A small figure raced down a busy street, ignoring the shouts of anger that followed closely behind him. He didn’t care that he was being shouted at, it was all in a day’s work, or at least his day’s work. The small boy ducked into a dirty alleyway and dodged behind some big green dumpsters to hide. His dark brown eyes shone out of a smudged face that looked like it hadn’t had a chance to be clean in months. His clothes were dirty, but seemed to be in somewhat of a good shape, and warm, for it was starting to get cold. He listened intently as feet pounded furiously by his hiding spot, having missed seeing where he had hidden because of the large crowds.

The boy chuckled lightly to himself as he waited to make sure that the pursuer wasn’t going to come back. He had made a good haul off of that man, and the man hadn’t been very happy once he had found out and seen the back of a small figure running away from him. But these were the times that they lived in, and he had it worst than most of the other people did, no matter how much they complained. His head poked out around the dumpster that was his hiding place and scanned the area, making sure that there wasn’t anyone looking for him. Once he was sure that he was clear he dodged out of the alley and made his way down the street and towards his meager home.

A large, rundown building on the edge of town was the child’s destination. It looked abandoned, the crumbling cement and stone, along with the fallen beams that were made of wood didn’t take away from the illusion of being empty. When looking at the front one could see that part of the upper floor had collapsed onto the lower ones, making the rest of the roof sag inward as it tried to support its own weight. The other floors just looked like masses of collected rubble as they were filled with holes, debris, and roofing tiles that had fallen when the roof had collapsed.

The city officials, having decided that they had better things to do, had never gotten rid of the building to make room for a new one, even though they could use the extra room. All that had been done had been some bright yellow and black ‘caution’ tape wrapped around the building and some of its entrances. The yard around it was overgrown, weeds along with tall grasses fighting with the ivy for space in the dirt. People who were too lazy to throw the trash away elsewhere had thrown random pieces of trash into the yard.

The little boy picked his way carefully across the yard, knowing where any of the random pit holes, jagged pieces of metal, or any other obstruction was. It wasn’t that hard when you had memorized your way around the area because you had made the place your home. He smiled faintly as he ducked under some beams that held bigger, but intact, pieces of walls and concrete up. That was one of the main entrances to the building, but if it ever fell they might have a little more trouble getting in. It wasn’t easy to get some of the really young kids through any of the smaller entrances, so they tended to use the biggest one the most, the one that he had just gone through.

He nimbly picked his way over fallen debris as he entered the building. Fallen beams provided little roads, and bigger pieces of plaster and drywall provided safe stepping-stones over what could be a weakened spot. Every once in a while they would have to find a new way because part of the normal walk way would cave in, or something from above would fall on it and would obstruct the normal path. Because of that everyone was always on the lookout for something else that would be safe enough to walk over.

After getting through the main part of the collapse of the upper levels the area became more stable, and the ceiling became higher and safer. Dust fell in lazy motes from the ceiling to coat everything that was stationary up to an inch thick with its substance. Blackness swallowed what sound the carpeting of dust didn’t, making the large, open space eerie to walk through. When it was more than just one person walking through it wasn’t as bad, but when one was walking alone and had a vivid imagination it could become frightening. The walls seemed to lean forward overhead and the darkness seemed to take delight in smothering any sound that tried to make itself known in the room, but the boy just walked through it all, taking it in as part of the normal day.

The dark haired boy walked through an intact doorway that stretched above his head and walked down a hallway. At the end of the hallway was a large room that was connected to the hallway by a closed door. He walked up to it and knocked, knowing that he had the chance of being knocked out if he surprised its occupants.

"Yes?" a voice inside asked, sounding feminine but authoritative. The boy opened the door and stuck his head inside to identify himself before totally entering into the room. He normally wouldn’t have to do this, but the girl that had answered him tended to be a little paranoid sometimes, but for a good reason.

"It’s Mick," the boy said, smiling as he entered. The girl’s face lit up as she saw him, but she didn’t say anything until he came closer and dumped the contents of some of his pockets out carefully in front of her. She had warned him that these pieces were very fragile, and if he hurt them after stealing them the whole trip would have been worth nothing.

