Breathe - Part 1

Part 1

(Current Revision: 3.1)

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(Please note that bookmarks are determined where the last paragraph begins befor the next page begins in a standard Microsoft Word Prossesor on the default size and font. Each anchor points to the '+'s you see throughout the document and linked below by number - page numbers that is)

+What was I doing anyway? I was working inside an old repair shop. Not my idea of a safe haven for this type of job, but it was all that we could find - or so I'm told. Sure, breaking a security system was risky enough, but in a large building like this seemed a little out of the ordinary. At least it was abandoned, that wrapped a small blanket of security warm fuzzy goodness to it all, but it wasn't really enough for me to feel golden about it.

Nothing was good enough though. My two partners in crime reminded me of it time and time again. They try and rationalise it, but rationality in this day and age is like the cuteness of disease. I had to be the most paranoid of the group - a release group that is. Yes, we are one of those evil pirate release groups bent on making the world an anarchist haven. Somehow, a pirate saving the world doesn't strike anyone as normal, but a lot has changed since the air turned toxic. I had a feeling things were more fucked up then it was way back in the old days.

"Hey, did you get that thing hacked yet?" I looked up from my small laptop at Alex. I glared at him. He never seems to learn that cracking physical protection requires a degree of concentration. Sure I've been at it almost my whole life, but when the playing field changes every month, it still requires some sort concentration regardless.

"I'm working on it as fast as I can. For the fifth time, will you shut up and let me work?" I replied, not quite in the mood to be patient. He probably- no, should know that I have been a little more snappy at being put in such a place. It was a rule, never work in the same place twice. We've broken that rule a couple of times, but we figured that such a time span between the first and second visit would veto the rule.

"Fine, I just don't want to be beaten again is all." Alex said, shaking his head as if he could do it faster. He couldn't. I knew that for a fact. It was always a race for us release groups. Whoever gets the code cracked first gets to tie the group name next to the crack title in all its glory. I, Larry, am the groups cracker. It was my role to crack the protection schemes on oxygen tanks.

Clean air is life. Sounds simple enough. You get reminded it everyday when the sun remains permanently blood red all day everyday. The entire Earth was so polluted, that a human being couldn't last more then a minute breathing the crap. Everyone wore gas masks. It was a way of life these days. I hadn't known otherwise in my life. Though my grandfather got to experience life without it.

+"We won't be beaten, we are always the first to get the crack out there." Dan said. Dan, our 'curry', also a reasonable sort... sometimes. He was the one that picked the stupid location in the first place. I wasn't happy with him for that. I figured he was trying to make amends at this point. He was also right. We were known for being first to get these things cracked and out to the general population. Dan was responsible for getting the crack out to a hub where it can be spread throughout so others can simply crack the protection schemes on their tanks without much hassle so they can breath air for free.

"I'm just saying that we can't just be relaxed about this at all anyways." Alex replied. He adjusted his maroon oxygen mask. Masks were all the same. A nice little hose off the bottom and the whole thing covered the face. Little L.E.D. lights decorated the outside for night time. The masks needed a little bit of an adjustment on occasion. The skin irritates after a while with little bits of sweat. Straps tightly ran to the back of the head to make sure bad air wasn't getting in. The straps weren't so bad, but sometimes the mask needed to be moved. Of course, we all spoke with a little bit of a crackle because the little radio helped us hear each other.

I concentrated on my laptop again. A wire ran from my laptop into a small box. The box had a few blinking lights. The box had another wire that ran immediately to a small oxygen tank that was the size of a football. Typically, people wore two of them, but one could buy separately as well. We had bought separately - one from in town and one that was suppose to be destined for another country, but cleverly stolen. So much air is shipped around, it was common for a few to be misplaced. Perfect. I looked into the laptop with lines of code flying by in one window with another window right underneath it where I could input text. My own little program. It helped speed things up nicely. A beep emanated from the laptop. I knew it took longer then usual, but at least it was finally done with that part. I whispered "Finally."

"What? Did you get it?" Alex asked. I knew he knew that the answer was 'no'. He was just too impatient for that type of stuff and immediately hoped that this time would be different. I replied, "No, but I finally found a vulnerability in the code. I'm decrypting the key now." I typed on my laptop. Keys were what we released. It wasn't just a small key retailers handed out to customers for air, those were region based. We release groups go big and crack the master key that unlocks all of them. All these schemes have them. Otherwise, it wouldn't be possible for them to code into region based segments. I could never figure out why they kept to this system myself.

