The elevator doors opened and they sprinted down same marble staircase and past the malfunctioning robotic receptionist.

They were back on the street.

"Where do we go?" Roman asked quietly, they had both absentmindedly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, the sudden flurry of of people flooding around them. Jeen thought for a minute.

She looked at all the people, the transfers and loaders on the highway and something clicked in her mind.

A mere spark of hope.

"Do you think there's a back way out of the building?"Jeen asked Roman.

"Maybe? I don't know. Why?" He asked, confused.

"Mom doesn't like crowds. Even for a brief amount of time. Remember when she used to take us to the market?"
"Yeah. She made us leave early 'cause she was getting anxious." Roman said. Jeen nodded.

"C'mon." She waved her hand for him to follow as she turned back to the building, making a beeline for the allway between the manufacturing building and another large skyscraper.

The alleyway was more of a smaller stone path than an alleyway actually. Once both of them were walking down the path everything seemed more peaceful. The sound of traffic and crowded footsteps fading.

Jeen took a look back at the crowded street, people walking this way and that, not giving a bit of notice to each other. She turned her back to the busy street and then she and Roman walked forward, their footsteps silent.

They reached the end of the path and the two large building's walls ending behind them. They were in a park.

A very small one.

No one was here, and not a sound could be heard save the rustling of decorative grass. Which grew in a perfect circles embedded in gray pebbles. The path curved and split into a few smaller paths, separated by circles of pebbles with bamboo and colorful reeds growing through them. Covering the whole garden was a massive arbour with lavender wisteria hanging down.

Shadowing the garden was a black skyscraper. Jeen walked down one of the three paths, Roman taking a different one. They wandered around for a few minutes, Jeen reaching up and stroking the purple petals of the wisteria as she passed. She couldn't help feeling something was off about the place.

The utter silence.

Jeen felt shivers go down her arms as she observed the garden. Almost nothing seemed scary at noon, yet she found herself wanting to run.

She stood, pulling loose thread from her aqua sleeve and looking around nervously. She looked over to Roman who was wandering aimlessly through the garden.

"Does this place seem a little off to you?" She asked, her voice on edge.

"Yeah. Maybe." Roman answered.

She walked down the path until she came to a wooden archway that led down a path back towards the busy street.

"C'mon." She called to Roman when she noticed him standing still, his back turned to her.

"We should keep going." She called again, but he didn't move. She walked over to him feeling suddenly concerned

"Roman?" She came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder, he felt tense. "What's wrong?" She prodded.

Instead of answering he crouched down and reached out and touched his finger tip in something she had somehow overlooked in her worry.

Jeen's stomach tightened when she saw the small puddle of dried blood, or something that look identical to dried blood.

"Wait, don't touch it!" She started to panic as she saw Roman graze his finger over the stain.

"I already didn't like this place." He said as he looked back down at the blood.

She gazed down at the red stain again, filling with horror.

They sat and stared at it for a few minutes before Jeen became uncomfortable.

"Maybe we should go - " She said as she nudged Roman up off the ground.

She looked around to see if there was any more blood. She saw a dark splotch of something behind rustling striped grass. She stepped off the path and onto the pebbles, the sound of crunching under her feet.

She sucked in a sharp breath. There was another puddle of blood.

"There's more." Roman said obviously as he came up beside her.

She looked ahead and saw a gate in the wooden fence that surrounded the garden. She hastily walked over to it, a sudden desire to leave this place, and noticed a small smear of red on the wood.

She blinked rapidly as she looked away and hurriedly opened the gate and walked down the pathway away from the odd park. As she took a step closer to the crowded street in front of her, a blast of noise filled her ears.

Jeen swung her head in shock over to Roman.

"What just happened?" She asked as she looked around.

He shrugged in confusion.

She took a few steps back into the garden and the noise disappeared, the eerie silence returning.

"How is this possible?" She whispered.

