Fink nods to Azaelrel and then speaks to something unseen.

"Once this grate closes, Conceal it so that others would not find where we went. Gaurd it for the remainder of the night please. Thank you so much for your service faithful spirit."

Looking back to Azaelrel, Fink squeeks, "Ok! Down we go!"

Fink takes one last second to peer down the hatch, letting his gift of Astral Sight tell him if there is anything living down there.

The spirit nods its head and fades into the astral fully. There is no visible effect. Yet, at least.

Down below, the beam of light shows that the platform definitely has an opening to one side, but little else from this height.

He waits to take up the rear, and watch Fink's ass while the other enter the tunel. One last look at his car before he tucks in. He hates leaving it behind. But he'll be back. Was going to take more than a virus and some military types to keep him from it.

When the others start talking about lights he grunts. So much for cover of darkness and lowlite.

Fink slowly makes his way down the ladder, though the going is a bit slow, being a dwarf and all. At the bottom he takes a moment to check things out, peering down the tunnel in each direction using all his senses, astral and mundane.

Upstairs, things outside seem to be heating up a little and the sounds of moving troops can be heard a little louder than before. Lights play across the mouth of the entrance tunnel to the garage, though nothing more, yet.

The ladder proves secure, except for one rung which is completely loose on one side. Fink's light weight makes the danger much less than it could be, however, and he is able to avoid it without too much trouble. Finally reaching the bottom of the stairs, he clicks the thumb button on the flashlight and gets a view of the tunnel beyond. Luck is on his side as the light plays across a tunnel nearly five meters around, the sewage channel taking up a deep groove in the lower third of the tunnel.

The passage leads off north and south, with a half meter ledge on either side which allows an average human to walk. There are the ever present signs of filth and decay, though the sewage in the channel is little more than a shallow pool, a fact that is to be expected in the relative abandoned state of the entire DCZ.

As far as Fink can tell, he's the only bipedal creature in the tunnels for miles.

After the last refugee heads down the tunnel, Azaezel turns, and steps onto the ladder. He moves down far enough to close the grate. Once closed he pushes on the side of it with all his might, trying to wedge the bars to jam it. Once done he leaps down the floor landing in a crouch. Azaezel stayed motion less for a heart beat, to absorb the awareness of his surroundings.

Kyle peered around in the darkness, fighting a rising sense of panic. He slowly let his right hand slide out of his jacket, carrying the large frame of the Ultra-Power with it. Leaving the laser sight off, he waited for the others.

The bars seem sturdy at first, but hidden errosion makes them give way under the prolonged bending. The result isn't pretty, but it doesn't look like it will be easily opened, either. There is no sign of metahuman life in any direction, save up, and the skittering of little padded feet is the only sound to be heard at all (and those sounds are seemingly far away).

Fink smiles at the rat skittering around near his feet. Bending down, he pulls a small peice of food from a pocket and extends his hand out to the rat. While doing this, he whispers slightly under his breath, calling forth a spirit of the cities to act as an ally and guide.

In the darkness in front of Fink, a pair of red dots shimmer. After a few seconds, the form of something around them slowly resolves until the image of a rat-shaped spirit, only partially material, can be just barely seen in the darkness. A pair of "whiskers" twitch in the air and it cocks its little head at Fink expectantly.

The shaman realizes, with only mild surprise, that the bit of food he was holding out has disappeared.

Daemon watches the summoning trick with furrowed brows. He runs a hand through his flame shimmering hair and grunts. He'll never understand the whole mojo deal.

"My thanks for hearing my call, friend. I only ask that you stay with me now and be ready for what may come..."

Fink then turns to the rest of the group.

"So... which way are we headed?"

Turning the flashlight back and forth, Fink looks to someone else to take the lead, "North or South?"

"South," Azaezel says in a whisper as he moves through them. His foot fall makes no noise as he moves through the tunnel.

"My only interest is in escaping the CZ." He holds his Katana's handle, though the blade is still sheathed.

"South is that way." Kyle points in the other direction.

Azaezel's itching is growing worse, the cool, damp air of the sewers seeming to stir the hairs along his arms far more than it should. Back up the ladder, a few gunshots are heard, but little more.

Azaezel braces himself. He lets out a slow breath. The cursed itching on his skin is making him incredibley irratable. Making the urge to cut that fools head off almost impossible to resist.

