The Weight of Darkness
by RocheIle17
I apologize for being so late before publishing the continuation of this fic. The holidays were hardly relaxing and I indirectly published by participating in the Christmas challenge ^ ^. But rest assured... or fear it, I have no intention of abandoning it! So here are some answers about the future of our Team Machine. The title is in Latin (because it's classy) and means "With the help of God". Well, it's also the motto of the Principality of Monaco.
Thank you to all who take the time to read and post comments, always inspiring and highly appreciated! Thank you to the one who takes the time to correct me!
The gunshot rang out in the small cell, followed by a deafening silence that was disturbed only by the muffled sound of Greer's body collapsing on the ground. Still holding his smoking pistol at arm's length, Finch remained in the middle of the room for a long time, staring at the other man's inert body that was slowly draining itself of blood. His face was surprisingly unmoved with regard to the appalling act he had just committed. His eyes reflected no pity, no anger, nor relief. In fact no sentiment was visible on his features that were ordinarily so expressive, as if the man were no more than an empty body, devoid of soul.
At his side, Shaw had witnessed the scene as a spectator, unable to say or do anything, having been so stunned by the spectacle that had played out before her eyes. Now she was gazing at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. Which was, upon careful reflection, probably the case. Never would she have thought or imagined that Finch could do such a thing! He had just simply slaughtered an unarmed man, on the ground, begging him for mercy! Even if the man in question was Greer, the ex-assassin was so shocked that she took some time to regain her wits. She turned slowly towards Root which seemed to be in the same state of stupefaction as she was.
Fortunately and unfortunately for them, a deafening alarm sounded all over the base. Although this very unpleasant klaxon enabled the two women to emerge from their torpor, it also indicated that reinforcements were probably hurrying to converge to the cell. They exchanged a horrified glance at the realization that they must escape as quickly as possible.
Shaw turned to her boss who had not moved a muscle.
"Finch, we have to go."
The ex-assassin's voice was calm but pressing. However, she took care to keep a cautious measure of safety so as not to jostle the man who hadn't ceased to watch the lifeless body of Greer lying before him. A small puddle of blood widened slowly but surely to the point of coming to lick his shoes. But despite the young woman's gentle injunction, Finch didn't move. His eyes empty, he stood there, watching the Brit bleed out, as if to make sure he was dead.
"Finch?!" called Shaw a little louder.
But to her great despair, the result was the same. Shaw threw a desperate glance at Root, begging her to help get the recluse to react.
The hacker then cautiously approached her friend and, after a brief hesitation, put her hand shyly on his shoulder. But again, there was no reaction. The young woman sighed before lowering her eyes to the ground. She was beginning to lose hope. Time was against them. If Finch didn't get out of his apathetic state quickly, they would have no choice but to leave without him. "Harold, the Samaritan agents will arrive any moment now, we must go!"
"Leave."
Root looked up and stared at her friend. He had absolutely not moved. His head was still bent over his victim, his shoulders collapsed as if they were carrying all the world's misfortunes, his hand still clenched on his weapon. For a brief moment she would've thought she was dreaming. She turned her head towards Shaw, who confirmed with a nod that the word wasn't the fruit of her imagination. No, she hadn't dreamed. It was indeed the tired, shaky, weak-as-a-whisper voice of Finch urging them to go, to leave him behind.
She tightened her grip on his shoulder, forcing him to turn around to face her. Finch let her do it obediently. Root quivered when she discovered her friend... well, the one who had been her friend. For the man she had before her was no longer the Finch she had come to know and appreciate throughout the years.
The calm gaze of his apathetic attitude clashed with his physical appearance. His clothes were in poor condition, torn at the neck and abdomen, and almost completely stained with blood. His face was covered with a viscous mixture of blood and sweat. But it was above all his expression that disturbed the young woman most. His eyes were cold, dull, and empty, as without soul... Even he was still alive, he was dead inside.
