Author's Notes: I've only gotten a few reviews, but here's the next installment! I worked really hard on it! Please don't forget to read the AN at the bottom after you're finished with the chapter!

Chapter Two: What’s Dead?

Kaite was relaxing.

Now normally her idea of relaxing was sitting down for two minutes and falling asleep from pure exhaustion. Sometimes it meant getting back up before she fell asleep and writing down all the ideas that had popped into her head about how to tick off the government. A lot of times, she got up after the two minutes and went to help someone who couldn’t handle the problem they had on their own—and more often than not it was a small child who needed their laces tied or had lost their toothbrush. Dealing with kids was a surprisingly huge part of running an underground rebellion.

But this time was different. This time, she was, as Draike had ordered her to, actually relaxing. She had curled up with a novel and a cool drink and was quite enjoying herself.

Draike thought her chasing after novels and old webpages was a stupid pastime. But Kaite enjoyed it. Since the chips, the government had wiped creativity from the human brain because it wasn't useful—it was, in fact, dangerous to them. What if someone was able to wonder why they had their children taken, or why they never laughed? Ideas were dangerous things to those trying to oppress. The government had also wiped the internet shortly after starting to brainwash the people. All webpages and records of how life had been before the chips were banished. Novels had been burned. “Movies,” which were like novels played out by people acting, had also been destroyed. Artwork centuries old had been thrown into oceans. Music, timeless classics that had been loved for generations, had been banned. Everything was gone.

But some precious books had escaped the purge, as had some webpages and movies and artwork and even music too. Kaite sought after these things, and when she came across them, hid them in the rebel base for safekeeping.

She learned a lot from these things, especially her books. Her novels. She had learned, for example, that the world had once been set up into many factions that were larger than towns but smaller than continents, called countries. Each country had had their own set of rules and laws and customs. Each country had also had something called a language. Languages were actually words that were replaced with other words, but meant the same thing. It had been a foreign concept to her, until she applied it to computer programming. Scripting was a different language, too. After that it hadn’t been so hard, but the whole thing was still fascinating. She’d told Draike about it, and though he didn’t understand the concept at first, she’d gotten him into it quickly, and he’d changed his codename from “Wolf” to its Japanese equivalent, “Ookami.”

Japan no longer existed. Kaite had looked on her maps, and the place where Japan used to be was now occupied by the Far Eastern Arestians. There were no countries any more, and as much as Kaite hated the government, she could see the sense in not having them.

The world today was just...the world. All one huge country. From what she could gather, the countries had fought a lot (which was why Kaite could see sense in just getting rid of them). They had had lots of world wars—where all the countries fought each other at the same time. The fourth or fifth time they’d had a world war, the country of Arestis had simply swallowed up all the others because it was so powerful, and the planet itself became Arestis instead of the old name they had used, Earth. She had spent many hours looking up dates, searching for clues, but she hadn't found anything relating to why they were so powerful; apparently it had just happened that way. She did, however, figure out that Arestis City had once been called New York, and that the tree that led down to the rebel base was in a place that they called Central Park. Central Park was the one of the only names in the world that had remained unchanged.

But it wasn’t just history she learned from novels. She learned lots of odd little things about the world before the chips. As primitive as it had been—for instance, their telephones had only had sound and no picture to go with it, and their cars had actually had to use gasoline as fuel instead of solar power—it sounded kind of nice. Their slang especially was fun to learn.

Before the chips, the people had had things called schools, where, from what she gathered, one man or woman would talk to lots of children at once and teach them to read or write, rather than their parents teaching them or hiring a teacher. That actually sounded kind of fun, even if it wasn’t the best way to educate a child. Then they had called their view boxes “televisions”—and, back then, you were able to watch anything on it, not just the news or new government laws.

They also had nifty little things called stoves, which was like putting a fire in a box to heat up your food, instead of just using a microwave. And music and movies had been on stored on disks, sometimes something called tape, instead of stored on chips, which were much smaller and easier to work with. Everything had even come with wires, because apparently nobody had heard of a radio wave back then. She had even giggled at the idea that they had thought there were only eight planets in the solar system.

Kaite’s current novel was about a young woman who dreamed of nothing more than to become a journalist. The term was a new one for Kaite, and she had had to read the same thing a few times before she got it: a journalist was someone who worked on a newspaper. Kaite was fascinated by the very idea of a newspaper. To think people had once actually taken the time to write out every single piece of news and distribute copies of it on paper...amazing. People today wouldn’t have the kind of time it would take!