"Good job," she said appraisingly, her blue eyes smiling up at him as she sat on the floor and sifted through the parts. Eventually Mick sat down once he realized that she was going to spend some time cleaning and examining the parts before actually using them. He sat down on the hard wood floor next to the girl and looked around the room. There were a few toddlers in a corner, one asleep and two awake. There were mats and blankets strewn around the solid room, along with some food remains from the last day that hadn’t been eaten or thrown out yet. One window in a sidewall provided light in the daytime, while a flashlight with many stolen batteries provided light during the darkness of night.

The girl’s hair was long, falling a few inches past mid back. Mick couldn’t see how she could deal with her reddish blond hair being that long, but then again, he couldn’t see how girls could stand having long hair at all. He ran a hand over his short, dark brown hair as he thought about it, happy that he kept his hair cut short when they all actually bothered to get a hair cut. They couldn’t just go into the city and do it, so they had to wait until one of the older kids decided that they could deal with hacking hair carefully off with a knife.

Her dark blue eyes were narrowed in concentration as she examined the parts carefully. She kept using one of her hands to push back her shorter bangs when the spikes of hair got into her eyes and started to annoy her. The parts were delicately being held in her slim hands, her eyes carefully examining the tiny details that were present. Her hunched over frame was muscled, but lithely so. She actually didn’t look like too much, her heart shaped face making her appearance seem innocent, but to those people who knew her she was very dangerous.

"Thanks Mick, these were exactly what I needed," she said, looking over at the thin, younger boy. His hair hung messily over his forehead and all over the rest of his scalp as his big eyes shone mischievously out from under the spikes of his bangs. He was generally a happy person, but when times got really rough he tended to buckle down and taking things seriously, taking some of the load off of her back.

"No problem Phoenix. It was a little hard to get those though," the nine-year-old boy said to the fifteen-year-old girl. She just snorted and ruffled a free hand through his already messy hair and leaned to one side so that she could grab the corner of a box that was sitting close by.

"And you think that getting the rest of this wasn’t hard?" he heard Phoenix mutter to herself as she dug around in the box before coming out with a metallic computer frame and parts. She also came up with a couple of fine screwdrivers that were used to the minute adjustments. She didn’t usually stay with the toddlers, but when she did she used the time to work on one of her pet projects that had been in process for a couple of months now. She usually had to play at being the leader of their street gang, but there were times when she was glad for the respite from her responsibilities.

Mick watched with fascination as Phoenix took the frame for the laptop and all of the spare parts, including the new ones, and laid them out in front of her. He knew that she had been working on this, but he hadn’t known how far she had been, or if she had even started. As a street kid he didn’t get to see or use much technology other than what was available on the streets or what was stolen, so it was fun to watch someone who knew what they were doing. He had used electronics and technology, but that had been before the city that he had been previously living in had been wiped out a few years ago.

Phoenix deftly screwed and unscrewed things as she rearranged the parts that were sitting on the inside of the machine. She had a rag that was being constantly used to wipe off any or all dirt that had managed to make its way onto the part, real or imaginary. Mick had once found out that she contained a vast knowledge of how mechanical things worked, and she had thoroughly confused him one time by speaking all of the jargon that he didn’t understand a word of. After that experience he had decided that it was better to just bring her what needed to be fixed instead of asking how to fix it himself. Some things he and most of the others could fix, but there were things advanced enough that they had to taken them to Phoenix.

She would generally just fix the problem and leave it after that, but she also had a habit of fiddling with the equipment and making it do something else that she had decided that it should do. She had once managed to play with what had been a motorized scooter and make it hover for a few seconds before something had broken and it had blown up in her face, she had just left it alone after kicking it a few times after that. She also tended to make them newer things that helped them on their daily escapades into the city for food and supplies, things like two way radios with a frequency that only they could hear and ways to protect themselves.