"Way to get me excited there!" Alex said, sarcastic as always when I disappoint him. I defended my case anyway, "Hey, it's something. It means my job is over three quarters the way done!"

Alex needed to be more patient. Of course, I knew he'd never grow out of it. All the years we've been together told me that. If Alex wasn't so useful, he'd have been gone a long time ago. Alex helped bring new tools for cracking with. Sometimes, they saved a lot of time, sometimes they were plain useless. Dan walked across the room and leaned against another table. He looked at his watch for a second, then looked up at the wall he was close by just a moment ago. That was strange. Was he just as impatient today as Alex?

+I shrugged and typed in some command prompts. I knew this illegal activity was almost done. I blatantly broke the law and was proud of it. Not for rebellion reasons of course, but rather, for moral reasons. Unlike the stories I've heard where sceners were elitists, these days, sceners were out to keep all the users free from having to pay for air which is suppose to be for free to begin with. Air is easily filtered for just pennies a year. Unfortunately, businesses wanted to make this a profitable venture. So they started charging for the oxygen tanks designed to fail every three months for resale value. Consumers being ripped off and paying through the nose to keep themselves alive. Something was wrong with that. Paying through the nose to keep the monopoly fat cats satisfied? That's just double dipping for trouble. The monopoly running parts of government and officially above certain laws? Three strikes, humanities out. Of course, this isn't even getting into the fifty bucks for a fresh new fill-up of air.

I typed in some more commands to test the brand new key, fully expecting it to work. I looked at the blue light that spilled from the oxygen tank lock device onto the metal table. It was more apparent due to the fact that I was working from an old fashion light that projected a dim curtain of light in a triangular shape directly down onto the table. All the other lights were off in the shop for safety reasons. Didn't want the cops suspicious on the fact that lights in an abandoned building were on. That was just asking for trouble.

Officially, what I'm cracking was the OPPM or Oxygen Patent Protection Measures. 'Designed to help protect your rights as citizens to breath the air you have the rights to. Clean air must be protected. You wouldn't steal a car, you wouldn't kidnap your neighbours daughter, you wouldn't kill your wife. Buying pirated air is stealing, stealing air is murder.' Absolute bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Stealing air? Give me a break! The only real pirates are the people in those high-rises making billions of dollars a month by pirating air and selling it for stupidly high prices. Everyone has the right to have air for free. None of us sell the air, though we ask for donations to put dinner on the table. We don't mind if you don't pay for the air we crack at all, but we do ask for donations. Dan paced back to the rusted cabinet he was at before and looked at his watch as if he were being stood up.

+I noticed that the blue light turned green. Excellent. The key worked. I unplugged the tank, knowing that this next step was one of the fastest. I reached down and picked the other one up off the floor and used it to push the cracked tank over a little. I then plugged the little cord into the uncracked tank. This was encoded with a different region tag. I had to, at least, test one other to make sure the master key worked in more then one region. If it worked on two tanks from different regions, it would work for all of them. Regions were coded so differently that one key would not work in a different region, hacked out or not. Only a master key would unlock both. If it unlocked both, it would unlock all of them. I saved the key and minimized the double paned window on my laptop. I activated the key and watched the other tank with its little blue light looking just past me. It was just a small little square of light with a frame around it and a jack under it which is where I plugged my cracking box into. The light turned green. I smiled to myself and thought to myself, 'Another 3 months for everyone.' Dan paced back to a small wooden desk in the middle of the room.

OK, that irritated me. This was not like Dan. Alex asked, "Hey Larry, you got that thing cracked?"

I unplugged the cord from the oxygen tank and pulled the other cord from my laptop and replied, "Yup. We're good to go."

I put the little box in my front pouch and closed the laptop. Alex got up from the counter he was sitting on and walked closer to me, between me and Dan and asked, "Hey Dan, Groove was saying how much they'll beat us this time. What do you think they'll say when we beat them anyway?"

I raised the laptop over my head and slid it into a small slot between my back and the two oxygen tanks. The twin tanks hung on my upper back like jet pack from an old cartoon series. I walked along the long metal tabled I worked on and heard Alex say, "Dan, you hear my OK?"

I looked up, not sure what was going on, but had a view of Dan. Dan was looking at Alex as if Alex completely offended him. A reflection on his mask covered his eyes, but the emotion leaked out somehow. Brown spiked hair never helped with identifying what a person was thinking. Why wasn't he responding? "Dan?" I asked, trying to get his attention. He looked at me, the reflection sliding off his convex mask for a moment. His eyes were very eerie as if he had been a robot instead of a human being. He looked back at Alex, the reflection of the light covering his eyes again. Alex glanced at me, just as confused as I was. I asked, "Dan? Are you OK?"

