Apologies for the long wait!
"You're certain, Ella?" asked Dana the following day. Ella had waited for a period of free time when no-one would be working, in order to organise a meeting. Such a period would always occur after lunch, and no-one had ever seen Rachel not busy. The Viral had taken full advantage of that fact.
"I know what I heard, Mayor Cardinal," she replied. "You have to believe me. Rachel is... she's the Peter Pettigrew of the Resistance!"
"Wow," Hi quipped. "Sounds Sirius."
Ella kicked him. "Not the time."
"I should have known there was something not quite right about her," Dana sighed. "If Rachel's working for Strex, we'll have to be careful. Combat?" Everyone from Combat stood at attention, something drilled into them by Rachel. "Follow Science. If you've been conditioned in any way we need to fix it now. Intelligence, keep an eye out. The most important thing is to act just as you normally would."
For once, everyone was silent.
It was vitally important not to tip Rachel off.
Diego smiled - not smiled, but there is no word in any language for what he did instead - as he listened to the recorded call from that night.
The last Night Valeans thought they were so strong. So good.
They weren't.
The mole had earned their trust, begun to control their strongest members. In the heat of battle, they would turn on their comrades. The plans fed to the others would be weak and flimsy.
The rebellion would be crushed, just like it had been before.
There would be no more Night Vale.
Only Strex.
Only the Smiling God.
The call to arms came a week later.
Rachel had 'heard' (more like 'arranged') that the StrexCorp defences were weakening. It was the perfect chance to strike.
Each rebel was given a job in a complicated plan, and everyone had to play their part to ensure the success of the attack.
Listeners, I will tell you this right now: Rachel's plans weren't the ones that would be carried out that day.
The rebel forces had their own ideas. And with Combat free of her control, her grip on the Resistance was crumbling.
She just didn't know it.
As Han tried to follow one of the three main bodies moving through the catacombs towards Desert Bluffs, she was stopped.
"No, Haneet."
"But-"
The former Mayor cut her off. "You have to stay here. Someone has to man the radio station. Bianca! Finn!" Two of Tamika's book-clubbers came running out of the tunnels. "Stay with Haneet."
"I have to go! I have to fight!"
"No," Dana said again. "We can't lose you."
"Sure you can! I don't matter! Not as much as Night Vale!"
For a moment, no-one says anything. Then: "You weren't supposed to find out this way."
"Find out what?"
Dana forced the girl to look her in the eye. "Haneet," she said, "without you, there is no Night Vale."
The area around StrexCorp Headquarters was in chaos.
Something exploded only feet from where Tory and a young man from Tamika's militia stood. Hi, Ella, Shelton and Cooper were nowhere to be seen.
On the other side of the battlefield, a few others were attempting to break into the building only to be beaten back by something too hideous for words.
There were casualties from both sides, mostly Night Valeans.
Mostly young Night Valeans.
War, Ben thought as he watched his girlfriend begin to panic, weaker than he'd ever seen her before, is hell.
"I don't understand."
"You were born here, Haneet. Your parents were born here. You describe yourself as the esophageal speech of our city, but you're wrong. The prophecy was always about you."
"You mean-"
"Haneet, you are the next Voice of Night Vale."
"I'm the next Voice?"
"That's why you have to stay here. If Cecil dies you can take his place, but your life cannot be risked. The city needs you alive." Dana turned to Finn and Bianca. "Stay with Haneet. Help her. Protect her. Do not let her leave."
Barely half an hour into her duties, Haneet was sick of them.
"Once again, Night Vale, if any of you still care enough to fight for your home, then I need you to - screw it." Han stood up and motioned for Bianca and Finn to stay out on the other side of the glass. "How am I supposed to encourage you to fight if I'm stuck in here? It's not right. It's not fair. It's hypocrisy. I can't just sit here whilst people die. I leave you now with the weather, and if I never come back, then goodbye, Night Vale. Goodbye."
She left the room and, along with her two companions (who seemed pretty glad to be getting in on the action) began to make her way underground.
She wasn't going down without a fight.
The Night Valean forces had increased (Old Woman Josie had brought her not-angels, and a substantial number of Scouts, whose first loyalty was always to Night Vale, had thrown themselves into the fighting), and Diego looked down on the fighting from his office with disdain.
This couldn't be happening! The plan was falling apart!
Still, he reasoned, it was early days. They were still a disorganised rabble, with none of the efficiency of a StrexCorp citizen, and they were no match for a properly-programmed StrexPet.
StrexCorp would be victorious.
Just as he was thinking this, the ground shook.
The rebels had blown a hole in the side of the building.
He pressed a button and gave the order for more workers to surround the breach.
The Resistance couldn't be allowed to get in.
