On the way back to the ship, Trent pulled out one of the joints Windows had rolled for him and smoked it. He began to feel better, his headache eased, his hangover dulled. He knew he needed a shower and a shot of adrenaline before he felt shipshape again. The Pelican finally ceased its dull rumbling as it left Thule's atmosphere. Trent laid his head back against the stilled bulkhead and closed his eyes, just waiting. He wasn't exactly eager to get back to work, he felt that he hadn't had enough of a break and would have liked to have spent at least another few days with the men of Outpost 31. But Childs had called, and there was no arguing with him.

A moment later, the dull clang of the landing gear sounded, letting Trent know they weren't far from the ship. He opened his eyes and glanced out the window, then froze. It wasn't the sleek, dark little Sunstrider he was looking at. This was something completely different, something at least three times the size of the Sunstrider and a whole hell of a lot meaner. It was big black and ugly, large as life and twice as mean looking.

The Pelican slid slowly into the hangar and Trent felt a momentary terror that he'd been somehow tricked and it was, in fact, Black Ops come to pick him up. He realized it was entirely possible and began to seriously panic as the back ramp started to open. But Childs was waiting there at the base of the ramp, unsmiling with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Come on, Trent, hurry it up," he said impatiently. Trent stood, swayed slightly, then walked down the ramp and joined Childs. They hustled across the hangar, which was busy with activity. Dozens of technicians in black jumpsuits bearing the ONI symbol on their chests, as well as Marines wearing the same thing, unloaded crates, worked on vehicles and generally appeared to have worked themselves into a frenzy.

"So...what's going on?" Trent asked as they plunged into a network of brightly lit, freshly polished corridors.

"Hmm? Oh, the ship. Welcome to the Eclipse. I managed to talk ONI into getting me a bigger, better ship after what happened with the Darkwind. She's got a hell of a lot more firepower and she can hold her own in a fight. But the important thing is that we've finally proven Black Ops has gone rogue. ONI is now supporting us full force."

"Does that mean we're finally going after Black Ops?" Trent asked hopefully. The bastards had caused him enough grief lately, he was eager to return the favor.

Childs shook his head impatiently. "No, not yet. Not right away. I'll explain everything to you later but, for the moment, I need you for something else." They turned into an infirmary and Trent frowned. Eric Staccato was in the same position he had been three months ago when Trent had carried him onboard and the medics had laid him out on the examination table. He looked frail and pale beneath the blanket, several tubes hooked into him.

At first, Trent had thought he'd just passed out from exhaustion, or perhaps from some strange side effect from the Marker. Unfortunately, they'd been able to determine that it was much worse than that. While it was true that the Marker was the cause of his coma, Childs explained that Eric was mentally unstable, much in the same way as Trent had been. Unlike Trent, however, Eric had never found a viable cure for it. The Marker had affected his instability and pushed him over the edge in a way no one had been able to figure out yet.

Following the back-to-back experiences of psychosis both in Silent Hill and aboard the Icarus, Trent had panicked and made Childs run a full battery of tests on him to make sure he was still sound. After a few days, they finally determined that he wasn't going to crack up again and that anyone would've had psychotic experiences in Silent Hill or in close proximity to the Marker. Trent had been immensely relieved.

At the time, when they were trying to bring Eric out of his coma, Trent had asked the very simple question of: why not use the same machine that he had used to cure his own insanity? Childs had explained, sadly, that the odds of survival were too low to risk and they were forced to explore other options.

Had they finally found another option?

"So...what's up?" Trent asked uncomfortably. Wordlessly, Childs motioned to one of the medics, who, just as wordlessly, hurried over to Trent and injected something in his neck. "Ow!" he cried. "What the shit was that for?!"

"You're high and hungover," Childs replied bluntly. "We need you not to be. That was a purge, get all that crap out of your system in a hurry. Now, pay attention." He turned and Trent followed his gaze. A pair of medical technicians were wheeling out what he recognized to be the same machine he'd used to cure his insanity.

"I thought you said it was too dangerous for Eric," he said as they began to hook it up to the unconscious man.

Childs nodded. "I did and it is. That's what I've had the ONI R&D boys working on for the past few months: a way to allow not only someone to go into their own mind, but for someone to join them. Eric is...too broken to attempt a mental repair on his own. But, if he had help, say, someone who's been through something like this before, someone he trusts...someone like you, Trent, his odds of survival increase significantly." Trent sighed quietly and crossed the infirmary. He came to Eric's bedside and stared down at him for a moment.

