Charlie-
Its done.
Leo Hawkes has turned on me. Me, the scapegoat. That’s all I was. That’s all I ever was. Just a low down, good-for-nothing scapegoat. I did his dirty work for him. More times then not, I went along with what he told me to do. Smuggle this in, give an extra this, and now I was paying for it. I knew I was going to be caught sometime, but I didn’t think in this circumstance. I was being blamed for the only thing I didn’t do. Hawkes just wanted me behind bars, he wanted me to get out of his way so he could have some other more... reliable whipping boys to do the dirty work. Didn’t I know this would happen? Wasn’t I smart enough to stop? Maybe, even kind enough to stop? After all this wasn’t effecting just me, but the kids. My two amazing, talented, innocent children. Now I let them down. Where would they live? What would happen to them? Better yet, where are they now?
Suddenly the group comes out from the virtual world, all at once. A few of them, like Ross and Galelia suffered a knock to the head. The cop attempts to crack a joke, but not like I care. I just need to know that the kids are safe. Almost like that, Ross smugly asks what he wants with us. Amideatly Kronos pulls out a small slip of crumpled paper and holds it for all to see.
''Sir," the cop says, "This is an official arrest warrant issued by the Leo Hawkes foundation. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you all to come with me."
"Hang on, arrest warrant?" Ben shouts. "You can't arrest us, you still don't have any proof! Where's our trial?"
I sniff at her. Didn't she know we were already going to be arrested? Without a trial or any sort of hearing?
"You'll get a hearing as soon as Mr. Hawkes is informed of your detention. We just need you somewhere we can keep an eye on you, and where you can't use your implants to get into any more mischief in the meantime."
"Well, can you at least let them go?" Ben gestures to Kathleen and Galelia. "They weren't even originally involved in these accusations!"
This wise guy better let them go- he better let all of us go.
"Sorry ma'am, but they're guilty by association. They were with you in the plaza, they ran from the police. Everyone saw."
Its is so over. I'm not waiting any longer to do what I have to do. The time is now. I have to know what Hawkes is trying to pull. Ive got to get to him.
As the whole conference room is quiet and tense, I slowly walk towards the cop. I can tell he doesn't know what to expect. Well get ready pal, cause its coming.
As quickly as I can, I rip the warrant from his despicable hand, grab hold of his black uniform collar and slam him against the conference room wall. I admit he was heavier than I t had thought, but it didnt make any difference. My growing anger made all the difference. I force his arms against the wall, not noticing the surprised gasps of my colleagues and grimly hiss into his ear,
"Where is Leo Hawkes.''
"I-" he slowly says, like hes deciding wither or not to answer. "I can't tell you."
"I know," I smoothly growl, " that you know exactly where that wretched man is, and you better tell me in the next five seconds."
The Kronos cop tries to overpower me, but there was no way out of my grip. I know all of his tricks, and more as Ive had to get out of these situations before. The cop isnt going to tell me, but he might with a little more pressing. I slowly pull my fist back, to a more threatening position, aiming for his jaw.
"You," the cop replied steadily, "Wont get away with this. Kronos will come sooner or later, and youll be charged with another offence. Assault."
"Just tell me where Hawkes is," I say my voice cracking from desperation.
Suddenly, a calm yet commanding voice says, "Charles. Dont do this. Let him go." I shake my head, trying to block it out. I need to know where Hawkes was. He was the root of all my problems. He got me in this mess.
A hand pushes my "You dont really want to hurt him, do you. Charlie, let go of him. Think of your niece, your nephew. Do what is best for them!"
I cant take it anymore.
I loosen my grip on the officer, and fall back into one of the seats around the table. What was I doing? What was I thinking? There was no way I could ever beat up a fellow human. I cover my face with my hands. I just have to know if their safe.
I send a silent prayer to God. "Just let them be ok. Please, please dont let Hawkes do anything to them. Please."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dang, that was a little more dramatic than I meant it to be. Heheheehee. Sorry bout dat. So basically the voice he heard at the end could be any of your charries. I just wanted to leave it open for anyone. And yeah, he really is a desperate kinda guy. Don't exactly know what happened to the cop... the next person who posts can decide. Also, if there is anything wrong with what I posted plz tell me. Like not knowing where other peeps were etc. And Im sorry for the weird past/preasent tense mix up. I just dont have time to fix it all now, or read it over. Only an hour on the computer! So, yeah.

This is turning awesome! Well, not like it was awesome before, but you know what I mean ;)

I won’t post just now, I’ll probably wait for a few more people to post, but I did want to say one thing; Charlie may not have all the street knowledge (like where things are and stuff)  but he has been a ‘fugitive’ multiple times before. So... just remember that. He’d probably tell some of what he knows so the group won’t get caught. Definitely not all. 

One minor nitpick - The Rose Corp tower is supposed to be the tallest building in the city, so they wouldn't be able to cross to another building from the roof. Let's just say they went onto a balcony or catwalk or something.

Ross~

What a disaster.

I was hoping I might be able to talk myself out of the situation, maybe with the help of some bribery- it was something I'd gotten pretty decent at when I lived at the factories. Charlie's stunt, however, made sure that didn't happen. Now, not only are we accused of crimes we didn't commit, we're also accused of crimes we did commit. Or one of us, at least. Either way, there's no going back from this.

The first thing I do is immediately swipe the Disabler from the unconscious cop. If I can figure out how it works, I'll be able to bring our implants back online, and maybe even modify them to make our avatars untraceable. Might come in handy on our little treasure hunt.

But to do that, I need two things. Enough time, and somewhere no one can find us. At the moment, we have neither.

I feel someone tap me on the shoulder. I whirl around expecting to see a legion of Kronos police behind me, but it's only Ben.

"Hey, stop stealing from corpses, tomb raider."

I roll my eyes. "He's not dead. And we need this if we ever want to see our old lives again." I haphazardly stuff the black device into my pocket.

"I'm just yanking your chain. Nox found a way out, we should probably split before they send an entire squad up here."

I follow Ben outside onto an offshoot of the main tower, where everyone else has already gathered. There's a lot of construction materials up here, and we're at level with one of the apartment buildings. Nox somehow moves an entire steel beam (wouldn't have thought he had it in him), crosses the gap, almost dies, and is rescued by... that guy from the plaza? Great, yet another person we got involved in this unnecessary escapade. But he's also our ticket out of here, so I won't complain.

Together, the two of them move another beam to allow us to cross the gap. Most of us do so with ease, but when I look back, I see Galelia frozen on the edge of the building. I can't blame her. Balancing on a narrow object hundreds of feet above the ground is scary enough when you can actually see where you're going. 

For a moment, Galelia looks like she's bailing on us already, until Kathleen gently grabs her by the shoulders. "I've got you. Let's go."

Together, the two of them cross the beam... which promptly topples to earth as soon as they step onto the other side. 

I look at Owen with indignation. "That was really safe. Good job. Good plan." 

"It was either that or half a dozen life sentences. Now let's get out of here."