From Nadir to Zenith [Part I]

Caesid was alive. Her glory, the sun, levitated in the center of a void with only stones to crown her, alas alone and unmoved by the darkness beyond. The shadow of Roshoq stretched on into the endless black, beyond twinkles and dust clouds, and as its circle shifted about that crown the brilliance of her radiant face broke across the empty space between, the light crawling over the frosty deserts of the planet. The sands rejected her in glamorous reflections for miles over the curves until they showed of hateful reds spotted with the blacks and grays of the Roshoq civilization below. Scorned, she let lose her fire to burn them away, all of them, away, slowly. Flashes of blue and white across the planar orbit of Roshoq littered the sky - fireworks for children, as the wayfarers of the known universe traversed her transparent seas aboard ships, skiffs and galleons, and dreadnaughts.

The children of Zenith, those little rodents that ran about the halls and pipes of the Fringes, scurried from one tower to the next, and and down the levels, passed pipes and wires of intricate design left abandoned, all to get to that one spot, the perfect view to watch the lights in the sky, and to dream of mother Caesid lifting them up one day to the light far from the shadow. Their busy bodies stopped atop the higher levels of the Fringe, where only the surface barriers and antennae extended above them. The land was deceptively flat looking, as the dunes and mountains of flesh rending sand melded together in their color and sheen to the end of the horizon every way, and the blue sky too remained plain all over. Yet, high on the snapping flashes of the ships broke through the blue rays, marking the position of Yuris above Zenith, and the space ports, the gate way.

"I wish we were up there," spoke a voice, small and rasped. The little rats of Zenith were clad in greases and dust as they were their own cloths. Their rubber soles pattered down the way creating muffled echos through the metal pipes that hummed like thick, worn harp cords far below.

At the end of their trail there was a boy, all together average, with a smudge on his pants somewhere or another, who stopped to look in their stampede across the high point of Fringe 11. He looked up, fixated on the sky as if trying to see something that wasn't there, all together caught in a daze, lifting his palm to his head. The pain passed as the flashes stopped, the end of a caravan finally coming through and the final seconds of the way-gate's brief existence. He pulled on his shirt to wipe his nose and switched back to his mode of play, and ran on.

"Hey, Yoro, where ya go?"

"I'm right here," he replied, catching up and all but exhausted from the rush.

The rag tag group shifted and turned from their little circle and started off on their next adventure, and it went on, running around, high and low, playing with a ball against thunder sheets or howling into dark pipe lines. Caeside related, however, and as soon as she had heated the fury of the world, it became to fade back to the cool hatred, the steel of the city. The rats returned to their holes at varying heights in the Fringe, no more than a massive tube of Zenith's sewage where all things go to be lost or forgotten, until now.

Yoro came to his home, reluctantly marching along before opening the door up and calling that he was home. The shouting conversation continued between bodies, how was your day, chores, did you have fun, did you get into trouble, dinner, the baby's crying, go get me a diaper.

"That's all done. Boy, you're filthy! Were you in the sewers again?" Yoro's mother was quickly moving across the flat from one skirmish of her routine to another, reaching for a cloth to clean her boy.

"No, we were just -"

"Yea, you were just this and that. I told you to stay out of there. It's dangerous; you don't know what comes floating down those pipes. Remember, one time, that boy crawled in too far and ended up in -"

"Yes, I know, I know," Yoro replied, with excitement. He knew how the story ended every time, and as true as it could have been denial was just more fun. He loved crawling around the inter workings of the Fringe.

Mother finished anyway, "...the exhaust pipes of the plant and, you know." She licked her dried lips if only for a moment's relief of cracking skin and examined her child again. "Come here," she demanded, pressing a hand to his forehead and began to scowl. "You have a fever. Have you felt okay? Are you -"

"I had a head ache earlier, but it stopped."

"Okay? Okay, well... well you can't go out, and I need to work tomorrow so -"

"But mom!"

"So! I'm going to send you, no, how about you watch the flat tomorrow, clean up for mommy, and I need to take your sister to Aunty."

Yoro held his tongue, knowing there was a worse fate than being stuck home. The thought of Aunty's unfounded and obsessive doting over children did bother him. They met a moment of silence, and agreement formed, exchanged glances, hugs, kisses, and went on into night.

