In or Out

Nightshade

"I can't believe we didn't see this before," Mainframe ran his fingers over the keyboard, filling the expectant silence with the tapping of keys. The screen over his head flickered to life, bathing the gathered in a greenish glow. "Every single report that we've had of either MARS weapons, or Cobra munitions has come weeks, before or after a major uprising, revolution, or terrorist attack."

The crowd shifted a little unsteadily, a soft undercurrent of disbelief running through them. Duke held up a hand and quieted the room, reminding them all they were soldiers first and foremost. Mainframe waited until they were all silent again, before punching up a few key displays.

"First there was Crackshot's interruption of the deal in Cambodia. She eyewitnessed Destro himself making the exchange. Unfortunately, it seems they still got the goods, and three weeks later there was this bloodbath south of Phnom Penh. Members of the Khmer Rouge claimed responsibility."

He flipped quickly through a few photos and a headline from a Cambodian newspaper, but he spared them the details. They could see for themselves the bodies lying in the street, the rubble from the destroyed buildings, and the bullet-holes riddling the cars. He flicked past it, and onto the next illustration.

"This is North Ireland. Barbeque was on R&R there, when he discovered this." The screen flits to Polaroids taken in the back room of a small bar, showing crates emblazoned with the Cobra hooded viper. "Two weeks later, the IRA staged a major assault on Dublin. Five were killed, eight more injured."

"In Peru, members of the Shining Path killed Carlos Rodriguez, who was running for President, merely days after Nightshade and Snake Eyes busted out of there. Their report includes using a Cobra munitions dump as a distraction to aid their escape. The pattern repeats itself over and over, Spain, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia. And get this, in the past six months, here in the U.S, there's been more than a fifty percent increase in the amount of gang violence. Tell me that's not cause for concern?"

He flicked to a final slide, showing this time a map of the entire globe, with pins placed at every occurrence of terrorist activity that had been linked with a proper sighting of MARS or Cobra. The result was fairly sobering. As the lights slowly came up in the briefing room, Duke turned to face his comrades.

"Now, the question is, Joes, what do we do about this?" he posed it aloud.

For a few moments there was silence, as all the Joes mulled the thoughts over. A few glanced at each other, or stared at the map. Finally, Scarlett spoke up, breaking the tension by offering a thought.

"We have the dots now, so maybe we can start preventing some of the attacks."

"This feels like the start of something bigger," Crackshot murmured from the back of the group. Her voice was soft, but carried well. Scarlett shot her a glance. "Something that we're not seeing the whole of."

"It's too scattered." Dial-Tone offered. "Nothing like the planned strikes they've done before. I mean, what possible significance could Peru hold for Cobra forces?"

"Or MARS? And how are they paying for the weapons? Most of these instances are just state terrorists, not national problems." Scarlett started musing aloud, stepping forward slightly to stand beside Duke. The top shirt tried not to grin at her mastery of the situation. She was doing exactly what he wanted, letting the Joes come to their own conclusions, making the team feel like just that: a team.

"They're distractions." Her voice came from the corner, where she had been sitting and watching the entire time. Nightshade's leg was still on the mend, but she refused to waste her time. So she was active the only way she could be, helping out around the PIT. Snake Eyes crouched beside her, and only nodded sagely when she glanced at him.

"We did things like that all the time, when I was in Los Angeles. Recruit other kids from the barrio, give them guns and knives, and unleash them on the city. So we could get done what we needed to, while the cops chased after the cabrĂ³nes." She looked around at the gathered Joes. They hadn't a clue. Not most of them. They way they were looking at her now; this was the first most of them were hearing about her time before the military. "They're fryin' bigger fish, Duke, tryin' to keep us chasing our own tails."

Snake Eyes turned his attention from Nightshade to Duke, as though daring him to try and counter her claims. The two of them knew more about her history than the rest of the team. Duke had read her files start to finish, even the classified parts, before destroying them, and the existence of Cassie Riviera from the records of the U.S. Government. Snake Eyes had heard murmurings of stories in their time in his cabin, half-dreams and whole-realities that still bothered her. He looked to Nightshade again, and finally straightened.

Pointing at the screen, he caught Duke's attention, and made a widening gesture with his hands.

"Snakes is right. Mainframe, can you add in all the abnormal activity in the past six months?" Duke moved over to stand behind Mainframe's chair, watching over his shoulder, as the techie fell to his task without another word. In moments, the map above began to blaze to life, a layer of additional pins, a different color than the first set, began to pop up, all over the globe. Duke felt his mouth go dry. China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Brazil, Venezuela, Chad, Mozambique. The list kept seeming to grow, not stopping. Even America began to light up, mostly along the west coast but along Manhattan and Rhode Island as well.

"There's no pattern." Scarlett whispered behind him. "Nothing. No rhyme, no reason. Just... chaos."

Someone whistled low, and incredulous. Someone else swore softly. Duke turned as pins kept popping up on the screen, looking at the gathered Joes. "We need a plan folks. We need to figure something out."


