What was I doing? Was I mad? It had been less than five minutes since Sophie and Walter had left and all I had managed to do in that time was take the wounded Pied Piper officer's guns one after the other.

Some of the officers put up a bit of a fight. I had to coil up in order to have the strength to pry the guns from them.

It took about ten minutes to get each machine gun and handgun from the officers, piling them up out of the way at the base of the nearby guillotine.

The deaf and blind Pied Piper officers tried speaking to me, pleading for help or at the very least for mercy, but there was little I could do to comfort or communicate with them given the state they were in.

What I needed to do was get them to safety.

They needed to be found by other Pied Piper officers who would take care of them.

The officers on the third floor had been left to die, I remembered, thinking back to how casually Officer Freeman had written off the Pied Piper officers that had become hostages under Christopher's revolution.

Would Officer Freeman have the same approach with these officers? Was the officers being rendered deaf and blind enough of a loss to consider them no longer fit to be saved and treated?

I had no intention of helping the Pied Piper officers that were at my mercy beyond the bare minimum.

As soon as it would be reasonable for me to think they would be found and looked after, they were no longer going to be my problem.

In the dark depths of the underground complex however this bare minimum seemed like a tall order.

Often I searched the darkness, lit sparingly with green lights, for any sign or sound of the Adam-George-Amalgamation.

I couldn't make out any sign of the Amalgamation even with my hearing and vision enhanced.

The continued grunts and groans and gasps of the fallen Pied Piper officers made it difficult to listen out for the Amalgamation. For all I knew maybe it had found a way out of the underground complex already and had done so in the time it had taken Sophie, Walter, and I time to dispatch the Pied Piper officers.

I had brought the men together so they were sitting side by side, forming a ring shape on the ground. Their gray faces turned this way and that, straining to see and hear and of course getting nothing from their dead senses save for the sensation of warm bodies beside them and the ever present cold which permeated the underground complex. The wet ground and stagnant air which smelled of decay brought about despair for some of the officers. One of them thrashed about in a mad frenzy, splashing and kicking and yelling futility at his situation.

Serves you right, I thought again, but it was a hollow thought not holding the same bitter resentment towards the officers I had first felt.

All I felt for them was pity which they didn't deserve.

Get this done then you can get out with a clear conscience, I thought.

It was then, standing over the men and breathing heavily from my body tensing up from being in the coiled state for several minutes, that I asked myself yet again if it was worth listening to my conscience.

Was this the right time to have a conscience? Was doing the right thing really doing the right thing when the very people begging to be shown mercy were the perpetrators of so much death and misery of others?

I didn't want to help them.

Three times I decided they weren't worth helping. Three times I decided to give up on the madness of trying to keep them safe. Each time I seemed to come to my senses, beginning my march towards the sewer grate Sophie and Walter had taken to escape the underground complex; and each time I felt this pull inside my body. A nasty, bone-wracking tightness which overrode any sensible thought and told me something else, something far worse, awaited me if I were to abandon the officers to a grim fate down within the dark wet depths of the underground complex.

I stared, wide-eyed, into the darkness, seeing nothing at all whilst my mind pondered why I couldn't leave the officers.

There has to be some reason for me to leave them here helpless and alone, I thought to myself.

Numerous really good excuses sprang to mind:

Save yourself.

They deserve this.

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You don't have to save them.

They wouldn't do the same for you.

They were trying to kill you.

Think of all the teenagers murdered under their watch.

Every second you stay down here is another second you could be escaping.

And more thoughts of this nature played over and over.

And then came the sudden crackle of a walkie talkie from one of the officer's belts. The officer shifted a little because he must have felt the gentle vibration of the walkie talkie despite not being able to hear it.

I hurried over to the walkie talkie, opened up the holster it was wedged into, and retrieved it.

"Report in," said a familiar voice, "Over."

It was Officer Freeman. I stood staring down at the walkie talkie in my grip wondering what I should do.

"Report in," said Officer Freeman again, "Over."