The Fringe was surprisingly well lit for a hole in the ground. Every beacon or beam that marked a walkway or shop came together to form a ring from the bird's view. Only the recesses of the Fringe, the pipes and nooks of the place, were dark - mimicking of the void above nix the spritz of lights. Yoro had remained awake enough to keep some awareness. The rat huddle earlier had been very important to them, and their plan to go tonight and see the face of Yuris in full again. It was a tradition of mischief for them. The electric light bled through the windows towards Yoro's face, and his eyes peeked out. Tip-toeing through the apartment, he managed to get by his mom, exhausted as ever, and out the front door into the night.

Yoro looked out into the into the strip from the front window as their plan began coming together. The way was clear, and seldom did people question the intentions of anyone walking the night for their own security. Only peeks over the shoulder with attentive ears were of necessity. Being just a boy, only starting the metamorphosis to manhood, Yoro's young mind thought little of the danger night brought. Although Caesid's vicious glare was occupied elsewhere, the protection her watchful gaze brought faded too. He did as he usually did then, following the lighted way that strayed too close to the shadow sometimes. Hesitant stops at the alleys, a shot glance into the dark, and then he was running on again with the echoing pitterpatter trailing him all the way. The wide concrete walls, framed in cable, housed the cast shadows of the little rat running through the steel maze. The Fringe took on that sense at night, where the walk ways were cast in darkness and the bridges might change. A wrong turn would drop a wondering soul off the edge into the formless, forgotten.

Yoro had made his way several levels up to where his playmates had met earlier, the observation deck of the moon. His crossings back and forth might have taken him a full thirty degrees about the Fringe before coming closer to a red light district, where the business became a bit more lively at night, where no light could fully protect you. The evening business was as usual, which included the night sounds of drunken howling or strange wet noises echoing through the dark corners of the Fringe. Liquids dripped, blacks, browns, yellows, and reds. By the time the fumes rose, however, the parts of the mix became indistinguishable. It would seem everyone in the Fringe had adapted to the smell, and that they too smelled of the Fringe. This only drove the divide between Zenith's higher class and the fringe-living sectors further apart, among the many other things. Yoro passed a woman walking by, done up in a big coat that covered her. She had a strange sweet scent about her that made him look up. Looking on, he only saw the halo of the light around her dirty blonde hair and jacket. The faint of light elsewhere illuminated her face but a smidgen, revealing the sharp nose below her dark eyes, which in the shadow cast looked black as pits with a strange light at the centers. She gave the wondering boy a smile, her lips pulling back into the light to show her purple-red cheeks and crimson lips. They parted ways, and Yoro kept on.

He did not get far however, and Yoro stopped to turn back. He heard a sound, the woman's voice, and from the shadow a hushed whisper in return. Yoro felt his head begin to throb, and a sickness came to his stomach. The light behind him began to form a tunnel, and the world was becoming black as his little lungs raced to keep the weight of his body standing. Heavier, his body seemed to becoming heavier the longer he looked on into that shadow. He began to see it reaching out for him in waves, tiny hands numbering in the thousands waving up and down the concrete walk way like a wave on the shore, leaving remnants of themselves as they retreated back from the light. Panic began to set in. The longer he watched, the closer the dark hands came to snatching him up into their unknown world.

In that shadow that began to engulf his world, Yoro began to make out the faint reflection of eyes looking up into him, analyzing him, and soon after he began to hear - as if a whisper - an echo of heart beats coming at him from all directions. The eyes, which had only been glancing, now looked fully at young Yoro who fell to his knees and covered his ears with his hands. Curled up, he began to whine non-sense, though much unaware of it. Yoro had only tried what he could to ward away the darkness surrounding him, the hands began to sprawl over his body, their clawed fingers tearing at his skin and made to bleed. The drumming of hearts and far away wails of monsters began to overtake him. The woman and eyes had been replaced with a tunnel, and far off into that tunnel there was something coming. Yoro could not tell what it was, only that it was bad, evil even, if not just angry with him.

Yoro burst out into a shrill cry that overtook the noise of the district and the eyes rushed to him from the corner. No one was around to check out the windows of closed down shops, and the music of the nearby club overtook every sound from within. Yoro had rolled onto his side, and back, almost in a seizure like state screaming before the eyes got over - now clearly seen to be a man, in foreign dress, of a wiser age - and grabbed a hold of him. Yoro could only feel now the grasp of something comparably massive and immeasurably stronger than him as his hypersensitive state began to tear him apart. His body was being held down, his every kick and lash subsiding to paralysis while his head was held to look on into the tunnel. The light was still coming, faster, faster now, and overtook him. Yoro passed out.

