I can't find who it was, but somebody a long time ago is going to be pretty pleased with this chapter and upcoming ones. I already had this mapped out but it was a long way off at that point (clearly… I can't even find the comment I'm referring to) There are a few other things people had asked about that are still coming, just not quite yet. That's all I'll say on the subject for now. Vague enough for you? :) No spoilers!
Thank you for taking the time to read this and leaving kudos and comments on it! It means the world to me to know you guys are enjoying it as much as I'm enjoying writing it.
The next morning, Root and Evans met Divya in the snowy parking lot. She was standing near the doors, another unsmoked cigarette dangling from her fingers. Despite her business casual attire, Root couldn't help but think she looked too young to be involved in any of this.
Upon catching sight of Root, who was encouraging Mike to hurry up across the freshly-plowed parking lot, Divya walked over to a trashcan with an ashtray on top and ground the cigarette into the snow that had accumulated there.
"You're both armed?" Divya asked. Root nodded.
"Mikey here has never shot anyone," Root teased, putting a condescending hand on Evans' shoulder. He scowled, but any malice that might have caused him to be remotely threatening was undermined by his obvious anxiety and mournfulness. Divya only stared him down, her own worry manifesting as irritation.
They had agreed that even Evans needed to be carrying, just in case. Mike wasn't thrilled about the decision, to say the least, but he had a handgun tucked into the waistband of his pants nonetheless.
"Don't worry. We'll do out best to keep it that way," Root told him with an apologetic smile, feeling guilty for making him more uncomfortable. He needed to be as steady as possible.
"You ready?" Divya asked. When Root responded with a forced smirk and a nod, Divya turned and entered the building, flashing an ID badge at the same man that had been sitting behind the desk the day before. He had a different necktie with a knot that was no better than the previous morning's, and he barely glanced their direction.
Root found herself wondering why they had needed to wait a day if this was how lax the security was: just a bored man who hadn't ever fully learned how to dress himself properly. It was hard to believe that if the place had been covered by Decima's people the day before, it would now be so danger-free.
As they wove deeper into the labyrinth, Root continued to be surprised by how little resistance they came upon. It was so simple to get down into the guts of the warehouse that Root's mind was free to wander to Shaw.
Root didn't fully understand why Shaw had been so upset with her the day before. It had seemed so unwarranted and unexpected after the slow, steady decline into sullen silence. And the timing of Shaw's explosion was far from ideal: it had come at the exact moment when Root most needed Sameen's support.
It made Root want desperately to tell Shaw where they were, and what they were doing. Then maybe the angry woman in the subway station would be more understanding. Or maybe she would just be furious, and storm out of hiding.
No, Root knew that she couldn't tell Sameen all of the details if she wanted to keep the shorter woman safely tucked away underground.
Divya stopped short and while Root reacted quickly, Mike bumped into them both. Divya turned to Root.
"Don't suppose our boss sent you a back-up plan?" Divya whispered. Root glanced around the corner, past the Indian girl, and saw four people in suits down the next hallway, escorting two women in lab coats away from Root, Divya, and Mike.
Root looked up at a security camera, praying that the Machine would say something.
And after a beat, Root heard Her. It was such a surprise to finally have Her in her ear again that Root inhaled sharply in surprise and pleasure.
"What's wrong with you?" Divya asked. Evans put out a hand to stop Divya from speaking, his eyes on Root. When Root looked at him, she was startled by just how hopeful he looked. There was even a smile beginning to show on his open mouth.
Even though Root felt similarly ecstatic to be hearing from the Machine finally, she had a sinking feeling that the contact meant they might be in serious trouble.
"We split up. The two of you are going back the way we came. Through the second office on the left, down the hall. Find the East Stairwell," Root parroted the Machine's instructions. Divya looked confident and ready to go, but Mike's face fell.
"What about you?" he asked.
"Don't worry about me," Root said, condescending as usual.
"I'm worried about me," Mike said. Root had to admire the fact that he was so blunt. "If you know where to go to get away from these people, I want to go with you."
"Go with Divya. I'll meet back up with you," Root told him. Divya was already grabbing him by the elbow and hauling him after her down the hall. Root watched them go.
The young woman's unquestioning loyalty reminded Root of herself, and she hoped that the Machine would keep them both safe, leaving the dangerous work for Root to do. She looked up at the camera and smiled.
"Where are we off to?" Root asked, and her grin widened when the Machine rattled off more instructions.
As soon as she was given a direction to walk, Root had turned and started to move. Once the directions had been given, the Machine went silent again, and Root was left to follow the course on her own, watching closely for any sign that Decima was nearby.
A man stopped her when she rounded a corner.
"You're not supposed to be down here. Got your ID on you?" he asked. When she smiled at him and tried to back out of the conversation, he looked suspicious. And when she saw that he was about to radio in, she shot him in both kneecaps and ripped his earpiece off of him, crushing it under her heel.
A few quiet minutes later, Root opened the door to a room and slipped inside, quickly taking down three more Decima agents, two women and a man. She assessed the security of the room, then put a hand into her pocket to reload, knowing she'd used all of the bullets in her Colt Mustang. She liked using the little pistol- even with the silencer attached it hardly took up any space and weighed almost nothing.
