Chapter 15

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Tseng held the terrified young man high in the air. His hand tightened around his throat, causing the young man to choke and squirm helplessly. Tseng's strength was a mystery to Reno, he seemed to have an abundance of it, yet he was not particularly muscular. It seemed to come from nowhere. Yet still Tseng has an aura of absolute control that seemed to hold you in a trance.

"I don't take mouth from punks like you." Tseng said calmly, a slight grin on his face. "If we wish to ask you questions we shall… and you shall answer them." His grip tightened, the young man's face was beginning to turn a light shade of blue.

"Please stop it! Don't hurt him!" The cry of the sobbing young woman had no affect on Tseng. She may as well not have been there. Rude had his hand firmly on her arm, not allowing her to move, though she tried desperately to break away from him. Reno stood and simply watched, not wanting to feel a part of the torture, yet knowing he was.

"I suggest you just tell us what we want to know." Reno lifted his electrostick and fired a light shot at the man's leg. He let out a choked cry and slowly his struggling faded to a few jerking movements. Tseng released his grip a little.

"Now, I will ask you one more time, did you see three men and a woman leave this sector?"

"Y-Yes…" He choked out weakly. Tseng put him down. The man fell to his knee and coughed, gasping for air. This was the first person who had said yes. Tseng turned to Reno with a smirk, Reno did not return it.

"Where did they go?" Tseng knelt down to the young man, as the volume of his voice was barely above a whisper.

"They went… through a tube… in the eastern wall…" He said slowly, shakily pointing in the direction of the Eastern wall. Tseng stood and gave the man a swift kick to the ribs, he fell onto his back and slowly rolled over to his side, coughing up some blood.

"Release her." Tseng said to Rude. Rude did as he was told. The woman shoved herself away from the bald Turk and knelt beside her husband, stroking his face and glaring with a fierce anger at the trio of Turks.

"Let's get out of here." Tseng said tonelessly, walking over to the wooden door and kicking it down. Reno and Rude followed their leader out of the house, leaving behind the broken man and his sobbing wife. Reno was a little surprised to find himself feeling slightly guilty. He hadn't felt guilt in a long time. He put his hand to his chest briefly, where the picture of Aeris was, then took it away, cursing himself. He had an urge to take the picture out and rip it to pieces, but knew he wouldn't be able to act on that impulse. He was pretty sure that soon the picture would be the only part of Aeris he had left. A grinding noise came from the top plate, Reno looked up to see a few sparks jumping around in the cracks of the plate. He'd never felt safe in the slums, with the huge plate looming overhead. Working for ALIEN he'd seen the plates were extremely strong and had support for if they had fall… yet still he felt uncomfortable when walking in the slums. The Turks made their way to the wall and spotted the tube immediately. It was easily large enough for somebody to crawl through.

"Where does this go?" Reno asked, peering inside but only seeing darkness.

"This is one of the old tubes left over from the original slums…" Tseng said slowly, pondering why the four rebels would have gone inside, when it inevitably only led to a dead end.

"The original slums? You mean the ones built on a higher footing?" Reno queried.

"Yeah." Tseng said, still in thought. "Somebody must have built another tunnel… but where would they come out?"

"Sector Seven." Replied Rude.

Tseng turned to him. "How would you know that?"

"I studied maps of the slums when I was a kid. All the time." Rude answered.

Tseng turned to Reno, who raised his eyebrow and shrugged. "I think he's right."

"Alright." Tseng nodded. "They may have left behind some kind of trap inside the tunnel, so we're probably better to go the long way. If they've left sector seven, it's likely we'll meet them along the way."

"The only place they could have gone from sector seven is sector six." Rude said.

"Exactly." Tseng turned and headed towards the exit of sector five, knowing they had little time to waste. They couldn't fail Rufus again… Tseng feared their lives as well as their jobs depended on it.