Notes: It's silly, but honestly, this was just because I started thinking about the implications of a scene depicted in a certain manner by a game engine because there was no other alternative.
The EMP shuts down everything, including his armour, and so Washington is left in a crumpled, uncomfortable heap on the floor, pinned in the position he'd landed in, trapped in a sealed, airless prison that has completely locked up, joints frozen. His initial attempts to push himself into a sitting position come to nothing, encased as he is in millions of dollars of military hardware that all counts for shit in a crisis.
The pressing concern on his mind at that precise moment is the fact that with his armour's complete shutdown, it's no longer processing air from the outside, and the internal reserves have shut down. Regardless of whether the EMP succeeded in taking out the Meta, Wash's biggest problem is suffering to death when the five or so minutes of air he has left is exhausted.
He doesn't panic. He didn't get selected for Project Freelancer and then as a Recovery Agent by being the sort of shrinking violent who's scared of the dark and the things that go boo. Wash used to have one of those things in his head, and Epsilon did way more than go boo in the night.
Epsilon's screams had infiltrated into his dreams, and Wash stood amidst the bodies of people he didn't know, in places he'd never been, closed his eyes and prayed to a God he didn't believe in that he would wake up.
He's not going to be taken out by his own escape plan. Screw that. Knowing his luck, Church'd be right about the whole 'ghost' crap and Wash'd be forced to spend eternity haunting Caboose with Church providing bitchy commentary in the background. The mere thought is enough to get him moving.
The armour, no longer assisted by servo-motors and power plant, is little more than heavy metal plates weighing his limbs down. There's a manual released for his helmet under his jaw, left hand side, which is a relief because Wash landed on his right hand side when he went down. It takes sheer effort and a force of will to make him drag his hand up, and the strength required to force the elbow joint to bend leaves him gasping, using up what little is left of his air that much faster.
He doesn't stop, though. It'd take more effort to begin again than to continue, so he continues, against the resistance of the shoulder joint, and fumbles along the underside of his helmet until he hears a click and the helmet unseals just enough to let a whisp of outside air in. He hadn't realised how hot it had been getting inside his suit until he feels it, and it gives him enough strength to shove his helmet all the way off his head. It rolls to a halt a few feet away, and he sags, exhausted from the effort, and his injuries, letting his head flop to the ground. His breath feels short, his head light, and he dimly realises that this is the delayed realisation that he's bleeding out into his armour.
He can't see the Meta from his current position. He can't hear him either, and hopes that means that Maine has been disabled. He'd stand up if he could, check out the area, but right now all he can do is lie there, hope that Caboose manages not to fuck this one up, and wonder if he'll die before the soldiers get to him.
Caboose does, and he doesn't.
"The Epsilon unit," the Chairman drums his fingers on his desk, and regards Washington with an unamused expression, "Is gone. Your evidence, Agent, does not apparently exist."
Washington wants to kill something, anyone, and if that something or anyone was named Caboose, he'd enjoy it that much more. Unfortunately, he can't do much more than twitch inside his armour. They'd stripped it of all extraneous components, it's little more than a power-assisted mechanical suit now, with a remote control unit installed that lets them lock his joints up at a moment's notice. They have him pinned in the chair opposite the Chairman, the only way they'd leave him unwatched by armed guards. The Chairman didn't want any unauthorised observers for their conversation.
"This is most unfortunate," the Chairman adds.
Wash had a principal once who'd spoken with the same sort of precise, disdainful tones. He'd gotten to hear them a lot, and found that the expulsion that principal had delivered had been way more effectively delivered than any of the others. "Chairman," he says, feeling his stomach knotting unpleasantly and ruthlessly ignoring the sensation, "If you just go to the blue's base, I'm sure you'll find-"
"Ah yes, these 'blues'," the Chairman pushes through the papers on his desk, finding one and setting it atop the others as if it holds all the answers. "You claim simulation troopers made off with the Epsilon containment unit."
"Yes, sir."
