Eleven seconds.

That's how long Turana ran before she realized she was going the wrong way.

By the time the internal underground navigational system she had ingrained into her brain kicked in, she couldn't tell where she was, or how far from the center she was.

She jogged forward to check for the tunnel markings so she could start to find her way back, only to come face-to-face with an M48.

No, not an M48.

It certainly looked like it, but Vivian's gun had modifications beyond what this one had. Under normal circumstances, Turana would have charged the holder, but when she saw who they were, she stopped.

"I thought you were on our side?" She asked.

"I'm on Vivian's side," Commander Adrian replied. "The farther you two are from her, the better off she is."

Turana snuck a glance above at the wall.

C3

Adrian noticed.
"Your friends will be fine, the ones that are important to us at least."

"Lewis won't leave here without me," Turana said, simultaneously taking a step forward.

"One more step and it's a bullet to the leg," Adrian warned. "And who says you aren't already with Lewis?"

The statement clicked together in Turana's mind.

"He won't fall for it," she told Adrian. "He's smarter than that."

"Maybe." Adrian shrugged. "Maybe not. But she will stay long enough to get what we want. By the time he realizes who he's with isn't legitimate, it will all be over."

"And what if he takes her to Vivian?"

"Vivian is halfway across Vanguard right now. I don't think he will last that long. The Colonel isn't a very patient woman."

"Then you should know, neither am I."

Turana moved, but Adrian's finger on the trigger was quick too, and the bullet grazed her right thigh. Turana grit her teeth and attacked, landing an elbow to Adrian's jaw and then kicking the gun out of his hands. She raised her knee to get him in the gut which he easily sidestepped, instantly grabbing a hold of her leg and slamming her into the wall. He pressed a thumb firmly into the bullet wound in her thigh and she screamed, unable to ignore that much pain.

"I'm a Commander in the Vanguard Army," Adrian growled at her. "You're just an expendable duplicate."

Turana struggled against his weight, which was almost twice hers. Her knee came up again, this time a little lower. With an angry grunt, Adrian punched the side of Turana's head hard, and then backed away, hands over his crotch.

Turana's vision was blurry around the edges after that punch, which had bumped her head onto the concrete wall. Her fingers reflexively went to the back of her head and returned slick with blood.

Adrian was still groaning in pain by the wall, and he didn't see Turana coming. Or at least that's what she thought.

He went for her thigh again. Although Turana saw it, she couldn't move her leg back in time and his boot connected, dropping her onto the ground. Turana could now taste blood in her mouth, and the pain in her leg was dizzyingly high. She struggled to get to her feet, but another kick from Adrian, this time to her head put her down.

Her muscles refused to cooperate when she tried to stand up, and she fell back down. Adrian hobbled over to where she was and pointed an accusing finger at her.

"You should know better. I'm stronger, and I'm faster. Stay down."

"You forgot one thing, Commander," Turana whispered, and Adrian instinctively leaned closer.

"We are smarter."

Turana grabbed the wicked-looking blade strapped to his chest and sliced it across his face with the last bit of energy she had. Immediately she regretted not having cut lower. She had certainly aimed for his jugular. The issue was, he was a possible ally. Her hand had either reflexively diverted its direction at the last moment, or she had simply been too tired to strike right.

Adrian didn't get up though, but his screams rang through the tunnel. Turana had expected him to react a lot differently. She raised the knife and noticed the serrated edge glowed green ever so slightly.

"Nanotechnology, Commander. You shouldn't be carrying a weapon like this if you're on Vivian's side." Turana dragged herself to the wall so she could use it to get up.

"I'm going to kill you," Adrian's muffled reply came.

He still had his hands over his face and his back was turned to her. She hadn't seen the side effects of nanobots on human skin, but she knew how bad they were. There was no way he would come after her, not with that kind of injury.

Turana noticed the gun Adrian had come with on the ground, and she picked it up. The knife was safely tucked away in her boot.

Another pained cry resonated from Adrian. Turana very much wanted to turn around and pull the trigger to put him out of his misery, but the sound of his agony brought a dark satisfaction to her inner self. It gave her strength she never knew she had.

She loved the pain.

***
To say Jose Alba's first two weeks in the worst prison in the western hemisphere were bad would have been an understatement.

They were very bad.

The prisoners at The Hades were the absolute worst there were. Since the death penalty wasn't a thing in Vanguard, those who committed crimes of a particular severity had to face the maximum penalty allowed by the law; life imprisonment, in The Hades.

Jose's connection to a level five fugitive had given him a one-way ticket here, and despite all he had heard about the place, it was much worse experiencing it firsthand. With the bruises from Colonel Turana's interrogation still fresh, Jose's arrival to Hades had been a hero's welcome. He bore the marks of defiance against the system, and the prisoners approved of it. That was until days later when his face cleared up and became more recognizable.

As Jose found out rather painfully, his father was responsible for putting many of the prisoners in here. Not directly, but any crime where Mainstream had been involved was blamed on him. Only that it was his son that had to take the blame.

Each prisoner had their own tiny cell for safety purposes. They were too unstable to lock up in such closed spaces, for even when they were out, a few deaths came up. Not that the guards cared.

By two weeks' time, Jose only came out of his cell to eat, and even that was a battle of its own. The irony of having the son of the richest man on the planet locked up with them never stopped amazing the other prisoners, and they constantly teased Jose about it.

His only reprieve was that Colonel Turana hadn't been able to make it for another 'interrogation session' after the first week. Jose hadn't heard anything from his mother since he had been arrested, and he consoled himself by thinking they had kept her from communicating with him, and not that she had left him to rot.

A thoughtful inmate had thrown him a battered-looking Rubik's cube that lacked a couple of squares. He was gone before Jose could say anything or even see who it had been, but it did help to pass the time. Sometimes hours passed with Jose entirely focused on the puzzle, and one day he missed dinner a few times because of it. That night had been one of the worse ones, which made Jose rethink his isolation strategy. Two weeks in and they weren't bothering him as much as before. He certainly could get away with an hour outside without any problems, and slip back unnoticed.

Someone was waiting the moment he stepped out of his cell.

"Took you long enough."

The voice came from a bearded man seated on a rickety stool by the opposite wall. In his hands, he tinkered with the missing cubes from the one Jose currently held behind his back. The man held out his hand to Jose, something which alerted Jose that perhaps this was the mysterious figure that had given him the puzzle in the first place.

"The secret is to see future positions and to remember past ones," the man said as he fixed the missing pieces into the cube, and then started matching the faces.

Jose watched in amazement as a couple of minutes later, the puzzle was solved. The stranger tossed the cube back to him, and Jose checked just to be sure.
"How did you do it so quickly?"

"My daughter is one smart kid," the man replied, sitting back. "She takes a peculiar interest in solving and unlocking things."

Jose remembered his manners and held out his hand.
"I'm Joseph."

"I know who you are Alba," said the man as he pointedly stared at Jose's outstretched hand, which was withdrawn then. "Better to keep to yourself in here if you want to stay alive."

"Oh."

"But I think we can keep an eye out for each other though. I'm Luke," he added. "Luke Grant."

*****
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