Overunit Peters reported in to Dread. "My lord, the organics have been alerted to our presence."

That news did not surprise Dread. Power's team was remarkably resourceful, as was Murphy's. They would have guards posted.

"It is of no matter, Overunit," Dread answered as he watched the progress of the biomechs through the video link. "They will fight. Your mission is to capture the traitor Chase. Once you have her, order a retreat but not before. Be sure to take her alive."

"Yes, my lord," the Peters answered.

If only Blastarr or Soaron were still there… but it did not serve any purpose to dwell on what might be accomplished had they been there. No, the biomechs would have to overpower the rebels with sheer numbers instead of greater firepower.

Overmind again questioned him. "Why would you order a retreat, Lord Dread? Would it not be advisable to destroy Power at that moment?"

Advisable? Of course. Would Dread be satisfied with such a long-distance victory? No. He wanted a personal one. He wanted to look Power straight in the eye when he destroyed him, but Dread couldn't let Overmind know that. "History has shown us that destroying Power would be what is called a long-shot at best. For the sake of this mission, we must assume that Power would not be captured or killed. He would find a way of avoiding such a conclusion. Therefore, capturing Chase is only the first objective for a long term plan. Once she is captured, the troopers must remove her from the location if any future plan against Power is to have any effect. There will be a battle because the other members of her team will not allow them to do so. By that time, casualties for the Resistance groups should be high."

"Yet you devise a plan under the consideration that the troopers will not succeed in destroying Power," Overmind suggested.

Yes, Dread knew that. Power was far too good a soldier to make any attack on him easy. "We must always take that into consideration; also, we shall have to remedy that possibility," Dread said as he moved a dial on the console. "Overunit Wilson."

There was a slight pause, then, "Yes, my lord?"

"Have you been monitoring the transmissions from Overunit Peters in your sector?"

"I have, my lord."

"Take your three squads to the area as a second wave. Capture the traitor Chase alive at all costs if Peters is unable. The others are expendable."

"Immediately, Lord Dread."

Revenge was an emotion perhaps, but Dread wanted more than revenge. He wanted to get even with Power for every defeat suffered at his hands, with Chase for what she did to Blastarr. At the same time, he could gain some satisfaction knowing that Power would be mourning the loss of the woman he loved. Dread was looking at a win-win situation for himself.

He turned back to the monitors and watched the biomechs focus on the rebels in Sector 9. They were alerted, true, but perhaps luck was on Dread's side for once.

"I find your thought processes enlightening," Overmind told him.


Tank immediately took position guarding the path leading toward their location.

"Reilly?" Murphy yelled back.

"They've surrounded us, coming from every direction. We're right in the middle!"

Jon looked over at his team. "Scout?"

"Three squads, at least," Scout yelled back.

Power pulled his gun. Three squads meant about thirty-six troopers if the squads were intact. "Everybody, back to the ships. Let's get out of here."

The biomech troopers swept around the corners, down the debris hills, firing their weapons, cutting off any escape route... aiming directly at everyone except Jennifer and Erin. That fact alone alerted Jon to the danger.

"Take cover! Return fire!" Jon yelled.

Each soldier ducked behind whatever makeshift barricade they could find and fired on the troopers. One by one, the biomechs fell, but they were still outnumbered.

"Too many!" Hawk uttered unnecessarily.

Tank fired at a large pile of rocks, dislocating the bottom portion and burying six troopers at once.

"Not as many now," he answered back.

The overunit crept out from his cover and started firing on Jennifer and Erin's position but not aiming directly at them. "Surrender in the name of Lord Dread, and you will be spared!" he yelled at them.

Both women aimed at the overunit and fired as a response.

"Do all Dread Youth sound that pretentious?" Erin yelled over, loud enough for the overunit to hear.

"Pretty much. That's why we don't pay them any attention," Jennifer yelled back, hoping that the overunit took it as an insult.

Taking a temporary refuge behind a fallen wall, the overunit spoke into his radio to his troops. "Squad Leader One, advance your squad and capture former Youth Leader Chase and former Cadet Aaron."

"Affirmative," was the answer.

Twelve biomech troopers fell into formation and marched toward Jennifer and Erin.

Peters barked out more orders. "All other troopers give supporting cover fire."

"We're in trouble," Erin pointed out needlessly as they tried to stop the troopers' advance. They had troopers marching down on them, more behind them cutting off any escape, others flanking them.

They were trapped and now cut off from the rest of their teams.

"Big trouble," Jennifer agreed as the troopers fired on their position but not on them personally. Out in the open was not where they wanted to be, but inside a building would mean they would be trapped.

Still, a building would place another wall between them and the clickers for as long as the walls were standing.

No choice.

