Chapter 13

"Who is this guy?" McCormack asked.

Ian flicked his cigarette to the side, letting the brisk sea wind carry it away. Both men were standing on the metal decking of the installation, waiting for the heavy blast doors to open up. They were two of a full platoon of marines, all of whom were from First Squadron with the exception of Jim. The ghost was there, too, standing off to the side with his C10.

"A wacky old man," Ian replied. "More annoying then you, Awshucks."

"That's something," McCormack muttered.

The doors groaned apart, revealing a white-washed and well-lit interior corridor. Jim was the first one in, pushing Montgomery aside as the rest of the marines flowed through to secure the facility. McCormack joined Jim as the heavy boot falls of the marines echoed away down the hall.

"Here," Jim said, thrusting Jenkins the larva into the doctor's hands. "He's yours."

Montgomery accepted the creature with both hands, letting it scurry up onto his back to peek out from behind his head. "Hello there, Jenkins!" he said. "Have you been a good psionically neutered fetal-stage organism?"

The larva purred in what McCormack assumed was a positive answer, and the doctor gave it a scratch on the head.

"Okay, Doc, grab everything your staff can carry and get ready for immediate evac," Jim said.

"We're leaving?"

Jim stared at him. "Well, staying here's a little off the deep end, don't you think?"

"I can't move the equipment by myself!" the doctor exclaimed.

"No shit?" Jim drawled. "That's why I mentioned your staff."

"What staff? President Jax won't let me have a staff!"

For a split second, Jim's face turned into something nearing weariness, giving McCormack a crystal clear view past his tough-as-nails façade to someone who was thoroughly worn to the bone. Then it snapped right back into place and he was barking orders.

"Fine. McCormack, Ian: you're on moving duty. Help the Doc here grab anything he can carry."

Ian snorted as he started into the installation. "Yeah, thanks a lot. This is exactly what I signed up for; to be an over-armed moving man."

"You never did sign up, you pussy-ass civvy," Jim growled.

McCormack started into the facility without comment, thanking God that the Major's words had shut Ian up. It was only a temporary respite, but at this point, McCormack was willing to take whatever he could get.

"Thank you, Major!" Montgomery chirped. "I can't tell you how much this means to me!"

"Whatever, Doc. Just get your shit squared—"

General Clegg appeared at the entrance and shouted Jim's name, bringing the younger commander over to him in a run. McCormack watched him go and caught a glimpse of Clegg pointing off to the east. Jim's eyes went wide, and then the heavy doors clanged shut.

(' ')

Bill opened his eyes, and in response the web of semi-transparent flesh above him peeled back. What lay beyond was a ceiling covered in ribs of dripping purple creep, flowing with the structural supports of a Terran-designed vessel. Sitting up in his chrysalis, he got a look around the room. Glass and steel pods lined the walls, their shattered hatches spread across the lumpy deck in glittering piles. Larva moved about them, feeding on specialized mounds of creep, but paid him little mind.

"Where am I?" Bill wondered aloud, not expecting an answer.

He got one.

"You're aboard the Lonely Shepard, flagship of the Black Brood."

Bill smiled as he turned around. Asuka leaned against a slimy bulkhead, her black robe concealing every part of her body except her head. Her red hair spilled down across her shoulders, and Bill noticed the ever-present green glow in her eyes had gotten stronger since he'd last seen her.

"I take it you're not really standing here," he guessed.

"Astute as always," Asuka said. The representation of her pushed off the bulkhead and stepped to the edge of Bill's open cocoon. "How's it feel being Zerg?"

"What're you…"

Bill looked down at where his leg had been shot. His skin was discolored; hardened into brackish scales that ran up and down his leg. The wound was sealed in a patch of thick scabs, and as he quickly realized, the rest of his body had changed to match. With his mind focused on it, he could feel the contamination spreading through his organs, like a thousand tentacles slithering beneath his skin.

Bill normally considered himself a pretty calm person. Now, he freaked out.

No words could express what he was feeling, so he screamed in absolute terror, falling back into the chrysalis and closing his eyes, unwilling to believe what he was feeling. Everything he had done during the rebellion flashed to the forefront of his mind: Korhal, Clegg, the Mar Sara raid, the Terrazine research, the nuking of Moria, the formation of the Republic; all of it just to reach this New Order only to find out that all of it just amounted to everyone being infested.