The light that Yoro remembered had been replaced with a softer glow, more yellow in hue that originated from some light further away. The hard ground had become a bed, and the arms of darkness had retreated. He seemed to be in some cheap room. The conditions were notably worse than home that even Yoro was convinced he was in a "poor" district now - poorer than the poor of the "upper" Fringe that was. Though they seemed to be sealed away, the noise of the lower terminals and the thickness of the gases signaled he had been taken somewhere far below where he was not allowed to be.

A fatherly voice came from a corner of the room, noticing him stir from his sleep.

"You gave me quite the scare, boy. Are you an epileptic or something? You had a seizure back there or something." Yoro sat quietly, still coming to, and still trying to make sense of his mind. Everything seemed jumbled for a moment. "Not a talker," the voice continued, the form of its source still fuzzy and dream-like, "That's all right. I didn't mean to scare ya. There isn't much of a security to take you to, so I figured I'd bring you here until you were up and then we'd run you back home. Where do ya live, boy?"

"Fringe Eleven, Level thirty-four, Byrum Apartments, apartment number twenty-two," Yoro recited as mom had taught years ago for school. She'd been lucky to keep a place for so many years.

The man mumbled back the information, as if to verify it to himself. "All right," he said, "Let's get you home then." His blurred form shifted across the room closer, giving the dark blob a shape that looked closely at Yoro. The man squinted, looking at Yoro with a strange familiarity, and doubled back for his own things. He drew out a strange device armed with a thin needle and took careful aim at Yoro's underarm. Yoro seemed unresponsive to the prick as the man took a blood sample, only on a hunch thought. "All right, boy, let's get you home then. Come on." He helped Yoro up and out the door with a gentle thud.

Yoro's walk back was automatic, yet still guided with a hand on his shoulder or the back of his head, and the sense of a mountain behind his left side. He was finally home. The man shifted his hand through Yoro's scalp and wished him off to bed. Yoro looked at the messy mesh of lights and color that made up the flat, before going into his room. He began to lose the sense of being guarded, made his way into bed, and slept.

The man guarded the door a bit more, making sure it was secure, sticking around a while to look out for any predators even. He checked a watch on his wrist persistently, waiting for the dawn and...something else. The coming of dawn made the man leave, but only after rubbing over the inner molding of the door, leaving but a black speck. He glanced to either side and then fixed his jacket around him, collar high, before working his way back into the dark depths of Fringe Eleven.

Yoro awoke hours later, recalling something of a bad dream and the greeting of his mother before she was off, rushed as ever. A note on the table left more specific instructions about food and chores, most notably the demand that he not leave the house. Naturally, that order would not hold for Yoro's responsibility was of priority. After missing last night's moon sighting, he'd need to explain himself on the new day's escapades across the Fringe. The sun had not yet risen high over the Fringe when Yoro left the flat, and so shadows still lurked all about. He glanced to dark corners in memory of a recent nightmare, but went on.

Yoro had progressed through the traffic of the Fringe for a time, past the circulation of people, gears shifting in the magnificent device outside of Zenith from Caesid's view. While approaching the tower that the rats planned to meet at, Yoro began to notice a new arrangement of lights and signs. Danger. Caution. Security tape and bars sealed off the upper expanses of the Fringe from public access. It had become a cocoon of its own with the vicious Militari drones swarming the extremities in patrol while several groups vacated the quarantine zone throughout the Fringe. The black mesh around the sides and lower level blocked out all of the area and sky above. Only from the opposing end of the Fringe on a lower platform would the rats be able to convene to watch Yuris.

Nearing their secondary meeting place, Yoro began to notice the unusual thickness of drones in the Fringe. Some guards were positioned at points of interest all of the time, namely the monorail that ran to Zenith's proper or the sensitive equipment above and below the main decks of the Fringe. This was weird though. Yoro hesitated to look long at their uniforms, the blazing insignia that was known all too well to Roshoqans, even just in stories. While children on far away planets might have been taught to fear the menace of monsters that lurked under beds or in deep forests, the Roshoqan children were instructed in fear through the Militari; better that then the young facing the militant wrath in their later years. The most recent rumor had been about kidnappings. Supposedly the Militari were snatching up troubling Roshoqans and taking them to a far away into space, never to return. For all Yoro's dreams of exploring the expanse of the void, he knew it was a trip he would never return from - which he wished for very much.

