Mars hit the pedals and backed the Tesla out without a noise as soon as they ascertained that Mark, now who was Sergeant Higgins, was sticking to the plan when he reached the soldier and seemed to ask him where the others were.
"Would he do fine?" Lyra asked once more, and though in other situations, the words could have been said by a worried mom sending her son to university, she had put her doubt in her voice to make it sound like an annoyed pack leader sending off one of her gang members to complete some mission. "Yes. Lyra, what did I say just a few minutes ago?" Compared to her, Alex was in complete ease, though he himself was grimacing from the throbbing pain in his thigh, which had gone completely numb. "Trust Al Mars," Lyra muttered. "That's it. Now let's go find your sister, hoping that the soldiers didn't find her," His words put her at ease for a few seconds before making her jerk in her seat once more. "What if they did? And what if she got lost? Alex, you shouldn't have let her go back inside the house!" For Alex knew that Lyra was the type which freaked rarely but intensely, he thought that her ranting would go on forever like that. Meanwhile, in his effort that he knew wouldn't work too well in tranquilizing her, he turned the car around and simply doubled back around on the road.
Extremely luckily for him, his ears didn't have to tolerate her rants any longer, since they found a lone girl sitting on the sidewalk, throwing tiny pebbles into the steel gutter as if she was feeding fish with bread crumbs. Mars left the situation to be wrapped up by Lyra, who got out of the car and ran down the speed without even a teensy bit of fear that the soldiers might see her. Soon, thanks to her Prod-speed, the girl was back in the car, but with her sister right behind her.
"Soldiers," Sarah said in a demanding tone once the door was closed beside her. "I saw soldiers. What happened inside the house?" "We made a treaty with a sergeant of those soldiers-we have a plan now," Lyra answered, and it was the most childish answer she had given to her sister-so Mars right away knew that she didn't want her sister to know every detail of the war for now as he listened to their talk and as he drove the car back to the main road, his leg now as if it didn't even exist and he had already cut it off some few decades ago.
But Sarah wasn't that stupid to notice, nor didn't take so long to not get her old senses and experiences with Lyra back-so she also knew that she was the only one out of the circle. "Where are we going?" She now instead asked Alex Mars in high hopes that he would have a soft spot for her.
He didn't.
"We're going to find a friend of mine who might help me fix up my leg, which-" Lyra erected her position in the passenger's seat. Oh, right-Sarah isn't supposed to know if I got shot with a sonic gun that was possessed by the sergeant they had made a treaty with, he remembered hastily. "-I an infection while outside the country. I'll explain later," "Where do you think the Martyr would be now?" Lyra helped, gluing her sentence to the butt of his. "Since he has my parents, he might be near the border or something," "How's the leg now?" "It feels as if it doesn't exist. But that doesn't mean that I'm fine," He concluded.
That shut up Sarah Cannes completely so much that she didn't notice the apologetic glance her sister threw her and the amused glance the boy her sister had brought along gave her.
They sped down the road and without any false alarms nor encounters with the Military("Mark must have taken them away," Lyra observed. "I said he would do it fine," Mars replied.), exited the town, a pair of eyes searching for a familiar face whom he had known for years of training, another pair of eyes searching for a man she had merely heard of and didn't even know how he looked, and the last pair of eyes just staring out the window of the Tesla, annoyed that her only protectors were trying to keep things away from her.
And as always-well, you know what I'm going to say: and as always, time sped by.
However, as it went by, at the center of the country, tens of civilians and Rebels fell down and breathed their last breaths before going cold, while others grinned in victory and flashed their eyes at the spilled blood.

It wasn't easy, but extremely difficult, compared to how easily they found Sarah. Finding the Martyr is like 'trying to fish stars out of the night sky', quoting a South Korean old saying, Alex Mars thought. But they kept searching, now eyes all trained outside for the man.
