"Answers, Brad. Now."

Under the city, in a crawl space, it wasn't so cold. The tunnels must have sloped upwards, because the water slowly receded as they pressed on, passing fewer and fewer storm drains and man holes as they burrowed into the darkness. Nagi had a flashlight, which he lit every so often, whenever there was a turn to navigate or a beam to cross over. But mostly he saved the light.

They eventually winded up in a bulged, right below a large pothole. The area was barely five feet round and almost five feet high. Schuldig and Crawford had the most trouble crawling around the tunnels, as both boys were well over the five foot barrier. Nagi walked along with maddening ease, and little Farfarello barely skimmed the ceiling's top.

Now they were resting in a circle, pressed side-to-side, with the oracle and telekinetic on one end, the telepath and manipulator on another.

Farfarello was shivering, but Schuldig ignored him.

Crawford shrugged his shoulders, "What do you want to know?"

"How did you contact someone from the outside? And who is the that tiny tot?"

Nagi blinked. "Hey."

"Hmm," It was the sound Crawford made when he laughed, a soft chortling that didn't extend beyond a second or a sigh. He really was too damn refined. "It's quite simply really...I used you."

If Schuldig wasn't so angry he might have commented about his partner sounding like Mr. Green or Colon Mustard, revealing his great plot in killing Mr. Body.

The American tapped a finger against his head, "Those secret meetings, the dreams... you've commented yourself that they were always hazy. Like my subconscious wasn't there all the way or paying full attention to you?"

"Tch." Snorted the telepath with dismissal.

"Well, I wasn't." Crawford made that same odd sigh of laughter. "I was using your abilities to invade the subconscious as a channel to contact someone from the outside, Nagi."

The boy nodded at this.

Schuldig's emerald eyes were wide and round. "...what?"

How did Crawford do this without his noticing?

"I kept you distracted with out conversation. In actuality, I didn't need you at all to escape... beyond using your mind as a telephone wire." Crawford shrugged, "If it weren't for our continued conversation during that time, Rosenkreuzt would have noticed my contact with Nagi. Any readings they might have pulled from you or myself would only have caught the first level dream, our conversation."

Farfarello continued to shake besides Schuldig, though now it was out of laughter. "That's funny." He whispered. "Tools."

"You were just using me?" Schuldig screamed. He was already aware of that, painfully aware of that, but he still wanted to murder the gloating American. If they weren't in such a small space, he would have.

"I got you out, didn't I?" Crawford replied dully.

"The security breech in Rosenkreuzt was my doing." Nagi spoke up, his voice becoming softer and softer with each word. "I manipulated their monitoring systems, I released the primary locks, the gates, the doors. I held some of the guards back."

Schuldig's eyes narrowed, "Who are you?"

Nagi tilted his head, "Crawford said he would take me to America if I helped him."

"America?"

Farfarello, who at first had been sniggering, released his breath into a loll of moans and growls. Pale hands reached up and snatched at his blood red hair, he rocked forward, so suddenly that Schuldig jerked away from him. The maniac howled and attempted to tackle Crawford, but was grabbed by the oracle and penned down.

A sedative was pumped into his neck through the gun they had secured from the Sweepers.

Nagi turned on the flashlight, terrified. "He's insane."

Schuldig sneered. "Nothing gets by him."

Crawford held Farfarello in place until the boy went limp. Sighing, he lifted his body as much as he could in the small crawl space and passed it over to Schuldig. This time, the German didn't protest.

"Tell me about the boy," he demanded, "now."

"You recall the terrorist attack, five months ago, on the Parliament building?"

The other boy was given a moment to search his thoughts, bringing up images and class discussions. The event dawned on him, Schuldig nodded slowly, mouth forming into an 'o'. "A...bomb, wasn't it? Went off, took out the whole building, right?"

"Yes and no."

Schuldig remembered seeing news broadcasts covering the explosion. Now that he thought of it, it wasn't really an explosion, more of an implosion. Like the structure was being sucked into itself by a...

"That was you?" He gapped at Nagi. "You asshole!" Schuldig lashed out into the darkness, foot catching the child's leg. Nagi tensed up and growled. "That fucking news flash interrupted Buffy! You're the asshole who cancelled my show, you little shit! Do you know how many tries it took me to schedule TV time? And I had to request an international channel. Damn you!"

"...he's insane, too." Nagi observed.

"Oh, shut up, bite size." Schuldig snapped back.

