Chapter 24.

"I am not afraid of the dark," I snapped.

"Then why the hell do you keep tripping into me," Kira hissed.

"Maybe it's because there's no light what so ever? Did that cross your mind?"

"Well, I can see perfectly fine," she replied, zipping up her backpack.

"Because you have a bionic eye." I zipped up mine and hefted it onto my back. It wasn't filled with much, a few cold patches, a gun and some ammo. Not like I was going to use the gun, I had a hunting knife on my thigh that worked better with the Unit. For some reason the Unit didn't seem to respond well to guns. It always gave me wrong readings, wrong accuracy percentages and all that. So a ten inch hunting knife was the better option. That and it looked cooler.

We were below the third outermost bridge that connected the Gray and the Gatekeeper Island. The stars were covered by a thick sheet of clouds, the glow of the city behind us hidden by a high cement ridge. No one lived down here apart from the huddles of homeless people brewing Lord knows what and huddled around rusted heating bots.

We were going to swim across the river and onto the island. The water was choppy, inky black and filled with all sorts of trash. It was more like a flow of rubbish than actual water. It was several feet below us, so we'd be diving in the dark with only face masks.

My life's been great the last couple months as you can see.

Kira strapped on the nose and mouth mask, the matte black metal had pipes attached to it, leading into small oxygen canisters strapped to her lower back. She began tying back her hair, a glimmer of moonlight catching her polar opposite eyes. Her blue sparkled, the golden-black gleamed. Her skin glowing like the moon itself.

"What?" she growled.

I shrugged and looked away, strapping on my own mask.

We took a step onto the edge of the cement block, one more step separating us from the icy cold flow of diseases and trash.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because we're literally going to be swimming through the entire cities trash."

She shrugged. "I'll just shower for a day or two when we get back." She checked the straps covering her guns for the fifth time in ten minutes. "And besides, we're going to swim a few feet below all the trash."

"So we can get ripped apart by all the gators," I muttered.

She shot me a glare, I shot her an innocent smile.

She tapped her earpiece and I did the same. We weren't going to be able to talk (obviously) so we'd be talking through pieces that Mei specially made for us. Kira took a step forward and plunged into the river, I took an unnecessary deep breath and followed her in.

The water wrapped around me like nails. The cold smashing out the breath I was still holding. I shook my head and did my best to brush off the snapping cold. I dug through the trash, the water pressure drastically increasing, and the layer of trash drastically decreasing. It felt like climbing a mountain but backwards, forcing myself through gaps so small I had to stuff my backpack through first and then follow. I fought against the twisting currents, constantly getting disorientated. But down was the only direction I had to go, but that's when the real danger would start.

"Shit!" Kira's voice burst through my ear.

"What's wrong?" I bark. I couldn't see her through the trash and the thick water. Down, just keep swimming down until clear water.

"Something's…caught onto…my freakin' pipe," she said in short bursts.

"Where the hell are you?" I spun round and scanned the trash.

"Hell would I know?" The sound of grunting and short breaths snapping through my earpiece.

I switched on the Unit, the water became colder, the darkness a little lighter. I could see her blonde hair through the dark a few feet away from me and a few more feet below me. I switched it off and forced myself through the avalanche of human rubbish. I grabbed her forearm, she spun round and nearly slammed a fist into my face. Which she'd been doing a lot in training recently.

She pointed towards her mask, one of the pipes connecting her to the oxygen containers was missing. A hand was pressed against the mask, but it would be useless, water would keep seeping into her mouth. And we didn't pack anything to seal it with, we did actually, but it was in our backpacks and opening them underwater with no light wouldn't be too smart.

"We'll just have to share," I said.

She vigorously shook her head.

I switched on the Unit and asked it how far we were from the other bank. Just five hundred meters left, we can share till then. Unless we come across the animals that live in the river. If we did, then it would have been a pretty short run.

I switched it off and began unstrapping my mask. I took in a large breath and forced the mask onto her face, she didn't want it at first but eventually relented. She sucked on it for a few seconds and then nodded, pointing down we continued through the trash.

We took turns with the mask, blowing air out before sucking on the oh-so sweet air. I'll never take it for granted ever again. We broke through the trash and began our rush towards the other bank. We were blind in the dark against whatever lurked down here, and between sharing a mask and our weapons a little out of reach – this wasn't the time for sightseeing.