She was still brooding on this new idea when her door opened. Without even looking up, she knew who it was.

“Did you know that people actually used to write out the news on paper and give it out to everyone?” she asked Draike. He laughed.

“That’s stupid, it takes too much time. Besides, there’s no way to guarantee everyone would get one. How did you know it was me?”

“Everyone else has the grace to knock.”

“But they have to knock. They don’t know your keycode.”

“Another incriminating piece of evidence.” She looked up when she heard giggling and saw that Draike was not alone. “Oh! Hey, Ivan. I didn’t even know you were here. What’s up?”

“Your watch needs a MC-2062 chip,” Ivan told her as Draike handed back the busted up watch. She tossed his to him after she had refastened the broken one. “And I don’t have one. Draike suggested we steal it.”

“Awesome,” Kaite told him. “I'm up for some fun. Lemme get my laptop and see which warehouse that’s in.”

Kaite put her novel down (albeit rather reluctantly) and dug under her bed. A few moments later she produced the small black laptop and opened it up on her lap. A few quick keystrokes and she’d opened up the program Ivan himself had designed to get her in the government database faster.

The program automatically combined all possible combinations for the hundred-digit number Kaite sometimes had to memorize, and then logged her in as a random user it had stored in its memory—the trick was that they only stored users who had retired or been killed in service, so that they wouldn’t get an error for being logged in at two places at once.

Unfortunately, these users were hard to find and if all of them had been wiped from the database, she would have to use a name of a person that was still alive and working in the government—like Darrel LonSord.

Kaite paused, her fingers hovering above the keys.

“What is it?” Draike asked.

“It’s still there,” she said. “Normally they’ve deleted it by now.”

“Deleted what?” Ivan asked.

“Well,” Kaite said, taking a breath, “About once a week we go in and delete the government database just to annoy them. It boosts my reputation, pisses them off, and every once in awhile they spend long enough restoring it so that they slow down a little on taking kids to test labs.” She paused, fixing her hair back up in its ponytail.

“Yesterday was Trash Day,” Draike continued for her. It was a humorous nickname for the day when they’d go out and hack the government computers. “We try to save it for later if there’s no rain that particular day, because the rain covers tracks. But even if it doesn’t rain, we’ll go anyway. There’s just got to be an agent who’s out of his or her home.”

“Yesterday though,” Kaite continued, “All the conditions were right. It was raining. It was pouring. And an agent was at work. So I went out to delete the trash. I always leave a notepad file, you know, just something where I can leave them a message and tell them I did it. They usually try to get the IP it was uploaded from—which is pointless cause I always break in a government agent’s house—and then just delete it.”

“But it’s still here,” Draike said, pointing to the screen. “And last night he found a way to send a typed message through it instantly.”

Kaite opened the file. It did indeed have Darrel’s text from the night before, pleading for someone to answer.

“Those words appeared on the screen as if he was sitting right here, typing them himself,” Draike said. “He thought I was Kaite. I knew better than to even enter the space key...because he can get a lock on anyone in that system if they do anything more than look. But it was kind of freaky. I never touched the file, but he even got it to give me a script error to get my attention.”

“That is weird,” Ivan said, eyes round. “How did he do that?”

“Well, you can control computers,” Kaite reasoned, “But you’d have to have their IP address for it to work. And if he had our IP—”

“No more Rebellion,” Draike said.

“Right,” Ivan agreed. “So he’s using it some other way. That’s really, really weird!”

As they stared at he file, a script error came up saying the file “LeftByTheRebels” couldn’t be opened because another user was inputting data. Kaite frowned and closed it out, then brought the file back up.

The words began to clear again, as if someone were sitting next to her hitting the backspace key. Kaite’s eyes widened and she checked the IP addresses in the log. Hers wasn’t in there because she hadn't done anything but read the files, but there was one she recognized.

“LonSord’s logged in,” she told her friends.

x-x-x

“Hello, Raven,” Darrel typed, from his end of the computer. He smirked, enjoying how much he was probably freaking them out with his little program. “I know you’re online...I can tell by the ‘user unknown’ entry in the IP log. No agent would bother to hide his tracks in here.”

He smiled, waiting for that line to take effect. He was pretty sure their unprofessional people hadn’t realized he could do that. He skipped down a line and began to type again.