He had at last made it to the level he wanted. The rats would be in assembly and he would be late as usual. Yoro thought of how he'd go about telling them of his dream, though he also considered to himself the strange lacking of vagueness his dreams typically possessed. Most of all, Yoro remembered the nightmare, and how very real those hands were that reached out for him felt. The grabs had left icy burns on his very spirit that make him shiver in thought of them. To some thanks such focus was impossible in the Fringe with all of the distractions, today being very full of them.

Yoro had been passing through the ports and alleys to short cut his way to the observation platform when he heard a noise. It sounded sharp and metallic, like something fragile had been struck and broken. He walked closer. Very soon he began to make out the sound of a struggle, characterized by the grunting the rats would make in their play, but these sounds were those of adults and took on a more violent tone. Yoro shrank back, crouching but moving forward still. Just a peak, another story to tell to the assembly. A jolt ran through Yoro's body as he stepped closer and heard a yelp, an electricity that contracted his body and made his brain hurt for a pulse. He could feel it now, though unknowingly, the closing grasp of dark fingers around his body, and the intensifying rip of his brain against his skull the less distance he put between himself and the fight. Yoro could not help but feel drawn in.

Around the corner, as Yoro climbed around to see, two Bulls clad in uniform were after another man. The latter was fairly young, seemingly harmless actually, but Yoro saw his eyes flash and the Bulls wince. The more Yoro focused on the man the greater his connection was. The pulse in his mind began to fade, and he started to see things, shades moving through the air. The Bulls moved to strike but would seem to stumble or be held back as they moved closer into the dead end. One of the Bulls reared his head and reached for his throat while the other waved an electrified baton at the man. Yoro's vision began to narrow. The lights around him began to dim and tint a soulless blue, and a sound of phantoms began to ring out from the sky above and through the walls. He heard whispers of death and violent threats escape the dark, plated walls over a tumult of screams. Yoro's heart began to race with terror as he felt himself melt in fear. The wall he clung to became like a barred cell, rusted and splintered, his hands bloody from grasping them. He looked into the darkness that called him closer. Though Yoro was afraid, he obeyed and moved in close. From the dark cell within, a hideous and frightening being of unearthly origin rushed toward him, passing through the cell and shattering what remained of his fragile and frozen body. Yoro let loose a terrified scream, eyes wide, as he fell back into the middle of the alley.

The man's concentration broke with the child's scream, and awful image that pursued Yoro vanished. He was left blinking, almost wanting to grasp at the air in front of him just to reassure himself it had gone. The Bulls were quick to retaliate. Before the man took notice a baton was slammed into his neck. Yoro saw the man go stiff and collapse, twitching on the ground. One Bull was breathing heavily, as the other with the baton turned to look Yoro in the eyes. Nothing could be seen in the black visor, save for a very distant reflection of the frown on Yoro's face. His head was throbbing, and only now did he realize the full intensity of it. His body was drenched in sweat and now after being thrown back did he feel the weight of his limbs again. The drum in his mind began to thunder and ripple as he struggled to grasp his mind and let loose the pressure inside.

Yoro screamed, and the Bull with the baton only kept his distance to study. Several flashes and scanners lit up the alley over Yoro. Around the boy, an energy seemed to surge that distorted the space around him. Yoro fell forward and struggled to get a grasp of himself. He found his eyes locked with the man's on the ground. Yoro was very unsure at first, but he felt a sorrow from the man, even an apology. Before he could process it fully though, a command urged Yoro away, "Run!" In a bolting instant Yoro was off the ground running without direction or question away from the scene, forgetting all heaviness of his body or pain in his mind. The armed Bull made for the man and held the baton close against his body until Yoro was out of sight.

After about a minute, Yoro was back into the open Fringe where his running was normal. Everyone was busy, but had a direction he lacked. He was rushing through, past blurred faces and lines, far away until at last he gained some sense of control over his rush and made for the assembly of rats. Somehow he knew he was not safe at home or anywhere. The man, Yoro struggled to understand what that an had done or said. There had been no words only the look in his eyes. The pulse of his mind began to return.

Eventually Yoro stopped running as he came close in his approach. His little body sifted through the grate of people until he came to the secondary forum. At once the rats called him out on his tardiness, with one noting the awful look about him.

"Why so pale, Yoro? You look like you went for a swim."