"Even though there are no records of these simulation troopers in the archives of Project Freelancer?"
Wash grits his teeth, thankful that his helmet lets him clear the expression before he spoke. "Yes, sir."
"And why might that be, Agent?" The Chairman sets the paper down, and steeples his fingers, silently judging.
"One of the simulation troopers hacked the database-"
"I find it more likely," the Chairman interrupts, speaking over him, "That one of the Freelancer agents, likely the one sitting before me at this very moment, is responsible for the disappearance of the Epsilon unit, which files recovered from Project Freelancer indicate would have a great deal of information on the exact events that took place during the Project's zenith. Also likely is the fact that he would lie about these events, in the hope of some sort of leniency."
Wash would stand, outraged, if he could. "Chairman-"
"I hope you're satisfied, Agent Washington," the Chairman says, "You have set our investigation back, but, I assure you, I am not done with Project Freelancer yet." He presses a button on his desk, and two armed soldiers entered the office. "I look forward to your trial," he says, "And offer my condolences for the verdict."
"I hate the world, and everyone in it," Washington says, sincerely, as the soldiers release the lock on his armour and drag him out of the room.
In his cell, they release the armour locks and he can move around, but it's shitty freedom. All there is a bed and bars, and he's forced opposite another cell which is gratifyingly empty, at least at first. Two days into his possible lifetime of incarceration, the guards deliver another prisoner, shove them non-too-gently into the opposite cell.
It isn't until they lock the cell and leave that Washington realises that the new prisoner is a female, in an ugly, shapeless jumpsuit and socked feet, her hair shorn into what's clearly a military style. She stares across the gap between them with frank belligerence.
"What?" she demands.
"Sorry," he says, not at all, "Didn't think they'd put a woman in here with a bunch of dangerous felons."
"I hear running more than one top secret prison at a time is a real bitch on accounts," she says, gives him the finger, and then flings herself onto the bunk, turning her back to him and proceeding to ignore him for the next three days.
When she finally speaks to him again, apparently sick of him doing his very best statue impression. "Why the hell are you in combat gear?" She asks around a mouthful of processed meat that might have been chicken at some point. He can guess what it is, but he doesn't get the same, just nutrient packs he can slot into his armour and eat from a tube that runs up to the corner of his mouth.
"Why the hell are you in an orange boiler suit?" he says, returning her belligerence note for note.
She actually grins at that. "Fall season. Latest fashions, ignorant shit."
"I left my leisure suit at home," he tells her, as he removes an old, used up nutrient pack from his armour. Technically he only has to clean them out once a week or so, but it gives him something to do with his hands. "This is the only thing I had without gravy stains on the front."
Now she laughs, nose crinkling and flashing teeth that are slightly uneven. It's not a nice sound, more like a horse braying, but it's the most Human noise he's heard in a while, so he doesn't try to block her out. "Lydia," she says.
"Wash," he answers, and they don't speak for another two days.
"You're a robot," Lydia hazards, eventually, "I've never seen you piss, never seen 'em take you to the yard for a walk around, and once a week they give you a brick that you shove into your armour. Batteries?"
Wash snorts, and it's far enough from an actual vocalisation that his suit doesn't bother to transmit it aloud. "It's my cell," he tells her, "The bars are all for show. I piss in the suit, empty the waste pack into the refuse, and when they want me to exercise they up the resistance level on my joint motors. All the needs of a prisoner without actually having to let me out of the cell."
"Sounds like fun," Lydia says. She's lying on her back, arms stretched over her head, legs propped up on the wall at an angle. "Why the helmet, though?"
"Technically my identity's still classified." Wash would shrug, but he wasn't lying about the increased resistance level, and today is one of those days. Shrugging would strain him too much, and he prefers to exercise constructively.
"And I'm betting it's easier to ignore you when they can't see your face, huh? Dehumanising techniques?"
"If you say so." He acts disinterested, but the same thought had crossed his mind more than once. He's never suffered from claustrophobia, and that's one of the few things that Wash has always been grateful for.