Asuka watched him, arms folded, as he wailed. She watched until he downgraded to whimpering, then spoke. "Bill, do you honestly think this is my New Order?"

Bill didn't respond.

"It isn't." Asuka stared down at him. "The Zerg play only a small part in the grand scheme of things. The New Order is a perfect union, the final resting place for humanity. It is ascension to perfection. The Zerg are not part of that perfection. The Zerg are a weapon; a tool to be used in its forging."

Bill didn't look at her. "So I'm just a tool, now?"

"What do you think?" she asked. "The Kel-Morians were an obstacle, and I needed someone to bring them down in a very public way. In exchange, you wanted revenge for your brother's death. I provided the target, and what did you do? You used him to bring down the Combine, and then let him go negotiate with the Protoss.

"Due to that, Jim now knows valuable information about my plans, the Protoss aren't destroyed completely, and this damn planet hasn't been consumed yet. Oh, and in all of this mess, you still haven't gotten around to killing Jim. So in answer to your question, no, you aren't a tool now. You always have been a tool to me, and a very rusty one at that."

"Well, why don't you just kill me?" Bill asked, standing up to look at her. He felt empowered by the realization he'd just had: if she hadn't killed him, then he still had a use and all this threatening was just a bluff. "Why even go to the trouble of having me infested?"

Asuka finally cracked a smile. "Because," she said, "I needed a test subject."

Bill was about to ask what that meant when a sharp pain shot up his side. Bones shattered, contorted and shifted in his body, and new features broke free of his skin. Two additional limbs bubbled into existence out of rapidly expanding Zerg tissue, sprouting from beneath his original pair. His original arms increased in size, as did the rest of his body, rippling with muscle beneath hardened carapace.

He felt his jaw distend, breaking itself and tearing back into his head as it grew threefold, sprouting fangs from his gums. His spine broke in several places, each one with a loud crack, and reformed in a hunch lined with bone spikes.

Bill felt all these terrible mutations as they occurred, and was about to try and use them to kill Asuka when the final touch was added. Before he even really knew what was happening, Bill Jax's bright, meticulous mind was consumed by the raging hive consciousness of the Swarm.

Asuka watched with disinterest as the salivating creature that was once a man let out a pained shriek of rebirth. She gave it a once over, and, satisfied by her new creation, conveyed the information to the Brood's genetic pool to be put into use immediately. She then withdrew from the mind of the creature, vanishing out of its sight.

Now alone, it started toward the nearest spore organ to get a ride planet-side, any thoughts about its existence completely forgotten. At some level, somewhere deep in its demolished brain, a fragment of Bill Jax that was left over let out a pained cry before it was completely destroyed.

(' ')

The Lonely Shepard lowered itself into the atmosphere, massive engines and gravitational organs working in unison to keep it from plummeting to the ground. As it lowered, the massive colonization ship gave off waves of clouds of noxious organic smog, clogging the air around it and soaking into the city below.

The micro-organisms within the smog crawled into the lungs of the humans left on the surface, injecting them with a Terrazine-Zerg hybrid virus that mutated their bodies according to the genetic specifications outlined by the mutation of Bill Jax only minutes before. Across the city, cultists and citizens alike screamed as their minds were consumed by the Swarm, their overriding drive shifting from that of civilized humans to the barely contained animalistic rage at the heart of every zerg creature.

Marines left in the city railed against the emergent swarms, but outnumbered so significantly could do little to stem the tide, and were completely wiped out in less than an hour.

As the smog spread, Antiga Prime began its slow descent into death.

(' ')

Nanius awoke, instantly aware of his location and bodily status. His broken rib plate was healing, the cuts along his body had been sealed and his bleeding had stopped. His basic brain functions were acceptable, and in order to test the higher functions of his mind he quickly ran through a reciting of a passage from the Warrior's Rites and analyzed its significance within the overall volume. He found that he still recognized the irony inherent in the prose and considered himself in acceptable condition.

He glanced around the medical bay and sat up, finding Ayanami seated across the room.

The medic turned and smiled at him. "Well, look who's up. How do you feel?"

