The courage of our hearts
Summary
In which everyone is determined to put an end to this war if it is the last thing they do.
"In the end, we will all be judged by the courage of our hearts."
— From S1E8, "We Will All Be Judged by the Courage of Our Hearts"
See the endnote for trigger warning(s).
8:27 PM, BPO, Rooftop (Lito, Hernando, María)
Lito threw a lava grenade towards the oncoming guards and watched first five go down.
"Lito, duck!" María shouted.
He ducked and narrowly missed a bullet swishing past the top of his head. Hernando was hovering close, zig-zagging around in a half-crouched position. The remaining five guards were relentlessly shooting at them, but without guns, they couldn't retaliate. At this rate, they'd never make it to the door.
Two more helicopters landed behind them with their engine whirring. The blades spun and sent the wind gushing at their backside, lifting the back of their shirts. But Lito could barely notice the chill. He dreaded turning back to look. He didn't want to see how many guards they sent as backup.
María had already tackled one guard down, stolen his gun, and finished him off in Lito's brief moment of distraction. She shot down two of the four guards left standing. The other two made a run for Lito and Hernando, and Lito grabbed his partner's hand and shielded his chest with the folders as if it could protect him from bullets.
Wait. That was it!
Lito picked up one folder and pretended to throw it like a frisbee towards the door to the stairs. One of the guards fell for it. The second the guard turned back, Hernando kicked them down from the back. The other guard lunged forward, grabbed Lito by the ankle, and pulled him down. Lito stuck out his arms to break his fall, sending his folders flying across the floor. He tried to kick the guard's face with his free foot as he wiggled his other leg to try and free himself.
Then there was the sound of a gunshot behind him, and the hand on his ankle fell limp.
Hernando kneeled on top of the dead guard, his broken glasses askew, and handed his own stolen rifle to Lito. Then he pried the gun off the newly dead guard's fingers and held that himself. He'd pressed his other arm pressed firmly against the folders on his chest, not willing to lose the evidence they'd been risking their lives for. The guard Hernando had kicked down earlier was nearby, lying in his own pool of blood.
"Lito," Hernando muttered hoarsely. "Are you… are you okay?"
Lito cracked a small smile. "My hero."
He turned around and pulled himself up, then inched over and picked up his folders, his skinned elbows stinging in protest.
María was facing the newly arrived helicopters from which more guards emerged with a dangerous look on her face. She aimed her two stolen rifles at the helicopters' entrances and fired. As she shot, she backed up slowly, inching herself closer to the door down the stairs. About a dozen guards emerged from each helicopter. Lito took a deep breath, grabbed Hernando's hand, and took a couple steps back himself. The sooner they got to that door, the better.
Lito passed by the five dead guards they'd taken out with a lava grenade explosion earlier and saw their charred, ashen corpses. Before he could take in the gory sight, he forced himself to look away and fire more bullets at their living pursuers, cursing the size of the rooftop. He, Hernando, and María were only halfway to the door. They couldn't go downstairs knowing there were twenty or so guards on their trail.
One of the newly emerged guards turned their gun on their colleague and fired.
It took Lito a few seconds to realize what was going on, but María had taken advantage of the diversion right away. She avoided a few Veracity infiltrators who were clearly wrestling with their former colleagues and fired at the baffled crowd until her bullets ran out.
"Son of a bitch!" she cried, still facing forward. "Lito, take Hernando and run -"
"No!" they screamed back, together.
"I'm staying," Lito insisted. He looked at Hernando and nudged him back towards where the door was. "Take your evidence and go. Go down to the ground floor. We'll cover you."
"Lito -"
"I'll keep my folders. You take yours. We have more chances of making it out of this building if we separate! Go!"
Hernando took a tube out of his backpack — the last lava grenade — and put it in Lito's hand. Lito gave him a nod, his heart tugging painfully at the sight of Hernando's worried expression. He risked a quick glance at the door. Please.
"Be careful," said Hernando, before he went.
Lito picked up the last rifle from the ground and tossed it to María. A few more Veracity infiltrators — three, maybe four — were fighting the people in their own crowd. María shot at the non-Veracity guards to help, but they all went down in the midst of all the chaos, loyalists and traitors alike, falling into an indistinguishable heap of bodies. Lito was still backing away and dodging in zig-zag reflexively as the last few standing tried to shoot him. He fired back until he had run out of bullets.
María finally turned to face him when it was certain no one else could get up. "Let's run."
A third helicopter landed on the roof as they ran for the door. Lito could hear the whirring of the engine and the sound of the door opening, and he knew it landed closer to them than the previous two. Now weaponless, they turned back to the helicopter to keep an eye out. María grabbed his hand and guided him, putting her other hand behind her in case they backed against the door or the wall.
"We can't have them chase us downstairs," said Lito. "There's too many of them. They'll catch up and -"
"No, we can't," she agreed, frowning at the helicopter where the guards were now working to open the doors.
Her voice didn't shake, and her hand was firm against his. She'd always been the braver of the two, always been the one to charge first into their imaginary fight and take the lead, bellowing instructions at her fellow agent to cover her. Now the enemy target was no longer imaginary, and she fixed her gaze upon it, determined.
"Now," María said, drawing her hand away.
Without needing to ask, Lito pulled out the last lava grenade from its tube and handed it to her. Instead of tossing it directly into the crowd of emerging guards, she threw it at the water tower on the right of the now-emerging crowd. They looked relieved as they raised their weapons, thinking she'd missed. But before they could aim, the grenade bounced off the top of the structure and landed right in front of them. María cackled, her voice synchronized with the unmistakable sound of the explosion.
The guards had nowhere to run before the entire helicopter was engulfed in flames. Kala had told Lito the explosions didn't have much range. She'd designed it to hit specific crowds with relative precision without burning the entire building down, but the guards hadn't had a chance to get far from their vehicle. The windows of the helicopter were blown open, and glass shards landed on the bodies like confetti.
An alarm came from the water tower, screeching once before it stopped.
Lito whipped his head in that direction and frowned. "What the -"
Another screech.
"The failsafe!" María shoved both of them towards the door. "Shit! We triggered the failsafe!" She pulled the door handle and nudged him inside the stairwells -
The alarm screeched a third time.
Before María could step through the door and join Lito, the water tower exploded, and the door closed on impact, trapping his best friend on the other side.
"María!" Lito pounded on the metal door, which was growing hot with the heat of the most recent explosion. "María! Can you hear me?!"
Smoke seeped through the gaps of the door, stinging Lito's eyes. He coughed.
The door handle was scorching hot when Lito put his hands on it, but he pushed it down, ignoring the singeing heat. He rammed his shoulder into the door to try and get the door open, but it wouldn't budge. The Bluetooth device tugged painfully against his ear at the impact. He'd almost forgotten it was still there.
"María! Bug! Bug, please, open the -"
"The failsafe, it's overriding my command," came Bug's voice, echoing through the device. "Lito, I think they've got a protocol built in -"
"Open the door, Bug!"
"I-I can't!" Bug stammered. "Veracity's sending over a helicopter, Lito. They'll land on the roof. They'll find her and take her to -"
"Please! Bug, please!"
The folders slipped from Lito's hold and dropped to the ground. Now he felt his hands burning. He let go and sank to the ground, his back against a wall.
"Lito." Bug's voice was characteristically firm, and it surprised him so much that for a second, he stopped sobbing. "Lito, listen to me. Goddammit, this is hard, I can't believe I'm saying this -" he mumbled something, but then seemed to snap out of it - "Fuck it. No, Lito, you have to go down. Go. They'll get your friend out as soon as they can, but -"
"Hernando," Lito remembered, sitting up. "Hernando - where is he?"