Her hands started to move around rapidly as her eyes moved around the structure that she was building inside of the metal frame. Soon it was just the tiny adjustments that needed to be done, a tightening here, a move there, and then she was done with what she could do. After putting everything safely away in the box she smiled at Mick and lay down on the mat next to her that was serving as her bed.

"How are you doing Mick?" she asked, her eyes holding his own in their gaze. She could generally tell if someone was lying to her, and that helped her with her leadership, but she could also tell what people needed, if they needed a hug or someone to talk to, or even when to be left alone.

"It’s hard out there," Mick said, lowering his eyes and breaking off the gaze. He knew that she had figured out that something was wrong when he had been strangely quiet, his normal chatter not filling the room. He always had something to say, and silence from him tended to be unnerving.

"What do you mean? Its always hard out there," Phoenix replied, leaning forward so that she was closer to Mick and could see him better.

"I know," Mick said with a sigh. "That wasn’t exactly how I meant it, though. I meant it as its changing. The gangs, you know them, they are being strange. They won’t do it around you because of who you are, but some of the younger ones are starting to notice some oddities that weren’t happening before. The store owners are also being more careful, even setting up traps that are meant to capture and hold one of us. We are smart enough to get around them, but I’ve been talking to people from some of the other gangs and some of their smaller, and even older, members have been missing, not coming back."

Phoenix looked at him for a while as she just processed what he had just told her. It was common for people to go missing, sad, but common. The strange thing was that people were noticing and worrying more than normal, that it was becoming an issue when it hadn’t been before. The part about the gangs worried her too. It wasn’t every day that they did something unusual. They tended to stay in their own areas, and the street kid gangs stayed away from them, not wanting to bother with being pushed around or even the possibilities of winding up dead. Either fate wasn’t very pretty.

It was odd that they were messing with the younger kids. That made her worry. Most of the thug gangs tended to stay wrapped up in their wars over territory in the very center of the city, concentrating on defending what they considered to be theirs. They rarely ventured out of the very center of the city unless it was night or they were going to go damage something that belonged to another gang. They would also start to expand their territory outwards, but not enough that they would bother the gangs of street children that ran around in the outer parts of the cities.

"What do you mean by the gangs are being strange?" Phoenix asked quietly, looking at Mick as he nervously fidgeted with his hands.

"They aren’t fighting as much, and they are taking more of an interest in the younger kids. They also sit there and just hang out on street corners and watch us without doing anything. They are also way out of their respective territories, and some members of rival gangs are even working together on this," Mick said, wringing his hands nervously in his lap. He hadn’t wanted to alarm Phoenix, but she had the right to know what was going on where she couldn’t see. No matter where she was she couldn’t see everything, even if she would like to.

"That’s bad. And the store owners?" she left the question hanging in the air. She pretty much knew the answers, but she wanted to hear them from Mick. She trusted him, and he was almost her second, but he more watched over the littler kids for her when she couldn’t.

"I don’t really know about them. We think that they have orders from the government or something that is telling them that they need to beef up security and capture us, or something. It’s really strange," Mick answered thoughtfully, his face scrunched up in a frown. He didn’t know what was going on, but it sure was strange.

"Thanks," Phoenix said, ruffling Mick’s hair, enticing a smile out of him as he looked up at her and leaned against her side. Even if she would be considered young by most of the adult’s standards, she was actually the smartest person that the kids in her gang had met, and the best at what she did. She prided herself on not losing anyone yet, and took precautions so that that fact would stay true.

Phoenix smiled down at the younger boy as he leaned against her, her arm around him like a sister would do. They were all practically like a big family in their respective gangs, and the leaders made sure to keep it that way. Anything that they would do against rival gangs didn’t go as far as seriously injuring anyone. Against the thug gangs all of the street gangs would band together, they outnumbered the thug gangs, but the tended to be smaller and more fearful of the large grinning predators. She wrapped another arm around Mick as he started to fall asleep against her. Phoenix knew that her little friend had been having a hard time with everything that had been going on lately, and she was doing her best to help. Life on the streets was hard, and there was nothing that she could do about that.