"Bad," he replied honestly. "I can fight, but it will take some time before the pain of these injuries ceases." Nanius forced himself to his feet, ducking to avoid a hanging monitor, and started to pull on his armor. "Where is Jim?"

Ayanami set down her clipboard. "He's outside. We've docked with a facility out in the ocean. Looks like Clegg's prepping something big."

Nanius attached one of his shoulder pads. "A counterstrike to push the Zerg from this world. Are there nuclear weapons involved?"

"Well, it is Clegg," Ayanami replied.

Nanius donned his gauntlets and headed for the door. "In all honesty, I think I want to kill something." He stopped when he reached the hatch and looked back at her. "It is good to have you back, Rei Ayanami. Thank you for healing me."

The medic shrugged. "Hey, what are friends for?"

"Indeed."

(' ')

Nanius marched off the elevator and ran into a small lab-coated man heading up the invasion ramp. Reacting with the quickness inherent in his species, Nanius grabbed the man's arm and flipped him into a bulkhead, plunging his psi lance into the steel next to the man's head.

"I am Lieutenant Nanius of the Dogs of War. You will identify yourself and your purpose on this vessel."

If the man was phased by the rage that tinged Nanius's words or the heat of the death beam next to him, he didn't show it. "My God, a real Protoss! In the flesh!" The man touched Nanius's face and rubbed the scales. "Of course, I had the honor of dissecting several that had crash landed in the fringe back in '76, but never a live one. This is most fascinating!"

Annoyed, Nanius pulled his lance from the bulkhead and turned to meet the rest of the arrivals. Ian was in the lead, followed by McCormack, both carrying crates of lab equipment. The ghost, Sam, was walking drag with a tall human in a hospital robe.

"Ian, what is going on?" Nanius demanded.

"The old man you nearly killed is Doc Montgomery, some egghead Jim's into." Ian nodded back to the tall man. "And that is Subject Alpha, one of the Doc's experiments. Jim wants both of them set up in the cargo bay."

Nanius reached out with his mind and probed Subject Alpha, realizing very fast that there wasn't much there beyond basic thought functions. It disturbed him.

"Very well, but watch yourself around that subject. It's mind is fragmented, like that of an animal."

Ian snorted. "Yeah, I don't need to be a telepath to figure that one out."

In that moment, Nanius's consciousness touched Ian's, and he knew what the man was going to do: download the what was contained within the wetware storage device into Subject Alpha's blank brain.

"Do you really think doing that is wise?"

Ian stared at him for a moment, confused, before realization dawned. "You read my mind!"

"Yes."

"Asshole!"

"My question still stands."

The Techie sighed. "And my answer is yes, I think it is. We need what's in that WSD, and we aren't going to get it by staring at the thing. This could be our only chance, so I'm taking the initiative."

Nanius knew Ian's intent was pure; he could sense it. Finally, he nodded. "As a ranking officer in this unit, I formerly sanction your actions."

"Whatever, Nanius," Ian said. "By the way, you might want to go find Jim. I heard he's in a bit of a pickle over by the landing pads."

(' ')

The world was raining when Jim finally found Nick again. The Reaper was standing next to a landed shuttle, having a stand off with some First Squadron marines. Jim excused the soldiers as he strode up, convincing them to busy themselves elsewhere with little trouble.

"But sir, he's armed!" protested the group's sergeant.

"And so are you," Jim replied. "Difference is you're aiming at him. He ain't doing likewise."

That did it, and the sergeant left to join his men. With that settled, Jim turned to look at Nick. The reaper armor, normally red, was painted solid black. With the new paint scheme, the crimson eye lenses contrasted and burned with seemingly brighter intensity.

"Nice colors. Now where the hell you been? You get your head straight yet?"

Nick held out an envelope.

"What?" Jim asked. Nick didn't reply. He didn't even move. "Okay, give me that."

Jim opened the letter and, using his hand as an umbrella and his shoulder lamp for light, he began to read:

It's January 30, 2510, 0200 hours. I'm writing in an underground complex in the slums. I had to kill seven UKR marines and a lab assistant to get in here. That last one screamed a lot. Some of this might not make sense. My mind is slipping away from me, so I'll keep this short.

I heard about this ressoc facility I'm sitting in from a dockhand two weeks ago, but that's not when I decided to do this. The idea's been swimming around in my head for some time now, ever since my inhibitors shorted out.

