It had been just over a month since Jake Nez had been buried. The ceremony had been beautiful – he had always wanted a spiritual and not a religious ceremony. He wanted his loved ones to get closure, no lectures on how some spirit in the sky had a plan for them all. Due to his job, he had known chances were he'd die as a result of some senseless act of violence and he just wasn't ok with such a thing being attributed to some grand plan. That was cruel.

His whole family was there – parents, six sisters and two brothers. Rachel had never met them before. She didn't go introduce herself. She couldn't see any point in it. As soon as the body had been buried, she got into her car and drove back to N-Tek. She had resigned from her position in her funeral clothes. Jean Mairot offered her bereavement leave, a few months off to think about it, but she had calmly assured him such a thing wouldn't be necessary. He had been unable to do anything but watch sadly as the best agent he had ever known walked out the door for the last time.

Thirty-one days had gone by so fast. It was that day – the day that marked the one-month anniversary of Jake Nez's burial, that the walls of John Dread's office were suddenly shaken by a massive explosion. As the paintings fell off the walls around him, he hit the button that simultaneously locked down his office and paged security. "Report."

"…Sir, we have an intruder."

As he spun in his chair to look at the security monitor behind his desk, he saw a woman striding resolutely through the rubble. His brow furrowed as he struggled to figure out the identity of the person. "Why…I do believe that's Ms. Rachel Leeds," he commented, only half speaking to his head of security listening on the other end of the line.

"I'd heard she quit N-Tek…We've been discussing sending someone to go pay her a visit."

Dread reclined in his chair and considered the ceiling. "Oh, I'll take a chance and say she's not interested."

Rachel Leeds hardly waited for the explosion to finish before she began walking towards the crumbling wall. It'd been forty days since she'd lost him. A man she never even appreciated until he was gone. She was strong, independent – she's lived for so long without him, surely she would be able to carry on after he had gone. But as time passed, her hope of a life after had died. Without him, she could no longer see any joy in her life, any beauty in the world around her. She couldn't remember what it felt like to smile, to sleep without waking up screaming. She didn't have the option to take her pain out on the ones responsible – they had all died in the attack. It didn't matter. She still hurt, he was still gone, and someone needed to pay. She had decided that someone was John Dread.

She pulled out her gun as she heard boots running down the hall towards her location. Way too many of them. She stood calmly, weapon in hand, waiting. What did she care? She'd come here to die.

John Dread had been watching her progress, impressed, for a while. Sighing, he glanced towards his chief of security, who was now in his office with him. "It's a pity she'll never be on our side."

The other man was not so relaxed. "Sir, she's already taken out twenty of our lower management."

Dread waved his hand dismissively. "Doing me a favor really, I was going to have to make cutbacks sooner or later anyway."

The man's face grew red. "Those were all human beings! Some of them had families!"

"Yes," Dread commented, now eyeing the man coldly, "as do you."

His head of security swallowed hard and the color quickly drained from his face. "I'm sorry sir that was out of line."

Dread's mouth formed itself into a smile, although it didn't quite reach his eyes. "The situation is a bit tense. I'll excuse you this one outburst."

He nodded. "Thank you sir."

The battle was invigorating. She had never been allowed to use deadly force so freely before – she felt like a god. She had lead her whole life restrained, controlled. Finally, at the end of her days she could act without boundaries. She honestly didn't know how many she had taken out – she wasn't counting. There was no score, nothing to serve as a comparison once she was done. All she knew was that after a while, they just stopped coming.

She waited, panting, even taking the time to reload both her guns, but no one else came. Waiting? Intimidated? She didn't know, she didn't really care. She knew her mission and she was going to complete it. Even though Rachel Leeds lacked an employer, she still had a job to do. Take down Dread. There had been so many times they had talked about it – argued over it. Why couldn't they just invade and lock them all away? Security threats, red tape, the same bureaucratic shit that kept any great organization anywhere from accomplishing their goal. Today she would do what she had always dreamed of as a law-abiding N-Tek agent. She was going to get rid of John Dread once and for all. Call it her retirement gift to herself.