Our outstretched palms eventually hit a solid. We took one more deep breath from the mask each and got out our climbing hooks strapped onto our packs. We slammed them into the concrete wall and pulled ourselves up and out of the water. We broke out into the warm air, it should have been warm, but it felt like the wind that would snap you up with frost if you waited around too long. We groaned and swore our way up the wall, all of it a low whisper. The edge of the wall came into view and we pulled ourselves over.

I rolled out onto my back and hacked out water I had been accidentally swallowing, Kira did the same.

"Getting back isn't going to be fun," I commented, the musty taste of the water still in my mouth.

"First smart thing you've said in a while," she muttered.

I ignored the jab and rolled onto my knees. I detached my mask's pipes and stuffed them into my backpack. We shed our swimming gear and stuffed it into a small hole at the base of a tree. A forest stretched in front of us, after that would be the city itself. It was silent, the shroud of it numbing the atmosphere around us.

Kira led the way into the forest, her new black and custom guns in her hands. I didn't have the knives in mine, no point trying to stab something you wouldn't even be able to see. We tripped over branches and roots, our palms scarping against rocks and the occasional fallen tree. We weren't going to go into the city, just to the edge of the bridge where people and not cars would enter the Gatekeeper territory. We'd be able to get a vantage point to tell if he was here or not. A deep part of me wanted to end him as soon as I saw him. Constantly preaching about Tick and he was the one who ended up killing him. But it's about the bigger picture, killing him right now would spark off a war between the Rogues and the Gatekeepers.

We aren't ready. Yet.

The sharp snap of a cocking gun made us pause. Kira's eye the only dim light breaking through the blanket of darkness. I felt the cold barrel press against my back, my heart slowly climbing up my throat, the gun pressed.

"Runt?" Kira hissed.

I turned around slowly, putting distance between me and the barrel. Her red hair was longer than last time, she had also grown up - her face a little fuller, taller and well-built. But she had the same teddy bear eyes and pressed smile, her lips still knitted together by that thin wire.

She practically exploded. Her hands wrapping around me and squeezing, her face digging into my chest. I wrapped mine around her, the short and sharp bursts from her nose indicating the obvious. A small wet patch of tears was left on my chest as she drew back.

In Kira's dim glow I could see Runt's hands moving.

Is Tick… her hands falling as I nodded.

"She asked about Tick?" Kira muttered.

"Yeah."

I squeezed Runt's shoulder's, making her look into my eyes. So mush raged behind those teddy bear eyes, so much that she couldn't say and so much that she had experienced. Never able to show her true feeling properly, never really able to communicate. I didn't even know where she grew up or what happened to her parents during the war. She always just blocked all those questions off or got angry at me, so I decided to let it be. But one day the cap's going to come off, and I'm not planning on being the pour soul that's facing her.

"But it's alright. Because we're going to take out the people who did that to him, right?"

She nodded. Then again. Her eyebrows set, a sharpness replacing the sadness plastered on her face. For Tick, she signed.

For Tick, I signed back.

Kira crouched down. "How have you been surviving out here?"

Runt smiled and turned her back to us. She gestured us forward, like a child showing her parents something important. We struggled to keep up with her, she adapted easily, that was one thing I'd learnt about her over the years. She never complained, she was alright with wherever and whenever. But it was difficult to follow someone so agile with the knowledge of a place I'd never been. She constantly had to stop and come back for us once we lost sight of her.

We broke out into a small clearing. Small because I could only see what the glow of Kira's eye could make out. A small wooden shack had been hastily erected near the edge of the clearing, if it was under any other circumstances we would have never seen it. Hell, during the day it probably melted right into the forest.

"Stop walking if you know what's good for you," a voice growled, low and guttural like an animal. "Hands up. You with the Beretta's, put them on the ground and kick them away."

Kira was reluctant. I had to force her hands down, but she wouldn't kick them away. She treated the guns better than she did me.

The owner of the voice stepped out from behind the shack, a jagged hunting knife gripped into his strong fists. He was a dirty blonde, his eyes were silver and as stark as the flickering glimmer of moonlight. He paused when he saw me, his eyes seemed to examine every part of me like I was a new species of human. Am I technically one because of the Unit? A question for another time.