After a little while Phoenix herself also fell asleep. The thoughts that had been swirling around her agile mind were calmed as her consciousness disappeared. Her world faded to blackness as she closed her eyes and leaned against one of the room’s four walls. Her dreams consisted of blackness, which was a blessing for her, for she was almost continually plagued by nightmares. It was nice to have some sort of respite from the real world every once in a while.

Someone shaking her thin shoulder woke her up quickly. Almost instantly she was awake and alert, her mind racing to figure the situation out. She soon calmed down when she saw that it was only the rest of her gang returning from their day’s haul in the city. She smiled at them and gently woke Mick up, making sure that he wouldn’t turn around and attack her when he finally reached consciousness again. Mick yawned and blinked sleepily as he looked around, then leaned back against Phoenix and fell back asleep. After that she just moved and let his small body flop onto the mat that served her as a bed, waking him up a little better this time.

"We’re back with everyone okay," Toban, her second in command, said. He was taller than Phoenix was, with bluish black hair and light blue eyes. He was thin, almost too thin, but all of them were now from living off of the streets. He was about fifteen, the same age as Phoenix was, but he didn’t command attention like she did.

"That’s good. I’ve been hearing some pretty scary stuff from my little buddy here," Phoenix said, nodding her head in the sleepy Mick’s direction. Toban nodded and watched as the other children put everything that they had stolen in a pile in the center of the room before going to their mats to sit down and talk to others.

"How was is?" Phoenix asked as she watched the younger children. There were older teens in other gangs, but none over fifteen in Phoenix’s own gang, her included. The younger children were all too thin, making their ribs stick out and making them seem younger than they really were. Most of them were suffering from malnutrition too, some of them having stunted growth as a result. Phoenix herself wasn’t that short, but compared to how tall she should be she had lost a couple of inches somewhere in her growth process. She was about 5’8" tall, but her frame suggested that she should actually be taller. Toban wasn’t tall enough either, only reaching 5’9" instead of the full 6’ that he should be reaching by now. That was one of the curses of living on the street, you didn’t get enough good food and you were in constant danger, but it was their lifestyle by now.

"It wasn’t that bad around me, but some of the younger kids were complaining of being watched by some of the gangs and by random people in suspicious outfits when on the streets," Toban said, moving Mick over so that he could sit next to Phoenix and tell her what he had seen. This was a normal ritual between the two when one of them didn’t go out, and even if the both did. It was also a way to see what areas were safe by repeatedly watching them through different people.

"The upper west side of the city isn’t as safe anymore. The gangs are starting to spread out and take their fights to that area. Everyone is also getting oddly tense when they walk around in that area, so I wouldn’t recommend sending any of the smaller children into that area, or we should at least warn them off of it," Toban continued, looking directly at Phoenix. He didn’t normally like to admit that he was wrong or afraid, but this was one of the times that he just couldn’t help but say something.

"I don’t like the way that things are going out there," Toban said, looking Phoenix directly in the eye so that she could know that he was serious. He wasn’t often like this, and seeing that he was happened to be a bad sign. "Things are changing, and they aren’t for our good. I’ve been talking to the leaders of some other gangs, Domonic’s especially, and they’ve all been saying something about an unusual number of their kids disappearing with out a trace. They are starting to get vary wary out there, Phoenix, and I suggest that we do too."

Phoenix sighed and leaned hard against the wall. It was things like this that made her job hard. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the kids, they were now her family, but it was making the decisions that could decide the fate of them all, not just her alone. It was hard to decide what to do when things like this were going on, but she also had to decide whether or not to continue with what they were going, or if they would eventually move somewhere safer.

"This makes things hard," she sighed out eventually as she watched the kids talk with each other happily, despite their grubby appearance. "What do you suggest that we do?" she asked after a moment of looking around silently.

Toban hung his head and studied his hands. This was a choice that they were going to have to make together. They still had a few options available to them at the moment, but if they waited much longer they wouldn’t have any options left.

"We could always set up a defense," Toban replied carefully, trying to get the idea of what he was thinking across to his partner. Phoenix looked down for a minute, her face scrunched up in concentration as she thought about what he was saying.