Movement caught the corner of my eye. Flashing lights. Cops! Shit! I immediately looked around for that escape plan and realised there was none. Dan reached for his gun. Was he planning on taking out the cops? They'd outnumber us! He slid it out of the holster from just behind his lower back as if it was planned and aimed it at Alex. What the hell was he doing?

I didn't have time to sit and play 20 questions with him. Dan said, "I'm sorry, but it's over."

The lights were getting brighter. Of all the things that could happen, they had to be approaching as well. I knew they could sweep the area for radio signals that could hear us loud and clear.

Dan continued, "Now just remain still for now, the police should be in here any second now."

Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Dan was a spy. A fucking spy. He was going to get us both killed. You get caught pirating air, you could guarantee yourself the death penalty - and the way the air organizations saw fit which, as rumours go, was extremely unpleasant.

I learned that Dan sucked balls at dealing with hostages. I was behind a thick metal table. A laser pistol couldn’t get through it. Heck, a laser rifle would have a hard time piercing this thing. I guess you learn something new every day. If he hurt Alex in any way, he was going to pay for it. Betraying close friends was a costly mistake in this day and age. Either way, I could do anything I wanted from the chest down. His view was obstructed. As long as I stared at him through my innocent little mask, I was going to be fine.

The police lights weren't going to flash any brighter through the windows near the high ceiling. They were here. Somehow, I was going to get us both out of here alive - I hope. The chances of that were fast becoming slim.

The door in the foggy distance rattled. The cops were trying the door next to the large one first. Must have overestimated Dan. Even more so when Dan glanced behind him towards the source of the noise.

Alex wasn't stupid, he went for his gun at his lower back and ran sideways towards the corner of the metal table. I took aim over the table like I was at some sort of firing range. I fired and missed while Dan ran backwards and fired at Alex. Alex didn't fire back. Not fast enough on the trigger, but I wouldn't blame him as sparks flew off his chest and he tumbled backwards. His head on the ground and visible to me. Dan ran backwards. I fired again and hit his leg. He stumbled and fell backwards. I ducked for a moment and heard no return fire. I peaked over the edge and saw Dan grasping his leg, groaning in pain. At best in that condition, he would be an amputee for the rest of his life. Another shot was fired by Alex and sparks exploded from his face. Dan immediately jolted backwards and collapsed onto the ground. I knew the blast would go right through the mask. The durable mask would definitely be, at best, have a gaping hole in the middle of it.

+Dan gave off one of those noises where you knew you would be better off not looking at the source of the sound. I looked anyway and his hands were clasped over his face. Yup, he was a goner. Not that I had ever wished that on him before. Too much was happening all at once. Serious shit was going to go down and I had to act quickly. I heard Alex drop his gun. I looked over at Alex who was writhing in pain, gasping for air. I never crawled this fast before in my life, but I was suddenly right beside him.

Alex looked at me, sweat covering his face. I heard the noise of the massive car door opening. I grabbed Alex's shoulders and dragged his whole body behind the metal desk. He seemed lighter, did he diet or was I just freaking out at the moment? Several energy blasts sprouted from the concrete wall that was behind the desk.

I looked down to where his hands were clasped. His hands couldn't keep the bloody wave flooding out of him. No way am I going to lose him because Dan decided to squeal to the feds on us. I knew that had transpired when I thought back on it, but now wasn't the time for thoughtful reflection. I whispered down at the mask that was fogging up on Alex, "You're going to make it."

I heard footsteps approaching and knew that they were getting into positions throughout the shop. I looked up and down my side of the metal table. Fortune smiles, I was on the side with shelves. What's this? There were remains left behind? My luck was turning around again.

I heard a crackle. Too close for comfort. Someone was attempting to sneak up behind me. I saw a small wrench and took it carefully, noting that there was plenty of shop space on the other side of the long table and figuring that whoever was sneaking up on me was sneaking up on that end. I held the wrench in my left hand and held my gun in my right hand. Better firing with my right hand, that was crucial. I could take making a less then stellar throw as long as it was far enough away. I threw the wrench like a frisbee, feeling awkward in the process. It sailed low through the air towards the end of the table and banged against the concrete floor.

