Annie and Emme took the main roads to the harbor, walking rather than running so as not to attract attention. To any onlookers, they were simply two witches out for a midnight stroll. Though they passed a few Seventen on the graveyard shift, lurching around on chroven or smoking cigarettes against walls, no one stopped them.

After what seemed like an eternity of nerve-wracking silence, they reached the city gates. The moon was high in the sky, and there was too much light for comfort.

Emme froze, looking at the guards around the entryway to the city.

"They could be watching the gates," she whispered, nervously. "They probably are. How do we get through to the harbor without anyone noticing?" She bit her lip, feeling idiotic for not having thought of this complication.

Annie scratched her head. "That's...that's a good question." Crossing her arms across her chest and leaning back on one leg, she furrowed her brow in thought. "Well...we could try to sneak out, but that'd most likely get us caught. Doubtful any of the Seventen'd be willin' t'help, not lest we tell 'em we're bein' followed by the resistance." She snapped her finger. "Hey, that might be it! They're still out on who killed that one guard, so far as I know, and I bet they'd be all over findin the person behind it. What if we, y'know, accidently let it slip that the folks after us are the ones behind that pore guard's horrible murder?"

Annie put her hands on her hips. "Then again, that'd prolly mark us heavier than what we're marked now, maybe even with a price tag." She turned to Emme. "Is it worth that risk to ye, to get outta the city? We could be runnin fer a while."

Emme's mouth scrunched up at Annie's suggestion.

"I couldn't do that," she admitted honestly. "Willy...he was such a believer, you know? I ent got nothin' against the lot of them, even if they are out for me...they're a bit moony, but they've got Vienda in mind, you know, you 'n' me, common folk..." She twisted the hem of her scarf around in her hands, worried. "Besides, they'd just make us bait..."

Her eyes scanned the street leading up to the gateway. It was so quiet out at night. She heard nothing but the whistle of the wind through the alleyways, and a quiet, far-off rumbling...

"That's it!" she exclaimed suddenly. "There is another way out of the city. Come with me!"

She grabbed Annie's hand and pulled her into the nearby alley.

Annie let out a small yelp as Emme grabbed her hand, yanking her off her feet for but a moment. "I'd tell ye to lead on, 'ceptin ye're already on top o' that. Where we headin anyways?"

Well girl, she thought, you always did say you wanted a life of adventure. I sure hope you know what you're gettin yerself into.

Emme didn't answer, fearing that she would be overheard, but dragged Annie through several winding alleyways. She knew this part of the city by heart, though it had been so many years since she had come here; she recalled many lazy mids spent wandering about, heading down to the river to skip stones...

"Aha!" she said, spying a shortcut. The darkness was complete in this part of the city, and she felt it pressing in on her like watchful eyes. She dove around a corner; the rumbling grew louder, and was joined by a quiet trickling noise.

They were soon in a part of the city where the cobblestones had been taken over by moss and grass, cracked and abandoned; it was a clearing, with no houses, and she felt quite exposed. The city wall was only a few yards away.

She pulled Annie closer to her, and pointed.

"The aqueduct!" she whispered, gesturing to a round opening in the wall. Annie could see the underground trenches that carried the city's water ended here, and the water was being piped back through the tunnel into the Arova. The air was filled with a gushing, gurgling sound.

Emme's face fell a little as she looked at it. The ancient stone tunnel had seemed cavernous when she was a child, but it looked dishearteningly small now... "We might have to crawl," she said, apologetically.

"Swim's more like it. Doggonit, and I took a bath this week, too!" Annie sighed, hands on her hips. She shrugged, looking at Emme. "But it's as good a way out as any. And hey, if we get thirsty, alls we gotta do is dip our heads a bit," she added with a smirk.

The reporter bent down, removing her pack and undoing her shoes. "At least I could keep these guys dry. Gods know they take long enough to dry."

He was running. Fast and hard. His breath was ragged and his chest ached. But he had to catch up to her. If he went back empty handed...the thought spurred new life into his legs. The young man was new, so new, and Serro had entrusted him to follow Emmie as she spoke to the reporter. But whilst he watched her enter the reporters office, he hadn't seen her leave. He ran around the place and couldn't see anyone. In a flurry of swearing and legs, he'd started running to the gates of the city. If she was leaving, she would have to get out somewhere.

In a sudden burst he stood at the gates. Slowing to stop and catch his breath, he looked around at the quiet wagons and waited.