“I also know which name you’re logged under...someone called Tobias Marrow.” Darrel paused in his typing. “I’ll make sure his records are deleted; he no longer works here.”

Still no reply. Damn it, they were smarter than he had estimated.

“You know, I’d reply if I were you,” he typed. Time to use his bargaining chip. “I'm not after what you think I'm after...but I do know a little something about you.” Darrel sighed, waiting. Nothing. He began to type again. “If you go to a certain old, undeleted webpage on medical conditions of the liver, there’s a new link there to a file I uploaded. Uploaded outside the government database to keep you safe—you can download it without getting your IP seen, or without he agents here seeing the file. It’s a video, Raven. It’s a video, Miss Raven, of you.”

Darrel kept right on smirking, because he knew he had their interest now.

“Ask me for it, and I’ll give you the web address.”

x-x-x

“Holy—” Kaite covered her mouth. “I can’t believe that. ‘Miss Raven.’ He knows I'm a woman...but how did he manage to get me on video?” She started to type back, then thought better of it.

“Good thinking!” Ivan told her. “If he gets the IP of your laptop, the Rebellion is gone.”

“I'm just getting the location of the chip,” Kaite said, searching their database for it.

She found it rather quickly, ignoring tantalizing messages from the government agent about how much he had gotten on the video. They way he was talking, he had had someone follow her into the rebel base and record her all day. But Kaite knew better than to trust a word he said; he worked, after all, for the government.

But if that was the case, how did he know she was a female...?

“They keep these in the actual offices,” Kaite said at last. “They’re valuable. But we can get one, no problem. Grab some cloaks and some guns and let’s split.”

“Cloaks?” Ivan asked.

“Cloaking devices. They refract light off objects instead of bouncing it back to your eyes, and they make us transparent to the human eye.”

“Wow,” Ivan said.

“Yeah, we happened to find one on Trash Day once and since then we’ve stolen about twenty more. They’re pretty rare, even in the government...most people don’t even know such a thing exists.”

“Anyway,” Draike said, “They’ll get us in and out safely.”

“Yeah.” Kaite fixed her hair up again, cursing at it it. “Anyway, when we get in, you and Draike can go into the storage room and grab the chip. I’ll go do a little spy work of my own and check out LonSord’s office. See what he may have on me laying around. Draike, you keep my watch for now so each group has one operating watch.”

“Yes ma’am.” Draike grinned good-naturedly as they switched their watches yet again.

“So we clear on the plan?”

“Yup.”

“Gotcha.”

Kaite watched them file out of the room, then glanced back at her laptop, still laying open on the bed with Darrel LonSord's file brought up. The words on the screen were different now.

“What are you so afraid of?” LonSord mocked.

She shut the laptop and exited the room.

If only he knew.

x-x-x

So pretty, the flowers. So many different colors. Yesterday the colors had made her head hurt, but today they were beautiful. She say on the windowsill looking at them. The window was tall. Very, very tall.

She climbed down and went to the kitchen table, looking for her father. She wanted something to drink and she couldn’t reach the cabinets by herself, nor did she want to. She was worried that she would see the colors of the cups in the cabinet and it would happen again. His presence, big and burly, yet with the most gentle voice she would ever know, would soothe her.

She heard her father talking at the door to some strange man wearing all black.

“Yes? How can I help you?”

“We have been informed that the female child living here is defective. At ten in the morning yesterday, she experienced a seizure, did she not?”

Kaite’s ears perked up; they were talking about her! She went to the door.

“No,” she told the man at the door. “I was just looking at the flowers and fell asleep. They said I started jumping around everywhere, but I don’t remember it so I don’t think I did.”

“Kaite, go inside.” Her father’s voice was harsh...very different from how she had heard it before. Though he was a big man, she had never been afraid around him before. Now she was.

“No,” the man said, “We’ll need to test her to fix the problem. And her brother, too, just to be safe.”

She laughed.

“But there’s nothing wrong with Borden!” she said. “Silly, he’s too little to have anything wrong with him.”

“You won’t take them,” her father said. “My wife was already taken, and I need these children here with me.”

“Go get your brother,” the man at the door told her. “I work for the law, you have to do what I say.”

Kaite turned and yelled up the stairs for her younger brother. It would be the last government order she ever followed.

Borden, even younger than she, climbed down the stairs, gripping the rail tightly. He held her hand as they watched the two men argue.

“I won’t allow it,” Kaite’s father said stubbornly. Kaite didn’t understand. She hadn’t enjoyed what had happened the previous day. Why not let this man fix it?

