He stared aimlessly out the window. Barren rock littered with some grass here and there with just enough flowers thrown in to break up the monotony. The sky always held a gold hue to it, even if he knew at least twelve hours had passed. Beyond the rocky landscape he could just make out a body of water. It had to be large because he couldn't see anything past it. An ocean, maybe. His brain tried to figure out where he was.
All he came up with was: a planet.
The man pressed his gloved palms to his eyes, squeezing them shut. He couldn't focus. Couldn't think. No, he was thinking too much. Remembering too much. That's all he did ever since he woke up. Again. Wash tried to remember how long he had slept but the sun never moved position. There was no clock in his room, there was nothing. He knew why it bothered him not knowing the time. He couldn't judge how long he was in his room. Well, the sorry excuse of a room. He couldn't tell how long he had been wherever he was. Didn't know how long he was out. Didn't know how long it had been since he'd seen his friends.
He had no idea how long he had been wearing these ridiculous gloves.
Wash looked down at his hands, frowning. They were really mittens. Thick, unsightly white, sweaty mittens securely fastened to his wrists so he couldn't remove them. He could barely feel anything or do anything with them.
Add that to the list of 'shit I can't do.' Wash thought angrily.
He couldn't take a piss without someone to escort him and help him. They were perfect drones about it too. They didn't say much if they said anything at all. Extremely professional. Assisted eating? Check. Help changing clothes? Check. Bath time? Double check. His whole life had morphed into some sick living nightmare he couldn't escape from. Worse yet no one he knew was trying to help him escape it either.
So he relented and stared out the window. Once and a while he would focus on the glass instead so he could see his reflection. He almost didn't recognize himself. His hair had all been chopped off, right down to the skin. His face was pale and he knew he lost weight since being here. He could just make out the edge of a scar at the back of his head too. Beyond that he didn't know how bad it was. He made the mistake of trying to feel for it once. He quickly concluded he shouldn't poke at it. At all. Especially with his golf club hands now.
He sighed again, eyes staring off into the distance. He knew why he was here. Sort of. He vaguely remembered Epsilon's screaming in his head. It was more like a single, high pitched note that drowned everything else out but he knew Epsilon was done. He remembered bits and pieces, mostly everything before implantation and tidbits after the fact.
Still. It didn't explain why he was here with no one in contact. At the very least where was the Counselor? He was in charge of their mental health, wasn't he? No way Project Freelancer would allow an outside psychiatrist to treat him. Maybe that was the deal. This was a weird body dump where they didn't actually put a bullet in him but let him rot away, stewing in his own crazy.
They wouldn't do that, would they?
Wash looked down at his feet. Would they? He thought back on some of the other Freelancers. The triplets. They were sent on a mission they never came back from. Wash knew they didn't have anything worth retrieving but their mission was never followed up. No one spoke of them again. Like they were never even there. Rhode Island was never talked about again after his mission went south with California. He hadn't a clue what happened to Georgia. And Virginia? Wash suppressed a shudder. He was glad they put a bullet in her. Or, he hoped they did. Poor woman. All of them were forgotten by the project though. Left behind.
Still. Where was the Counselor? What about the Director? He may not have been their best agent but he was good enough to get an AI. He knew that meant something to them. It should have meant more since Epsilon blew up in his head. What if the other AI were unstable and did the same? What did they plan on doing about that?
The thought occurred that, maybe, just maybe, they had planned on that happening.
After all those two always seemed to take into account every other aspect of every mission that the Freelancers went on. They always seemed to know when they needed back up or when they needed an ammo drop - everything. It wasn't until the AI started getting mixed in and Tex showing up that they were less capable of adapting to the situation. Especially after Tex.
Why was Agent Texas the one that got special treatment anyway? She might have been the best but Carolina had been number one far longer than Tex and she received no special treatment during that time. None of them did. If anything the Director had been harsher on Carolina. Wash sighed. No, she was hard on herself. Once she decided on something it had to be that way. No one could convince her otherwise. Except the Director. She bent over backwards to please the guy - something he could never understand. The sheer commitment she had to him and the program. No one else had the same drive as she did.
It made him angry thinking about it. Not because of her commitment but because of the disregard they had for it. It hurt the team seeing their best not being good enough. Never good enough. Not for the Director or the Counselor and especially not for herself. He always felt sad about that. The way she couldn't see how amazing she really was. She didn't have to compare herself to anyone but she did. All the time. Especially when Texas came along. After that, Carolina was always "never good enough." It pained him to see that.
