She climbed the stairs to her right, making her way to the armory door. It was heavy wood and completely impenetrable. And locked, of course. She twisted her mouth and stared at the handle, which sat over the lock. This one was stranger than the others in the house. It was like a lock out of the Knight's Conquest, it was so old. She was able to peer through it to the room beyond, but could only see a few shelves with boxes on them.

She paced back and forth, rubbing her eyes with her hands and trying to think of a fast way in. It wasn't until she crouched down, and something in her pocket poked her hip, that she remembered what she'd dug up from the Beast's bedroom chest the night before. Impossible hope blossoming, Bo dug in her pocket and brought out the key on a string. It was strange and long, nothing like keys she'd seen before. It had two heavy teeth and an intricate handle that matched the design of the door handles.

It was a long shot, such a long shot, but it might work. It'd been with her radio, after all, and if the Beast had put her guns away in the armory, then why wouldn't he put the key with what was left of her belongings?

With her eyes closed, she fit the key into the lock and turned it. Every prayer she knew ran silently across her lips that this, her last hope, would not fail her.

The key turned. The door slid open.

Relief raced through Bo's veins, but she didn't have much time to do more than mutter a few thanks. She had to get moving, and she walked into the armory to inspect her improving chances.

The set up was much like the sky room, only instead of books there were weapons. Aston would have fallen down drooling over the stock the Beast had locked up. Every sort of gun imaginable, from handhelds to mounted ones that stood in pieces in the corners. Blades of the kind with electrified metal were shelved and labeled, and pulse grenades lay nestled next to each other in bins. The people who had used the mansion before the Beast had been impeccable in their organization and stockpiling of these weapons. It was almost like art to see them.

Bo stared in wonder for a moment, thinking of all the places her camp could finally go if they had such fire power to protect them. Yet, she knew that she couldn't possibly haul all the equipment with her on the trek home.

She wandered through the stacks and shelves of weapons, pawing through any piles that she thought her gear might be hidden in. Everything was mostly labelled, which helped, and she managed to find her way to the sections where the pistols and long guns were kept. It took her a few more minutes to locate her guns, but finally she saw their familiar shapes. She slung her rifle over her shoulder, and ran her hands over the handles of her pistols. She'd missed them, and the memories they carried. She smiled as she strapped them to her legs once again, glad of their weight and happy to have them back at her side.

With her objects in her possession once again, Bo had no further need for the room. She fit the key back into the lock and then started back down the stairs to the gallery below. If the Service-Matons were not in the entrance hall, she was planning on sneaking out the front door. Once outside, she could use the vegetation to hide her while she tried to figure out a plan of getting to a forcefield without being noticed.

She was crouched halfway down the grand staircase, listening for the whirring of a Service-Maton's anti-grav system, when she noticed a light coming from down the hallway in the entrance hall. Thought it was morning, some corners of the mansion were hard for sunlight to find. This meant the electric lights burned almost all day. And it also meant that the Beast was probably in his study.

She knew she should just ignore it, and make a break for the door. But she also wanted to make sure that he was where she thought he was. If she assumed he was in the study and acted in accordance, she might bump into him in the garden when she least expected it. No, she had to make sure he was in the study before she attempted her escape.

Heart pumping, Bo stood up and edged down the stairs and into the hallway where the study was. No Service-Matons were in sight, and Bo crept to the door. It was opened a crack, and she pressed against the wood in order to peer through.

The Beast's massive collection of beautiful items glinted in the light, looking grotesque in the harsh lighting of the electricity. Bo shivered at the sight, wondering how such beauty could be turned so quickly to horror. Her eyes swept the room and came to a stop on a large and familiar figure. The Beast stood in the middle of the room, staring a piece of paper in his hands. It was too far away for Bo to make out any detail, but the vague form of a person was visible. Bo was fairly certain she knew who it was.

After a moment, Bo realized with a start that the Beast was talking, though his words were so quiet that she had to hold her breath to hear them. His eyes trained on the picture, as if he were speaking to it. But he couldn't be that crazy, could he? She sucked in her breath and strained her ears to hear what he said.

"I don't know what to do about her," he whispered. "Well, no, I do know what to do, but I don't know if I can do it. It hurts just thinking about it, but then again... what sort of life will she lead if I don't?"