"Enough. Both of you." Crawford put his head in his hands and mumbled something about being stuck with a bunch of degenerates. "May I continue?"

Nagi made and noise of approval and Schuldig sneered.

"It didn't take much effort to conclude that the Parliament attack wasn't caused by a bomb at all, or that a new telekinetic didn't get assigned to the school immediately afterwards. I worked on the school computers and found a message board concerning the topic, it was for research at first, but then I took notice of one user who was very neutral about the issue and at the same time, suspiciously knowledgeable..."

"Crawford and I contacted each other through e-mail...encrypted of course." Nagi added in his half-whisper, "then we met at night...psychically through a..."

"Dreamscape." Schuldig said.

"Yes."

The German sighed, "You risked everything on that, Crawford?"

"I knew my plan would be successful." The oracle answered. Schuldig released another breath of air and turned to Nagi, intent on questioning him about the Parliament building and his audacity of inflicting terrorism on a media-conscience public while Buffy was playing. Crawford stopped him, "About these trackers..."

The flashlight turned on, exploding in Schuldig's face. He turned away from the yellow-gray beam, lip curled. Brat, he did that on purpose. The two dark haired boys huddled together, examining what they had picked off the Sweepers. "You're sure this will work?"

"It's kept them off my back for the last five months." Nagi replied. He poked at one of the chips, turning it over in his palm. "After I knew what they were for, I began to assume that they worked by injecting some sort of chemical into your brain that nullifies your presence. But after studying it for awhile, I realized that nothing is released at all. Nothing chemical anyway."

"You must have a lot of free time on your hands." Schuldig commented.

Nagi ignored him. "They work by emitting some sort of electric pulse. I attached one to my neck, and it worked. But I don't think they're the only thing hiding my aura. Schuldig, can you sense me now?" Large, dead brown eyes turned to the telepath, who nodded. "...that's what I thought. I checked some of the other bodies, they have another one of these chips...larger, in their heads, wedged above the cerebellum--"

"You're a sick, sick, sick child!" Schuldig cried in mock-horror. He grinned and tightened his grip on Farfarello's body, who still sat in his lap. If the psychopath was awake, he'd love this conversation.

Nagi gave him a dull look. "I think they're used to cloak from the stronger telepaths. Dare I admit, Schuldig?"

"He may be a complete idiot, but he's very powerful." Crawford agreed. He held one of the chips up to the light. "Let's try this on Farfarello..."


==========================================================================


Schuldig felt like he had a leech sucking the back of his neck. It hurt. It really hurt. The fact that he kept rubbing the half buried chip probably didn't help. But if it meant being able to elude those Sweepers, than he'd bare the pain...

Actually, Nagi had to hold him down with the last of his strength to keep him from crawling away.

On a happier note (for Schuldig anyway) the child passed out from exhaustion afterwards. At least he wasn't the only one suffering.

That left him alone with Bradley Crawford, who was now responding to every verbal and mental comment with: shut up, I'm trying to sleep.

Schuldig sulked, he could be in a warm bed right now, dreaming about having wild monkey sex with a pyrokentic.

"I don't like the way you're cuddling Farfarello." Crawford's voice pierced the darkness without warning. Schuldig jumped, he hadn't even detected a shift of consciousness before the American spoke. Maybe it was the new implant, maybe it was just Crawford's remarkable ability of veiling his surface thoughts.

He gripped Farfarello a little bit tighter. "We're exchanging body heat, it's nothing sexual...Bradley." The twelve-year-old lay limp against his chest, head tucked under Schuldig's neck, breathing slow and heavy.

"Crawford."

"Bradley Crawford."

"No, just Crawford."

He laughed. "Alright...Crawford." He preened, "Mmm, I never thought I'd spend a night in a sewer...storm drain, whatever. It's kind of sexy."

"Good night, Schuldig."

"Dream of me, Crawford."


===================================================================

When, during the night, did the freak wake up and get a hold of the knife?

Poke. Poke. Poke.

Schuldig moaned and tried to bat whatever it was that was jabbing his side away. He was cold, tired, and cramped. He had fallen asleep some where hard, his neck was sore... was he at a field exercise? Perhaps he had been knocked out. Then it was time for him to wake up and be yelled at by his team leader.

Poke. Poke.

Since when did team leaders poke people?

"Are you dead?"

Schuldig opened his eyes and sighed. "Oh. Hello Farfarello."