Part Three.

It was two weeks after Levi's twelfth birthday, a Friday night and he was up in his bed, covers draped over him and flashlight beaming down on his present from Hanji. It was a spiral notebook full of pictures, drawings and factoids about airplanes. She'd drawn the illustrations herself and cut photos out of magazines from the library. ("There's hundreds of them, who will ever notice?") Delicately Levi turned the pages, eyes glued to the material.

His PIP pinged and he glanced at the message, expecting to meet Hanji tomorrow.

The text blinked on his screen: Come to the meeting place right now.

He frowned, pulled up the onscreen keyboard and rapidly typed his response. It's after curfew, we can't meet now.

Seconds later: Fuck curfew and come!

Then: Now!

He closed his book and flung the covers aside. Hanji kept pinging him. He yanked out his secret drawer of outfits and found his favorite blue corduroys and black shirt that had the word "Flyboy" embroidered on it. Another birthday present, which he'd begrudged at first, but like most things from Hanji, the shirt and nickname grew on him.

I'm on my way, he messaged her, so that his PIP would stop making so much noise.

Sneaking out after curfew was nothing new to Levi; he'd long learned how to avoid the guards. He made it to Level 7A quickly, practically running into the robot station. "Hanji?"

"I'm over here," she said, and he heard the catch in her voice. She was leaning against one of the robot pods, arms crossed and head cast downward. It was hard to see her, half in the dark, half in the dim green light from the pod.

Levi paused in his step. "What's wrong?"

She waved him over, and he could hear her breathing hard, biting back something. He didn't want to believe it, but he knew tears when he heard them. He got close. He saw the bruises on her face. Her glasses were missing. Hot, strangling knots started to choke Levi's own throat. Rage had a way of hurting your voice.

"Who hurt you? You better tell me," he said, voice deadly low. "I'll reshape their face."

"Flyboy to the rescue," Hanji drawled bitterly. "Don't be an idiot. I'm not..." she sniffed, wiping her eyes, "...not here to cry and ask you to save me or anything. I'm fine and of perfectly sound mind."

"Bullshit." Levi fought to keep his voice level. "You're hurt. I'm going to fucking do something about it."

"We both are." Hanji said forcefully, looking him straight in the eye. She swallowed the last of her tears.

"Good," Levi said, "So tell me who the asshole is and we'll get him."

"The asshole is my dad," she said flatly, "And I have a much better idea."

He looked at her expectantly, sobered by her answer. Hanji took a deep breath, and took her glasses out of her pocket. When she put them on she looked completely herself again. Bold brown eyes stared seriously at Levi and she reached for his hand.

"Remember when we first met here and I told you I had secret plans? I'm going to tell them to you now, because I trust you, and more importantly, I'm going to put it all into action, very soon."

"You're escaping A.I.R., aren't you?" Levi said.

She smiled, though it looked like it hurt her black and blue cheek. "So much for secret plan, huh?" She leaned close to him, close enough that he could smell her shampoo and his skin flushed hot. She was still clutching his hand. Grey and brown eyes locked on each other.

"We're going to get out of this place," Hanji vowed, "Together. And we're never coming back. Swear on it." She broke her hand from his for a moment and spat in her palm before holding it out to shake.

He recoiled. "Gross."

"Do it, pansy," she snapped.

He spat in his palm and shook. "How and when do we start?"

The plan was genius, as Hanji put it.

"Operation Pilot plays out in three stages. One: preparation. We'll start the day just like normal and go to school, but when we get to our first class we'll fake sick and ask to go to the nurse. Sick checks take forever so no one will miss us. We'll ping each other when we're out and then head straight to the community kitchen and bust into the pantry."

Like mice, the two kids poked their heads into the kitchen, saw it was empty, then darted for their target. The pantry door was locked.

"No worries. I've been practicing for this," Hanji said in a low voice, showing Levi her lock picks. Two minutes later, they opened the door to shelves and shelves of goods. Packages and cans were stacked so high that Levi craned his neck to see the distant top. He blinked as Hanji shoved a piece of paper in his hands.

"Get everything on the list," she ordered, "And don't forget the chocolate." She opened her backpack to pull out several more backpacks. He did the same and got to work.

"Are you sure this will be enough?" he asked, as he packed the seventh bag of Wheaties Bars Made With Super Wheat.

"It's as much as we can take," Hanji said, zipping up a stuffed backpack. She frowned at him, watching as he looked longingly at all the food, food he could eat for the rest of his life if he stayed. "Hey. Flyboy. You better not be thinking of bailing out now."