Then there was York. He loved that woman. To death. No matter what she did or how badly she treated him he was by her side. It didn't matter if she brushed off his attempts to console her after a failed mission. He knew she felt the same, even if she didn't show it. Just before his last mission Wash could see the strain on them though. York had talked to Tex a lot and any association with her rubbed Carolina wrong. He hoped she got over it. York didn't care about anyone else but her when it came down to it. Wash only hoped that Carolina could see how much she meant to him. They deserved some sliver of happiness .
His mind drifted to North and his sister. The twins. The way the two of them worked together was magic. When it worked. South had always been arrogant. Always feeling the need to prove herself - even to the point of failing a mission. He felt sorry for North sometimes. He had to put up with that his whole life. Such a caring and nice guy having to deal with that thing brought a smile to his face just thinking about it. Those two were polar opposites - one quiet, the other loud. One patient while the other wasn't. Despite their different personalities the two of them worked like a well oiled machine usually. He wondered how they got picked. Surely a set of twins wasn't an ideal set of candidates for implantation. It would cause discord if they didn't both get one - which he definitely saw happening when North got Theta. He saw South pushing herself harder and harder to prove she deserved one. It wasn't fair that the Director pitted them against one another the way he did. They never should have been accepted into the program.
Wash glared at his toes, sifting through his thoughts on the twins until they settled upon Wyoming. Not a fan. He had skills, sure, but his personality was lacking. The man always rubbed him the wrong way but Wash liked to think he was nice regardless. And dear GOD the knock-knock jokes. Some days he wanted to cut the man's tongue out. Or hope what happened to Maine happened to him. What a relief that would have been if the white armored bastard never spoke again.
As for Maine? He liked Maine. Despite the fact the tank never said much he was a good guy. Damn skilled too, especially after Sigma. Man could drink like nobody's business. He let a small smile linger on his lips as he recalled a night out when Maine ended up drinking the lot of them under the table and still managed to keep drinking. His face fell as he thought about how he had changed. He mused that getting shot in the throat and nearly dying (repeatedly) does that to a person. He recalled how creepy his AI was too. The man grit his teeth just thinking about it. Sigma unnerved him the moment he saw it. The way it spoke, the way it helped Maine. Now he felt a little sick considering that thing being in Maine's head for so long.
Wash inhaled deeply, trying to keep the contents of his stomach down. His skin crawled. The Sigma AI was something else. He wondered what would have happened had Carolina gotten him after all. Maybe things would have been different. Instead she let them give it to Maine - it made sense since he couldn't speak well. But then she did a complete 180 on her opinion on AI and took two AI for herself. His and South's. He felt upset at first when she chose both. He realized though that she had earned the right to take them so he let it go. South did not. She was quite vocal about it. He wondered how things would have been if she didn't take Eta and Iota. Would Epsilon still have gone off? What if it had been South that got him instead?
Wash swallowed. Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. He had only begun to sift through the AI's memory dump - only began to understand some of it - so the thought of her having him meltdown in her head...
What if it had been Carolina?
The man shook his head, feeling everything start to jumble up. The possibilities were endless. What if this or what if that? He didn't like those thoughts. Wash pulled his knees tight against his chest and squeezed his eyes shut. No. He did not like thinking about the possibilities. What if he didn't like the outcomes? What if there was no end to the outcomes? Or, worse yet, no end to the possibilities where the outcomes always ended badly? He didn't like simulations. Didn't like to think about the factors that went into it or the results. No. Nonononono they always ended bad.
He rocked a little.
They always ended in death. Someone died. Someone important. He couldn't forget that. Never did it fail, regardless of how perfectly planned, someone died. She died. Every time. He didn't like the fact he could never save her.
No.
Wash shook his head.
No.
Wash rest his head on his knees with his eyes screwed shut. He tried to breathe deeply to slow his racing heart but all he could think about were the never ending simulations. He remembered the first ones - the first ones always bothered him the most.
"All right, everything looks good so far, Director. All that's left is extraction." He looked up to see the Director's face. No emotion. He shrugged mentally and continued extrapolating information.
"There's an issue with the extraction point, reroute." The Director said, voice calm.
"What? I'm not detecting an issue."
"I said reroute."
"Well, okay, but I'm telling you there's nothing wrong." He recalculated and half a second later said, "there, that's closer anyways. I suggest using an attack pelican with the modded -"
"Thank you, that will be enough."
