'Who the fuck do you think I am? Jacki Chan!' I snapped. 'I'm not jumping out of a two storey window.'

'We might not have a choice. If we make a lot of noise going in or get spotted, by the time we get the bug planted, if we get it planted rather, there will be a wall of fixers called in to block our path and we'll have to have a creative escape route.'

'No way!' I growled. 'I have a motto that I am now going to follow for the rest of my life. I will only leave buildings in a way I would enter them. Case closed, move on, next idea.'

'I could shoot your knee cap and leave you there to take the fall for the crime.' Aiden snarled at me.

'Shut your fat face, Pearce.' I snarled back at him, baring my teeth at him like a dog. 'Is there not a ventilation system or maybe a trash shoot or maybe a garage that we can jump onto it? I could handle that.'

Aiden sighed, tapping a few buttons into his phone. 'There is a ventilation system, it's pretty standard. Big enough for us to squeeze our way down and leads all the way to the basement. I guess we could just bust out of the basement, seems simple enough. There should be a vent right above the room we'll use to implant the bug so while you sort that out, I'll get the vent cover off as well as guard your ass.'

'Done.' I smiled, happy with our team work decision making. I jumped out of my car, knowing that later I'd have to leave it for good, which kind of upset me more than it should have.

I mean, I didn't really liked the car. It was fairly cramped and old fashioned. It was insanely loud and I'm pretty sure it only just passed its MOT test this year but… I've had it since practically moving to Chicago. To get rid of it would be like getting rid of a child I've raised for eighteen years.

'Mask up.' Aiden mumbled to me, lifting his scarf up till it was above his nose. He made a reach for my arm and carefully pulled me away from the car and across the street. We'd parked a few blocks down the road so we could make a quick getaway if need be but still not be in sight of their cameras.

'Once we get in, withdraw your gun and aim it forward, keep your finger on the trigger and the safety off. Only shoot if you have to. We're here to stealth through undetected so they don't know we're in the system. If they do know it could be very bad news for every single person on that list.'

'I get it.' I nodded my head as we walked down a few more streets as nonchalantly as we could. A few people stared at us with confused faces but no one pointed us out or even mentioned our names, or rather Aiden's name. Apparently he was recognised fairly often while out and about so tried to keep an even lower profile than he used to. I.e. The guy has the social life of a cactus.

We finally began to close in on the ctOS center block. The place was two storeys high but was about as long as two semi-detached houses I remembered from England. The building was almost entirely made of windows so I could see right into the place just from where I was walking.

'Through the back door doesn't sound like such a good idea anymore.' I mumbled, attempting to take a step backwards. 'I think maybe we should call this whole thing off and go home. We tried our best, no one can deny that.'

'You got this, Clark.'

'... I know.' I lied. Following after him again. The two of us turned down the sideway of the building and headed towards the back, there was a back entrance that no one except for delivery men used so was easy for us to hack our way through and into the door.

'The manual reset starting six minutes, we have to be quick. We have fifty four minutes until this whole place is just as guarded as before.'

Aiden and I slowly made our way through what seemed like a stock room filled with paperwork and folders and other stationary bits. We walked over to a door, Aiden in front of me holding his own spec ops 1911 in his hand. With his finger poised against the trigger, he slowly twisted the door handle and pushed open the door.

I pressed my back to the wall as I slowly followed after Aiden. Pearce stared down each side of the corridor then signalled me to follow him to the left. We stalked with a quick pace down the corridor, our backs against the wall and attention to both ends of the corridor to look out for a walking visitor.

Aiden signalled to a door on my left and I quickly crossed over to it and squeezed the door handle. I looked to Aiden who nodded to me as he crossed over to beside me, gun ready as I twisted the door handle and pushed in.

Aiden pushed me through the gap without a minute to spare and gently but quickly closed the door behind us.

'Up the stairs now.' Aiden whispered, propelling me forward.

The large box staircase was dimly lit up by a few porthole shaped lights along the walls. I followed Aiden up to the second floor and the two of us stood by the door again waiting.

'It doesn't feel… like the whole buildings in reset.' I whispered as quietly as I could.

'I promise you it is. It's never been so easy for me to get into a ctOS building like this before. I'm kinda paranoid something's going to happen.'

'He's not the only one.' A voice suddenly whispered into my ear.

'Mel… Is that you?' I whispered.

'Sorry, Clark, you're going to have to get Aiden's phone.' Mel whispered. 'We hacked into his transmitter which is how we're listening to the two of you speaking.'

'Aiden, pass me your phone please, Melina's talking to us.' I whispered as Aiden pressed his back to the wall beside the door. He reached into his pocket and fished out his phone before passing it to me.

'Mel… Can you hear me now?' I whispered again.

'Loud and clear, Clark.' She giggled. 'Are you in yet?'

'On our way.' I whispered. 'We've just reached the second floor staircase on the… right side-'

'Left.'

'Left side of the building.' I finished. 'How far are we from the control room?'

'According to the schematics it should be the first right when you exit the door… Is Aiden playing nice?'

'... As nice as would be expected, I guess.' I mumbled as Aiden started thumbing at the doorknob of the staircase. 'Talk in a minute, we're on the move.'