Root shrugged to make him react. She laid a second hand on his other shoulder and shook him gently but firmly. "We're not going to leave you here! You're coming with us!"
Unfortunately, the man before her remained totally indifferent to her pressure. He replied in a voice that was still such a calm that contradicted the urgency of the situation. "No."
This response was enough to infuriate the hacker. "We won't let you die here!" she shouted, taking his face in her hands to plunge her gaze into his, hoping thus to make him aware of the danger. But Finch only looked at her without a word. Root wondered if he understood what was happening. She felt tears coming in her eyes to see her friend in this state.
"You won't succeed, he's in an overwhelmed state linked to the trauma he's just experienced," explained Shaw, whose past as a doctor had enabled her to identify without too much difficulty the first phase of post-traumatic syndrome: cognitive shock, emotional and physical.
The victims, numbed by what they had just lived through, sought refuge in a virtual world and raised psychic barriers to prevent a reality deemed too intolerable to enter. If this situation continued, it would be very difficult to move the recluse from here. But moving on to the next phase, panic, wasn't a better solution since Finch was at risk of being out of control. Shaw was at this point in her reflections when the recluse put the lie to her diagnosis.
Slowly, almost idly, he put his hands on Root's arms and gently, very delicately, emerged from her embrace and stepped back. "You must go. Leave this place and continue the missions," he explained with a stronger voice, as if he had returned to reality.
"Not without you," whispered Root, tears dripping on her cheeks when she read the resignation on her friend's face.
"I'm wounded, I'll slow you down," he pointed out, laying his hand on his deeply notched belly which still bled abundantly.
"No," begged the hacker in a dying voice, aware that time was against them.
Taking them both by surprise, Finch lifted his gun and pointed it at the two women. "Leave," he repeated implacably.
By reflex, Shaw moved between Root and Finch, screening her body in case the man decided to fire. Her military training taught her to take the shots with a vest, which wasn't the case for the hacker. Of course doing so was far from pleasant, but she would survive... Hadn't she already died on many occasions? Unemotional, she challenged him with her gaze, whispering in her suave voice, oddly grave and hoarse for such a small woman, "You will not shoot."
Finch didn't react. His face was as cold as marble. Then a sardonic smile appeared, cold and terrifying. "I've already killed two men."
Shaw looked down at Greer's body, whose blood now formed a veritable pond around him, then turned to observe John's body, which hadn't moved one iota, a puddle of blood staining his left side at shoulder height.
"And if we decided to stay with you?" declared the young woman suddenly as she brought her attention to her boss in order to study his reactions.
For a brief moment, the man appeared startled before he quickly regained his equilibrium. "Would you leave the Machine? Would you abandon the missions?" he asked ironically with an insistent look at Root, to whom he knew the importance of the link with the Machine.
Shaw leaned slightly to block Finch's view before whispering with a ghost of a smile, "Fusco can continue the missions. He knows now."
Finch seemed surprised by this argument, as if this detail had eluded him, as if he hadn't expected this much resistance from the two young women, as if he realized that they were willing to sacrifice themselves to save him. He then decided to be honest, to reveal the real reason for his stubbornness. "I want to stay with him."
The tone had changed. His voice was weaker, trembling, a fragile murmur like a last will.
The two friends exchanged a pointed look with the understanding that it would probably be extremely difficult to separate the two men. John was no more and Harold felt so guilty about his death that he just wanted to stay with him. Die with him. His last action would be a kind of suicide that would allow them to flee.
Suddenly the alarm stopped. A crackling saturated the speakers for a brief moment, causing a deafening feedback in Root's cochlear implant and she collapsed on her knees with a scream. Then a slow, throbbing, quiet beep, although slightly irregular, sounded in the room.
[Beep]
[Beep]
[Beep]
[Beep]
[Beep]
[Beep]
The three friends looked at each other, incredulous, seeking to understand the meaning of this mysterious message.