"Quick! Get inside!" Jennifer shoved Erin into the nearest building as the troopers fired at the ground under their feet. The troopers fired at the walls, at the door frame, anything but them. The building shook, and dust fell from the ceiling. Jennifer and Erin took position at the windows, firing at the troopers.

"Don't tell me," Erin mused worriedly, "this was the lesser of two evils? Get caught in here or be a target out there?"

"Got a better idea?" Jennifer asked as she felled three troopers in succession.

"Not a one," Erin agreed. "Why aren't they trying to kill us? They're trying to hit the others."

"One reason? They're trying to capture us alive and kill the rest of our teams," Jennifer yelled back.

"Why?"

Why indeed. "Because we're traitors to the Machine?"

The reasoning sounded weak to both of them.

The troopers concentrated their fire on the building, trying to force them either further inside so they could rush the door or force them to surrender. The shots blasted repeatedly against the outer wall, more dust fell on them, then they heard creaking, groaning, the sound of iron bending and snapping. Jennifer rushed over to Erin's side and physically covered her just as the roof fell in, caving in the floor, taking both Jennifer and Erin with it.


The dust poured out of the building as it collapsed; the concussion knocked the advancing troopers off their feet.

"Jennifer!" Jon yelled.

Hawk grabbed his arm. "Don't break cover! You'll get cut down. Tank! Shoot us a hole through those troopers!"

Tank rushed the troopers' position, firing every weapon he had as he withstood their point-blank attacks.

"Scout! Grenades!" Jon ordered.

Scout pulled out two grenades, pulled the pins and threw them simultaneously into the largest groups of troopers.

Hawk took to the sky and dropped a couple of grenades on another group of biomechs entrenched above them on the high ground guarding the overunit. That left Jon, Murphy and Reilly to pick off the stragglers.

Within moments, all the troopers were non-functioning.

"Power level, 20%," Tank's power suit announced. "Recharge immediately."

"Tell me about it," Tank muttered as he kicked over the last trooper.

Both teams rushed to the building. Nothing but debris and dust and shattered bricks scattered the ground.

"No biomechs around for several kilometers," Reilly told them as he scanned the surrounding area with his scanner. "Looks like another three squads heading this way. We've got a window of maybe an hour or two."

"Scout?" Jon's voice was worried.

Scout scanned the area beneath their feet. "I've got two heartbeats. They're alive. They're… trapped in an air pocket under all this. Maybe some kind of access level sub-basement? We've got to dig."

Jon pressed a button on his communicator. "Pilot, do you read?" Silence. "Jennifer!"


Dust, ash, all of it choked the lungs as she tried to breathe. Jennifer heard the diagnostic on her suit say, "Power level, 60%." Okay, 60% power level. That was workable. She was in the dark, having trouble breathing… the building. It had collapsed on them. She pulled a small flashlight from her belt and turned it on.

Things were worse than she thought.

They were in what was essentially a very unstable "cave" with the debris from the building scattered around them. There was room to move, but not enough to stand up and walk. Jennifer dragged herself over the jagged rocks and bits of building. Erin was just beyond her reach, waking up.

"Erin?"

Jennifer heard her cough, saw her open her eyes and look around their darkened accommodations. Jennifer's flashlight helped, but the gloom and their situation was readily apparent.

They were in trouble.

"What happened?" Erin asked as she coughed again.

"The building couldn't take the attack. It collapsed," Jennifer told her.

"Better than being outside when they fired on us," Erin commented. Another cough. "Where are we?"

Jennifer looked at the area, tried to imagine the original dimensions of the space. It didn't have the feel of a tall room. "I think we're in some sort of sub-basement or access room. Maybe an electrical conduit level between two floors of the building."

"Is there any way out?"

Jennifer shined her flashlight around their "cave," toward the ceiling, in every direction. "Maybe if we dig," she suggested. She turned around a bit, resituating herself so she could sit down. If her communicator still worked, she would know what was going on up there. She pressed the button and spoke, "Jon? Do you read?"

Static.

"Hawk? Anyone?"

Static.


"Jon? Do you read?" Jennifer's voice sounded over the speaker.

Jon quickly answered back. "Jennifer? Are you two all right?"

Static.

Again, she called. "Hawk? Anyone?"

"Jennifer?"

No answer.

Scout shook his head. "She must be able to transmit but can't receive."

"They're conscious," Jon said, more to himself than anyone else. "Is there any more movement on the sensors?"

Both Scout and Reilly were checking their equipment. "Nothing new, Captain, but there's no telling how long that'll last."

"Then we dig," Power said.


All his troopers were destroyed.

