The woman in the lab looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Then she grabbed the object nearest to her, which was a soldering rod and lunged at Chance. He didn't have time to check if the soldering iron was even hot, so he got into a defensive pose as a skirmish broke out in the doorway.

That was the soundscape Winston expected. He heard a sharp cry from the woman, followed by one from Chance, something made from metal falling o the ground and then quickly departing foot steps.

"Och, not again." Chance sighed. Winston heard him take off after her.

Caitlin Burton had only a small headstart and stilettos and therefore not a chance. Chance tackled her from behind in the dark hallway and used his body weight to keep her from moving any further, although she kept wriggling under him.

"Miss Burton! Miss Burton listen to me, I'm a friend of Guerrero's, you know him, right? He wanted me to protect you. I'm on your side here, so stop – fighting!"

Chance was a bit short of breath and little yellow dots were dancing before his eyes, but fortunately the woman stopped struggling and made an effort turn on her back. He let her, but didn't let go otherwise. He expected her to say something, but she just stared. So he broke the silence:

"Erm, hi there. I'm Christopher Chance. I'm trying to help you here and since you gave me a nice little brand here with your soldering iron I say you could use some help. Now, I'm not a watchman, I know that, but how'd you know?"

"Those jerks never make their rounds till eleven. Get off of me."

"Only if you won't run. Told you, I'm a friend of Guerrero's. He was helping you with something, wasn't he?" Her eyes grew wide.

"'Was'? Is he-"

"No, he's not, but he won't be able to finish the job, so he sent us."

"Us."

"I have a partner, Winston. We try to rid people of their problems."

"I don't believe a word."

"I thought you might feel that way. I'm going to show you something, but I need to pull it out of my pocket, so don't freak."

"You're still pinning me down, so what alternative have I got…"

"Exactly."

Winston of course couldn't see whatever Chance handed Caitlin Burton, but her reaction to it surprised him:

"For all I know you could've photoshopped yourself into that."

"Agreed, but if you know Guerrero even a little, you know how cautious he is with private matters, so how would I've acquired a picture of him in a hula outfit in the first place?"

If Winston had had his mouth full of coffee at that moment, he would've spattered it all over the room. Given that he didn't he just sat there, mouth open and tried to un-see the image from his mind.

"Thanks for painting that one out for me, Chance." But then an evil plan formed in his mind. If he could lay his hands on said photograph, the days of Guerrero manipulating him in whatever way he wished would be sooooooo over.

"Good point." Burton said.

"Fine, now that that's settled, you mind telling me what you were doing here?"

"Uuuuh, it's kind of a long story."

"I figured that much. Let's get out of here and meet my partner and you can tell that long story of yours."

"Where're we going?"

"Good question. Winston?"

"I say we meet at the loft. Guerrero's doing okay and the doctor just got up."

"Okay, meet you there." On their way back to the foyer Chance explained to Burton that Guerrero thought she was in danger and since they didn't know what was going on, she wouldn't be able to go back to her apartment for a while. She took that relatively well. Just as they entered the entrance hall, another guard strolled in through the front entrance. Instinctively both men drew their weapons immediately, pointing them at each other's chests from opposite sides of the hall.

"Didn't you say they don't appear until eleven?" Chance muttered through his teeth.

"Miss Burton, are you alright? What is going on here? Why aren't you at your desk?" the watchman called.

"I was just about to escort Miss Burton to her vehicle. She thought someone was in the building and became scared, so I went up and we came down here together." Chance answered. He slowly lowered his weapon to show that he meant no harm. The real watchman didn't.

"Oh really? And who are you? Never seen you here before" he said, clearly mistrustful.

"Yeah, that's because I'm the replacement for what's his name again, the guy that was sacked the other day…" The question was for Winston and he hoped he got the hint.

"I thought Miller was supposed to do his shift tonight."

"Foster! That was his name. Yeah, that's right, Miller was supposed to fill in for him, but I can use some extra-shifts, ya know with the baby on its way and all, so I said I'd do it."

"Oh. Alright then." And he finally packed away his gun. "But you should never leave the door unattended without consulting the watchman outside first, got that?"

"You bet. Imma check real quick with the video to be sure nobody went in while I was upstairs. If you would wait here for a moment, Miss Burton." Chance slipped behind the counter and tipped his hat when the other watchman left.

"Maaan, that was close" he heard Winston in his ear.

"Meh, it's no good, he practically got a close-up of my face, Winston."

"That don't matter, with the whole cover-up that's already going on here, they won't make it public that a false guard strolled into their building. Besides, there's no picture of you in any database to compare your face to."

"Yeah, not yet…" Chance didn't seem too happy with the encounter, but he didn't want to start shooting people before it was necessary. Nobody deserved to die. He cut out the footage of him and Burton wrestling in the hallway, then put the camera on freeze frame, so that they could leave unseen. Like before he carefully got rid of any finger prints he might've left behind and finally picked up his pile of clothes from under the desk. The real watchman was still out.

"Let's get out of here." He grabbed Caitlin by the arm and they hastened to the door. After a quick glance to the left and right they arrived at the relative safety of Burton's car.

"I'm driving!" they declared simultaneously.

"Look, mister, I barely know you, I won't let you take this last bit of control from me. Just tell me where to go."

"'kay. Can I call you Caitlin?"