I thumbed the response button on the walkie talkie.

"Hello?" I said.

Then I remembered to add in the additional, "Over."

"Who is this? Over."

I'd like to make an order, I thought, but decided better than saying it aloud.

"The guys you sent down here aren't in good shape. Over."

"You killed them? Over."

"No. They're still alive. But they're not in good shape. They need medical attention. Over."

"Didn't you learn from last time? We don't do hostage negotiations. They knew the risks of the job when they signed up. Over."

"I'm not holding them hostage. You can have them back. If I bring them to the elevator I'll send them up and then they're your problem. Does that work for you? Over."

Silence filled the gap of neither Officer Freeman or I talking.

What was he going to do? I imagined him sitting somewhere on the second floor trying to figure out his next move. Maybe he had a coffee in hand. Maybe this was just another Tuesday for him. He didn't sound stressed.

"There'll be no negotiations," said Officer Freeman, "Over."

"YOU'RE JUST GOING TO LET THEM DIE DOWN HERE?!" I yelled into the walkie talkie, "COME AND GET YOUR GUYS!"

Some of the officers must have retained a fragment of hearing because a few stirred at the sound of my yelling.

A long enough silence followed that I began to think Officer Freeman wasn't going to respond any further.

"Over," I said, remembering to add that last bit.

"You want to save them?" said Officer Freeman, sounding both a little confused, and a little intrigued, and quite a bit sadistic, "Over."

"I don't want to save them, but I'll put them on the elevator. Will you take them? Over."

"We'll take them. But you're not getting out of there alive. You're wasting your time. Over."

"I'm making it out alive," I said, speaking with confidence I didn't really feel, "And you're going to take back your men. I'm bringing them to the elevator. Be ready to collect them once they've reached you. Over."

"This could be a trick. Over."

I kicked one of the officers hard enough to make him yell out several cuss words at me. I kept my walkie talkie line open during all this.

"Do I have to kick the rest of them or is that enough? Over."

"You do what you want," said Officer Freeman, "You've got eight minutes to get them to the elevator. If you're on it when it comes up we will shoot you. Once the eight minutes are up we're going to initiate a flood down there. Wash the last of you mice away for good. Between you and me you'd be better off running. Over."

"Well," I said, "Between you and me I'd rather be in bed with a hot chocolate and a good book, but looks like I'm not going to get what I want. Over and out."

I put the walkie talkie back with the officer I had taken it from, setting it back into the holster.

The clock was ticking. I needed to get to work. I let out a sudden yell and coiled up my body even more.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

More sections of my body filled out with sudden thick musculature, once again making it seem as if I had spent an entire year or two in the gym tirelessly working on my body.

If my plan was going to work I needed to go even further. Remembering what Sophie had done to her body to break down the wall up on the third floor, I imagined my body growing bigger too.

It took nearly twenty seconds to find the right unlocking sensation. When I did I felt not only my muscles, but the bones and sinew and more fibers in my body expanding.

What a feeling it was.

In a matter of moments I discovered what it was like to be around six-feet-five inches tall, around the same size Sophie had mustered.

Could I grow even bigger? I wondered. In a way I felt already like the growth I had achieved with my body had reached a kind of limit; my overalls were stretched as if much too small for me now over the rest of my body; in several places the fabric had ripped and torn to make room for the newer, gargantuan me.

Even my hands were bigger. I moved over to the sitting Pied Piper officers and considered how I might move all seven of them to the elevator.

One at a time? I thought.

No, I thought, It'll take too long.

Even with my new size I figured I could carry maybe three of the guys at best, four at the absolute most. I was big, but not that big. I daren't make myself any bigger than I already was, not whilst I felt already at the peak of what my body felt capable of doing. I didn't know if this limit was real or just in my mind, but I was wary not to push myself to some kind of breaking point. If my body didn't give out under the stress of all the new meat and muscle and bone, then perhaps my mind would.

About one minute had already passed.

I had just seven minutes to save seven officers.

I didn't like my chances very much.