JOE WAS THE FIRST TO ARRIVE, at the parapet of the abandoned Stuyvesant Hall building that overlooked the wall. He was panting hard from exhaustion — and he glanced over at the old, orange-bricked wall with a broken, barb wire fence on top. It looked monumental to him, like the pictures of The Great Wall of China from his History textbook...

He travailed in with more self-doubt after seeing it — how was he to scale it without a ladder?

He looked down from the parapet, and the rarefied thought of jumping down fifteen feet to the patch of green grass below was now overwhelming — even though he had jumped the same height earlier from the French window — but now, the ponderous redhead had acrophobia fears.

The timorousness spread over him of why he made the decision of separating from the rest of the Wesleyan boys— and running away with Reeves' accentuate plans. His knees began to tremble hard — he felt like sitting on his nates and closing his eyes— and to let everything pass by, allowing himself to be captured by the pursuing guards...

A panic-stricken voice then came yelling from behind him...

"Joe, what're you waiting for? Fucking jump!"

Joe witnessed Reeves hurdled beside him and leapt over the parapet wall, and he landed, tumbling on the grass below. He cried from below at the hesitant bigger boy...

"Come on, Joe, come!"

Joe spotted the rest of the cops and guards were coming fast from his rear. He took his quivering leg over the parapet and he sat on it — the pursuers were nearing him — and Joe, out of his fear, forced himself to plummet — he dropped down like a hot-potato and landed on the grass. He grimaced in pain after he twisted his ankle from the fall.

Reeves came over to grab him up, tugging him by his grubby uniform shirt...

"Come on Joe, you can make it!" Reeves glanced up at Guard Farah's angry eyes from the parapet above, hollering back at him...

"You bitch-boy, I will get you!"

The rest of the cops and guards arrived at the balcony but, they were apprehensive to jump down, they halted their pursuit — they saw the two boys reaching towards the far wall. Farah, the oversized security guard, was still glowering, and she bellowed again to everyone beside her...

"Turn back, there is a stairwell over there!"

She had the access keys to all the locked exits of the old Wesleyan wing, which had been secured from trespassers and vandals since the Medusa attack.

"Come on, come on — you can do it, Joe!"

Joe lurched sluggishly to keep up. Each step on the twisted ankle was a sharp jolting pain to him. Joe was perspiring in a dread panic to the pitched voices of the tumultuous cops and guards hollering nearby on the ground and on the rooftops. He was panting hard with panic-attack. Joe had to place his back on the orange, brick-wall to respite or else he may collapse with a heart attack...

Reeves surveyed in seconds at the uniforms running down the stairwell — Guard Farah was now unlocking a barred gate with her key-bunch at the base of the stairs. There were also some activates above on the rooftops, with snipers running over to take a position...

Both the twelve-year-old Intersexuals would have to move fast now — to scale over the wall in that paucity of time...

"Come, Joe, I will give you a boost — come on, put your good foot up." Reeves cried out in anxiety at him. The taller and heavier Joe stepped on the buddy's clenched palms. Reeves grappled and heaved the heavyweight Joe, no higher than above his own doddering knees.

"Mmpphff — Joe, start scaling up quick!"

Joe only needed to pull himself up three feet, to get on top the wall. The red-haired struggled in tiredness, but, he slipped sideways in the failed attempt — he tumbled and fell on the grass below...

His capitulated falsetto voice then, cried out in defeat to the ordeal — seeing the cops scuttling out of the narrow opened gate...

"Go, Reeves, I can't do it! You go-go... escape now!"

"I am not leaving here without you! Okay, I will climb over, and pull you up instead."

"No man — you go alone!"

Reeves looked affright for a split second, at the state of his abject fallen friend. He could not just abandon him — after when Joe had finally taken the leap of faith — to follow his plan to escape from this place with him...

"Shut up! We are leaving this shitty place together!"

Reeves started scaling and he reached the top of the brick wall. He stood abut on top and had a quick glance for a sec, over his shoulder — at the 'civilization —that he longed to be in...

Freedom was a matter of only a jump down behind, and escape...

"Hey! Virgin-boy! Over here!"

He even heard people behind, cheering for them. Some rowdy, teenaged girls outside the mom and pop store were teasing, followed by an encouragement too, when one of the older girls lifted her skirt, exposing her gamy knickers — the others teenagers with her were laughing out at her naughty spirited self...

"Hey boy, jump on down, if you wanna get laid by a Virgin-boy Killer!"

*

The woman looked at the multiple windows screens off the CCTV-feed on her computer — Tina Martin was on the edge of her seat, spotting the cops on the ground and snipers on the roof who were posing the imminent danger...

Every footstep and every rifle scope target was closing in the propinquity of the chase.

Martin made out the image on the screen of Reeves — reaching his hand to the bigger boy below, who looked ceded...

"Leave him behind, Reeves — just go, jump dammit!"

*

His outreached hand clasped Joe's — while he hauled him up.

"Come Joe come, you can make it!"

His best friend was the only family he grew up with all those years in Wesleyan — and he could not give up on him. He would take him along when they go outside the wall — and, they would find for Laura Jensen once they escaped.

*

The snipers on the roofs aimed at the two boys on the wall. Joe's back was hit by multiple shots of M99 tranquillizer darts...

"Arrr...Reeves!"

Reeves looked in horror — when he discovered a sharp pain from a dart hitting his own forearm. Within seconds the Etorphine took effect — he was in the state of catatonia — his grip went flaccid and released his hold...

The corpulent Joe plummeted back again on the grass — inside the Wesleyan campus ground.

Reeves held his arm with the dart impaled, he looked back with distorted visions, at the snipers on the roof on the adjacent building. He fought hard to stay awake — but, the sedative drug kicked in instantaneously...

Two more darts then hit Reeves' chest.

Reeves dazed out, and fell back on the broken, barbed wire fence on top of the wall — it ripped his Wesleyan uniform shirt, and the ectoderm skin of his back...

But, the fence wires also broke his twelve-foot fall, into the civilization-side of the wall. Reeves dropped with a thud on the concrete pavement outside — and his senses faded, after he heard the frightened girls screaming behind — and finally, his tortured body passed out...

He laid there motionless, his consciousness fled — and the merciful darkness swallowed him — just like his mother Laura Jensen, who was on the floor of wardroom B-415 in Columbus, Ohio...

Both the mother and her unknown son have failed in their final attempt, to save someone, who was worth saving...

*

Looking at the screen in disappointment, a tear rolled down from Tina Martin's eye...

She saw the bottle of bourbon in her hand, before dropping it into the wicker basket — after knowing that there was nothing left to celebrate anymore in IIRC in Wesleyan University. She then cleared her worktable, to head for her new métier, at the CDC in Druid Hill, Georgia.