Snake paused in front of the door watching Hauk step into the light.

"It's going to rain." Hauk stated with certainty.

Snake nodded glaring up at the sky. You learned to know on instinct when the rain was coming. It was always the same, acid rain laced with poison gas. It burned, blinded and took your mind. Everyone quickly learned to avoid it or they went crazy and died. Hauk and Snake had both learned to avoid it on the battlefield.

"What are you doing here Plissken?" Hauk questioned him between puffs still eying the sky nervously.

"Looking for someone." Snake answered letting his steel gaze study Hauk for a moment.

"Who?" The expression on the ex-commissioner's face confirmed he already knew the answer to his own question.

"You." Snake responded as he scanned the streets. Maybe this was all a set up. The government put Hauk out here on purpose knowing Snake would hunt him down. Snake shook the thoughts because they were even more absurd the idea that Hauk was a government outlaw.

Robert began to study Plissken and it left him with a paranoid feeling rising inside. Hauk's eyes always felt like they were boring into the soul when his stare became intent.

"Why?" Hauk finally questioned after taking the last drag from his smoke. Snake watched the cigarette fall to the concrete and his boot crushing the life from the cherry. Why had he come to look for Hauk? Part of it was he needed to know whether he had a kept an enemy or had a shot at a new ally. There was more then that but Snake shrugged it off.

"Whose side you on?"

Hauk glanced at the sky once more. "Mine."

What had Snake really expected him to say? That he was on his side, Hauk, his enemy, had become a staunch ally. It wasn't likely. Snake lit a cigarette of his own feeling the cravings hit from the lingering smoke but his eye was fixed down the street. There were lights dancing in their direction causing Snake to squint in the fading light.

"I got to go." Snake mumbled half to himself as he identified the lights. They were crazies with torches. Hauk joined Snake watching the crowd swarming in the street. Plissken wasn't going to wait for them to get closer. He started hobbling backwards away from them and readying himself for the run back to his vehicle on a mangled leg. The banging started and it was time to go.

"Come on." He motioned for Hauk to follow when he started hobbling as fast as the wound would allow his legs to carry him. Hauk started to run when the screeching mob flooded along the stone fence. Snake glanced back when he made it to the lawn but Hauk was gone.

Snake had no time to think as he yanked open the door and climbed in. He turned the key in the ignition and threw it in reverse tearing the grass as he went. He could see the crazies had turned in the other direction but it was the gunshots that drew his attention.

Plissken really wasn't sure why he was driving toward the man and his gunshots. He just did it like a glider sailing to its homing beacon of its own accord. There was part of his mind flashing back to the war. He'd saved Hauk, rescued him long in the past from madness. It was a much different sort of insanity back then but the syndrome made exceptions for faulty details.

Snake crashed the vehicle through the crowd as the window slid down.

"Hauk!" He yelled over the animalistic sounds threatening to drown out even the rumbling diesel engine.

"Lieutenant!" It was that slip again like back in New York. Hauk had called him soldier then but it was much the same as this. Did Hauk know of his condition or was it a slip into his own past? Snake pondered the question as he careened through the flailing bodies.

He didn't even stop. Plissken knew better and Hauk was still deft enough to jump into the vehicle while it continued to move. The sound of the door closing was accompanied by and exchange of curious even confused glances between the men.

Snake pushed the gas pedal to the floor when he saw the newly arriving company. USPF forces were coming to subdue the crazies and Hauk and Snake were sitting between the two groups. Both were crazy and deadly just some jackass gave one group automatics.

"Bullets?"

"Glove box." Snake answered quickly while his eye danced between mirrors and the on coming vehicles.

"Buckle up." Snake warned as the hummer lurched and revved into overdrive. Hauk obeyed but Snake knew it was more for his own life then listening to him.

Hauk glanced up knowing exactly what was about to happen. Bob stopped loading his revolver and braced himself for the impact. Plissken's escapes had always seemed dangerous from the other side, sitting next to him they were downright madness.

The impact came and even braced and ready Hauk nearly hit his head. The vehicle that had failed Plissken's game of chicken spun out, smoking as theirs continued forward.

Snake expertly tamed the rocking hummer and even took a second to look over at Hauk with a happy smile. Bob had heard reports that Plissken was out of his mind, now he was starting to believe them.

Once they were in the clear again Hauk resumed loading his revolvers. He and Snake used the same caliber weapons and Hauk figured military training had stuck well with both of them. Silence remained after Hauk holstered his weapon. It was a long, dead quiet except for the rumbling engine.

"Where were you headed?" Snake's voice startled Hauk who was staring out into the darkness beyond the passenger's side window. He recovered quickly noticing the first drops of rain hitting the windshield. Those drops were more deadly then arsenic and Hauk was relieved to hear the air filtration system kick on.

"Cronenberg."

Snake nodded still staring forward at the road. "Virginia?"

Hauk took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Two days ago."

"You want to bust him out?"

Hauk couldn't fight the shock this time. Virginia was almost as bad as New York Maximum. You went in and stayed in. No one ever got out except… Hauk looked over at the only man to escape from, not one, but all three of the prisons that held that title. Nothing seemed to be escape-proof when it came to Plissken.

"How?" Hauk asked. For the first time since Rehme smuggled him off of Liberty Island he felt hopeful in this bleak landscape.

"I got out. Got to be easier to get back in."

Snake's words were nonchalant like someone who had spoke of completing an everyday task. Hauk shook his head and chuckled under his breath. He was about to follow the madman back to his asylum. Suddenly, Hauk's mind had a realization. Sanity was futile out here on this side of the fence. The government kept up the façade that things had barely changed. Hauk had bought into it for his own comfort but out here it fell apart. The streets were filled with madness and to survive one had to be like Plissken, just a little more insane then everyone else who walked them. It was hardly a comforting thought as Hauk turned his attention back to the darkness outside.