"It's the Machine," whispered Root, as much for herself as for the others. She understood that the AI had used her implant as a relay to gain access to the cell. The Machine had taken control of the speakers, the cameras, and all the sensors arranged at the four corners of the room. If now the team knew the author of this message, its meaning was no less obscure. What did these sounds correspond to? Was it Morse code? No, the beeps were too chaotic to be that code.
It was Shaw who first realized what these noises were. She could once again thank her medical training. "It's a heart rate," she declared.
Far from enlightening them, this statement confused them a little more. What was the Machine trying to make them understand? They listened attentively to the beating of this unknown heart. It was weak, slow, and irregular.
Finch seemed completely lost. His gaze wandered about the room looking for a clue. It was then that his eyes fell on John's inert body and he realized. He dropped his weapon, which struck the ground with a metallic sound, before he headed towards his partner. Despite his bleeding wounds, his pain that had long since passed the stage of the bearable, the man limped as fast as possible towards the agent. He knelt with difficulty and tried to turn over the agent's body. But his strength left him as surely as his body was bleeding out.
Fortunately for him, Shaw had also understood the Machine's message and helped him to turn Reese onto his back. With professional and precise gestures, she put two fingers on the carotid and waited a few seconds, silent and concentrated. "His pulse is weak but he's alive," she murmured, at last.
Harold raised his uncertain eyes towards her. His gaze had changed. Shaw could read a multitude of emotions, ranging from misunderstanding to hope to fear. John was alive! Finch dared not believe it and yet... This so cherished heart was still beating, his breath so weak but maintained a tenuous connection with life. Tears of joy flowed abundantly over his blood-daubed cheeks as he bent over to contemplate the unconscious man while passing a trembling hand in his sweat-soaked hair. Completely overtaken with happiness, the man had forgotten the trap in which they were.
But the girls were furiously aware of it. While Shaw was ripping John's blood-stained shirt to assess the extent of his injury, Root was thinking about a plan to save them... all four of them. For the Machine, by pointing out to them that John was still alive, had simply ordered them to save him. Or maybe it was the only way Finch would follow them. Still, now they didn't have one but two wounded men to get out. Things were getting complicated. For even if one could still walk the second was unconscious, wounded, and drugged, and no longer in a position to do much. And his dead weight didn't help. How to transport this big fellow of 1m90 and probably on the order of 90 kg?
"He's hit in the shoulder," Shaw announced, rising and heading towards the bathroom in the corner. She returned with the towels that had served, a few hours before, for Finch's refreshment. She pressed as hard as possible on the wound with one of them to form a compression point. After checking that the wound was no longer bleeding much, she tied the second to keep the makeshift dressing in place. "I stopped the bleeding but we'll have to remove the bullet lodged in his shoulder quickly, otherwise he risks sepsis," she explained as she stood up.
"He will recover?" murmured Harold as he continuing to provide comforting gestures of affection, assuring himself that John was alive and well, as well as that for the agent whose peaceful face did not reflect any pain.
"Yes, the bullet didn't touch any organs, so the wound isn't very serious. He'll see other days," replied Shaw, washing her hands in the sink before returning to check Finch. She opened his shirt and inspected his abdominal wound. With her fingertips she gauged the depth of the wound and then turned her head to assess the amount of blood lost. She couldn't disguise a distressed pout. The injury was serious and she feared internal damage. In addition, the computer scientist had lost a lot of blood and needed a transfusion as soon as possible. Besides, the ex-assassin wondered, how he could still stand? The adrenaline probably... but that wouldn't last forever. He had to receive care as soon as possible!
She gave Finch a clean towel to press on his belly and then glanced at his shoulder wound. To her vast surprise, Reese, the expert in weapon handling, the exceptional marksman, had completely missed his target and had barely scratched Finch. She sighed with relief before patting the scratch lightly to clean it.
"In that case, why is he unconscious?" asked Finch, still more concerned for the agent than for his own health.
