Alysdir flattened his back against the wall of a ruined building and motioned to Echo to come towards him.  He swiftly raised a hand to stop her.

She did and the headlights of a vehicle shone on the road.  Echo ducked behind some rubble as a Breed half-track, painted in PDF blue, rolled by.  After the motor’s growl had faded enough, Echo made a run for it.

“Wait here,” Alysdir said.  He was about to move, but Echo grabbed his arm.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Same as before!  We’re almost there.”  He pulled her hand from him.

She grabbed him again.  “Not this time.  That’s the fifth vehicle we’ve passed!  I’m not waiting…”

“Mind your tongue, Human.  Alysdir, again, forced her hand from his arm.  “Use it like that again, and I’ll cut it out.”

“Don’t threaten me, Elf.”

Alysdir flung a hand out.  Echo raised her hand and there was a brief flash of violet light.  One of the Drow’s throwing stars clattered on the ground, snapped in two halves.  “Do that again and I’ll cut your tongue out!”

The Drow looked up and turned, raising a Glock pistol.

“Geez!  Watch it, Al!” a man said.  “Harriet sent me!”

Alysdir lowered the pistol.  “You are lucky this woman had my attention, or you would be dead.”

“Is this the girl?”

“Yes, Ryan.”

“Then let’s go.  Any non-Breed on the streets at this hour are shot dead.  And PDF has upped their daily beating quota, and I’d rather not…”

“They’re coming!” Echo said.  She pointed down the road, and the rumble of armored vehicles echoed throughout the ruined city.  

“C’mon!” the man named Ryan said.  “There’s a drainage canal not far from here.  We might have to deal with some TACs, but you and Rylin really stirred-up the hive earlier.”  He turned and began to run, followed by Echo and finally Alysdir.  It wasn’t long before Echo watched Ryan jump into a hole in the street.  She followed.  “Shh!” he said.  Alysdir landed behind Echo.  “Alysdir, you see anything?”


The Drow’s eyes were glowing red, as he saw in the infrared spectrum.  He saw the oranges of his two human companions and looked up and down the tube that had been part of the New York sewage system.  There was one thing, that seemed a little warmer than the purple of the walls.  He closed his eyes and his sight returned to normal.  “There’s something down there,” he said.

“Can you hear it?”

Alysdir tilted his head and listened.  There was a quiet hum that only he could hear.  “Street sweeper.”  He looked at the two humans.  “Sounds like a big one, too.”


Ryan nodded.  In the dim light, Echo could see he was a young man, probably in his early twenties with black or brown hair.  He pulled something from his vest and tossed it from one hand to another.  She saw the moisture from his breath form in the fridgid ar as he knelt in the sewere.  He pushed something against the wall and pulled another something from his vest.

“Hurry up,” Alysdir said.  “It’ll be in range soon!”

“Just another second,” Ryan said, pulling a string out of one of his pockets.  “You get behind me.”  He pointed at Echo.

She obeyed, and watched him pull the line and attach it to the opposite wall.

“What are you doing?” Echo asked.

“Making sure we aren’t followed,” he said.  “Let’s go.”

The three of them ran down the tunnel.  After a few minutes, there was a loud bang behind them.  Echo looked back, seeing rubble falling where they’d entered.

*****

Echo, Alysdir and Ryan reached the docks of southern Manhattan.  They had long been abandoned and often bombarded by artiliery for practice.  It began to snow again.

“We there yet?” Echo asked.

“Yes,” Alysdir said, annoyed.  “You can stop asking!”

She sighed.  “Like to see you walk as far as I have today in patched-up sneakers.”

“Don’t worry…” Ryan began, but he stopped and pointed a finger at her.  “Um…”

“Cassie.”

“Well, Cassie, you’ll be nice and warm soon.  And we’ll get you some proper shoes.”

Echo nodded, and followed him.  They walked on a rickty pier, leading towards a tanker, docked there.  There was no sign of life from it, though she found herself wondering if she was walking into another slave trade.

Alysdir approached a door on the side of the tanker and beat it twice with the butt of his rifle.  It opened, and a man with a shotgun stood there.  He lowered the weapon.

“Get in here!” he said. “PDF is looking for you!  Harriet was about ready to think you all dead!”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Ryan said.

“She would,” Alysdir answered, entering.

Ryan waited and motioned to Echo.  “You coming?”

She slowly walked towards the door.  Ryan grabbed her hand and pulled her in.  The door closed and the man turned a wheel with loud clicks.  It was sealed.


They walked.  Many doors were open.  Humans, Orcs, Trolls and Elves came and went from them.  Echo did her best to keep up with Alysdir and Ryan.  She stopped and felt the tanker lurch to life.  The diesel engines growled as the tanker pulled out of the harbor.

“Hey, c’mon!” Ryan shouted.  Echo sawy him and followed.  They came to a staircase and walked up it.  Echo could make out Ryan’s features a lot better now.

“Where’d Alysdir go?” she asked.

“He went ahead of us.”  They reached the top of the stairs and opened the door.  There was a Drow woman there, wearing a white tank top and cammo pants.  Her whit ehair had been cut to about shoulder length.  On her head were some bulky goggles that Echo had never seen before.

“Did you learn anything important before you drained them?” she asked a man in front of her.  It was Rylin, from earlier.

“Just codes for the gates,” he said.

“Okay, Rylin.  Remember to tell your buddies that though!  We need all the info we can get about Breed activities.”

“I…”

“Yes, I know.  Legionnaires stormed the mansion and slaughtered the occupants.”  She sighed.  “Go on.  I’ll talk to them later.”

Rylin nodded and walked out a door.

The Drow woman turned around.  “Alysdir, something came for you while you were out.”

“What?” he asked.  Echo saw him in a chair behind the woman.

“Was a simple box.  I had the techonmancers take a look at it, and it wasn’t any sort of trap, so, it’s in your room.”

He stood up and went through the same door Rylin had.

“Harriet?” Ryan said.

The Drow turned and smiled at them.  “So, you’re the girl Jimmy was talking about,” she said.

“Y-yeah,” Echo said.  “Is he okay?”

“He fired a PDF handgun and broke his arm.  He has to heal-up and it’ll take time.”

She looked at her feet.  “So, you’re Saint Harriet?”

“Saint Hadassa, if you want to get technical, but yes.”

Echo remembered what Jimmy had told her earlier.  “Do you know a guy named Lenny?”

“Yeah.”  She walked to the desk in the room and sat down.

Ryan turned to Echo.  “We help people escape or they join the resistance,” he said.

“Now,” Harriet continued.  “Jimmy said you’re going to meet his brother in Boston.  From there, you can choose to either join us, or you’ll be taken to a safe area.  Probably… somewhere in what was Northern Canada.  The area is pretty obscure when it comes to Breed control.”

Echo couldn’t contain herself any longer.  It was the reason she’d left the relative safety of the whore-house in the first place.  “Can he help me find my mom?”

Harriet’s face changed.  “I don’t know.  You’ll have to talk to him.”

“I’m from the mainland.  Does that help?”

“Not really.  You’ll have to talk to Lenny.”

Echo bowed her head.

“Listen.  We have an open room, A-12.  You can go there, relax a little.  We’ll go from there.”

“Thanks.”

Harriet smiled.

“Uh, do you need anything from me?” Ryan asked.

Harriet nodded.  “Take Cassandra to her room.  Oh, and I’d like to talk to you, privately when you’re done.  You know where my room is.”

Echo could see there was a curious look on his face.  “Um… I’d like to know more, if you can tell me.”

“I said, privately.”

Ryan shrugged.  “Okay.”