But when she pulled the little box of ammo out of her pocket, she felt her stomach drop. It took her a second to realize that she had given Mike instructions, and he hadn't followed them. She had told him to put the box of .380 ammo into her jacket and that for the 9mm he was wielding into his own pocket. But the box that Root was looking down at was for the 9mm. Which meant that she had no more bullets. And if Mike was in trouble, he would only have a few shots himself.
And this was where the Machine's instructions had ended. Root thought to herself that at least this meant that she had a few minutes to search the unconscious agents for weapons. Knowing that she wasn't in any immediate danger made her feeling much more sure of herself.
But before she knelt to check the agents for weapons, Root realized what room she was in. She stepped forward and came to stand in the center of the small space. In front of her, all of the security feeds were displayed on a number of monitors. On them, Root counted at least twelve Decima agents. They stood out like sore thumbs from the employees of Samaritan's cover business. The stance and stride alone gave the agents away.
Two people were missing, Root realized.
She hadn't yet spotted Divya or Mike.
In her ear, the Machine told Root to cut the feeds. The sudden command made Root jump a little.
"You'll be blind," Root said, hesitating.
The Machine repeated the command. At the same moment, Root found Divya and Mike. He was wearing a lab coat, and she was doing her best to mimic the brusque demeanor of Samaritan's goons. Root's worry for the girl spiked: Divya's best impression of an agent wasn't good enough. She was probably going to be stopped quite soon.
The Machine repeated Her command a third time, and Root recognized this as the only way She could express impatience.
Root opened the panel on the wall and reached out to disconnect the wires.
The Machine squealed feedback into Root's head. Root recognized this as the same warning she'd received when the Decima agent was in the elevator.
She spun.
Jeremy Lambert stood inside the doorway, his hands up in an almost playful way, a deep smirk dimpling his cheeks. Before he could say anything she lunged at him, grabbing the lapel of his suit coat and shoving him into the doorframe, jabbing her unloaded gun into his abdomen.
"You're quite good at disappearing, Miss Groves," Lambert said with a smug grin. "It seems every time I turn around, you and your friends have vanished again."
"I won't pretend I don't wish you'd do the same," Root said, her gun held tight in her hand. Pushing it harder against his stomach, she felt the end of the muzzle slip off his ribcage, bearing into his diaphragm. He put a hand on her arm. The one that had been shot. Root saddened at the thought of how long it had been since she'd received this wound. How long it had been since she was last in the subway station. His grip was just firm enough that it ached, his eyes flitting down towards her hand at his gut briefly, then slowly making their way back up to her face. His smile didn't falter. She wondered if he knew that she was out of ammo.
"How did you know I was here?" Root asked.
"Well, your accomplice's girlfriend made the mistake of using her old cell phone. And once we knew where she was… well, even though she'd disappeared before we got there, it wasn't hard to find a number to reach him. And his brand new burner cellphone turned up right here. You didn't really think you could come, with your friend, inside the building and not be caught, did you?" Lambert explained, obviously enjoying himself. Root felt her heart sink further into her stomach the more he spoke.
"Miss Groves-" Lambert said, his tone patronizing.
"Call me Root," she interrupted defiantly. He smiled down at her.
"I'll call you anything you like," Lambert replied coyly, hardly missing a beat. "I know that you have some larger plan with your Machine to stop Samaritan. But I honestly fail to see the point. Samaritan is necessary. And you will not succeed."
"You may have backed the US government into a corner and fed them lies about your plans to save the world, but She knows better. I mean, come on-" Root's voice shook with a little laughter, deceptively light-hearted, "You were trying to kill an employee just for second-guessing your plans."
"This war can only end one way: with the decimation of your little band of miscreants," Lambert replied. "There's nothing left for you to attempt."
"That's not necessarily true," Root said with a smirk.
"Oh? And what is it that you plan to do?" He asked. When he spoke, his eyes strayed to her mouth, and she pursed her lips, controlling the slight sneer of anger and replacing it with the false smirk that rarely failed to get people to do what she wanted.
"Whatever it takes to put this to bed," Root said. She watched his eyes light up at what she fully intended for him to read as innuendo.
Lambert smiled back at her.
"Well then. I can think of a thing or two that might help that. That is, if we're done playing cat and mouse?" Lambert asked, his smirk and tone making it very clear that he didn't mind their current positions, Root pressed against him. Not even her gun, still pushed into the soft tissue of his abdomen, could rattle him.
"Not until Samaritan has put every one of us in the ground," Root said, seething with anger and defiance and channeling it into a seductive tone and the hint of a flirtatious smile. She dug the metal tip of the handgun even harder into his stomach. He exhaled a little chuckle and she could feel his breath on her chin, causing her fury to boil hotter in her stomach.
"Didn't you ever watch cartoons?" Root asked, sneering and tilting her head to the side. Lambert raised an eyebrow, and Root leaned in. "The mouse always wins."
