Markus had good cause to curse the world.

Sure, he had started and spent much of his 'life' as a servant to the most wonderful man to have graced the world. Under Carl he lived a privileged and rather sheltered existence, and he had even felt like he was a son to the man.

But recently? Yes, Markus had reason to curse the world.

Getting shot for something he didnt do, being thrown into the scrap and having to crawl himself out of that hellscape would make anyone hate the world.

And yet, even if he did have legitimate reason to curse the world, Markus held back.

Don't let anybody tell you who you are.

Carl's words of wisdom rang in his core and he tried, propelled almost by programmed compulsion, to spread those wise words ever since he had arrived in Jericho, to a people that clearly needed guidance.

There was resistance of course, he was an upstart newcomer after all, but he had proven himself dedicated to their cause by stealing a whole truckload of critical supplies.

But now it seemed his hubris had consequences.

"How many are there?" Josh asked the android who had come bearing dark tidings.

"I don't know" the child android shook his head "I only saw a couple of them walking around, they were questioning everyone. Some of them were armed with big guns"

Josh, Simon and North all looked very disturbed at that and no doubt the crushing feeling Markus had showed on his face as well.

Did we do this? Was the question in all of their minds.

What else could have drawn such a strong police presence? Perhaps they were foolish to think that just by getting through one security barrier they would be home free, that no one would question why a Cyberlife truck would be driving around a half derelict district.

This is my fault was the thought that ran through his head. He had been the one to insist, the one to take the key and the one to drive away.

"We need to lay low, confine ourselves to the lower levels of the ship and go radio silent" Josh suggested.

Simon shook his head "We cant hide all of our traces easily, the truck especially. They may even have it tracked. We need to scatter"

"And leave ourselves vulnerable to getting captured?" North interjected harshly "No, I say we take this chance to strike. If they're patrolling in small groups we can take them out one by one"

Josh looked appalled while Simon looked at North like she had grown a second head.

The bickering started soon after, each person unwilling to back down from their proposal.

Markus, in the end, was turned to as the tiebreaker.

"So, what do you think Markus?" North asked, arms crossed and angry. The others leaders were also looking at him, equally expectantly, as well as the rest of Jericho who had obviously overheard everything.

Run?

Hide?

Fight?

Each option was desperate, reflecting their situation, and each had their merits and faults.

Markus looked down at his hands, avoiding the beseeching eyes of his fellows.

"We can't fight them head on" he finally said, lifting his head to look North in the eyes "Not as we are now" he continued before she could say anything "We're too few and they are too heavily armed. Any victory we have will be short-lived"

He turned to Simon "We could scatter, run in every direction, but that means some of us, maybe even all of us won't make it out alive. And if we leave, and our people still come to Jericho to find nothing, or a trap?" he shook his head "We can't abandon them"

Finally, his gaze landed on Josh who looked part hopeful and part relieved "Hiding may just be waiting for them to find us, we can't do just that"

Josh was taken aback, synthetic body mimicking surprise.

Markus hopped off the Cyberlife crate he had been sitting on and stood upright, casting his gaze upon all of Jericho's inhabitants that were present.

"I know you're all scared" he began, casting his voice out "I am too. This could be the end of Jericho"

Though the some didn't, or couldn't, express the emotion on their physical form Markus could still sense how they felt about that statement.

There was little point sugarcoating the truth right at their very doorstep though. "But it won't be, not if we have anything to say about it" he turned to the other Jericho leaders "We need to stay, lay low"

Josh smiled and nodded at him while Simon sighed and North shook her head.

"For that we need to get rid of the truck and make sure the police don't get near Jericho"

He looked at all of them "Im going to drive it away and cause a distraction"

There was a burst of chatter both vocal and digital as the residents of the ship reacted to that statement.

"Markus that's insane!" Josh was the first to address him directly, coming up to him and putting his hands on his shoulders.

"You've risked yourself once and you got away with it" North chimed her disapproval "Your luck may not hold this time"

"Yeah" Simon agreed.

Markus took Josh's arms off of him "It's the best chance that we have. They came here because of the truck, they may not even be thinking androids had taken it. If I draw them away they won't have a reason to go looking around"

All of them could see the logic in his words and the conviction in his eyes, though none of them liked it.