She looked over at Roman, who was only a few feet in front of her. He was talking yet Jeen heard no sound coming from his mouth.

"Come over here!" She shouted.

He mouthed back 'what?' silently.

Sighing, she reached forward and pulled him back onto the garden path.

"This is really cool. I wonder how it works?" Roman said with a awestruck smile. Jeen gave him a disgusted look.

"Are you for real? This's disturbing." Jeen said, rubbing her forehead.

"Maybe, but it's still cool."

Shaking her head she walked back to the crowded street, noise pouring into her eardrums.

"I've never been around anything like that before." She said as she stood and stared at the garden's tall fence that separated it from the rest of the city.

"Maybe it's one those sound dampening disks." Roman said as he turned his head, looking at the garden from different angles.

"Never heard of them." Jeen said.

"Yeah, I read about them on the net. Supposedly they're something the government stole from criminals off the street, but before that happened their original purpose was for privacy. Like, important criminal stuff. Then Enforcement scoped out the buyers and put them in jail. I guess they was using the device to hide gunshots also. The article was written by a conspiracy theorist though, so I don't know if any of that's true." He said, like it was a perfectly normal thing to read about.

"Huh." Jeen said with a frown as she looked over at him.

She turned back to the garden gate. As much as she wanted to find out about the odd silence and the blood, she knew they had a bigger problem at hand.

"We should try to find Wardens or something to ask if they've seen her - since my connector isn't working." She finally said.

He glanced over at her with a doubtful face.

"Emkay, but If we don't get anything, we're should go straight to the Station." Roman stated.
Jeen agreed, and they pushed through the crowd, walking straight forward as all the crowd stepped to their left and right. They made it across the street and stopped to look at all people.

A thought came to Jeen.

"Don't you think it would be a bad time of day to kidnap someone, I mean when everyone gets off work? I would think to do it when no one was around." She wondered.

"Since when did this turn into a kidnapping?" Roman asked with his eyebrows knitted together, she could tell he thought the idea was as crazy as she did.

Jeen almost laughed at how absurd it sounded, but didn't because it seemed a much too serious topic to laugh at.

She saw a bench by shining skyscraper and sat down, observing the crowd. Roman came and sat beside her, his hands under his legs like he was ready to jump up at any moment.

He tilted his head Jeen's direction. "What are we doing?" He asked.

"Looking for a street Warden." Jeen answered, staring at the the passing crowd.

All the people in the crowd were of every class and race.

Every shape and size.

There were so many people, Jeen even spotted some Poseidon natives.

There were too many other odd outfits to focus on. They eventually all blended together as one big blur of people when Jeen spaced out.

Roman must've been saying something she didn't hear because a hand began to wave in front of her face.

"Woah, what?" She said, blinking.

"There's one."

She glanced across the crowded street where a big robotic man with black armor stood.

"Great. Let's go."

They stood up and stepped into the street. Jeen pushed past people who looked to each be in a hurry and gave her annoyed glances. She and Roman made it out of the crowd and they approached the big metal man.

"Hey, we want to know if you've spotted someone we need to find." Jeen asked as she looked up at his helmet.

"I'm sorry, this grid is unable to perform missing persons searches at this time. If I may assist you in any other way-" His vibrating voice rambled on.

Jeen's jaw dropped in angry disbelief.

"What do mean you can't perform missing persons cases? Helping people is your job!" Jeen yelled louder than she intended, but no one around them paid any attention. Roman put a hand on Jeen's shoulder before she could continue to shout at the metal figure.

"Calm down, we'll just go to a different grid." He said, gazing up at the Warden, unimpressed.

Jeen shook her head in disgust back at the robot as they walked away.

"If I was you, I would've thrown him across the street for target practice." She said.

"Yeah, it's a good thing you're not me then." Roman stated as they came to the crossroads where four streets all met together.

She clenched her teeth in irritation.