Lydia rolls over onto her side. She's loosened the jumpsuit at the neck, and it plunges perilously low. Her bra is plain and sensible, but easily visible. She can't see him stare, so he doesn't feel guilty about doing so. "So what'd you do?"
"I lived."
Lydia's mouth twists. "And that's bad?"
"You have no idea." He flexes his fingers. His right gauntlet is a little stiff. Maybe there's a problem with one of the motors. "You?"
"I killed," her mouth twists into an unpleasant smile, "Just my luck the shithead had powerful friends."
"A nice girl like you? A killer? Who'd have thought?"
"I know. My mother was so disappointed."
They barely speak, he and Lydia, but she's not intolerable to be forced to share a space with. Her silence makes her passable, and he can spend his time instead thinking of the ways he'd beat the crap out of each and every one of the troopers who screwed him over. It's an entertaining pastime, for certain, and at least whiles away the hours. His only alternative is the solitaire card games that comes preinstalled on his HUD, and there's only so much of that he can take. He thinks his suit is a cheating fucker.
Some days pass completely in silence, with the only disturbance when they come to take Lydia for her scheduled daily exercise, or deliver her food, so he tends to become immune to the comings and goings of the guards. He's dozing, in fact, when the he hears people moving around. He ignores it, mostly, keeping his eyes shut and using the sound of his air filter as background white noise, and he nearly misses the grunting. He turns his head out of curiosity, in time to see one of the guards, his back to Wash's cell, thrusting into a bent over shape that took Wash's sleep-addled brain a moment to realise was Lydia.
He blinks, and then returns to staring at the ceiling, unable to shut his eyes anymore, unable to do anything but stare at the discoloured ceiling plates and listen to the noise of the guard's animalistic grunting. Lydia herself is completely silent, and Wash is suddenly rather grateful that he'd sealed inside combat gear. It's not long before the grunting fades, and he hears the sound of the Lydia's cell sliding open and shut again. It's only then he risks looking back. Lydia is zipping up her jumpsuit with one hand, and pressing a freshly lit cigarette between her lips with the other. When she sees him looking, she flashes him a wry look.
"Left my wallet in my other pants," she says, and sits back on her bunk. She doesn't do so without a wince, though, and he knows that the guard was less than gentle. If she doesn't see any point in screaming about it, though, it hardly seems worth mentioning.
She exhales a stream of smoke that curls in the air, and leans on the bars of her cell. She jerks her chin in his direction. "Doesn't the inside of that thing stink at this point?"
"It's a combat suit designed to be worn for weeks on end," Wash tells her, "They design it better than that."
"Pissy, aren't we?"
"Look who's talking." Washington sits up, swinging his legs onto the floor. "You're hardly Miss Sunshine yourself."
"Prison does that to a girl," she says. Smoke wreathes her head in a ghostly aura. "Now I'm just bored."
"Hence the extracurricular activities?" He waves a hand in the direction the guard left.
Lydia's eyes follow his gesture, and something crosses her face for a moment. Thoughtfully, she rolls the cigarette between thumb and forefinger. "Not got much else to barter with round here," she says. "Besides, he was making a delivery." She opens her hand, and he stands, stepping forward to peer at the thing she's holding out.
The device is small, barely the size of her palm, and he opens his mouth to ask what it's for, when her thumb presses down on one side and there's a faint click. Then Wash doesn't get a chance to ask anything, because his armour powers down with a whine that he didn't notice until its gone, leaving just the sound of his own breathing, and the dark of a suddenly opaque visor.
It's an unpleasant flashback to the events at Freelancer HQ, but Wash is too busy swearing to appreciate the comparison. He can hear, dimly, the sound of the cell doors being pushed back – presumably whatever took out his armour also took out the security systems – and then he's being rolled on his back and thin, quick fingers work under his helmet seal, pulling the headpiece away, tossing it aside.
Lydia sits, straddling him, as he's lying on his back on the floor, pinned by the weight of his own armour.