"Exactly! Hernando's gone downstairs. He's looking for a way out. Go find him."
Lito picked up the folders and stood up. "I'll go find him."
"Yes. Go."
"But María -"
"She'll be okay," Bug tried to reassure, his shaky voice far from convincing. "These guys at Veracity, they'll do everything they can, Lito. I trust 'em. I know you trust 'em too. But Hernando needs you."
"Hernando needs me." Lito chanted this like a mantra as he ran down the stairs two at a time, gripping the folders in his hands like they were his lifeline. "I'm - I'm going."
8:28 PM, BPO, Stairwell (Riley, Will, Mavis, Miki, Henrik)
The lights in the stairwell flickered off, then on, then back off. Bug and the other hackers must have been fighting for control with the BPO hackers. Riley's heart pounded in her chest, and she brushed her arm against Will's. He took her hand. Together, they ran up to the ground floor and tried to push the door open, but found it locked.
With another click, the lights went back off. Before Riley could open her mouth to ask what was going on, someone grabbed her hand and put their hand around her mouth. She tried to scream, but the grip on her mouth tightened, and Riley's voice came out muffled.
"Shh, Riley, it's me," Sun whispered in her ear.
Riley nodded, and Sun let go. "Sun. Thank God."
"And me," Detective Mun mumbled. "We just came down."
"We sent Lito and the others off to the roof," Sun answered before anyone else could ask, glancing around at their expectant faces. "What is this -"
The lights flickered back on, and they came face to face with Karl Pelzer. The seven of them were cramped in the small platform next to the door. A dozen people in Hazmat suits were standing on the flights of stairs, blocking their way. For a few seconds, nobody moved.
Sun spoke first. "Are you here to kill us?"
"No." Pelzer looked at her, his face expressionless. "I'm looking for Jonas."
"Jonas?" Mavis looked confused.
"Jonas escaped," said Pelzer. "But since I found you here -"
Riley saw Sun cast a fleeting glance over to Detective Mun, who glanced back and gave her a small nod. Sun threw a punch and knocked the Headhunter back against the wall.
And so began another confrontation. Those who could hold their own ripped off the masks of their suited attackers and tried to wrestle the guns from them. The rest, Riley included, dodged as best they could, hoping no one would grab them and pull them away.
Surprisingly, Pelzer was able to worm his way out of the range of Sun's attacks. Three men in Hazmat suits held Sun back, and she was too busy fending them off to keep Pelzer from slipping away upstairs. Mun ran up to confront him with a stolen gun, taking down another attacker in the process. Riley silently wished him good luck.
Madness ensued between Riley's allies and the Hazsuits who refused to die. Bullets bounced off walls, and one came too close to Riley's thigh. She jumped and backed into Will, who turned around from the person he was fighting to punch the guy who almost killed Riley, yelping in pain as the cuts on his knuckles opened wider. The guy he picked missed a step and fell down the stairs, head crashing against the wall.
Will pulled Riley away from the steps before she could fall, too. "Careful there," Will warned before he went back to defend against his previous attacker. Will seized the attacker's gun and gave it to Riley, then rushed over to help Miki.
Someone made a grab for Riley's free arm, but she startled and pulled herself away in the nick of time, firing behind her back. When she turned, she saw the person falling back, already dying. They crashed into the wall, and Riley winced.
Another Hazsuit almost caught Riley's sleeve in her distraction, but Henrik pried them off and put a bullet through their head. "You okay?"
"Fine." Riley pointed at a Hazsuit who was making a move for Henrik behind his back. He turned and finished off the guy.
That seemed to be their last attacker, judging by the silence that ensued. Now all was quiet in the stairwell except for the moans from the Hazsuits who had fallen but hadn't died yet. They stirred in pools of blood but couldn't get up again.
"Hey, Pelzer!" came Mavis' voice.
Riley turned and saw Mavis standing by the stairs leading up, arms crossed. The snarling Headhunter walked down from the floor above. Mun, who had set out to confront him earlier, was nowhere to be seen. Sun met Riley's eyes, and they shared a worried look.
From behind his back, Pelzer took out an already-bloodstained knife and thrust it forward, right at Mavis' chest. The blade hit the wall behind Mavis at the same moment Riley opened her mouth to shout for her to move. It clattered to the ground.
Pelzer looked wide-eyed at where Mavis had been.
Where Mavis had been visiting.
A second later, Pelzer came to his senses and turned. But too late. The real Mavis jabbed her switchblade into his temple from behind, and he fell face-first down the stairs, dead.
Mavis sauntered down with a satisfied smirk, followed by an impressed Detective Mun who looked mostly unscathed. She bent down to retrieve her switchblade from Pelzer. Blood gushed from his head when she pulled the blade out, almost spilling over her shoes. She wiped her favorite weapon on Pelzer's shirt before she tucked the knife away, back to the hidden pocket in her boot.
"What?" Will finally spoke.
"I thought she could do the honors," Detective Mun spoke up.
Mavis chuckled, looking at Pelzer's body. "I un-Blocked myself, remember?"
"Right." Will pushed the door, and, to everyone's surprise, it opened. Sun whispered a quick thank you to Bug through her earpiece, and they were off. No one else came to confront them. Was BPO running out of security? Or were they preoccupied with -
"Wait." Riley stopped in the middle of the quiet hallway. "Kala and Wolfgang -"
"Fuck," Will muttered.
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Riley wondered if Wolfgang might have been taken to the same room he was once imprisoned in. Judging by the looks of unease Will was exchanging with Sun, she believed they suspected the same.
"Oh!" Henrik reached into a hidden pocket in his jacket and pulled out another syringe. An anti-Blocker. "Try this. It's my last."
Sun accepted it and injected herself, frowning in concentration as she tried to establish a connection with Wolfgang. "You go look for Whispers. Kwon-Ho and I can find them."
8:33 PM, Lyceum Theater (Capheus, Kiira, Leon, Genevieve, Nomi, Amanita)
Capheus and Kiira ran upstairs to the bar, and found it empty. The production of The Lion King was back on stage following an intermission, judging by the music playing from the stage. But even the bartender was nowhere to be seen. There was spilled wine on the carpet, a dozen shattered glasses and a few scuff marks. Capheus didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to know what happened.
"We're too late!" Kiira exclaimed, looking back and forth for someone, anyone.
They flagged down an employee, who told them six people had fainted ("fell ill from that bloody brain epidemic, they did") and were taken away by BPO for quarantine.
Capheus heard a chime in his pocket and took out the burner phone Amanita had handed him. She and Nomi were waiting outside the theater, scouting for armed guards. Leon and Genevieve were riding around the streets from Parliament to Lyceum Theater on their motorcycle, hoping to catch BPO vans in the act.
No vans out here, said Amanita's text.
Capheus and Kiira ran downstairs to meet the woman in question. "They left," Capheus said, panting. "They got six people."
Amanita swore and ran for her stolen motorcycle. She hopped on, took the Bluetooth device from her ear, and handed it to Nomi, who was climbing on behind her. Capheus found his motorcycle and waited for Kiira to fasten the helmet around her head. Kiira wrapped her arms around his waist, bracing herself for another ride.
"Bug says they're on their way back to headquarters," Nomi turned back and shouted as Amanita started the ignition. "Leon and Genevieve are chasing them down."
Capheus followed Amanita, and they sped down the streets.
He sincerely hoped drivers would have enough time to pull their brakes and not ram into them. Five blocks later, they slowed down when they saw Leon and Genevieve tailing the two green BPO vans, letting a few cars come between them for cover. The vans didn't appear to have noticed them. They stopped at a red light, but Capheus knew it was only a matter of time.
