AN: Hey everyone, looks like Monday is once again upon us. Anyhoo, I'd like to take a second to thank Hunter the Weavile and Hana-chan98 for commenting on the last chapter, and I know I harp on reviewers alot, but I also want to give a shout out to all the readers in general. Seriously guys, thanks for reading.

***Waylon***

For a conspiracy nut who greets people with riffles in a ghillie suit this Donald guy sure had a nice kitchen. Of all the things to be crossing my mind that was it, not that I should get a blood transfusion, or that should tell my boys anything, but that the hardwood floors look really nice. It was good to know I had my priorities straight.

"Did you see that, he had a rifle and everything, that guy's so cool!" Garret was just as excitable as ever.

"Garret things are serious right now, calm down a little bit, you're scaring your brother." Lisa tried her best to quiet Garret down, but there wasn't much that could do that.

I sat down on a bar stool "hey Garret, don't you have homework?"

"What! no I-… ya"

"Why don't you go do that then?"

"…fine" he huffed and puffed a bit but pulled out a math workbook from his backpack.

"Hey dad?" that was Connor

"Yes?"

"I'm hungry."

Well that was an issue. Miles said that there was food in the fridge but I didn't live here and didn't think that he had the authority to let us into the refrigerator. Lisa however wasn't so reserved. She stepped straight over to the fridge, opened it up, and pulled out a few ingredients: strawberries, cheese, half a link of sausage. Then she went over to the pantry and collected a loaf of bread.

"How about sandwiches and fruit?"

The boys were both all for it, Garret conveniently forgetting about the math homework. I had to hand it to Lisa, if it weren't for her I wouldn't know what to do. I myself wasn't in the mood for food, I knew I should eat, it's been over a day since I had anything, but my appetite was nonexistent.

I sat on the bar stool, only to realize I didn't have the camera with me.

"Hey Lisa, where's the camera?" I had to know where it was.

"In the trunk in the suitcase, why?"

"Ok" I left the stool and walked from the kitchen leaning heavily on the crutch.

I knew I should be sitting down, not moving as much as possible, that my stomach and leg needed to heal, but I couldn't leave that camera out of site, I don't think I could live with myself if something happened to it.

Hobbling through the living room I passed an asleep Miles, who was snoring like there was a jackhammer lodged in his throat. Once outside I went straight to the car, which was unlocked. Lifting up the trunk I unzipped the suitcase and found that it was filled with clothes. Riffling through the pants and shirts I found the camera hidden away at the bottom inside a makeup bag, anyone who went through the thing would have had a rough time finding it.

Zipping shut the case and closing the car door I went back into the house, passing a still asleep Miles only to be stop just as I was about to go into the kitchen.

"Hey, Miles! Did you see-? Miles?" Donald had come running around the corner. I, of course, had jumped out of my skin and given a small yelp of surprise.

"Oh, didn't mean to scare you." He looked over my shoulder "So, he looks like he's clunked out"

"What? Oh ya, sure" I didn't think I had anything to say to this guy, what did one say to a guy you didn't know when you were in his house with another person you barely knew while you were on the run from the law?

"Anyways, do you have any idea what's on that camera? There's some crazy shit"

"Ya, I know I was there. It's… pretty terrible" I leaned a little more heavily on my crutch thinking that we were going to be talking there for a while.

"Right, right. I nearly forgot, say did you see-? Did you have a camera too?" he started staring at the device in my hand.

"Yes, I… didn't think I was going to get out of there, so I wanted there to be proof of what had happened. I hoped if I didn't make it out this would."

"I need to see what's on it" he sounded awfully excited.

I didn't know this guy and there was no way I was giving him the camera.

"I don't really think that I should-"

"Here you can come to the back, I've got an awesome set up."

I would have stopped him, but he grabbed my arm and walked on before I had a chance to say anything. For a crazy guy who had greeted a minivan with a rifle he sure was excitable, heck, he hadn't even changed out of the ghillie suit. I was being escorted past the kitchen by a walking bush.

We were down a hallway and in a room that was jam packed with computers. There were half a dozen monitors mounted to the wall, each with their own keyboard and mouse, I was a pretty prolific computer user myself, but this was just ridiculous. Along with the myriad of computers there were three TV's, each on a different news channel, a wall that was occupied solely by maps -national and local. The map wall had a spider web of threads ranging from red to blue to black and everything in between. There was even a bookshelf and a couple of filing cabinets crammed to capacity and a desk with a couple dictionaries worth of paper scattered on it.

"What even-"

"Here, check this out." He swung into a cushioned office chair and resumed the video that was playing on it.

It was a tunnel of some sort, with murky brown water lining the bottom. It must be a sewer- that would explain the smell earlier. The camera panned down as if Miles had crouched, then he went through a smaller yard tall tunnel. The night vision bathed everything in a green-black light, just before he was out of the smaller tunnel a black cloud rushed across the field of view.

Walrider.

"Did you see that?" Donald sounded so excited, like the boys on Christmas morning.

"I…"

"Any idea what it was? Did you see it?"

"Um, what? Ya I saw- I mean…" What was I supposed to tell him? I couldn't come up with something on the fly, damn I was a terrible liar.

