Recruiting turned out to be much easier than Meowth had ever hoped it would be. After pretty minimal eavesdropping, it became clear that the percentage of agents who didn't care much for Carter was not insignificant. He wondered if the man in question was aware of that fact. Surely he was, at least to an extent.

There was, following each recruitment, each agreement laced with fear and frustration, a sizeable amount of guilt. Meowth knew that an outcome in which none of them got killed was more than unlikely: it was near impossible. As such, he felt the weight of responsibility at dragging others into that world of high risk- at sealing their fates in bloodshed and gunfire. All that he could conjure to ease those thoughts was the counter-argument that, if they did not take this action, far more people would end up dead. It didn't soothe him exactly- death was death, and he felt a great discomfort dealing in that business at all- but the cold logic at least made it a little easier to get on with the task at hand.

The cast so far was a range of personalities and ranks: a few grunts, a pair of field agents, a training instructor from Kanto, and even one senior agent. None of them had joined due to a respect of Jessie and Meowth (half of them didn't know who they were, and the ones that did had only heard bad things), but rather as a result of either their total disdain for the new regime, or terror at its effects. Some of them had seen their friends get killed up close, or had a partner go missing one day, whilst the senior agent seemed to harbour a more generalised disapproval of Carter. "Too young, and too impulsive," he'd told Jessie, the shake of his head like that of a disappointed teacher.

Getting the gun took a little further scouting, but as predicted, it wasn't very difficult. Of course, there was a whole arsenal of weapons at the headquarters, but obtaining one meant filling out a form, and Jessie knew that putting her name to a potential assassination weapon left more than a couple of loose ends.

So she'd gone futher afield and partaken in a back alley deal, a practice she was all too well versed in. The guy slinging the guns had fit the 'shady guy' bill just right- a grey hood casting shadows over his eyes, dirtied combat boots shifting on the concrete with the anxious turns of his head, voice low and gravelly. She tried not to think too hard about how similar Butch's tone had been, and told herself that it was just a projection of her disquiet rather than a genuine parallel.

Money was, for once, the least of Jessie's troubles in the exchange: the string of missions they'd been on had brought in pretty sizeable paychecks. Even with the distraction of circumstance, it was surreal to have plenty of cash at her disposal.

The weight of the weapon in her pocket felt strange, ugly, and when she took it in her hands back in their dormitory, the feeling of the metal warming under her grip unnerved her. She held not only the gun, but the intention to kill.

Naturally, that thought had played a prominent part in her thoughts since the birth of their plan. She had never been under the illusion that what she was setting out to do was anything less than murder; this was a matter of taking a life. No, 'take' was too soft a word- she planned to destroy it.

Ugly or not, that was something Jessie knew she had to come to terms with. It wasn't a case of killing some innocent, of course, and that was the driving force that kept her down her chosen path. If she pulled this off, Carter wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else- sometimes the ends justified the means.

Right?

Jessie put the gun away, and shut down her doubts with a counter she chanted over and over in her head: it didn't matter how she felt about it. It was simply something that needed to be done.


James had lost count of the number of times he'd been called stupid. Whether it was the boss, or twerps, or colleagues, that sentiment remained consistent.

Brainless. Idiotic. Foolish.

Most of the time, he could shake those accusations off. With Jessie's help, he'd grown assured in his talents- and he did have talents, regardless of what people said.

But he felt more than a trace of truth in the insults flung his way over the years. There was something in his brain that didn't seem to line up with most people's way of thinking, some strange barrier that too often traded logic for impulse and emotion. And these last few days especially, he found himself wondering if that was his problem now. Maybe if he was smarter, he'd have a better understanding of what Jessie and Meowth were talking about. Maybe, if he was made of harder stuff, he'd be at their side rather than cowering in the corner. What had happened to that selfless trainee, ready to plunge down to his doom in an instant for his friends?

There was no point sitting around feeling sorry for himself- that he was certain of, and he did his best to clear his mind. If his partners were really intending to go through with their plan, then he needed to come up with something himself.

Convincing them that it was a bad idea seemed off the table. Jessie had made it clear that she was willing to risk it all, so trying to communicate the danger of it to them was a lost cause. What did that leave? He couldn't force them to leave with him.

A part of him felt unjust abandonment at the resolve of his team mates; however much he pleaded, they wouldn't budge. An outsider might have thought of their reaction as cold, uncaring. Even so, he knew in his heart that that wasn't the case. Every time they debated the matter, worry and utter dismay flashed behind Jessie's eyes, just as they did behind his. It was not that she didn't care, but that she cared so deeply that she was unable to walk away from a man who put the people she loved in danger. That was such a typical Jessie paradox, James thought- to risk something for the sake of protecting it.

