Chapter 4

Tally's POV

I slipped into a sneak suit (something useful when you were going to do what I was about to do.) I was just covering my bases. Just maybe they were keeping him in the actual Doctors building. It was the most fancy building, where all the Doctors lived and did special secret projects; even specials weren't a loud in there, ut since Zane had been gone so long…

"Tally-wa?" Rane ran into my room. We hadn't been pinging each other at all about my plan. I was fearful the city interface would see the messages. The city interface was something that controlled and watched over every ugly, pretty, and specials move, ping, and ever other thing they did. I took off my interface ring and hung it on a food bot. I would program the thing to move around my room so it looked like I was moving around my room even though I was gone. You would think, Specials could do what ever we want, which we mostly did, but there were some stuff we could get despecialized for.

"Are you ready?" I asked her. She nodded taking a deep breath. I could see the swirling design on her face speed up. It showed the speed of her heart rate, which was fast!

"I'm ready, but listen Rane-la you don't HAVE to do this." I reminded her.

"I know, but if you get in trouble your going to need back up." She replied with a grin.

"Plus what do crims do?" She laughed, "Maybe usually not this high class but they do pull pranks right?" She is forcing an almost real smile on her face.

"Alright let's go." I grabbed my board (that had been stripped from any interface censors) and dropped it out the window. I turned it on and immediately jerked up stopping in mid air. Climbing onto the board I clicked on my bracelet to help me stay up even if I fell off, which never happened. A moment later Raney was right next to me grinning from the thrill of excitement. We had just free fell 20 stories.

"So I was thinking to start at the doctors building," I told her and took off towards the hospital. I would have to be careful not to be caught by the cameras, the specials on guard duty, or any nurses and doctors working late even though it was four in the morning.

We rode for several minutes in silence, the wind whipping past us as we flew across the city. I remembered all those days as pretties, being a crim, and always pulling off REALLY stupid pranks. Zane and I had been apart of the big ice rink break of 2070 and it had been big news, but now that all seemed stupid. We arrived at the building and I immediately turned on my sneak suit allowing it to morph to my body. I assumed I was blending in with my surroundings.

"How do I look?" I whispered to Rane.

"Good, me?" She asked.

"Fine." I replied and jumped off my board slipping it under some brush near the side of the hospital. I examined the whole layout figuring the best way to get in. All specials had guard duty every once in a while. I had, had it before so I knew the layout fairly well.

"C'mon." I said heading forward and entering the side entrance. It hadn't been guarded very well and obviously the alarms weren't on that entrance, although I wasn't sure why. We slipped down the hallway and in to a stairwell, where we began running. We had made it nearly to the top when suddenly we heard voices as if someone was walking down. I looked at Rane and we froze thinking quickly to figure out what we were going to do. I pulled on my stick gloves and jumped over the rail of the staircase. I was now hanging on the side, my hands were the only things keeping me from falling all the way down the thirty-two floors below me. Rane followed suite and we hung there side by side straining our muscles to hold on. Footsteps passed us and continued down the steps. We pulled ourselves back up once the voices had disappeared. I knew we had to hurry to get to the top before we got caught. We were now standing back in the stairwell thinking, what to do next.

"Okay, I've got a plan." I said climbing up to the next floor and walking through a door to the main hallway. We couldn't take the elevator for fear of being caught but I knew what to do. I walked to the elevator acting as calm as possible. Being calm was the best thing to do in this situation. There were about fifty stories in the doctors building where every doctor lived and worked on their secret projects. The elevator doors opened and thankfully no one was inside. We stepped inside and as soon as the doors closed and pushed open the roof latch of the elevator and climbed into its shaft. We were going to reach the top by climbing up the elevator shaft. It would be quick and as long as no elevators came up and squashed us everything would be good. I quickly reapplied my sticky gloves, which I had removed and I jumped onto the wall. The gloves made it possible to grip slippery walls like this shaft. I hurried up to the top with Rane right behind me heading to where all the best projects were kept. I only knew this because I had been once required to guard the area even though I was never actually allowed in. Before I had guarded it, I had stayed on the top level for a bit of time. We got back into the hallway and I knew this was where things got tricky. Time had never been more of the essence. I jogged down to the end of the hallway and glanced around the corner. Seeing it was empty we began down it, peering into every room we could. Mostly they were full of random gadgets and equipment and several had these freaky human animal hybrids in them. Stuff I had NEVER seen before and never wanted to see, but I knew ONE must have Zane. After looking into at least twenty rooms, and finding no one, I turned down another hallway where I heard people talking. Finally, we had found the rooms where people were actually living. We peeked through several and didn't find anyone. Suddenly we heard more footsteps and I saw someone turn the corner. Their eyes grew wide and stared at me.

"Hey what are you doing in here?" He said but we didn't wait around to see anymore. We bolted down the hallway and turned the corner. I heard footsteps but I was faster then any other special, unfortunately Rane wasn't. I wasn't going to leave her to be caught, so we dove into a store closet. We lay there silently. Being special gave us the ability to avoid labored, loud breathing, and we could move with absolutely silent stealth.

"Help me!" I whispered to Rane. She pushed me up to the roof of the closet and I shoved off one of the roof tiles revealing a small crawl space of the air conditioner. I climbed into it and pulled Rane up. I could hear voices below talking about us.

"There are specials in here!" Said one person.

"Are they guards?" Asked another.

"I don't think so, they had sneak suits on." We crawled as quickly as possible, I knew we only had a few minutes. Finally we came to a dead end. All we could do was pull open the vent and drop into a dark bedroom. It was huge and nicely furnished with a large bed, mirror, desk, closet etc… I thought we were fairly safe when suddenly I picked up more footsteps outside the door and a shadow pass by. Thank God they didn't come in. Rane was still waiting above me, I looked up at her.

"Head back." I whispered.

"You sure?" She asks.

"Can you get out safe?"

"Yes." She answers and closes the vent. I knew I was all a lone now and began looking for a hiding place. I glanced at the bed and then at the window. Unfortunately I knew it was the kind of window that would keep people from coming in or out and wouldn't open. Suddenly light from the hallway came flooding in and I froze when I saw that a shadow stood in the doorway. My breath caught in my throat and I nearly choked with shock.

"Tally," He whispered his eyes dark staring at me like daggers, in a way I had never seen before.