And waited.

It was obvious this was not going to be the way they she left the city. Frowning, the young man tapped his chin thoughtfully. How else would you leave the city. A slow memory came to mind and he grimaced. Surely she wouldn't go there. But of course, he knew, she would. Picking up his feet, he began to run to the aqueduct opening, wondering how far ahead of him she would be.

Emme approached the aqueduct cautiously, sticking her hand forward to steady herself as she stepped over the trench. The stone was slimy to the touch from centuries of moss and slime. "Echh," she said, making a face. But now was not the time to be picky. She looked back at Annie.

"Guess I'll go first," she said uncertainly. "See if it's safe..."

She screwed up her courage and knelt down beside the pipe. Crawling in on her hands and knees, she felt the shock of cold water as it drenched her clothes, but there was enough space to crawl in and remain above the water.

"It's okay," she called back to Annie. "Follow me!"

Annie carefully followed suit, stepping down onto the slimy rocks. She could feel the sludge squelching up between her toes, and pulled a wry face. "Ewewewew! Just...that's...ew!" Annie bent low, crawling into the pipe after Emme, letting out a gasp as the deep chill soaked through to her skin. "I h-hope my limbs g-go numb s-soon! This water is f-f-freezing!"

The two wicks contined on their way, careful not to slip on the base of the pipe or let the water current knock them off ballance. Annie could feel bits of watermoss under her hands as she crawled. "Whenever we get back, I'mma make a note to start boilin' any and all water I drink what's been comin outta these pipes. I'm s'prised we ain't seen no fish yet. This place feels like a miniature aquarium."

The further they got into the aqueduct, the less light they could see until the entrance to the tunnel behind them was almost the size of a button. "How far we got to go on this thing, anyhows?"

"Only a bit farther," came Emme's muffled voice from up ahead. She too was shivering, feeling miserable to be in wet, soggy clothes, but the thought of freedom was enough to keep her pressing on. Her hands kept slipping on the smooth stones beneath, and more than once she felt like she was about to fall face-first into the filthy water.

Up ahead, she saw a hint of moonlight around a bend in the pipe, and willed herself to keep going.

((better hurry up, aussie, hehe))

((i was just giving you two a little head start. ))

The young man reached the aqueduct and looked around. The ground was unsettled and covered in footprints. Two sets. So, the reporter must be with Emme. Crouching, he knelt in the slimy, mossy opening and looked into it. Sure enough he could see figures about half way down. Briskly and as quietly as he could manage, the resistance cadet crawled down the tunnel, trying to ignore the freezing cold. As he moved, he could sense he was getting closer.

And closer.

It was slippery going, but he was getting close enough to hear their voices.



He was only a few yards from the reporter, so so close...

Annie and Emme kept crawling, making their way carefully towards the other end of the pipe, which was slowly but surely getting closer. Annie could see a hint of moonlight ahead, when Emme wasn't in the way, and she smiled. "We're almot outta this thing! 'Bout time, too, I can't feel my fingers no more."

Something didn't feel right though. A prickling at the back of her neck. I've got a bad feeling about this. She continued to crawl, not making any sudden movements as not to spook Emme, but slowly and carefully turned her head to look behind her. She should have seen the moonlight coming from the far end of the pipe they'd just crawled through, but instead saw nothing. Just darkness. She closed her eyes and listened. The pipe was long and sounds echoed freely, but even that wouldn't prevent physics and sound dynamics from working the way they should. Annie could hear the sloshing noises of someone or something coming from behind her. Gods, no!

Annie picked up her pace just enough to get as close to Emme as possible. "Don't make a sound, don't look behind ye, no sudden movements," she whispered. "Just keep going forward, only faster. I...I think we're bein' followed."

With a gasp and a splash, Emme came to the end of the tunnel and found herself sliding forward uncontrollably down a muddy incline. The moonlight was scarce, and there was a confused ten seconds' worth of scrambling as she plummeted down the hill with the city runoff.

She came to a stop near the riverbed, and slowly lifted her head out of the mud, blinking her eyes. Far off in the distance along the shore, what seemed like an eternity away, she saw the twinkling lights of the harbor, and the dark outlines of steamships at port.

Coughing and wiping the mud from her face, she looked up to see Annie emerging from the end of the tunnel. She got to her feet.

