Living arrangements.

It appeared Crawford had overlooked living arrangements.

"I'm not spending another night in that sewer." Schuldig warned in no uncertain terms. The telepath and manipulator had returned from their outing with enough money to wave in the waitress face to get with another meal. Crawford had stared at the bills with a dull somber look, aware of where it came from. He could hear that annoying nasal scream from blocks away, and wondered why people paid money for it.

"Sewers are bad." Farfarello intelligently agreed. He sat close to Schuldig, arms folded on the table, hunched a little. His single amber gaze was locked on Crawford, daring him to say anything against the German's protest.

"Why." Crawford demanded.

Farfarello batted an eye. "...because."

Smirking, Schuldig wrapped an arm around the shoulder of his supporter, speaking in a taunting tone. "Because Schu-Schu said so."

"Yes."

Crawford buried any nasty comments he had in his glass of ice tea.

"Craaawford," Schuldig whined, "build me a house."

Crawford swallowed an ice cube.

"Oh, fine, be that way. American prick." The emerald haired boy stuck his elbow down on the table and turned his attention to Farfarello, who had just discovered the table knife wrapped in his napkin and was studying it with intense curiosity.

The child, Nagi, suddenly mumbled something softly out of the corner of his mouth. "...we should just go down to the Projects, find an apartment owned by a bachelor or old lady, slaughter them, then live off of there until the manager comes looking for rent..."

The two oldest psychics stared, mouths parted.

The little boy stared back with dead hollow eyes.

"That..." Crawford spoke after awhile, "isn't such a bad idea."

Nagi frowned, "Crawford, you said we would be going to America after you escaped."

Schuldig snorted and began to say something, but was cut off by the oracle. "In time, Nagi."

Across the table, the Irish boy began to chop into the woodwork with his dull blade. Intent on his work, he didn't look up as he stoically recounted a bit of information about himself before his capture. "I did that." He said. "In Kildare. In a house with a mother and father and a sister and another sister. But they found me."

"Who? The men in white jackets?" Schuldig teased.

Farfarello jerked as he looked up at him, the German froze. "Yes."

The attention returned to the fifteen-year-old American as their fearless leader took a sudden sharp intake of breath, then smirked. He picked his napkin out of his lap and sat up, nodding for the waitress to bring him their check. The other three sat in silent question.

"It's getting dark," Crawford explained, "and I know where we can stay."

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


Leistung fumed in silence. He was beginning to regret ever bringing that brat, Sazha, into the situation.

But he was right. Damn him, he was right.

Short of sending the Council of Elders out themselves, with their canes, wrinkles, and dignity, Sazha was the only psychic in the area they could turn to for help. There were other psychics. Equally powerfully psychics with off-handed powers that most people had never even heard of. But none of them had the mind, the cunning, to devise a plan of capture the way Sazha did. The man was a master of manipulation and a sadist to boot. He could counter Crawford's genius, Schuldig and the telekinesis's raw power, Farfarello's strength.

He could win them back.

And they would come back. Yes. And when they did... When their reprogrammers were through with them, they would be docile and loyal to Este to a fault. Oh yes. They would bow. They would...

"Being as there are four of them, I believe there should be four of us." Sazha told him. He was speaking to Leistung about the team he wanted. And he wanted them soon. Not now. Soon.

Something was in Sazha's head, some devilish plan that didn't require for immediate re-capture of Crawford and his minions. At first the others on the council - Hoztmann, Krauler, and Collins - bawked at the young man's proposal. Now, they listened in sullen silence.

"Name your team," Krauler finally replied, weak in defeat. "We'll give you anyone."




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


"Gentlemen," the American introduced in his uncanny, sophisticated fashion, "welcome to our new urban grotto."

It might have been a quaint, almost homely scene, if at that very moment, the wall dividing the blackened kitchen from the barren living room didn't cave in.

Schuldig visually twitched. "*This* is what you saw in your vision?" He yelled. His voice hit a pubic screech and dissolved into a high pitch scream. "What Gods of SHIT LUCK IRONY are sending you these images???"