"I wish I could go swimming right now."

"Shut up, you. Yoro, are you okay?"

"I feel sick," said Yoro, "The Bulls..."

"Them Bulls are out everywhere today. Did you hear what happened?"

"Ya, didn't the Bulls catch a -"

"Shut up, I'm telling the story! Anyway, the Bulls caught something last night sneaking around the towers. They say it was an alien lurking around there."

"That's not true, idiot. They caught a man, not an alien. There's no such thing as aliens anyway. Some mad man was messing with the towers and nearly blew them up. He blew a few of them up, and nearly brought the whole Fringe down."

"There was too an alien and he didn't blow things up, he had a laser disintegration gun or something and was making people disappear in a single shot. You can peak through the blockade - that's what it's called a blockade - and see the walk way bending and twisting like on the assembly lines. It's great stuff."

Yoro worked against the fever to pay attention and understand what his friends were saying. It didn't at all make much sense, although he too was delirious at the moment. Still, he was able to consider some inconsistencies.

"When did it happen," asked Yoro.

"All last night while we were sleeping. We'd gone home, and you didn't show up by the way. Why didn't you show up?"

"Shut up, idiot. He said he was sick; didn't you hear?"

"But I didn't hear anything like guns or explosions, or see anything," Yoro went on, "and I have the best view of the towers."

"As if. I clearly have the best view of the towers, and those dancing ladies," noted another rat, and gave the assembly something to joke over. "Anyway, I don't think there's much playing to do today, not with all of these Bulls running around. You might get stomped on."

"As if, as if. I didn't run all the way here for nothing," protested Yoro. "I had the strangest dream last night, you wouldn't believe me."

"Well if I won't believe you, why listen? Can we talk about it later, Yoro?"

"Well fine, I won't tell you about my dream, but I did run into a Bull on my way over." The assembly was suddenly attentive with blazing eyes on Yoro egging him on to talk about the Bulls. "Alright, shut up. I was on my way over when my head started to hurt, and I heard a noise, so I went down the alley by that antique shop no one goes to, with the old dusty stuff, and there were a bunch of Bulls fighting this one guy. He didn't have a gun or anything, but he was keeping the Bulls back bare handed. Then, all of a sudden, I felt like I was in my dream again -"

"Enough of the dream, Yoro, tell us about the Bulls!"

"But that's the thing, it wasn't a dream. I saw everything get dark and then something jumped out at me."

"What was it?"

"I don't know it...it looked like, seriously now, it looked like an alien. But that's not the point, it -" The assembly broke out in argument regarding aliens briefly as Yoro reined their attentions back to him with shouts. "That's not it though, then I screamed, because there is this alien attacking me, and then it disappears and the Bulls go after the man again and tap him with a light stick. That's when I felt sick and, well I don't quite remember, but then I was looking at the man on the floor - he looked like an awful mess - and then i started running."

"Why'd you run? Yoro, you idiot, you could have seen what they did with him!"

"I think I know what they did with him. They took him away, of course. Kidnapping, remember!"

"He must have been doing something bad to have Bulls after him, and they were just taking him in. There's no such thing as Bulls kidnapping people. Besides he wasn't an alien or a bad guy if just two Bulls could take him. This one time I saw a fight outside the bar on level thirteen and a bunch of Bulls came out and just smashed a bunch of teeth..."

Yoro stood silent, present but not truly listening. The noise of the assembly was being drowned out by the throbbing in his head again, and he just wanted to sit. Moreover, he didn't mention the worst part of it all, the scanners and flashes. The Bull wanted something from Yoro; he had seen something not meant to be seen and got away. He wasn't safe anymore.

The assembly disbanded and scattered back to their respective holes in the Fringe, but Yoro was left with troublesome curiosity and the faint suspicion that someone was after him. Never before had he seen such a flash of light as with the armed Bull. It reminded him of bar scanners at stores, only with a blinding silvery-white light instead of the normal red.

He had no where to go, for in his mind he would be in as much trouble for going to his mother or aunty as he would the Militari. It would be impossible to scope out the scene on the towers with the blockade in place, and home didn't seem like a logical option.

Yoro combed through his memories, struggling to part fiction from reality. The hyper-paranoia of the moment had him thinking all sorts of crazy things: kidnappings, aliens, terrorists. It was impossible, all of it; these were things of stories, video games, nightmares. Yet, for all of this evidence of fiction, Yoro still was convinced at the reality of the dark vice that had closed around him last night, and but hours ago. The stark validity of the image that escaped the barred wall and struck him down had been, in every sensation, too vivid and too real to be surreal. Yoro was struck dumbfounded.