Shaw ceased her care and brought her attention to John. She seized a small flashlight that she had in one of the pockets of her jacket and bent over the unconscious younger man. She lifted his eyelids to check the responsiveness of his pupils. They were wide, disproportionate to the point of eating the blue-grey irises. The young woman passed the light before the unconscious man's eyes several times. No reaction. She pinched her lips but kept quiet. She knew only too well these symptoms and didn't wish to alarm her partners. If they wanted to get out of here, they had to proceed in order, to be methodical. The urgency was to leave this place. She then turned to Finch and announced her verdict with careful words, "He's under the influence of drugs."
Finch contented himself with this explanation and continued to gently caress his partner's head.
But for Shaw, this was far from reassuring, quite the contrary. If Reese was unconscious after a simple gunshot wound to the shoulder, the effects of the drug were more damaging than it seemed. His body, under the influence of this mysterious substance for several days already, was now releasing it. She was worried because knowing her partner's capacity for resistance, the amount injected probably had to flirt with a lethal dose.
Shaw straightened out and advanced to the doctor, who, panicked after Greer's cold execution, had curled up in a corner of the cell holding his injured leg. The man's eyes widened in terror when he saw the little brunette come closer to him and pathetically protected his head in his arms. "Don't... Don't kill me," he stammered, closing his eyes, probably expecting to suffer the same fate as his boss.
Shaw knelt in front of him and handed him a towel. "Here, for your injury."
Surprised by this gesture, the medical practitioner raised his eyes uncertainly towards the young woman and took the towel with a trembling hand. He applied it on his thigh wound and waited for the other shoe to drop, his heart beating wildly.
"What did you inject him with?" asked Shaw in an abrupt tone as she drilled a look into him. She was struggling to contain her anger. How could a doctor who had sworn to care for the population inject this kind of stuff?
"Angel dust," replied the man in a tiny, shameful voice.
Shaw froze. She knew only too much of this drug developed, like so many others, by the CIA. In 1953, when the Cold War was at its height, the agency launched a research program on mental control and reprogramming called MK-Ultra. Its goal was to turn agents into veritable killing machines. Because unlike conventional narcotics, whose users often had no memory of the atrocities they had committed while under the influence, the angel dust kept the agents fully aware of their actions. The drugs annihilated only their will, distorted reality, blurred the boundary between reality and hallucination, transforming men into machines that were relentless, docile, and obedient to orders without any state of mind. This drug acted as fast as crack, as potently as cocaine, and as hallucinogenic as LDS, a veritable chemical potpourri.
Although the effects of this substance were not yet well known, Shaw knew that few agents were left unscathed after an injection. She shivered inwardly as she considered how many doses Reese must have received during two days... "Give me the vial," she ordered in a sharp tone, holding out her hand.
The doctor obeyed immediately. He slipped his hand into the pocket of his white blouse and pulled out a small now-empty vial. Shaw seized it before contemplating it in silence. No label of course. But she noticed that there was a little product left in the bottom of the flask. A few millilitres, some tiny droplets, but she hoped that they would be sufficient to find the exact composition of this drug and eventually develop an antidote, or at least a treatment for its side effects. In any way, she had to settle for that. She would do everything she could to save her friend. She slipped the bottle into the pocket of her jacket and returned to Root.
"Do you have a plan?" she asked, advancing to her partner, who had been surprisingly silent for a few minutes.
"Perhaps," replied the hacker with a half-smile.
The siren began to howl again, signaling the repossession of Samaritan's control. The two women had the curious impression that the two AI were battling to take control of the base facilities.
"So? How do we get out of here with a wounded man who can barely walk, and a big unconscious armoire?" asked Shaw, turning to John and Harold who seemed to be making little case of the dire situation they were in.
"In the same way that one brings fifty meal trays inside this same base," replied the hacker in the same humourless tone, with a gleam of malice in her brown eyes.