The trunks are bulletproof, Kiira thought.
Nomi and Leon turned, having picked up on her idea.
"Reckon we should aim for the tires?" asked Leon, nudging Genevieve to take out her gun.
It seemed like the best plan they could come up with, so no one objected. Capheus and the others had four guns between them, two of which were in Nomi's hands. She muttered something that Capheus guessed was meant for Bug, and the red light turned green earlier than expected. The vans sped forward, one behind the other, only to be stopped at an impromptu red light at the next intersection. The perfect distraction.
"On three!" Amanita shouted, taking the lead. Her motorcycle weaved through the spaces between other cars until it was on the right side of the first green van within arm's reach. Nomi aimed, firing a dozen bullets near the ground.
There was a loud popping sound, and the van tilted sideways from the front right corner. Before anyone could get out, they had already sped down the street, ignoring the second van for now, and disappeared out of view.
We're gonna circle around the block and come back for the other van from the left-hand side, Nomi thought to the sensates. Cover us.
Capheus and Leon gave their approval as they followed Amanita's lead to pass by the first van. Kiira and Genevieve took aim as they straightened themselves in the back seat. Four guards emerged from the rear trunk of the first van, not bothering to close the door. Kiira was shooting as low as she could — she didn't want to end up killing one of the hostages — and one guard fell to the ground, clutching their leg.
The driver got out of the van, too, but before he could raise his own gun, Capheus and Kiira had already zipped past to shoot at the tires of the second van. By the time Capheus rounded the corner to circle around the block, Nomi and Amanita had already doubled back. Through Nomi's eyes, Capheus saw five guards and one driver left standing, trying desperately to guard both vans. Nomi took down two.
The rest, thinking this was the last round of attacks, went back to secure the hostages. They prepared to lock the back trunks of the vans, and the driver started the ignition, but Capheus and Leon had doubled back. Kiira and Genevieve, sitting behind them, finished everyone else off.
It was only then that Capheus noticed they'd caused quite a commotion on the street. A dozen cars were clogging up the road, and Bug had had to switch the light green to let them pass. They all stayed close to the trunk of the vans as cars drove past.
Two minutes later, Bug gave them another red light, and they got off their motorcycles and ran to the trunks to pull out the confused sensate hostages. The Reciphorum had worn off, and they sat up in their stretcher. Nomi gave them an "I'll explain later" look and helped them out, keeping a wary eye on the three guards lying on the ground
"Mate," said one middle-aged sensate, frowning at Capheus, "what was that? Were those bloody BPO vans? I took my Blocker! I was -"
"The important thing is you're safe now," Kiira cut in.
Capheus gave her a grateful smile. He had no clue how he was going to respond, and now wasn't time for the whole truth.
The man nodded and didn't ask any more questions. The others were eyeing the bleeding guards stirring on the ground uneasily, relieved they had dodged a bullet. A siren wailed in the distance. Capheus knew they had to get a move on, quick.
Leon ran over to a white minivan and pointed his gun at the driver's window. A woman got out and raised both hands above her head, muttering pleas under her breath. "I'm really, really sorry about this, ma'am," said Leon, nodding for the others to climb in as he kept his gun trained on the lady. "But we're gonna need your van."
Capheus climbed into the driver's seat. Leon lowered his gun and ran as fast as he could to the passenger seat, slamming the door shut as the panicked woman scampered off. ("I'll get you a new van, promise!" Leon shouted from the window.) Everyone else was crowded in the back, and the sensate hostages were whispering among themselves. Nomi and Amanita were doing their best to reassure them that they weren't kidnappers.
The light turned green. Capheus heard police sirens drawing closer. A glance at the rearview mirror told him someone had called an ambulance, too. He stepped on the pedal and drove as fast as the minivan could take them, speeding off towards one of the only places in London he remembered: their first safe house.
8:37 PM, BPO, LL 2, South Wing (Wolfgang, Kala)
The ceiling in the interrogation room was sprinkled with bullets, and the air smelled tangy with fresh blood. If Wolfgang craned his neck and looked down, he could see scuff marks on the ground, streaks lined with scarlet, punctuated by the occasional bloody boot-print. He frowned, wondering who had been there and had their bodies towed. Wolfgang hoped it was the Headhunters. He hoped Sun and the others did them in.
He was bound to his recliner chair from shoulder to ankle, the belts unrelenting as he tried to move around. His wrists were cuffed to the armrests, and the metal felt cold to the touch. But what really made Wolfgang freeze was the heart monitor and EEG cap in front of him.
The door opened, and Veronika walked in.
"Good evening, Wolfgang." The corners of her lips twitched, an indication of a smirk. She stood in front of him, and he had to look up to meet her eyes.
"You." Wolfgang seethed.
"I thought you might be a bit lonely." She walked towards the door again. "So I brought you a friend."
Three figures in Hazmat suits carried a prisoner in their arms and dragged her towards an unoccupied reclining chair next to Wolfgang's. He froze at the sight of her. But it couldn't be her. It couldn't be.
She was unconscious, and a curtain of black hair covered her face. Bits of blood seeped through from one point at her back, sprinkles of scarlet against her lemon yellow blouse. Her manicured fingers twitched slightly when they laid her back, bound her tight against the chair, and revealed her face.
No, no, no -
"Kala," he rasped. His voice was strained from screaming so much — he'd shouted while they put him into a car with Capheus and Gina, hoping someone on the street might hear.
Something fluttered underneath her closed eyelids.
"Oh, good." Veronika walked forward and sat on the other side of the stretcher, stroking Kala's chin as she fixed the EEG cap over her head. "She's almost awake."
Wolfgang thrashed forward in his seat, the handcuffs digging into his wrists as they jingled against the chair. "Don't you fucking dare -"
"I'm not going to do anything, Wolfgang." Veronika beckoned at the door. Another figure in a Hazmat suit came in, carrying a tray full of chemicals and injections. "Not willingly, anyway. Whatever happens to you two will depend on how you cooperate."
One Hazsuit opened a bottle of chemicals and waved it in front of Kala's nose. She jerked awake in seconds. Her head darted back and forth, from Wolfgang to Veronika, before she came to her senses and shut her eyes, pleading that this wasn't real. This couldn't be real.
But how could Wolfgang have heard her thoughts?
"Quite a few inventions you've got here, Mrs. Rasal." Veronika picked up two syringes from the tray and waved it in front of Kala, who cracked open her eyes and looked. "We recognized this one. We've been using our own formula. Inspired by yours."
"We can reach the rest of our cluster," said Kala. "You didn't Block us. You gave us the antidote. They'll be here any minute."
Wolfgang was surprised to hear how calm Kala sounded. He turned to her and frowned. She gave him her best crack at a reassuring smile, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"Ahh, yes. An antidote. We suspected as much." Veronika fiddled with the dagger brooch on her collar. "Clever."
Kala sighed."I see you've searched my bag. I was looking for those."
"Well, you got on just fine without them, didn't you? You and Lila and Marcela. Who would have thought?"
What happened to Lila? Wolfgang thought.
Kala shook her head. Her expression was inscrutable.
"What I want to do," Veronika continued, watching their silent exchange with interest, "won't take all night. I'll be finished by the time they get here."
She gestured for a Hazsuit to come over. They pressed a button on the monitor between their reclining chairs. The Traceworks. The machine whirred when the electric pulses were activated, the sound painfully familiar to Wolfgang's ears. Another suited figure loomed over him, paddles ready.
Wolfgang shut his eyes and anticipated pain. He anticipated the agonizing pulses tearing and convulsing through his veins, just like before. His body tensed as he braced himself against the pressure over his lungs -
Nothing came.