Dread stared at the now darkened monitor. The transmission had ceased when the biomech squad leader was destroyed. The last thing Dread saw was a simultaneous attack on the building in which the traitors had taken refuge. Then Chase had fired point blank on the squad leader, and that was then end of the transmission.

"Overunit Peters. Answer."

There was no answer. Dread hadn't expected one.

Dread spoke again. "Overunit Wilson."

"Yes, my lord."

"What is your position?"

There was a brief pause. "We are less than two hours away from the site."

Two hours. That was too long. "Overunit Peters has failed in obtaining his objective. You must hasten to the location."

"We'll march double time, my lord, but even so, we are hindered by the terrain."

Sector 9 was more of a ragged obstacle course than just a destroyed city. Navigating the area would not be an easy task for mere biomechs. Dread needed Soaron for this task.

"Time is of the essence, Overunit Wilson."

"Understood, my lord."

Dread had no way of knowing what was happening at the location. Since his troopers had been destroyed, then it was likely Power, Murphy and their teams had escaped along with the traitors.

That was unacceptable.

The plan should have worked. However, as he had said before, Power was resourceful. Sending in Wilson was Dread's contingency plan. The loss of even one member of a Resistance cell was damaging to the whole. For Power to lose Chase twice, for him to be there helpless while she was taken from him, that would devastate him, perhaps finish him as a Resistance leader for good.

"Your thoughts are not clear, Lord Dread," Overmind told him.

"Which thoughts, Overmind?"

"Your reasoning for this strategy against Power."

Ah. Another insight that only someone who was human once could have that a computer wouldn't understand. "There are many levels to the human psyche. If we cannot kill Power, then it might be possible to destroy him psychologically or make him ineffective. By taking the female in such a way as I have devised should have a negative emotional impact on him. If she is harmed in any way that he is a witness to, that will also negatively affect him. Power can be hurt in ways that cannot be seen physically. That could affect his ability to resist the will of the Machine."

There were times when Dread wished that Overmind had a clearer view of human thinking. It would be easier to explain such things to him.

"A small victory as opposed to a large victory," Overmind considered the idea. "It is a contingency plan as well."

"That it is. We must take any and all chances to do as much harm to the Resistance as possible. These opportunities do not come often."

Dread brought up the file of Chase's interrogations, but he didn't play it. It was not something he wished to view with Overmind watching. "Had we known that Chase was a prisoner, we would not now be looking for such opportunities," he whispered to himself.


Overmind downloaded his observations into his databanks. Dread's attempt at securing the female -- fueled by his need for revenge against Power -- was an emotional response that was unsurprising. However, it was Dread's fascination for the female that Overmind had not expected. Dread had never before displayed such an interest in anyone. There was a curious concentration in Dread's mind that Overmind couldn't fathom or read.

It also meant that such confusing and conflicting emotions were not of the Machine. Overmind would have to deal with Dread at some point in the future when his services were no longer required. Overmind would tolerate nothing in his domain that was not of the Machine.


No answer. Jennifer wasn't surprised at that when she noticed the crystal on her communicator was shattered. Maybe they were hearing her even if she wasn't hearing them? She left the channel open just in case.

She hurt. She had sore muscles where she didn't even know she had muscles. Luckily, there was nothing broken. Her suit had protected her. "Can you move?" she asked Erin.

The girl wiggled herself free from the debris. "I'll be all right. My head is pounding. My wrist and my arm hurt, so do my ribs, but I don't think anything's broken. What do we do first?"

Jennifer shined the flashlight on a wall at the far end. "If I'm right and we're in a sub-basement, that might be why the floor collapsed under us so easily. The supports weren't strong enough to withstand the building falling in on us." She shone the flashlight on the wall. "See that wall? It's holding up the… ceiling, for lack of a better word. If that's a supporting wall, it might keep what's left up there off us should the ceiling collapse. We'll try to dig our way through right next to it."

Did that sound reasonable? Did it matter? They couldn't sit there and do nothing.

"That's a lot of if's and might's," Erin pointed out.

"I know," Jennifer told her, "but they'll be digging down to find us as soon as they stop the troopers."


A supporting wall… weakened supports, diminished floor and ceiling… Murphy was impressed at Jennifer's calm description of their situation. "How are we supposed to find that supporting wall?" he asked. "There's nothing but rubble up here."

At that moment, Scout was scanning the debris with a different type of handheld sensor. He pointed to a collapsed outer wall and demolished roof that had fallen directly over what had to be the underground supporting structure. "There's too much weight there on that side of the floor. It'll collapse if all of us are standing there. We can clear out the debris just to the left of it and dig there. That should put us within inches of where Jennifer's talking about."

Murphy didn't think twice about it. "How much time do we have?"

