- Floor 2B -

The "ding" sound of the elevator as the door opened stirred Amy back to partial awareness. Her thoughts are incoherent, and it takes her a few moments to remember just where she was and what she needs to do next. Her unfocused mind finally concluded that the sedatives in the nerve pellets have affected her significantly. She tries to move, but is startled to find her muscles are as heavy as lead. As she strains to recover her strength, she was only able to prop her body up with her arms, but standing up is currently out of the question.

Amy reaches into her holster, but finds it empty. After some difficult recollection, she realized she dropped her SOCOM when she was hit, right before she was able to dive into the elevator. She discarded her M9 upstairs when it ran out of ammo, and whatever was left in her backpack is no longer recoverable since she used it as a decoy for Max. So at this moment, she was completely weaponless. And with her body currently in shutdown mode, she can't imagine being able to land a single punch.

Her eyes water and a lone tear slides down Amy's cheek as she realizes her situation is dire to say the least. She has precious little time before she reaches Lucy, and she can barely move. The elevator door begins to close, and Amy forces her arm forward to halt it. Even that motion took an excruciating amount of effort, and sent a jolt of pain and distress through her body. Her face twisted in agony as she forced herself in a slow crawl out of the elevator. She was lucky there were no guards posted by the elevator, but she knows avoiding them later is impossible. She checks her watch: 30 seconds.

Amy takes a deep breath. Her focus sharpens simply through pure determination. Although it caused escalating pain, she pulled herself up by holding onto a railing by the wall, and willed her legs to step forward in sequence. Her movement was slow, but she was making some progress. She reaches the corner of the hallway. If Bobby's data is correct, there should be a guard posted right after this corner. Another guard should be just before the door to Lucy's cell room, only a few meters farther.

She has really no idea what she expects to do to subdue this guard, but with only seconds to go, all she could do was move. But just moving is causing tremendous strain on Amy's tired body, and she feels her strength weakening.

And just as she turns the corner, her legs give, and her body drops to a half-sitting position by the wall. Her breathing is long and haggard, and her bunched hair is wet from perspiration. She could only open her eyes to a tiny sliver, and from here, she can see the alerted guard, whose expression could only be described as both surprise and confusion.

The guard approaches her, obviously perplexed. He has his rifle drawn at her as he comes near. As he gets close enough, he crassly poked at the side of Amy's face with the barrel of the rifle to draw out a response.

All Amy could do was to sit there, hoping some strength will come back to her. Her eyes shift to her watch, and an unimaginable level of despair fills her emotions as the display reads a row of zeros.

Game Over, Bradshaw.

The guard lets out a short chuckle as he continues to gaze at Amy. He steps back, lowers his rifle confidently and pulls out his radio.

"Hey Phil, get down over here."

Soon, Amy could hear a pair of footsteps approaching as another guard rounded out from the far corner.

"What's going on, Ray? You know I'm supposed to guard the door."

"You're too busy napping on the chair to be guarding a damn thing, Phil." He answers sarcastically. "Anyhow, I don't think that's going to be much a problem anymore." The man then gestures to Amy. "Say hi to our intruder."

"No shit man! This girl is the security risk our boss warned us about today?

"That's what I'm thinking. But it looks to me like she's hurt real bad or she's high on something."

"And what a fucking babe!" The second guard snorts. "I'd sure like a piece of that ass."

"Hey I found her first, so you wait your fucking turn. Keep attention down the main hall and warn me if somebody comes in from the elevators. After I'm done, you're gonna get sloppy seconds."

They both holler out a pair of sniveling laughs, before the first man turned back to Amy. His face twists out a lascivious grin as he begins to unbuckle his belt. The other man stood leaning to the left wall, an eager look on his face as though he can't wait for the show.

Amy could feel her energy returning but only in miniscule quantities. She is able to keep her eyes open wider than a minute ago, but she is still very disoriented. However, with the current view she'd rather be blind. In fact if her body had enough strength she would probably be vomiting at the sight of his genitals being pulled out of his pants. As it is now, she barely has enough energy to keep her head up, and as well her mind is obviously still reeling from missing the opportunity to get Lucy out in time.

Amy feels her hair painfully bunched, and her head being shoved forcefully onto the wall. The man has his pants dropped down to his ankles along with a thick utility belt.

"You're going to enjoy this more than me, darling." Amy heard the slithering voice above her.

But suddenly, a loud voice from another catches everybody's attention.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHRRRRRGGHH!"

A furious scream bellowed through the hall as a figure jumps out from the far corner with what appears to be a metal chair. Both men quickly turned to the direction of the angry voice. The chair is swung heavily around as soon as it appears, and in a quick flash, the steel slams onto the face of the guard by the wall, resulting in a sickening crunch as the man's skull mashes onto the concrete surface.

Amy's attacker stared in horror as his friend's face is smashed in followed by the entire 6-foot frame crumbling to the floor unconscious. Realizing her opportunity, Amy took advantage. Enlisting the instant energy gained from a combination of pure adrenaline, sheer will, and seething anger, she reaches for a device she spotted in the utility belt, grabs it, and pulls herself up quickly from the floor while he was still looking away. She positioned her body for balance and then struck her knee upwards between the man's bare legs with power unsurpassed even when she wasn't sedated.

The impact was so severe the guard couldn't expel enough breath to scream. But there wasn't time for him to gasp before Amy flicked on the Taser-like device in her hand, dialed it to maximum setting and jabbed the unfriendly end of the electrical weapon hard onto the tip of the engorged organ protruding from just above where her knee had struck.

The man belted out the most horrified scream in a pitch and volume rivaling actresses in a horror movie. His body folds into itself as both his hands try for a tenuous hold on his freshly roasted and flattened genitalia. His agony will be postponed for the moment however, as the woman with the chair came at him and struck him behind the head with it with unrestrained fury, knocking him out cold instantly.

Amy leaned back onto the wall in exhaustion. Forcing her body to move so quick at this condition was unimaginably excruciating. As the strength falters from her legs again, she gazes at the one who came to her rescue. Once she recognizes who it was, she gives a weak, relieved smile, before her body begins to drop to the floor...

- to be continued -

Author's Notes: This chapter dedicated to Ayrki. :-)