Shaw immediately understood the plan that had germinated in her partner's head, probably supplied by the Machine. The only problem was that there was no cart in the cell or in the observation room right next to it.
As if Root were reading her thoughts, she said, "The Machine saw carts two rooms from here, to the left after leaving the cell."
Shaw smiled at her. She picked up her weapon, ejected the half empty clip to put in a full one and poked her head around the door of the cell. Against all odds, no Samaritan agents were in sight. This was very unusual in view of the number of precautions taken to secure the site. She slipped quietly into the hallway and rapidly advanced to the door indicated by the Machine via Root. She put her hand on the handle, her heart pounding, praying with all her strength that the door wasn't locked. Luckily, it wasn't locked and led into what seemed to be a small technical chamber. She quickly found an empty cart, seized it, and returned as quickly as possible to the cell.
Root, who was waiting for her, a gun in her fist, closed the door just behind her. Shaw positioned the cart next to Reese to facilitate his transfer and then turned to her partner. "Well, help me move him," she ordered as she leaned over to place her hands under the agent's armpits.
Root stepped forward, slipped her gun into the belt of her trousers, and seized John by the feet.
"On three. One... two... three!"
The two women lifted the unconscious man with a great deal of effort. Bent double and panting under his weight, it felt like they had the world on their shoulders as they shifted the few centimetres that separated them from the cart. With teeth clenched, they laid him on the metal tray with a relative delicacy. John groaned faintly at the shock, the first clear and distinctive sign of life in the younger man.
"Good, and now?" Shaw asked, straightening herself and clutching her thighs with aching hands.
The hacker pinched her lips before answering, slightly uncomfortably, "She's thinking."
"It's taking a long time," the ex-assassin grumbled impatiently, checking the state of their ammunition in order to occupy her hands and mind.
"She won't find anything."
Surprised, the two women whirled and discovered Finch, standing next to them with his hands clenched on his wound. Root lowered her eyes and kept quiet. He was right. All the simulations of confrontation between Samaritan and the Machine had only resulted in failure. Why would this one be different?
"Well, we'll have to get some help from your girlfriend," said Shaw, positioning herself behind the door. She stuck her ear to the wall and detected some agitation on the other side: footsteps, whispers, metallic rattles of pistols and assault rifles that were being armed. "They're coming," she commented, with a glance at her partners to warn them that the final attack would probably be soon.
"Hurry up," begged the hacker, showing obvious signs of impatience tinged with a rush of panic.
"We must help her."
The two women once again stared at Finch with perplexity. Unlike his friends who were struggling to hide their stress, the man displayed a resolved expression, determined and paradoxically very calm despite the urgency and the agitation of the environment.
"You've locked the Machine," Root pointed out in a caustic tone.
"Indeed, but I also know that you gave her the ability to defend herself," stressed the computer scientist as he limped painfully towards the two agents that were lying dead on the floor.
"She told you?" Root asked, caught between incomprehension and the excitement of a new perspective of her very dear friend.
"The Machine has always taken some liberties with its initial prerogatives," said Finch. "Remember Senator McCourt?" Indeed, two years ago, in order to prevent the commissioning of Samaritan whose danger to mankind had been foretold by the AI, she had simply demanded the politician's execution, thus bypassing all her basic rules.
"So you know that you're the only one who can activate this program," the hacker clarified.
"That's right."
They'd already had this conversation multiple times. Their viewpoints had seemed irreconcilable. On one side, Samantha had full confidence in the Machine and wanted to free her completely so that she expressed her full power without hindrance. On the other, Harold didn't want the technology, as perfect and sophisticated as it was, to supplant mankind. As a result, Finch's terse response astonished the young woman. She was sensing that he had something else in mind. She watched him take the earpiece of one of the Samaritan men. Her eyes widened in surprise as she suddenly understood that the man was about to go into God Mode. She hesitated, then: giving the Machine the ability to defend itself didn't mean that it would help them out of here.