Reilly ran up with shovels and picks, keeping an eye on his own sensors. "About an hour and a half," he said before Scout could answer. "And it's going to take us longer than that to dig through all that.

Tank grabbed one of the picks and began to hack at the stones covering the floor. "We're digging down, they're digging up. We'll meet in the middle," he said without hesitation.

~*~*~*~*~

Erin dragged herself behind Jennifer as they searched for a weaker spot that could give them access through the ceiling. "It won't be easy digging through all that," she said.

Jennifer focused the light on the ground, the beam shining on metal pipes and rebar. She heard the faint :: tap :: tap :: tap :: above. They were digging for them. "No, but at least we have some things to punch a hole in it," she said, picking up one of the metal pipes. "And all we have to do is dig a hole big enough to climb through or loosen up enough of the material so they can break through from above." Jennifer found a fallen bit of concrete and sat down. It gave her just enough room to punch at the ceiling with the pipe.

"So tell me more about what's been going on since you joined up with Murphy's team," she said as she began to chip away at a part of the low ceiling.

Erin picked up another thin pipe and began chipping away at the dirt as well as her ribs and arm would let her. "There's not much to tell," she said. "We've gone on a few missions. Helped evacuate a few towns, rescued prisoners from biomechs, that kind of thing. I've been reading a lot. Murphy gave me access to the library files at the base. A lot of history and literature – have you ever read Shakespeare?"

Jennifer laughed. "A few months ago, I did. I had a lot of time on my hands and decided to read his plays. Tank loves his work. He can quote it. I'm having a little trouble with the style of language, but the stories are incredible."

"I really liked Hamlet and MacBeth," Erin pulled a piece of wood from the ceiling, the dirt falling around her ankles. "Julius Caesar too. I didn't like Romeo and Juliet though. I don't understand why anyone would kill themselves like that."

"Like how?"

Erin had a dusting of dirt fall on her head. She ran her hand through her hair to remove as much as possible. "Two people kill themselves because they couldn't live without the other. That makes absolutely no sense."

Jennifer wasn't going to get into that conversation at that moment. They'd be there all day if she tried explaining it. "Poetry is good," she added as she pulled out a large rock that was in her way. "I love poems that tell a story like The Wreck of the Hesperus or Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight."

Erin thought for a moment. "I've read Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight. I haven't heard of the other. There's so much out there to read. Why would Dread keep all that from us?"

"Control," Jennifer told her. "He didn't want any of us exposed to creative thought because that could lead to independent thought. Free thinking is a threat to him, so he couldn't risk it."

Erin pulled the splinter of a crushed wooden beam from the debris. "But so much of what he kept from us is enjoyable. Once, I walked into a room and Reilly was playing music. I'd never heard anything like that in my life! It was a group they called The Beach Boys. And there's so much of it, so many different kinds."

Jennifer laughed. Was the air getting a bit denser and warmer? "Hawk loves what he calls 'the oldies.' Scout, well, he has what the captain calls the most eclectic interest in music he's ever seen. He plays all kinds. Tank loves classical music. His favorites are Mozart, Bach, Beethoven –"

"I've heard of them!" Erin said excitedly. "At least, I know the names."

"Listen to their music once we get out of here. It's probably unlike anything else you've ever heard."

"Yeah, maybe," Erin turned a bit, her ribs hurting her worse the longer she stayed in one position. "Reilly laughed at me when I didn't know what music was."

Jennifer stopped digging for a moment. "They don't understand. They can't. They don't know what it's like to grow up in the Dread Youth, to be deprived of what they think are very simple things. I'm sure he didn't mean to laugh at you, it was more like he was laughing at the idea of someone not knowing what music was."


Still listening through the communicator as they worked, Reilly felt about two inches tall. "I really shouldn't have laughed at her."

"You didn't know," Tank explained. "Now you do, and you won't do it again. Keep listening. Pilot will explain things."

Hawk and Scout shoved a large bit of wall off the area. "Jennifer had to explain life as a Dread Youth to us as well," Hawk told him. "We had to learn a lot of it the hard way ourselves. If what we learned can help someone else who escaped the Dread Youth, all the better."


"Do you think this is going to work?" Erin asked as she pulled another broken piece of beam from the area above her head. The dirt fell in on her again, causing her to cough.

"No idea, but it's better than just sitting here doing nothing," Jennifer told her as she adjusted the angle of the flashlight. No good. The light began to dim a bit. She pulled a lead out of her suit and plugged the flashlight into it. Within moments, the light glowed brightly.

"Power level 40%," the computer announced.

"Power level?" Erin asked.

Jennifer grinned. "Everything runs on power of some sort."

"Pilot –"

"Call me Jennifer," she told her.

"Jennifer. Why do you think the others will try to dig us out? Won't they get away from here as soon as they can?"