"You mean like hooking everyone together on some sort of defensive line so that we can keep track of everyone?" she asked hopefully, trying to understand what he meant.

Toban smiled and nodded back in affirmation. She knew what he was trying to say, that was good, they were at least now thinking on the same idea. With both of them working on it together they could figure out a way to do this in no time.

Phoenix looked over the littler children again, naming each other them in her head. Nikki was the smaller girl with long light blond hair and big blue eyes and with the age of about seven. Ash was the little boy with light, ashy brown hair and dark brown eyes with the age of nine. The little girl with the dark brown hair and light green eyes that was seven was Dawn, and the older boy next to her with the dark brown hair and hazel eyes that was thirteen was Piers, Dawn’s brother. Hydro was the little boy with blackish blue hair and bright, almost neon, blue eyes who was ten in age. Sylver and Violet were twins of fourteen with medium brown hair, but their eyes differed in color, Sylver’s a strange grayish silver color while Violet’s eyes were a bright purple shade.

There were some little children too that they had found when they were out. There was a three, a two, and a four-year-old, but they hadn’t been named yet. Most of the children were let pick their own names, and those three hadn’t picked them yet. They were almost tempted to call the four year old ‘Mute’ because he never talked, but the wouldn’t name him unless he chose to be named that.

As Phoenix was looking over all of the kids and thinking deep inside of her head Nikki came over on her short little legs and crawled up onto Phoenix’s lap. When she didn’t get a response the little blond decided that she was going to get the attention of the older teen. At first she pulled on Phoenix’s sleeve as she sat in her lap, but when that didn’t work she prepared to take drastic action.

"PHOENIX!!!!" Nikki yelled, her voice amplified by the smaller room. Everyone in the room froze as they heard the sound and all of their little heads turned to face the mat. Phoenix herself came back to reality rapidly, searching frantically for what could be causing trouble. When she didn’t see anything she looked down at the little girl in her lap and frowned down at the brightly smiling face.

"We want to divide everything up now," Nikki said sweetly as she leaned up to give Phoenix a kiss on her nose before scampering back to where she slept. Phoenix looked after her with a slightly bewildered, slightly annoyed look, but the little girl took no notice, just beamed ahead with her mega-watt smile.

"Okay, okay," Phoenix said and moved to go see what they had gotten today. There was a lot of water, but that was needed. They never wasted it, even when they had extra, for there would be days when they wouldn’t get enough water for all of them, so the surplus from before was saved. There was also a lot of food of various types, but that was also needed. Food was something that they never had enough of, but they did with what they stole. There were also some dollar bills and various other things in the pile.

It was either Phoenix’s or Toban’s job to sort out the food and had it out, depending on the person’s needs. That meant that they got the last of what was left, but they dealt with it and their responsibilities that came with being the leaders of the group. She sighed and handed out things from the pile to each of the children as they came up. All of the money was saved and added to the cache that they had created when some of the younger children had first started to stick their nimble and light hands into people’s pockets. It was riskier trying to pickpocket people, but some of the children had gotten really good at it and were now teaching the others.

The money was generally saved up for something like showers or medicine or something else that could be expensive. Sometimes they would rent a room in a motel for a night and get all of them in there so that they could all wash up and sleep in warmth and comfort for a night, but they didn’t do that very often, for it cost too much. They would also spend it on some things for the younger children on what they considered to be their birthdays, but that didn’t happen very often.

The meal was eaten in silence, everyone taking the time to eat slowly. They had all figured out early on that you felt fuller if you ate slowly, making it seem like you had had more to eat than your brain actually said. Even the little children did this, taking the time to eat just as slowly as the older children did. It was all part of the daily routine. The only sounds other than chewing and the occasional gulps of water was the shifting of their little bodies on the ground. It didn’t exactly get cold at night in there, but they still had managed to get a bunch of padding and blankets for the floor and mats.