So maybe he wasn't so brainless. Perhaps he did understand where they were coming from, but that didn't change his unwillingless to stand by them.

Did that make him a better person, or a far worse one?

He had no clue. That was a trend that would continue into a semi-sleepless night, the dim stars that blinked through the window as sparse as the ideas in his head.


As badly as her partner might have slept, Jessie had the edge on that front. She didn't sleep at all.

The atmosphere a few days before, that hint of normality with pizza and television, had dissipated once again. It was not that the exchanges she and Meowth had with James were unfriendly, more that they felt uneasy. How much he suspected, Jessie didn't know, but James seemed to have somewhat given up his attempts at arguing against them. He'd been withdrawn, and the times he did talk felt unnatural. She could hear him force his typical inflections into his voice as he made some passing quip, or talked about what they were going to eat for lunch that day, or something equally flat.

Denial was a strong possibility. That was a habit of his, to shy away from reality and cocoon himself away in idle chatter and strained grins.

She no longer carried any resentment towards him for not getting involved. There was no room left for frustration- she was too preoccupied with the fear of losing him, whether it be by his death or her own. Those thoughts were as nasty as always, so she distracted herself by running through the plan.

Out of their makeshift rebellion, only Jessie and four other agents were actually attending the meeting. It was, after all, concerning planning and developments in Kanto, and as such only people who were familiar with the territory had been called upon. So, the group had arranged for those left spare to wait outside, waiting in the halls. When everything went down, they were the backup.

If there was one thing Jessie was grateful for regarding Carter's personality, it was his apparent refusal to see Meowth as a real agent. There had been no mention of him in their orders, which gave her a reason he couldn't argue with to keep him out of the room, at least for a bit. That was a mild comfort.

When dawn broke through the thin veil of the curtains, she forced herself from the sofa and to the kitchenette. If she wanted to be at her peak, she was going to have to eat something.

Meowth had fared a little better than her, sleep-wise. He was currently curled up on the armchair, whiskers twitching in some unknown dream.

She was still in two minds about his involvement. His help was integral, and Jessie didn't want to insult him by considering him anything less than her equal- but there was something about getting him mixed up in all this that made her feel like she was dealing in true villainy. Humanoid or not, he had been born an innocent pokemon, and dirtying his soul with human evil felt utterly despicable.

"Don't let him catch you thinking that," she thought. "He'll be offended beyond measure."

By the time she'd finished eating, he'd stirred from his slumber, and made his way over to her.

When their eyes met across the table, it hit Jessie with more force than she'd reckoned for.

This was it.


The moment they'd received the message earlier that week regarding the meeting, she'd kept it hidden from James with every ounce of trickery she possessed. The email itself was, of course, deleted, but there was more to keeping the secret than that; she'd enlisted the help of one of the recruited grunts, and he'd tailed James whenever he left the dorm. It was his job to make sure that he didn't stray over to any notices that would give the game away, and be ready to cause a distraction if he veered too close.

In normal circumstances, Jessie would have never have put James in that position. She would've been too worried about the punishment he'd likely face as a result- it was, after all, a major sign of insubordination to ignore orders without any explanation. With everything going on, however, she wasn't very concerned about that. There would be things far greater than the deemed disrespect of one agent for the boss to worry about.

Time passed too quickly, as time often does when there's something undesirable waiting at the other end of it. Much too soon, the hour was upon them, and Jessie was pulling on her boots with trembling hands that she willed to steady. She wanted beyond measure to gather her team mates into a hug, share a parting exchange of affection that she too often denied herself. But that wasn't the deal. She'd already had her moment of closure, and repeating that now would only rattle her nerve.

Subsequently, all she said to him was her scripted explanation for her parting: a walk. Over the past couple of weeks, she'd made a point of taking a stroll roughly every other evening, so that when the time came for the excuse, it wouldn't seem out of place. James, who had been asleep on his bunk, accepted her words easily, easily manipulated in his state of drowsiness. It made the ordeal a little less hard on Jessie, to have him simply close his eyes again and drift off.

She went to the door.

"You ready?" she murmured to Meowth as he eyed the clock for the umpteenth time.

"Dat's a loaded question," he replied, and neither of them were convinced by his smile.