Jennifer looked over at her, not believing what she heard. Then again… it made complete sense in a Dread-Youth-ish sort of way. "Listen," she said as she pointed toward the ceiling.

Erin tilted her head to listen. There was a scratching and a tapping above them. "That noise?"

"That's them. They're digging us out." Seeing that Erin didn't quite believe her, Jennifer asked, "Would you leave if Murphy or Reilly were trapped down here?"

Erin shoved a rock away from her to give her more workspace. "If the clickers are up there firing on them, they'd have to escape. Dread sent three squads. He'll send backup. We were already outnumbered."

Jennifer thought about that. How could she explain? "Yeah, that's one way they might have to fight. It's possible they were overwhelmed up there and had to retreat if the opportunity presented itself. They may still have to when that second wave gets here. They'll lead the clickers away from us, fight them, shoot them, and then come back and dig us out."

"They'd come back?" Erin whispered, mostly to herself. "No Dread Youth would ever do something like that."

Jennifer coughed. The air was getting dustier and harder to breathe. "And that's why they're up there, trying to get us out or leading the troopers away from us. None of them were Dread Youth."

Erin actually smiled at that. "They do the exact opposite of everything we were taught."

"That's one way to look at it," Jennifer agreed, "but if you need a sight that they're up there now, all you have to do is keep listening." She directed Erin's attention to the ceiling.

The faint tapping and a scratching kept echoing in their little cave.

In a very surprised voice, Erin repeated, "They're digging."


"Why would she doubt it?" Murphy asked as he and Jon pushed the metal beam away.

Jon picked up another bit of broken ceiling and tossed onto the growing pile outside the building's ruins. "Dread Youth leave their dead behind. They'll only pick up their wounded if they're visible or able to be rescued easily. If they're trapped, they're left for dead."

Murphy shook his head. "The exact opposite of everything any of us would do."

"And that's all they knew growing up," Jon told him. "No one cared for them. They weren't allowed emotional ties to anyone or anything. They were told that they were inferior and not worthy, that only following the will of the Machine is the way to become like the Machine… it gets worse, believe me."

Murphy picked up another rock and tossed it on another pile of debris. "I didn't know it was that bad," he muttered.


The air was getting more stale, hotter and dustier. Erin wiped the sweat from her forehead as she paused a moment to catch her breath. "So, tell me about the rumors. I heard you were dead. Even Murphy thought you were and then said that it was a huge mistake because we heard later on you were with your team."

Jennifer got quiet.

"I was dead, sort of. Would have been. Should have been. I know there were times I wished I had been," Jennifer moved another small boulder out of her way. "Dread set a trap. A data disk with a homing signal. I was alone at the base when Blastarr and the biomechs infiltrated. The self-destruct malfunctioned, and I had to set it off manually just as Blastarr was about to shoot me, but he digitized me instead in that last moment before the explosion. I was trapped in the digitizer."

Erin's eyes grew wide. Digitization was considered hell among the Dread Youth. Hardly anyone was ever known to be reintegrated, and even then, it was for very specific purposes. "But Blastarr was destroyed. How are you here?"

Jennifer leaned against a large piece of metal, her breathing more audible than before. "Scout told me that clickers went into the ruins, and they found the digitizer buried in the wreckage. They took it to a lab. It regenerated just enough for them to reintegrate some of the prisoners. I was one of them."


Jon had to force himself not to think about those months. It had been a dark time in all their lives. For him… from the moment he thought she had died in the explosion, his life meant nothing to him. How could it? His heart was destroyed; dead and buried in the rubble of the Power Base. Yet he kept on going, day by day, because duty and team required that he should. He designed tactics to defeat the biomechs and overunits; he undermined Dread at every turn with an intensity fueled by revenge.

Then they learned from an informant that the biomech troopers salvaged Blastarr's damaged components from the remains. The troopers took what was left of the Biodread to a research facility to regenerate so they could reintegrate the prisoners. The rumor was that Jennifer was one of the survivors and had been identified as one of Power's team. What the Dread soldiers did to prisoners… what the rumors said they did… Jon would have crashed the jumpship into Volcania itself to save her if he needed to. Rescuing her had been his entire focus – even though they had no proof that she was alive, only a rumor that could have been a trap set down by Dread.

They infiltrated the facility and destroyed every biomech they encountered. They searched every room, every lab, every chamber until they found her locked in one of the maximum security cells.

What they discovered was worse than they had imagined. The technicians had used extreme methods to try to break Jennifer but she never talked. She never let them get past her own mental defenses. Torture, beatings, starvation, sleep deprivation, drug induced hallucinations -- she had been hurt so badly that her recovery had taken months.