###

Back at the loft they sat down together after Chance introduced Winston and Caitlin to each other and put a pack of ice on his forearm. Winston hoped that Chance wouldn't fall for her or anything. Or that Guerrero had. With her round face, big dark eyes and blond hair she was quite attractive. Right now, however, she was an unconfident picture of misery.

"I really don't remember how all of this started. It was like, one morning I walked in my office and I just… woke up. That's when I realized that I was helping to construct some kind of warfare device. In short it messes up the electromagnetic waves produced by the human brain. While it doesn't kill you, it does leave you totally helpless, disoriented, possibly in pain. Truth is it's never been tested, so nobody can say what effects it'd really have and if they'd be permanent. Which just makes it all the more dangerous and unethical. It's only about the size of a soda can and since my task at Cybotechs was to develop a system, that can neutralize the nocuous waves that emanate from "it", my bet is-"

"-they want to endow our soldiers with the weapons and the neutralization devices and let them loose on the unsuspecting forces of other countries to fry their brains." Winston completed the terrible thought for her. Caitlin nodded sadly.

"Like I said, it's not even in the testing phase yet, hell, it doesn't even have a proper name, we just used to call it '7up'-"

"-because of the soda pop." Chance stated the obvious.

"That too. But also because it's supposed to work best at a perimeter of seven or more yards. In theory the human organism, all organisms on that planet are connected via some universal frequency radiating from the planet itself. I know it sounds esoteric, but nonetheless certain parties try to find a way to interfere with those natural frequencies by designing their own. Those could be able to impair, restrict or boost organisms that aren't used to them in ways I don't even want to imagine."

"Certain parties like Cybotechs." Winston pushed further.

"Unfortunatley yes. So when I discovered what I had done I threatened to go public with 7up and quit."

"So they threatened you in return?"

"Not they, only one person. Richard Garson. He's supposedly Cybotechs' vice director, but really, they all did his bidding, we all did. As far as I know he initiated the whole 7up thing. He made it clear to me that if I didn't finish my job and if I dared to go public, I'd be the first lab rat for the 7up."

"And that's when you found Guerrero."

"Well, it's more like Guerrero found me. One night I received a call from the company- they told me the 7up was gone."

"Gone? That ain't good."

"I was interrogated by some private security jerks for hours, but they couldn't prove anything and since nobody knew about 7up anyway, they couldn't press any charges. When I came home in the morning, he just sat in my kitchen eating my pop tarts." She laughed a little. "He told me that it was due to his 'influence' that Cybotechs had let me go and that that was a foretaste of the help he could offer. I didn't know what to do, so I hired him. I wanted him to find proof that I don't have the 7up and if possible locate it."

"And if he knew where it was, what was he supposed to do with it?" Chance was curious, because he saw what a difficult position Guerrero had manoeuvred himself into.

"We discussed that a lot. The best thing to do would be to destroy it, but Guerrero knew that this would mean my end as well, because I'm Cybotechs' scapegoat and they want their weapon back. I just want out."

"If you give it back, you might live, but they could still blackmail you and bring their dirty little project to perfection."

"I think you're screwed either way. You know too much and you're against 7up. That's normally a deadly combo." Chance said calmly. Winston and Chance locked eyes. Bring the threat to the surface. Eliminate it. Caitlin cleared her throat.

"That's what Guerrero figured. Which is why he scraped up a whole mountain of proof of Garson's crimes. Don't ask me how. He said it would give him an equivalent strong medium to put Garson and his associates under pressure while at the same time detract the focus from the 7up."

"And did he find it?" Winston asked. Caitlin shook her head.

"Dunno. He never told me. But I was there when he called Garson to tell him that they would 'negotiate', he said. He told him about some of the better stuff he had collected against him and explained that if either he or I died, vanished or got hurt, this would go right to the district attorney." Caitlin dropped her gaze and inspected her hands.

"He practically had Garson on toast. I don't know what happened, but that was the last time I saw Guerrero. And Garson."

Winston's and Chance's eyes met and both looked alarmed. They knew what the other thought about: the ominous blood spatter in the alley. Caitlin seemed lost in thoughts, so some seconds passed before she noticed the penny that had silently dropped between Chance and Winston.

"You know what happened, don't you? What happened to Guerrero, where is he? Did he kill Garson?" Again Chance and Winston looked at each other. They didn't know. Had he? But then where was Garson's body?

"Whatever happened to Garson, just because he's absent doesn't mean he's no threat to you anymore, so you were right to be careful back at Cybotechs'." Chance said when he had enough of all the questions in his head. Right now they had to focus on Caitlin.

"What were you doing there?" Chance dug deeper. "And how did you get in?"

"That was easy. When Garson vanished, anarchy took over Cybotechs' management. Those who were involved in his shady plans panicked because of his absence and found themselves some holes to hide in. Those who were clueless had no reason to keep me from my work. It's not unusual for me to stay late, either. I was looking for a structural design of the 7up's electronics. It's the only non-digital evidence of its existence. Guerrero wanted to take care of the rest on the computers. Can I talk to him?"

"No, not right now. You'll stay here the next couple of days. As long as you stay inside, you'll be safe, 'cause nobody knows you're here." Winston explained.

"If you say so. And what'll you two be doing?"

*tbc*


AN: Huh, so now the secret's out. I know the chapter's a bit ridiculous in some parts, what with the photo and the concept and name of the weapon and I really hope I didn't scare y'all away from my story now that it's got an actual plot. Please tell me what you think. Also one reviewer told me my chapters would be very long, so should I split them into smaller bits?