Chapter 29: Subject 117

The panic did not settle itself into the core of Cortana's emotions instantly.

It was insidious in its invasion, calmly cancelling out all rational thought in an orderly manner from the moment that John left her in Jake's care. Jake had given her a ride, taking the police car without Mahone's knowledge or consent, although in the coming days this particular transgression would matter very little; it would be buried in the wave of violence that was to come. Rosalita's murder too would be buried, the collapse of a partially constructed thirty story skyscraper taking over much of the headlines before it too would be swept away, although unknown to the ka-tet, until it was far too late, that was not the only reason.

She did not notice the panic's steady advance until she arrived at the apartment complex, and it had fully set in when she was denied access to the building by men in black suits claiming to be from the FBI told her that the complex was sealed off due to a murder investigation. Jake stood by her the whole time, although she would not allow herself to be comforted by him, could not allow that until she knew for sure that Jack was okay, and it did not help that the men in black refused to give her any information.

So Cortana waited, pacing back in forth in futility, stealing glances upwards where Rosalita's apartment was located, and then up at her own. The sun had not yet set, was just in the middle of its inevitable descend down into the deepest pits of heaven, but still she could just make out the light shining through the window, standing in sharp contrast to the darkness that came out of the window of her apartment. Rosalita was dead. She felt it, rather than knew it. With effort, she pushed back the wetness in her eyes. Cortana refused to cry, not now, and - if she could help it - not ever.

She waited.

Long she waited, and longer still.

Hands that could be made of steel, of concrete, and granite - hands that had been honed into sharp weapons of war - hands that could easily kill a man with a single blow if the necessity arose. It was with those hands that John gently tucked his still unconscious son into bed. He had covered their tracks as best he could from the blood-drenched apartment, had washed all of the blood off Jack in the small bathroom, all the while that strange sensation afflicting his eyes. John placed Jack's drenched clothes in a plastic garbage bag, a recent invention. He would burn them later.

He, like Cortana, waited. He waited for a knock on the door, could hear the sirens outside of the building, and the men in black walking along the floor below him. The knock never came, and as the dying afternoon sun gave way to the night, the stars made dimmed by New York's city lights, he waited for the others to come home.

The front door opened, and John recognized who it was by the unique sound of her footsteps, Cortana half running to the bedroom. Her clothes had been changed - Jake's doing John supposed - wearing NYPD physical training gear that was far too baggy on her. She paused in the doorway, letting out a sigh of relief when she saw Jack sleeping in the bed and John sitting on the one opposite, and then rushed towards Jack, falling on her knees beside him. She kissed his forehead, then his cheek, before wrapping him in her arms.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

John shook his head, but said nothing, Cortana not seeing the gesture.

She ran her hands through Jack's hair for several minutes before she spoke again, "How many?"

"Four," John replied. "I only killed one of them."

Cortana's hand stopped mid stroke, "You let them go?"

"No," John said. "They were already dead."

Cortana swallowed hard, resuming her strokes through her son's hair, "How long has he been unconscious?"

"Hours."

Cortana nodded, "He might not remember anything that happened when he wakes up. Sometimes the mind, when put under an extraordinary amount of stress, suppresses memories. It's a survival mechanism."

John hoped she was right. The way Jack had been sobbing, realizing what he had done, how he had lost control, how he had still not been able to save Rosalita; he did not want his son to remember any of that.

"Cortana," he began. "The baby."

"She's gone John." Cortana's voice was shaking, but she managed to hold herself together, just barely.

"You can't be certain. We can take you to a hospital, find out for sure…"

"John," the shaking was becoming worse now. "I felt it. I felt everything. I felt her die inside of me. She's gone."

The strange sensation in his eyes reached its peak, and John's vision blurred. He blinked, and then wiped one of his eyes with a finger to try and correct the problem, and when he pulled his hand away he saw moisture.

Cortana turned around just in time to see it. He's… She could not finish the thought, could not complete the word. He's never, not once. Cortana went to him, putting her head into his chest as she sat on his lap. "I don't blame you."

"I know," John said, his eyes a dangerous shade of red.

"No," Cortana said, wrapping her arms around him tightly. "No you don't."

John felt a warm spot on his cheek, and again wiped it away, pulling Cortana as close to him as he could.

Agent Smith walked around the apartment, rubber coverings on both of his shoes so as to avoid getting blood on him, leather gloves on both hands. Around him other men in black suits, some still wearing their sunglasses even while they were indoors, performed their duties. Taking notes, snapping pictures, plotting out possible trajectories based off the plasma burns on the wall. He did not know that was what they were, but he did know that what killed the woman who lived in this apartment was not human made. If it had not been for his particular abilities, and the fact that he was already in New York tracking down whatever creature had landed in Albany over a month ago, he would never have made it to the scene in time to close it off from the NYPD. And thank god for that. He had pulled one of the masks made of flesh off of the creature who had his chest opened up and his heart crushed. What he saw underneath of it nearly made him cringe. He would send the specimen back to Nevada, to see if Fred could identify it, along with the weapons that they had recovered.

