The communication room was dead silent. Duke for a brief moment rest his head in his hands, fighting down the rise of bile in his throat as that scream echoed around in his head for the third time in just a few hours. As much as he didn't want to see that video ever again… The vehicles needed to be aware of the situation.

"Oh… God…" Dante managed to get out after a moment, the SUV's image spinning for a moment on the screen before it slowly faded out and away.

"What are they doing to him?" Kat then asked, likely the question on everyone's mind. They knew Beast was in pain. Afraid maybe? But they still didn't really know the full context of the situation.

"We don't know yet." Kyle explained. "I've been on the phone trying to find that out since the first time we watched that video. I can't get any information and I'm down to asking to speak with Beast directly, but of course they won't allow it. So currently we've redirected our course to California. Most of the Knight Industries facilities are there and in theory that's where they would have taken Attack Beast."

"Ok, let me just be the one to bring this up…" Erica started, a deep breath taken. "Let's say we go in there… Guns blazing and save Beast… Then what? Knight Industries technically owns him. Hell, they own all of the vehicles. They made them. So… Then what? Can we just steal an AI?"

They fell quiet for a long moment, thinking that over before Kyle gave a sigh and pressed a hand against his temple, silently trying to will away the headache that was rising up. "I don't know. What I do know is that we can't leave him in that situation. Beast is a member of our team and we are not going to leave him behind."

The rest of them gave a firm nod to that. Readily accepting that choice. Again though, Erica was willing to play Devil's advocate so to speak. "I'm ready to run in and get him back just as much as you are." She stated firmly. "But I think everyone needs to know, just what we're doing here."

"She's right, Kyle." Jenny pointed out. "We could face jail time for this. We could be fired for this. It could end all of our careers. We also need to think about our partners. They could be shut down for this."

The room was quiet for a moment. A long moment before Kyle nodded. "Then we all need to be in agreement of just how far we're willing to go to get Beast back. Vehicles too. Who's in?"

"I'm in." Erica stated firmly, drawing a smile from Kyle.

"Me too. I want my partner back." Duke stated, glancing up from where he had been staring at his own hands, a determined expression on his face.

"Me three!" Trek put in.

"I'm in." Jenny offered, a firm nod given to that.

"And me," said Kyle, then glancing up towards the screen. "Dante? Kat? Domino? Plato? Your opinions count too in this. If we're going all in we need you. But this is a bit much to ask of you."

"Of course, I'm in." Dante put in as if offended he was even being asked.

"I'm in. Let's get our truck back." Domino announced, drawing a smile from Jenny.

"As much as I'm against breaking the rules… We need to do this." Kat agreed.

"They may take our lives, but they will never take… Our Freedom!" Plato blurted out, causing Trek to grin and give out a soft laugh.

"He's in."

Kyle smiled and nodded at his team, a deep breath given out. "Thanks guys. I know, sometimes we argue and snap at each other… But we've never been as strong of a team as we are right now." He offered softly, a nod then given. "So what have we got?"

"I'm still working on figuring out where that email came from. If it's someone in the facility it might narrow down just where… Or at least have someone on the inside. Whoever sent it, obviously wanted us to come after Beast." Trek reasoned, gaining a nod from Kyle.

"Good, excellent, keep going on that. Anyone else?"

"I could watch the video again," Erica offered, a thoughtful look crossing her face. "Me and Kat could analyze it, see if there's anything that jumps out. Like, a name tag or something."

"Kat and I," Dante corrected, causing Erica to roll her eyes.

"Good idea," Jenny praised, with a nod. "I'll help with that too."

"Look for serial numbers," Trek suggested. "If we can even catch a serial number off of a piece of equipment we may be able to track where that piece of equipment was sent."

"I can check flag's systems for any records of where they've taken Beast or what they might be doing to him. Maybe even what kind of security they have in place in their normal facilities," Duke mused, gaining a nod from Kyle.

"Good, get Dante and Domino to help you with that. I'll keep trying to get through to FLAG or Knight Industries. Let's go people, we're on a limited time frame here. I'm sure Beast would appreciate being able to recharge in his own parking space tonight." Kyle announced and with that, everyone scattered to do their part.

xXx

Beast gave another jerk, the vehicle giving an internal groan. He was happy to be out of the dark, but he was beginning to dread these sudden drops as yet another issue he was going to have to deal with. He was the demolition truck… He wouldn't think he would have this many damn issues to uncover.

