The metal of the old door, painted black, but probably rusted underneath, gave way at the hinges and the knob with just one swift and admittedly not spectacularly forceful kick. A large, foreign space revealed itself. It was about the size of the bunker he left behind in Chicago. The room that Aiden stepped into was clean, very clean. Its floor was concrete. The walls were lined with dark wooden, cherry, bookshelves that looked like they were polished regularly. The air in the room was warm and had that dry computer smell from the presence of the server located to the left of Aiden. Aiden, had he the time, would have stopped to enjoy it. His inner dork reveled in the odor that computers created. He looked straight ahead and saw the distinct glaring of one of those old, boxy computer screens, in the otherwise darkened room. There was someone, a rather rotund someone, sitting at the desk, in a dark chocolate shade leather swivel chair, turned around looking into the screen. Aiden was about to shoot when, he supposed, the man at the computer desk opened his mouth and spoke, with a strange childlike, impish lilt.

"Not so fast Mr. Pearce," the person behind the desk sang as he turned around in his swivel chair. It was a short, fat, white man, about forty. He had short thinning reddish blond hair. Around his neck, was a frayed red lanyard with ugly yellow writing, made most probably from cotton, that held, not glasses, not keys, but an inhaler. He stood up. It wasn't straight at first, but it became a more erect stance with the use of his cane. It, the cane, that had a brass finish, that is, was one of those special models that were able to stand on its own. In the other hand he looked like he was holding a remote. It was not wireless and was connected to the computer by a thin blue wire. Aiden couldn't tell if it was frayed or damaged. The fat man was wearing a dark, striking red wool knit sweater. The pants were of high quality and were the same gray as the clouds in a snowstorm. The two items clashed, but the man was about to die so it did not matter. The shoes, boot, looked worn and comfortable.

Aiden had taken not of all the freckles and wrinkles on the man's face. He'd regarded each stitch in the sweater, each scuff on the black, leather boots. The short, fat man continued to speak as Aiden approached him slowly.

"So this is the fox. You're more pathetic than your name," he taunted as Aiden was still coming nearer. Aiden raised his gun ready to fire. When this action was taken, the man raised his arm from off of his cane pulled out a gun and pointed it to his left. Simultaneously, he pushed one of the dozens of buttons on the remote. The shelves, that very instant, on Aiden's right, moved with the wall behind them to reveal a pane of glass. Behind the clear, sterile appearing glass were Nicky and Jackson standing looking scared.

"Aiden," started, the asthmatic antagonist, "You don't wanna shoot do you? You don't want your little nephew to see any more violence do you? And don't try anything clever that cell their in has steel walls and rubber floors."

Aiden relented some what, and, looking into Jackson's eyes, seeing the fear, knew he was going to have to defeat this man in a non-lethal way. That man was going to speak at length.

"I am the Roach," said he airily. "Do you know why they call me that?" He looked at Jackson, who had, by then, sat down, pretzel style. He looked at Aiden. Aiden nodded no. "Well, let me tell you. They call me the Roach because I'm a survivor. All my life I've dealt with this asthma and this bad leg, but that didn't bring me down. All my life, I've had to struggle. When I was that kid's age, no one wanted to be my friend. NO one. The only friend I had was imaginary. My father wasn't there. He didn't give a shit. My mom only pitied me. I was just the kid with the cane to everybody. One day, they installed a computer in my school. It was just like me in a way. No one took the time to care for it, but I did. I got to know it like no one got to know me. I knew every program, every code. In a way I survived a nuclear explosion. I survived when every fucking person in the world had something better to do than to care about me. I used the internet to find others like me. There were others like me, and I was glad. No one in the world was like me. That's what I thought. But I found someone like me. And we talked and talked and we made our group DEDSEC. We started it back in '99 when the internet was easy to crack. We took on corrupt systems, exposed the RLL banking scam. Then came the motherfuckers at Blume in '08, complicating matters with that CTos. We knew from the start, that they were going to be watching all our shit. So we hunkered. We started sending out messages letting people know what was going on."

"And it worked," Aiden started, "That's how I found out about Blume and its activities. You did good for all of us and then the power went to your head, and you lost it."

"Oh, it was not I who lost it, but you. You killed many good men who only wanted liberty." The Roach said sneering, "And now you have the government backing you up, you hypocritical piece of shit."

The Roach pushed another button on his remote control. All of the lights in the room turned on. The adjustment to the light was easy, as the lights came on as if on a dimmer switch. The lighting was dramatic as for a split second at the right level of illumination Aiden could see the airborne dust that floated in all room. The lights came to full luminance all of the names on all of the books that were on the shelves were legible and clear. Something else became clear in the brightening of the chamber. In the front of the room there were two more people laid out face down on the cool concrete. One was a woman who had dyed her hair. It was a shade of red that shimmered in its own falsehood. She was dressed all in red. The other person was a man with short black hair. He couldn't make out what race either of these people. The backs of their necks were obscured, inconveniently, by their hair. Their hands, their whole arms were tucked, intentionally, under their torsos.