Annie heard Emme's gasp but barely had time to register what it meant before following in her footsteps (or scrambled wake, as they case was). She came to rest at the bottom of the muddy hill with a thump, her bag landing on top of her with a whump, knocking the wind out of her for a split second. She shook her head and took a breath, then clambored to her feet and hoisted her pack. Forego the shoes, there's no time!

She grabbed Emme's hand and tugged at her arm. "We ain't got time to sit an' stare, we gotta get a move on! C'mon, Emme, run!"

He knew the reporter had found him out. With a growl he began to scurry faster, then all of a sudden he saw Emme drop out of sight, followed by Annie. Confused, he scrambled faster and then suddenly he was slipping downwards. He made a loud yell as he fell, spread eagled and face down in the mud. Pushing himself up with his hands, he got to his feet.



He'd had quite enough of this.

"Stop right there or I'll drop you like a bag of potatoes!" He shouted, pulling out a rather sad looking muddy pistol from a side halter. He was originally wearing a brown shirt and trousers. Now he was just muddy brown from head to toe. The gun raised and pointed at Annie.

"I don't wanna kill ya, but I have to take her back."

Annie felt her blood boil. Oh, hells no he didn't! She gritted her teeth, and whispered to Emme, "When I make my move--and you'll know when I do, you run like heck towards the harbor. I'll catch up, don't worry."

She turned and faced the mud-covered stalkerboy, anger rising in her voice with each passing moment.

"That...is...IT! I am sick an' tired of people tellin' me an' mine what to do! We get told to bow an scrape at the feet of the gollies, we get told we can't read, we get told when to speak, she gets told when she can see her friends again, I get told what I can't write in the paper, I get told I'm gonna write a story exposin' my friend's dark secrets to the world, and now you're tellin me we can't leave town?!"

With each word, Annie was slowly but surely inching closer, until she stood about a foot away from their pursuer. "Well, it's godsdamned stoppin' now, ye hear?! Ain't nobody tellin us what to do anymore! You wanna shoot me? Fine, go ahead. But we ain't goin back t'town, ain't nobody goin nowhere they don't want. You're part of the resistance, you're s'posed to be all about freedom an equality. Well, how equal is it to keep one of your own--one of yer godsdamned own!--locked up so as to she can't see none o' the ones what care for her? How free is she so that she can't leave the city cuz 'the resistance' says she can't?!"

Annie's face darkened. Oh, she was pissed. "It ain't right, you know it, an it's stoppin now." She bared her teeth in an evil grin and leaned in close. "You wanna stop us? Yer gonna have to get through me first." With that, she growled and lunged for the man's jugular with her bare teeth. That oughta keep 'im occupied so as to get Emme away, she thought.

The cadet watched her approaching and his gun wavered just a little. It was altogether a little too much for his first assignment, but he stood his ground. Her furious tyrade was nothing compared to Serro when he got hold on him.



The man, barely more than a boy, yelled and closed his eyes.

"Don't eat me!" He pulled the trigger on the pistol, aimed at Annie's chest, but the force of her lunge threw his arm up and the bullet shot up over her and clipped Emme on the shoulder. He struggled under the furious reporter's attack, finally throwing her off and rolling to one side.

"I don't know what clocking stuff you've been through previous, but I got a job to do. For the good of the resistance. Now, please, I don't want to do this lady." He said in a sort of pleading voice, taking out two short daggers. He'd been accepted into the resistance mostly because of this skill. Nannis herself had commented on how well he moved with blades. Lowing his stance, the young man held the blades at the ready, slowing walking towards Annie. If this was how it must be, then that was it.

The gun went off, and Annie flinched just slightly. She heard the bullet whiz past her, but felt no pain. Well, I ain't shot.

Annie stood, brushing the dirt off her shirt and pants.

For a moment, Annie stood with her hands on her hips, head tilted and eyebrow cocked, watching the young man walk towards her with daggers in his hands. Then she sighed, rolled her eyes, threw her hands up in the air, turned and began walking after Emme.

She called back to the cadet over one shoulder, "Do what you want. I ain't fightin' nobody, specially one what's brought a knife to a gunfight. I'm done with the resistance, and Emme is too. You can tell your Zero or whatever his name is that we ain't comin back til he's decided Emme ain't just some pushover he can make do his bidding. We're free folk, we can go where we please, and if you're gonna stab or shoot me, it's gonna have to be in the back, like all the rest of the cowards do it. A real man wouldn't try to kill a free thing, much less try to shove it in a cave somewhere."