Alas, the man, the Bulls had been after that man. The child's mind raced around the idea, any conclusion that seemed to fit. Perhaps that had been an alien in disguise? Had it used psychic powers on them all, changed their minds and made them see things, or were they real, entities of another place and time? Had that been the terrorist that attacked the towers? Enough, enough Yoro concluded, enough of the nonsense and assumptions. He would find a way into the quarantine zone and see for himself what was going on. Who knew the Fringe better than the rats or himself anyhow?

Yoro's youthful agility propelled him through the thickened crowd. Slipping here and there, he was quick to crouch at the glimpse of the iconic red and black of the Bulls along the way. He was working his way across the Fringe to the maintenance access routes and plant exhaust pipes. Lousy security and perpetual inactivity made these passage ways reliable and safe for the rats. A subtle sidestep into the shadowed passage was all it took to escape the everyday life of the Fringe and enter the dark realms of the Fringe, if those of upper Zenith could imagine something even worse than the Fringe at large.

It had only been an interstellar minute before Yoro heard noise, which was very strange. The only sounds that resonated within these tunnels were the squeals of rats that sung songs which were echoed back. The clatter of metal and the rubbing of a uniform was loud enough to be made out under a hushed tone. It was a Militari patrol coming around the curved passage. Yoro panicked before finding a gap in the tunnel segments to climb into. The Fringe had always been makeshift to its core. Yoro stopped in hiding to wait for the patrol to pass, but more importantly to hear what they were so cautiously discussing.

As soon as Yoro could make out the words over the moving fluids and gases contained all around them, he froze, nearly holding his breath in total concentration.

"There have been no sights on target yet, but we're picking up a bunch of residual readings. Bravo and Delta near us are picking up just much, or little, evidence of him being here. This guy's not screwing around though; either he's been busy long before we noticed or knows damn well how to leave a convincing false trail."

"He's definitely dangerous, I can't deny that, but I can't believe it."

"What?"

"One man, taking out an entire squad like that? I remember weapons demonstration pretty well, and I never saw anything remotely close to that level of damage. There were still molten puddles when we arrived on scene, remember?"

"I remember, which is why I just want to finish up here and get the hell out. I'm supposed to be going on a date with Cera before the week's over. It seems an unlikely occurrence if we're kept on until this guy's caught."

"You are also was uptight! 'Unlikely occurrence', having a terrorist on the home world is what's unlikely. I think she'll forgive you for being a hero and catching the bad guy. Seriously though, do these guys shoot lasers from their eyes or something?"

"Fuck off, and no, you asshole, reports say it's something borderline supernatural; mutants and such. There weren't many disclosed details, obviously. From what I gather, it's pretty much psychokinesis, just in ways we've never imagined. I'm surprised we were told that much. Idea is we don't fuck around on this one; this isn't some mad man with a big gun or charges. If you have a clean shot, take it, and don't fuck around."

"Fucker won't know what's coming."

"You better hope he doesn't. Those towers weren't cheap crap like the rest of this dump, I'm talking top grade steel alloys - can't remember the name. You need diamonds to cut that shit."

"But there were heat cuts all over..."

"Which is why you better hope you see him first. We're stuck if he's on top of us; not a bullet will touch him. Satellites picked up impossible temperature readings. Here, open the link I sent."

"This patrol is a suicide mission..."

"If I guess right, the idea they'll block him off wherever a unit goes dark, and from there take him out."

"We're bait?"

"You sound surprised."

"You don't?"

The sounds began to recede into the distant muffles. Yoro couldn't understand all of what was said other than how dangerous this man was. The bar lingo was familiar, and to him at least signaled the urgency of the situation. Yoro shifted as if to move out and onward, but heard the redoubling approach of the Bull patrol. They were moving with very deliberate haste, marching toward him.

A laser showed somewhere near Yoro's position. A lighter muffle out of a communications mask reached his young ears, "Over there, bio sig." Yoro began to panic in the pipe gap, trapped between the wall and Bulls on the run. They had him in their sights, he was wanted. They'd kill him if he was found, for what he had seen and now what he had heard. Yoro looked down, and in the faint light found a very thin semicircle cut in the grate. There was a shaft running under the tunnels, probably for more maintenance, but it was made for drones, not little rats. Yoro slipped his legs through and started to squeeze all he could until he popped through and slid into the shaft, no more than two feet high, thick with pipes, wires, and sharp jutting structures.