"Bianca, you genius!" Han exclaimed, looking at the younger girl with a new respect.
Finn disagreed. "Releasing Station Management? Are you crazy?"
"It's risky, I know, but I have to try. It was created to defend the station. StrexCorp puts it at risk, and I know for a fact they moved it down here. I heard the screams when they first took over. Management will find them."
"You could kill Night Valeans!"
"Not 'kill', Finn. Corporeally absorb, maybe, but not kill!"
"That's not better!"
"It's worth a shot. You two go on ahead. I'll give you a minute's head start."
From their hiding place, Ella saw a figure emerging from the floor inside the building. She turned to Hi with an expression of joy and shock. "Han's in there!"
"What?"
"She got inside! I saw her!"
Hi stood up, eyes glowing. "I'm going after her. Stay here."
"No way." Ella pulled herself upright and folded her arms. "I'm going with you. More people is good."
"You might not come back out."
"I don't care!" She shot back. "I love you, and if you're going to risk your life then how the hell am I supposed to sit back and watch?"
They both realised what she's just said at the same time.
"You...you love me?"
"Of course. Why do you think I put up with your jokes?"
"Because I'm hilarious?"
"You and me, we're like... we're kinda like Remus and Sirius. We probably shouldn't work, but we do. We work. And if you're going in, so am I." She began making her way towards the breach in the walls, armed and ready.
Hi stood for a moment, then ran after her. "Sirius died and Remus married Tonks; I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here!"
Haneet didn't know how she'd expected this to end, but it wasn't with her being ambushed by Strex workers and knocked out five minutes into her entry.
It certainly wasn't waking up in a glass case suspended Glow-Cloud-knows-where in the facility.
And she certainly didn't expect to see anyone else as she scrambled to her feet.
"You didn't kill your double, Haneet."
Han stared in shock as the young brunette stepped towards her, the glass case swaying disconcertingly beneath her feet.
"Who are you?"
"Haneet." This other Haneet was Han's mirror image in every way - the same hair, same build, same mannerisms - bar one. Their eyes were different colours; Not-Haneet still had brown irises that didn't glow.
"You're my double?"
"Um, yeah." Not-Haneet rolled her eyes in the same way Han often did. "Your double, and your perfect self." She pulled her gun from the holster strapped to her leg and aimed it at Haneet.
"Wait!" Not-Haneet refrained from pulling the trigger, but didn't drop her weapon. "If you shoot me, the bullet might break the glass. Then we'll both die."
"I guess so," Not-Haneet agreed, replacing the pistol before adding coldly, "but now it'll be harder to kill you."
"Why do you want to kill me anyway? I mean, I know Cecil told us to kill our doubles during that sandstorm, but that was ages ago!"
"In Desert Bluffs they were urged to team up to get more work done."
"So why don't we work together to get down from here?" Haneet asked hopefully.
"Because you are my imperfect self," her doppelganger replied, "and StrexCorp tells us to kill our imperfect selves."
"How do you know you're not my imperfect self?"
"Because you're flawed." Not-Haneet spat the words out as though they left a bad taste in her mouth.
"How so?" Han challenged.
"You bite your nails; you get angry so very easily; you're a freak of nature, you're so unfriendly sometimes-"
"That's just human nature. You're not so great yourself."
"How so?"
"You're easily-duped, apparently."
"I'm just obedient. You lie and you steal and you carry a gun to hurt people who only want the best for you, and-."
"Hey, at least I have a life." Han retorted. "And you're not perfect. You can't be."
"Why not?"
"You're annoying. That's a flaw. You're conceited. That's one too."
"I am not!" Not-Haneet stamped her foot childishly.
"And here's the kicker," Han paused for effect, "you're my double, right?"
"Yeah..."
"That means we're the same. If I'm imperfect then so are you."
The full Resistance had migrated together, a single entity facing the equally unbreakable Strex ranks.
Tory gripped onto Ben's hand, reaching out with her other for Ella. The other girl took it and grabbed Hi, who reached for Shelton. Shelton reached for Han, before remembering she was gone.
The true Virals would go down together.
...Listeners, I have a confession. Until this point, you've assumed I was present for everything. I was not. Solo moments, the Virals in hotel rooms, moments from inside Diego's inner sanctum? I had to piece them together from witness testimonies and surveillance tapes for a comprehensive account. I wasn't the powerful creature I am today. I was weak. Human. All I had was a brilliant memory and a knowledge of how people think.
So I cannot tell you how Ben was really feeling as they all waited for something to give.
I cannot tell you how Ella felt when Hi squeezed her hand, mouthing live like Wolfstar, die like Remadora? or how he felt when she nodded in response.