"Will you tell us a story, Phoenix?" Dawn asked after she and the others were done eating. The little girl was one of the quieter ones, but she was also the most imaginative, and loved to hear stories. She would always request one after their meal, and was rewarded with one unless something had happened to cause Phoenix to be in a bad mood or not there at all.

"Sure," Phoenix replied softly, her mind running over the various options available to her. She usually told the kids about one of the stories that she had heard when she was little, before all of this had happened. They took to listening with such raptness that Phoenix didn’t have the heart to stop when she got tired, or even when they all should have been asleep, but would finish the story for them. All she needed for thanks was the way that their eyes lit up when she was talking to them. Toban would often add his own comments, along with Sylver and Hydro, but they generally left her to tell the stories.

Not all of them had had families before the Enigma had come, so they had never known true family, but the rest of them had been living somewhat happily before their lives had been torn apart and destroyed. Phoenix tried to tell stories with happy endings so that the children might have some hope for the future, but some times it was hard for her to believe in that herself. All Phoenix could see around herself most of the time was destruction and death, but she wasn’t going to let the smaller kids know of her feelings about such things.

"What do you want to hear?" she asked, looking over the audience that was assembling before her. Some of them looked thoughtful, but some of them had looks of only wanting to hear the story, no matter what it was.

"Can we hear the one about the princess that gets lost in the forest again?" Nikki asked, Dawn nodding from right beside her. Those two little girls were the ones that appreciated the fantasy stories the most, the boys seeming to like the action stories more. Phoenix smiled and thought for a minute. This story was one that she had made up for them in her free time, and the kids still seemed to love it.

"Once upon a time," Phoenix started, getting smiles out of the older kids who had heard that beginning over and over again in the past. The children were as responsive as ever, though, all of them going silent as Phoenix started talking. She smiled at their eager faces, wondering if she had ever acted that way when she was little, looking up at a speaker with such rapt attention. She then continued on with the story about a princess who gets lost in a forest only to find a well that would show her what her dreams were, but before she can use it she has to complete some tasks that are dangerous enough to make anyone else back down, but she doesn’t and eventually completes the task just to go back to the well and get what she asked for.

Soon all of the children were dropping off to sleep, their momentary fears being assuaged and letting them sleep in comfort. Once most of the smaller children were asleep Phoenix looked at Toban and pointed to the doorway, signaling that she wanted to talk to him. He nodded and followed her out after making sure that the children were all asleep of falling asleep.

"I’m going out with you all tomorrow. I want to see if these reports are actually true," Phoenix said in a voice that couldn’t be argued with. She was going to go out there, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. "I just hope that its not as bad as I think it is," she whispered and Toban nodded.

"What do we need today?" Nikki asked, her big eyes looking up at Phoenix. They were all standing in front of the building that served as their home. Mick was staying behind today to watch the toddlers, but the rest of them were going out today.

"What we always need. Food, water, clothing. You can get some other things too, if you don’t get caught, but I don’t want any of you taking any unnecessary risks out there today. Its becoming increasingly dangerous, and I don’t want to lose any of you," Phoenix said, looking into each of their eyes. She wanted to give them a warning, not scare them half to death.

"Okay," they all chorused as they looked at her. They didn’t want to disappoint her, but they also knew that they had to be careful. People that they didn’t know or that looked suspicious weren’t their friends, and the random cop or person that looked like they had authority weren’t to be trusted either. They were the ones that would grab you and lock you up before giving you to a home. They had all heard about what happened at the homes. You would get sent back again and again if you weren’t good, and you would sometimes be given to bad families.

"Let’s go," Phoenix said, and all of the kids scattered. Sylver and Violet headed out together, while the other kids formed one big mass that would later split into pairs or groups of three. The two fourteen year old boys always worked together, and sometimes Phoenix wandered if they had another goal that they were also working towards achieving. Toban stayed behind with Phoenix and they took off together, their goal for today was to check out all of the strange activities that were going on.

