//Sae: Break

Sae trusted Ahn's judgement. He was much better at reading people than her. If he felt that they should go along with Nathan's plan, she would do so. She still, however, couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about this man. The way he so suddenly switched between seeming like a harmless drunk to having a coordinated and intelligent air about him was almost unnatural.

They crept through the dark streets, staying in the concealment of the surrounding shadows as they went. They were only fifty feet away from the monstrous wall now.

The plan, unlike their usual method of dealing with things, was to avoid killing any of the guards, if at all possible. They would get close to the wall, then Sae would attempt to hack the android guarding the turret they were targeting. Nathan had claimed that he was more than capable of doing this, but Sae adamantly rejected the idea. On one hand, she had no idea whether or not he was actually able to do it, and on the other, she didn't trust him to, even if he was capable of doing so.

The space between them and the wall was almost completely open. Search lights flashed back and forth over the expanse of exposed pavement frequently. They would have to time their approach precisely to avoid detection.

Sae turned to Ahn. "When do you plan to make a move?"

Ahn opened his mouth, but didn't have the opportunity to answer.

"Now!" Nathan whispered, darting out of cover towards the wall.

Sae watched in disbelief as Nathan sprinted through the clearing, hardly a few feet away from the searchlights. The image of cunning she thought she had seen in this man was completely shattered as she watched him run recklessly out in the open. It was utterly idiotic.

Three rays of light closed in on Nathan, completely encircling him. There was no way out unless he ran into the beams. Nathan, however, remained completely calm, following the small dark patch in the center of the beams until they separated again, then made another mad dash towards the wall, this time closing the distance entirely.

Sae was speechless. She couldn't decide whether this man was absolutely brainless or a genius.

It didn't matter. One way or another, Ahn and Sae still had to make it across without being seen.

'Go on my mark,' Ahn's voice told her. She nodded.

'Now.'

They went when there weren't as many lights pointed in their direction, making for a simple straight path to the wall. It did, of course, help that they were faster than any human could hope to be, but Nathan's approach was likely the single most reckless way he could have gone about it.

"What were you thinking?" Sae hissed.

Nathan shrugged nonchalantly. "I saw an opportunity."

"Unbelievable," Sae muttered.

"Anyway," Nathan started, "Weren't you the one that said you would be able to-"

"I am more than capable of hacking the android, assuming you're correct about its origin." Sae had never found it difficult to restrain from yelling at someone, even Dr. Samuel. Now, however, Nathan had managed to incur this effect within an hour of meeting her. It was infuriating.

Sae looked at Ahn. 'Watch my back.'

He nodded. 'I don't think he'll try anything.'

Sae closed her eyes, focusing on locating nearby electric signals. While many of her surroundings were operated by electricity, one stood out among the rest, appearing to move on its own. An android. It stood directly above her, on top of the wall. She connected her consciousness to it, probing for some form of vulnerability.

Within a few seconds, she found a weakness in its defenses. Accomplishing this at the time this android had been produced would have been a difficult task, but with the development of technology over the past few decades, it was hardly a challenge for Sae, who was made only three years ago.

She felt her mind merge with the android's. It had no independent will, it was simply following a program. It was designed to fight, to obey orders, not to possess any larger form of intelligence. She opened her eyes again. Her surroundings were now entirely different. She was looking down on District 5, standing atop a massive structure. A large turret sat next to her - a warning to those who thought about crossing.

She turned around, seeing another city on the opposite side. This one had a far different appearance. There were no lights on in this District. No movement.

'That must be District 3,' she thought.

She didn't have time to compare and contrast the separated districts, though. She walked towards the control panel of the large turret, producing a few shouts of protest from the guard opposite of her position.

She pointed the turret straight down, directly at the surface of the wall. Her partner drew a gun. She fired first.

When she opened her eyes again, she was back in her own body. She was being dragged by one arm across the ground as rubble fell around her. She looked up to see a large portion of the supposedly indestructible wall collapsing, producing crashing sounds equivalent to a raging thunderstorm. Dust was being kicked up everywhere, making it somewhat difficult to see.

She stood up and started to run on her own. It was Ahn that had been dragging her, she realized. He had kept her out of the way of the falling chunks of the wall.