Next to him, Kala whimpered.
He turned in time to see the Hazsuit turn around to push the paddle against her chest. She jerked violently under the impact of the high voltage, and a trail of blood escaped the corner of her mouth. But she'd shut her eyes and mouth tight, trying not to scream. When the paddle was released, he could see blood soaking through her front — the place where the taser barb had punctured her skin earlier this evening.
"Stop!" Wolfgang thrashed in his chair, the metal of the handcuffs rattling against the armrests on the side. "Kala! No!"
"Oh, Wolfgang." Veronika towered over him, her blue eyes familiar but daunting. In there was a ghost of another woman he wished he could see. "I know you'd never cave. Not unless we have someone else to hold over you."
The recliner chair was shaking as he fought against it, hoping to kick his way out. It creaked under pressure, and he sat up as much as he could, trying to pluck the chair off the ground with the force of his weight. The cuffs around his wrists and restraining belts over his torso dug painful groves into his skin. He gritted his teeth.
"W-Wolfgang." Kala coughed, blood running down her chin. "Don't."
Her voice was barely louder than a whisper, but it reverberated in their shared minds, growing louder every time she called his name. Wolfgang heard someone else call his name, too. Riley. Riley's connection was open, and Sun's, both of their presence flickering in and out with every swift motion.
It seemed like they were in a fight. Different fights. Riley was doing her best to dodge, and Sun was fighting attackers off with heavy and bruised limbs, gritting her teeth as old injuries flared up all over her body.
Help. Wolfgang thought. Please.
"Did I mention this room is soundproof, Wolfgang?" Veronika was holding the paddle now. But she set it aside and moved her chair over to Kala, one hand hovering over the spot of blood on her chest. "The architects assured me no one can hear you beg for your death."
"Don't," Wolfgang warned, his voice dangerously low. "Don't. Fucking. Touch. Her."
Veronika pushed her hand against the wound on Kala's chest. Kala had been trying not to scream, Wolfgang could tell, but now she moaned in pain at Veronika's touch. She tried to hold back a sob as tears stung her eyes.
"Kala!" he screamed. "No! Stop it!"
"I don't care where your cluster is." Veronika drew her hand back, admiring the smears of blood on her palm. "My guards will catch them all in due time. I want to know your plan. Why you came. What are you after?"
Wolfgang. Even in their head, Kala's voice was faint. Wolfgang, don't.
He wanted to tell Veronika everything, so long as she spared Kala from the same torture he'd gone through last time. The restraints weren't going to break no matter how hard he tried, and now a Hazsuit was looming over him, holding a syringe close to his neck, threatening him to stay still.
But Wolfgang knew if he caved, the sensates in this world would all be destroyed. His cluster, most of all. And he couldn't. They'd come too far.
Veronika seemed to have taken his silence as an answer. She snapped her fingers, and a Hazsuit pushed the paddle against Kala's chest again, turning up the dial. This time she screamed and choked on her own blood. Wolfgang teared up in her place.
I'm sorry, she thought. I'm sorry I let them get to me. Wolfgang, I'm sorry.
"No!" he bellowed, craning his neck so he could see eye-to-eye with Veronika.
"No, what?" Veronika watched his response, amused. She reached forward and pushed some hair out of Kala's eyes, cooing at the sight of her brows furrowed in pain, at the way a purple tinge crept up her lips.
"Leave her alone!"
Surprisingly, she obliged, moving her chair away from Kala. She moved over to Wolfgang, so close, he could feel what little heat emanated from her cold-blooded skin. "Sooner or later you'll cave. They all do."
"We're not like Milton." Wolfgang spat out the Headhunter's name like it was a curse. In a way, it was. It was Whispers' existence that doomed all of them from the start.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw Kala struggling to stay conscious. Her thoughts were fading from his mind, drifting away from him. He reached out for her presence, but it dispersed in their shared consciousness like a cold mist.
Veronika tutted her tongue. "You think you're so different from him. Milton was like you once, did you know? He was in love. And he believed he and his cluster could, oh, 'change the world'. He thought they could find others who were like them, and they could all live happily ever after.
"So he and his cluster sought out El-Saadawi when half the sensate world knew why her vision would never have worked. This obligate mutualism," Veronika uttered the words contemptuously like they were poison in her tongue, "was nothing more than an ideal. But now Milton knows the truth. We have power over your kind. His only bet to stay alive was to work for me."
"He's going to betray you," Wolfgang pointed out. Kala was becoming unresponsive. He didn't dare look at her again — Veronika would catch him at it. "You know as well as I do. He only works for you because he has to. Sooner or later, he'll kill you in your sleep."
Wolfgang had never been much of a talker, but this was the only way Veronika would stay away. Anything to keep her from Kala, he thought, clutching his hands into fists.
"Maybe." Veronika didn't look bothered. "But he's not my only Headhunter. He's served his purpose in this organization. I'm always prepared to replace him."
"With who? Karl Pelzer?" Wolfgang let out a dry laugh. In the back of his mind, he knew, somehow, that Pelzer was dead. Riley and Sun knew he was dead. Someone had done him in. But right now he didn't break the news. Pelzer was a conversation starter. "He's useless. He couldn't even get two names out of me."
"And yet you're here again. Both of you. Just like Milton and I intended." Veronika stroked his head. He tried to draw away, but the binds wouldn't let him move more than an inch. "I always get what I want. I got that with Milton, and I'll get it with your cluster."
"What could you have wanted Milton for?"
"All this -" she gestured around her, at the lab, at the ceiling with the blood and bullets - "I couldn't have done all this on my own. I needed people like him. People, sensates, who had nothing to lose."
"But he had something to lose."
Veronika chuckled. "Not anymore. My father told his contacts in Greece to take care of the little problem. And then Cairo, too — his Egyptian cluster-mate had gotten quite bothersome with his talk of revenge. Sad. I had hoped I could recruit them both."
So it was a family business. Dirty business, like the kind Wolfgang used to do for his uncle. Typical. He shook his head. "They say Milton killed his own cluster."
"But he did, Wolfgang. He may as well did. His curiosity about his condition got the attention from my father's contacts. They had been watching El-Saadawi for a long time. They walked into our trap."
Kala was on the brink between wakefulness and sleep, her thoughts shifting into a language Wolfgang couldn't understand. But she was still reaching out, still trying to communicate. And one word, he could hear for certain. Wolfgang. Wolfgang.
Wolfgang seethed. "And now you're here to finish what your father started?"
"Hardly." Veronika stood up and looked at the door. A Hazsuit walked over and opened it. "With the direction he was headed for, we would have been at the sensates' beck and call. No. My stepmother blinded him like she did with so many others. Funny how the heart gives in to the most dangerous things."
Four people walked into the room in perfectly synchronized steps, the scars across their foreheads unmistakable. They looked the same age Veronika, but their complexions were a sickly gray like they had been dead years ago. Bits of frost hung at the tip of their hair, newly un-frozen. The moment they stopped in front of the stretcher, Wolfgang felt a chill in the air worming its ways into his body.
"These people used to work for my father. Of their own volition, they say. My stepmother convinced them to join our operations."
Something clicked in Wolfgang's mind. He bet Veronika had eliminated her stepmother, but he'd never given much thought to the fate of the rest of her cluster. Now he couldn't see anywhere else they would be, except as Veronika's mindless pawns.
"Do excuse their sluggishness." She walked around them, eyeing them with distaste. "Your allies eliminated some of my best London-based Hunters in this very room." Wolfgang's eyes darted to the ceiling again. "But the Hunters in Chicago are doing an adequate job."
