Trigger warnings: mention of suicide, death, loss of autonomy, slavery, potential rape.

Many thanks to Sabrina06 for beta. Assume any errors on the Canadian (or American) military are entirely mine.

Warrant Officer Colin Park followed his superior officer, Captain René Desjardins, through the maze of desks that made up headquarters of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment. The two of them had been summoned to the battalion commander's office for some reason that, presumably, would be explained to them when they arrived.

They arrived at Lieutenant Colonel Wakeford's door, where his adjutant sat waiting. He looked up at them and said, "Go on in, he's waiting."

They entered the office, and Colin closed the door behind them. The colonel sat behind a heavy wood desk, clean except for three folders stacked neatly in front of him. A large television, turned off, dominated one wall, while another held a large picture of Banff in the autumn.

"Desjardins and Park, reporting as ordered, Sir," the captain said.

"Sit, both of you," the colonel said, and they sat in the two chairs that awaited them. "I've got a mission for your platoon," he began. "This is codeword clearance, Project Obelisk."

Colin nodded in understanding. Beyond Top Secret, clearance level names themselves were classified on a need-to-know basis.

Captain Desjardins said, "Yes, Sir," in his faint accent. After so many years in service, his English was excellent, only betrayed by an occasional odd bit of phrasing from his native French. Colin had served with him for a year now, and they'd gotten to know each other well.

The colonel handed each of them a folder, keeping one for himself. "What I need you to do is retrieve three Americans from a hospital in Fort Frances, and get them safely to CFB Suffield. From there, you'll hold there to work with them and help protect them."

Colin frowned. That's bizarre. Why would you send CSOR troops for something like this? We're special forces, not a taxi service. He flipped the folder open; inside were pictures of three people in their twenties. The first picture was a tanned young woman with shoulder-length black hair and piercing blue eyes. The second was a pale young man with a long, pointy nose and a bright shock of red hair. The third was an even-paler young man with a broad, square nose and green hair.

"Pourquoi?" Captain Desjardins asked, seemingly so confused he'd dropped back into French. He shook his head. "Who are these people?"

"The men are Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher, inventors of the tumbler bomb," the colonel said.

Colin sat up straight at that mention. The tumbler bomb had won the Second American Civil War for the Central faction, so clearly its inventors would be an asset to whoever they worked for.

The colonel continued, "The woman is Isabella Garcia-Shapiro. She is the reason that the three of them have all requested asylum in Canada, and quite possibly the most important of the three."

"More important than the tumbler bomb?" the captain asked incredulously.

Colonel Wakeford smiled. "How would you rate the American Navy SEALs, relative to CSOR?"

Captain Desjardins bobbed his head from side to side noncommittally, then shrugged. "They are both top-level special operations forces. Our training is better, but the SEALs will all have much more combat experience, after almost twenty years at war. At that level, individual variation matters more than anything else. One would not want to place a wager between them. Why?"

"Okay. Have either of you heard of a Southwestern US project or force called 'Dewdrop'?"

Colin shook his head. "No," the captain said.

The colonel turned on the TV, then tapped a few keys on his computer. An image came up, showing a forest scene with a 'pause' symbol on it. "This video was captured by an intelligence source in the Central faction of the Americans, approximately two years ago. We had a lead on a top researcher who had been moved to a secure area for protection, and wanted to see what this force was that the Southwest had been using against Dixie and Central. Even so, we got lucky with this." He unpaused the video, and the trees swayed lightly in the breeze as he continued talking. "This was after the researcher had been killed. The perpetrator was escaping, but had apparently lost her sidearm on the way out. There was a platoon of Navy SEALs who had been deployed to aid in protecting the researcher. They were sent out to catch the individual responsible."

A young woman trotted into the video. She was petite and dark-skinned, wearing digital-camo fatigues. She paused, listening, and leapt up into a tree, out of the frame.

"How the..." Colin blurted out. "Sorry, sir, but how did she jump like that?"

"Just watch," the colonel said.