"Fine, thne that way." Damn sewers.

Fink can't help but snicker a little under his breath as he moves to follow the rest of the group.

Kyle fell towards the rear of the group, turning the laser sight of his pistol on and off, keeping it pointed at the ground. He took another bar of chocolate out from his coat and, partially unwrapping it, began to eat as he walked.

Fink grins at Kyle, his huge ratlike insisors showing. "Got another one of those?"

The tunnels to the south are virtually indistinguishable from those to the north. As the group of kids slowly winds their way southward, the sounds of raiding above slowly fade. Making real headway in the sewers is maddening. Getting ten steps forward usually requires fifty steps in other directions, since the number of tunnels which can be navigated by metahuman feet is only a small percentage of the network. After what must have been half a city block worth of walking, something glinters in the light of the flashlight beam, causing the foremost person in the group (Azaezel?) to stop short.

Up ahead, perhaps ten meters away, a single strand of wire runs from the wall to just over the edge. It vanishes in between two blocks in the wall, though they show signs of having been reworked since their initial construction.

Skooter follows along with the others, munching a bag of chips from the stash in his bag (he shares if anyone else looks interested), and sipping from a bottle of some sort of sports drink. He seems to have a knack for keeping his sense of direction as the tunnels twist and turn, and he doesn't seem frustrated by their slow progress. He comes to a stop when he sees the wire, though.

"Drek. Any of you guys got experience doing break-ins? 'Cause I've got some wire clippers, but this thing has 'rigged for an alarm to go off' written all over it, and I think someone ought to check it out before we mess with it."

He squints at the wire, trying to guage if he could slip under it or levitate over it.

Kyle slipped the pistol back into its holster and walked forwards, taking the light from its holder. He aimed the beam at the wire, trying to see how it operated.

Alarms he could deal with, that was his deal after all. The place wasn't sitting well with him though. He wasn't some dirty sewer orc after all. Frag, he needed open sky to be honest. All this skulking around. He moves in to check the wire too, see what it's deal is. At least he can focus on that.

The wire is just a wire. One end is held taut by an eyebolt driven into the edge of the walkway, and the other end vanishes into the reseated stonework. It may be possible to move the building material around in order to see what it conceals, but it seems likely to set the wire off.

While it doesn't look like an easy item to puzzle out, it does look to be a fairly straight forward job to step over the wire and move past it.

Daemon's chrome eyes follow the length of the wire, and he kneels a bit to look under it, judging the height.

`Over?`

He's not exactly keen on messing with the setup.

Azaezel looks the wire up and down, and then examines the area around the wire.

"Looks harmless, dont touch it when you go around."

He then procedes to move very carefully around the wire. Not even coming close to touching it, or stepping on any area near it.

Crossing the wire proves simple enough, though the question of why someone would have installed it there remains open. After a few more meters, the tunnel branches again, this time offering only east and west as options.

Azaezel catches himself scratching and stops. He hadn't meant to do that but the tingling in his skin is getting worse.

The chocolate seems to be giving out for Kyle, and his headache is coming back again. The warm aftertaste of cocoa is replaced by the slickly coppery taste that has been welling up in his mouth for the last few hours.

Fink steps over the wire and stops on the otherside, looking it up and down.

"Hang on a sec guys, I wanna check something out... It looks like the wire disappears into the wall here, it may help to know whats on the other side. Mind if I go Astral and check it out?"

"By all means," Azaeazel says with an exaggerated gesture.

Damn this itching, what the hell am I allergic to.

"We probably want to head east, west is Elliot bay..."

Fink leans back against the wall and closes his eyes, letting his mind and spirit drift out onto the Astral Plane. Once there, he peeks his head through the wall to see what is on the other side.

Astral space feels odd here. It's been feeling odd for days, though, so this isn't much worse than that. Poking his head into the wall, Fink is unable to find a nearby open space where he can see anything. Whatever it is, it appears to be fairly well integrated with the wall.

Coming back to his body, Fink's eyes flutter open.

"The wall goes pretty deep, whatever it is, I can't make it out."

With a shrug he stands, ready to continue.

Fink whistles a little tune as he walks along, summoning a Watcher spirit to his side.

Kyle made a mental note of this location in case he should pass this way again, then followed along, being careful not to touch the wire.