"What if the Machine decides not to help us?" she asked in a very small, shameful voice. For the first time since she'd known of the Machine's existence, she was having doubts about the AI.
"It's a risk we must take," he replied in a neutral tone, placing the small device in the hollow of his ear.
Root was appalled. She no longer recognized the cautious and posed man she had known until now. Finch now appeared to be cold, calculating, and not feeling any empathy or kindness towards his fellow men. Only John counted. For him, to save him, he questioned all the principles for which he had fought. To get them out of here, he was placing the fate of mankind in the hands of an AI who was preparing to be, for the first time since birth, truly omniscient and powerful.
"Can you hear me?" he asked while he stared at the red dot of one of the cell's many surveillance cameras.
Root stayed frozen in place. Although she felt excitement at the idea of finally seeing the Machine deploy all of her potential, she was worried about her friend. He seemed to have drawn a line across his deepest convictions. But this was no longer the time for philosophical and metaphysical questions. They had to get out of this damned base.
The mechanical, impersonal, disjointed and dehumanized voice of the AI resounded in the cell.
[Yes.]
Finch smiled. Upon thinking about it, this was the first time that he spoke to her, not as a child, or to a pupil to whom he taught a moral code and values, but to a person, his alter-ego.
"Get us out of here," the computer programmer interrupted before specifying in a clearly audible voice, "by any means."
[Are you sure?]
Harold inhaled deeply before replying, "I release you."
A long silence greeted the order. The team members exchanged incredulous glances, wondering if the Machine had understood the message. Hanging on her answer, Root, Shaw, and Finch waited anxiously for the moment that she finally decided to talk to them.
And finally, after a time that seemed interminable to them but which in reality only lasted a few seconds, new instructions came to the ears of Root and Finch. Finally, God had agreed to help them.
"Okay," replied Root while picking up the infrared goggles that she and Shaw had thrown down during their assault a few minutes earlier. "Here, we'll need it," she explained as she passed a pair to her partner.
For once, Shaw didn't comment and obediently executed the instruction. Judging by her scowl, she seemed quite annoyed to be relegated to the rank of second fiddle, waiting for instructions that the supercomputer deigned to provide her two partners that were in direct relationship with her.
Once equipped, the hacker laid her hand on the door handle. Although she had a blind trust in the Machine, she couldn't help but take a deep breath to give herself courage before opening the door. Especially since the Machine had just explained her plan in only a few words and the young woman knew what to expect. "At the signal, you exit and turn right. You go up the hallway to the service elevator about 50m from here," Root explained mechanically, repeating the message dictated by the Machine.
"And you?" asked Shaw, instinctively stiffening.
"Don't worry, I'll follow you with Harold," reassured Samantha with a slight smile, delighted to detect a hint of anxiety in her companion's somewhat abrupt remark.
Her lips pinched in a stern crease that reflected her anguish, the ex-assassin simply nodded her head. Root then handed her second gun to Finch, who took it without arguing. He armed it under the incredulous gaze of the two women who no longer could be shocked at such bizarreness. After all, Finch had just shot John and shot Greer in cold blood, and they had no doubt that he would not hesitate to use it against the Samaritan agents.
"Good. Let's go," she declared, as much for her friends as for the AI. Immediately, the siren was silenced. The lights were extinguished. The silence was deafening. She turned the handle and opened the door carefully. At the squeaking from the metal door, the Samaritan agents began to blanket fire across their target. Fortunately for Root, the door was armoured and only the ricocheting bullets prevented it from opening properly. Well sheltered behind her makeshift shield, the young woman waited for the next step with anguish.
As expected, an extremely unpleasant acute whistle saturated her implant. Root clenched her teeth under the stroke of intense pain that crossed her brain, and she beckoned Shaw to run.