Four soldiers came into the frame, following the young woman. They all wore full battle dress, and stalked through the countryside almost-silently. Their M-16 rifles were up and ready for action. The one in front held up a hand, and they all paused, their eyes searching the bush for any enemy.

"Four SEALs. Watch," the colonel repeated, and then a blur leapt into the frame from above. It landed between the two rear soldiers, lifting one and throwing her at the other. They both went down, but the blur - the young woman in fatigues from before - had already grabbed a dropped rifle before it hit the ground. Two three-round bursts rattled off, and the front two soldiers, still turning, were both hit. At that range, their body armor was no match for the bullets, and they spun to the forest floor clutching their wounds. The soldier who had been thrown struggled to get off her companion. Another burst, and she stopped struggling.

The soldier on the bottom of the pile shoved her corpse off, but had nothing to return fire with; his rifle was the one the attacker had grabbed. He pulled a knife from his belt and threw it as the fourth burst, fired one-handed, dropped him as well. Meanwhile, the young woman casually caught the knife in mid-air with her free hand. She smiled and spun it in her fingers before tucking it into her belt, then dropped the rifle she had used and picked up another. She checked it, nodded, then ran off, considerably faster than she had come into the frame initially.

"Mon dieu," Captain Desjardins whispered. Colin could only agree.

The colonel nodded and closed the video. "That, gentlemen, was Project Dewdrop. Biomechanical enhancement to superhuman levels. There were fourteen people who received the implants. Twelve survived the training. That particular individual was code named India One. She died when a tumbler bomb hit the bunker she was in."

He flipped open his folder, showing the picture of the young black-haired woman again. "There is only one Dewdrop-enhanced soldier still alive: Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, code name Echo Three. The deadliest combatant on the planet. And now you see why America wants her back so badly that they might commit an act of war to get her."

"Indeed," the captain said. "So what is our mission, Sir?"

"Four things. First, get them to Suffield safely. Second, work with the MPs there to keep them safe. Third, train with Ms. Garcia-Shapiro to find the best tactics for unenhanced individuals against someone with these abilities. And, fourth, find volunteers to be the first Canadian soldiers with these implants."

"Sir?" Colin asked.

"That," the colonel nodded to the video, "is what the Americans got by taking untrained children, giving them implants, and then training them. We'd like to see what happens when you take elite soldiers and start from there."

"Hey, where's Isabella?" Adyson asked as Holly followed Katie in. The old Fireside Girls troop got together on Thursday nights for pizza, wine, and bad movies; after Phineas had bought Isabella, she'd joined in with them as well.

Holly looked around; she was the last one there today, after the clusterfuck in the mayor's office caused by everything that had happened at Fletcher-Flynn. Mayor Abercrombie had been leaning on his assistant - Holly - more heavily than usual as the city's power structures tried to cope with the sudden vacuum.

Ginger sat at the far end of the couch, holding nine-month-old little Dave, who had gone to sleep. Adyson sat next to her. Katie, Dave's mother, had swung into the kitchen to get something. "Let me wait until Katie gets back?" Holly said.

"I heard my name?" Katie said as she came back in, carrying four wine glasses. "Let me put Dave down and we can get started. He wore himself out at the park today." She set the glasses on the table and picked up the sleeping baby, nuzzling him as she carried him out of the room.

Ginger, usually quiet after her experiences as a slave POW during the war, looked up at Holly with concern. "At least tell me she's okay?"

"She's okay," Holly said. "She's fine." The last thing Holly wanted to do was trigger Ginger's PTSD. Ginger had been enslaved herself for a while, and mistreated by a pornographic film company. Sometimes it felt like the only thing that kept her stable at all was Buford, a friend of theirs who had taken her in after she'd been liberated.

Ginger nodded, reassured.

"Is it related to the mess with Fletcher-Flynn? Did something happen to Phineas and Ferb?" Adyson asked.

"Oh, God, yes," Holly said, taking a seat.

Katie came back in, carrying a bottle of wine. She poured a glass for Holly and handed it to her. "You look like you need this."