“Sir, I am warning you, any more attempts to resist and I will have to harm you. Hand over the children.”

“Over my dead body,” her father shouted stubbornly, still blocking the doorway. “Kaite, take Borden back upstairs. Do not listen to this man, he’s lying to you.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Kaite said, and she turned and pulled her brother with her, frightened.

The gunshot cut through the air, piercing the peaceful afternoon.

Kaite screamed and turned around, then screamed again. Her father was laying on the floor in the middle of some red stuff. Blood! The government agent still had his hand raised and the end of his pistol was still smoking.

Kaite flew at the man, kicking, clawing, and screaming. She did not know how she knew her father was gone, but the feeling of cold dread had seeped into her stomach the moment he had said the word dead. Now, she knew, he would never say anything again.

“You killed him! I hate you! Why? Why?”

“Daddy?” Borden asked, not knowing what to think. “Kaite, why is he sleeping? Hey, Daddy, wake up!” He went to his father’s side. “His eyes are open but he isn’t moving. Wow, he isn’t even breathing. How can he sleep with his eyes open and without breathing?”

The man who had shot their father simply snorted in a kind of irritated amusement.

“He’s dead, kid, not sleeping. Unless you want to die too, you’re going to come with me.”

“No!” Kaite yelled. “No, no, no!” She had tears rolling down her face and was now struggling to get back to the man laying on the ground.

“What’s dead?” Borden asked.

x-x-x

Darrel was mildly disappointed when Raven logged off without a word. The rebels were smarter than he gave them credit for; if he saw their IP he could determine exactly where they were hiding in a matter of seconds.

Which, irritatingly enough, was the reason they’d always broken into an agent’s house to do anything to the files...

No, even with the lure of the Raven’s identity, they would not be lured into that trick. Not so easily.

“Ah what am I thinking?” he mumbled. Spending much of his time alone had gotten him somewhat schizophrenic—he talked to himself more than he would have liked. Twenty-nine, and he already felt like a lonely old man. “I should have shown this file to someone the minute I got it...not like it matters. She’d try again anyway, I'm sure...”

He was watching the webcam file. The few seconds that showed the Raven exiting the house she’d broken into. He had it looped so that it played over and over. First lightning flashing against the curved form, then a flash of red hair as it darted out of sight.

He watched the clip over and over, sitting in a kind stupor. He felt, after a moment, that someone was watching him, and he turned to look over his shoulder. No one was there. He shook his head at his own paranoia and looked back at the clip.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling. He felt as though eyes were boring into the back of his head. He sat very still, and he could feel it—someone breathing on the back of his neck.

He jumped up, pistol out and ready.

But no one was there.

Uncertainly his eyes searched the room, looking for a hiding place someone could have crawled in. The door creaked and his head turned sharply. But it had just blown in the breeze, or the air pressure, or something, that had to be the case; nothing, no one, was in the room with him.

A little shaken up, he put his gun back, took another look around, and sat back down at his desk.

“I need some more coffee...going nuts in this stupid place...”

Raven, from the doorway of the room, smirked. She had been close enough to see his split ends. He had, in fact, had the pistol about an inch away from her right eye and yet he hadn’t caught her.

What a story to tell back home.

x-x-x

“We are going to get caught,” Bunny worried to Ookami in a whisper as they entered the storage room.

“Relax,” Ookami said. “We’ll be fine.” Ookami felt around on his hip and found the button to deactivate the cloak, then helped Bunny find his. “Look for a box with the chip name marked, okay?” He took out a folded piece of paper. “MC-2062 chip.”

“Okay,” Bunny said. “But we are going to get caught.”

“We are not. Don’t you trust me at all?”

Bunny blushed.

“Well yeah, but...”

“Oh, hey. I found the box. That was easy. Let me signal the Raven...you go ahead and grab a few.”

Since she was invisible, all he could do was send a message (with Bunny’s watch) to be opened later, using five vibrations. He didn’t want to make a sound in case it would blow her cover.

But as it turned out, Ookami didn’t really have much to worry about.

x-x-x

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Damn it. Damn it.” Raven swore softly under her breath and it helped her feel a little better—despite the current situation.

She was standing in a small closet where they kept the machine that waxed the floors. It was cramped and crowded but she could not go out no matter how much more uncomfortable it got. She was pretty sure being in here was better than being shot to death.

Her battery had died. She was no longer invisible.