The soldier was closer then I thought. He immediately rose over the table and fired right at the wrench twice. I fired and hit the side of his head. Guess what, I wasn't such a bad shot after all. The rifle he carried fell onto the ground as his head jolted with an explosions of dazzling sparks. He collapsed on top of the table with the sound of footsteps retreating along with some cussing. Blood leaked onto the floor where the soldiers body remained - limp and lifeless. Who were they hiring for these task forces anyway?

+I looked up and down the table and found something useful. A roll of paper towels. Not only that, but also perched in that exact same spot was an idea. I guess the rarity has come where I use a warp ball. I only had six of them and I'll be damned if I can ever replace them anytime soon. Throw one down onto a floor or against a wall and you would be whizzed off to another location. A small mapping system was put on them, but were destroyed once you used one. A horrible waste of a perfectly good mapping system if you asked me, but then again, the purpose they served mixed with the price tag, the mapping system looked like a penny sitting on top of a one hundred dollar bill. Don't ask me how I got ahold of them though, the person who gave them to me refused to tell me - check that, told me I didn't want to know. I had never met him before or heard from him since. Lets just say a different group was desperate for a favour and I was surprised when they kept up their end of the bargain.

One of the soldiers yelled out, "Come out with your hands up or we're coming in!"

Hell no. Didn't say it out loud. I just knew that their custody meant death. I had done more then enough to get the worst possible punishment. I pulled out a small laser pen with my free hand and put the gun away in my back holster. Call the pen a pocket knife of the future. I turned it on with the squeeze of a tiny button. A small twig of light slipped out the top end. I cut the one side of the dusty roll all the way down to the other end. I knew what would happen once I turned on a warp ball. It was like a wind grenade in that respect. It would have the entire area gusting with wind like a small hurricane touched down. I knew it wouldn't let up until it sent me on my way. My objective was to get Alex the hell out of here and I was not going to let him die on me.

Great, a countdown. The soldier yelled, "Nine! Eight!" I turned off the laser pen and put it back in my pocket. "Seven! Six!"

I looked over at Alex and he wasn't moving. Not even breathing. I shook Alex with my free hand, wishing I could yell, 'Alex!', but I knew I couldn't. The soldier yelled, "Five! Four!"

I heard some shuffling out there. They were getting ready to move in. I twisted the paper towels around randomly, hoping that they would spread out in the air faster. I doubted they knew I had a warp ball. I then carefully slid the towels onto the table, making sure my hand wouldn't be exposed in the process to them. Whoever was counting saw that I had placed the towels onto the table since he stopped counting for that moment.

I yanked a warp ball off my belt. It was about the size of a baseball and just as hard. I pressed a small button on top and a tiny screen opened up. It detected my location and scanned the area around. The soldier continued counting, "Three! Two!"

+I got my location. Two blocks away in an alley. Not much, but I wasn't going to get anything else this fast and I sure as hell had no time to piss around. I pressed one more button and the dark grey ball started to light up. I threw it down onto the ground next to me and it exploded, opening up a large green vortex on the floor. Wind blasted through my hair and the towels, as hoped, flew up into the air in a large wad and hit the ceiling. I looked back at Alex's corpse for a moment and knew there was nothing I could do to save him at this point.

I pounded the floor with my fist in frustration, then dove in, hearing laser rifle blasts all around.

The vortex wasn't very long. I didn't ask to go very far. It was like a small fall as if I jumped off a tall fence onto the ground. I landed on my feet, but then tumbled onto my hands and knees. Dust was flying everywhere. The vortex above me shrank until it vanished. I stood up, the whole place still fogged from all the disturbed dust. I could make out the presence of walls on either side of me, but I couldn't see much beyond the fact that they were walls. The vortex vanished from above, collapsing in on itself.

Alone again. Not exactly sure where I stand. Oddly enough, that is how I started out in all of this. I yanked my scanner off the front of my belt and flipped it open. It was like an oversized, yet still thin cell phone with a screen. I scanned the area and it detected that the warp had brought me to where it was suppose to take me. There was a sewer system entrance ahead. I must have gotten lucky. I walked in that direction. The device kept scanning the area for movement.

The dust was settling and I could see the brick walls on either side of me. I then stopped my advance and saw on my scanner that there was a cop car headed towards the end of the alley ahead of me. My heart started to race. The only way I was getting into that tunnel was through that cop car - either that or take my chances in the streets with the cops. For all I knew, they secured the area and it would be a matter of hide and seek to get out. Problem was, they would use infrared cameras. They'd spot me in a hurry. Forget it. I ran in collision course with, what would be, the hover car, the dirt crackling beneath my feet.