"Can you believe it? That's basically what the Warden told me on the phone! This is unacceptable, I think I'm going to make a complaint to the city."

"Which way?" He said as he looked down each street, ignoring her rant as usual.

"I don't know, but we should try and find a transfer caller." She answered, her voice still sounding on edge as she searched the street for a sign to tell them where the next grid was.

They spent the hour walking down the streets of the crowded city, black clouds blocking the sun from view and trapping them in the dingy and smouldering hot air. They stopped by every Warden they spotted, asking the same question every time, and every time they got the same answer.

"I'm sorry, this grid is unable to perform missing persons searches at this time. If I may assist you in any other way, please inform me."

Jeen was so sick of hearing that line that she was ready to throw one of the warden's across the street because Roman wouldn't.

They passed a towering courthouse with massive stone pillars and steps. Jeen gazed up, her eyes drifting to the time on the looming clock at the top of the building.

"We should just go to the Enforcement station now." She heard Roman say behind her. She blew a strand of hair out of face with a scowl on her face.

It took a few seconds before she could agree with him.

"Fine." She said. They stood in front of the courthouse for a few minutes more, feeling unsatisfied and confused as to what they should do next. Roman made the first move by walking over to the transfer caller they had seen for miles on the side of a brick wall of a bank and began to type in for a ride home.

A swoosh of hot air blew against Roman's face as the silver vehicle zipped up to them. Jeen pushed herself off of the brick wall she was leaning against and with a frown on her face, and followed him into the transfer.

She sat down and watched as Roman payed for the ride. The next second the beautiful skyscrapers they were surrounded by became a blur.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

Jeen's gaze averted from the constantly changing view of the window to Roman cracking his knuckles.

More pops followed before they began to set Jeen on edge again.

She opened her mouth to ask for the cracking-of-knuckles to be taken down a notch, but the transfer came to screeching halt. Jeen frowned as she gazed at the view outside her window.

"This isn't the Station." Jeen said.

"You don't say." Roman mumbled as he glared out the window.

"Did you put the wrong address in?" She asked as she pressed the button for her door to open. When she stepped out and heard the sound of mud squelching under her shoes. She glanced down and scowled at the filthy road, walking quickly over to the somewhat cleaner sidewalk.

"No. I'm sure I put in the right one." He replied from the other side of the transfer.

She looked at her surroundings.

They were in a place that was completely unfamiliar. The transfer had driven them to a small and dirty neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. She smelled a salty aroma and heard the crash of waves. Yet they weren't anywhere near home. The houses around them were all in shambles, some of them even looked like they've been burned down.

Jeen scanned out all the houses and the muddy street for any people, but found none.

"Do you have any money one hand?" Roman said.

"No, I left my bag at home." She answered, then turned to look at him with a worried face.

"Why?"

"I spent the rest on what I thought was a ride home."

Jeen couldn't help slapping her forehead.

"Why does this have to be the one time we don't have any money with us?" She whispered in an overly distressed tone.

Roman reached inside the transfer and pressed the button for the door to close. Jeen took a few steps back, not wanting be splashed with mud - but the swoosh of wind didn't happen. The transfer remaned hovering a few inches above the ground, unmoving.

"Maybe it's going bad or something?" Roman pondered. He pulled his connector out of his pocket, ready to call for assistance.

"Drop the connector."

Jeen jumped.

She somehow managed to miss the man standing behind the transfer.

Roman glared.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"I said drop the connector." He said with his deep guttural voice, which was only the first thing that was intimidating about him.

He was huge with a scarred face, like he'd been burned or scratched multiple times, and looked to be in his forties.

A loud whooshing noise went straight past her, taking her attention away from the odd stranger.

She heard Roman take in a sharp breath. When she looked over she heard a scream and it took a few seconds to realize it was her own.  

(My attempt at a cliffhanger lol. Not sure if I succeeded or not. If you enjoyed the chapter please vote! Thank you <3<3 xoxo )