However, the more they did, passing wailing sirens, running and swearing people, burning buildings and flying trash, they lost hope-well, now, their idea seemed quite insane, since they would need technology of the old Chinese face recognition technology to find the single, lone man.
They had to admit it at last, exactly after two hours of driving and weaving through the now-thick wave of crowd: success was unlikely.
For the first time, they gave up.
"It seems like finding the Martyr, nor a hospital that still has sane doctors in it is unlikely-we'll have to make a makeshift support for your leg," Lyra was the first one to say a word after those solid, silent two hours, and it officially signified the failure of their goal. And that didn't please Alex Mars. No, not at all.
But he could do nothing about it, so he just stationed the car on the sidewalk. He had just opened the car and was trying to get out when he remembered that his injured leg was now just a mixture of bone, blood, muscles, and skin that was nearly dead and swollen up like hell-but he was too late. He fell splat on his chest, his dead leg still aboard the tesla.
"Dang!" He yelped, waiting until Lyra, who had been going ahead of him to search for a plank of wood for the support, noticed that there was only one pair of footsteps following her-Sarah-and found her other Prod partner lying still like a statue on his face.
"Jesus. This is worst than I thought," This was what she gasped as Mars emitted a low groan. "How's it?" She asked the obvious question with an obvious answer. "I feel dead and dumb and stupid," He answered.
"Right," She replied.
She hauled him up and lay his arm across her shoulders and they dragged each other down a narrow street, with Sarah leading the way.
They found a single wooden plank that was quite thin and Mars stripped off his ash-spotted and shaggy T-shirt at the hem and pasted the wood to his dead leg and was still surprised to find his skin there not feel the wood. At least now, he was able to feel more comfy and somehow, in place.
Since it made him sick to stare at his swollen and supported leg, he was turning to look at his tiny team to discuss an alternative to their original plan when-
-something happened.
-And it had been the first time since Alex Mars hadn't been alerted earlier with his ears.

The only reason his ears hadn't been capable of their original roles was because the danger had come from above, not beside.
A pair of old Addidas shoes fell from the sky and positioned themselves lightly and silently on the cement pavement. A pair of Nikes, Fila, Sportify, and Nexus(this was a new shoe brand that had started in the 2060s)also fell from above even before he could jerk himself away from the first. When he found no more dropping, he looked up at the wearers...
And it completely took him astray, even with more intensity than when he had encountered Mark Higgins.
"Bullshit," He panted, since it felt childish and unusual to just cry "You!" like in those movies at the first three figures, one of them the one in those first pair of Addidas shoes.
It was the minor David Kim...
-and the minor Lewis Nobody with the major Thomas with an h.

The tiny gap between the two opposing parties was filled with a massive body of complete silence, and Sarah was growing uncomfy with the 5 new strangers and her bewildered-looking protectors with each passing second.
Lewis shot Kim a trembling look, then did the same to Thomas, who was grimacing and was posing a bit from Lewis as if he was avoiding the man on purpose.
Then, all of a sudden, words rang in the narrow street.
"We apologize,"
"I'm sorry,"
Those two sentences were said at the same moment, with no zero-point second apart from each other, but, by different throats.
The first one had been said by Lewis.
And the second one by Thomas.
Thomas glared at lewis before spitting out a sigh through his nose and staring down at Sarah with such an intensity that it made her flinch. Then, the boy moved his glare on Lyra, who didn't flinch back but seemed to calculate the glare. After a few seconds, she actually made her lips into a surprised "oh", and that made Mars curious and want to ask what number she had just seen in Thomas.
Then, Thomas stared at Alex.
Yes, it was a stare, not a glare.
the boy's eyes were trembling themselves and though it was intense, it still hid a sensation of worry and apology behind them.
Mars was about to say something when the other's eyes moved down to his battered leg and grew in surprise.
Another 5 seconds passed before Thomas moved swiftly in Prod-speed and crouched down at the leg to examine it.
"Bandages. Now," The boy demanded.
