other sense interrupting him but his hearing, it was so easy to concentrate and give his ears a chance to be in the spotlight-they instantly brightened up and got real alert, in order to hear everything inside the tunnel. At first, they only picked up the sound of the others sleeping, and it wasn't the most pleasant sound in the world to hear, for Miles was, as usual, snoring quite loud. However, in the next second, his ears had extended its range to hear other things.
Like where the water was dripping down-it was an old pipe-, like the sound of the dust under his feet as he strived to make as little movement as possible with his feet but failed, like the sound of several people running, like the sound of old cement rattling...
Shit, go back, scroll the list of things you heard right back up a tiny bit, Al, he yelped to himself. Where was it?
Ah, yes, there it was-his ears once more concentrated on the sound of the running.
So, why did this catch my attention? he wondered as he relaxed down his ears and let the other senses of his resume control on him again. Why?
Oh, right-because you simply can't find nor believe that several people are just jogging and exercising in the midst of a smelly, decades-old sewer that was abandoned and water barely exists in.
And with that occurrence, he froze completely.
Why? Where? He questioned himself, brows squashed up on his forehead so tight in concentration and frustration. How? What? Lyra?
"Shit!" He literally fell on his buttocks when a very familiar hand tugged on his shirt lightly and an even-more-familiar face forced him to look straight back-from the dirty floor.
"You scared the hell out of me," He soon accused her as he crawled up and erected himself, butt hurting, head spinning, and, well, of course, embarrassed. Lyra Cannes only stared back at him with frank frustration and worry of a mother to a kid. "You scared the hell out of me, actually, Al. I have never seen you staring at the air in front of you so seriously, nor have I ever seen a human being standing so still and silently in real life. What's going on?"
Jesus, she's so clueless... but he knew that she was the smartest in the group. She just might give him answers after all...
"People are running," He finally confessed, the pain in his butt residing, unnoticed by the owner of the butt. "Erm, speak in English," Lyra said the phrase for the first time in her life, and Alex sighed, so exasperated on her cluelessness, if not her otherwise perfectness, for the first time in his life.
"I hear people running. Somewhere..." His ears resumed their alert listening just once more briefly. "Up there," He pointed at the dark, fungus-covered ceiling of the sewer. "Alright, not right above us, but somewhere on the ceiling," He added as an afterthought.
Lyra followed his gaze at the ceiling then gave him her signature frown. "Pinpoint it out," He sighed. His ears were already a bit pissed out since he had just used them a bit so excessively and after a such long period of time. But he anyway forced them to life once more and waited as they picked up the sound of running and people back up there above the ground.
It was too distant to be near where they were standing, nor too close to be miles away. However, considering that tunnels made even the slightest sounds bounce here and there and get magnified, he would have to calculate it precisely...
Suddenly, a single bang came, and the footsteps suddenly intensified somewhere up there. Even Lyra heard it and flinched beside him.
However, it was no longer a simple 'somewhere' for Alex Mars.
He knew where exactly it was and raced to a point in the tunnels some 12 meters away from the spot they had been standing on in 4 seconds and halted, eyes steadily boring holes into the flawless but rough cement ceiling. He was still trying to listen to hard when he saw that the ceiling wasn't as flawless as he had imagined it to be just a few seconds ago.
-There was a slight and very-hard-to-perceive silhouette of a hole, which had the same diameter and size as the NEW YORK SEWER manhole cover.
"Jesus," He said, and he dizzily looked back at Lyra, who had flickered next to his side, curious. "There," He pointed right at the rim of the circle and her eyes grew as big as golf balls soon. "It's the exit. We found it," She whispered hoarsely. "Yeah. We have to lift the thing up and exit. But there was a gunshot just now-" "We also have weapons, Al. Too-strong weapons, actually. Guns would be nothing," she said, thinking how the Martian weapon had burned Alex's hand crisp. "Right. Then we gotta hurry. People seem to be in plenty of danger already. If the Rebels arrive now, it would become total pandemonium,"
They both rushed in Prod-speed back to the two, who were still snoring and while Lyra jolted them up with sharp pinches on the cheek, Alex Mars dug into the bag and retrieved his long shovel. The others stood up, some groggy and some alert to find him swinging his shovel around as if it was his Mjölnir.
"We found the exit, peeps," He announced. "Lead the way-that's what leaders are for," Miles smirked at the sight.
So they all marched back to the point 12 meters away from their sleeping spot, with all their bags and water tank in hand, and Lyra pointed out the rim of the circle.
"Shit, you're right," Melanie whispered. "Then did you believe he wasn't right?" Miles muttered before plunging his hand into the bag like Alex to find his tiny screwdriver. "But the thing is, that's too high-even for me," He added, staring up at the ceiling.
And like hell he was right. The ceiling was about 5 feet away from all of their heads(6 for the case of Lyra) and it wasn't a happy nor promising sight for them as Miles tried to reach it, but ended up flopping up and down like a desperate fish out of water. "Fuck," He groaned.
They were silent for 5 seconds right after Miles quit his flopping-around-out-of-the-water before a huge, fat, yellow light bulb popped into Alex's head.
"That's it. Polarick. We gotta step on them," He pointed at the two boxes stacked on each other on the damp floor-looking up at the four of them glumly.
"Al, you're right," Lyra nodded, reciting exactly the words the Martian had said as he introduced the substance: "It's 'The only mineral on Mars to endure extreme temperatures, stay hard, and stay preserved for a long time'," However, when she looked up after reciting it, she found Miles and Alex already banging it open and taking out everything inside.