"We have movement...Heat trail's organic."

The shaft was plate above Yoro, which ran along the center of the platforms all along the tunnels, with frames and grates on the sides bringing some human-friendly structure to the area. The grate by the nook he stowed himself away in was on an angle, and could give anyone a clear view into the depths of the walkway's underside. The Bull just needed to sneak back to where Yoro had been hiding and peek down. One bullet would end it all. Yoro's eyes fixated on the pulsing glow of the target laser as it passed over the grate, that evil mechanical eye beaming. Yoro held his breath and closed his eyes in fear. Particles fell out from the walkway onto Yoro's person as the Bulls trotted overhead. He could feel the vibration and weight of their footsteps above him, now standing over his legs and head.

Yoro moved to slip further back to the shaft, but was alerted by a quick snapping of a weapon as he did.

"Movement... Cover, and go."

Yoro felt the steps shift rapidly over him, yet with stealthily gentle steps. The laser traced across the grate to the back wall where he had hid himself in the first passing on the inside of the curve. A flashlight beam lit up and illuminated the gap. Something was leaking down into the shaft and lower levels from a pipe in some upper level. There was a skitter across the shaft that alerted both Yoro and the Bulls. The lead snapped into position inside the gap, his gun poised toward the shaft, and fired a swift shot. Yoro felt the splatter of blood on his face before his eyes peeked open and saw the scatter remnants of a rat that had been silently blown apart. The corpse was smoldering, and began to fill the tunnel with a stench of singed fur and muscle tissue.

"This is Echo. Negative on target, just a rodent... Roger, will proceed to rendezvous for sector lock down. Let's move."

The thunderous march above Yoro faded as the Bulls ran off. Yoro hesitantly slide back around towards the shaft entrance, trying to avoid looking at the smokey pile. The odor filled his nose and began to make him sick as he grabbed onto the external grate and began to pull and shove his way out. Rust, blood, oil, and dust covered his body and clothing as he started back down the tunnel towards the towers. A deafening slam crippled Yoro. He fell to the floor screaming, grabbing at his ears, as the whole tunnel vibrated. Yoro felt a hot breeze in the tunnel. He gathered himself and started to sprint madly for the end of the tunnel.

Yoro had assumed he had made his way into an exhaust pipe for the Fringe. Blazing heat, be it nuclear steam or flow to a heat sink, was pushing through the tunnel one way or another. Yoro only knew that the echoing clamp that had brought him to his knees meant the network was being locked down. Maybe they had caught the terrorist, but that wasn't important. Being caught in the tunnels meant death. Besides the Militari catching him, the tunnels were regularly quarantined and cauterized given the adverse build up of moisture and heat from a shoddy system installed years before Yoro existed. He risked immolation by staying still as well.

Yoro's mother had reminded him of this constantly because of the one time, recently that is, that a child didn't heed the warnings posed. These maintenance purges were always scheduled several weeks ahead and well announced; all of the tunnel life crept out to the surface making more opportunity for the Militari to enforce law if ever they did. Occasionally, the ash remains might be found in the tunnels burned clean - the corpse usually belonging to a suicide or someone already dead, judged from the pose. The flash heat vaporized people in position, leaving the body exactly as it was at the moment of death. In the event of the boy, he was found at the end of a tunnel by an exit door, hands pounding and prying at the metal gate in vain. The staff had spied him while coming through to check before opening the next section back into the public. He died at the last gate; he almost made it out. Yoro was terrified senseless at the thought of being the same boy.

He was brought to stumble as he ran, closing sequences further away were ongoing. The rapid closings seemed to be damaging the network worse than usual. The entire network shook, and a shift in pressure and torque popped pipes and cracked beams. Yoro heard the collapsing segments and a vicious whistling of steam. There was something ahead, the ringing blare of caution signals, whirling lights, and some movement. Yoro kept running straight toward the sound of alter sirens before realizing there was a small group of people running toward him. Yoro didn't know what to do, and kept running until a door closed right in front oh him, not more than ten feet away.