Trent and Eric had fought and bled together. Trent had heard it said, often, that there was no greater bonding experience than war, that having someone who was willing to take a bullet for you or have your back in a firefight was more important than having a spouse. And while Trent valued female companionship quite highly, he knew that he valued Eric's, Cann's and Enzo's friendship even higher. He realized, suddenly, that he missed Enzo.

"So, you want me to go in there with him, huh?" he asked.

"Yes. It will be very dangerous, but I think you can do it and, frankly, I need both of you back up to snuff. Shit's about to get very real."

"What's happening?"

"I told you, later. I need you to lay down and jack in for the moment. Before you do, however, listen up. This is as close to an intel briefing as I can get. When Eric was much younger, he experienced something extremely traumatic. I'm not sure what it was, I couldn't get into his files, even with my clearance. I think he put some kind of special lock on them..." Childs sighed in frustration, then continued. "The point is, what I could find out was that the experience result in him getting shot in the head. He survived, but ended up with frequent migraines as a result. Ultimately, it was determined that the headaches were a result of the psychological damage of the incident, rather than the physical, so they could never be cured."

Trent considered this for a moment. "Anything else? Like what I might be looking for in there?" he asked.

Childs shook his head. "That's all we've got." Trent sighed quietly and laid down on the examination table they wheeled over. He felt the sharp prick of the needle sliding into his arm, then he was out.

Trent awoke to the sounds of war and chaos. His eyes snapped open and he sat up. He was in a dark room, lit only by the hellish, flickering glare of fires that roared beyond the two windows set into the far wall. The room was empty, just a concrete chamber. Trent rose lithely to his feet and looked around. When his gaze passed back over to the window, he jumped slightly, startled by the sudden appearance of a man who hadn't been there before.

Price was long and lean, dressed in his familiar camouflage fatigues. Pistol on his hip, silenced, stubby sniper rifle in his grasp. He was smoking a cigar, leaning against the wall and staring out the window.

"Your friend, Staccato. He's in hell right now...we're gonna walk him out," Price said without looking over. Trent joined him and looked out the window. Beyond the cracked, dirty glass was a vision of horror. A colony burned. Pillars of smoke and ashes rose into the air and huge purple Covenant cruisers hung overhead. Distantly, Trent could hear the sounds of plasma fire and the screams of the dying.

"You know where he is?"

Price grunted and nodded. "Yeah. He's about half a klik east, alone and unarmed, in no fighting shape. We need to get to him fast. Come on, your gear's in the other room." Price led him through the only door in the area into another room. It was very similar to the one they'd just come from, save that it had a table with ODST armor and a silenced arsenal on it. Trent began to slip into his armor, finding it strange just how quickly he had grasped the situation.

The last time he was inside someone's head, he'd been confused, disoriented. Perhaps it was the fact that it wasn't his own head this time around. Trent secured his helmet, holstered the pistol and grabbed the silenced SMG.

"Let's go," Trent said. Price nodded tightly. They exited through another door and hurried down a stairwell. Trent felt a familiar adrenaline rush as he stared out the broken-in front door of the building and spied a contingent of Elites across the street. It was raining, which did nothing to smother the flames that consumed half the colony. They slipped past the Covenant patrol and into an alleyway, making their way along the rain-slicked network.

There were no words between the two men as they hustled down the narrow, crooked alleys, in between ruined, derelict and sometimes burning buildings. Trent felt back in his element again. Price and him had done things like this before, infiltrating Covenant-controlled cities to preform a high-risk, high-profile assassinations. As they snuck past patrols and took down the occasional enemy, Trent found himself wondering about the real Price. It suddenly occurred to him that if he wanted to, he could track the man down.

If he was even still alive. Trent sighed and focused. If he didn't pay attention, he was going to end up dead. Him and Eric. Trent wondered what could have possibly happened to Eric that left him so traumatized. It did help to finally have an explanation for the frequent headaches. Trent sympathized with people who got headaches. He'd gone through a period all his own after Basic where he'd experienced a cluster of nightmarish migraines.

"There," Price whispered. They crouched in the mouth of a garbage-strewn alleyway, staring up at a dilapidated apartment building. Just a single length of street in between them. Trent glanced left, then right, found both directions empty. They hurried through the pouring rain across the street and slipped into the lobby.