Alarms wailed. Confused yelling erupted from the top of the wall. So much dust. Her injured leg felt like a hot knife was being forced into it every time she took a step. It was a lot worse than she had initially thought.

She fell, driving her face into the concrete hard. Her vision flashed with stars, making it even harder to see. Ahn's good hand reached down out of his cloak, which was billowing wildly from the force the pieces of concrete were hitting the ground. He pulled her to her feet. She kept running.

The crashing around her stopped as suddenly as it started. The dust remained in the air. The shouts from above continued as the guards attempted to figure out what had happened.

Nathan ran towards the gaping hole in the wall, using the flying dust as cover as he went. Ahn and Sae followed. They needed to make it across now, or they would have to deal with a large number of guards at once.

Sae leapt over a pile of rubble as they reached the destroyed portion of the wall, feeling a pang of pain in her leg as she did so. A few shots rang out from above, but none came close to hitting their marks; the dust in the air was so thick it was hard to see ten feet away, let alone from the top of the wall to the ground.

A few guards were waiting for them on the other side of the wall, guns raised. Ahn quickly shot them down, then kept running. Nathan gave Ahn an astonished look, clearly taken aback by his efficient burst of offense.

District 3 was already very different from District 5's lively environment Sae was used to. There was no motion. No lights. Every building looked the same. Same shape, same dull gray color, same size. It was as if they were running through a loop.

She heard an engine approaching. It wasn't moving quickly, but they were in the middle of a street that went straight for a few hundred meters. If they didn't find cover, whoever was operating the vehicle would see them. Whoever it was may not have been hostile, but it wasn't worth risking.

Nathan pointed to a small crevice between two identical houses. "There!" he said in an odd combination of a whisper and a shout.

They ducked into the small gap, listening as the engine came closer. It was moving at an unusually slow speed, Sae realized. She leaned out of cover for a moment, exposing only enough for one of her eyes to be visible.

A hover tank was drifting down the street at a walking pace, dim red lights flashing out, illuminating the motionless surroundings.

Something caught attention out of the corner of her eye. Movement. A silhouetted figure dashed across the street. Whoever it was had a slim build. It appeared to be a boy, maybe in his mid teens.

The red lights flashed over him as he ran, revealing a terrified face. The boy looked almost sickly, his skin stretched tightly over his scrawny body.

'He must not have eaten for at least a couple of days,' Sae thought.

The tank stopped, lowering itself unhurriedly to the ground. A new pair of figures crawled out of the hatch. A man and a woman, each wearing long leather trench coats. White epaulettes hung from their shoulders, much like the guards from earlier. They had badges, however, that stood out on their dark coats. A red and black snake insignia. This design, along with the meaning behind it, was foriegn to Sae. She had never heard of it in District 5.

The boy was caught quite literally like a deer in headlights. This was an odd comparison to make, Sae thought, as she had never seen a deer before. In fact, she had never seen an animal, aside from humans, in her lifetime.

The male guard was only a few steps away from the boy now. The boy, realizing this, unfroze, making a dash in the opposite direction. The guard casually drew a shock charge out and tossed it at the boy as if he had done it a thousand times.

The charge was perfectly placed, landing just in front of the boy's feet. It let out a surge of electricity that arced into the boy's torso, lighting the street up for a brief moment, then died down as the boy fell face first into the cement.

The man strode over, leaning down to inspect the boy, then kicked him hard in the ribs.

"Target neutralized," the man said to his partner, who was leaning with an almost bored composure on the side of the tank.

She nodded. "Cuff him, then take him in. Our rotation is almost over."

"Right," the man replied, placing a pair of steel handcuffs on the boy, then heaved him over his shoulder. He carried the limp body over to the tank, tossing it into some sort of cage on the back. The boy looked like some sort of sedated animal put on display for a zoo.

The guards reentered the tank, slamming the doors shut then driving away at the same slow pace at which they had arrived.

Sae let out a deep sigh, realizing that her shoulders had tensed up while she was watching the strange ordeal. She turned to Ahn and Nathan. While Ahn seemed to have a similar response to Sae's, Nathan's normally jovial face had a grim expression that displayed that he was all too familiar with scenes like these.

"Let's go," Nathan said. "Or we'll end up like him."