Take what you need while there's time/
The city will be earth in a short while/
If I'm not mistaken/
It's been in flames/
You and I will escape to the seaside/

"You can't open them. There was a problem in the lobby, and everything went into lockdown. The doors can't be opened."

Claire slammed her hand against the monitor. "No!" she screamed, somewhat out of control and no longer caring if Hana saw the tears that simply refused to be stopped. "God, Hana, no, Peter's down there!"

Hana left off threatening the security personnel—she figured they were terrified enough to behave for a bit—to get to Claire before she deteriorated into hysterics. She put an awkward arm around the girl's shoulders, as much to restrain her as to comfort. "It's okay, Claire, we can figure this out."

"No, we can't," Claire said fiercely, throwing her optimism and pity back in her face. "Peter and Nathan are going to die, because we screwed up, because I screwed up." Her mascara was mixing with her tears to make sooty black lines down her cheeks, making her look frighteningly abstract and unreal.

"Hey," said a voice from behind them. "Maybe I can help."

Hana snapped around with her gun up, but she soon found that there was no cause for alarm. A small, defensive-looking curly-haired child was standing a few feet away from them, chin lifted with newly made decision. Oh God, there was a kid in here? Hana quickly replayed their dramatic break-in to herself, horrified and guilty.

"That's okay, honey," she said quickly, berating herself for not checking the premises better. "Why don't you go find your mom?"

"No, I mean it," the kid said, sounding very competent and level. "I can get the doors open."

---

When the security guard grabbed him, for a moment Nathan thought it was all over (or, at least his part of it—there were three more people he had to bank on, and it was a good thing, too). He grappled with the man for a moment, managing to twist his hands around and shove the stolen gun into its owner's stomach. Without hesitation, without a thought, he squeezed the trigger twice, shooting point-blank into the man, who shuddered violently under the impact of the bullets and went still, dead in seconds.

Unfortunately, this was not the end of his problems. He'd been wondering why Linderman looked so calm, uneasily remembering Mr. Bennet's words about how likely it was that he would have expected an attack. Now, behind him, in the room before he could even get the dead weight of the guard off him, was the possibly the very last person he'd wanted to see—Candice.

"Really, Nathan," Linderman said, sounding cool, disappointed. "You think I don't know you better than all this?"

Candice, laughing quietly at his visible distress, calmly brought her gun up and shot him in the arm. He yelled and dropped his own gun, falling back against the wall as his sleeve soaked through with blood. She grinned, silky, sardonic, and advanced on him until the muzzle of her gun pressed into his chest, directly over his heart.

"That's enough, Candice," Linderman commanded sharply. "Please try to remember that I need him alive."

Suddenly, there was a grating metallic sound, a bell-like ping, and a cry of surprise from Peter as his door popped open, swinging unlocked of its own accord. Finally! Nathan thought, and took advantage of the moment of surprise by kneeing Candice in the ribs, sending her to the ground with another solid kick. Linderman was already on a walkie-talkie, calling for backup as Nathan ran to Peter, grabbing a handful of his brother's shirt and pulling him out of the cell.

"Can you walk?" he asked quickly, sizing up the damage, ignoring the screams of his own arm, still pumping blood and hurting like he'd torn it off.

"Ow," Peter said involuntarily as Nathan put an arm around his shoulders, supporting him. "Um. Yes. Sort of."

They made it all the way out of the room and into the hallway before Candice caught up, grabbing Peter's shoulder and dragging them toward her. Peter stumbled with a throated cry of pain, turning terrified, traumatized, lanternflame-golden-brown eyes on her. She let go of him like she'd been burned, jerking away and skittering back on her heels. Both brothers stared at her in confusion and alarm as they tried to figure out exactly what trick she was pulling, but she continued to back away, flaring with sudden anger.

"Just go, all right?" she screamed. "Leave, now, or I'll shoot you both!"

Not understanding but not willing to waste their moment of freak luck, they went, leaving Candice with her gun hanging limply by her side, wondering when she'd become such a fool.

---

Claire was forcing herself not to stare at the kid ('Micah', apparently—she'd never heard the name before, and remembered vaguely from science class that it was some sort of a rock), watching the monitor determinedly instead. To be sure, there was plenty to keep her interested on the screen, what with the dramatic struggles and heartstopping surprise appearances, but she still found herself sneaking sideways glances at the curly-haired, concentrating boy. She wondered why his ability, out of all the incredible things she'd seen, should so fascinate her and freak her out. Possibly it was because he was so small, so very young and hard-eyed, sitting on his knees in the chair with his palm on the console, talking to machines like another child would talk to an imaginary friend.