They made their way to their destination, Jessie using every tactic she'd been taught when it came to putting on a calm face. For that short journey, she almost persuaded herself that all she was doing was attending a meeting.

Then they were there, tailing at the end of a small queue forming outside the door, and that knot of fear was back. This was really happening, with no time left to mull it over.

A bodyguard at the door was searching each person that went to go into the room, something they had anticipated. One of the first questions that had been raised was the matter of getting the weapons into the room undetected; they knew that any meeting that Carter attended himself would have amped-up security, in the way of a body check at the door.

The solution had come from the senior agent. As somebody who was trusted as a Team Rocket loyalist, he had an advantage when it came to being hounded by bodyguards- on top of their respect for him, they also were wary of harrassing their senior.

So when it was time to set up the room, he'd taken it upon himself to oversee the proceedings. The plan was as follows: one of the grunts on their side would show up to bring in the tables and chairs, with the senior agent taking the role of her supervisor so that the guards would be less likely to interact with her themselves. Taped to the base of a chair in each stack she carried in was a gun.

Each pistol was concealed by a second, false base constructed from cut-out squares of fabric that were lightly glued on, designed so that they could be easily ripped away. This was both a pro and a con, as while it made accessing the weapons simpler, it also meant that if anyone did a search, it wouldn't take much poking around to dismantle the disguise.

Before she knew it, Jessie was at the front of the line, and switched her attention to the bodyguard looking her way.

"Hold your arms out at your sides," he told her in a monotone. She complied, and even though she knew there was nothing damning on her person to find, she still felt a flutter of worry as he frisked her.

"Go on," he said as his hands fell away from her, and Jessie mutely stepped into the room, every spare ounce of her focus spent on fighting the urge to glance around manically. One glance she did allow herself was over her shoulder, to Meowth. He looked back. There was no obvious emotion on his face, but he held her gaze with fierce intensity.

She cut the cord with the turn of her head.

The room was pretty spacious, rectangular in shape with a line of tables pushed together in the middle. Already seated were about ten agents, one of which was her ally- the training instructor. He was flipping through the notes in front of him, reading, or pretending to read. Jessie was impressed and a little envious of his ability to look so carefree.

She caught sight of the grunt whose job it had been to place the chairs standing to one side of the table, her pink hair flicking out under the sides of her cap, arms folded behind her. When Jessie walked closer, the other woman pulled up a chair for her, a phony show of subservience used to mask her real objective: seating the right people in the right chairs. Jessie could only hope that the grunt had a strong memory of where the guns were.

Once she'd sat down, it was just a matter of waiting, which proved to be the most agonising part thus far. Here she was, at the cusp of a showdown, adrenaline pumping, and there was nothing more to do but wait. Her core swam with unspent energy, which she did her best to expel by rolling the provided pen between her fingers.

More agents filtered in, were ushered to their seats. To the five agents present who were in on the plot, there were about twenty-five others. Not great odds, but they never had been.

The bored chatter that had been the room's ambience was muted almost instantaneously, and Jessie knew the cause before she'd raised her head. On his way to his chair at the head of the table, Carter walked right past her, and an unfamiliar chill seeped under her skin.

He held his head with a faint air of weariness, rolled back his shoulders and flexed his neck. This was just another day of work in his mind, another task to get through. He had no idea. Jessie almost felt bad for him before she reminded herself of why he was a target in the first place.

After the grunt hurried to pull his chair out for him, he sat down, rested his forearms on the table, and cast his eyes to one of the agents nearby. The man straightened up and cleared his throat.

"Regarding the situation in Kanto, there have been a few changes in the last six months- mostly good, I should add," he started. "And, uh, everyone here has a good knowledge of the region, so the proposal is we run through our options and take some feedback from..."

His words soon thinned into background noise, and Jessie responded to the hum with feigned attention, joining in when there was a chorus of nods.

It was so close. So close, and she could barely stand the pressure that seemed to hit every nerve in her body.

"...property ownership, that's always been a key part of our-"

Movement blurred at her right along with the squeak of chair legs against the floor, and she watched as the training instructor rose his arm, gun in hand. She stared at it, silent amidst the beginnings of gasps and exclamations, braced for the bang-

And watched as he just stood there, motionless before he'd fully brought his aim up to meet its target.

At first she thought it was nerves that had stopped him, but soon saw that he wasn't just hesitating- he was frozen, as still as the furniture around. Everything was falling apart so fast that despair didn't have time to sink in, but Jessie at least registered that something was wrong, inexplicably wrong.