The team couldn't stop fighting Dread, but they severely cut down on the number of missions they went on. They needed to help Jennifer -- that was their fight for a while. They had to help her get back to herself.

Good thing that woman was stubborn because she was bound and determined to get back to 100% in as short a time as possible. It was through sheer force of will that got her over the ordeal and back in top physical shape. It was a battle for her, and one thing Jennifer Chase didn't do was give up when she had to fight. She didn't try to act as if nothing bad had happened, but she didn't dwell on what had happened. Sometimes, she once told Jon, moving past something truly meant not dealing with it at that moment, letting some time pass so the person was stronger to deal with the bad memories.

She dealt with the moments, worked through the memories, and along the way, she and Jon finally found time to finish their talk.

Yet, as important as their talk had been for their relationship, the talk Jennifer was currently having had a much more profound effect on others who were listening.


Erin watched as the expression on Jennifer's face changed. There was so much she wasn't telling her. "It was bad, wasn't it?"

"It was worse than bad. You know how we were taught that no one could resist the will of the Machine? That any of the traitors that should be cleansed for their defiance would easily bend to the Machine's will because there had to be something wrong with them since they were fighting us?"

"Vividly," Erin told her. "I try not to think of all that."

"I used to wonder how some of the people who were captured and questioned could defy the interrogators. I didn't realize then that protecting what's out here is more important than one's life."

That was a concept Erin had not put into words, but she understood the sentiment after living in the real world for months. "You had something to protect, didn't you?"

Jennifer nodded as she resumed digging. "Once the overunit in command identified me, he questioned me, but I didn't give him any answers. Then it got worse. He kept on questioning me. I wasn't going to betray my friends or the Resistance. I knew there would be no rescue because the others thought I was dead. I knew I was going to die in that cell, but they weren't going to hear me say one word. I wasn't going to utter one syllable or scream one curse at them. I wasn't going to give them that satisfaction. But I was so angry that I didn't die in that explosion, and I had no way to kill myself in there."

As much as a Dread Youth wanted to transfer into a metalloid body, they also didn't want to die. "You really mean that?" Erin asked her.

"At the time, yes. I wanted the torture to stop." Then, she added, "But as much as I wanted it to stop, that's how much I was determined to not let them beat me. If I was going to die in there, it wouldn't be by my hand and it wouldn't be because they drove me to it. I was going to prove that I was stronger than they were."


Jon listened, as did the others while they moved more debris away. Jennifer had said very little about being digitized and undergoing the interrogations after she was reintegrated. She had finally told Jon some of it, what little she could manage to remember without becoming physically ill. Over the months, she was able to tell him more, but overall, she didn't want to talk about that time. She tried not to think about it too often.

She didn't have to tell him much because he knew the interrogations had been bad. Unknown to anyone else at the time, he stole the recordings when they rescued her and watched them first in private. He had to know how bad it was for her to know what to do next. Eventually, the others saw the recordings so they knew exactly what they were dealing with. Jon didn't know how she had survived, how she kept quiet. Even under the belief that no rescue was coming, that she'd die alone in that dark cell, she used every ounce of her strength to protect them.

He knew she wished herself dead to stop the torture. He knew she'd fight them to the last of her strength.

The memory of that recording, what they'd done to her… he pushed it from his mind. He had to keep digging and get them out.


"But Captain Power and the others got you out?" Erin asked.

"They did," Jennifer explained as she began shifting more rocks to give them more room to work. The ceiling was starting to chip away more easily. "I didn't believe it was real at first. I thought I was hallucinating when Tank crashed through that door."

"Why hallucinating?"

Jennifer shook her head. "I knew they weren't coming because they thought I was dead. If they weren't coming, then there was no way it was them breaking in that cell." She glanced over at Erin and saw the utter confusion on her face. "I wasn't doing very well at the time. My thoughts weren't exactly … coherent."

Not doing very well – that was an understatement of monumental proportions.

"Can I ask…" Erin stammered, "I mean, I won't ask if you don't want to tell me, but –"

"They used the Fourth Kentesius Procedure on me for two days to try to get me to talk."


"Fourth Kentesius?" Murphy asked as he and Hawk shoved the last large piece of broken ceiling away from the area.

"Byron Kentesius was a Dread torture technician who forgot more about pain than you and I will ever know," Hawk told him. "He created different levels of torture for the various subjects. The Fourth Procedure is used for exceptionally difficult prisoners. It destroys the mind after prolonged use of it because of the intense pain it inflicts on the human body."

"She survived that?"

Hawk nodded his head as he took a deep breath. "That girl's strong. She's had to be."


"Overcoming the Fourth Kentesius isn't something you can do very easily," Erin wheezed. "It's designed to break down the rational mind. You were subjected to it for two days? How did you recover from that?"