They dodged around the caution tape that was wind tattered and torn, making sure not to disturb it. They didn’t want to give away where they were living, and had the kids take different routes home every day. If someone followed them they could be thrown out, or even taken away. They considered the streets better than homes, at least there they had what they considered to be a family. When they were off of the property of the building they emerged on the outskirts of a warehouse district. To get to the inside of the city they had to go through multiple alleys and buildings. It wasn’t particularly hard, but if they weren’t careful there was a good chance that they were going to get caught or worse. The gang members would sometimes stray out of their territories, so they had to be careful about that too.

"What do you want to check on?" Toban asked as they walked along the street. He had on baggy pants and a slightly tattered sweatshirt that he had stolen about a month back. Phoenix had on a couple of shirts and a pair of heavy baggy pants that she had been wearing for a month. It was starting to get cold, and one of the things that they were starting to pick up was warm clothing. Phoenix shivered as a strong gust of wind blew against her. It didn’t look like it was going to be a warm winter this year.

"I want to see where the gangs have been moving," Phoenix replied. She spotted a fire escape ladder that led up a tall building next to her and walked over to it. From on top of the building she had a pretty good idea that she could see almost everything that was going on below her. She waved her hand at Toban before climbing, making sure that he was coming with her. After making sure that there wasn’t anyone out there to see her she started to climb. The ladder was rusty, and she had to test her weight on each rung before she could move on, but it was stable.

She got to the roof to see no one there, and sighed. She had been worried that someone might be up there, but after the initial sweep of the view she saw no one on either this building or any of the ones around it. She clambered over the side of the building and went around to the other side as Toban also climbed up behind her. She nodded to her and they both took a look around. Phoenix was happy with this view, she could see everything that she needed to, provided that she didn’t get caught.

They spent most of the day on top of the roof just observing what was going on below them. Once someone almost set off the safeties that they had set up for the children, but it ended up being a false alarm as the child left that area. From the height Phoenix could see the movement of the gangs and pedestrians below her. It was disconcerting to see what she had. For unknown reasons the gang members were steadily moving way out of their known territories and into the outer parts of the city, even each other’s territory with out so much as a fight. She could see some of the members of her gang, along with some of the other children that she knew, and kept a close eye on them as she saw the gang members leering to close for her comfort.

After a long while she sighed and turned back to Toban. "We’d better get going," she said as she headed back towards the ladder. They had been up there the whole day, and she also wanted to trade opinions with him on what was going on. If they were going to do something about this they needed to know exactly what they were up against, not just half formed ideas. She sighed when her feet reached the hard ground and waited for Toban. He had looked equally worried up on top of the building, and she had a feeling that he could see some things that she couldn’t.

"I want to do something real quick. I’ll meet you back at the shelter," Phoenix said before running off. She knew exactly what she needed to finish the laptop, and she wanted to get he parts herself.

Once Phoenix got back to the shelter she went in. From what she could tell she was the only one back, and briefly wondered what was holding everyone else up. It was getting dark, and the darkness was the time when the predators came out of their shadows. She nodded to Mick as she entered the room and make a bee-line to the box that held her computer. She had been waiting for a long time to complete this project, and now she was going to.

She smiled broadly when she was finally able to press the start button and have to computer turn on correctly. Mick hadn’t come over any time during her work, and she was surprised to see Sylver and Violet looking at her.

"Where’d Mick go?" she asked, looking around to see if she could see him. For some reason she was having a very bad feeling about Mick being gone.

"He left a little while ago after he asked us to watch the toddlers," Violet said with a shrug. He was sitting on the ground and playing with the youngest child, tickling its feet and watching it squeal in laughter. Sylver was just watching his brother and the other two toddlers sleep.

"Phoenix?" Dawn was back and poking her head in the open doorway. Phoenix looked up at her and nodded before the little girl continued. "There’s another leader out here for you."

Phoenix frowned before putting her laptop away. She wasn’t sure what the other leader wanted, and hoped that it wasn’t anything bad. Lately the leaders had only met each other to exchange evern more bad news that they had had earlier. The red head got up and patted Dawn on top of the head as she passed, smiling down at the younger girl before leaving. She left the shelter to see another of the leaders.

"Domonic?" she asked in confusion.