"Clear left," Price murmured.

"Clear right," Trent replied. The lobby was empty, a burned-out wreck. The pair silently exited the lobby, located a stairwell and hustled up it to the second floor. Up above, they could hear sounds. Shouting in guttural, alien voices. Furniture being overturned. Trent hesitated, looking up the stairwell to third floor. Price put a restrictive hand on his shoulder. Trent glanced over, Price shook his head firmly.

"Don't do anything stupid, lad. Come on." They went down the corridor and pushed into one of the abandoned apartments. The place was a complete wreck. Furniture broken, windows shattered, carpet stained with blood. The walls were marked with plasma scarring. The Covenant had come and gone here.

They found Eric standing by one of the windows, chewing on his fingernails, staring out at the destruction and fiery desolation. Price guarded the door while Trent crossed the room, coming to stand next to him.

"Eric...do you recognize me?" he asked. Eric jumped, startled, and turned to start at him with wide, moist eyes.

"...Trent...why are you?" He didn't wait for an answer, instead shaking his head. "You can't help me," he mumbled. "No one can. That's why I'm here." He began to cry suddenly and Trent felt awkward. It was obvious no one was ever meant to see this. Everyone had moments of weakness, moments of raw truth when the armor you wore failed and collapsed. All you could do was hope that whoever saw it would never try to use it against you.

"Eric, listen, I'm here to help you. I can help you, okay? Whatever it is, you can tell me." Eric looked up at him in a moment of surprising clarity.

He shook his head. "I know where we are, Trent. I regret that you came here. Did Childs send you in with that machine of his? He must have, you're too lucid to be a memory." He chuckled bitterly, suddenly. "Memory...memory is the key that unlocks Pandora's Box, you know? It's about to happen, Trent. Don't try to stop me." Trent tensed, wondering what he was referring to, preparing for the worst. Overhead, the sounds of alien shouting intensified.

Abruptly, Trent's view shifted. He was staring up at a trio of Elites, all of them wielding plasma pistols, all of them grinning darkly in that weird way that Elites did. His view shifted again, he was looking over at a man and a woman lying on the floor, staring up in abject terror. Eric's parents. Trent suddenly realized this was a memory. One of the Elites, one in crimson armor, raised its plasma rifle. It leveled it at Eric's father's head, then squeezed the trigger. There was a bright pulse of light and his father went limp.

Eric's mother began screaming, but she was put down a few seconds later. Then the Elite turned the gun on Eric. Trent felt the same emotions Eric had that fateful date: insane terror, unimaginable despair, then, finally, numb apathy. He was going to die, he knew it. But before the Elite pulled the trigger, something exploded nearby. Then something else. The sound of gunfire, human gunfire, could suddenly be heard.

The three Elites barked quick sentences at each other, then turned and hurried out of the room. Eric looked at his parent's corpses, then his eyes drifted across the room, to the pistol his father had bought for home protection that had proven to be utterly useless. He tried to stand, but his legs were too rubbery. Eric got onto his hands and knees, slowly crawled towards the pistol. He reached it, grabbed it, picked it up.

Trent's view abruptly shifted once more. He was standing in the room with Eric, the two corpses on the floor now skeletons. Eric was staring at the pistol. They were alone.

"I tried to kill myself," he said calmly, emptily. "Didn't work. A couple of Marines found me, rescued me. They dug the slug out of my brain and the damage was repaired. But...the headaches stayed. They were the only physical symptom to showing how deeply I'd been broken. I think...once you reach the point where you try to kill yourself...you really shouldn't survive. The damage is too deep. You can't come back from that."

"That's bullshit and you know it, Eric," Trent replied suddenly. The reaction was so violent and immediate that Eric's gaze snapped up, his eyes locking with Trent's.

"Explain."

"I came back from the brink. I tried to kill myself, and yeah, I was messed up for years. But I'm finally dealing with the problems. And hell, you're tougher than I am. If I can deal with this shit, I know you can. I can help you."

"I...how? I've been trying to deal with this for ten years now...how can I fix it? I've tried everything."

"That's the purpose of this machine! Those Elites...we need to track them down, kill them. They're the representation of the part of you that can't let go, the part of you so enticed by suicide, by ending it. Childs said it was too dangerous for you to go it alone, but that's why I'm here...please, let me help you, Eric." Eric hesitated, his eyes drifting back down to the pistol he was holding. Finally, he offered a sad laugh.