Holly nodded, sighing deeply. "Yes." She took a sip, sitting back in her chair as Katie poured wine for everyone else.

"So what's up?" Adyson asked.

Holly took a deep breath. "First things first - Isabella is safe in Canada with Phineas and Ferb."

Adyson blinked, and a wide smile broke over Ginger's face. "She's free?" Ginger asked eagerly.

"Yes."

Ginger sat back, hugging her knees to herself. Katie and Adyson looked at each other, puzzled.

Holly continued, "Isabella wasn't ops, like she claimed. She was in some sort of human-enhancement research project. I don't know all the details, the mayor wouldn't let me stay for those meetings. But the military was apparently looking for her all along."

"Did the boys know?" Katie asked, turning up her hearing aids. Katie's hearing had been damaged in the war, and she got by now with electronic assistance and lip reading.

"Apparently not - it looks like they were involved with trying to find her." Holly took another sip of her wine. It had been a long couple of days.

Adyson laughed. "Of course. Phineas never thought to look in his own bed."

"Pretty much. I don't quite understand it, but apparently they thought the person they were looking for was male. Anyway, it all came to a head Monday night, the military found out, and Phineas and Isabella went on the run. They tied me up and stole my car to get away."

"That was a dick move," Katie said, and Holly nodded.

Of course, I gave them the keys and told them to tie me up to make it look like they'd stolen it, she thought. "The military brought it back this morning. Even put a full tank of gas in it. Anyway, Ferb acted as if he were helping the military, but in the end he escaped too. And now the mayor's dealing with how much he knew when, and there's this power vacuum in Danville with Fletcher-Flynn in trouble. There's talk of nationalizing the company now."

Ginger uncoiled and leaned forward, picking up her glass from the table. "Doesn't matter. Isabella's free. That's what's important." She lifted her glass. "To freedom."

Holly smiled, and tapped her glass to Ginger's as the other women followed suit. "To freedom."

Phineas leaned in through the door of Isabella's hospital room. "Almost ready?"

"All set," she said, zipping up her backpack and slinging it over her uninjured shoulder. She'd spent two days and nights in the hospital in Fort Frances, recovering from the gunshot wound she'd taken to her left shoulder. Fortunately, her implants included a healing boost, so while she wasn't quite back to full strength, she could use the shoulder if she needed to.

She and Phineas had run for the Canadian border after he and Ferb had found out her true identity - she was Echo Three, the last remaining super-soldier created by Project Dewdrop. They'd been trying to track her down for months in an attempt to recreate the Dewdrop implants, and to get revenge for her killing their father. What they hadn't realized was that Phineas had purchased her as a POW slave just as the war ended, and the two of them had fallen in love.

Ferb, after revealing the truth to the US military, had switched sides once he'd realized that Isabella had had no choice. He'd knocked out the last few soldiers that could have stopped them, but not before one had hit Isabella with a lucky shot. She'd staggered the last few yards across the border, carrying Phineas after his leg had given out.

Now, she was unsure what was going to happen. The Canadians had requested that, as the price of protection from American retribution, the three of them help replicate the Dewdrop implants. They'd sweetened the pot with a promise to work on non-military uses - her auditory implants could be used to help people with hearing loss, while her lung implants could help those with cystic fibrosis, for example. But, ultimately, everyone knew that the American economy had restructured itself around slaves during the 18-year civil war, and when the last POWs were sold off, they'd start looking around for another victim. Canada and Mexico were allying with the European Union, but the size and experience of the American forces would make defense tough regardless. Dewdrop-style enhancements could make the difference between freedom and slavery.

The first step, clearly, would be getting her away from the American border. She'd been here entirely too long as it was, recuperating from her wound. Phineas had stayed with her, while Ferb went to Ottawa to speak to the Canadian government.

"Lead the way," she said, turning toward Phineas with a smile. "Do you know where we're going yet?"

"Nothing," he said. "Apparently nobody here has need-to-know at all. Captain Davison said somebody would be coming to pick us up." He held open the door and ushered her through, into the hallway. Two soldiers stood on guard while the doctors and nurses eyed them nervously. Phineas turned to one of them. "Corporal Lewis, I think we're ready to go."