The rebel leader alone in a building full of government officials. This did not look good.

She started to call for Ookami, but then wondered...what he could do, anyway, bring another one back all the way from the base, while risking his life for a watch that she broke?

No.

She would figure out another way.

Somehow.

Her watch vibrated five times. Raven opened the message to find that Ookami and Bunny had gotten the chip. Ookami asked if she was done with her spy work. She had no idea how to answer him.

“Ookami? Can you open a direct channel?”

She sent the message with five vibrations. Soon enough Ookami had a direct channel open.

“Yeah?” he asked. “What happened? Over.”

He always did know.

“Er...my battery shorted out. For the cloak. Over.”

“Hold on and I’ll come give you mine. Ov—”

“No way, it’s my watch and I'm the one who broke it and you will not risk your life for me. But,” Raven said, a light bulb going on in her brain, “I need to know the name of that woman you were talking about the other day...over.”

“Who, the redhead government agent? Over.”

“That's the one. Over.”

“Lerona Fahr, over.”

“Thanks. You two get out of here, and do not object. Go back to home and wait for me, over.”

“I am objecting. I can’t leave you here to be the government dartboard. Give me your location. Over.”

“No. I’ll be fine. You already have someone to protect and it’s not me. Get Bunny out of here and I will meet back up with you at home. Over.”

“Not happening. Over.”

“Damn it, don’t make me order you.” She was the Rebellion leader, sort of. She could do that if she wanted. “Get your ass home and wait for me and don’t you dare worry. Also, I am ordering you to have Bunny beep me if you need help. Ov—”

“Don’t think you’re above needing help either. If the shit hits the fan, you call me too. Over.”

“...fine. I'll do that. Good luck, see you in a little while. Over.”

Raven snapped the watch closed before he could change his mind. He was brave and noble and he was so stupid, and he would come after her in a heartbeat; she wanted no such thing. They had the chips, they could get out of the building, and she would find them later. She yanked her sleeve down over the watch, jerked her hair (which she let out of the ponytail) down behind the hood of her jacket, and, trying to act as though she owned the place, she walked out of the closet. There was a dress code here, but it was somewhat casual, so she didn’t stick out too much.

At least, that was what she told herself.

She walked to the elevator, pushed the button for floor one, and waited impatiently like everyone else.

She couldn’t believe it was working. Did the brainwashed masses miss out on deductive reasoning or something?

The elevator was crowded; she let another woman go ahead of her and wound up standing in the hall alone. Good. So many agents in there, if one of them had noticed anything...

“Afternoon,” came a greeting from her right, from a man who was holding an empty coffee mug and probably ready to ready refill it. Raven turned and felt her heart plunge to her knees.

“Afternoon,” she replied boredly to the agent standing next to her. She yawned.

The man gave her a long look. Raven squirmed inside, kept her bored calm look outside.

The agent next to her was Darrel LonSord, who had just spent the last hour viewing a video of her on webcam.

x-x-x

Darrel had had a long day. First he had been yelled at for letting the hackers in the previous day. Then, he had had to restore all the system files Raven had messed with. All the system files. That took all night with no sleep and only a few breaks to refill his coffee mug. By the time he was done, it was time to get up and come back to work. And the workday wasn’t over yet, so he still had to stay awake several more hours before he could go home and crash. He occupied himself with getting coffee and talking to himself, half because of lack of anyone else to talk to (save for the unresponsive Raven over the computer systems) and half because if he didn’t he would fall asleep in his chair, and the consequences of that would not be good.

And when talking to himself had failed, he had started watching that video clip. Over and over. Raven could be anywhere, and he wanted to know her when he saw her. Unfortunately, on the clip there wasn’t a lot to see. All he knew was that she was a skinny woman with long red hair pulled back in a ponytail. He hadn’t see her face, her eyes, even what kind of clothing she’d been wearing.

Then while he was watching the clip, he’d had that weird panic attack, or whatever it was to make him think someone was there when they weren’t. It had been the first time his intuition had ever failed him, and it was rather disappointing.

But to make it worse, when he went to refill coffee, they were all out. So he had to go all the way to the first floor to get more coffee mix.

And that was when he saw her.

She was pretty young to be working in the government, but then again, so was he. She looked just as bored and sleepy as everyone else here. She dressed the same, too, except she had on jeans instead of slacks. He was also pretty sure he had seen her before—maybe somewhere in the building when he had gone for coffee?