As the cadet came out from the tunnel, Emme froze up faster than a wet shirt on a clothesline in the dead of winter, bug-eyed and panicked. That was the man who had led her to Annie's in the first place. Of course, he must have followed them...she was an idiot to imagine she'd get away that easily...

She barely heard Annie's whispered instructions, but nodded dumbly, backing up like a cornered dog. She heard the witch yelling at the man - she'd never seen this side of Annie, though she wasn't surprised at it. For a moment she thought he had paid attention.

When the bullet clipped her shoulder, she was pushed back. At first, she felt nothing. Then a searing pain began creeping its way up her neck, and she felt a hot trickle of blood drip down her arm. Numbly, she realized she'd been shot.

"Annie," she mumbled, as the other witch was walking towards her. She stumbled a little, blinking.

Wow, that did hurt. Wasn't she supposed to go into shock? It hurt a lot...

"Emme!" Annie yelled, and rushed to her friend's side. "Here, sit down, let me take a look at that!" Annie did the best she could in the limited light. Emme didn't appear to be that bad, but being shot is being shot. "You're gonna live, there ain't nothin there. It musta just clipped ye. Sorry I don't know any healin spells er nothin," she said, and took the scarf off her head. "Here, use this, it'll sop up the mess. Keep a hold on it, hard like."

Annie turned back to the young cadet who had followed them. "See what ye did? Yer causin trouble what ain't needed. On top of which, ye shot a pore defensless girl! What would yer mother think of such a thing? She'd be ashamed, that's what she'd think, to have raised a son what thought it were a good idea to pull a gun on a girl." The anger and confusion was apparent on her face. "I thought you were all about freedom and equality? You gonna let me shoot ye in return?"

She turned back to Emme and shook her head. "It don't make no sense, all this fightin an' hatin. I heard about this one guy in some other country, said he used things called 'sit-ins' and 'boycotts' to get equal rights, an' that was just cuz his skin was darker'n errybody else's. An' it worked! Why can't they try that here? It'd be a hecka less messier, that's the truth!"

The cadet bounced on his toes, blades still at the ready as Annie threw her tyrade at him. This wasn't at all what he'd expected when he'd joined the resistance.



He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, thinking of things to say and getting nothing. His heart was racing and his head was spinning. He looked at Annie, then Emme and her bleeding shoulder. Clock, he didn't really think he'd shoot anyone. His bottom lip quavered. Suddenly he was bawling his eyes out. Sitting with a plop in the mud, he rested his arms on his knees and wailed.

"I can't go without her! This is my first mission and I got told if I lost her, it'd be thu..th..the last thing I did!" He bashed the ground with the butts of his daggers.

"What can I do? I didn't wanna hurt no one! I just wanna help my family. Now, now...now I might have just had them killed!"

Emme looked up in disbelief at her pursuer's tears. This was wholly uncharacteristic of the resistance. They had seemed ruthlessly cool and efficient when they had held her.

Gripping Annie's scarf to her shoulder as the blood drained from her face, she stood up on wobbly legs.

"They won't kill your family," she said, quietly amazed at her own daring. "You failed, but you didn't betray anyone. You just were no match for two witches."

She glanced at Annie. "Right? We both cast Slumber and he was knocked out..."

Annie, who was still rather angry about the whole ordeal from the start, grumbled, "You can cast Slumber if you want to. I'd rather cast A Good One-Two to the Stomach and a Right Cross to the Face." She looked at the young cadet as he wailed in the mud. Cripes, he's worse'n Emme. "Or...I guess we could both cast Slumber..." She sighed through her nose, the consternation evident on her face.

"Just tell 'em I hit you," Annie said as she prepared to recite the monite for what she was pretty sure was the Slumber spell. It'd been a while since she had to use anything other than to run a camera.

The young man nodded slowly, suprised she would have the heart to make up something like that for him after what he'd just done. He felt terrible, looking at her shoulder. He wished he was a magic caster, just so he could fix her up. She didn't look that good. Taking a moment, he pulled off his muddy over shirt, threw it at Emme's feet.

"You'd better tie that to your shoulder Miss Emme, It's bleeding too much for that little scarf."



The cadet froze and made a squeak.

"You gonna really cast on me? B..B..But I thought.." He closed his eyes and cringed, wondering if it was gonna hurt.