The ex-assassin pushed the cart with all her strength. She was scared. She clenched her hands on her weapon while trying to run as fast as possible by bending herself to avoid stray bullets. But against all odds, no shot came to disturb hers escape. Through her night vision goggles, she saw the prostrate Samaritan agents, holding their heads in their hands. Evidently the Machine had also saturated their ears with the same acute whistle that had affected Root. Except that her partner was aware and was able to prepare for it, mentally at least, because the pain she felt was very real.
Still on her guard but reassured, Shaw went up the hallway in question and spotted the elevator doors. But the more she advanced, the more her optimism faded. The doors of the elevator car were locked by an electronic box; the little red light that shone was hardly reassuring. But as she slowed down to avoid being plastered against the closed doors of the elevator, the light became green. The car unlocked magically and the doors opened.
The ex-assassin sighed as she heaved the cart into the elevator. Once she was safe, she took off her goggles that had become useless thanks to the cabin lighting, and then glanced at the wounded Reese. Despite the ambient agitation and shaking during their flight, Reese hadn't moved. Only his left arm was now dragging on the ground. His bloodied face was still impassible and the makeshift dressing, still clean, signaled that his wound had not resumed bleeding. That was already one thing...
Suddenly she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around, her weapon aimed at the intruders who rushed toward her, and uttered a new sigh of relief by discovering that Finch, aided by Root, was going up the hallway as quickly as possible. Both partners were suffering. Their expressions were crisp. The young woman had a hand on her right ear as if to alleviate the pain while Harold limped agonizingly while holding his abdomen. His arm was clasped around the shoulders of his friend, who had slipped hers around his waist to support him as much as she could.
All of a sudden, footsteps ran toward them and then shots resonated in their direction. Shaw returned fire while taking care not to hurt her friends. But in a place as narrow and confined as this one, it would have been a miracle for no one to be hit. They might've been guided by a God, but the miracle didn't take place. Suddenly, Root collapsed to the ground only a few metres from the elevator, struck by several bullets, and her fall dragged Finch down with her.
Shaw, while continuing to spray bullets around copiously at the Samaritan agents, rushed out of the elevator to drag the computer scientist with all her strength. She had to hurry; for when she sought to return to help her companion, the suited men were already catching up to her and were ready to seize her.
"Shit," swore Shaw between her teeth, torn by a case of conscience that completely exceeded her ken: save Root at the risk of blowing their escape attempt and getting all taken by Samaritan, or abandoning her friend and leaving with Reese and Finch.
Instinctively, she began a step towards Root, as if her body had chosen for her.
[Stop, don't move.]
Shaw stopped immediately. She turned her head and spotted a small surveillance camera nestled in a corner of the elevator car. The ex-assassin remained still. Who was just talking to her? The Machine or Samaritan?
The answer wasn't long in coming. As the agents helped Root get up, sparks burst out of their earpieces, trouser pockets, or jackets, making them let her go. Quickly, the sparks turned into flames. The men hurriedly removed their implants and their smouldering clothing while expressing howls and exclamations of surprise, terror, and pain.
Root took advantage of this salutary diversion to rush to the car, which immediately closed on her.
"Do you know what happened?" asked Shaw as she verified that the bullet-proof vest had played its part well and that no bullet had hurt her companion.
"The Machine... provoked... a short circuit... in their phones," panted the hacker, still in shock from the shots she had taken.
While the elevator ascended, Shaw checked the casualty status. John was stable. Harold was struggling more and more. If his shoulder wound was superficial, his belly wound still bled a lot. He was covered in blood and soaked in sweat. The Slayer suspected a fever.
"What should we do now?" asked Root, staring at the red dot of the car's surveillance camera.
But the mechanical voice that came out of the speakers was blurred, distorted, and therefore piecemeal.
[Pickup... doors...]
Then the communication was interrupted as the elevator stopped so abruptly that everyone wavered.
"What's going on?" asked Shaw, straightening up, seeking an answer in the expression of her companion.
"The connection has been interrupted."
"By whom?"