So if she was supposed to be here, why did his intuition say to shoot her? Was it another failure of his gut?

Or was she hiding something?

x-x-x

Ookami and Bunny were on their way out of the base when it happened. Someone backed into Ookami and swore. They turned around to see that no one was there and as fast as lightning whipped out a pair of shades that could apparently see people with cloaks.

The guy aimed a well-placed punch at Ookami’s jaw, sending him backwards. In about three seconds, before Ookami had been able to get up, the guy had his gun out and pointed at Bunny’s head.

“Stand down,” Ookami said fiercely.

“Let me think on it. No.” He released the safety on the gun and fired.

Bunny lay on the ground, trembling, shocked at his close brush with death. Ookami had kicked Bunny’s feet out from under him in the last second, ducking under the bullet and tackling down the agent, too. Ookami wrestled the gun away from the other man’s hand, emptied the bullets onto the ground, and then used the butt of the gun to knock him out.

“You all right?” Ookami asked Bunny, extending a hand.

“Y-yeah,” Bunny said, getting up. Ookami pocketed the agent’s shades.

“Good. Let’s get out of here.” Raven was right. At the moment, he had someone else to protect—someone who, unlike her, couldn’t protect himself.

x-x-x

Raven stepped into the elevator as it came back up, and LonSord followed her in. Damn it, they were alone. She slowly positioned herself so that she was standing at the door and he was standing at the back of the elevator. Easy, quick escape.

“I don’t recognize you,” Darrel said tensely. “What’s your name?”

“Lerona Fahr,” Raven said, eternally thankful she had thought to ask.

Darrel forced himself to relax, looking her up and down. Yes, he remembered Lerona. The same red hair and blue eyes...but that was all. This woman’s clothes were...odd. She was too skinny to be Lerona; the clothes were baggy on her. She was bony and at the same time had some muscle, as though she didn’t eat enough and got too much exercise. She was also young, very young, and Lerona had recently retired, he remembered now. And the watch on her arm, that he could see just below her jacket sleeve, was a different model than any he had ever seen before...

He did recognize the hair, though.

—the sudden flash of lightning—the long red hair whipping away as she darted out of sight—for the briefest moment the silhouette was outlined, and he could see the curves of a woman—

This was not Lerona.

This was the Raven.

But Darrel let himself relax, checked his watch, and looked around boredly.

Raven saw him relax and she relaxed too. Maybe she would get out of this alive. That’s right, don’t question it. You don’t bother me and I won’t bother you.

But Darrel had had her fooled. His hand flew to his side and he brought out his pistol, letting the his coffee mug drop and shatter. Raven’s eyes widened and she went for her own gun, but he was too quick. The Raven froze with her hand at her side, then slowly brought them both up in the air.

“Nice try, but not good enough,” he said. “I know every face. I’ll give you credit, you did pick out a name of someone who looks like you, but Lerona Fahr is an old woman, retired.”

Raven grinned.

“Hey, come on—I just look good for my age. Aren’t us chipped people supposed to be perfect?”

“No sixty year old looks that good.”

“I could say the same for you,” Raven pointed out. “I mean, you’re awfully young to be recruited into the masses yourself, aren’t you? But if you can work here, so can I.”

“That’s true,” Darrel said with a grin. “But you don’t.”

Keep him talking. When this elevator hits the first floor I'm gone.

“Hmm. Not bad, for a brainwashed lackey,” Raven said, with another grin of her own. “I believe you have me all figured out. What a shame...I guess it’ll all end here for me. Aah, and the action left me all tired, too.” She pretended to stretch, putting both hands together in the air, then pressed the emergency vibration button on her watch. “How did you figure it out?”

“Hands apart!” Darrel snarled, and her hands jerked away from each other. “You must think I'm very foolish—”

“You said it, I didn’t.” Living with Ookami forced one to verbally witty.

Darrel released the safety on the gun. Raven shut her mouth. Another unfortunate side effect of living with Ookami was that she never knew when to shut up.

“Aside from those rags you call clothes,” Darrel sneered, “And the casual way you dress, I can still tell that you obviously don’t belong here, since you don’t have a laptop with you.”

“I left it at home?”

“Nor are you very bright, Miss Raven,” Darrel said, ignoring the comment and watching her shocked face with satisfaction. “Which, I'm afraid, is a required trait to work here. So, if you’ll excuse me, I need to kill you now.”

x-x-x

Ookami was already out of the building when Bunny got the vibration.