Lewis stared at the boy in wonder before twitching his fingers and David Kim plunged his fingers into his pockets and dug around for a big wad of bandages.
"Throw. Immediately," The boy commented.
Kim threw.
"Don't move-Mar...no, Alex. Don't move," He said one last time before pulling off the thin threads of T-shirt from the wound and pulling off the wooden plank. A bit looking paralyzed and troubled, Lyra, who was still supporting Alex up, moved around and gave him some space.
To everyone's surprise, Thomas pulled out the Martian laser gun from his pocket swiftly and aimed the tip at the edge of the wooden plank before flicking it on. The red laser zapped through it immediately and a small part of the wood fell off. The guy repeated the action several times until he had a thinner and more fit plank of wood in his hands. Then, he clicked the gun off and strapped the plank to Mars' unresponsive leg.
"Woah. Thanks," Mars said in awe.
"I'm sorry, Alex," Thomas repeated, indifferent. He shrugged, though.
"I know," Mars answered, sincere to the heart. He knew that the Tom he knew was back-for real. Though he didn't know the reason yet, he was gleeful.
"Lyra?" Thomas questioned.
Lyra sighed and clutched Alex's shoulder before glaring and opening a full-force attack on Thomas' eyes.
However, unexpectedly, she nodded.
Thomas sighed back, full of relief.
"Thank you. Now let's move to an empty building-we have to get some rest and gather ourselves up. By the way, Miles and Melanie were spotted running and shooting paralyzers at some Military guys on a bridge. Did you guys separate on purpose?" "Actually, yes. But what do you mean by 'spotted'? You didn't see them yourself?" Mars asked.
Thomas swore for a moment, just like his usual self, before answering.
"The bitches and assholes behind me did, 3 hours and 4 minutes ago," Lewis and Kim cleared their throats in unison, in response. "I did," Kim added. Thomas snorted but didn't retort. "We have to go," he repeated once more, impatiently. "I also have something to... tell you both. Follow me."
With those words, the boy whirled off and walked down the street, all by himself, his Nike shoes slapping the ground hastily as he did.
Some exasperated, some curious, and some awed, the now big group of 7 followed him and his slapping shoes.

They all entered a crumbling, cement-white building with bleached spots where posters or ads had been torn off or washed off the wall. Even a tiny square patch of cement right above the door, where the address was supposed to be, was whiter than the rest of the panel above the door.
They were right away introduced to a steep case of stairs and they all climbed. Alex Mars lagged behind as the last, thus making Lyra also come last, thus making Sarah come last. "This can't be a trap, eh?" Sarah questioned them both as soon as they were some 7 feet behind the Rebels. "No, it ain't," Lyra answered.
But inside, the three were all hoping that she would be right.
By the time the Raiders and Sarah reached the topmost floor, the others were all waiting. Thomas checked that they were all up before yanking a shaky, brown door that didn't even have a lock but a single, metal knob.
Silently as usual, they all filed inside, and David Kim closed the door last as soon as Mars was inside.
The Raiders and Sarah found themselves inside a small hotel room. There were a total of two bedrooms and a tiny kitchen and living room, and these were all connected, without no specific hallway connecting them all. Boxes of polarick were already stacked on each other at a corner of the livingroom, while Martian food and water topped an ancient-looking, wooden table.
Thomas stepped into one of the bedrooms and waved the Raiders over.
As soon as all three pairs of their feet were on bedroom ground, he closed the door shut and, since there was, luckily, a big lock on that door at least, he locked the room and checked the knob 2 times before turning to them.
"Now, I'd like to welcome you to the story of my life," He said, arms open and raised like a magician.
However, his eyes weren't that gleeful, but actually, gloomy like hell.
This isn't going to be a happy tale, Alex Mars thought. But at least I'd get to know him better-and know why he came to us, he added.
So he settled down and opened his ears as wide as they would go to listen to Thomas with an h's story-at last.