She let out a long-held breath as Peter and Nathan finally made it out of the vaults and onto the casino floor, watching with lifting spirits as Peter stopped limping, looking healthier with each step. You're welcome, she thought at him with a cheerful smile that she hadn't had much use for lately, scanning the rest of the screens quickly.

Her eyes stopped, snagged on an unexpected and very bad sight on the monitor to her left. "Hana," she said, voice rising with panic and hindsight. "I don't think we thought this through very well."

Hana strode over and looked at the screen she was pointing to, putting a hand to her head and swearing violently as she saw what Claire had seen: dozens of other imprisoned specials, discovering that their doors were no longer locked; Sylar, walking down the hallway with a vengeful, strong step. "Lock the doors, Micah!" she said. "Lock everything down, now!"

---

Mr. Bennet was in trouble.

Things had been going remarkably well for him, especially considering that he wasn't supposed to be doing any more than creating a spectacular distraction. Due to some combination of his excellent aim and the guards' disorganized surprise, he'd so far killed about ten guards and wounded a half a dozen more. He'd dropped four of them before they'd even figured out where the bullets were coming from, and he was in such a carefully-planned strategic position—in a corner, blocked by a roulette table and a row of slot machines—that they hadn't been able to get at him without going through a line of well-placed fire.

But that was before she showed up. When she'd first walked out onto the floor, he'd barely taken notice of her, blond stick of a woman that she was. However, when she'd shot close enough to him to strike sparks from the nearest machine, he'd begun to focus on her, sending a furious barrage of bullets her way, so close and so accurate they would certainly take her out. Sure enough, they had flown straight for her, coming inches away from riddling her torso with bullet holes, when they had…bounced. That was the only word to describe it, the way the bullets had hit some kind of barrier in front of her with a slight blue shimmer, falling away and leaving her completely unharmed.

He knew that Linderman had other specials in his employ—it was one of the things that made The Company so strong. He hadn't known, though, that Linderman had managed to get his hands on someone so very useful. A shielder—what he wouldn't have given to have the woman as his bodyguard.

She had been pressing steadily in on him for about fifteen minutes, undeterred by anything he threw her way, and he had begun to think that perhaps the game was up. Fortunately, just as he'd taken final refuge behind the table, wondering if hand-to-hand combat would do him any good, he saw Peter and Nathan crossing the room, heading toward him.

His first thought, taking in Peter's battered, bloody appearance, was, Well, that's just fantastic, he's practically dead anyway. But as they got closer, he saw Peter straighten, gashes pulling together, and remembered: shielders and shapeshifters were nothing, and Linderman didn't have the most useful special of all—not anymore. Peter, bright kid that he was, picked up on Mr. Bennet's problem immediately, analyzed it, solved it, and threw a shield over the three of them that held like a brick wall against the blond woman's bullets.

"Hi," he said simply as he reached Mr. Bennet, offering him a hand up.

"Thanks," Mr. Bennet said, taking the hand, noticing the dizzy, unfocused look in Nathan's eyes, wondering how much blood the man had lost from the wound in his arm. "Your timing is fantastic, but we need to leave right now."

Exactly on cue, Hana and Claire ran in from a side hallway, confusingly followed by a small, cocoa-skinned child. "Nathan!" Claire gasped when she saw the blood all down his arm, apparently forgetting that she was never going to speak to him again. "That looks terrible!"

"I'm fine," Nathan lied. "Who the hell is the kid?"

"Long story," Hana said, then turned to the child in question. "Micah, it's more dangerous out here than we thought. Why don't you just go back to the security office until it's safe? Thank you for your help, and if anyone asks, we held a gun to your head, okay?"

The boy nodded grim acceptance and headed back down the hall, while the rest of their group gathered themselves for a dash to the door. "We need to hurry," Hana told them over the noise of the gunfire. "Sylar got out when we opened the doors, and I don't know who else. I don't know where he is."

That got them moving—they went for the door, people bouncing off Peter's newly-discovered shielding, guards yelling frantically into their headsets. The blue-shimmering shield seemed perfectly impenetrable, deterring everything and everyone, so Mr. Bennet was understandably startled when he collided with a small, dark-haired woman. Once he got a good look at her, however—golden-tint Mediterranean skin and wham-green eyes, a mouth that was meant for smiling but hadn't been doing much of it lately—it suddenly made sense, and he nearly lost his balance to the surprise.

"Katie?" he managed, completely and sincerely flabbergasted for once in his life.

The woman froze at the sound of her name, gave him an excellent impression of a deer, terrified and immobilized by car headlights, then turned and dashed off, losing herself at once in the churning crowd. He restarted his heart, gave a mental shrug, and caught up with the rest of his group outside the casino.

He would deal with dead girls and impossibilities later. For now, they had won, and that was all that mattered.