He looked sharply at her. "Of course not, Four-Eyes. I said I'd come with you, and I'm coming."

"Great!" With a fierce smile, she stuffed a handful of goodies in her bag. "Had me worried for a second. Now hurry up!"

"Stage two is distraction. We have to get down to Level 7, room 13 without anyone catching us. We won't look like lost school kids anymore with all our bags of food, so I came up with a way to keep all the guards busy."

Levi closed the kitchen doors, then looked at Hanji. She had a plastic half-gallon container full of swishing liquid, and she held it up with a wicked gleam in her glasses.

"What's that?" Levi asked warily, taking a step back.

"Just wait and see," Hanji said, and pointed. "We have to go left. So..." She walked some distance down the hall to the right and put the container in the middle of the floor. Then she ran springing back to Levi's side and brandished her bb gun. "Watch this." She winked, aimed, and fired.

Levi heard the pop of the bb pellet breaking the half-gallon open. Then a high pitched squeak pierced the hall and the container exploded. BANG!

"Shit!" Levi shielded his head with his hands, staring. Plastic shrapnel and liquid sprayed the walls, an acrid smell and steam flooding the air.

"I made it!" Hanji said, wearing a wild smile from ear to ear, "With cleaning supplies! Look!" She showed him a whole backpack full of them.

The alarms blasted off, red strobe lights flashing over their faces. Hand in hand, Levi and Hanji dashed down the hall, as voices started calling down the corridors and someone blew a whistle.

"And for the grand finale, we get to the room where they build the robots for survey missions outside. We're going to escape through the tube system they use to send the robots up! We're just small enough to get in one of the pods. It'll be a sinch, if we can just get there."

"Shit, they're coming!" Levi's shoes beat the floor.

"Keep going! Here!" Hanji jerked him down the stairs, pushed him ahead and turned around. She aimed at the container she'd planted behind them and fired. BANG!

Levi heard someone scream. His heart skipped a beat, thudding in his ears.

"Whoo! We're almost there!" Hanji yelled.

"You go up the tubes first, and then I'll follow. And we'll be out. Bada bing, bada boom, Flyboy."

Room 13 hummed and shook with machinery. Wires snaked across the floor. Along the back wall were the tubes, reaching up and beyond the ceiling like giant organ pipes. Little robots were packed into pods and arranged around the tubes. It would be easy to pick one up, place it in the tube opening and then just push the red button on the control panel. With a hiss the pod would shoot upward to the surface.

Hanji flipped a pod over, dumping its contents. With Levi's help, she moved it into the tube, then practically threw him into the seat. He had to crouch to fit. One by one she stuffed the backpacks in with him.

"Oy, Shit-Glasses, I'm suffocating!"

"Just for a few seconds! That's how long it takes to get to the surface."

Doors banged open. "Hey!" cried a man's voice.

Hanji whirled, and through her legs, Levi saw two guards running into the room. He saw helmets and vests and guns.

"Surprise!" Hanji shouted back, and raised her bb gun. Then Levi saw it - the bomb Hanji had left by the door. She pulled the trigger.

BANG!

Levi winced, startled by the gunshot. His ears rang. He blinked as he saw Hanji fall. Red pooled on her chest, staining the turquoise blue of her shirt and soaking through the white thread of her embroidered stars. He stared, then looked up as he heard one of the guards drop his gun, cussing, shaking from head to toe.

"Holy fuck, I shot her, I fucking shot her dead, dear god..."

The plastic half-gallon bomb just sat there, the men just stood there, and Hanji just lay there. Her shirt slowly changed color.

"Hey kid, get out of that pod! Get out of there right now!"

Levi saw them rushing forward. He saw Hanji on the floor, motionless, her bb gun and two backpacks dropped beside her.

Swiftly he reached and managed to snatch the gun. As he retreated back into the pod he punched the red button. Plastic screening closed down, squishing him. The guards ran into the pod, hands smacking on the plastic and open-mouthed faces staring. Then they vanished, a rushing filled Levi's ears, and blackness swallowed him up. He was being crushed, flatter and flatter, closer and closer. Lights flashed in front of his eyes and he heard a whirring whine, increasing in volume until it seemed to explode in his head.

Suddenly it stopped.

Tears streamed down Levi's face. He gasped for air. It was hot, and smelled, and tasted like nothing he'd ever breathed before.

...

...

Fin