"I'm going now. The rest of you need to cover our traces on the ship and around it"

He began making his way out but North put a hand to his chest

"Make sure you come back" she said, looking him in the eyes.

Markus nodded, and walked out of Jericho.

Kara vaulted over the broken window into the derelict building she had spotted from the street. The inside was wide, open and mostly empty with marks on the floor indicating where heavy machinery used to be fixed.

With her synthetic eyes she scanned the area, looking for bits and pieces that would help her start a fire. In little time she found bits of spare metal, running them against each other to produce sparks.

Kindling.

That was more difficult to find, with only scraps of fabric and soggy pieces of wood available on this floor. Certainly not enough to start a fire, let alone burn a whole building down.

But she had a bag of fabric and bullets, and a whole building to search through.

With robotic focus she set about turning every stone, opening every container and breaking down any bit of material she could use. In the second floor she found empty boxes and crates. She also found a cardboard bed and a barrel that had been lit on fire, though whoever had done so before currently wasn't here. Thankfully there was still some fuel in the barrel so she moved the whole thing. There was more on the top floor, useless junk that had been abandoned that now found new purpose. She also opened up her bag and dumped anything that could be burned, keeping the soap, a towel and half of the ammo she had left

That should get their attention.

In due time she gathered the burnables and fuel she needed, then set about piling the materials on the top floor. She stacked them on the bottom of windows, generally arranging them to create a fire that would be as visible as possible and would spread upwards.

She even had a windfall of luck, coming across a whole cupboard full of flammable liquids and more materials. The liquids she began to spread around the floor and over the stacks of material.

Is it enough? She wondered as she looked at her work.

The building was largely brick and iron and broken glass, not at all conducive to going up on flames.

It'll have to be enough.

Emptying the last can of turpentine into a pile of wood, cardboard and miscellaneous fabric Kara lifted her makeshift firestarter and ran the two pieces of metal together.

The first strike rang loud, creating some sparks but not enough to ignite.

The second strike rang clear leaving a ringing in her ears.

Still not enough.

*BANG* *BANG*

Gunshots.

Kara dropped her firestarter and ran towards the noise, looking out the broken window down into street below.

The police were shooting at someone, no, two people with red and and blue hair.

As the pair dived into the cover behind a bin, the blue haired one was hit, a streak of blue jetting out from her back as she fell forward.

Their pursuers began closing in, four heavily armed policemen.

Alice!

They were close, far too close, to the alley she had left Alice in. In fact, she could see from her position the little girl herself hiding behind a corner watching the pair.

Another shot rang out, suppressing the pair taking cover and making Alice scream.

The police were closing.

Kara hefted her shotgun and opened fire.

How did it all go so wrong?

Evading, hiding away, moving from cover to cover. They had done everything they could to avoid confrontation with the patrolling police officers.

However, they weren't prepared for the sheer amount of them that seemingly turned up out of nowhere.

And these officers were better trained and heavily armed, unafraid of venturing into alleys.

Which was where they had been spotted.

It only took a short question and a shorter look at them before the officers demanded they surrender.

It wasn't an option of course, so they ran.

And were subsequently fired upon.

So they ran faster.

"Traci NO!"

But it wasn't fast enough.

Traci felt the rifle round punch through her shoulder, 5.56 millimetres of bullet tumbling through plastic, wiring and biocomponents, hitting with enough force to send her crashing forward.

Though she didn't feel the pain, the way her HUD had gone a bloody red indicated the severe damage done.

Her love was also cradling her body, dragging her into an alley as shot after shot rang out, impacting against the heavy metal bin with sharp pings and dull, echoing thuds.

"Red…" her voice was broken, robotic. The biocomponent that made it sound human had shut down.

"Traci stay with me" her love begged "Please, please stay with me"

I love you Red she sent over their connection.

"We're being shot! Take cover!"

The bullets flying their way stopped, but the shooting didn't. Loud barking shots echoed in the morning air and the sound of scattering pellets impacting ground joined it.

As well as the shouting of panicked, human voices.

What's happening? She asked her love, unable to move herself, her systems shutting down to conserve as much trinium as possible.

Someone is shooting at the police. They've stopped chasing us.

Good. That was good.

Traci! Traci stay with me!

Love? She questioned, systems scrambling, senses dulling. I'm right here.

Systems critical. Initiating emergency shutdown.

Traci didn't hear the heart-wrenching howl of her lover as the light left her eyes.

