Pelza got into a lotus meditation position with 399's help. She calmed her mind and breathing and tried to center herself. Her broken left arm ached as much as her pounding head. Even with the slot cut into the blast door by Toxic, the air was getting bad, and they wouldn't survive the night. She dozed off for a hour or so, until she awoke to Jin slapping her in the face. Pelza jerked away from the plague-carrier with a scream, and screamed in pain as her arm twinged. "Get away from me!" Jin frowned. "Typical." She straightened up and walked around a little to get keep her blood moving. Staggered was closer to the truth, than walk. She figured her vision in her remaining eye was blurry, because the figure of 399 was wierdly distorted looking. He was still industriously text-messaging away to his masters, no doubt. She staggered away to the other end of the footbridge to pee. After she straightened up and looked across the five foot gap across the poisonous water, glowing greenly with luminous algae, she noticed a pile of inch thick steel reinforcing rods. The gap was about five feet. She leapt the gap, scooped up a steel rebar and leapt back. Jin was glad of the superhuman strength the Blight gave her. She didn't know if it would eventually kill her, but it definitely strengthened her. She fought of the growing lassitude and grogginess of carbon dioxide posioning. She had a purpose and plan now. A ten foot long rebar, a flying cycle and a blast-door with a semi-circular cut in it to the water-line added up to one way out in her mind. She went over to 399 and shouted, "Time to GO! Go, go GO! I need you to fly me to the top of the cut in the blast-door, where I'll shove this up it's ass, and pry the bastard OPEN! The fly-cycle's sensors are at 13% CO2 and rising. We'll die otherwise, and we.....", Jin broke off and stared at 399 after he stood up. It was not bleariness of eye. He had changed shape. "HOLY SHIT! You changed into one of Kruag's Scavs! You grew hair in two hours and your facial features changed radically! What the hell? How'd this happen? Take a nap for two or three hours and POOF?!" Jin saw the puzzled look on Pelza's face and realized that Pelza was to groggy to get it. 399 took a photo of himself with his comm-unit and looked at it in shock. 399 swallowed in dry-mouthed surprise. "Ehhrm. Well...crap. How did this happen? I've felt strange since I've been in this place. Sort of feverish. Guess I know why." 399 texted his thoughts to who he was in communication with and put the comm-unit away. He turned off his microphone on his head-set and turned to Jin. "Panchetta's lab is a HOT-ZONE! It has a live contagious retro-virus in it that is re-writing my DNA, as I speak. An air-borne vector that affects Scavs. Kruag used an injectable version of the Virus to free the Scavs in Shalmiraine sixty-four years ago. It has the side-effect of breaking the will-inhibiter of the Beastmen. Apparently Panchetta suceeded with the production of an airborne vector for it. Do you know what this means?" 399 waited for her reation. He didn't tell her other things as well, such as HOW he knew the full details of what happened at Shalmiraine sixty-four years before. Jin laughed. That shocked him. Jin grinned and said slowly, "If we escape, we spread the retro-viral air thing to the flying city Scavs who suddenly start thinking for themselves. If the flying cities learn about this before it IS spread, the bastards will nuke this place with thermo-nuclear fire to save themselves." She started laughing again and thrust the rebar into the air like a revolutionary spear and shouted, "EAT THE RICH AND FREE THE SLAVES! UP WITH THE REVOLUTION!" Jin jerked a thumb at the flycycle and said with determination, "Let's get the hell out of this awful place!" 399 smiled back, and if Jin wasn't infected with the Blight, and looked so awful, he'd have kissed her. To be continued!-- Media is Posser 6