He had time to take in his surroundings this time. He glanced around and this time, the garage was quiet. He was onboard Skyone again.

He was quickly on guard again, as he spotted why the garage was so quiet. A man with a gun was walking through the garage, looking for the source of the voice he just knew he had heard. Skyone had been hijacked… Crap…

His comlink flared to life. Duke and Erica were up in the air vents of Skyone. Beast took in a sharp breath and quickly used the Skyone systems to see just what was going on. This didn't make any sense…

All of the other times he had jumped there had been a choice. What choice did he have here? They had done the best they could with what they had and everyone had gone home safely.

That man was back. He came around Duke's side, bent down, looking for someone hiding underneath Attack Beast. He was in a perfect position. Maybe he could learn from this… Maybe he could change. He had made things a lot harder for the team, knocking that man out. It was indirectly but… He was picking up a pattern. He had hit that man in the head before. Maybe this time… He didn't.

He let the man go…

To his surprise, nothing forced his choice in the matter that time. It was liberating really…

That feeling only lasted another moment as the comlink flared to life with Duke's voice. "I've got it. I've got the canister."

Relief flooded through Beast as he checked the situation room. They still had Jenny and Kyle at gunpoint but from what he could detect, Beast and Erica were moving away.

That relief only last a few minutes.

Of course Max noticed, very quickly, that something was wrong. That the canister was missing. That apparently someone had slipped something into his coffee…

The vehicles knew that because his second in command took charge very quickly. She was far more vicious…

"It seems we don't have an understanding of how this is going to play out… You're on a plane. Just where do you think you're going to go?" Her voice was crisp and clear across the intercom system and then she paused, waiting for Max for orders. He was apparently awake enough to give at least one.

Jenny's pained yelp went through Beast like ice water. He quickly pulled up the situation room camera and to his absolute horror… Jenny was on her knees, in the situation room. A gun aimed at her head. Some of the other goons were holding Kyle back. Who was yelling… Trying to get to her.

"Somebody do something," Domino was pleading in the garage as Kyle begged them to reconsider. It didn't do any good. One shot and Jenny's lifeless body hit the floor, eyes wide in surprise.

The man was back. In the garage. He had heard Domino's voice and was once more checking under vehicles. Rage built up in Beast as he stared at the situation room camera. Kyle had dropped to his knees. The man looked broken. Max was fighting to remain awake, under the influence of whatever he had been slipped.

Jenny lay on the floor, a pool of blood spreading from around her head. Beast gave out a snarl of fury and surged forward. The man with the gun gave a startled cry and fired at him. The bullets stung but they really didn't do much more than leave behind small pock marks on his ebony finish.

Beast tried to stop this rocket path that he seemed to be taking. Choice had once more been taken away from him. As much as he tried to hit the brakes, he wasn't in control of his own body anymore.

God, he hated that crunch. You wouldn't think a human would crunch when they were pinned between a truck and a wall but they did… They went crunch. It was a horrible, sticky crunch.

Beast wanted to let loose another scream but only static came out as that darkness started coming on again.

He was alone again. With only the wild, golden scanner and a single blinking light for company.

xXx

Duke groaned softly as he looked up from what he had been reading, silently scrubbing his face with both hands and leaned back in Dante's passenger seat. Dante wound up being a pretty, damn good partner when it came to really digging. What he found though, Duke really didn't want to know.

"How bad is it?" Domino asked from where she was parked, pulled up a bit closer to Dante's side so that the pair could easily work together.

"Bad…" Duke muttered softly. Dante had managed to dig up orders from FLAG, concerning just what to do with Beast. Apparently they had no intention of returning him to the team as he was. The orders were that after Knight Industries did all the testing they wanted to do in figuring out just why Beast seemed to be evolving so quickly, that they were to wipe his CPU. Clear away all this nonsense about feeling things. Wipe the truck's CPU and put so many barriers in place that the only thing that would be able to cross the truck's Voice Modulator were the words 'Yes Sir.'

"Here, Dante can you share these files with the others so they can be caught up? We need to know a bit more about the security systems. It's looking more and more like we're going to be breaking him out of there…"

"Of course Duke."