"Why are you showing me this now?" Wolfgang tried to sound nonchalant. Without changing his expression, he reached out for Kala in his mind and found a barrier. It hadn't closed all the way around and blocked him out yet. He had to keep trying. "Why not send them to us when we first got here?"
"I am not going to waste all my soldiers on a group of vigilantes." Veronika waved the Bolgers off, and they turned and walked back out. The Hazsuit shut the door. "But I want you to understand. Just you."
"Because of my mother?"
The bitterness had crept back into his voice without warning. If he could get off the chair, if the restraints didn't hold any longer, Veronika would be dead within seconds.
"It's in her blood!" Veronika shouted. He had never seen her shout. Never imagined she could. "And yours." She lowered herself so they saw eye-to-eye.
"I don't give a fuck about blood." Not anymore.
"But I do." Veronika stood up and sauntered back to Kala's chair. "You've seen what happens to people who hurt me. You've experienced it. And now it's your turn."
Sun reached out to Wolfgang in their mind. He felt her running down a hallway with Detective Mun. Hold on, she told him. We're almost there.
"So kill me, then," Wolfgang dared Veronika, riled up with a newfound strength he drew from his connection. "Kill me, and you can end this."
Veronika shook her head. "You were right about one thing, dear nephew." She stood over Kala and touched her face one last time. With a smile, she pulled out a real dagger tucked on the inside of her jacket and drew it out of the sheath. "You're not like everyone else."
No. "Kala!"
She pointed the dagger at the center of Kala's chest, the tip hovering inches above her skin, and prepared to strike. "To you, Wolfgang, there is one thing worse than death."
8:41 PM BPO, Control Room (Will, Riley, Mavis, Miki, Henrik)
It wasn't Whispers sitting in the control room.
"Where's Milton?" asked Will, eyeing the surveillance footages. There were about twenty or so monitor screens and a control panel with more buttons than he could count. Less than half of them seemed to be on.
So Bug and the others were putting up a good fight against whatever hackers were trying to take down their defenses. Good.
All Will got in return, from the Headhunter sitting in Whispers' place, was a cold smile. Cursing, he finished the man off seconds before he was to do the same.
Will and his allies ran out of the room. Four guards, two at each side, trapped them in the middle of the hallway. The guards stood with guns in their hands, but they didn't aim. They didn't intend to shoot. Following Will's lead, Riley, Mavis, Henrik, and Miki stood back-to-back, looking at the place from all angles.
What the hell did these guards want?
Heavy footsteps echoed from both ends of the hall, sluggishly uniform in rhythm. A few seconds later six Bolgers emerged from one end of the hall, their lifeless eyes trained on the targets they had been ordered to kill.
The guards turned around and fired at the Bolgers.
"Run!" one of the guards shouted at Mavis, wrestling with two Bolgers at once. Their partner had managed to draw the Bolgers aside to clear the other end of the hall with enough of a gap for Will and the others to pass.
"Thank you!" Mavis shouted back before she ushered everyone else to pass, and they all sprinted down the hall.
Who were those guards?
Veracity infiltrators, Mavis thought, answering the question before Will could ask out loud. His connections were back. His Blocker had worn off without his notice.
Will realized his calves were burning in pain as they ran out of eyeshot from the Bolgers. He had been running and fighting all evening, and he didn't know how much longer he could stand. His heels were sore. They might be close to bleeding. His hands were definitely bleeding, but he couldn't feel much of the pain just yet. He didn't want to know how bad it was. Not when their survival would depend on them running out of there alive.
But not without Whispers. If they let Whispers run free, all they had worked for would be lost. Will hoped he had enough strength left to finish the Headhunter off once and for all. But they had just been spared from one more fight, so he was hopeful.
The Veracity infiltrators may just have saved their lives.
"Hello, Will."
Will froze at the sound of Whispers's voice behind him. Riley, too, stopped abruptly and turned. Whispers emerged from one of the doors on the side of the hall. There had been no light inside the rooms. He must have been hiding.
"It's over, Milt." Will raised his gun and took a shot at Whispers' head.
"Will, it's not -" Henrik shouted, but Will had already fired at Whispers' head.
The bullet hit the wall. Whispers was visiting.
"Fuck!"
"I won't make it so easy for you to catch me again." Whispers appeared behind Will again.
Will turned and stared into Whispers' eyes. He imagined Whispers' mind was a flaming dagger cutting through ice. Will pushed on until he was surrounded by the cold, and the views from his own eyes faded, leaving him stranded in the Headhunter's body.
Whispers was standing next to an elevator, looking at the fence, beyond which was the hollow space in the middle of the building, all the way down from the roof to the ground floor. The skylight. There was only one more floor above where Milton stood, which meant -
"I'm on the 15th floor," Whispers answered. "And I'm waiting."
Will doubted Whispers would stay and let him come finish him off. He found himself drifting away from Whispers' body by force until he was a visiting form next to him.
"We're waiting for you," the Headhunter amended.
The elevator opened again, and two people in Hazmat suits emerged, Gina in tow. Whispers nodded in approval before he grabbed Gina by the shoulder and turned her around, pressing her back against his chest. He put a gun to her temple as he dragged her back until he was leaning against a pillar between two parts of the fences overlooking the skylight.
"Gina!" Henrik appeared next to Will and Whispers.
Gina looked at Henrik, the panic apparent in her eyes. Whispers chuckled. "Oh, is that him? Is that Henrik?" Will heard the frantic voices in Gina's mind as soon as he tried to see she had been un-Blocked, too. "I look forward to seeing you."
And then Will's consciousness was back on the ground floor, guiding his sore body as he and the others ran for the elevator. Henrik slammed his fist on the elevator button and shouted for it to hurry up.
One life or the other, Whispers thought. A memory of Henrik's face flashed by their shared mind, then Gina's, then Will's own. Which do you think your friend will choose?
8:46 PM, BPO, Lower Level 2 (Sun, Mun, Kala, Wolfgang)
Sun pushed the door open at the same time Veronika prepared to stab the dagger through Kala's chest.
The unexpectedness of it all made Veronika freeze. Kwon-Ho fired a bullet just to the left side of the dagger, and Veronika jerked her hand back abruptly to avoid being shot. Her hand slipped when she staggered back, and the dagger clattered to the ground. She bent down to retrieve it. If they'd come a few seconds too late -
Sun's thought was cut off when a Hazsuit made a grab for her body. She found herself launched into a wrestling match with the first of the five Hazsuits in the room. Her right hand gripped her stolen gun tightly, and, when the Hazsuit got a hold of her shirt, she twisted her arm back until the gun made contact with their flesh and fired. The Hazsuit loosened their grip on her as they fell.
Kwon-Ho, she now noticed, was side-stepping his way forward, shooting in the direction of the dagger so Veronika couldn't pick it back up. He tried to aim for Veronika as he bent down to pick up her dagger himself, but Veronika moved too fast, scampering back on all fours. Her high-heeled shoes slipped on the ground, so she kicked them off and hid behind the protection of another Hazsuit.
The Hazsuit stood in front of Kwon-Ho, blocking his path. Sun tried to move around Kala's reclining chair to get to Veronika from the other side, but a Hazsuit grabbed her by the arms. She stomped on their foot and pulled one arm free as she turned to face them. Usually, she would have finished her opponent off in seconds, but even with her stamina, her arms had begun to ache from all the fights she'd found herself in this evening, and she could barely stand, let alone throw them down on all fours.
Time to get creative.
She grunted, pulled hard on the Hazsuit's mask, and let go. They jerked back as the mask made contact with their face again like a slingshot. It gave Sun enough time to trip them over before she fired at their chest. Kwon-Ho, too, was growing exhausted. He batted off the attacks from the Hazsuit and remained steady on his feet, but he didn't look like he could break past them any time soon.