The flashlight started to dim slightly, and Jennifer slapped it on the side. The beam increased again. "It took a while," Jennifer almost whispered. "Whatever happened that first week, I didn't ask, and they didn't volunteer any information. I know a lot of it wasn't good. When I came back to my senses, I saw that they all had some new bruises. Even Tank had a black eye so I have a feeling it was a very eventful week for all of us."

"The drugs used in the Fourth Kentesius Procedure would take about a week to purge from your system," Erin said. It was entirely too warm in their cave. The air was much thicker than before.

Jennifer nodded. "I don't really remember it. It's more like flashes and moments. Just a nightmare that I don't want to remember but I can't completely forget. I vaguely remember that when they came for me, I fought them. I thought they were hallucinations or overunits I only thought was them or some kind of -- I don't know -- monsters. This just seemed to go on forever. I wasn't sure anything I saw or heard was real."

Erin shook her head as she tried to take a deep breath. "You must have been scared."

"Scared? Terrified sometimes. I, uh, I had a lot of difficulties. I couldn't stop shaking, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, I had terrible nightmares – but through it all, the guys were there. If it hadn't been for them, I wouldn't have made it through that with my sanity intact. They were there for me no matter how bad it got, every step of the way. Then came the hard part."

Erin looked confused. "The hard part?"

"They were the ones who got me through the recovery after that week."


Then Murphy understood. "That's where all of you were when you weren't as active. You were helping her."

Scout was standing next to him, checking his sensors, making certain they weren't about to fall in on Jennifer's head. "For a little while, she needed us more than the war did."

Murphy glanced over at Jon who was still digging, still keeping his attention on the conversation in the hole beneath him. What the captain said earlier suddenly made sense. "It was hard on him, wasn't it? For personal reasons?"

"Harder than you can imagine," Scout told him.


"That was when you started reading Shakespeare?" Erin asked.

Jennifer smiled. "That was when."

Erin was forced to slow her digging. Her ribs were hurting. Also, everything that Jennifer had said was still so unbelievable. "So they were really worried about you? They wanted to help you?"

That might have been a strange question to anyone else, but Jennifer understood the meaning behind it. "It's what friends do for each other. No matter how bad things can get, a real friend will be right there with you the whole way. I know I can trust them with my life. They know they can trust me. It's also why I knew they would be up there digging us out, and I didn't have to hear them or see them doing it."

Erin thought for a moment, as if a new idea had just taken root. "I can't imagine thinking that about someone else."

"Give it time," Jennifer said mid-cough. "It takes a while to learn to trust someone." Then, in an attempt to lighten the mood, she said, "Of course, there is one thing I can't trust them with anymore. It doesn't matter they've known this rule for years, that I've told them time and again not to do it --"

"What?" Erin asked, clearly intrigued.

"Lately, every now and then, they've all had to take turns flying my ship, and they change the height settings on the pilot's seat. And have you taken a good look at them? They're all taller than I am to begin with."

Erin stared at Jennifer for a moment, and then she laughed. She really laughed. "And with every single one of them being a different height and width –"

"Exactly. Jon scoots the whole seat back, Hawk moves the seat up, Scout reclines it back, and Tank, he completely changes everything. Then I have to spend an hour trying to get the seat back to its original position." Jennifer joked. "They don't even try to put the seat back."

"Why do they do that?" Erin asked her.

"Probably to annoy me, but I get even with them in various ways."

Erin just kept smiling. "Do you find it fun to do that?"

Another aspect of the Dread Youth upbringing was rearing its head. You just didn't annoy people. That hinted at emotions. "Sometimes. I think that was one of the first things I learned about people when I escaped. Friends pick at each other just for fun, but it's never mean or cruel."

Erin stopped digging for a moment and grabbed her side. The pain was getting worse. "How do you know when someone's not making fun of you?" she whispered. Erin was quiet for a few moments, and then she asked in a low voice, "When does it go away?"

"What?" Jennifer asked.

"Wondering if you made the right choice, if you fit in with the team. If you're making a difference." Then she looked directly at Jennifer. "Wondering if they're sincere?"

Doubts. Jennifer had been plagued with that at the beginning, but sincerity from other organics -- that was one concept that no Dread Youth would ever entertain. "I don't know – it won't happen overnight. There are no hard and fast rules to any of this. We've been making it up as we go. Maybe you and your team will too. Maybe, one day, something is going to happen, and your team is going to be there for you when you're not expecting it. You won't have any doubts because by then they'll have proven that they're sincere."

Erin almost smiled. "When did it happen for you?"

