Kyungsoo had suspected that Kai might be trying something such as picking locks with the paperclip, but he hadn’t expected the man to get to work quite so quickly on it, or that it would actually work.  Once the guards were gone and silence had fallen between the two, he had heard Kai shifting about a little, and then a faint scraping sound.  About half an hour later, there was an almost inaudible click and a muffled “wow” before a hand latched around his arm, pulling his chained wrists over in Kai’s direction.  Something prodded him sharply – he was guessing the paperclip – and then there was a fair amount of scraping before – and much more quickly this time – the lock on his manacles clicked open, and Kai carefully removed them from his wrists, making sure to muffle the sounds.

“You’re insane,” Kyungsoo told him as he massaged his hands.

“No,” said Kai.  “I just want them to turn on the lights.”

Kyungsoo wanted to protest that picking the locks for their manacles in the dark probably wasn’t going to result in somebody turning any lights on.  He wasn’t even sure if the cell they were in had any.  But Kai refused to be deterred: Kyungsoo detected him moving around next to him, and then his presence vanished.

Not long after, he thought he heard the cell door swinging open, but it was really too quiet to be able to tell if it was that or if Kai had been letting out a tired sigh.  He decided it was best not to call the man’s name, though, and instead shifted himself into the most comfortable position he could find and prepared to drift off to sleep.

He was woken up by somebody carefully placing the manacles back on his wrist.  Dazed, Kyungsoo sat up and tried to push the person away.

“Hi, Sleeping Beauty,” Kai said with amusement.  Kyungsoo instantly relaxed.  There was, however, no click signifying the manacles had been done up.

“What are you doing?” he mumbled.

Kai just chuckled.  Kyungsoo thought it best not to ask, and curled up with his back to him to go back to sleep.

This time, he was woken by shouting and a glare of lights.  Bewildered, he sat up, blinking in the harsh brightness, and finally got to see exactly where he was.

The cell he and Kai were in was absolutely tiny, measuring two metres by two and a half.  Both his clothes and Kai’s were in poor states – Kai’s were worse than his, but he’d been in there longer – and Kai needed a haircut.  Come to that, they both needed a bit of a shave.

“What’s going on?” he asked, confused, but before Kai could respond, the cell door slammed open and there were guards yelling at them in Chinese.  Kyungsoo didn’t understand a word they were saying, and Kai, with a cautious look towards the lead guard, began translating demands of “which one of you was it?” that had Kyungsoo no closer to figuring out the issue.  Seeing Kyungsoo’s absolutely blank face, they moved onto Kai, knocking him about a bit and checking the chains on his wrists – which were securely locked up – and then they were gone again, severely disgruntled.

“What was that about?” Kyungsoo asked, confused.

“Where’s the mic?” Kai asked him very quickly and very quietly in English, making Kyungsoo start.  “Is there a camera in here?”

Kyungsoo looked around swiftly.  The cell they were in was made of concrete, and the only alien things in it, as far as he could tell, were himself and Kai.

“No camera,” he said, “but would they want one in the dark?”

“Mic?” Kai asked after a little concessionary shrug.  Kyungsoo looked again.

It took a little while to spot the microphone, since it had been painted the same colour as the concrete, but once he caught sight the tiny thing in the corner, Kyungsoo shed his manacles and went over to see about the best way of dismantling it.  Once Kai saw wires on show, he started talking.

“We don’t have long.  Can you make that look like it malfunctioned by itself?”

With a shrug of his own, Kyungsoo carefully began picking apart the copper wires with his fingernails and snapping them.

“So you wanted light to be able to dispose of the microphone?” Kyungsoo guessed in Korean, happy that the microphone was no longer able to record.

“Essentially.  We need to discuss how we’re going to escape.”

“How did you get them to turn the lights on?” Kyungsoo was unable to help himself from asking.  Kai held up the paperclip with a grin.

“Picked the half the cell locks and then the manacles of about eight people on here; told three of them in Chinese to make a run for it.  One of them got caught and must have blabbed, because the guards came down to see how many people had escaped, and turning the lights on rather than going from door to door with torches is much easier, especially when you want to inspect how they may or may not have escaped.  But they left you alone since you obviously don’t understand Chinese and therefore couldn’t be the culprit, and roughed me up because I do speak Chinese, but I was clearly chained up, so wasn’t involved in the escape process.”

Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows at him, impressed.  “So now what?”

Kai beckoned him over, and Kyungsoo came and sat beside him.

“So,” said Kai, “we’re four floors below ground.  I don’t know whether this is Sangchu’s HQ or just another big base of operations where they keep their prisoners or what.  In any case, we want to be out of this cell before they come round to haul us out later for questioning. The ones who weren’t locked in are probably going to be hauled out for questioning again first—”

Kyungsoo winced

“Most of them are pretty disreputable people from rival gangs,” Kai assured him.  “But it gives us time.  Anyway, come here and look.”

Finally putting down the microphone, wires now practically shredded, Kyungsoo scooted back over to Kai.

“Okay, so,” the agent began, tracing out an imaginary map on the ground with his finger.  “We don’t really need to know much about this floor other than the cells are here and the stairs are here.  There’s a lift – it has security cameras in it; no point in using it.  The guards are here.  There are usually only two of them.  It should be possible to take them out.  There are questioning rooms here and here – we can hide in them if we really need to – there are plenty of things we can take from them that we can use as weapons.”

“Then we might as well raid them,” Kyungsoo pointed out.

“Depends on time,” Kai told him.  “I have no idea what goes on on the third floor, so it’s probably best if we don’t stop off there unless we absolutely have to.  Second floor is basically storage facilities.  Largely food and alcohol, though I’ve seen an ammunitions room and I think they have some old computers and stuff down there.  It’s not well guarded, but the locks for the storage aren’t something I can pick with a paperclip.  Ammunition you need a fob key to get into.  They’re only issued to specific individuals; I’ve tried stealing them from guards down here and they don’t have them.”

“But if we can get in there…” Kyungsoo murmured.

“If we can get in there, that would be brilliant,” Kai agreed.  “It’s unlikely though.”

“And what about the first basement level?”

“More storage.  Food again, I think, though I’m not totally sure, and also a couple of offices.  That’s where I got the paperclip from.”

“And how long does it take to get up there?”

“I was up the stairs in maybe two and a half minutes?”

“You run faster than I do,” Kyungsoo grumbled.

Kai grinned.  “I’d allow us five, and that would be more than ample.  It’s possible we may have to hide along the way.  The problem is getting up from the basement level onto the ground floor.  I have no idea where the stairs are for that; the only way I’ve seen is by lift, and that’s only operated by key.”

“Is that another thing only issued to specific people?”

“I doubt it, or everybody would be trapped in the basement.  It’s just irritating, because I didn’t get a chance to inspect the lock or see what kind of key it was.”

“So we’re going to end up time-wasting on that floor.”

“Yeah.”

“If there are only two guards on our floor, can’t we knock them out, dump them in here and dress up as them?”

“Potentially,” said Kai.  “I was going to suggest that.  But there’s still the problem about one of them raising the alarm before we can get away.  It would give us time, though.”

Kyungsoo nodded.  “And so, what happens after we get out of the basement?  Aren’t they going to organise a manhunt if we escape?  I mean, you’re quite a catch for them.”

“Yeah, they will,” Kai agreed.  “I think the best bet is prob