Duke smiled softly and turned his focus back to his laptop. He had gotten it back from Trek after the man combed through it for any trace of where that email had come from. So far all he could tell was that it was from the same, weird address they received the few times they had been in contact with the Shadow Man…

It had been very well hidden. It likely meant that the one who was helping them now, had been the one who was helping them all along.

They just didn't know who that was… Maybe a rogue employee?

It didn't matter at the moment. What he wanted were security details… Which didn't settle well. As he managed to get into the documents describing the layout of a Knight facility. What he found wasn't good. A lot of the facilities were built to defend against a vehicle of the Knight Industries Two Thousand's caliber. Which their vehicles were not…

FLAG learned with its run in with Kro. They would never take something like that for granted again… Their cars all had weaknesses and they would not be crashing through cement any time soon. Beast was the one who could do that and unfortunately… They didn't have Beast.

"Perhaps if we can find a way to contact Beast… He can break his way out. If he knows we're there, ready to back him up, perhaps he could do it." Dante was reaching now. The SUV had hit a dead end and he didn't like it.

"Maybe… But he was still damaged when they took him and I doubt they've fixed that. How would we even get a message to him?" Duke asked, silently going over the information he had, a frown given.

Dante was silent for a moment, the vehicle deep in thought before he offered a response. "What do you think they have him connected to?"

Duke glanced up with a frown, obviously confused by that. "What?"

"Oh! The wires. From the video." Domino pointed out.

Duke frowned deeply, not sure where the hell this was going though he forced himself to take a deep breath. As much as he wanted to snap, he had to remind himself that they were just trying to help. They were trying to work a problem, the same as he was. He snapped all the time at Beast… Calling him just a car, even though he knew it bothered the truck. He regretted every time…

"Ok guys… You gotta walk me through it here. What about the wires?" Duke asked softly.

"The wires going under Beast's hood were obviously doing something. They had him connected to something. It might help if we knew what, exactly was happening to Beast. He was in obvious distress. It did not seem as if they were acknowledging him as able to hear them. He wasn't responding to them… So what was happening?" Dante pointed out, causing Duke to pause.

"They mentioned that he hates the tactile sensation," Domino said, a thoughtful note to her sultry voice. "They also said something about scenarios… Could it be possible that they have him in a sort of… Virtual scenario? Like war games?"

Duke paused for a long moment, a slow nod given. That… Made sense… They weren't causing him physical harm. They didn't have to. The entire world of the AI's was on a one hundred percent virtual plane of existence. They didn't have to physically hurt him to make him feel pain. All they had to do was tell his sensors he was feeling pain. He assumed they could also replace visual and audio with anything a computer programmer could write.

"So, I would assume, a lot of those wires were probably monitoring him. But they mentioned scenarios, so what if they're also feeding him information?" Duke said, a glance given to Dante's screen. "I mean, that can happen right? You're a computer. You're hooked up to input… Things… So, I can make that input tell you anything I want."

"Wow… I'm impressed," said Dante, gaining a flat look from Duke.

"Don't start. So you tell me. If I replaced your input. Tactile, visual, audio… What if I replaced all of that and told you that you were say… In the middle of the ocean. Would you really believe you were there, or are there other systems that would tell you that, that's bullshit?" Duke asked, giving Dante his full attention for now as Domino listened in.

Dante thought for a moment or two, the SUV quiet for a moment. "That would require some testing. If I knew you were hooking those sensations up, I would of course, logically know what was happening. And I have other sensors that would detect how far I am above or below sea level but I am assuming that you don't mean that they've literally put him in an ocean simulation."

Duke gave a nod to that, a thoughtful look given. "So what if they could trip up his logic circuits. By shutting him down or confining him. Maybe even use sensations he's already familiar with."

That caused Dante to pause, a thoughtful hum crossing his vocals. "What do you mean?"

"Oh! Like being back on Skyone! It's familiar and he knows what it looks and sounds like." Domino supplied, causing Duke to nod.

"Exactly."

Dante was quiet for a long while, the vehicle running that through his CPU. "In those circumstances it would be very possible. Particularly if Beast already knew he was going somewhere, it would be very easy to confuse his sensors into believing the new input they've given him."

"So if we could figure out where he is… How easy would it be for us to give him our own input?" Duke then asked and that had both AI's listening. "Say, hack into his audio and speak to him or even shut it down enough to let him see the real world for a moment."

"We need Trek for that." Dante announced, causing Duke to nod.

"Call him"