We watched the two Freelancers with held breaths. Upon hearing Pam's announcement, Meta and Tex stopped abruptly in the hall, took one glance at each other, and careened in the opposite direction, throwing themselves out the nearest window and landing lightly in the dirt down below, only stumbling in their attempt to get away from the facility.

"It worked!" laughed Donut.

"Wait—wait, no!" Wash yelped suddenly, almost trampling Grif in his attempt to escape the computer room. "They'll leave! They'll leave with the AIs! We have to catch them!" In seconds, he had disappeared.

I gasped, panicking as I remembered exactly who was still locked on their ship. "We have to get to them! Church—we have to save Church!"

I sprang away from the monitors and ran to the door, wrenching it open and bowling over a few guards in my attempt to escape the prison. A few others were already disgruntled from Wash's sprint out of the facility and they moved away warily as I approached. The Reds and Blues followed close behind, Caboose babbling on about his new best friend, Pam. By the time we had exited the detention facility and run to the east end, I watched in horror as Meta and Tex's ship rose in the air over the jungle and shot into space.

"No!" My breath caught in my throat. "No, no, they still have him!"

Wash stood roughly ten feet in front of me, staring wordlessly at the disappearing ship. He had dropped his weapon to the ground and stood frozen, as if carved from ice.

While Simmons hastily explained our erratic behavior to the guards with some wild excuse, the rest of the Reds and Blues crowded around me.

"Well," Sarge said gruffly. "That's one less dirty Blue we've gotta deal with."

"I—I tried to save him," I choked. "Who knows where they'll take him now! I—I didn't mean to—"

"It's not your fault, Ells," Donut replied, placing a hand on my shoulder. "You did the best you could. We'll get him back another way."

"They won't hurt him," Tucker added. "Sure, they might try to brainwash him and turn him into some sort of bloodthirsty AI zombie, but there's no way he'll die."

"Damn, I'm glad that saved us the trouble of killing him," Grif yawned. "I've had enough excitement for one day. Time for a nap."

"Glad to see you're all so choked up about this."

The voice came from behind us. We spun around to see a soldier in powder blue armor, his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.

"Church!" I cried, running toward him. "How—"

"You've got better aim than you think," Church shrugged, flashing a small smile. "When you hit that button, it didn't unlock the prison cell, but it disabled the AI blocker."

"You saved Church, Twelve!" cried Caboose happily, hugging the AI tightly.

"Yeah, yeah," Church muttered, trying to shake Caboose off and reverting back to his old irritated self. "Don't get her a big head. She just pressed a button."

As Church fought to pry himself from Caboose's grip, I looked back toward the eastern skies. Meta and Tex were completely out of sight; my eyes fell back down to the gray-and-yellow soldier who had not even glanced back at Church's return. I strode up to him.

"It's okay," I murmured. "We'll find the AIs again. We'll get them back."

Wash was quiet for another moment, unmoving as he stared tensely at the sky. Finally, he turned away from me and headed toward the prison once more.

"We have to get going."

I frowned and followed him. After we had explained what we could of the situation, the guards allowed us to set the portal to return to Blood Gulch. Since the AIs had left the planet upon which the Reds and Blues lived, much of their technology—including the portals—had begun working once more.

I was sure the guards were happy to be rid of the insane CIA Agent, brooding Freelancer, and irritating IT guys. They were satisfied with allowing us to leave and only wondered why we needed their help to reconfigure the portal if all of the Reds and Blues were so handy with computers. Before Simmons could protest, however, the Red leader used his commanding Sergeant's growl to get the guards moving again.

The portal flickered brightly to life, and I saw with relief the signature plains that lay between Red and Blue bases. After thanking the prison guards profusely for their cooperation—and threatening them with painful beatings if they breathed a word of this to anyone—we left the facility behind us for a second time. As we stepped through the portal, I was only momentarily relieved to see the grassy field between the Red and Blue bases.

Both buildings were on fire.