"Samaritan," whispered Root. The hacker had several explanations in mind. Either her router had been detected and disconnected, or the Machine had once again lost its duel with the rival AI. In any case, they were now alone.
For her part, Shaw wasn't asking questions. She was used to have that kind of situation. She tried to open the sliding doors of the elevator but it was next to impossible. "Crap," she swore before turning around to inspect the cabin in search of an object that could help her.
Once again, in their misfortune, they benefitted from an insolent chance. In this service elevator, a cleaning kit had been carelessly forgotten. The brunette seized a broom whose metal handle could very well act as a lever. She slipped the stick in the gap of the door and put pressure on it with all her strength. The door opened with some precious few centimeters. The young woman dropped the broom and seized one side of the door. Her companion rushed to grasp the other side. Soon the elevator door opened completely, allowing a floor to appear. The cabin had stopped between two floors! Luck could not always be at the rendezvous...
Putting her weight on her forearms, Shaw easily climbed to the ground floor and discovered the garage in which they had parked their delivery van. Blows on the doors showed that they were locked.
"Help me!" called Root while supporting Harold who was struggling to stand up.
The ex-assassin turned and seized the computer scientist under the armpits to help him climb. Then she dragged him next to the van and opened the back doors. "Climb," she ordered the recluse before heading back to the elevator to help Root to transport Reese.
That operation proved to be much more difficult. For two women of their size, lifting an unconscious man of John's stature was extremely complicated. While one pulled him by the arms, the other pushed him on the back. In the end, they painfully hoisted him up and then dragged him to the van. Once the two men were safely in the back of the van, they climbed into the cabin. Shaw moved to the wheel, Root at her side.
The Samaritan agents were always hammering furiously at the gates. Soon, the sounds of fists were replaced by gunshots. They were trying to blow up the locks to get into the garage.
Shaw started the van and grabbed the steering wheel firmly. She inhaled deeply before asking, "Ready?"
"More than ever," replied the hacker by nodding her chin at the two automatic pistols that she had just armed.
"Then let's get out of here."
She pressed the accelerator pedal to the floor, causing the tires to squeal. The van plunged forward in a cloud of smoke and bashed into the door. Surprised, the Samaritan agents threw themselves to the side to avoid being crushed. The vehicle retraced the winding path out of the base under heavy fire from the men stationed on the lookouts.
The windshield quickly flew apart and the impact of bullets ricocheted around the two women, who lowered their heads to protect themselves. Prostrate at the back of the van, Finch held Reese between his arms to cushion the shocks of a too-abrupt drive and to protect him from a stray bullet.
"Do something," he whispered in a barely audible voice, squeezing the agent a little more tightly against him.
The Machine once again acceded to her father's plea by causing an electrical overload throughout the base. All electrical panels and electricity-powered devices like computers failed at the same time, making the Samaritan agents partially deaf and blind.
The van left the clearing and sank into the forest. Arriving at the control booth, Shaw didn't slow down and barrelled through the security gates while under fire from the post's officers. She brutally turned onto the small provincial road and sped eastward towards New York. But another problem was bothering her. "They'll follow us," affirmed the brunette, driving far beyond the speed limit to put the most distance between them and potential pursuers.
"That's certain," declared Root, throwing anxious glances in the rear-view mirrors.
"We must remove the chip from Reese."
"No."
The two women launched a frightened look at Finch who had just intruded into their conversation.
"Samaritan will use it to spot us!" Shaw exclaimed, her hands clenched on the steering wheel. This situation reminded her of several weeks ago, when she had escaped from Samaritan's clutches and had sought to escape its agents.
More calmly, Root turned to her friend and asked, "Why should he keep it?"
With Reese's head laid on his knees, Finch continued to gently caress the man's hair, his fingers slipping through the salt-and-pepper wicks, but carefully avoiding the dressing behind his ear. His eyes lowered, he contemplated the other man with love and sadness before whispering, "She will need it."