"Sun!" Wolfgang shouted, his voice raspy as he thrashed in his chair. "Behind you!"
Sun dodged, but the Hazsuit had nicked her on the side with his pocket knife. It didn't seem to hurt much. The blade probably didn't cut deep enough for real damage. She ducked low, turned around, and butted the Hazsuit's midsection with her head. His back clashed against the side of Wolfgang's recliner with a thud, and he crumpled to the ground, groaning in agony until she finished him off with another shot.
"Let me up," Wolfgang demanded.
She squatted and fumbled underneath the recliner until she found a button. The binds unbuckled around Wolfgang's body like seat belts, but his wrists were still cuffed. Sun pulled out a bobby pin from her hair and unlocked the first cuff. Wolfgang leaped off the seat before she finished unlocking the second.
The moment Wolfgang was fully released, he screamed, grabbed a Hazsuit by the collar, and slammed him against the wall. Sun heard a sickening crunch before the Hazsuit crumpled to the ground with a broken neck. He kept launching kicks at the body as he cursed, and Sun noticed he was sobbing.
"Wolfgang," she said, as gently as she could. She knew not to touch him in case he defended himself on reflex, but she moved closer, noting that her side was hurting a bit from where the Hazsuit's blade had nicked her. "Wolfgang, stop."
He stopped and turned back. Tears were streaming down his face, but Sun noticed he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at Kala.
Kala, who lay on her chair without stirring.
Wolfgang ran over to free Kala from her binds. Before Sun could follow, she heard Kwon-Ho grunting in frustration. The Hazsuit he had been fighting was on the ground on all four, but they stubbornly clung to Kwon-Ho's leg and kept him from moving forward. Veronika had picked up her dagger and thrust it forward -
Kwon-Ho picked up the Hazsuit by the shoulder like a human shield in the nick of time, and the blade sunk into their neck.
When Sun turned to look for Veronika, she saw a flash of blonde hair out in the hallway and knew they were too late. She had slipped away. Sun made a run for the door, but the pain in her side became unbearable. It tore at her flesh like a hook had embedded itself into her muscles, and she crouched on the ground and hissed in pain.
Apparently, the blade had cut her deeper than she believed.
The adrenaline rush from all the fighting had kept her mind off the cut, but now that the fight was done, it all came rushing back to her. Kwon-Ho took off his shirt, crumpled it into a ball, and pressed it against her wound, trying to staunch the bleeding. He scooped her up from, the shirt wedged firmly between his body and Sun's. She scowled but didn't have enough strength left to protest.
"Sun. Sun, stay with me. Can you hear me?"
"Mm, yeah," she mumbled, fighting to keep her eyes open.
Wolfgang was nearby, carrying Kala in his arms. They made for the door and were stopped by six more people in Hazmat suits. Suits that were stained with blood, Sun noticed as she tried to keep her eyes from closing. This was it. This was it for them. They -
"We're here to escort you," said one of the Hazsuits, pulling off her mask along with everyone else. The person standing next to her looked like she could be her twin. "Your hacker friend called for help."
The connection in Sun's mind was fading again. The next thing she knew — she was drifting in and out, talking nonsense, babbling over Kwon-Ho's instruction to stay awake — they had come out of the elevator onto the ground floor. Kwon-Ho and Wolfgang carried Sun and Kala out through the front door, which no longer guarded by anyone. Paramedics were waiting outside with stretchers.
Sun felt herself lying down for the first blissful time that evening, aware of her blood soaking through her clothes and the sheets on her stretcher. Someone was clutching her hand tight. Someone else, or maybe it was the same person, was applying more pressure to her wound. She moaned in pain, biting back a curse.
"Stay with me, Sun."
She forced her eyes to open again, fighting the temptation to sleep. Kwon-Ho was looking at her, a concerned frown on his face. Two paramedics were already working on her wound as a third pushed her into the ambulance.
"Sun. Sun!" Bug prompted. Sun didn't realize she still had the Bluetooth device on her ear. She hadn't heard Bug's voice for who knew how long. Or maybe she had been too busy fighting to hear.
"Mm," she mumbled in response.
Bug paused for a second and swore before he muttered, "Get Mun on the line."
Kwon-Ho was still holding her hand. The paramedics were telling him to let go. Sun reached her free arm over to her head, every muscle protesting as she moved, and pried the device off her ear. It was fastened pretty tight, and she wondered if it had dug groves into her skin. As her eyes threatened to shut again, she squeezed Kwon-Ho's hand firmly once, then held up the device for him to take.
"Hello? Bug?" she heard him ask before the door closed.
Relieved, she gave up resisting and closed her eyes. The ambulance was moving now. One paramedic was talking to her. It sounded urgent. Something about her staying awake, but she didn't know if she said anything back. Possibly. She would have if she could.
As they drove away, Sun wondered if Kala was okay. Kala wasn't moving when they got out of the building. Maybe, said a treacherous voice in her mind before she fell unconscious, you and Kwon-Ho were too late.
8:49 PM, BPO, 15th Floor (Will, Riley, Mavis, Miki, Henrik, Gina, Whispers)
"Gina!" Henrik ran out of the elevator as soon as the door opened.
The real Whispers stood in front of them, leaning over the railing. A part of the fence, Will now noticed, had been broken off. Whispers was standing dangerously close to the gap, clutching Gina in front of his like a shield. Gina's presence made him untouchable, and Will swallowed, trying to think of a way out without letting the Headhunter go scot-free. They raised their hands above their heads.
In their shared mind, Will sensed Gina's fear.
Whispers turned to Henrik and eyed him with great interest. "One life, in exchange for hers. Your choice."
"Henrik, no," Gina mumbled, her voice shaking.
"Let me make this easier, Henrik," said Whispers. "Gina's life, in exchange for Will's."
Riley stood protectively next to Will and grabbed his hand. It stung when her skin made contact with the cuts on his knuckles, but he didn't want to pull away. Henrik looked like he might be sick as he looked at Gina, then Will. He closed his hand tightly around the gun in his hand.
Someone fired from the end of the hall. The bullet hit Whispers in the shoulder. Whispers dropped his gun, and his right arm hung uselessly on his side as he pressed his left hand over the wound. Gina ran over to Henrik and threw her arms around him.
"Jonas," Whispers hissed.
Confused, Will made a move to pick up the gun Whispers dropped, but a bullet swished past his hand, barely missing his skin, and he jumped.
Jonas.
It was Jonas who fired at Will. He was in a Hazmat suit with his mask off. He pointed the gun at Whispers but didn't shoot again. "Step aside, Will," said Jonas.
Will barely had time to ask Jonas what the fuck he was playing at before Jonas' expression shifted to one of shock. Before Will could turn to look, he found himself tackled from behind. Will made a grab for his assailant's gun before they could fire, dragging them both down. His knees crashed painfully against the ground, but he turned around and looked to see who had attacked him.
A Bolger bore down on him with lifeless eyes, her lobotomized status evident by the scar across her forehead. She clawed at Will's chest, but he scrambled back with difficulty and pushed himself up, now with two guns in hand. He finished the Bolger off.
Will! He heard Riley's call for help in their mind.
Frantically, Will turned, trying to see where she was. Then he was seeing through her eyes. A Bolger had cornered her against the wall next to the elevator, ready to shoot. Will let his consciousness drift back into his own body as he ran over to Riley and tackled her assailant from the side. His arms were sore from all the fighting he'd done earlier, but thankfully the momentum of his tackle was enough to knock the Bolger down, clumsy as it might have been, and Will finished them off.