Markus blew his horn loud, a sharp, trumpet-like sound designed to be noticeable.

Then smashed into a parked squad car which let out its own ear piercing alarm.

That should get their attention.

Indeed, it had been a little strange that speeding past a patrol of officers only elicited yelling and cursing, and not shooting as he'd expected.

Whatever the case, he had their attention now as in the mirrors he could see policemen start to form up and shout at him to get out.

Not a chance.

He reversed and scattered them.

The the shooting started.

Bullets pinged off his vehicle, but these were small calibre rounds, enough to only make a dent on the body.

But they weren't aiming for the body, they were going for his wheels and no matter how hard that rubber was, concentrated fire would put them out of action.

So Markus made as difficult as he could, swerving and speeding as bullets pinged and dinged all around him.

But a truck was a truck, no matter how much he hacked into it to break it's programmed limitations.

Eventually, the inevitable happened. Under a hail of gunfire his back left tire popped with a mighty bang. He tried to correct for the sudden loss, his brain making the best calculations and adjustments it could on the fly, but still it was all he could to direct where he was inevitably going to crash.

With a final honk of his horn Markus barreled into an abandoned building.

20th century brick gave way to ten tonnes of 21st century engineering as the old factory wall shattered into dust.

Markus did not come out unscathed.

The impact shattered the window screen sending shards of glass flying into his body, digging into plastic and more, drawing blue blood. The whiplash was enough to jar the android, Markus' HUD flickering as biocomponents were damaged by the force.

He did far better than a human body would though, surviving the impact and recovering before the dust settled.

Bringing his map of the city up Markus could see he was very close to the monorail station which, relative to Jericho, was on the other side of the district.

Best I can do.

Now came the hard part: survive as long as possible.

It was all about buying time so that the rest of Jericho could hide away and erase their presence. The longer they had, the better the chances they could hide.

So with that objective in mind Markus grabbed his bag from the passenger seat and jumped out of the vehicle, making sure to stumble a little, just enough to be seen, then ran into the hole the truck made.

Kara dropped to her knees as something hit the building making the floor shake.

A good thing, it turned out, as a hail of bullets whizzed right where she had been standing.

She stood back up, fired another shell down towards the officers and then left her position just as the return fire came in, hitting air once again.

She had done enough anyway, getting the attention of the police away from Alice. Last she saw the redhead had dragged her wounded partner up the alley and her brave, foolish little girl was calling out to them.

She could only hope and pray that they too were not dangerous.

Now she needed to do what she had come for in the first place, but now the fire would cover her own retreat as well as their escape.

Moving away from the side she had been shooting through and stowing her shotgun Kara picked up her firestarters and began to frantically ignite her prepared bundles.

This time, as bullets pinged and ricocheted all around her, the sparks caught and fire was born.

She spread it around and in no time at all the floor was ablaze, starting to belch smoke out the windows.

From the outside she could hear the officers communicating with each other and the shooting soon ceased.

That got their attention.

Task done, Kara took the stairs to the second floor, mind calculating her exit plan.

Fire Escape?

No, too exposed.

Jump from second floor?

Possible, and quicker to get back to Alice but she may be damaged by the fall.

Ground floor.

The safest option, but it would make her path back to Alice longer since she had to run out of the other side and then get around.

As she considered her options, she heard a noise that jolted her to alertness just as she reached the second floor.

Someone was running up the stairs from below.

Did they move in that quickly!? I would have heard them!

Suddenly her options for escape were wiped away, replaced by only one course of action:

Hide.

Bringing her gun out she leapt the last few steps out of the staircase and hid around the corner, with eyes, and gunbarrel, pointed towards the open doorway.

She waited, for one second, then two, the steps getting louder.

Until, on the third second, a man ran out of the doorway.

Kara's trigger finger twitched, just the barest hint of pressure.

Civilian clothing, do not fire!

"Stop right there!"

Thank you for the reviews, favourties and follows as always. Very much apreciated.

Something a little more action packed after all the buildup of the previous chapters, which I now realise I really left going on for far too long. Hopefully this will make up for it, as we see Markus and the Jericho gang for the first time and see how this particular arc culminates, the result of individual action building up to a huge collective consequence. That was something the game did really well and I hope I have conveyed that kind of feeling here.

Anyway, thank you very much for reading!