"Well, they are boys after all," Melanie absent-mindedly said to the pissed-off Lyra as they both watched them empty the boxes now by holding them both upside down, grabbed two laser guns from within, then stacked the boxes on top of the other.
Since Alex Mars was much more lighter than Miles, he went up first, ears cooperating well this time and straining to listen to the sounds going on above all of their heads, beyond the steel manhole and concrete surrounding its rim. He still heard frantic footsteps, but now, maybe because of the gunshot that had rang prior, there was a less frenzy going on out there, with few people scattering away, he guessed. The gunshot also meant one thing for him: he would have to lift the cover at the precise and perfect time when the coast was clear-and that wasn't going to be easy for his now-lazy and tired ears.
He, for a second while he was standing on the boxes alone, with every other eyes staring at him from below, imagined how the gun shooter(if he or she was still out there, guarding the streets for any stray people) would react if an old, early-21st century man-hole cover would lift itself and a brown-haired head would rise up carefully, ears twitching-and though it was too hilarious to even imagine, he knew the situation after such a funny moment would be horrifying. It only added to the tension he was feeling and more sweat rose to his palms, making the laser gun slippery, as if urging him to step away and let the others do it and be the fraidy cat. But that wasn't an Alex-y move, and furthermore, he was the leader for now-what would the others think, possibly, if he just shook his head and said 'Nah, never ever' to all of them?
So, taking an extremely deep breath that made his chest rise a few inches, he clicked on his laser gun and felt its strange, eery buzzing sound in his alert ears and touched its end to the obscure and hard-to-see rim of the NEW YORK SEWER manhole cover...
They all stared and flinched as the white end slid into the cement as if it was water(right, it had went in so smoothly that you can't even say that it went in as if the cement was 'butter'.) so quickly that Alex Mars had to restrain himself and stop the thing from going in too deep into the cement, for the reaction of the possibly-existing guy or gal with the gun out there may be even more extreme if the end of some bizarre light stick suddenly rose out of the cement ground like a new seedling.
He was so surprised that he pulled it out right after he pulled the thing out of the ceiling.
Three seconds of utter and extreme silence passed after he did that.
"Holy-" "Cow." Miles finished for Melanie impatiently before hopping up with his muscles onto the boxes like a cat and spun his own gun on the tip of his index finger. "This whole Revolution is going to be extreme," He said solemnly like a quote just before he pushed the end of his own gun into the cement rim and with a face of complete joy, he whisked (yeah, he whisked) the gun around the rim with great preciseness and acuteness, as if he was stirring some bowl of soup with a plastic spoon.
After he finished and turned his gun off, another three seconds passed before the cover started to make a giant creak and groan as if angered by the Raiders' interference on its state of having been stuck firmly onto that space for decades, and every one of their pupils went to stare at the thing instead of the boys on the two Polarick boxes.
'Jesus' was the word Alex Mars uttered as the cover finally dropped flat onto the damp floor-and during the last 0.5 seconds, what he did was push himself out of the cover's way and fumble for his back pocket to Mute his Muters, but it was already too late. 0.5 seconds later, the thing hit the ground with a huge, resounding clang! then shook on the ground with the whirrwirwhirrwir... sound that all pots lids make when they tilt here and there until the motion kind of slows down and resides away like an echo. Meanwhile, just like that day when his mom had broken the ancient Portmeirion and induced his ears getting Muted, the sound dug deep and punched the eardrum in Alex Mars' ears-his old, worn Muters gasped and wheezed as they struggled to keep the sound out, since he had Muted them right after those 0.5 seconds. It still stayed with him, never residing much, until a few minutes after, by which, all the others were back to phase one: staring at him. Miles was giving him a funny, confused look, Melanie was emitting a less-but-still-funny,-confused look, and Lyra was giving him the same look his mom had given him that day-the look of extreme concern.
"You fine?" She finally asked, and it was barely a whisper for Alex's ears, which were still full of the clanging sound.
He finally realized that he had been hunched and wincing and tried to soften it up.
"I fine," He answered, using the same funny grammar of her question, and that made Miles smirk and rub his nose, looking up at the hole he had created-and they all followed his gaze up to the hole, and with great astonishment, found themselves staring at a grey sky, surrounded with tall buildings.
"Alright, I get it, Al, that you're fine, but-" "-we should get going. I know," He gave a loud cough himself to lower the sound of the clanging, which was finally backing away slowly. "Yup. I'm much better. Let's go,"
Though they were all shooting worried glances at him, he climbed back onto the boxes and with less caution than before, peeked his head up-and nearly fell backwards, onto Miles, who was climbing right after him.
He was looking at the grey street of his country, of his city, of his memories. His 'past life'. His birthplace. His...
-everything.
He was back, at last. He had left as a scornful, banished Prod, which was a 'species' of mankind that was peculiar and hard to cooperate with, regrets and anger all inside him. And he had finally come back after months, as a well-known, strived-for, honest and, frankly, a Prodigy, the group which had been persecuted for years and had been finally recognized the importance of.
So many had happened till that moment, he realized.
But so many needed to be done, he also thought. 
He grabbed the edges of the hole and pulled himself through, leaping out with Prod-speed and strength, suddenly full of a kind of energy and types of emotions he had never felt before in his life.
He turned on his laser gun and UnMuted his Muters and let his major strength resurface at full range-he let his ears at last to hear the world he truly belonged to with no restriction nor restrain.
For the United States of America, he thought as he advanced slowly, staring at each familiar building with his confidence. For Andrew, he added.
Then,
For all.