It was hours past lights out when he finally found her. She had been kept behind by Duke after the think-tank session. He'd waited in the corridor for a half-hour before she emerged, and summarily walked away without a word. Honestly, he couldn't blame her. Nightshade was a giant bottle of emotion, all things she had kept hidden for so long. To come out and speak like that, candidly, factually, of the things she had done in her past, must have hurt her. Some of the Joes would never look at her the same way again; while others would find new respect for her strength. Snake Eyes only knew that wounded people were like animals, sometimes. They strike out blindly, ragefully, uncontrollably at anything resembling a threat, and most often wind up dead because of their actions.

He would never let Nightshade come to that harm.

He waited motionless in the doorway to the sparring room, expecting her to turn and scold him for being so sneaky. But she didn't move, never acknowledged his presence. She hunched over something in her lap, but it wasn't until he heard the soft twang of strings did he realize she cradled her guitar. He'd seen her with it before, seen it in her barrack, but never had he heard her play.

She plucked one note, then a second, wincing physically as the note sang sour. "Lo siento.." She whispered, reaching out to twist a knob on the neck. Hearing her voice unstuck Snake Eyes from the doorway, allowing him to pad on soundless feet into the darkened room. The impact mats made a soft sigh as he stepped on them, the air held within the pads moving elsewhere to compensate for his weight.

Nightshade froze, gripping the guitar tightly so she wouldn't be seen to startle. "I don't need your sympathy, Snakes." There was something icy in her voice that caused his spine to straighten defensively. "I don't need anything, right now." Her voice caught, and hung up at the end of her statement. He could feel the stress radiating off of her. For a moment he froze, his thoughts torn.

He'd lost Scarlett because of his inability to step beyond the boundaries of his own comfort zone. When she needed him, he had always turned away, or failed to step-up. He knew it; he recognized it within himself. His own fatal flaw. As Nightshade bent again to the strings of her guitar, he was gripped with the urge to leave; to turn and disappear into the darkness and leave her alone with her conflicts and her thoughts.

She murmured another apology to an out-of-tune chord she struck, but her hand was shaking as she moved to tune the instrument further. Snake Eyes looked to the ceiling, took a deep breath, and finally chose to act. He slid to his knees beside her, catching her shaking hand between his two. She looked at him finally, biting her lower lip.

"I can't do it. I can't do what Duke wants me to." The confession fell out of Nightshade before she could stop herself. Something about Snake Eyes made it easy for her to talk to him, really to talk at him. He rarely found need to answer with anything but a tilted head, or a squeezed hand. This occasion was no different; he simply gave her hand a squeeze, and drew it away from the neck of the guitar.

Setting her hand into her lap, Snake Eyes continued to move; gently removing her other hand from gripping the strap of the guitar. He slipped the instrument from around her neck, and laid it on his opposite side, removing any barriers between them. He watched the way her gaze followed the guitar; he knew without being told that the instrument had once belonged to her elder brother.

He moved then on his knees to sit before her, crossing his legs in imitation of hers. As he reached out to take her hands, he squared his shoulders, straightened his spine, which caused her to unconsciously mimic him. Her fingers curled tightly into his, and she exhaled a long, deep breath, trying desperately to relax some of the tension away.

She was silent for a few minutes, which normally Snake Eyes would take as a good sign. Nightshade loved to talk. She was a story-teller and a sharer. It was in her nature to be social and friendly, to crave interaction to fill her uneasiness. It had taken knowing Snake Eyes to teach her the value of silence, and the meaning that could be packed into a simple gesture. In so many ways, his influence had made her a better person. But her thoughts wouldn't rest, she couldn't shake the feeling that Duke was purposefully sending her into a death trap. And try as she might, she couldn't keep those worries from spilling out into the open.

"He's sending me back. To Los Angeles. To the barrio. I'm supposed to get back into MS13 after fighting so hard to get out." Nightshade's words just tumbled out, showing exactly what Snake Eyes had feared. She was too emotionally vested in this mission, afraid of the outcome, and afraid that she wouldn't be supported for the duration. He tightened his hands around hers again, unsure what else to do.

"They'll kill me as soon as they lay eyes on me, Snakes. I'm a rat, traitor... You don't just... leave that sort of life. You only die..." Nightshade kept talking, her outer shell beginning to crack with the stress of heading back to the lion's den. Unshed tears began to glisten in the corners of her eyes; he could feel the shakes in her limbs as she tried desperately to control her fears.

Snake Eyes shook his head slightly, wishing that he could make some words of comfort for her. But he knew only one thing that would help calm her. Human contact. Human comfort. Before he could talk himself out of it, he tightened his arms, drawing her forward slowly. She didn't even attempt to fight him, allowing herself to be drawn out of her cross-legged seat and into his sacred personal space.

He allowed her to curl into his lap, her arms sliding around his neck. His arms stole around her, one hand smoothing over her back. As she pressed her head into the crook of his neck, he released a slow, long breath. Slipping a hand up through her curls, he tightened his grip. She wouldn't be alone in this mission; he would see to that. Nothing would happen to her while he was still standing.