Ookami stared at Bunny’s watch as it vibrated once. He waited. No more vibrations.

Damn it all. Her life was in danger!

Again.

“Check the location,” Ookami said. “Is it from Raven?”

Bunny opened up the watch and gave it a few verbal commands.

“Yeah. Coordinates tell me she’s in an elevator that’s currently on the fourth floor of the building.”

Ookami groaned.

“Listen, you go back to base. I showed you how to get in, you should be fine. Has your gun got bullets? Okay, good. Don’t hesitate to use it if you need to. Turn the cloak back on and get to Central Park, find the tree and go in. I’ll get someone to let you in. Okay?”

“O-okay.”

“You can find it, right?”

“Of course. I’ve been there lots of times.”

“Switch watches with me.” Ookami was getting tired of playing musical watches, but he needed to call someone to let Bunny in, and Kaite would probably call him again later. He opened up a channel with another rebel back at the base.

“Hey, Rick—I mean, Oaks. I’ve got Bunny with me...Raven needs some help, so I need you to let him in after he goes down the tree...she wanted me to keep him out of trouble...yeah. Okay. That’d be great. Thanks.” He shut he watch. “Oaks is letting you in. Don’t worry, he’s as harmless as a fly. You’ll know him when you see him—blind, with one leg.”

“O-okay.”

“Be careful.” Ookami vanished from view as he turned his cloak back on. “See you later.”

Bunny looked around.

“See you,” he said, to thin air.

x-x-x

The next two seconds played in slow motion for Raven. She saw Darrel close one eye to aim, saw his hands tighten. Then she heard the elevator doors open. Raven ducked. The gun fired.

She lashed out with her foot and knocked Darrel’s legs out from under him, a very useful trick she had learned from Ookami. But as Darrel went down he grabbed the tail of her jacket, pulling her down with him. Raven didn’t try to wrestle with him; he was heavier and probably stronger than she was. She instead bit his hand. He let out a cry that was more surprise than pain and she pulled away, scrambling to her feet and kicking him hard in the ribs. He got up too and she whirled around in a circle, knocking him out with a quick chop of her hand to the back of his neck. She ducked as another shot went off, but this wasn’t Darrel’s gun.

Raven looked back in horror. Several agents who had been on the first floor landing had all pulled guns on her. She dived behind Darrel as another shot fired over her head. She pushed the close doors button, and emptied the bullets out of Darrel’s gun as the elevator started to go up to the top floor again. Then she took out her own gun, releasing the safety. She pulled her hair back tighter in her ponytail and jerked it under her hood. Time to call Ookami again.

“Contact one-way Bunny,” she told the watch. She was pretty sure Bunny was with Ookami, wherever he was. “Ookami, open a channel.” She sent five vibrations.

In a few moments, the channel opened.

“What the hell happened? Over,” came Ookami’s angry voice over the other end of the watch. Raven sighed in relief.

“It’s a long story. Where are you? Over.”

“In a storage closet on the first floor, over.”

“What’s going down? Over.”

“Nothing. There’s no one here. They all went for the stairs. They’re beating you to the elevator on the top floor. Over.”

“Damn it.” Raven punched the door open button, saw a wall, then hit the door close button. She hit the one that took her to the first floor. “I'm coming back down. Where is Bunny? Over.”

“I asked Oaks to let him in at the House.” House was another codeword, the one for their underground base. “Don’t worry, he’s fine. Over.”

“Okay. Ookami, wait for me outside near those bushes. I’ll send another vibration if anything goes wrong, I swear. Over.”

“Are you sure? I could wait on you, over.”

“No, go outside. If I know exactly where to look for you we’ll be out of here quicker. Over.”

“Okay, I'm going. I‘ll see you when you get there. Over.”

The elevator kept going down and she began to relax. She could handle this. Everyone was up top, and Darrel was passed out. This would be fine. All she had to do was wait for the elevator to open and then run. The adrenaline started to slow down a little. Yeah. She could totally handle it.

Then Darrel stirred.

Ookami heard Raven swear and then the line went dead.

x-x-x

“Fucking bastard,” Raven spat later, back in the safety of Central Park’s trees. “Piece of shit, that’s what he is.”

Ookami raised his eyebrows at her. When he’d caught up to her, just outside the government building, she had been swearing Darrel LonSord up one end and down the other, and she hadn’t stopped since they left. She let out a steady stream of curses, using a couple of words Ookami wasn’t about to repeat. He looked around and then stamped on the tree root, waiting for the door to open.

