Avatara

"Quickly, close the doors," said Qwerty.

The doors of the elevator took a long time to close and smoke from the room entered the lift. Just then an alarm started blaring and red lights flashed in the main room. Qwerty did not notice it but he was hyperventilating. So were the others.

Rushed and panicked Jazz pushed a button that said 'landing zone.' The elevator car started to go up but in a rickety fashion with its ceiling light flashing. Jazz fretted whether they would have to use the emergency trap door above them to escape the lift if it suddenly stopped; and got even more anxious when he realised that they did not have enough strength to climb up and out through an elevator ceiling. If they got trapped, smoke could flood the elevator shaft, leaving them without air to breathe and suffocating them. But the lift was the only choice they had as there were no stairs they could take, or at least they had not discovered them on their way down.

Grace and Pixel remained unresponsive. Thankfully, they were still breathing, which gave Jazz some relief but he hoped they weren't now brain dead. Which they would be if their avatara had been destroyed in the servers. The lift continued to ascend towards the landing zone. Jazz noticed a deep dark grey mark on Grace's left forearm. It looked rubbery and scarred, perplexing him with the question of what really happened inside the avatara system.

"How many seconds have passed bro?" said Byte.

"Dunno," said Qwerty.

"We're not gonna make it in time," said Byte.

"Let's not give up hope guys," said Jazz.

"I ain't giving up hope," said Byte. "We're Escape Key, we always knew that we could die anytime by doing these dangerous missions. This is about reality mate. Man's can't control everything at every moment. Life just happens man."

Not the sort of response that Jazz would expect from a thirteen year old and it sounded more like denial to him than acceptance. But before he could reply, they noticed stirring from the girls on the floor.

"Yes, they are waking up," said Qwerty.

"Grace?" said Jazz. Her eyes were still partially closed but she had stretched her arms out and yawned. Then she quickly flinched when she realised she was in a closed space, accidentally kicking Jazz with her boots.

"Hey, Grace it's me, Jazz," he said. Grace sat up and looked at him through narrowed eyes but said nothing.

At the other half of the elevator between Byte and Qwerty, Pixel clamoured up to hold the side rail of the elevator. Qwerty and Byte assisted her. "It's ok Pixel," said Qwerty. "You're back in the real world now."

The elevator stopped on the landing zone level. A bell rang, and the doors opened with the voice on the elevator speaker coming through.'Landing zone,' it said. Jazz put half of his body across the entrance to stop the elevator door from closing.

The ceiling fire sprinklers were all on, at a low level, wetting all the floors. A skittling, pitter-patter sound reverberated off the floor from the fast falling water droplets. Which seemed to be an excessive measure of the building systems given that there were no signs of fire in the landing zone yet. However, with the machines, artillery, chemicals and radioactive resources located within Q-division, on reflection it was not unreasonable at all.

'20 seconds to lift deactivation,' said the elevator speaker voice.

"Come on Pixel," said Qwerty. He grabbed her, holding her up and put her arm around his neck.

"Ok," she mumbled, still very groggy. She had been inside the server system for too long. "Where's Grace?"

"Be careful," said Jazz. "It seems slippery out there." Qwerty took Pixel out of the elevator into the main area. Light water droplets hit them from above.

"Ok, Byte, now you go." Grace was able to get up with Byte's help. She looked extremely confused but leant on Byte as she was able to stand.

Pixel turned back from Qwerty to speak to Grace.

"Are you back Grace? Is it you?"

"Pixel, don't worry about that for now," said Qwerty hurriedly. "Walk fast so we can get out of here safely. Chat can happen outside."

'Lift deactivating,' said the elevator voice.

Jazz smelt smoke coming up inside the lift and then suddenly some component like the drive and railing system on the elevator car must have dislodged because the elevator car slipped and Jazz nearly fell back into the elevator.

"Jazz careful!" shouted Qwerty. Luckily, most of Jazz's body was outside of the lift so he did not fall back in completely and managed to stay outside by holding onto the door track. Which was just as well because in the next few seconds, the elevator car completely collapsed and fell downwards into the abyss.

"Damn, so that was what was meant by lift deactivation," said Byte. "What a hell of a place."

Smoke rose up clearly from the depths below and without the elevator car to block the passage of smoke, the gas now emerged out in the landing area. With a renewed sense of urgency the guys moved faster to try and leave Q-division.

"Forwards, this way," said Qwerty.

"Come on Walker," said Grace, eyes now open but still clearly still disorientated, as she called Jazz by his undercover name. Byte carried her forward and Jazz followed them behind. The arrival of smoke to the floor still set off alarms even though the sprinklers were on and the sprinklers themselves released water with more speed than before.

Red lights flashed from the ceilings and all the electronically controlled doors were unlocked and swung open as expected in a fire situation.

They ran down the corridors.

'Fire, please make it to the fire safety area,' said an artificial voice, through speakers above. Fortunately, the route to the main exit of Q-division was relatively straight. The main exit door for Q-division was also open.

"Damn, so much running man,"said Byte. But at least by this stage Grace and Pixel were able to run a bit as well.

Grace slipped on the steps up to the ground floor of Sheldrake Enterprises. Her legs hit Jazz, who behind her on the flight of stairs crashed into a side wall. Byte also fell back as he was holding Grace up by the shoulder.