Bo bit her lip, staring at his lone figure in the huge room. The act of talking to a picture carried with it such a sense of lonesomeness that she felt a shiver run down her arms. She waited to hear more, to see what exactly he was talking about but, just as she leaned in again, beeping down the hallway made her jump away from the door. She couldn't waste any more time eavesdropping at doors.

Before any distant Service-Maton could discover her, Bo rushed for the front door.

--

Once she was hidden by the bushes in the front lawn, she made her plan for escape. Her ultimate destination was the rose garden, which she'd seen from the roof had pressed up against the border. She had to be extra careful getting to the normal gardens, but the bushes offered shelter for her as she made her slow way around the house and toward the garden gate. More than once she had to freeze and hold her breath as Service-Matons passed dangerously close by to her hiding spots, but none discovered her. It was frustratingly slow, but she finally made it to the first garden gate and then down the length to where the rose garden's gate stood sad and neglected. She hadn't been in it since the day the Beast had cut her roses for her room, but now it held a different sort of excitement for her. It was her ticket out of her, and she wasn't wasting any time.

Slinging her rifle back over her shoulder, she pulled the gate open and slipped into the rose garden. The branches curved around her, hiding her perfectly. It had been the reason she chose the rose garden, and she felt a bit of the tension ease as she started down the path.

She carved a straight path forward, ignoring the real paths and beating her own through the thorn walls. The sharp points grabbed her clothes as she forced her way through, and sliced any exposed skin. She knew she would be covered in wounds by the time she reached the end, but she was not going to spend a second more in this place than she had to. Her dad was dying. She needed to be home.

She was so involved in forcing her way through the rose bushes, that when she burst through one batch and into the clearing in front of the mist wall, she almost couldn't stop in time. She pulled up short, throwing her hands behind her in order to avoid touching the swirling mist that reached for her. She remembered the blaring sirens from the last time she'd made contact with it. Staggering backward a few feet, she took a moment to catch her breath and process the pain of the thousands of thorn gashes on her limbs and face while she stared at the forcefield in front of her.

Her eyes scanned the expanse of mist that ran as far up and to the sides as she could see. She searched for any sign of a seam, or some sort of power storage. If she could find some flaw than she could exploit it and bring the whole wall down. Yet, even with her trained eye used to picking out the smallest details in a scavenging field, she could find nothing that she could use to help her disable the wall. All she needed was something to buy her two seconds without the wall, just so that she could leap outside.

It was that idea that brought on her next one. She did have something that might short-circuit the forcefield. If the mist wall was anything like the robots, she knew it would work. It had to.

She pulled her rifle from her back, bringing it around and making sure that there was a round in the chamber. She then lifted the barrel, aiming at the expanse of mist, knowing that she could not miss such a massive target.

Taking a deep breath, her finger rested gently on the trigger. She knew she had to act before she lost her nerve. She closed her eyes, drew in a breath, and then squeezed the trigger.

The sound of her gun echoed through the garden a split second before the sound of large amounts of electricity escaping into the air crackled and popped, accompanied by the arcing strands of pure energy that writhed in jagged lines. Bolts of electricity arced through the air, snapping and fizzing, reaching for anything within a few feet. The roses burst into smoke as they were hit, their petals falling in waves.

Bo had barely any time to see all this before a large arc swept out of the wall and struck her, filling her entire body with a burning that drove everything but white hot pain from her mind. Her legs buckled and she collapsed to the ground, feeling her muscles spasming without her telling them to. She twisted under the pain, unable to control a single atom of her body as the electricity coursed through her.

A few feet away, the mist wall cleared just a little and for just a moment. Bo stared at it, seeing the hint of orange dust and fossilized trees, blurred and half-hidden by the mist, but still visible. She was so close. Her freedom was just a few feet away. She forced feeling into her arm, reaching for that sign of home...

Her body gave out before she could even drag herself an inch toward the hole in the forcefield. Her mind fizzed to a stop, shutting down her body. Her muscles sagged and she felt herself slipping. Her eyes rolled backward, and she only just heard the shrieking alarms as she realized that the darkness would take her before she could reach her home just a few inches away.