"If you'll follow me," the soldier said. "Captain Davison is waiting in the lobby." He started toward the elevator at a brisk pace, and Isabella had to walk quickly to keep up. Phineas reached over and clasped her hand, squeezing briefly, and she glanced at him with a smile. Behind them, the other soldier followed as a rear guard.

She hadn't expected to find a relationship with someone like Phineas - her only real long-term relationship before him had been with Sophie, a girl from the same orphanage who had also been drafted into Dewdrop. He was, she felt, far too good for her, but she wasn't about to complain.

They were halfway down the hall when the elevator door opened with a *ding*. Four soldiers stepped out, walking toward them. Isabella noticed that their hands dropped to their sidearms, and with a start, she realized that they carried DIMMERs instead of normal pistols. She brought her implants up to speed as one of them started to draw his weapon. "It's a snatch!" she said as she dropped the backpack and leapt toward them, trying to close the distance before the knockout-pistol could aim at her. The two in front reached for the shock batons at their belt while the last hesitated for a fraction of a second. To the side, the nurse at the duty station dropped behind the desk as she hit the alarm button. Red lights began flashing along the hallway.

Isabella dropped down and slid along the tile floor as the first DIMMER shot went over her head. The front two hadn't gotten their shock batons out yet, and she hit them in the shins at speed. They both fell, and she grabbed one by her fatigue shirt, throwing her into the one who had fired the shot. He squawked as the thrown soldier hit him, knocking them both backwards. She pushed the other aside before he could fall on her, telling her implants to mute the pain in her injured shoulder, then kicked out at the one who was still standing. He was just starting to draw his DIMMER when she kicked his knee with her implant-enhanced strength. He went down howling as Isabella leapt back to her feet, picking up a DIMMER that had gone flying on impact.

Behind her, the two soldiers escorting them had caught on and were approaching, their rifles pointed and ready. One of the soldiers on the floor tried to pull out his DIMMER; Isabella knocked him out with her own, then hit the other three.

"What..." Corporal Lewis said. "You just..."

"They're knocked out. It's an advanced taser that Ferb invented," Phineas said. "Sort of. He calls it a DIMMER. Dual Incapacitation Mode Manual Emission Railgun."

"Huh. It looks like the thing from that TV show, eh?" Lewis said.

"Goodnight gun from AEGIS Undercover. Ferb's a big fan." Isabella dropped the empty pistol she was holding. She picked up the other three, handing one to Phineas. He gripped it like a dead fish, a look of distaste on his face. Isabella rolled her eyes at him. "Seriously?"

"Sorry, I just don't like guns," Phineas said.

"Fine. Corporal, do you want one?"

"Never been big on knockout weapons," Corporal Lewis said. "The way I see it is, if somebody knows you can't kill them, they don't have a reason not to attack you. So using a taser is just begging to be shot at, eh?"

Isabella laughed. "I suppose. But it's what I've got right now. And I suspect the hospital would prefer we not kill anyone."

"Yes," the nurse hiding behind the desk said shakily.

Shaking her head, Isabella tucked one DIMMER into the back of her belt, then kept the other one ready. Meanwhile, Lewis was talking into his microphone. "Snatch team, four soldiers with some funky knockout gun. Ms. Garcia-Shapiro took them all down." He listened for a moment, then said, "Probably American, yes."

"Definitely American," Phineas said. "Nobody else has these." He held up the pistol awkwardly, carrying Isabella's backpack in the other hand while wearing his own.

"We'll meet you in the lobby," Lewis said.

"Let's move," Isabella said, leading them to the staircase.

Phineas followed Isabella down the stairs. Corporal Lewis led them down, with Private Gardner bringing up the rear. Isabella had insisted on the stairs, saying that she didn't want to get in a box when there were hostiles around.

"How's your shoulder?" he asked quietly.

"Fine," she said curtly, then he heard her exhale. "Hurts a bit. It's still not 100%, so the fight wasn't a great idea."