I've read up a lot on brain pans in the past day or so. I learned there are degrees for different patients based on how susceptible they will be to the procedure. Some of them are so bad that erasing the imprint of what they did is impossible, so new memories for those people only dumb down the old ones. That's why I told you I killed other serial killers. They figured that was the better than the truth. I guess they were right.

I remember who I was, and sometimes, I can even make out the fake parts now. I killed so many people. I killed my friends, random people. I always wondered about my parents but I killed them too before they got me. Part of me thinks that's wrong, but the old me fucking loves it. Every minute I can feel me trying to take over but the inhibitors are holding for now. They won't last for long. The best thing I can do is end it all and leave forever.

This looks like a suicide note and in a way I suppose it is. I'm committing the most effective suicide in the history of suicides. I know you're going to go after Asuka, and that you'll need my help. That's the only reason I'm not just shooting myself in the head. This way you get to keep my skills and I get to end this fucking war that's going on in my brain.

Besides, this is the only way to keep everyone safe. If I don't do this the wrong me will take over and then I'll end up coming back to you guys and fight you until either everyone else is dead or I am. Robinson is proof of that.

I want to say you were a good friend but I don't think that would be the truth. The truth is that there was no friendship, because I wasn't real. I was just a jumble of memories repressing the real me. And trust me when I say you wouldn't be buddy-buddy with that monster.

What you see standing in front of you isn't named Nick McCabe. He has none of my memories and almost no feelings. If everything works right then he never will. He is what Nanius would call 'the true embodiment of my being'. All he knows is how to kill, so he won't bitch like Ian. He'll take orders only from you. I'm trusting you with him, Jim. You're the best commander I've ever met and if I want anyone in control of what's left of me, I want it to be you.

I realized that the only thing about me that was really true was my ability to kill. In memory of that, the man in front of you is named after that one true aspect of my personality: Reaper. That's all I was, and now that's all I ever will be.

I don't know if what I remember from our time together was being experienced by the real or fake me, but whoever it was thought it was fun. My life and our friendship may have just been a collection of bullshit, but it was great. You were the closest thing I had to a friend for a long time, and I thank you for that.

I'm done with this note now. In a few minutes I'll be gone. I feel calm.

Jim stood in silence for a long moment, staring at the man in front of him. Finally, he spoke. "Take off your helmet."

Nick obeyed, popping the seals of his mask and letting it hang on his oxygen cables, laying bare the dead eyes and blank face of a man totally gone. There was nothing left of the man Jim had known.

He sighed. "You know, I could stand here and deny it, or yell at you, or punch you in the face, but none of that would do a damn thing. You won, Nick. You're an idiot and a coward for doing this, but you won. You're dead."

The man wearing Nick's face stared at him.

"God damn, but you were a stubborn ass." Jim shook his head. "So, Reaper, is it?"

Nothing; not a hint of recognition or a response.

Jim frowned. "This is going to be great…"

"Major Goss?" crackled the command commlink. "This is Clegg. Respond, please."

"This is Jim," he replied. "General, I'm kind of in the middle of the weirdest bunch of bullshit I've ever had to deal with, so if you don't mind—"

"No time, Major. We've got a shitload of org-smog hitting the city and moving this way. Get in your ship and batten down the hatches, son, we're gonna have to launch this attack pronto, while we've got the smoke cover."

"Understood, General. The Shogoki will be airborne in five." Jim hung up and looked back at Reaper. "Get your mask on. We're moving out."

Author's Note: Finally getting back to work on this after however many weeks, and should have it finished before Christmas. The main urge behind finishing it so soon is the guilt of having so many unfinished projects. I've been focusing a lot on The Confederate, the story that will be the lasting legacy of the Brain series and what I suppose is the closest thing that a mediocre fan-fiction writer like myself can consider a magnum opus.

I do love these characters, though, and that is the true reason behind even finishing the story. These original Dogs of War (not their 40k equivalents) are a good group of anti-heroes, even if Jim may be a tad sadistic.

The rest of the story will come in a few more chapters before a final epilogue, and then, like Nick's note said, it'll be gone. This is the end, people, and I have high hopes that it'll be good.

Oh, and if you're still reading this after three years, then drop a review. I'm all kinds of curious.