He shrugged and continued examining the data constantly streaming in. Eternity flitted by - in reality it was more like ten minutes but time goes faster as an AI - and the director let out a sigh. He looked up to see his face. The man's eyebrows were together, lips pursed and facing away from the screen. He looked to his stream, wondering what the deal was. No response. Nothing in the feed to indicate something when awry.
"I'm sorry." The Director murmured, shaking his head.
"Sorry? For what? What happened?"
"You didn't see?" Genuine surprise laced his words, then his face fell flat again. "The explosion killed three of our agents."
"What? What explosion? Who - who did it kill?"
"Agents Maine, Georgia and..."
"And who?" There were only two other choices. Just a 50 percent chance it wasn't -
"Texas."
'But - but that doesn't make any sense." His brain reeled. He shook his head, recalling the entire feed in an instant. Mission start, no alarms. One alarm, neutralized threat, objective reached. Firefight. Targets down, objective seized, extraction. Reroute.
The reroute. What had been wrong with the first extraction? How had he missed it?
"No life signs. Beacons down." The Director said, interrupting his thoughts.
"No, no. Why did I extract there?" He felt nauseous. Well, if he could. "That doesn't make sense either, that explosion shouldn't have happened. Not where it did. The schematics don't show a gas line there."
"Focus." The Director's sharp tone brought his attention back. "We need you on the mission."
"The - the mission's over, you said everyone died."
"What are you talking about?"
He paused, genuinely confused now. "Literally a second ago. I have the feed right here."
"You must have confused that with a simulation."
He thought, actually thought, about it for a minute. Could he have...?
"The mission, please." The Director insisted.
Again, he assisted with mission details. Again, she died. And again they started. The fourth time he shook his head, feeling angry and confused.
"I don't know why you're doing this." He remembered the strain in his tone as the words came out. He had already screamed and broke down when he thought he lost Tex for the third time. This was just ridiculous.
"Doing what?" He inquired sincerely.
He eyed the Director. "You're forcing me to go through these fake missions. I - I don't know why. It doesn't make any sense. What do you gain from it?"
"You haven't had a mission in days."
"I just had one thirty seconds ago! And one half an hour ago and another one before that an hour and a half ago!"
"Pay attention, they're near -"
"I am paying attention!" He snapped, scanning the variables in the data being fed to him. Was it a test? Don't let Tex die?
"Alarms triggered."
"No, no, no they aren't." He argued, looking through the feed. It felt familiar.
"Agent down."
"No, just, just stop this. For one minute."
Her beacon pinged. Mission failure. He let out a strangled moan at his inability to keep her alive.
He remembered how long they continued it. He remembered how raw he felt at the end and how badly he wanted them to stop. He didn't care that, sometime around the ninth hour of the relentless assault they (for the Counselor had joined in now) started feeding previous "mission" streams to him.
"Sir?"
He felt shattered. He just wanted it to stop. It didn't make any sense.
"Excuse me, sir?"
He remembered sitting there, hands clutching his head as he begged them to stop.
"Sir, it's time to eat."
Wash blinked. He could just start to feel the next memory stir and fade away as the woman shook his shoulder. He tried desperately to grab at it but felt it slip away like smoke. He didn't realize how unfocused his gaze was or his slightly ajar mouth. Didn't notice how stiff his knees and back were from holding his position for so long.
"Sir? Are you okay? Do I need to get a doctor?"
He blinked again. White room, window, food. Concern in her voice and face. He shook his head, absently wiping at his eyes. He had cried at some point. He shook his head again.
"No." His voice sounded hoarse. Wash licked his lips and cleared his throat. "No, thank you."
Silence filled the room as she set about feeding him. He always felt embarrassed that she had to. He was capable of it himself but, in some way, he was grateful he didn't have to. He could easily over power her and escape his room - that thought had occurred a thousand times - but he was useless if he couldn't use his hands so it never went beyond a thought. Having her reminded him that he needed to get better though. To stick with all of this - this whatever it was to understand what went on in the background of Project Freelancer. Maybe even be able to do something about it.
He opened his mouth, sticking his tongue out. She placed one capsule on it and he obediently swallowed, drinking the water offered. Besides, if the Counselor ever came, he would need to figure out how to contain those memories if one bubbled up when talking to him. As it was he could hardly function when one hit him. She placed another pill on his tongue, gave the scar on his head a once over and left.
The man sighed and looked out the window trying to drum up the memory that slipped away.