"Hopefully it won't be a problem again," he said.

They reached the ground floor, and Lewis and Gardner flanked the door, giving hand signals to each other. With a nod, Lewis hit the crash bar and threw the door open, his rifle sweeping the lobby as he went through, moving to the left. Gardner followed, her rifle covering the right side.

"Clear," Lewis said, and Isabella followed a bit more slowly, holding a DIMMER out and ready as another was tucked into her belt in the back. Phineas went out after her, ignoring the DIMMER in his own belt.

Half a dozen soldiers were guarding the lobby, placed behind furniture or counters, while Captain Davison sat at the otherwise-vacant reception desk. Outside, a light Humvee-like wheeled vehicle sat on a grassy patch in the center of the lobby roundabout. One soldier sat in the driver's seat, while another stood in the back, leaning on a machine gun mounted to the roof of the vehicle. Behind it, he saw the Rainy River across the street, and on the far side he could barely see International Falls through the mist.

"There you are," Davison said. "I've been told your ride is ten minutes out. We suspect there are more Americans coming, but no word on how many or when."

"Who's the ride?" Isabella asked, slinking over to the desk, keeping low. Phineas followed, feeling like there was a bulls-eye on his forehead. Lewis and Gardner moved to join the other soldiers guarding the lobby at a nod from the captain.

"They don't tell me these things, but I'd guess somebody pretty serious," the captain said.

The gunner looked up sharply, gripping his machine gun. A grenade arced into the Humvee before exploding, stunning them with a loud bang and a bright flash. Phineas blinked as the bright afterimage stained his vision, even shielded by the distance and the windows.

"Heads up!" the captain called, and the soldiers in the lobby dropped down behind planters in preparation for an attack.

A white van pulled up next to the Humvee, its side door opening even as it came to a stop. One soldier fired a DIMMER, taking out the two men in the Humvee, while two others hurled grenades. The grenades shattered the lobby windows on their way in. Two of the Canadian soldiers fired, hitting the side of the truck but not any of the soldiers inside.

Phineas covered his ears and closed his eyes, but that wasn't enough to protect him from the sensory assault of two flash-bangs going off in the room almost simultaneously.

Isabella ducked down, taking shelter behind the desk, as she saw the grenades coming in. She turned her hearing off entirely, which would help with the stun from the sound but not completely protect her. She cranked the rest of her implants to full-power.

The sound hammered her like a wall of pure force, and she could see fringes of white around her sheltering arm even with her eyes closed. She'd counted two grenades coming in, so after she felt the second grenade go off, she risked opening her eyes again. There was an afterimage, but fortunately, she'd kept it out of the center of her vision. Peeking her head up, she saw two American soldiers moving into the building, hitting the stunned Canadians with what looked like rifle versions of the DIMMER.

One of them gestured toward her, and she leapt backwards as her DIMMER pistol came up. Her first shot was true, and the soldier dropped her rifle as she fell to the ground, but the second soldier had time to duck before she could get the shot off, and it passed inches above his head. She bounced to the side, glancing at the entrance to see if there were more coming in.

Another flash grenade was flying toward her, too close for her to avoid. She dove to the side, closing her eyes to give what little protection she could. At least the other American soldier will be affected as well, she thought just before the world turned white, even through her closed eyelids.

The sound hammered her again, and she landed behind a planter, her thoughts a muddle. Her head was reeling from the impacts of the sound, which were more physical than sonic. She shook her head and blinked, but her vision was still filled with white.

Need to risk it, and hope, she thought, and reactivated her hearing. Her ears were ringing a bit, but the nerves weren't as overloaded. She could hear the American soldier moaning, and the crunch of somebody else stepping through the broken glass at the entrance to the lobby.

She blinked again, and she could vaguely see some shapes. Good enough. She snapped up, firing the last three shots in her DIMMER at the moving blob by the entrance before ducking back down.

She heard the sound of a DIMMER hitting something solid, then a male voice said, "Shit! She's still up!"