Another Bolger made a grab for Will's back collar before he could pick himself up from the ground. They pinned they him down again and pried both guns from his hands. He kicked behind his back and felt his foot collide with something solid — he hoped it was a joint or their jaw — and the Bolger let go.
Will turned around, and Henrik pulled him up. He whipped his head around to see what was happening to everyone else, and the sound of Jonas' screaming drew his attention to the fence overlooking the skylight. Before Will could run over to stop it, a Bolger had thrown him over the railing, down the hollow space all the way to the ground floor.
They were so far up, Will couldn't even hear the thud of Jonas hitting the ground.
But the second Will turned back, his heart beating twice as fast, he saw someone else sneaking up behind Henrik, a Bolger woman. Will shoved Henrik aside just before she fired, once, twice. They dodged again as she fired a third shot and found themselves backed against the wall. Fuck. Will saw the Bolger woman toss her emptied gun aside.
"It can't be, no, it's not…" Henrik muttered.
The moment Will locked eyes with the Bolger woman, he realized he had seen her before. Not in person; in a photo, a photo hanging on the wall of the back stairs of the Paris safe house. Her brown eyes stared back at Will without emotions. If it weren't for the too-familiar dimples on her cheeks, accentuated by a smattering of dark freckles that clashed against her grayish skin, it would have been impossible for Will to admit the woman standing in front of them was Damien's mother.
But her lifeless eyes glossed over them both, showing no sign of recognition.
Henrik raised his gun to shoot her as she walked in front of them, pulling something else from her pocket. But Henrik's hand was shaking. Will could hear him panic in his mind and knew he couldn't pull the trigger. The moment Henrik lowered his arm, right before Will could make a move to take the gun from Henrik and shoot her himself, Damien's mother had unfolded her pocket knife and thrust it forward, stabbing Henrik in the chest.
The gun clattered to the ground as Henrik fell. Will scrambled forward on all fours to grab it, but froze and screamed in horror when Damien's mother — the Bolger — got down on her knees and pulled the knife out of Henrik's chest, watching the blood spurt out of the wound. Will rolled aside as she brought the blade down to try and stab him, too.
Will uttered an apology to Damien as he fired. He missed her head, but it hit her in the midsection, and when she fell he shot again, this time at her temple. The Bolger fell stiffly to the ground, devoid of all traces of who she once was.
In their shared minds, Will could feel Henrik's presence slipping away. The last light in the room, vanishing into the dark space.
Will pulled himself up again and ran over to where Henrik had collapsed.
Henrik had put a hand over his wound to try and stop the bleeding, but his hand was already covered in blood. Gina was kneeling in front of Henrik. She put her hand over his, trying to block the gaps between his fingers with her palm. "We'll get you to safety, Henrik, you hear?" she muttered. "We need to move you. I can't move you. But there's still time…"
Henrik shook his head and drew a shallow breath. Will felt the moment Henrik gave up before he saw him pulling his hand away. The blood flowed freely now, draining all color from his cheeks. I'm sorry.
Gina pushed both her hands over the wound, but Henrik's blood seeped relentlessly through the gaps between her fingers and underneath her palm. "Henrik, stay!" Gina pleaded.
Her voice broke at the sound of his name. Blood crawled down Gina's arms, mocking her as she tried to fight against death when Henrik had already lost. Please… Stay.
I love you.
For a second, their minds echoed as one.
Henrik pried one of Gina's hands away from his chest and laid his ring on her palm. Then his hand fell limp, and the light faded from his eyes.
"Help!" Riley shouted nearby.
Will turned to see Riley struggling against the hold of another Bolger — shit, he thought they were all gone — who had pinned Riley on the ground and grabbed both her hands behind her back. Will shot the Bolger.
"Where's Whispers?" Riley looked around as she pulled herself back up.
Will and Riley found Whispers lying unmoving nearby, facing the wall. Riley's consciousness merged with his for a second, and a gasp told Will she saw what happened to Jonas. And someone had gotten Whispers, too. Will didn't know who.
Miki let out a roar from where she stood, pulling herself away from her cluster-mate. The last Bolger, who had been trying to pin Mavis against the wall, didn't stand a chance as Miki charged at him with only her fists and shoved him to the ground. Mavis tossed Miki the gun in her hand without a word, and she fired a dozen bullets at the Bolger's head, screaming.
The elevator door opened with a creak.
The sound would have gone unnoticed, had Will been standing further away. Whispers, who was apparently still alive, was trying to slip by unnoticed and stagger in, one hand pressed against a nasty bullet wound on his side.
"Stop!" Will shouted.
Will didn't know if he could run fast enough to keep the door from closing. He was exhausted from fighting, and his head was spinning, and his vision was blurring, and he all but fell forward right between the elevator doors just as it was about to close, wedging himself in between. Numbing bursts of pain shot through the bone in his shin, which had made contact with the door at a very unfortunate angle.
He stuck his hands out to break his fall, dropping his gun in the process. His elbows hit the ground painfully on top of his now broken leg. But all Will had eyes for was Whispers.
Whispers leaned against the corner and pointed his gun at Will with a shaky hand, wheezing and bleeding endlessly from his own wound. The elevator door opened wide again. Will rolled aside to dodge a bullet Whispers had fired at him. He scrambled forward with his good leg to try and reach gun he'd dropped.
I got it, Riley thought.
Will let his consciousness drift over to Riley's body. She was standing right behind him, holding a gun with shaky hands. He focused on the feeling of the trigger against Riley's finger and directed her to fire at Whispers' head before the elevator could close again.
The bullet found its target right between Whispers' eyes.
As Will hopped out of the elevator, she pulled him into a tight hug. He tried to balance by standing on one leg. "Thank you," he muttered and found himself tearing up.
"We did it." He realized Riley was sobbing.
Outside the building, sirens blared through the streets, and paramedics rushed in from the other halls to take Henrik away. Gina followed blankly behind them, clutching Henrik's ring tightly in one hand, Miki shuffling in close behind her.
Henrik, please, Will heard Gina think. Wake up.
8:58 PM, BPO, 6th Floor (Hernando, Lito)
When Hernando reached the 6th floor, he was surrounded by four guards in the stairwell before he could make a break for it.
The guards pointed the guns at his head and marched him out into the hall. His hands tightened around the folders he'd stolen as thoughts raced through his head, disjointed, barely coherent ideas on how he could get himself out.
When Hernando found himself face to face with the woman Lito and his cluster had spent the past two months trying to hunt down, all notions of escaping had become significantly less likely to work out.
"Hand them over," she demanded, walking close enough for Hernando to smell her perfume. She had no guns on her, but the sight of her made Hernando freeze. Her gaze was fixed on the folders in Hernando's hands, sharp as a dagger.
Whether anyone was aware of his predicament, Hernando couldn't be sure. He hoped Bug and the other hackers had decided to keep an eye on all the cameras along the halls as well as the interrogation rooms. He hoped Lito would not stop at this level, but keep going, keep finding a way out. Or maybe Lito would realize what was going on and go and get help -
Hernando's only option, he knew, was to stall. "T-this isn't all of it."
"Hand them over," Veronika insisted.
"My friends are already out of the building," Hernando lied. "They've taken the other files back to our base. Soon we're going to alert the authorities."
Veronika raised an eyebrow. "And how exactly did they escape? I have my guards and soldiers stationed at the front door."
She was lying. She had to be lying. She wanted to get the truth out of Hernando, and she was watching for slight changes in his expressions. Actors, like Lito, could tell when people were lying. Maybe she could, too -
Hernando cleared his throat, hoping he came off as more bored than scared. "We have our ways. We've made it past your security before."
"I've never seen you before." Veronika narrowed her eyes. "You're not part of the August 8 cluster. I have all the members accounted for."