"Watch it!" said Qwerty. "We gotta get out of here guys, people will be showing up soon with all this noise. Get up Byte. Come on all of you get up." Byte got up first. Byte and Qwerty helped Grace and Jazz up from their collapsed positions.

"Keep going up," Qwerty shouted Pixel further up the staircase. At least she was making progress.

Grace muttered to herself in an irregular pattern not making much sense. "You can't escape…," she said.

"Owww!" said Byte. Grace gripped him a bit too hard to steady herself it seemed. But he was relieved by help from Qwerty to steady her gait and her grip became more relaxed quite quickly. Jazz demonstrated incredible resolve despite being hurt yet again and was able to keep standing despite hitting the side wall. Byte and Grace were the ones to fall completely in front of him. He tried to help pick Grace but he could barely crouch down.

"Your mind, your body, your soul…," continued Grace in her delirium.

"Grace what is it?" said Jazz. Byte shrugged his shoulders and Qwerty did not have the patience to listen given the acute urgency to get out.

"We haven't got time for this," said Qwerty. "Byte mate, hold her on one side and I will hold her on the other."

Byte and Qwerty held her up on each shoulder and effectively towed her upstairs.

Leaving Jazz to his own devices behind him. He somehow managed to pull himself up the wall, using whatever adrenaline he had left to squander.

"Arrrrgh!" he screamed as he tried to transfer him upwards. Would have been easier if he was going downwards with gravity.

Byte unable to look behind himself with Grace's left arm around his shoulders shouted for Jazz's hearing.

"Jazz are you alright? Is the pain too much?"

Jazz breathed heavily as he heaved himself up. He puffed for air.

"Pain is weakness leaving the body," he shouted back.

"What?" replied Qwerty. With all the tapping of feet on metal steps and alarm noises whirring around them it proved difficult to make out what anyone was saying.

"Ah screw it," said Jazz.

"If we get Grace out of here quickly we can go back and get Jazz," said Qwerty.

So making it out of the Q-division, up stairs and then out through the ground floor exit was effortful due to their injuries and exhaustion, not the resistance of any more assailants.

As per the focus of Qwerty in this emergency situation, Grace was brought out of the building after reaching the top of the steps on the ground floor. Pixel waited outside, bent over while standing with her hands holding her knees. A puddle of fluid on the ground in front of her indicated that she had been vomiting.

Qwerty and Byte managed to carry Grace a little bit further ahead next to a small pillar and made sure she sat up. Their efforts made ever so slightly harder by the fact it was raining. Her eyes were open but she was not completely with it yet. She looked at Qwerty like she was drunk.

"Thank you," she said, slurring slightly and rolling her eyes.

"Pixel, make you stay close to her and keep her sat up. We're going to help Walker...I mean Jazz," Qwerty said.

"Will be back in a sec," said Byte, who started to run inside.

A minute later Qwerty and Byte came back outside with Jazz who hobbled to best of his ability. The former policeman allowed himself to fall to the ground next to Grace, who seemed a bit brighter now that Pixel had been speaking to her. Byte and Qwerty remained standing.

"How is she?" Jazz said to Pixel.

"I don't know, I think she will be ok but something is off," Pixel replied. "Knightmare-Grimm had a bit of a hold on her inside the system."

"Knightmare-Grimm?"

"He's dead," said Pixel.

Jazz nodded silently. Byte blew a sigh of relief. He said a swear word or two that somehow relieved the tension not just for him but the others as well.

"Are you sure?" said Qwerty.

"I'm sure."

"And what about Yi?" said Byte.

Pixel just looked away at the ground. That said more than words. Byte strode away for a few seconds, shaking his head before returning back.

Outside Sheldrake enterprises on Old Broad Street in central London, the five of them recuperated for a moment. The fire alarm blared outside in the street as it rained. Exhausted, injured and without any more ideas they hung around like sitting ducks, waiting for whoever would be the first to arrive to find them. Qwerty hoped they could have escaped but there was no escaping in the state they were in.

Grace spoke properly for the first time. Jazz asked her not to move too much as she shuffled herself.

"Is everyone okay?"

"More like are you okay?" said Byte.

"I'm fine," she replied.

"No one here is fine right now," said Pixel.

"That's true," Qwerty said quizzically deep in thought. "Come to think of it, how did you two get out of the system?"

"Yi helped us," said Pixel.

"Yi," said Grace. She strained to look back at the Sheldrake enterprises entrance. "He's dead."

Pixel looked at Grace with narrowed eyes. There was something different about her now. She did not seem to be herself.

"I'm sorry," said Jazz. "We tried to protect him but Knightmare-Grimm got to him and killed him mercilessly."

"What happened to him, inside the system?" said Qwerty.

"He choked to death," said Grace plainly. "He died like an insect."

"But his spirit appeared again," said Pixel interrupting. "He helped me and Grace defeat Knightmare-Grimm inside the system."

"He's definitely dead," said Grace looking at Pixel. "He's not coming back."

They heard a cracking sound behind them and turned to see who or what it was.

A window panel fell off the side of the Sheldrake tower and crashed into a thousand pieces on the ground below. Out of the gap it left behind, smoke and fire emerged.

"Millions to billions of pounds of property damage; we better get out of here," said Jazz.

"Forget it," said Qwerty. "I'm too knackered to try and run and you guys look like you don't have much juice left either. It's done. The ambulance and the police are gonna get us."

Just then, a car roared down the street towards them.