Isabella turned her hearing off again, in case another flash-bang came in. If one went off while her hearing was still cranked up...

She blinked again. Vision was vaguely coming back, brightly stained by the afterimage of the flash. She had ended up behind a desk. There was a planter to one side that, she suspected, would give her a better angle on the room.

No bang yet. Maybe they're out of grenades?

Carefully, she turned her hearing back on. There was a quiet crunch as a boot stepped on broken glass, almost level with her position. She leapt backwards, toward the planter, firing as she went. The DIMMER clicked, empty, and she cursed as she tossed it aside. She ducked back behind the planter, reaching for the spare she'd tucked into the back of her belt.

It wasn't there.

"She's out of ammo," the male voice said again. "I'll cover this side, you take that side."

She looked around. She'd retreated to a part of the lobby that hadn't had any soldiers in it, so she couldn't grab weapons from them.

Phineas crouched behind the reception desk at the back of the lobby. The captain had moved forward, and he wasn't sure what had happened to her.

His hearing was vaguely coming back, and he could almost see what was going on now.

"She's out of ammo. I'll cover this side, you take that side," a male voice said quietly.

Must be talking about Isabella, Phineas thought.

He saw the DIMMER he'd dropped lying on the floor next to him. Time for me to help? He picked it up, gripping it tightly. He didn't like guns. But, it was this, or end up back in America. He took a deep breath, then peeked over the desk.

Two soldiers were moving to flank a planter off to the left of the lobby. The floor was littered with Canadian soldiers, apparently unconscious.

The American soldiers had body armor on their torsos that would probably protect them from a DIMMER, but it appeared their legs were unprotected. He aimed carefully at the rear end of the nearest one, and squeezed the trigger.

The gun recoiled in his hand as it fired, and he almost dropped it. The shot hissed as it flew out of the barrel, striking the soldier's leg.

The soldier straightened, starting to turn toward him, before suddenly slumping to the ground.

"Shit!" the other soldier said, turning toward him and leveling his rifle. Phineas pointed the gun at him and screamed, firing two shots wildly before dropping back behind the desk. Several DIMMER shots flew over his head.

Isabella crouched, ready to jump as soon as somebody came into range. It wasn't much of an option, but it was the best she had.

A DIMMER shot fired from the back of the room, sounding like it hit somebody, and one of the soldiers cursed as Phineas screamed. Several more shots were fired, but not at her. She peeked up, and saw one soldier remaining, firing his rifle toward the back of the room.

Thank you, Phineas. She leapt up, closing the distance to the last soldier before he could turn back to her. She could almost see his eyes widen through his visor as she grabbed his rifle, twisting it away as she spun past him. A leg sweep put him on the floor, and a quick shot in the leg, unprotected by body armor, kept him there.

She turned back to the entrance, in case anyone else was coming in. The white van accelerated away, kicking up grass as it went. She trotted outside to watch it go, briefly considering a stop to pick up an assault rifle from one of the unconscious Canadian soldiers. A glance back showed Phineas standing up and looking around, holding a DIMMER.

A spray of turf appeared in front of the van as the tearing sound of a machine gun filled the air. Looking around, Isabella saw a Canadian Humvee-style vehicle round the corner, followed by three more; smoke blew from the barrel of the gun on the lead vehicle. The van came to a stop and the door opened, as the driver put his hands up.

Isabella smiled as she saw two Humvees peel off from the rest to deal with the van, while the other two came toward the lobby. She kept the DIMMER rifle pointed downward as she waved with her other hand. The gunner on the frontmost Humvee waved back.

The two vehicles pulled up, and three soldiers climbed out while the gunners kept an eye out for another attack. One of them, a tall, tanned man with short black hair, directed the other two to check the unconscious soldiers, then stepped up to Isabella.

"Ms. Garcia-Shapiro? I'm Warrant Officer Park. We're your ride out of here. Is that Mr. Flynn back there?" He looked back at the unconscious American soldiers on the floor. "All your doing?"

She nodded her head back at Phineas, walking toward them. "He helped."