The dust had settled enough that I could see at least twenty feet ahead. I pulled out my laser pistol for what good it would do me. The cars typically were armoured so that even at point blank range, I needed at least twice the firepower just to scuff the paint job. I put away my scanner and expected the car to fly around the corner any moment.

When it did, it still shocked me. I just started firing at it. Bursts of sparks splashed across the hood and windshield. If I wasn't going to damage the car, at least try in vain to distract the driver. The passenger stretched a gun out the door window. I guess this car wasn't externally armed. The passenger also appeared to have a pistol. Aiming in a hover car had to be hell. The car always bobbed up and down and at high speed, deal with the drivers steering on top of it all. The passenger returned fire and missed all three times. I fired a two more times. Running didn't make it any easier to aim, but I thought I got lucky when I saw the gun drop from the passenger window onto the ground, bouncing behind it now.

+I couldn't think much more then that. I just jumped as high as I could. My feet slid across the roof and hit the large boxed lights. I tumbled through the air and landed on my side. The only think I could be thankful for was that it didn't knock the air out of me when I hit the ground. I got up as fast as I could, dizzy from when just happened. Getting hit by a car tends to disrupt your senses a little. I staggered around for a moment, trying to regain a sense of direction after a fast paced spin.

When I could concentrate again, I saw the cop car still going. I thought for a moment of what I could do next. I dashed over and picked up the other gun. It had a burn mark on the end of the barrel where I hit it. It was rough around the edges, but it was still functional. I then looked at my goal just a few more feet away. Almost home free. A fast escape was an open reinforced door in an alley.

I saw the cop car swerve around as it moved further down the alley - away from me thankfully. I knew at this point that the other cops were alerted and heading my way. I put the extra gun in my gun holster and plucked off a small disk from my belt, opposite to where the warp balls were located. I squeezed the sides of it, then dropped it onto the ground. The cop car started speeding back towards me. I ran as fast as I could towards the small door in the brick wall. It would have made no difference if I was being chased by a raging bear - although a bear can't go as fast as the car chasing me. Although I was closer to the door then before, I still had a good distance to run. The thought had occurred to me that an air pirate even needing to run away from the cops was a really bad sign. The news of my group being compromised was something I could handle gracefully - at this point, saving my own skin would be a small stretch of the imagination had it not been for the sewer entrance.

I heard a loud bang behind me from where I laid that small disk - which was really a mine. When I got into the entrance, I was suddenly entangled in someone’s arms.

A loud grinding noise flew past the entrance and the door closed, enveloping me in complete darkness with whoever caught me. This was definitely not my day after all.

As if that did any good when the gun was squeezed out of my hand. Whoever it was, he had got me good. He then shoved me into the concrete wall on the other side of the small hallway. I couldn't get my hands out in front of me in time as my whole body slammed against the rock hard wall and fell down onto the ground.

A light turned on and a shadow with, what I could make out, a gun aiming at my face. The masculine voice said in a calm voice, "Follow me."

+Definitely not a cop that I could tell. As the setting swam a little around me, I really wanted a light so I can see something. The dirt on the ground stuck to my sweaty hands. I tried to ignore it. Whoever that person was, he was already walking further into the sewer. I groped myself for my small flashlight add-on to my gun. I slid it out of the belt pouch that also contained my cracking box and twisted the end of it, turning it on. The good things about LED lights is their efficiency. I rarely need to change the battery even if I was using it frequently. I sat up and shined it around the small dirt hall. I almost felt silly using my gun light to find my gun, but what are you going to do?

I spotted my gun, leaned over, reached and grabbed it. Somehow, I felt like not getting any more dirty then I was now. I then attached the light to my gun. When I got up, I was quickly reminded that wearing a lot of equipment has its drawbacks. Sharp pain in my waist screamed, piercing my mind like someone had jammed a small knife through my head. I was going to be sore, but I was otherwise only a little banged up. I aimed my gun and spotted the tunnel man still walking away. I wondered if he could be trusted still since they are notoriously neutral when it comes to people like me. The metal door behind me banged and I realised that the police must have figured out where I went. Whether I trusted the tunnel man or not, I was going with him since he knew the underground sewers far better then I did.

I chased after him with the gun aimed at him. He was walking casually down the tunnel, light shining the way for him from his headgear neatly tucked under his dark hood. A standard look with a raincoat and lamp on the head under the hood. They always wore dark coloured gear. I wondered what would happen if any of them ever got in trouble. If they did, their looks would at least send shivers of fear down a potential enemies spine because they looked even more creepier then what I had heard.