He put away the hunting knife and stepped towards me. His hands ran through my hair and pressed my cheeks. He shook his head and chuckled, a smile forming on his face. Three scar lines running across his cheek wrinkling in the process.

"You know this guy?" Kira asked, her voice near a growl.

"Not sure," I replied.

He took a step back by my response, the smile faltering slightly. Then disappearing all together. "Sorry. You…anyways. Runt, who are these people? I told you not to bring people here."

She signed, they're my friends from Hera. I still don't know what they are doing here.

"What the hell are you two doing out here?" he asked.

"What the hell are you doing out here," Kira shot back.

He shrugged, his strong shoulder bouncing. "I was hunting."

"Hunting?" I asked.

He nodded. "A person. Joseph Fallow, heard of him? I know I sound crazy because he's meant to be dead. But I assure you, he isn't."

Kira and I looked at each other.

"What?" he growled, his hand hovering over his hunting knife. He had a black ring on each middle fingers, they pulsed blue whenever his palms got close to the knives. "Are you working for him? Are you actually with Hera?"

I took a step back. "We are, I promise. Not working for him, for Hera." I jerked my head towards the scowling blonde. "But she was the one who killed him."

He looked at Kira, a smirk forming on her face. "You're a bounty hunter, aren't you?" she asked.

A reluctant nod. "Guessing you are too?"

"You already have your answer," she said. "Shot him a month or so ago. Didn't pick up the black market bounty, though."

"Why not?"

She looked at me. "Reasons."

He ran a hand through his hair, an artery popping on his strong neck. He shook his head and sighed. He went on a silent tangent of swear words, a lot of them in different languages. He looked at me again, his tirade cutting off. His shoulders slumped and the smile appeared on his face again. "Sorry about that. Spent a long time trying to look for him."

"You and me both," I muttered.

He sat down on a small log and said, "So what did Hera send you two out here for?"

"There's someone we're looking for," I said. I looked at Kira and she shook her head, a firm no practically bursting out of her thin mouth. "Can you help us?"

She groaned.

He nodded and seemed to weigh up the options. "Coming into the island?"

I nodded.

"I know a place." He stood up and disappeared into the cabin, he came back with a large black rifle. Kira whistled and he grinned. "We can see him from there, just follow me and don't make any noise. The Guard have been erratic recently, so we might come across a few."

We could definitely see him from here. We were on top of an abandoned warehouse at the edge of the island, with a view of everything from the Gray and the Gatekeeper city it was definitely stunning. And intimidating – rusted metal beams held us up on the roof, metal sheets practically disintegrating on touch. We were all lined up, Kira and the bounty hunter with sniper rifles cradled in crooks on the roof. He needed a sight, Kira had her eye.

They were scanning the distant entrance to the main Gatekeeper building. A large cement block filled with glass and steel, it towered above every other building. The harsh whites of the entire city blending together to create a sort of twisted desert of unity. The only contrast of color coming from the popping glow of green in the center of the city, a large tree rivalled the main building. Even the citizens wore white, all of them moving with a purpose – none of them loitered for more than a second or two.

"Like chess pieces," I muttered.

"Do you play?" the bounty hunter asked.

I shook my head.

"You should, it's a pretty fun game."

"Found him," Kira muttered, she pointed towards a small shop selling electronics.

"The Japanese kid? With the red arm?" the bounty hunter asked, clicking off his safety.

I clicked it back on for him. "Our mission wasn't to take him out. Just to confirm something."

"A split in the ranks," he said, nodding whilst he kept staring through the eye piece.

"Want to do the honors?" Kira asked.

"Don't mind if I do." I climbed down onto a lower ledge and changed the frequency of the ear piece. "Hey, Hera, we've found him."

**

HERA.

I nodded and connected a secure line to the major.

"Fifty hostiles nearing the entrance of the warehouses," he reported.

"Snipers?"

"Negative," he said. "Field soldiers only. Armed with standard Guard weaponry. Permission to execute?"

I paused. I reached towards the chess board and put the white bishop to the side. "Bring them to the Lord."

Explosions rang through the secure line, the distant thunder claps of gunfire echoing through the Gray.