He pulled back on the stick, bringing the swordfish II out of a deep dive at the last possible moment before shooting forward, accelerating into a hairpin turn. The ship he followed slipped out of sight around a corner, and his heart, which had been pounding in his ears, all but stopped. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Then up over a ridge and down again, into an even deeper canyon, and the rhythm began again, painful, and jarring, as Eve's ship once again came into sight.

They'd been speeding along like this, skimming the surface of the planet, navigating narrow fissures in the earth, diving, wheeling, spinning, for over an hour now... ever since they entered earth's atmosphere, and despite the flying skills that seemed to almost radiate from a forgotten part of his mind, and channel themselves through his body to his fingertips, arms, legs, toes, he wondered that he managed to keep up with her.

"Jesus, It's almost like she wants to loose me," he muttered. The hard flying bothered him, but what really bothered him was the nagging suspicion that he was being followed. He'd gotten the feeling just after he and Eve had left the orbit of Venus, and it had only intensified.

Complete rubbish, of course, he didn't know a single pilot who could follow them where they went, and anyone who tried would have their relatives scraping them off a canyon wall.

He didn't know why, but that thought caused a sudden tightening in his chest.

He flew on.

And a few miles behind him, discreetly out of sight, Faye flew as well. She did better in this maze than Corbin might have guessed, she might not have had much opportunity lately to fly her little zip craft but she hadn't exactly let herself get out of practice, either, and while the Swordfish II was in many ways far superior to the Redtail, it wasn't as well designed for this sort of tight maneuvering. Besides, she had one more thing going for her: Ed, who was even now feeding topographical information, courtesy of Ed's fathers own Earth mapping project, into the Redtail's computers. And while the information wasn't 100%, it had proved pretty damn accurate so far.

Even so, the concentration had still caused the sweat to bead up on her brow. At these speeds, in these sort of cramped quarters, the slightest mistake could spell doom. And she wondered again what the hell she was doing. Was this really all worth it?

What was Corbin to her, anyway?

A friend. The answer ricocheted off the walls of her mind. A comrade. You don' t deserts a comrade.

So she worried her bottom lip raw, and flashed past the landscape too fast to even see where she was going, navigating by the maps Ed supplied, the signal from the homing device and blind intuition. She gripped the stick of her craft so tightly now her fingers had become numb, and she saw her own funeral around every corner.

But before she could crash, the red dot that was Corbin began to slow its forward movement, and Faye did like wise, bringing her ship down just behind a rise, and exiting onto the barren landscape. Red canyon walls... outside of her ship, it reminded her of nothing so much as the Arizona desert. Only more so. Constant bombardment by meteorites had cut huge scars into the landscape. Earthquakes caused by impact had done the rest. Barren, yes, but as she crested the rise, she inhaled sharply at the sight before her. It was a basin, which looked like it may have been made by one particularly large impact, but inside the bowl was a walled garden, filled with trees, flowers, birds... it's lushness contrasting sharply with the rest of the world. Unexpected, and yet somehow familiar, as if she'd seen it before. in a dream perhaps. or maybe not as though she'd actually seen it, just knew what it should look like.

And suddenly she knew where she'd heard of this garden. In a flash she remembered squirming in her wooden seat, wedged next to a father and mother who's faces she couldn't really remember, just the impression of love and support, and acceptance, and their actual features kept changing, and shifting, but she knew it was them. And she was listening to a man, and he was talking about a garden, more beautiful than any other. A garden where nothing dies, and nothing grows old. A garden of perfection. Eden.

And at the garden's center, stood a tower. Father's secret lab. Death among even these timeless roses. Father was trying to re-create the world in his image. Father wanted to be god.

"Jet, hurry your ass up, huh? You've got to see this."

"Forget it," came the indignant answer over the radio, "I'm going as fast as I can... you know the hammerhead isn't the best for tight steering. And it's not like I can just come in from above, they'll see me for sure... no, I have to navigate through this endless maze of..."

"Stop whining, and get here," Faye cut him off playfully, then became serious, "I don't think we can wait much longer, and I don't think I can do this without you."

"Sure... I'm on my way."

She looked again to the ivory tower, and shuddered. The whole thing just felt... unnatural, and gazing upon it only caused chills to run rampant down her spine. Hurriedly, she dragged her eyes down into the garden, and up over it's wall finally coming to rest on the bright red spot that gave Corbin away even at this distance.

She squinted, straining her eyes, but Eve and Corbin were simply too far away to be clearly seen. Reluctantly, she left her vantage point, and skidded back down the hill to her craft. She leaned into the open cockpit, and began throwing around garbage, reaching under seats, and opening glove compartments searching for her field glasses.

Faye straightened back up, a curse on her lips. She was never the most organized of women, but she was always able to find what she needed. until she needed it that is. It would figure. After allowing herself a moment to vent her frustration in nice four letter words, which bounced off the canyon walls, she tried again, looking a little more methodically this time, and found them in short order, dangling behind her seat as they hung from the headrest.

She allowed herself no time to revel in her success, however, and scurried back up the hill, pausing just before she reached the top, and crawling the last few feet army style. As the spot of red once again came into view, she put her field glasses to her eyes, and brought the scene into focus.

Corbin was dressed all in black, and Faye had to wonder how he managed to look so cool in all this heat. But then, Eve seemed to pull it off pretty well too, and Faye felt keenly the dust that had settled into her hair, and clung to her sweat-dampened skin. She'd never felt more that she needed a shower.

She held her breath instinctively, and pressed herself even further into the rock, as Eve's eyes turned in her direction. She was too far away to be seen, surely. And yet, suddenly, she felt like she was highlighted in neon. She counted a few breathless seconds, before Eve finally turned back to Corbin, her lips moving rapidly.

It was times like this Faye was really sorry she'd never learned to read lips.

What ever it was Eve said, it had Corbin nodding reluctantly, and following her to the Garden gates. hurdle number one, as Faye had come to think of them. The rest of their walk was in silence. Faye following their progress from the gates, over a small bridge, lost them behind a clump of trees, but found them again, as they went around the other side, and eventually found their way to the tower.

There was no door that Faye could see, but she knew it was there, probably keyed into Eve's specific heat signature, or Genetic code, or some thing like that, and sure enough, a section of the wall slid out and open as the duo approached. They entered, Corbin first, and Eve bringing up the rear. The smile on her face froze Faye's blood in her veins.

She was still sitting there, binoculars in hand, watching the blank section of wall (hurdle number two) 20 minutes later, when Jet showed up.

She heard the hammerhead approach, and touch down in a not-so-soft landing, and followed Jet's progress with her ears as he stumbled out of the driver's seat of his car, rubbing his numb tail bone, and grumbling low in his throat, before trudging up the hillside in thick, heavy footfalls. Faye, without a word or a glance passed the binoculars to him, and nodded at the tower, before biting her lip, and narrowing her eyes thoughtfully.

The gate and the garden would be difficult, the whole area probably under heavy surveillance, and the door was damn near impossible. of course they did have Ed on their side, and she had that uncanny ability to make Swiss Cheese of any security system she saw fit. She might have had trouble finding info on Van Haussen, but now that they had him, the hacker would surely be able to deal with the security.

What really bothered her were the other hurdles, the ones she couldn't see yet. And the one she could. the hurdle that called herself Eve.