Carter hurried to his feet, the indifference that had plastered his expression broken by shock and concern. One of his bodyguards stepped in front of him whilst the other drew his weapon, pressed it to the training instructor's forehead-

Why wasn't he moving? Why wouldn't he just move?

- and shot him point blank. Blood and brain exploded out of the back of his head, splattering crimson onto objects and people alike, leaving a thin mist of iron in its wake- and still he didn't move. His body stood, arm still outstretched, every limb rigid as blood ran down his face and back in pulses.

Finally, he collapsed.

Perhaps Jessie was losing it. What she'd just witnessed didn't make sense, and she had nothing, no semblance of reason to grasp onto, until she caught sight of the unown materialising from the far wall.

Around her, chaos took reign.

The guards had barely begun barking orders for everyone to raise their hands and get against the wall when the field agents on Jessie's team took out their own guns, their actions followed by both the other rebels and the backup bodyguards storming in.

It was difficult to keep track of everthing going on whilst at the same time fumbling under her chair to arm herself, but she got the jist of the immediate action. The male field agent who'd turned to attack Carter was felled in a burst of psychic energy, a soft glow around the unown as the man's head spun around with awful speed, his neck crunching. Reacting swiftly, the senior Rocket on their side threw out a pokeball, releasing a haunter as gunfire broke out between the guards and would-be assassins.

Jessie forced herself into motion, backing up with her gun in both hands as she tried to formulate some kind of plan. The second field agent had managed to take out one of the bodyguards with a couple of shots to the chest before she met the same fate as her partner, caught in the grip of the unown. Knowing she couldn't affort to let the gruesome sight get to her, Jessie turned to the guard who had her in his sights, and let loose a couple of bullets. The first missed, but the second clipped his thigh, enough to make him stagger and groan.

Not wasting any time, she looked back to Carter, who was stumbling to the door with his head ducked down; his unown recoiled at the blow of a shadow ball the haunter sent its way.

"Keep at it, Haunter!" the senior agent encouraged, and closed in on his retreating boss.

At the same time that the unown broke away from combat with its rival pokemon, Jessie flinched at more cracks of gunfire, taking cover behind the table for a moment. When she stood up again, the senior agent had Carter by the back of his jacket, and Carter had drawn his own gun.

The unown was focused on its master, simultaneously taking hits from behind as the haunter kept up its attacks. Slower now, not quite as invincible, the unown emitted that faint glow once more.

Jessie expected the senior agent to drop dead right there, but he merely froze up- as did the haunter.

More shots- she heard cries and thuds to her right. Some of the agents who hadn't been in on the plot had taken it upon themselves to join in the fight, most siding with Carter, but a few siding against him. The majority, though, had either thrown themselves to the floor in an effort to preserve their lives, or rushed to the exit.

She switched her gaze back to Carter- there was too much to concentrate on, too much stimuli. With his assailant incapacitated, the crime boss only had to adjust his position to get his gun against his head, and fired without pause.

The unown's hold on him released almost instantly, and it must have made some attack, because the haunter fainted (at least, Jessie hoped that was what had happened). It hung in the air, floating limply.

Something hit her left shoulder with force like she'd never felt at the same time as the next gunshot, and even so, it took her a second to register that the agony flaring up was the work of a bullet. She clamped a hand over the wound, gasping at the shock and the pain, bracing for another hit that didn't come. Her other senses recovered just in time to see Carter flee the room, tailed by one of his surviving bodyguards.

Stumbling forward as quickly as she could, her main concern was not the loyalist Rockets, but the unown. How many people had died, she had no idea, but the numbers had been whittled down considerably, and most of those that remained were on the other side of the room. That didn't stop the threat of a bullet flying her way, but it at least eased a little of the attention on her.

The unown, however... That thing was terrifying. She didn't know much about that species- no one did- but it was obvious that it possessed overwhelming psychic power, something she had no way of combatting.

But it was acting differently, more sluggish. Its glow kept flickering as it went for the instigators across the room, and Jessie realised that the haunter had really done a number on it. This was her chance.

She did her best to block out the effects of her injury, and ran for the doorway.

Her steps were slowed by her condition, but she got there soon enough. Someone shot at her, the bullet lodging in the plaster of the wall to her side- she ignored the attempt on her life, and continued out into the hallway.

She wondered where Meowth was; since no one was there to meet her, she could only assume that he'd either gone after Carter with the rest of the backup, or found somewhere to hide. She implored it was the latter.