The door banged again. Louder, but far more in the distance. I had caught up to him like an overgrown child catching up to his mommy. I didn't care, if making out of this alive caused me to look silly, I'd choose life. Besides, at least I was able to aim a gun at the back of the stranger who claimed to be saving me.

We passed through a couple of different passageways. He kept strolling along as if he was going from his living room to his kitchen to take a look at his refrigerator for a snack. I guess when you spend a large portion of your life in these underground tunnels, you tend to get use to how to get places at whatever speed was necessary.

The ground descended down in a small rounded hill. The walls fell away. I walked in such a way as to be able to use my own light to see what was on the ground ahead of me while still keeping an eye on the tunnel man. The floor then started to disappear into a sea of black ahead of the tunnel man. I realised that the blackness was murky water. He stepped into it, the darkness swirling around the soles of his shoes and I realised that he was walking along side a wooden rowboat for a few steps, then he climbed in, careful not to rock the boat too much - as if he'd flip a beached boat anyway, but something about the thing your standing in rocking on you made people cautious anyway. Nothing like losing your dignity by sinking a beached boat.

+I heard another loud bang from the distance. Only loud because I heard what it sounded like in the echo's, not because it was loud at this point. I realised that the wood in the rowboat would help cloak us from scanning equipment even if they figured out we headed this direction. The tunnel man sat down backwards and checked his oars. He said, "Either you're getting in my boat or you’re leaving this world with the cops. It's your choice."

He knew I was a dead man if I stayed here. Honest and blunt. Screw it. He was right. That's exactly what scared me, but I also had no choice. I climbed in on the passenger seat and sat down, careful not to drop my gun in the process. Somehow I didn't have much of a problem. Maybe in part due to the fact that my seat was more beached then his. Either way, he used his oars to push us off. Only four pushes before the boat finally drifted off without the noisy friction of grinding wood.

I realised he had mirrors on either side of the boat so he could see where he was going. Genius. Another loud bang. That time, it sounded less healthy. I realised that the tunnel man must have planned this all out. Figures. By the time the police got to the shore, even if they knew exactly where to go, we'd be long gone and untraceable with the cement walls. We entered a 'T' shaped area and he took us left, probably knowing exactly where we were going.

"Tunnel man. Thought you would have figured that out." He replied. He let go of one oar and dimmed his light so it wasn't glaring at me anymore. He had a thick moustache and a large clear mask that completely covered the opening of his jacket where his face would otherwise be. He asked, "Could you keep shining your light behind me?"

He was saving my life, I figured it was the least I could do. I aimed my gun over his shoulder. He replied, "Thanks."

"You're welcome." I replied as we passed through a large four-way crossing. I asked, "How did you know I was going to be here at this time?"

"This is the closest tunnel to where you were. The guard knew where you were thanks to an insider. The information leaked. Obviously, there is still dissent in the ranks. Either way, I thought you could use my help if you made it out alive."

+"The insider's dead. My other colleague was killed in the process. The other two probably don't know what happened yet." I said, realising I was saying that as if I was talking about the Saturday morning news. It felt worse then I let off. Two people I knew for years - dead. Fuck. One of them really an insider. Son-of-a-bitch!

I nodded. My career as an air pirate will have to be put on hold until I can replace my colleagues. When you live in a world this completely screwed over, desensitization is about the least of your worries. People die every day at the hands of the United Air Association - or the U.A.A. for short. They call it justice for theft, I call it cold blooded murder. See if my opinion mattered though. According to the government, it's a crime punishable by death - however the UAA sees fit - to pirate air. Somehow, charging people to breathe is just screwed up in itself. Why I got into the business in the first place. Who knew that pirates would end up standing for people's rights? ...that is, if they existed anymore.

Tell him any plans? Hell, I don't have much for plans. Besides, he seemed to be on my side anyway, otherwise, why would he have helped me in the first place? "Hopefully I can contact the remnants of the group."

I thought for a moment, then asked, "You happen to know anyone that could help out perchance?"

He replied, "I know someone that could. In fact, I was planning on taking you there."

I smiled at that point. Maybe recovering from the demise of my group wasn't going to be hard after all. I said, "Great, I need all the help I can get at this point."

I wondered exactly what he had in mind. Guess I was going to find out eventually since he seemed confident that who he knew was going to be of help. I had to admit, I am in pretty good condition considering just moments before, I was barely able to save my own skin.