“Raven,” he started, “What did he do, anyway?”

“That disgusting worthless jackass,” Raven said savagely.

“Right, him. What did he do? Door,” he added, motioning for her to go in as the elevator came up.

She went, and the elevator door shut behind them as they were whisked underground.

“Draike, I hate him,” Kaite declared.

“Kaite, I’ve noticed.” Draike sighed. “What did he do?”

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, pulling it loose from its ponytail.

“The worst possible thing,” she said flatly, pulling it back into the elastic.

What was the worst possible thing?

“That piece of shit,” Kaite sighed, slumping down against the elevator wall and finally sitting on the floor. “That asshole... he let me go.”

Draike stared. The elevator door opened. Nobody moved.

“Good one, Kaite. You really had me going there for a minute.”

“I'm being serious,” Kaite snapped. Draike backed off, hands raised in a defensive position. “Sorry,” Kaite added in a sigh. “It just—he stood up, and I got ready to hit at him, but he just sort of raised his eyebrows at me. Like, ‘Why are you starting this stuff?’”

Draike extended a hand and she took it, pulling herself up to exit the elevator. They went through the door (“Welcome, Ookami. Welcome, Raven.”) and started walking towards her room.

“It was so weird,” Kaite continued. “He just stood there and then he started smirking. I hate that fucking smirk of his. He’s a jackass. Then he just...ugh. Made a comment about the weather. And he was smirking. I mean it started out as a normal smile, but no, he just couldn't help it, the damn bastard had to go and start fucking smirking at me. And I'm just sure he loved the look on my face, too, because the smirk got worse.”

“Why didn’t you just punch him?”

“How can you punch someone who should be killing you but who’s letting you walk? That’s crazy. I wanted to. But I couldn’t. The elevator stopped and he just walked out, whistling. And smirking. Only that asshole could whistle and smirk at the same time.”

Draike couldn’t help it. He started to laugh.

“What are you laughing at?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“He wanted to get you worked up. By smirking. And look how you’re playing into his hands, getting all mad.”

Kaite’s jaw snapped shut, and promptly the curses stopped. She sighed.

“You’re right. I guess I should forget it.”

“Of course I'm right. I am always right.”

“Shut up,” Kaite said. She stopped outside the door to her room, and entered the keycode. “I'm going to see what they said on the database about me, and then I‘m going to bed. I'm bushed.”

“Okay. We can do the watch fixing later. Don’t strain yourself.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously, Mom,” replied Kaite. She gave Draike a quick hug. “Night.”

“Night.”

Draike watched her enter, then sat down outside the door. He stalked her in his free time, and he didn’t have anything better to do, so he’d sit here and wait until she fell asleep.

Kaite went into her room and opened up the laptop. She yawned, waiting for Ivan’s program to load the hundred-digit number and find her a user.

A little box popped up on the screen, with a timer counting down from ten seconds.

“‘Error?’” Kaite asked. “‘Please input password’...I don’t know the damn password.” She tried to close the program, but it just popped up with another box: “Access denied!”

“Oh, crap,” Kaite said, eyes widening. This was a virus! Someone had known the method she was using to get in, and had set a trap for her. She hit the shutdown button on her computer, but again access was denied. Frantic, she closed it and was going to destroy it, but it made a funny little beep and Kaite knew time was up, and that it was too late. She opened it to see a small box of text.

“‘I would not recommend anymore daytime strolls in the offices of government agents, nor would I recommend your hacking into the government databases again.’”

Kaite stared at it. The words faded out.

“He didn’t,” she said aloud. “He didn’t.”

More words appeared in the little box, and Kaite squinted to read them.

“‘Sorry, but this computer will now be wiped clean of every file it has, and your networking capabilities will be out until you can them back up. Have a nice day!’”

Kaite stared at the screen in horror.

“Damn it. He did.”

The computer shut down, and Kaite heard the people all over the base cursing as their conversations and activities were disrupted.

“Bastard,” Kaite whispered. “Oh, I will get him for this...”

Author's Notes: Lol, I had way too much fun writing the elevator scene! Again, if you are interested in reading the webcomic, or would like to support a struggling, rising Internet Author, visit ArestisCity DOT Net!

If you just want to be kind and give my other, reviewless stories some love, that would be very much appreciated as well. You'll be happy you did if my name ever gets into print! n.n