"They have more allies than you think. Hundreds of them."
At that, Veronika rolled her eyes. "Veracity?'" She spat out the word with a scowl like it left a bitter taste in her mouth. "I snuffed out their infiltration weeks ago."
Hernando forced himself to smile, suppressing his panic as he swallowed slowly. His mouth was dry, and in all likelihood, he was visibly shaking, but he hoped his nonchalance would deter Veronika enough for him to find a way to break through. "They're still here. They helped us tonight."
Veronika looked unfazed. "Then I'll make sure they don't leave this building alive."
"I think it's too late for that." Hernando forced himself to smirk and hoped it was convincing. It came out as a grimace. "My allies already finished what they came here to do."
Or, that was what Hernando had hoped. He didn't know where the others were. Nothing was going according to plan tonight, and he didn't know if their allies were even alive.
"It doesn't matter if they've killed Milton." She didn't look the slightest bit deterred. "I've got more Headhunters than you can snuff out."
You have to believe it, he recalled what Lito told him. Lies are the most convincing when there's some truth to what you're saying, Hernando. You have to believe it, or others won't.
His muscles were tense, but he forced himself to appear comfortable. He pretended he was in his element. He was giving a lecture, explaining a concept to a particularly unmotivated student who didn't make much effort to pay attention to what he'd said. A lecture. That was all. Nothing life-threatening.
"We know more about your operations than you think, Veronika. The names of higher-ups like you. Most of the Headhunters, too. And we have evidence." Hernando glanced down briefly at the folders still clutched over his chest.
Veronika's nostrils flared. A surefire sign, he remembered from one of Lito's rambles on micro-expressions, that his tactic was working. "I don't believe you, Hernando."
He gave a start upon hearing his name. Too late, he realized Veronika had been watching closely. She smirked when she saw that he was startled.
"Oh, yes. Our hacker friends warned us about this," Hernando tried to keep his voice from shaking. His vocal cord felt tense; he hoped he sounded calm enough to be believable. "They said you'd dig up all our biographies."
"Hernando Fuentes," Veronika recited. "Lecturer at the Academia de Artes. Boyfriend of Lito Rodríguez. Hardly the most heroic tale."
"I think you will find that our definition of heroism differs a great deal."
Someone peeked out from the corner of the wall at the end of the hall. Hernando's glasses were cracked, blocking parts of his vision, but through one of the larger pieces balanced precariously on his lens, he made out a too-familiar face.
Lito.
None of the guards behind Hernando reacted. He hoped it meant they were too focused on keeping an eye on Hernando to notice Lito there. Lito hid behind the corner of the wall again. To divert Veronika's attention, Hernando glanced furtively to his right-hand side towards the fence that overlooked the skylight, hoping to convince her he was trying to search for a way out.
Veronika, noticing his gaze, snapped her finger and gestured to the folders in Hernando's hands. He took a step back and backed right into one of the two guards, who snatched the folders away and grabbed him by the shoulders, locking him in place.
"Veronika, let him go!" Lito ran down the hallway, in full view of the guards.
"Lito, no!"
The guards turned and prepared to aim their guns, but Veronika put up a hand to stop them. "No. Don't let this one -" she nodded at Hernando - "get away."
"Just go, Lito," Hernando pleaded. He tried to thrash and break out of the guards' hold. All he got in return was the feeling of the cold pistol pressed against his temple.
"Let. Him. Go!" Lito repeated, standing his ground. "Take me. I'm part of the cluster -"
"No!"
Two Hazsuits ran down the hall, and before Hernando could shout another warning, one of them pressed the muzzle of their gun behind Lito's head. The other cuffed Lito's hands behind his back. They shoved him closer.
"Perfect." Veronika looked at Lito and Hernando, the corner of her dark red lips twitching into a smile.
Hernando's heart stopped cold. "What are you going to do to us?"
"She'll let you watch him die," said one of the Hazsuits. He lowered the gun from behind Lito's head. His voice sounded shockingly familiar.
Hernando saw the tiniest hint of a grin ticking at the corner of Lito's mouth. Veronika startled at the sound of Wolfgang's voice, but before she could get another word out, Wolfgang tore off the mask on his stolen suit and shot her in the head as their eyes met, two sets of identical ice-blues.
Veronika was dead before she hit the ground, the look of shock forever etched on her face.
Lito stepped forward and pulled Hernando down as a bullet swished past where his head had been moments ago. They launched into their final fight. Compared to the rest of this evening, Hernando was almost disappointed to say the battle ended before he could throw a punch himself. With only four guards left, Wolfgang and the other Hazsuit, who later revealed himself to be Detective Mun, made quick work of getting rid of them.
Against all reason, Hernando stared at Veronika's corpse as he bent down to retrieve the folders the now-dead guards had dropped in the fight. He hadn't noticed Veronika was barefoot, but now he realized she had been looking up at him when they talked. Without her cold smile and her cutting-edge voice, she seemed… almost harmless, like someone Hernando could pass on the street on his way to work, or someone who'd stand in front of him in line as he waited for his morning coffee.
It was hard to believe this woman had caused the deaths of thousands, and, if she had gotten away tonight, would have been responsible for the deaths of thousands more to come.
Wolfgang walked up next to Hernando and spared his aunt one last hateful glance. For a second Hernando thought Wolfgang might empty his bullets on her. He was looking at her body and the gun in his hand. But then he tossed the gun on the ground, turned away, and walked briskly down the hall, leaving everything behind.
When they stopped to pick up the folders Lito had left behind the corner of the wall, they found Will, Riley, and Mavis waiting there. Will was balancing on one leg, his brows contorted in pain, and Riley and Mavis were clutching a gun each, ready to pull the trigger in case of an emergency.
It was Lito's idea, Mavis told Hernando on their way down, to have Wolfgang and the detective pose as Hazsuits. Wolfgang and the detective had been downstairs when Bug told them Lito's plan. They had stolen the last two Hazmat suits out of the employees' changing room and run into Will and the others on their way up.
Mavis sounded pleased that the plan all worked out, but there was a hint of sadness in her eyes when she talked. Hernando didn't dare ask what happened. He had a feeling she would tell him soon enough.
Two cars were waiting for them when they walked out of the back door — the front, Will pointed out through gritted teeth, was swarming with cops who had arrived on the scene. Riley and Mavis helped Will into the first. The second driver gave Hernando and the others a respectful nod, and Detective Mun climbed in the back, followed by Lito and Hernando. Wolfgang hopped into the passenger seat and muttered instructions to a nearby hospital. He didn't say anything else for the rest of the evening.
As they drove away, Hernando looked behind his shoulder at the uniform rectangular structure. Save for the police, who would go inside to find the aftermath of a bloodbath and dozens upon dozens of dead bodies, no one could begin to imagine how many lives had been taken in this place tonight. Hernando wondered why it was that the inconceivable things always seemed to come from the mundane, and the horrifying crimes from the unassuming.
"It's over?" Mun asked quietly from the other side.
"It is." Hernando sighed and reached for Lito's hand. "And it's not."
He wondered if it ever will be.
A/N:
TW for depictions of torture.
For those of you who had hoped for a happy ever after for everyone, I'm sorry. For those of you who suspected someone else might die, congratulations, you were right.
You'll find out the fates of everyone else (María, Sun, Kala, to name a few) next chapter, which, if all goes well, should be out by this weekend. Though I'm sure you can all deduce that no matter the outcome, it's not gonna be nearly as bad as this chapter. I'll certainly try to get chapter 37 out on time. I know you're all waiting to murder me, so I won't give you another reason to.
*Backs away towards the exit, and runs the fuck out of here, pushing past an angry mob.*