The warmth of her blood had soaked through the fabric of her glove and between her fingers, felt uncomfortably slick on her skin as she kept going. Working out which way Carter had gone was not going to be a straightforward task: the hall split into a small maze of corridors.

Trial and error was the only thing for it.

Her legs operated on adrenaline and determination, carried her sprinting forwards, her shoulder bursting with a new wave of pain at each step. She had to find him, had to... There were thirteen rounds left in her cartridge. That gave her plenty of chances, at least.

Left, through double doors. Were those footsteps? Maybe they were just echoes of her own- it didn't matter, either way there was a chance-

Rigidity fell over her body like a bucket of ice water.

Dread squirmed in her stomach, but what surprised her was the muted acceptance that accompanied it. She didn't want to die, certainly not before she knew Carter was out of the picture, but if that was the way it was going to be, she could at least say she'd done her damn best.

Jessie stumbled forwards as her limbs loosened again.

She snapped her head back to look behind her, and sure enough, there it was, getting closer, weakened but not defeated. Staring at it wasn't going to help her, so she kept going, heart cantering against her ribs.

Then she seized up again, paralyzed. The hold only lasted a few seconds, but she knew that the unown must have been closing in. Its speed, while compromised, had seemed steady.

Jessie broke back into a run as soon as she could move, but after a few steps, she felt weakness take hold, send tremors to her arms and legs, and suddenly she could barely hold them up. Whether it was the work of her pursuer, or the bloodloss from her gunshot wound, she couldn't tell, and try as she might, her pace slowed to a stagger. She reached out to push open the next set of doors and collapsed to the floor.

There was enough strength left in her to turn her body, and as she watched the unown approach, she strained her eyes until her vision focused. When its image was clear, she raised her gun. It flew out of her clutch and clattered to the floor.

My damn best.

A grip like a coil of rope squeezed at her neck, and any doubts that she'd be left prone dissolved. Its intent was to kill, just as hers had been.

Her breath collected at the back of her throat, no gap to escape through or let new air in. The sensation was unbearable, constantly building- her lungs tightened, heaving for oxygen as the pressure under her face grew more and more intense, head giddier by the second.

One last time, the hold on her dropped.

She heaved in air in a spluttering gasp, coughing violently as she recovered from the assault. Mercifully, it didn't take long for her head to feel more normal again, and once her thoughts were clearer, the first thing she did was hold her palm against her shoulder again. She knew she couldn't afford to lose much more blood.

The second thing she did was look for an explanation, for some saviour who'd jumped in at the last moment. No one was there, save the limp form of the unown on the ground. Jessie guessed that the strain had been too much for it; it must have taken a huge amount of energy to pull off all those stunts, after all.

Not that the whys and hows mattered, not now. There were more pressing things to attend to.


The first bang could have been an accident. Maybe someone had just dropped something heavy.

After the noise repeated again, and then again, harsh and short, James knew that wasn't the case. Those were gunshots.

He scrambled to get off the mattress, ripped the sheets away from him as trepidation settled.

"Jessie? Meowth?" he called.

Nothing. His anxiety amplified with the rate of his heart.

Having crawled onto the bed five hours ago with the intention of a mere lie-down, he was still dressed in his uniform, and only had to slide his feet into his boots before rushing out of the dormitory.

The noise- he had to place where it was coming from, and quick. On one of the floors above, for sure, but he couldn't discern anything beyond that. If he went upstairs, maybe it'd be clearer. He'd have to work from there.

James sprinted, crashing through the doors in his path as he headed for the nearest flight of stairs, and when he got there it became apparent that he was far from the only one who'd heard the commotion. A cluster of Rockets was gathering at the base of the steps, blurting questions to each other that none of them knew the answers to. The stairway was already getting conjested, shoulders and elbows shoving together as people competed to be among the first up.

He didn't stand a chance in that mass. There was another set of stairs, but it was a while away, and likely just as crowded- but there was an elevator down the next hall.

Ordinarily, that would have been anyone's last port of call in an emergency. It was too unreliable; the mechanism could get stuck between floors; it could be slowed by being stopped by others on multiple storeys; it simply wasn't as fast as using the stairs.

Unless said stairs were unaccessible.

James took off running again before he could change his mind. It was a pretty lousy plan of action, but the only one he could come up with.