Aware of where this conversation would lead, Nagi took off into the misty darkness to explore the depths of their new humble abode. His only comment was made before introduction, when he cast Crawford a wary glance, and in his zombie-calm voice, asked exactly what "Condemned" meant. The only sign of the child's existence after that was the slight scream he gave off when his foot plunged through the woodwork of the master bedroom.

"It's a fixer-upper." Crawford observed.

"Oh yea, I can see it now. A stick of dynamite here, a fuse there, one small explosion, a month or two to clear the debris, re-level the floor ground, and fucking build from the dirt up and it'll be a real Martha Steward Christmas card HOLIDAY FUCKING RETREAT."

"Your sarcasm has been noted and ignored." The oldest psychic walked off to explore the kitchen and see what could be done about the house's power. They were in the heart of Vienna, the abandoned projects that were littered with crack addicts, curb whores, and street walkers. The police saw little action there, as they did in most ghettos. Aside from the Sweepers of Rosenkreuzt, the children's only real concern would be avoiding the neighborhood pedophile and any other squatter that might eventually show up, miffed that they had taken over his house.

A nasal voice rang from the bathroom. "Something's floating in the toilet! And I think it's still alive!"

A few cracked pots and plates laid in a half filled sink. Crawford brushed his fingers against the facet knobs, then hesitantly turned them around. A low rumble came from underneath him, followed by a geyser of brown goo. The liquid flow spurted once, drenching Crawford's school uniform, spat weakly two more times, then died down.

Nagi returned from his exploration. A small frown pinched the telekinetic round features, his head was craned upwards, staring at the ceiling. "I believe," he reported, pointing towards a caved in spot on the floor, "a stairway used to be here."

Farfarello approached the gap in the wall that was suppose to lead to the disaster's second story. He stretched his arms upwards, then jumped, trying to reach the break in the ceiling and hoist himself up. The Irish boy fell short a couple of feet and landed back on the floor with an expression of defeat. "No access."

"We could get a ladder."

"...yes."

Another comment from the bathroom: "It has teeth!"

Nagi regarded their leader. "Crawford, how do we know someone doesn't already live here?"

"How do we know the roof isn't going to crush us in the middle of the night?" Asked Schuldig, coming back in from the hall.

"I just know." Crawford was back in the living room, shuffling through the items he had swiped off the first Sweeper team they had encountered. He had the tranquilizer gun in hand and was preparing to sedate Farfarello for the night.

Farfarello caught glimpse of the shot and edged backwards. "No."

"You just know." Schuldig placed a hand on his hip, rolled his head back, and sneered, "You know everything, Oracle. This house is too perfect to be just something that suddenly came to you; and why would it come to you anyway? Everything I've read about your kind says that the visions you have are sporadic and unpredictable. They only extend seconds, minutes in the future, and are often unrelated to anything that can be considered helpful. Yet you seem to be dancing around everything like it's been fucking scripted. You know too much."

Nagi's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"The master mind finally applies some thought into the things he says. I'm dually impressed." Crawford mocked dryly. He pulled a barrier up just in time to evade Schuldig's mental invasion. Dark brown eyes turned to the inching schizophrenic. "Obey me, Farfarello."

"No."

"Don't block your mind from me, Bradley. What aren't you telling us?"

"...Farfarello..."

"...No!"

As the American approached, the Irish boy grabbed his head and dropped to the floor, face tucked under his belly in fear. He began to shake violently. Nagi watched with spread lips, Farfarello's submission to Crawford was fascinating.

"Oh, for God sakes, leave him alone. He's not doing anything." Schuldig defended and took a step in front of Farfarello, placing his body between him and the oracle.

Crawford eased his advance, for all the world appearing as if he was going to back down. Schuldig's hopes flared in triumph, then died down just as quickly as a slight smirk graced the face of the asshole. The German tilted his head in confusion, what was Crawford...