Deciding that no one else was coming, she turned to the camera monitor on the wall she knew had been watching her exploits until then. Maybe if she was lucky enough Dread himself was even watching. She hoped he was enjoying the show.

Raising one of her guns, she fired a single shot and destroyed the device. While she always enjoyed having someone watch her excel, there was no reason to make it easier for them to find her. She didn't want to get caught before she had achieved her endgame.

She had no problem finding the cryogenic lab – just because N-Tek had never had the justification to storm the place didn't mean they hadn't been ready to do it for years. They all knew the layout of the place.

She wasn't surprised to find herself under fire as soon as she opened the door to the lab. Whether Dread's minions had come here to hide or to protect what they saw as a strategic point was beyond her. It didn't matter now; her job was almost done. She peeked around the doorframe, drawing a spray of gunfire, but was able to judge the general location of her adversaries.

There were roughly fifteen of them – too many for her to try and take out all of them. If she had all the time and ammo she wanted sure, but she had an abundance of neither. If she calculated and thought everything through she knew she could find a way to accomplish her mission and still get out alive, but the time for planning was over. She was done.

Closing her eyes for a few seconds, she summoned up an image of her fiancé, smiling and confident as he had always been.

"I'll see you soon, Jake."

With a deep breath, she launched her remaining grenade through the doorway towards the corner of the room where the remainder of John Dread's employees had gathered, blocking the exit. They thought that's why she had come here? To escape? She had to laugh. So they really had no idea.

She heard the grenade land, heard them shout an alarm, scatter. She waited for the explosion and then bolted through the doorway towards her target. Dread's soldiers were occupied with checking for injuries and trying to extricate themselves from the rubble. No one interrupted her as she went to stand in front of the enormous upright cylinder that held the infinity ice Dread must have been stock piling. No one stopped her as she pressed the muzzle of her gun to the glass that she knew had to have been made brittle by the substance it housed. No one stopped her as she pulled the trigger.

The security man swore as the camera cut out, leaving the two men completely in the dark as to where the rogue agent was. "Where is she?" The man leaned forward, scanning the view.

Dread's response was interrupted by another tremor running through his office.

"What's she blown up now?" the other yelled, frantically cycling through the security feeds, hoping to get some idea of what their attacker was planning.

Concentrating on trying to get the most information as he possibly could from what was going on around him, Dread was suddenly aware that the air being circulated through the ventilation system was slightly cooler than it had been a few minutes ago. "Ah."

"Ah what? What ah?"

The man's leader calmly got up from his chair, poured two glasses of scotch and handed one to the other occupant of the room. "You should have this."

The man blinked at the scotch in his hand. "Why?"

"Because the last thing you drink should be ridiculously expensive."

"Last thing I-" the man shook himself briskly, "whatever she's done we can handle it. Nothing is getting through that door."

Dread took a sip and chuckled darkly. "Not through? Well how about under? Or over? Or even around?"

"What are you talking about sir?"

Tilting the glass back once more, he savored the taste before responding. "You might want to check on the cryogenics lab."

"No…" the man shook his head in slow disbelief as he switched the camera's view to the lab in question, refusing to accept what was going on even as he saw the ice-coated room for himself.

Dread sipped his drink and observed as the man blinked hard a few times, his expression changing from one of disbelief to one of determination.

"We've got to evacuate immediately. Everyone knows how fast that stuff travels."

Dread laughed, watching the man as he started towards the door. "Might you remind me which floor we're on, my friend?"

The man turned around. "Sir, we don't have time for this. Let's go."

"What. Floor." There was an inarguable finality in his superior's voice that forced the man's mind to focus on the other instead of spinning around in circles trying to find a way out of this predicament. "Sub-level eight, sir."

"And might you remind me what sub-level is short for?"

The man gritted his teeth impatiently. "Subterranean level, sir."

Dread nodded and took another sip of his drink, almost seeming to be enjoying all this. "Which would mean we are eight floors below the surface, correct?"

"Yes sir." The man was only half paying attention to the ramblings of his superior now as he mentally went through the floor plan of the building, trying to figure out the fastest evacuation route.