I can't tell you whether Tory and Tamika both feared for their respective forces, coalesced into a single group.
I have no insight as to how it felt when Carlos made eye contact with Cecil for what could have been the last time.
I can't tell you whether Dana looked around her and felt that, if she could have done something differently, it may not have come to this.
I can't tell you the innermost thoughts and feelings of Steve or Marina or Old Woman Josie or Maureen or Damien or the Erikas, or anyone else.
I can't tell you whether any StrexCorpers felt regret for their non-choices, choices they'd never consciously made.
And I can't tell you how it felt for Finn when the shapeless mass materialised behind the Night Valean forces, on their side for once, and they realised Bianca was not with it.
I wish I could, but so many of them are gone now, and I cannot ask.
But I can tell you that the Night Valean battle cry was heard for miles around when they finally attacked, trying to break inside.
Not-Haneet's eyes, which had previously been fixed hungrily on her double's throat, widened in shock. "Well…then…I guess I'll just have to kill you to make myself perfect."
Damn, thought the real Han. They were evenly matched. She couldn't fight her way out, and she clearly couldn't reason her way out, and she hadn't a clue how she was supposed to get out. She'd have to think her way out, and fast.
It reminded her of a game she'd used to play with her older brother.
He'd give her a riddle, and she'd try to figure out the answer. One day he'd asked her the one about the man in the room with no windows or doors, and how he'd gotten there. She'd guessed immediately it had been built around him.
He told her all the room contained was a table and a mirror, then asked how he could get out, and this had gotten the better of her. On hearing the answer she'd punched him in the arm in annoyance and thought no more about it, but on moving to Night Vale it had come to her mind again.
Because in Night Vale, such a thing might actually be possible.
The Night Valean resistance had split into groups again, each with one objective.
There was one last set of Old Oak Doors in the area, perhaps the world, and it was in Diego's quarters.
Find the doors.
Destroy them.
Shut out the Smiling God forever.
If possible, kill Diego.
But there was another group.
The Virals wanted to find Haneet.
'He looks in the mirror and sees what he saw. He picks up the saw and cuts the table in half. Two halves make a whole. He climbs out through the hole.' she muttered to herself.
'What?'
She ignored her doppelganger. So what's the answer now? Her double moved closer, and the glass box swayed again. The floor was a long way down; if the glass gave out she had no chance. Pity I'm not Koshekh, she thought, cats aren't like humans. The further they have to fall-wait!
She forced herself to meet her clone's eyes.
"Haven't we learnt anything from the condos debacle?" she asked sweetly, pointing her gun at the fragile floor. "Perfection is overrated."
Not-Haneet ran on pure logic, like Han herself had yearned to do once upon a time, but the new Haneet understood.
Night Valean logic was the only logic there was.
Her only chance to escape was to break her own rule.
She fired.
The glass beneath them cracked.
The further a cat has to fall, the more likely it is to survive.
Somewhere on the top floor, Diego pressed yet another button.
"Rachel."
"Yes, sir?"
"Code white."
"Right away, sir."
"And report to my office as soon as it is done."
"Of course, sir."
Haneet stood upright, brushing glass fragments from her clothes and ignoring the trickles of faintly-glowing blood welling up in her palms. She'd survived.
Her double wasn't so lucky.
That could be me there. She shuddered.
"Han!"
"Guys?"
Hi pulled her into a bone-crushing, boa-constrictor hug.
When she broke free, her eyes met Shelton's. He smiled faintly, and she smiled back. Her eyes turned pink.
But there wasn't time to figure out what that meant.
They had a battle to fight.
Rachel was alone in the office when the attack came.
One woman, no matter how bloodthirsty and efficient, was no match for a dozen rabid Night Valeans with a grudge, guns, a battleaxe, and several heavy books.
The doors behind her pulsed with a great and terrible power.
She shouldn't go through them.
She shouldn't.
She was about to die.
She went through.
The Smiling God had had its sacrifice, claimed another soul.
And the Old Oak Doors sealed themselves.
For a moment there was no reaction. Well, that was an anticlimax, thought Tamika as she stared at the place her enemy had stood.
Then two of the Scouts and a Book Club member ran from the room to spread the word. Others followed.
(Roger Harlan tried to give Tamika a celebratory kiss and she punched him in the stomach, because there wasn't much of a glorious victory to celebrate and she'd never liked the kid much.)
Finn sank to the ground, unnoticed, and put their head in their hands.
Bianca should have been there to share this.
But she wasn't.
No-one noticed until much, much later, when Station Management had been rounded up and the StrexCorp building had been blown to kingdom come, that one of the great yellow helicopters with the murals on the sides depicting birds of prey was missing.
So too were Diego and Kevin.
