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from metal poles on both sides of his bed. He moved his arm and groaned. It felt very painful and hard even to try and lift one.
    “Stay still, you lost a lot of blood. It's a small miracle that you're still alive.” He recognized Fabiana's voice, but it sounded strange, as if coming from afar. His mind drifted again, and he closed his eyes. A painful one-hour sleep filled with horrific nightmares followed.
    Once he was awake again, his vision was much better and he started recognizing shapes. Fabiana was still sitting on the chair at the bottom of his bed.
    “What happ–” The end of his question was lost, because Ian MacGeady was feeling as if he had just swallowed a thousand razorblades.
    “You're again a normal person, Ian,” Fabiana said with a soft voice. “We gave you back the biggest gift of all – Free Will. Your brain implant was removed; that's why you're feeling so bad.”
    Ian MacGeady tried to assimilate what he had just heard, but he felt the abyss calling for him again. With his head feeling as if it would explode any minute, he tried to talk. No sound came out of his dry throat, and a few seconds later, he fell unconscious again.
    Fabiana got off her chair and gently placed a cloth soaked in cold water on MacGeady's forehead before her eyes moved to the man sitting above the bed in silence.
    “Now what?” she asked.
    “We'll wait.”
    * * *
    Taylor heard a loud crash just before he reached the rooftop and rolled over the soft grass. The impact was heavy enough to leave him jaded for a few seconds; but, with no serious damage, he was soon on his feet and looking around. He soon saw what caused the sound he heard. Taylor saw Jinhun slide with a painful moan from the top of a wooden alcove on which he had landed. Broken planks and dripping blood from Jinhun's forehead showed how hard the impact was. As Taylor headed towards him, he realized that his landing wasn't without damage; his right leg hurt and he had to hobble the ten feet to the alcove.
    Just as the two reunited and Jinhun managed to lift himself up on one knee, his head still spinning from the impact, the surface behind them erupted as a long line of bullets ripped grass and soil out of the rooftop. The shots were coming from the heli to their right. The pair quickly realized they were far from safe where they were. Luckily for the two men, the still erratically swinging car attached to the flying machine and the difficult weather conditions made aiming very hard, and the deathly line of bullets passed them a good two feet away. However, they both knew that they must get off the open roof quickly.
    “Can you walk?” Taylor asked.
    “I think so.” Jinhun staggered back to his feet at the second attempt, but he felt his head spinning. Taylor had to support him.
    “Come on.” Taylor put his shoulder under Jinhun's arm for support, and the two of them hobbled slowly towards the middle of the roof where the leafy crowns of half a dozen trees violently swayed in the strong wind. “The exit must be somewhere here,” Taylor added as they reached the cover of the first tree.
    Suddenly, a loud bang from behind them made them drop to their knees and turn nervously. The pilot of the heli had switched off the magnetic net. The big car crashed on the rooftop behind them, producing an explosion that set the bench nearby on fire despite the continuing downpour.
    The two of them wasted five precious seconds looking at the scene. This proved costly, because the thing that set them back in motion was a line of bullets from the helicopter's machine gun heading towards them at lightning speed. In a split second, Taylor pushed Jinhun hard on the shoulder so he fell and with a desperate dive. The red-haired man followed. Grass and soil flew from the spot where he just stood as the heli roared over their heads.
    “Hurry, they'll be back over us in a minute!” Taylor shouted as he was getting back on his feet. The two hobbling men started moving