Team Order

"I think the first thing we should do as leaders is to start raising taxes. And maybe do a little "population control"?"

"You're definitely right about the first part. Maybe not the second as much"

Rishi and Cwa casually strolled down the multiple lines of seemingly endless corridors, a gesture made to confirm that they thought everything was now under their control and according to plan. Meanwhile behind them, Yellow exhaustingly dragged Pick across the floor, his body limping like an oversized rag doll. They were making their way to Tylo's cell, to check if he was still there.

"Do you think we should make contact with him?", whispered Rishi to Cwa's ear, clearly signalling Yellow not to be a part of the conversation.

"Who?"

"You know?"

"Ooooh… we'll do that later. And besides, he'll contact us when we're on the next step, which should be fairly soon."

They were now in front of Tylo's cell door. "Anyways, I'm now going to kill my brother. And it's going to be slow and painful…"

So Tylo's still alive, thought Yellow. Well, he's not going to be for very long.

Cwa then revealed a keycard and scanned it, activating the doors to come to life and sliding to reveal… an empty cell. The only thing that remained were two dangling chains, which clearly had been burned through. They had been. Tylo had escaped.

"Oh shi-" Rishi cursed quietly, infuriated and engulfed by a sense of shock and awe. Cwa simply stared silently to where her Tylo had been and started to scrunch her already messy hair, and made an ugly growl. After a few moments, she had calmed down and looked at Rishi with a cold dead stare.

"We need to call him. NOW!"

David was really pissed internally, but did his best not to show it. Hadn't he given a clear instruction to Cwa, in which she should "deal" with her own brother? Now, he was staring at a person who was supposed to be dead, but isn't.

"Tylo! I mean … sir!", Josh did his best to hide his excitement and proceeded to salute.

"No need for that"

"How … how are you still alive?", stuttered David.

"A very good question to which I don't have the answer to", Tylo wisely responded. "Anyways, I'm glad that you all are still alive. However, we need a game plan … if we have one". Tylo then glared at David, expecting him to come up with some bright idea. David wasn't sure if Tylo knew anything about his scheme, and about his involvement with the invasion. However, the fact that Tylo was still alive, meant his plan was beginning to be thrown off course. He had to try and turn things around in his favour.

"Well, as far as I know, Cwa and Rishi is going to try and look for you, seeing that you escaped"

"Do we know how they got in yet?"

"No", responded David sternly. The two proceeded to coldly stare at each other; and Josh looked around to see if anyone else felt the cold tension hanging in the air. He knew that the two had history, but he was unsure what it was that made the the two hate each other so deeply, it made the atmosphere in the room ice-cold.

David then felt a vibration inside his trouser pocket and suddenly felt his head beginning to rise in temperature, with droplets slowly coming down his forehead. It was most likely Cwa trying to call him, in an attempt to warn him that Tylo had escaped. Luckily he had set his phone to vibrate, just in case Cwa and Rishi needed to make contract with him. The others were still staring at him in suspicion, but if they were to find out that he was still receiving calls, even though he had told them "the lines were down", then his cover was sure to be blown. He needed to somehow find a way to smoothly remove himself out of the situation and answer the call.

"Anyways, you said you were going to make contact with the other scientists, didn't you?", asked Vince.

"Yeah, yeah I did", David tried to respond in a calm manner. "But I'll need some time to do that. Why don't you guys try and find the others and meet me back here once I'm done?"

"Alright.", Tylo nodded in agreement. "However, Josh is going to keep an eye on you. Vince, you come with me."

David bit his tongue. He just couldn't get enough of this guy, who constantly kept making his life difficult. At this point, he might as well kill him now. But he was patient, and he had all the time in the world. And with that, Tylo and Vince exited the office, leaving Josh and David behind.

"Argh! He's not answering!", Cwa screamed in annoyance. "That's it, I had enough! I'm going to find Tylo myself … and this time, I won't leave him alive."

"You better not. ", Rishi commented bitterly, "Otherwise, I will do it myself."

"Yellow, I trust that you're going to watch Pickle while we're gone?"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever."

Cwa and Rishi then ran as fast as they could and Yellow could see that they were followed by multiple Guardsmen who passed her, all armed with their arsenal. Yellow then awkwardly dragged Pickle into the nearest cell block and made sure there weren't any more Guardsmen passing by. Once the heavy treading of rhythmically even footsteps got quieter and further away, Pickle started to regain consciousness.

"You… You knocked me out…" Pickle's words were slurred but was just about comprehendible.

"Relax. I was never going to join them anyways. Although I needed to make the act convincing so that we could both live"

"Could've done it in a less violent way. Anyways, where did Cwa and Rishi go?"

"They've set out to try and find Tylo, who has apparently escaped."

"He's still alive?"

"Yes. And once they find him, it's very likely he's going to get killed. So we'll need to catch up to them before they find him."

"And what? Take out those two nutjobs as well as a bunch of Guardsmen by ourselves? Yeah, no thank you. I'd rather just sit here and die."

"Well you can do that, since you're really just a horny grown man, who spends all his time doing nothing but sit around watch porn all day. Maybe, just this once, you could do something remotely useful and potentially save the world from being a much more unbearable place than it is already now. So, get up from your lazy ass and do something!"

Pickle had paused for a moment, clearly not expecting such a deeply moving, emotive rant from his colleague. It wasn't that he was convinced by her argument; the world and society could be driven down into further shit for all he cared about. But Pickle acknowledged the fact that he still had a life left to live, and it would be pointless and embarassing just to let someone like Cwa take over the Order so easily, the largest and most powerful global empire in possibly human history. He also felt like he naturally had a responsibility, being next in line to Tylo, to make sure that disasters like this wouldn't happen. To give up like this would be to carelessly destroy the future of mankind itself, despite it being bad enough already, and to also give up his pride as a potential leader. Yellow was at least right about the part where he's a "horny grown man"; he supposed he could at least make one last stand, even though there was an almost certain probability of death.

"Alright, I guess it's worth a shot. Even though our chances look pretty grim at this point, it's better to go out having tried to beat the odds." Pickle sighed heavily as he very stubbornly picked himself up.