She knocked, waited a second and opened the door. She quickly glanced around the room, noting that no one else was around save for kyle. He was lying on one of the bunks, his boots off, clad in his pants and his undershirt, his desk on his lap. She smiled a little as he glanced up, probably expecting to see one of his cellmates, not her. She sat down on the foot of his bed, pulling up her feet to sit indian-style. She wrinkled her nose playfully as she glanced down at his socked feet.

He grinned at her invitation to go explore the school remembering it was her who first showed him around the Battle School. "This time neither of us knows where we are going. My commander says that I have to take out at least three ships in my first simbattle or he'll transfer me so lets see if we can go try some games."

He put the desk aside and rose to a sitting position on the edge of his bed. He saw his room mates for the first time this morning. After he returned from his walk with Sue he fell a sleep before they ever arrived. One was about his age, maybe a little younger. He was quiet but seemed friendly enough. The other two were a little older and didn't even seem to recognize that they had a new roomie. For all Kyle knew they had no idea. He nodded politely to all of them before he left to take his shower. When he returned they were gone. Not a very social group in cell C are we?

He stopped by his Cell to set down his desk, but he held onto the Spyder. He wanted to make sure Helen was safe, but he didn't have to wake her for that, did he?

He set the Spyder on the floor in the darkened Cell and flipped open his desk. The lenses on the Flies didn't work quite as well int he dark, but Cas had a filter program on his desk that helped to clean up the signal. He deployed a fly and guided it through the room and into the vent.

Cas was a good pilot - nothing like Helen, but more th an enough accomplished to guide the tiny Fly through the dark airducts and out through the grate in Helen's room.

The transmission was a little strained at this distance. Cas really should have taken the time to put the Spyder into the duct as well, but the picture was clear enough for him to make out the four bunks in the Cell. Blink and Jac were asleep, and the newbie in the bunk above Helen's was equally unconscious. He guided the fly a little closer and was rewarded with a near view of Helen sleeping.

Her face was relaxed, but her brow was a little furrowed, as if she were thinking of something unpleasant, her hand curled near her mouth like a child.

Sighing, Cas sat back and looked at te pretty face on the screen, letting the fly hover in place. It was unfair, really unjust that she should be involved in this business with Nathan at all. He knew she was tough. He'd seen her fight with other people more than once...but that wasn't the point. THe point was that she deserved better than that. She was too young and too sweet to have to deal with this dangerous mess.

She stirred and Cas backed the Fly away a pace. It was unlikely she'd spot it in the dark, even if she woke up, but better to be safe than sorry.

She stirred again, but did not wake. Her frown deepened, and he reached out absently and stroked her digital cheek, so absently than when her eyes opened, he wasn't surprised at first.

The fly chose this moment to run out of power, the failing antigrav sending it to the floor with a tiny clatter as the lense went dark.

"Shit," he whispered and glanced at his desk. Fly lifespan clocked at just under eleven minutes. Good to know, he thought as he stood up and exited his cell. Helen's door was across from his, and he entered as she lifted the small Fly curiously.

He noticed the asian was already gone as usual. He saw him in the gym this morning. Another kid who's younger age marked him as the other green in the cell was still in bed. Kyle noticed that he wasn't in the room before he fell asleep last night so he must have had a late night.

Gabriel wasn't with her, so Cas ventured a small grin and turned around to get the Spyder. He really didn't mind them borrowing it, but it was so much easier to hand it over to Sol than it was to Gabe. He didn't have a reason not to like Gabe, but he had even less of a reason to like him. Sol seemed to get along with him, though; maybe he was just missing something...but Helen didn't seem to like him either.

None of this contemplation showed as he fetched the small machine and turned around, holding it out to her. She didn't move to take it immediately, and Cas frowned a little. "Uh...is everything ok? It's time for the switch, right?" She nodded, but still didn't take the Spyder, and Cas was beginning to feel more than a little confused. "Don't you want it?" he asked a little abruptly. He'd started this enterprise alone (with Helen, of course), spying on Nathan, but for some reason the thought of losing his new partners suddenly made him a little afraid.

Well, Sol, anyway.

He looked at her a little more closely. She looked...worried? Maybe she was upset. His mind immediately launched into simulations of events that might cause her to be upset. Nathan? No, she was just now getting the Spyder. Gabe. It had to be Gabe. He must have done something. I knew it, I knew he wasn't trustworthy. "What's wrong?" he asked, more sharply than he had intended to.