I quickly shoved Pearce's phone into my own pocket as he pushed open the door and searched down the hall. He motioned me forward behind his back and I followed after him, holding the door and closing it gently to stop it from slamming.

Aiden held his arm out in front to stop me from walking with his gun pointed down the hall. I perked my ears and if I strained I could hear the slight sound of rhythmic slow footsteps coming closer.

'Move.' Aiden hissed under his breath, taking one large step to the door we needed to go through. He pushed the door gently and slid inside for a minute before pulling me in behind him. 'Get working.'

I jogged over to the computer and quickly slammed the drive into the monitor. A warning flashed across the monitor but I quickly tapped my magic fingers and it disappeared. I grabbed the bugs information and copied it within the computers hard drive.

'How long will this all take?' Aiden grumbled behind me, his entire body was stretched upwards as he used the grip on his gun to twist the screws of the vent.

'As long as it takes.' I traced my fingers along the keyboard, racking my memory for all the right codes that would guide me through the system.

I guided the bug through until I thought it was in a safe and virtually undetectable place to be found if ctOS went looking. All this took about fifteen minutes to do, I twisted my body to Aiden who had laid the vent down on the floor and was now stood by the door guarding it.

'Done?'

'Almost.' I gulped.

Knowing Melina, she would have "zipped" the file so that it wouldn't work it's magic the second I copied it over. I opened the file and removed the bug entirely, letting it spread across the folder.

'Done. Let's go now.' I whispered, I pulled Aiden's phone from my pocket and brought it up to my lips. 'Melina, are you there? The bug is installed in the system.'

'Undetectable?' Her voice whispered into my ear.

'As well as I could do it.' I smiled. 'We're on our way out now. See you soon.'

I grabbed the hard drive from the computer and shoved both the drive and Aiden's phone into my pocket before running to the vent. Aiden quickly jogged over and gave me a leg up.

I practically flew inside the vent from Aiden's push and smacked my head against the top. I grabbed the edge and yanked myself inside just as Aiden pulled up by himself. We sat on either side of the hole and Aiden let out a breath of relief.

'Well… The hard parts out the way. Follow me.' Aiden turned and gave me a lovely shot of his elder generation ass and began crawling through the vent.

I mauvered myself over the hole then followed after him as quickly and quietly as I could. We crawled through about two minutes of ventilation before Aiden stopped.

'This is going to take a minute, hang on.' He mumbled, he slowly twisted his body around so his head was closest to me and his legs stretched out in front of him. Slowly he pushed himself forward before pivetting around onto his belly.

I then realised he was sliding downwards into another hole and was trying to put his feet on something as he faced me.

'Give me your hands and lower me down.' Aiden commanded and I obeyed immediatly, I got down onto my own belly and slithered forward. I grabbed him at his elbows and he grabbed mine as I slowly slithered my body further forward to lower him down slowly. '... A little lower, almost got- there! My foot's on.'

I nodded my head as Aiden suddenly shrinked out of my view down the hole and to the next level of vents.

His voice carried through. 'Your turn, just lower your legs down, I'll guide you.'

'I don't know if you noticed Aiden!' I snarled, twisting my body around so my legs could go down first. 'But I'm a hell of a lot shorter than you, it'll take at least two of me to reach you.'

'Just do it.' He called back in a frustrated tone.

'If I die, it's your fault.' I growled as I felt my legs sink into the emptiness below. 'Can you see my tootsies yet?'

'No? Are you lowering yourself do-'

'Yes I am!' I snapped back. The entire bottom half of my body was down the vent only leaving my stomach upwards still on the platform. 'Can you see them now? I don't know how much lower I can go.'

'Not yet, keep coming.'

'Oh… Kay...' I whimpered slowly, I used what little upper body stregnth I had to hold my weight up by my arms and elbows and I was now competely verticle in the hole, yet I didn't feel Aiden try to guide me down nor did I feel the comfort of flooring beneath my feet. 'I can't go any lower!'

'You're going to have to drop then.' Aiden mumbled back simply. 'Let go on the count of three, I'll grab you and pull you in. Ready, one, two-'

'Hold up! I'm not comfortable with that!' I hissed as quietly as I could even though I wanted to shout at him and maybe kick him in the face (If only I could reach.)

'You've got no choice, Clark. We haven't got long before the security reboots and we'll be seen in a minute. Trust me, I'll catch you.'

'Trust you! You have got to be joking! You're the murdering bastard who thought that just because someone you loved died then that meant that you could kill more than a hundred men that other people loved.' I snapped. 'The day I trust you is the day I die.'

'You'll die here either way if you don't let go of the fucking ledge!' He snapped back, his voice echoed down the vents. He paused afterwards, probably kicking himself for raising his voice so loud then growled low. 'Your job is almost done, soon you can go back to your boring life of leeching from other people's hard earned possessions.'

'Fuck you, Pearce, you hypocrite!' I snapped.

'Let. Go. Of. The. Ledge.'

I snarled but instantly released my grip from the ledge and felt my body tumble down the vents when suddenly SLAM!

My vision went black.