"NO MORE DRUGS." Twelve-year-old Farfarello sprung onto Schuldig. In his moment of fear, a hallucination hit him heavy and hard, now he was operating completely on fight-or-flight reactions.

Schuldig chin smashed into the floor at the same time Crawford flew down and buried the ready needle into Farfarello's neck. The younger psychic struggled for a bit, then went limp.

Schuldig gapped.

Crawford stood over him, body a shadow in the poor lighting. His voice, a warning, held a dangerous low edge that Schuldig had never heard before. "From now on, assume that I do know everything, Schuldig, and never disobey me."

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

The first of three psychics being collected for Sazha's team was Nigel Lancaster.

Nigel was a Projector, a very powerful one. Nigel was in the Talent division of Rosenkreuzt. The Talent division trained the physical powers within the academy, the pyro and aquakentics, the teleporters. Nigel was one of three Talents who could split his body into multiple copies and manipulate them to do various tasks at his command.

Projectors were rare and eventually split themselves down to death. At fourteen, Nigel was holding up pretty well. Though he, like the other two in his class, were constantly in trouble for sending poorly created clones to class and to the training room to do the dirty work while the original dozed in bed. Without constant control of the original, the copies were dull and stupid, they eventually faded into non-existence, turning into static like an image on a television screen and blinking out all together.

The best trait of a Project was their ability to multiple and gang up on a target. They could also escape a battle and death by blurring a copy into the action and sneaking the original off to a safe location. Any damage inflicted upon the copy appeared on the original in the form of a scar, welt, or bruise, that faded hours after they were struck.

When Sazha approached Nigel, the British boy was kicking it back in the dormitories waiting for his left eye to unscar. A meeting with a vicious Manipulator had the whole eyeball white and foamed over, which wasn't bad for the original, considering the fact that the copy had suffered worse; flickering from existence screaming and clamping a hand over the hole where his left eye used to be. Nigel felt no pain or sorrow over the injury, he was just half blind and a little annoyed.

"If they send you 'ere to take me back to class, tell 'em I'm not ready yet, and they can piss off if they disagree." Nigel's third class accent fitted well with his first class mannerism and pissy exterior. The dark skinned boy laid on his bed, magazine in lap. He flipped through it leisurely, not bothering to grace Sazha with a glance.

The Mind Eraser leaned against the doorway and grinned. "Shall I quote you on that? Or would you like to continue enjoying your eating privileges for the next few days?"

"I said 'piss off' that means bloody leave, you nazi sob." Nigel dismissed in his careless sing-song sigh of a voice.

"I'm Sazha." The Nazi Sob informed.

Nigel stiffened and looked up, at the same time, a thin black circle sketched into his blank left eye, outlining the beginning of an iris. The porcelain boy stared at Sazha for a moment, then slowly, forced himself to relax. He hide his discomfort with a flippant snort of disgust, "So, you're the pedophile everyone used to talk about. I knew you sounded like a bloody pervert when you first came in 'ere."

He closed his magazine and set it aside.

"So, whot d'you want? I can give you a copy to rape, but my original is purely off limits, asshole. Also, I'm going to have to charge."

Sazha was correct to choose this one out of the two other Projectors. He had spirit.

"Name your price, and I'll give you more than you ever asked for."


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

The floor was cold and left an ache in his hips and back. Schuldig lay on top of Farfarello in the living room. He tried to use the oblivious Manipulator as a cushion, but even Farfarello was hard and uncomfortable. No matter how he laid himself, a bone was sticking up from underfed flesh and jabbing him in the side.

Schuldig was miserable.

And it was all Crawford's fault.

The psychic was contemplating his misery when a creak from afar grabbed his attention. Schuldig sprang up and peered into the darkness. He couldn't discern whether the sound was human, or if the house was making its last groan of pain and was about to collapse and kill them all.

Another creak.

Then he saw him. Crawford. He crept across the floorboards in an attempt to be silent. The light cast from the window highlighted his face for a second, then returned to shadows. Crawford pushed open the door and slipped into the night.

Schuldig followed him.