"Well you're chatty. What'd you get on your camera?"

He grabbed it from my hand before I had a chance. Quickly he pulled out the memory card and popped it into a card reader that lead to one of the computers. An alert popped up on one of the screens and Donald grabbed a seemingly random mouse that happened to lead to that screen. How he kept them all straight, I'll never know.

Clicking the file that contained the video, a player popped up and the footage began to role.

It was of me in the chair that I had been strapped into.

"Oh shit, were you a patient?!" Donald snapped around in his seat.

"What!? No, sort of. I mean no."

He eyed me for a second

"Ok, I worked there. I'm a software engineer, and I threatened to go public with some of the things they were doing, so they locked me up. Said I was suffering from 'prosecutorial delusions'"

A flicker of what might have been admiration showed on his face "damn son, how was that?"

The memory of Andrew licking my face made me squirm a little "not fun"

"Hm, alright then." He turned and fast forwarded through the footage until the incident happened.

Warning lights flickered, I stumbled to the camera, the film jostled when I picked it up, and the lights went out. As soon as I switched on the inferred the ruined testing area was reviled. I remembered this, the first terrible thing I saw during a night of purely terrible things. It was the Walrider slamming the soggy remains of the inmate in the cell next to me into a Plexiglas wall.

Donald hit Pause.

"So you did see it! You worked there, what the hell is that thing?"

"It was called project Walrider. And it was a terrible idea. And I don't want to watch these videos." I took a step back "watch all you want, but I don't want to see this shit again"

"Sure, ok, whatever. What do you know about it? I need to know."

This guy doesn't quit "I don't know much, but I know that it needed a host and a huge machine to keep its host alive, a thing called the morphogenic engine. My job was to run maintenance on the thing, and I didn't even see it all, only a little piece of code at a time."

"Paranoid bastards, what about the Walrider itself? Is it live, is it sentient, what the hell is it?"

"At least part of it is nanobots, I don't know for sure. And I'm pretty sure it's sentient." If Miles's talking to himself was any indication, the Walrider was most definitely sentient.

"Well, what happened to it?"

I choked down a surprised cough "what?"

"What happened to it, I get it that you and Miles got out of there, somehow, but what about that thing? Proof of a murderous ghostly AI would definitely make a dent in Murkoffs PR campaign if you know what I mean."

"I don't know. I do not know what happened to it. Not a clue."

"Riiiiight, looks like I'll just have to skip to the end of the video and find out."

"What!" he clicked over to the last five minutes of the footage from my camera.

Captured on it was the brief encounter I had with Blaire, the last thing caught of that was my getting stabbed, the camera was at the wrong angle to see the Walrider swoop in and dismember him. There was a cut to my hobbling through the courtyard. Donald stared at the screen, not saying a word until I got into Miles's jeep.

"You stole the jeep? I bet Miles was pissed"

My mouth just hung open, I didn't want him asking about the figure at the end of the film.

On the screen was footage of the interior, I was about to pan up and catch sight of-

"Breaking news! There is now a statewide man hunt for Miles Upshur and Waylon Park. The two men are wanted for the armed robbery of Leadville branch bank, and have been linked to the disappearances of Jeremy Blaire and Richard Trager, both employees of Murkoff Corporation." On the screen were images of the allegedly missing men.

Donald was completely fixated on the TV, with the computer being long forgotten.

"Wait a second, that's the guy from the video." Donald noted Blair's picture, taking a moment to listen to the rest of the story. "shit, the cops are after you?"

"It's not true! I swear-"

"Well no shit it's not true, obviously a fabricated story from Murkoff, they probably fooled the cops, or have them in their pocket, the bastards."

"You believe me, ok, wow. So…" I took a glance at the screen, seeing that the footage had ended "what do you think I should do"

"You got a family, right guy?"

"Well, yes. Their-"

"Hide 'em. Go into hiding, don't contact anyone, disappear."

"I am in hiding, that's what we're doing here."

"Well, not in my house. I mean, you can stay the night, but after that you got to scram, I don't need Murkoff on my ass."

"What! Where else would I go, I don't even-"

"That's your problem, come to think of it I should probably send Miles on his way too, after I pick his brain for information I mean."

"Are you even listening to yourself!?"

"Wow, calm down guy I-"

"No I'm not calming down! I've literally been through hell and I have my two young boys and wife in the other room, and you're telling me that I can stay for the night but I better be out by morning! No, I just… Damn it! I'm so screwed… i- i…" I was gasping for air between words.

"ok, ok, um… hey, hey, you can stay, for a while. It's all right. Ya, you'll be fine."

He kept talking after I had stopped listening. It was too much, things were just getting to be too much. I don't even know what I'm doing any more. This was all my fault, my fault.

My fault.

"…And I have a bunch of spare cots in the basement let's go ahead and set those up. Ya?"

"Sure" I didn't expect myself to reply.

Either way I followed Donald when he stood up from the chair. We went down the hall, I had an uneasy feeling. Just before we rounded the corner that led to the living room I heard laughter. Horribly uneven, choked, almost synthetic laughter.