"You're an idiot, Trent. Surely our chances of survival aren't that much better with your help."

Trent shrugged. "Hey, long odds are our specialty, right? We're lucky. Scientifically proven. We got this."

Eric laughed again, and some of the darkness was gone from his voice. "Yeah, I suppose so. And...to be completely honest, part of me does want to stay alive. I still got a bone to pick with Black Ops and...well, let's just say that it's been too long since I've had anything like a relationship...or a best friend, for that matter." He turned and stared out the window, he was silent for a long time.

"All right, let's get these bastards," he said. Trent grinned. They left the apartment building, making their way back into the rain. For a moment, Trent wondered where Price was, but then spied a flashing light shining high up on one of the abandoned buildings. It was immediately followed by the crackle of his radio.

"Hey, I got up to a higher perch while you and Eric were having your heart-to-heart. I've got a bead on the targets. They're about fifty meters down the street from you. Just went into another building. I'm heading across the rooftops, trying to get closer."

"Who's that?" Eric murmured.

"A friend."

"Is he..."

"No. He's not real. Just my, ah, mental backup, I guess."

"Har-har, very funny, lads," Price muttered. Trent and Eric took off, sprinting down the street through the rain. They found the building the Elites had ducked into, a bombed-out general store. They were poking through the remains, looking for survivors. Trent and Eric stepped into the entryway, their weapons ready. A single laser-light poked through the gloom, centering on the head of one of the Elites. Trent's radio crackled with static.

"I'm in position," Price murmured. The Elites seemed to sense them. They turned around and stared silently at the pair. Eric, Trent and Price opened fire simultaneously. One Elite's head exploded in a violent plume of purple gore. Trent stitched a bloody line up the chest of the second one, leaving the crimson leader for Eric.

Eric was fast, shooting the plasma rifle out of its hand, then putting a bullet into each knee. The Elite collapsed to the floor, growling in pain. Eric walked closer, pistol pointed towards it. The Elite made a grab for the pistol. Eric put another bullet through its elbow, causing the arm to drop and hang at an awkward, broken angle. He shot it twice more, once in the gut, once in the shoulder. The Elite began to howl in pain, then.

Eric stood and listened for a while. Around them, the city began to shudder. Buildings crumbled and collapsed.

"Time to go," Price murmured.

Trent walked up to Eric, stared down at the Elite. "Finish it."

Eric nodded tightly, put the pistol to its forehead and squeezed the trigger. The city continued to collapse around them, more violently now. Trent and Eric stumbled out into the street. Trent's vision was beginning to fade, going gray around the edges, then eventually fading to black. He felt his knees give out and he collapsed to the ground-

"-coming out of it now, sir."

"Both of them?"

"Yes, both of them." Trent groaned and opened his eyes. Childs and one of the medical techs were standing over him.

Childs grinned. "Looks like you did it. I'll give you both a chance to shower and shave, then I want you in Briefing Room Six."

"Thanks, boss," Eric mumbled. Trent glanced over. Eric looked like hell. His face was haggard, his hair and beard long and unkempt, but his eyes were vivid. When he sat up, he went about popping his neck, then froze midway through it. Trent stiffened as he sat up, worried something had gone wrong. Eric looked confused, then a little concerned.

"Something wrong?" Trent asked.

"My head..." Eric mumbled. "It...it doesn't hurt."

"Well...that was the idea."

Eric shook his head and looked over at Trent. "No, you don't understand. Ever since I woke up from that gunshot to the head, it's always hurt. Always. Mostly it's just a background buzz of pain, sometimes it's...a lot worse. But it's been consistent for years now. It's...gone. I feel like...I don't know what I feel like. I, uh...think I'll go take that shower now." He stood up, began walking across the bay, then stopped.

"Why aren't my muscles atrophied or anything? How long did you say I was in that bed?"

"Three months," one of the medics replied. "We've been regularly exercising your muscles with machines. You'll have lost some muscle mass, but nothing a few weeks hitting the gym shouldn't be able to take care of." Eric nodded them a thanks and disappeared out the door. Trent sat on the edge of his examination table, gently massaging his temples. It felt strange to have gone back into the machine again. He straightened up as he heard his name from somewhere across the room.

"Trent? Oh yeah, he's right in here. Over there." Trent stood and turned around, wondering who had coming looking for him.

His eyes widened slightly.

"Enzo?"