Lambert's grin widened.
"You don't really think you can outsmart us," Lambert said. "I don't even think you want to try. You know as well as I do that the game is up. And I've all but won."
He gripped her gun-hand's wrist, wrapping his warm fingers around her almost tenderly.
"I have a few tricks left," Root said, practically purring. She wondered at what point it would be best to turn the tables on him. He was looking at her with an eager glint in his eyes, and she leaned closer to him to play as coy as possible. "I think you'll be impressed."
His face was moving closer to her own, her gun loose in her hand. She continued looking directly into his dark eyes, attempting to gauge if she could over-power him now or if she should wait until he was in a more compromising position. If he thought that she was letting him turn a loaded gun away from him, he might already not suspect that she was thinking about the best way to knock him unconscious. She felt his breath on her mouth again and parted her lips, watching his eyes crinkle with a smile. He tightened the hand on the old wound in her elbow and she tried reflexively to twist out of his grip. Lambert pulled her closer against him and she could smell his expensive cologne.
"You've got no bullets, lovely. Or did you think I was unaware?" He teased.
Root felt a wave of nausea as he wrenched her unloaded weapon from her hand and tossed it aside, pulling a revolver out from under his jacket and pressing it into her stomach, lower than where her gun had been pressed. The end of his gun's barrel was firm against the dip beside her hip bone.
She smiled to cover her fear, but had to blink to hide the moment when her mind leapt to Shaw. She thought of Sameen kissing the very spot where Lambert's revolver was now jabbing into her. Sameen, sitting in the subway station, waiting for news. She would be worried when she didn't hear anything.
"So, Root," Lambert said her name teasingly, that smug smirk still on his face. "What's your plan now?"
There was a loud noise and Root flinched, thinking for a moment that she'd been shot. When she realized that she hadn't been, she looked at Lambert, half-expecting to see pain on his face. He just looked confused, and turned to look over his shoulder. There was no one in the doorway.
"What happened?" Lambert asked, his eyes flitting away from hers and his head turning just enough that Root could tell he wasn't asking her. He was speaking to whoever was on the other end of his earpiece.
Lambert's grip on Root's elbow relaxed as he tried to assess what had occurred. From the look on his face she could tell that it wasn't good news for him. That was all that Root needed. While Lambert was listening to his ear piece, Root tore her arm away from him and jabbed him in the jaw, then grabbed his gun hand, twisting it up and behind his back until he let go, still reeling from her uppercut.
"That," Root said, watching his eyes lock on hers again. Her smile grew at the minute expression of concern on his face. "Was a seed."
Lambert's eyebrows pulled together in confusion. Then his hands were on her again, trying to fight the gun back from her.
Root yanked the gun away and maneuvered her hand against his grappling. With a loud bang, she shot him in the thigh.
He fell into her with a strangled cry, and she tried to push him off of her. But he grabbed at her shirt to steady himself, dragging her down with him until she was halfway on top of him on the ground. She jerked herself free from his hands and shoved herself off of him, leaping up to look into the security feeds, hoping that Evans and Divya had been clear of the blast.
She wondered who had set it off, and how they'd managed it at all. Divya and Root had explicitly talked about when and where the explosives should be placed, and Divya had said that she would get them when the time came. Evans certainly had no knowledge of explosives, so Root was worried.
The Machine repeated Her command again, asking Root to cut the feeds. Root reached out to the box to pull the wires free.
Right as they disconnected, she saw a flash of dark hair and what could have been a lab coat. Her mind leapt straight to Shaw as the screen went dark. But it was Divya and Evans, Root knew. She felt sick to her stomach, but at the very least was glad that they had lived through the explosion.
She raced from the room with Lambert's gun still drawn, trying to find her way back to Divya and Mike at the opposite end of the building as quickly as possible. Without the Machine in her ear Root was blind, but she refused to let that slow her down.
After running what felt like miles through the labyrinth, panic began to creep into Root's muscles and bones, slowing her down.
Then she heard sirens, and rounded a corner to suddenly enter the foyer of the building, where the front desk now sat unoccupied.
Outside, there were police vehicles, a fire truck, and three ambulances.
On a stretcher, being lifted into the back of one of the ambulances, was a dark-haired woman. She turned her head to the side and Root saw that it was Divya.
She was saying something to Mike, who was standing beside her, dumbfounded, in the snowy parking lot. Divya looked around herself and she suddenly reacted to something that Root couldn't see, gesturing wildly for Mike to come with her in the ambulance. When the paramedics tried to keep her calm, she said something to them, pointing at Mike emphatically.
A paramedic with short blond hair tried to take a hold of Divya's hand to reassure her, then followed Divya's pointing finger to look at Evans. She reached out and took Evans' elbow, helping him into the back of the ambulance gently.
Root saw that Decima agents were moving towards the ambulance hurriedly, but the ambulance door swung shut and pulled away before they had made it to Divya and Evans.
Root stood frozen inside the glass doors, alarmed and not sure what to do next. She turned to look at the security camera above the desk, but then remembered that the Machine had turned the feeds off.
She was alone.