Upon reaching the elevator, he was relieved to find the corridor empty, and jabbed his thumb against the button that called the lift. He only had to wait ten seconds or so for the doors to slide open, but it felt like far too long. Stepping in as soon as there was enough space between the doors to do so, he pressed the button for the next floor up.

The feeling of moving upwards added to the unpleasant mix of sensations swirling within him. They couldn't have actually gone through with it, could they? They had to be okay. Had to, had to. And if they weren't...

"Just taking a quick walk."

He should have realised. Never mind that- he should've been there with them.

The movement juddered to a stop, and the doors opened again. When he could still hear the noise above him, he reached for the panel once more, and selected the floor above. James realised that this process of elimination was too clumsy, too slow, but he didn't know what else to do.

Next floor. The sounds were still overhead- he grimaced and tried again, then again, the shots and yells getting louder each time, and when he it got to his fourth trip upwards, he was really starting to panic beyond his ability to contain. The doors pulled open-

Shots sounded, sharp enough to rattle his eardrums and reverberate in his chest. He took in the scene: a figure mere inches away, and two others in the background, one of them unmoving on the floor. In the same time that James registered that the figure in front of him was Carter, he watched as his employer shot at the other Rocket tailing him. The man yelped, hands falling to hover over his splintered kneecap before the second bullet hit the centre of his chest, and his legs buckled underneath him.

Carter limped into the elevator and stabbed at the button for the ground floor; his right trouser leg was wet with blood from the shin down. As soon as the doors had closed and the lift began its descent, his eyes flicked to James. He regarded his subordinate as if he were some rabies-ridden mutt about to pounce, and with a shaking arm, brought his gun's aim up. James could barely process the situation before Carter's finger squeezed around the trigger.

No bang, no split second of pain- there was only a faint click, and Carter cried out, a growling, frustrated sound that James never could have pictured him making.

"Don't fucking move," Carter panted as he dropped the empty weapon, then reached a hand to the inside of his jacket.

James charged at him.

He didn't know what it was that had driven the action, but be it instinct or emotion, it sent him crashing into the other man before he had a chance to aim the second gun. Nothing here felt real. It was too much, far too much to be happening.

"Get off!" Carter hissed at him as they fought for ownership of the gun, and there was more than just fear in his eyes: there was rage.

The initial element of surprise had given James a slight edge, but now that there had been time enough to adapt, it was obvious that Carter was the stronger of the two. Even with his injured leg, he managed to counter the younger man's attempts to pry the gun away, taking hold of James' arm with an iron grip. James tried to kick him, and succeeded, but it didn't have the effect he'd been hoping for, and the next second he found himself swung sideways. He hit the metal wall hip-first, and although it hurt like hell, the grasp he'd managed to get on the gun didn't break. His fingers remained wrapped around the handle, Carter's hand on the metal body in similar fashion.

James decided to try for a second kick, but this time he didn't get the chance. Carter's free hand reached up and grabbed a fistful of lavender hair before slamming James' head into the wall.

Steel met with the side of his temple, and white light flashed over his vision as his surroundings smudged. Still every part of him screamed not to let go, so he channeled his strength to his hand, lacking the energy to do more than just hold on. Force ripped at his scalp again as his head was pulled back, and then slammed forwards a second time.

His fingers twitched this time. He couldn't keep this up- the dull ache beneath his skull made him feel like he was about to vomit. His head was yanked back again, and James focused everything on his slipping hold on the gun's handle, weakened with each time Carter tried to pull it away.

Then came the bang.

The fingers clawing at his scalp went slack. James struggled not to fall backwards as Carter's weight slumped against him; he steadied himself against the metal railing, closed his eyes against the thud that followed. The gun fell with a jarring clatter.

James' breath came in spurts.

He's dead. You killed him, you killed somebody-

He whimpered, a pathetic sound in the cubic abyss.

Upon hearing footsteps, he dared to look.

Carter was dead, no question about that. His head rested in a pool of scarlet, blood staining his brown hair where it met with the floor.

In a more lucid state, James' realisation that it was not him who had killed Carter would have been born from simple reasoning. The shot was to the head, something that wouldn't have been possible with the angle of the gun as they fought; besides that, he had felt no recoil at all.

But he was not in a lucid state, and it was only when he saw the woman walking into the elevator, a gun in her own hand, that he came to the conclusion of his innocence in this particular crime.

That lightness in his head was worsening by the second, blurring his vision like a sheet of water. Soon he was too dizzy to stand, and sank to the floor with his back against the wall. As Cassidy got nearer, dizziness swamped him, and colour gave way to the dark.