"Huh," she says, "You're a pretty pale bastard. I guess it makes sense, living in that suit and all."
"What'd they promise you?" he hisses at her.
"An open door and a whole new identity." Lydia reaches behind her back, tearing the fabric there, and when her hands reappear, she's holding a thin metal spike in her right hand. "Deliverable on completion."
The point of the spike is sharp, and while it wouldn't be strong enough to penetrate the plates of the armour, but it would go straight through the underlayers, and so close she won't even have to try hard to aim for the right spot.
Damned if he's going to down quietly. As her hand flashes downwards, he puts every ounce of strength he has into raising his arms, grunting in strain against the weight of the armour. He manages to get a hand on her arm, but not fast enough to stop her bringing the spike down into his neck, and the cold burning that spread outwards, accompanying the pain, is enough to prove that it isn't just an ordinary bit of metal. He probably only has a minute or two, if that.
Ignoring her hand, he moves, fast enough that she has no time to dodge, and locks his fingers around her throat, gripping tightly and with grim determination. Any sound she could have made is inaudible, and she tries to use her free hand to try to prise his fingers from her throat. She holds onto the spike, probably hoping he'd die before she did. His vision starts going grey around the edges, but he only tightens his grip. If he's going to die, he's going to take this duplicitous bitch with him. His heart was pounds in his ears, getting sluggish and slow, but he doesn't let go. Not a chance in hell.
When he wakes up, his throat is sore, and the lights are too bright, but Wash is alive, which is an improvement on the way things were looking for he lost consciousness. He's in a new cell, smaller, brighter, and standing just outside the entry is the Chairman, reading a clipboard, flanked by two soldiers.
Wash ignores him for a moment, reaching up a hand to his throat. The flesh is tender, sore, but intact. He's still in armour, but his helmet is set aside on the bed. He pushes himself into a sitting position, and tries to ignore the traitorous weakness in his muscles. "Well?" he asks.
The Chairman doesn't bother pretending he doesn't know what Washington's talking about, he just reads directly from the clipboard. "Lydia Carvaggio, convicted of the murder of three UNSC personnel suspected of having association with project codenamed Freelancer."
"I guess I'm lucky not to be number four."
The Chairman looks up from his clipboard, resettling a pair of old-fashioned wireframe glasses on his nose. "Yes, rather fortunate that your armour's monitoring flagged our system. We got to you before she was able to finish the job, and, fortunately, before you were able to return the favour." The Chairman smiles thinly. "I'm willing to accept, at this point, that you may not be an ally of Freelancer's erstwhile Director."
"Great," Wash stands, rolling his shoulders, "Does that mean I get to leave?"
"Hardly." The Chairman looks back at the clipboard. "For a reason not listed in her prison file, she wasn't assigned to the high security women's wing. Further examination of internal security footage reveals a rather lax set of security procedures, amongst other things. As such, you have been moved to the high security solitary wing for your own protection, and I will be taking over management of this facility personally to ensure that no such lapses reoccur."
Wash realises that his thoughts on that are all too clearly visible when the Chairman smirks and adds, "So sorry to disappoint you."
"Someone gets sent to kill me, and you still think I'm guilty, huh?" Wash picks up his helmet, looking at its smooth faceplate, which he's become too used to hiding behind.
"Could have just been a disgruntled inmate, or someone you'd crossed during your long career. Unfortunately, we are left with the same problem we had when you were arrested. There is no proof of what you claim."
Wash regards the Chairman thoughtfully. "And if I had some proof for you?"
A smile is his response. "Then we would have this conversation again."
Epsilon wasn't anger. He was the memory of rage, the slow burning need for revenge. In that respect, he and Washington were perfectly match. Wash was very patient, and could hold a grudge for a very long time.
"I see." Wash hesitates a moment before sliding his helmet back on his head. "I'll call you when I find some."
He calls up his half-finished solitaire game, and proceeds to ignore the Chairman as he tries to figure out what to do with the nine of clubs.
~ End ~