I woke up with a memory I'd never had before.

I replayed it in my head over and over as I threw my legs over the side of my bed.

I banged on Howalk's door. "I have something." I shouted.

Howalk opened the door, fully dressed and alert.

"The Victory Project is an organization that preformed brain alterations on humans." I said.

"I know."

"What?"

"I know that already." Howalk said, more loudly then the first time.

I opened my mouth to question him, reconsidering for a moment before saying; "How...how do you know?"

"I've been looking a lot deeper into it ever since intercepting those transmissions."

"But I have no memory from before the treatments."

"I'm sure you don't, they'd do their best to make sure of it." Howalk met my eyes with an intensity I'd never seen in them before. I shuddered at it.

"Well...what do you know?" I silently hoped that if he'd elaborate, the memories would become more clear to me.

"Constance was there, although she reacted a lot differently to whatever they did to you all."

"In what way?"

"She'll have to show you herself, you wouldn't understand if I just told you."

"I remember they fastened wires to our heads and...terrible shocks." I said, the image blurred in my mind but still there.

"Controlled brain trauma." Howalk responded, although I could tell he was simply locking away information as he spoke rather then talking to me.

"They gave us potent injections too...that part is vivid. Afterwards I was always nauseous and my muscles hurt. My thoughts never made sense until I'd slept off the dosage, but I could never remember the day before."

Howalk worked his jaw in deep thought. "We need to get you out of—"

His final word was cut off by the quiet rattling of the elevator door.

A tall young man, black-clad and with dark hair stepped into the hallway, enbelished and a holster around his waist, and another under his arm. He wore a mask that concealed his entire lower face, below his cheekbones. The emblem on his sleeve held a branch of four leaves intertwined with a serpent.

Howalk didn't wait a moment before yanking me behind him and retrieving a pistol from his own holster. He fired rapidly at the intruder.

The man dodged the bullets with little trouble before pulling a small object out of a compartment out of his belt and throwing it to the floor.

A smoke bomb. The room was engulfed almost instantly and I coughed.

The bomb fizzled loudly.

Howalk quickly reloaded his gun and pulled me to the opposite side of the hall towards Constance's bedroom door. He threw it open.

"Constance!"

I saw her grab a gun from under her bed before her room was also full of haze. Soon she was beside Howalk and I now stood in front of both of them.

The intruder was nearby. I couldn't see him clearly with the smoke gushing all through the air, but I could see his silhouette moving closer.

I didn't have a gun. No matter. He came closer still, and I could see him pulling his own gun and I held my palms towards the shots as they started.

They echoed against the metal and then fell to the floor. They were darts, not bullets.

I kicked towards him, but he grasped my ankle and deflected the momentum easily so I nearly fell to the floor. Regaining balance and still holding one palm to shield my face, I knocked the gun from his grasp with my free hand. Another attempt of a roundhouse kick landed solidly in his side and he doubled over.

I picked up the gun and aimed at his head, but the trigger clicked uselessly. The shaft was empty.

I kicked at his head and he stumbled onto his knees.

Howalk yanked my arm and the three of us ran towards the elevator.

The doors rattled open quickly with one push of the button.

"Thank God," Constance said as the doors began to close. She aimed her handgun but the space closed too quickly and she lost the chance to fire.

We could hear the black-clad intruder slamming his body against the elevators doors in an effort to break through. Conveniently, the elevator was equipped with lockable doors that were controlled on the inside. Howalk had clearly known this, locking them as soon as we'd all entered the confined steel mechanism.

He pressed the button leading to the lowest floor, and the elevator began to lower. The sound of our attacker's body slamming into the doors above us soon began to fade.

"Where are we going?" I asked as the doors opened out onto the lowest floor. Concreted walls and floor made up a wide open room. It appeared to be a parking area for the employees of this facility, because several vehicles sat vacant on the paved floor.

"Get in." Howalk said as he opened the door of one of the cars. I was surprised it wasn't locked, but why should it be when the vehicle was kept in such a solitary parking garage.

Constance got into the rear seat and I took the passenger one as Howalk had instructed.

"We don't have keys Desperado," Constance stated with slight panic and irritation in her voice.

"I don't need them." Howalk returned, lowering in his seat and fiddling with something beneath the steering wheel of the car. A few moments later, the engine came to life.

"You did not just hot-wire a car right in front of my eyes." Constance said in disbelief.

Howalk put the car in drive and quickly steered towards the exit, the wheels of the car screeching at the frantic movement.

I was jostled against the door, but I quickly fastened my seatbelt and held tightly to the dash to steady myself.

The car had a remote clipped to the visor above the driver's seat. Howalk pressed the button just as we neared the doors, and was forced to halt the car for a second or two while they raised for us.