"And just so we have all our facts," Dread continued, knowing that his pawn wasn't paying full attention but that he would be soon enough, "what floor is the cryogenics lab on?"

"Sub-two," came the distracted answer.

Dread took a markedly larger sip of his scotch now. "And the final question, for maximum efficiency, which way does infinity ice travel?"

"Down." The answer came like all the rest, with a dismissive air and distracted tone, but was soon followed by a horrorstruck look of disbelief.

Dread clapped his hands together, pleased that the morbid truth had finally sunk in.

The man paled visibly. "Oh god."

Dread's crowing laughter filled the room. "Now you see. Well, I hope it is obvious to you the situation in which we have found ourselves. You may take this chance to try and escape, although I have accepted my fate so I do ask you to not make the attempt of taking me with you."

"But sir-"

"If you get out alive, you can have a raise. Take what you see fit. I trust you to be honest." He took another gulp of scotch, his laugh now possessing a higher pitch as his desperation began to come through. "Now, if you excuse me, I have a very important message to record. Better get running."

The man hesitated for a moment – everything in him was resisting leaving the older man behind – but finally accepted that John Dread would not be moved and fled.

Finishing the rest of his scotch, Dread followed his employee's progress up the stairs until a horrified look came over his face as he got to sub-level 5. Feeling nothing at his employee's expiration, he turned the camera back to Rachel Leeds in the cryogenics lab.

The bullet had gone straight through the tube, exiting through the other side, causing the ice to exit in that direction instead of towards Rachel, giving her time to watch its progress, to admire her own work.

God, it sure spreads fast, she thought as she watched it consume everything it its path. She was just beginning to wonder how long it would be before it took her as well, but that thought was interrupted by the crunch of glass directly behind her.

She turned around casually, not bothering to raise her gun. This is what she had wanted after all.

The man's mask obscured his face, but his fear showed in the way his weapon twitched as he pointed it at her.

With a casual glance around the room, she realized they were the only two left alive.

"Get us out," he demanded.

She laughed.

He put a bullet in her chest.

As she looked down carelessly to see the blood spreading through the shirt she wore, she smiled. "Finally."

She never hit the ground – as life left her body the ice overcame it, freezing her in place. Even in death she remained upright and proud.

Dread nodded his approval as he watched the agent's last moments on the security camera. Rachel Leeds had always known how to get a job done right.

With a sigh, he turned back to his computer. Tomorrow was supposed to be his wedding day. What timing fate had. He supposed if there was on blessing in all of this, it was that his beloved had gone ahead to Pairs that Tuesday to make sure everything was ready. He had planned on leaving that evening to join her. They had spent so much time planning her dream wedding, and now it would be all for naught. He doubted she would be able to get the deposit back for the catering.

Taking note as the temperature of the room continued to drop, he realized he didn't have much time left on the planet to contemplate such things.

With a sigh, he turned back to his computer. He knew he should call her, say goodbye properly, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. She had been the light of his life these past few months. Selfishly, he wanted to keep his memories of her intact, not ruin them by adding sad and panicked ones to the collection. He just couldn't bring himself to taint it. Instead, he clicked on the webcam and set the recording to be sent on a three hour delay. He didn't want her to get it before everything was over. Wanted to make sure the danger had passed by the time she could even consider coming back. With infinity ice, three hours was more than enough. He connected to a web program that would make sure the recording would get sent even after the ice had overtaken his office, leaving his computer a rock and himself a corpse.

Feeling the temperature in the room continue to go down, he nodded grimly to himself. His time was almost up – it was time to start recording. He took one last sip of scotch before setting it to the side – out of sight of the camera. His love was very observant, and at times she tended to read too far into things. He would not have his final message to her be tainted by thoughts of his words being the result of impaired judgment. Thinking of her as he had known her – not as she would be upon seeing this message, he smiled and felt at peace. He was pleased about that. He wanted the recording to be genuine – no false emotions, no forced facial expressions. He pressed the "record" button and began.

"My dear, I believe this may be the first time I've ever been glad that you are not here with me."