Yoro fell back and reached for his head and ears. Blood was leaking out from the sides of his head, and all he heard was a static whining from shell shock, then faintly the sirens. He was looking forward, and made out in the thick oily glass another form on the other side of the door pounding to escape. The sirens ceased, but there was still a flash of lights, changing from yellow to red, and a pre-recorded message playing that Yoro couldn't make out. Yoro watched dumbly at the silhouette on the other side, the increasing fury of image's limbs against the glass, a smearing of blood as flesh melted away. There was no fire, only the intense heat - which even Yoro felt faintly on the other side of the door, almost warm like a fire place, strangely comfortable - and withering figures on the other side.  There was a flash, perhaps, though Yoro didn't fully notice, and the bodies stopped moving. He only saw blackness now, in the smear, and the ashen corpse on the other side. Like Medusa, in a flash of light the poor souls caught in the crossfire were turned dead in stone.

Trauma settled on Yoro, the realization that there was no longer a way out, a clear vision of his fate flashed before his eyes. He sat there in silence, body quivering, a paralysis of fear setting in. Cut off from everything, he could not even comprehend the outside world; he was unable to address the possibility of having gone home, or to his mother, why it was happening at all. There was only the hopelessness, despair, an absolute unavoidable truth upon which this moment existed. Yoro realized, in that moment, the probable axiom of existence, his existence, that once he was obliterated by the flame, his image and identity stripped from him, and all that remained was cleaned from this cell, he would cease to exist; when his mother, auntie, even his infant sister, or teachers, friends, and those he would pass by, nodding in common greeting, even the man in the alley and the Bulls who stared him down, when they all were gone - like the individual across from him, now but a husk of the life that once was - dead, destroyed, removed without a trace, with them all memory of him, Yoro, would die; he would be no more, there would be nothing and no one to speak of him, and in that nothingness nothing would think, feel, or note anything of him, the world would keep on spinning, and the fires would flood this cell until the end of time or they collapsed, whichever were to come first; all that lead up to Yoro, existed with Yoro, and followed Yoro in relation, would wither from time and space, and he never would be, for it was only upon these relations, these grounded marks of presence int he lives of others, or in the home, classroom, or streets, that he made himself known, it was only in this place and time that he truly existed, and beyond that never would beyond, perhaps, a miscellaneous record of birth that too would inevitably cease to exist, and for as much as his perception of life told him he existed, there would be no proof of him having ever existed in truth, making existence only temporary and insignificant.

The cell he was locked in lit up in amber as the lights began to turn in alert. Despite knowing what came next, his body jolted when the piercing sirens rang clear and echoed throughout. The reverberations went to his head and stomach. Yoro felt the setting in of new sensations, the familiar sickness that had haunted him more than ever over the past three days. A reflexive perception of his surrounding and sound alerted the dripping of blood from his nose. His red eyes looked down absently and he wiped his nose into his filthy shirt. The cell began to blur, a haze was settling in, and with it came a familiar shadow that darkened Yoro's world. Yoro sat in his blankness before he lazily turned toward a strange sense of sound and heat, imperfectly perceived through the danger signals.

Down the way from whence he came there appeared a light in the darkness. The molten halo reached around a turn he had not seen and coaxed him to come closer. He did. Yoro's fragile frame, exhausted, heavy, was dragged forward by some force, will, instinct, perhaps both, some determination to live, to exist. He struggled around the corner, stumbling along the way, even crawling when he could no longer muster the strength. Yoro could go no further when he was within grasp of the halo. He had come so close, just another boy who almost made it. Sound began to deteriorate to nothingness, and the shadows of hands began to reach for him in all directions as the gate before him opened.

There was a shake, the hole in the gate falling clean out from the whole. The orange rings transformed and cracked in an instant, shards breaking off and falling on the plated floor and through the grates on both the chamber's seal and the cut-out. Yoro's sight faded as he saw the figure of a strangely familiar man step through the portal before his episode peaked and darkness consumed him.

The man looked on briefly with strange pity and self-loathing at the choice he felt obligated to make. His steps forward were hesitant before he caught Yoro's full image and observed his symptoms. He lifted Yoro up and went out the way he came. The sirens ceased, and the lights began to burn red. "Attention, purge commencing. Please vacate the area... Attention, purge commencing. Please vacate the area..." The flames started in spouts, but were extinguished as a solid mass began to form throughout the cell, the man watching with intense concentration. The lights stopped moving, and their glows died, and everything in the cell was still save for the strange pair who left without hesitation or resistance.