She wasn't really certain how to begin, so eventually she just started with facts. An engineer would appreciate fact before opinion, she decided...and she really had no clue where else to start.

The news about Wick's burn was apparently a little more well-known than she thought, and he stopped her a few sentences into it. "Pallas told me," he said briefly. Pallas? Her old commander hadn't seemed anything like concerned when they'd seen her in the Game Arena, but she couldn't very well expect the girl to mention it to everyone, just because she and Gabe happened to be in her toon. Sol still felt foolish and out of the loop, but pressed on anyway.

Telling him about what she'd overheard in the Library didn't take very long, and he sat in thoughtful silence long enough to worry her. Cas wasn't like Gabe; Gabe showed no facial expression at all, when he didn't want to, or when he was thinking deeply, but Sol had learned to read his eyes. Cas' face flickered too little for her to read plainly what he was thinking, but too much for her to focus on whatever she might have read in his gaze. It was nearly a full minute before he made an apparent decision and spoke.

"I've known Nathan longer than you have," he said slowly. She was about to point out that she really didn't know him at all, but something in the sober tone and the grim set of his mouth kept her quiet, and he continued. "We were in Hawk Army together, back in BattleSchool, for almost six months. He was...easy-going, serious about his schoolwork, and better in micrograv than anyone else I've ever seen." The flat sound to his voice and the weight of emotion in his eyes made Sol swallow silently.

"Nothing could touch him, you know? Nothing got in the way. He joked around with the rest of us - everybody liked him, pretty much - but he never turned in late work or poor battle performance. It was almost more important." Cas shrugged a little, like he was trying to minimize his own words. "He wasn't like that in Fox, but...but then there was Dante." His features darkened. "Me and Hel went into her quarters, while she was in the infirmary, trying to find out what had happened. We saw the blood on the floor. He...didn't just hit them, Sol. He really beat them up." Cas' turn to swallow, and Sol bit the inside of her cheek and forced herself to keep watching him and the pain on his face. "I should have noticed the difference, Sol. From the moment he saw Commander Dante, he was...different. He stared at her. He didn't talk to me, or anyone else, really, but Pallas. I should have told someone. I should have asked him what was wrong, and I didn't. It wasn't my fault, what he did, but I could have stopped it."

Sol remained silent.

"He hurt them, Sol, and he got sent to the Intitute for it, and now he's back, and he's not like he was in Fox, even. He's crazy." The sad, fear-drenched conviction was heavy in his voice. "Me and Helen watched him beat up Jordan Windhaven, and he saw us before we left. I'm scared of him, Sol. He doesn't belong up here. Maybe he would have, a long time ago, but not anymore. He belongs back in the Institute, maybe forever. But he doesn't deserve to die."

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and nodded solemnly. "No. He doesn't. We have to stop Wick, and I think we have a way. Will you help us?" It was rushed, but there wasn't anything she could say about what he'd told her. Nathan had never existed for her, except as he was now.

Cas looked worn, and she felt a tremor of guilt for dragging him into this...but Gabe had an excellent reason, or he wouldn't have asked. She felt no thrill of victory when he nodded wearily. "Yeah, if I can. Let me get my desk." She waited while he shut it down and lifted it, and he walked towards the door silently before she laid a hand on his arm. He looked at her wordlessly, and she didn't grin. It didn't feel right. "Thanks."

He only nodded, and she followed him out.

He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Somewhere on the station, people were getting hurt. People might even be getting killed, and there was nothing he could do about it. Not true; he'd already done what he could. He'd disabled the Engineering Bay doors. Wick wouldn't be able to open them, and the people inside the Bay would be safe from depressurization, at least.

But what about from each other? What about from Nathan?

He turned onto his side and closed his eyes, but they popped open a few moments later, and he sat up slowly. He couldn't sleep, and he couldn't stand to be by himself any longer. He didn't know what the hell was was going to say to explain his behavior. He couldn't tell her what he'd done, or she'd worry, but he wanted to go see Helen more than he wanted to suffer alone.

The rest of his cell was asleep, and the snores of the two vets covered the sounds of him dropping to the floor. His feet bare, he dragged on his trousers and his undershirt as quietly as possible and palmed open the door to pad out into the hallway. The metal floor was cold under his toes, and he palmed the door to Helen's cell open while he shifted from one foot to another, trying to adjust to the chill temperature.

Her roommates were also asleep, though considerably more quietly than his, and he walked to Helen's bunk and crouched enough to see her face. She looked even younger than she was asleep, and he stifled guilt and touched her shoulder gently.