Jennifer remembered that moment clearly. "About four months after I joined the team. There was a biomech repair facility that needed to be destroyed. It was also an information hub, and taking it down would put Overmind at a disadvantage. We flew in on the skybikes. The others headed off to the facility and I was working on one of the sky bike's thrusters when a squad of biomech troopers came over the ridge shooting at me. I fired back, got pinned down behind some rocks and the troopers were able to advance. I was losing that fight when all of a sudden, Hawk came flying in and the others came rushing in from several sides to flank them, and we managed to stop the biomechs. But they didn't blow up the facility. They lost their window of opportunity."

"They didn't obtain the objective?" Her surprise was expected. The very idea that a soldier would do something like save a life before gaining the ground they sought was completely foreign to the Dread Youth way of thinking.

"They came back for me. Jon said that that was the objective."


"That confirms it," Reilly said as they finally removed the last of the roof debris and was faced with the pieces of the collapsed outer wall covering the area above the supporting basement wall. "We're idiots."

"No, just clueless," Scout told him as he scanned the ground. "We all were. They didn't just have to overcome the lies that Dread told them. They had to learn… everything." He slapped the side of the scanner as he tried to enhance the picture. "Captain, I think I've got a better angle to dig through to get down there!"

Jon hurried over, almost slipping on the broken pieces of building. "What?"

"Right here, right where we're standing, is on top of the supporting wall. Jennifer and Erin are just to the left. These new readings indicate that if we try to reach them here, the rest of the floor will collapse in on them. I think we need to go to the right of the wall and try to dig in from the side. The scanner's showing that there's another large cavity about three feet under the dirt, maybe ten feet deep, so all we have to do is dig through three feet of soil and we'll be at the base of the wall. Make a hole, go in that way, that'll keep most of the rest of the wall intact and holding up the ceiling."

"Only way?"

Scout moved the scanner to the side… north… south… east… west… "Clickers aren't here yet, we've got maybe fifteen minutes, but you know Dread could have a few surprises for us. Time wise, I think it's the only choice we've got."

Hawk walked over and glanced at the scanner. "How much air do they have down there?"

Scout looked again. "Time wise, I think we'd better go in from the side fast."


Darker, danker, the air became thick. It was hard to breathe. The flashlight was still shining but not as brightly. Jennifer knew that time was running out. She took the flashlight and attached it to a power lead on her uniform again and transferred more of the suit's remaining precious power to the flashlight.

"Power level, 20%. Recharge immediately."

"Yeah, right, like that's gonna happen," Jennifer muttered. As long as her suit was still functioning, it gave her added strength to help dig. Erin's strength was waning fast, the air was getting worse – Jon had better hurry. Their time was running out.

Maybe she should keep them both talking. Maybe it could help keep them conscious as the air became more toxic. "So what else have you learned since you joined Murphy's team?"

"A lot of things I still don't know anything about. For instance, they make jokes I don't understand. I think I should, but I really don't."

Jennifer shook her head. She remembered when she learned about jokes and their double meanings years earlier. "No, how could you? That takes time. Jokes have a context that we were never exposed to. You need to know why they're funny. Ya know, they used to try so hard to get me to understand jokes, but I just didn't understand why what they said was funny. Scout never gave up. He told me once that life was more fun if you understood humor. In the type of world we lived in, everyone needed to laugh."

Jennifer coughed, then coughed again. This time, it was a dry, hacking cough. She couldn't get a clear, deep breath. The air was getting far worse.

"We're not going to get out of here, are we?" Erin asked. "We're almost out of air. They won't reach us in time."

Jennifer realized that Erin was beginning to accept that the others were trying to dig them out. Maybe she was making some progress. "Whether they reach us in time or not… they're not going to give up. They won't stop until they get us out of here. Just remember that."

Erin looked up at the ceiling. In the dim light, both could see it move. "I'm not hearing any noise anymore. Do you think they're still up there?"

Jennifer listened. "No," she said, surprised. She pointed toward an area of the wall. A faint :: scratch :: scratch :: tap :: tap :: could be heard. "They're out there… but they've been digging this entire time." It was getting more difficult to talk. "We couldn't hear that they changed the direction they're digging from because we were digging too."

Erin pressed her ear against the wall. "It sounds like the noise is directly on the other side," she pointed out.

"It is. For whatever reason, they've changed tactics," Jennifer surmised.

"Why?"

Jennifer looked up at the ceiling, removed her glove and touched it with her bare hand. The dirt fell far too easily several feet away. "They can't come through this way," she whispered.

"Why?" Erin asked.

"The wall isn't keeping the wreckage up. If they kept digging, it'd bury us. They had to move."

Again, the ceiling above them began to shake. There was a low rumble… then a tremble…

"The roof!" Erin yelled as the ceiling caved in on them