A half formed thing if drooling lips and matted fur slowly comes into being before Fink. It rotates itself in mid-air, focusing one of not fewer than five eyes on Fink and giving him a look much akin to a dog at its master.

"Thank you for coming, little friend. Just stay near me for now, I may need a good scout soon."

As the group wanders along, Fink wonders outloud, "So how exactly are we gunna get out of the Zone anyways? Anyone got some bright ideas?"

"So we go west then," Azaezel says as he moves out. A slight edge begins to creep into his voice. Normally Peter trys to play it very cool. He knows he's young, but people often mistake him for being much older. He doesn't make rash decisions or jump head long into things without considering the consequences. But the infernal itching is causing him to become very irritable.

As he walks he pops his Katana out a few inches, then slides it back in.

`Whoa, whoa, whoa...`

Daemon starts walking backwards, a little in front of Fink. He's looking a bit more animated than before.

`Leave the Zone? Hell I just wanted to duck those military goons. I've got a car to think about picking back up and all.`

He'd put a lot of love into that car. Hell, it's not every day you manage a sucessful boost right out of a cop's driveway.

Skooter shakes his head sadly. "I've got a sweet bike back at my crib, along with an illegal matrix hookup, lots of other toys, and stashes of loot stuck around. But it won't do me any good if those goons pick me up. Those people in those busses, man... they're not ever coming back. And they're gonna just squeeze the noose tighter and tighter. The more people they pick up, the more deserted it gets, the harder it's gonna be to hide. It sucks, but we gotta get the hell out of there while we still can. But hey, you wanna head back for your wheels, be my guest. Be a lot easier to just boost a new set where we're going, though." His eyes glint, and a half-crazed grin flits around his mouth. "Hell, I figure the sprawl owes me a lot of stuff, now. Lucky for me, I got the smarts and the stones to go out and get it."

"Well we could cool our jets down here till sun up then head back for your car. Or wait till dark tomorow. Do you really need this car that badly?"

He grunts, and looks between Skooter and Azaezel.

`That's not just some sweet ride. That car and I have history... boosted it from the Star who busted my hoop in the first place...`

Sure, it's juvenille, but he's a kid, he's allowed.

`If we cool it long enough for them to get with the going, I can get us on out of this zone... they can't be covering every single street and back alley... can they?`

"With air support, they don't really need to. Besides, if your car has half the security of my bike, there isn't a chance in hell someone can steal it. I'm sure it'll still be there a month from now once all this has come to an end."

Kyle glances around at the walls, trying to stay calm. It'll be ok... it'll be ok... they won't take me back...

Kyle's anxiety rises, and in a detached way, he realizes that it's not just the natural tension of the situation. The taste welling up in his mouth is worse and suddenly he retches, leaning over just in time to avoid getting it all over himself.

The flashlight beam shines off of whatever Kyle just threw up. It doesn't look like breakfast... it looks more like a puddle of impure mercury with chunks of unidentifiable matter in it, a shimmering kind of darkened silver. For a moment, everyone freezes, and its' then that Azaezel involuntarily reaches up to scratch. In horror, his hand comes away with a ragged strip of skin, a full half inch wide and thrice that long.

Kyle stared at the ground in horror for a few seconds, then turned away. On one level his mind was still working rationally.
What would cause this... ebola? How would I have been exposed? What symptoms have I expressed?
On another, it was working far less rationally.
Oh god oh god oh god what is it I don't want to die now what is this what's happening this makes no sense please no no no...
He turned and stumbled a few steps down the passage, slumping against the wall. His hand drifted towards his pistol, seeking its comfort.

Fink jumps back in shock, eyes going wide, and a squeek of fear echoes down the hall. Looking around quickly, he shifts his senses to the Astral to see if that will tell him something.

Azaezel gapes at his hand holding the strip of what used to be the side of his face.

HIs normally calm vanear begins to vanish as his mind reals at what is happening.

"Somebody tell me what the frag is going on," he says, his voice quivering just on the edge.

"It's just an illusion, I just need to disbelive."

Most bizzare of all, to Azaezel, is the fact that the strip of skin, while clearly identifyable as such, doesn't show a spec of blood on it. He can feel the itching more intensely now, but there isn't any pain.

Azaezel slides his blade out, for a moment, the look on his face says 'crazy'. The fact that he cut through a door with that sword, and then bent some bars with ihs bare hands is not lost on the group. But he just turns the blade sideways, and uses it as a mirror.