"They're not dead," Roach started, "yet."

This was met by silence as Aiden looked back over to his family. His sister was standing, petrified, looking at the two people unconscious on the ground. Jackson was still sitting on the floor, fiddling with something. Aiden would have taken the opportunity to shoot now while they were both distracted but he didn't need Jackson looking up at the precise moment he fired.

Jackson however was in a world of his own behind the plate glass. His attention was not on the fat man, his uncle, his uncle's gun, the fat man's gun, the lady with the red hair, the man with the black hair, or his stiff with fear mother. His focus right now were two wires that ran from left to right in the front of the cell he was in. The wires were both thin. One could garrote someone with these cords. They were both damaged. It looked like the wires had been nibbled at. The copper of the wires was not eaten through, but it was exposed on both wires. One was red the other was blue.

Aiden was still listening to the Roach talk about righteousness, "… that Missouri fought for the Confederacy…"

Aiden wanted this guy to die to shut up now. He realized that he might have to tackle him like a linebacker. He readied himself to take this guy off guard. He would not dare to shoot a child would he? It was time to take the risk. He lowered his shoulders slightly and was about to charge.

Jackson figured that nothing bad could come from him touching the wires. He had just learned in science that rubber insulated electricity. There was no way he could get shocked, even if those were electrical wires. He touched the copper, and Ms. Burnett was correct. He was fine. He looked up and saw the man tying to see if the blob of fat was looking back. The blob wasn't. He noticed something about his uncle though. His uncle's shoulders were leaning forward. He, Jackson, didn't know why but he continued with his plan anyway. He grabbed the red wire by the rubber coating and connected the two coppers together. For half a second nothing happened and Jackson watched as he uncle started to charge the man.

Immediately, the lights went out and rumbling and electrical buzzing were heard. The smell of burning rubber and electrics wafted through the air. The fixtures above were over loaded and all of the light bulbs disintegrated. Now, brilliant white sparks rained down from the light fixtures and only fizzled out when they touched a surface. The room was now filled with noise.

The noise didn't muffle the sound of a bullet in the glass cell. The sound of a bullet whizzing past his ear will now remain with Jackson. That scared him, but it helped that the sparks blocked his view of everything. He held the wire together for a few more second, as his mother still stood still looking off into space. Space now filled with radiant white light. Jackson after a minute of the display of light detached the two wires. The sparks stopped immediately and Aiden was in the midst. He was walking towards the shattered glass of the pane that once imprisoned Jackson and Nicky, the sound of glass from the broken light bulbs being crunched under Aiden's boots.

Aiden appeared through the fog that had formed after the sparks had fallen. He walked into the cell. Aiden cried out in a loud voice, "Jackson, come forth."

Jacks did as instructed and walk out stumbling a little grabbing his now more lucid mother by the arm saying, "Mom, we gotta go." She was still returning to reality when Jackson had to grab her as she almost tripped over some of the glass. He led her past the glass that was on the now warmed concrete. He only glanced at the body of the fat man. It had an extra hole in it now, in the center of his forehead.

"Uncle Aiden, what are we going to do with Benevolence and mom's friend?"

"I'm going to carry them on my back. Don't worry there's no one left to hurt us."

Jackson and Aiden looked down towards the bodies as the smoke cleared. They heard coughing from the woman. Aiden ran to her. He flipped her over. He looked first at he hands that were bound with plastic manacles. He used his pocket knife to snip off the handcuffs. She tried, futilely, to look away from her savior, but he caught a secret glance at her face He took her by and hand and looked her in the face.

"Clara, did you really think you could fool me?"

"What, how did you know it was me?" She asked stunned

"You may be better at disappearing than dying, but foxes know how to track."

"Aiden, I…" She started, and trailed off.

"We'll talk later." He said trying to help her to her feet.

The other body started coughing and Aiden scrambled to it. It was the coughing of a man who'd been through a lot. It was a familiar cough.

Aiden spoke, "Jordi, stop all of that noise."

"Shit, Aiden wh…" his mouth dropped open. "What are you doing here?

"I'm saving all your asses, is what I'm doing

"Listen, about your sis.."

"We can talk about this later let's all get out of here.

For the first time in a long time Jordi was scared. He wasn't scared in Chicago or when this Roach man kidnapped him down here in St. Louis, but talking to Aiden about dating his sister. Shit. That was not going to be fun.