Now he squatted down next to the woman, her back charred to a crisp black, much of her hair singed by a plasma bolt that had splattered against the back of her head, and beside him Agent Williams, his features just as bland and generic as Smith's, flipped through a file.

"Rosalita Patricia Mendez. Spanish decent, parents immigrated here in 1920. Married Harvey Richard Mendez, half English half Spanish. He immigrated to the country in 1937 when he was eighteen. Parents died when she was young, no listed relatives in the country. Has her next of kin identified as…" he stopped, going over the words again to make sure he read it right. "Cortana Miranda Toren." He closed the file and looked down at Smith. "That's Subject 117's mother."

Smith merely nodded, his features grim. "I doubt it's a coincidence."

"Should we make contact?"

Smith thought for several seconds, eyes tracing the lethal wounds on Rosalita's back, "No. We maintain our distance. I have a feeling that the experiment was a success, whatever North Central was trying to prove."

Agent Williams surveyed the carnage around him, "You really think these things were working for North Central?"

Smith nodded, "I'm sure of it." He stood up and dug his sunglasses out of his pocket, putting them on, the overhead light reflecting off of the black lenses. "Williams, what I'm about to say never leaves this room. Do you understand?" Williams nodded, and Smith continued, "I believe that our affiliation with North Central is becoming more trouble than what it's worth." He looked around at the floor. There were no tracks, no footprints. There should be the touch allowing him to sense that two other people had been in the room. To cover up tracks made in blood would not have required the skills of an expert, it would have required the miracle of divine intervention. "Whatever North Central was trying to accomplish here, I have a feeling that all they really did was awaken a sleeping giant, and fill it with rage."

The room was pitch black before Jake turned on the lights, his head bent slightly forward due to weariness, his uniform sporting a ring of sweat around the collar. John squinted when the lamp beside him flickered to life, looking like a man who had moved very little over the course of several long hours. The mattress sagged under his weight, his back bent forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes fixed on the two people lying on the other bed. Cortana was sound asleep, her breathing steady, an arm wrapped protectively around a still unconscious Jack.

Jake came and sat beside John, pulling his revolver out of the holster and checking each chamber, critically inspecting every bullet. The ritual comforted him in some small way, made him feel like he would always be ready. "We're going to have to kill a whole lot of people," he said, John nodding in agreement. Jake put the revolver back in its holster, feeling the weight of it on his hip.

A mutual understanding passed between both men, though neither voiced it. They were about to go to war, but this time there was no object, nothing to accomplish, no quest to fulfill. This time their only goal would be to kill as many of enemy as possible, as many as it took to make a point. It would be done even though the Red had no intention of killing Cortana, had no intention of killing Jack, their attempted assassination merely a test of his abilities. They would fill up Grand Central with bodies, would turn New York into a war zone, all because something like this, what had been done to them, could not go unanswered. Sometimes revenge is the answer, Jake thought. Sometimes revenge and justice are one and the same.

"You know the first year we came here I never slept," Jake said. John did not say anything, did not even tilt his head to let Jake know he was listening, but Jake did not expect him too. In some ways he did not care if John was listening or not, he just needed to talk.

"Part of the reason was because of the nightmares. Cortana use to have them too, still has them now and again, but I'm sure you already know that. One time was really bad. She woke up screaming, and it was everything I could do to make her calm down. I was afraid she was going to wake up Jack, but he just kept on sleeping. He can sleep like a rock when he wants to. She never did tell me what the nightmare was about, and I never asked, mostly because I could already take a few guesses.

"The real reason though was because I was afraid. Afraid of what might happen if I let my guard down, if I did not watch over them, protect them. That's what you told me to do, to take care of them, but that was not the only reason. The moment I saw Jack in the delivery room, the first time I held him, I knew. I knew what he was to me, and what I was to him. So for the first year I stood watch every night. I slept only a few hours every now and then, but even that was rare." He made a small smile without realizing it as Cortana dug her head deeper into the pillow next to Jack.

"I use to love watching them sleep. It made me feel," he stopped for a few seconds, trying to come up with an adequate way to describe what he felt. "It was like when I first came to mid-world, when me and Roland were chasing the man in black across the desert towards the mountains. It was like when I first met Eddie and Susannah, when I first saw the Rose, when we left the Emerald City in Oz, when we first met you two in the forest, when I first met Callahan, when we stayed in the Calla, those times when it seemed like anything was possible. That's what it felt like. Waiting for them to wake up made me feel like anything could happen next. Like everyday could be better than the last, that there was a new adventure just waiting to happen."

His smile dimmed, but it did not quite leave either, clinging desperately on to life. "When do we get started?"

"Dawn," John replied. "We'll send a message."

A/N: If any of you have not seen the video with the deleted dialogue from the Midnight Cutscene you should go check it out. Many thanks to scaryrobots for bringing it to my attention.