Chapter XV: Escaping Enquiries

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Okay, more stuff - I recently found a Viking Band called Skald did a cover of Seven Nation Army that I quite enjoyed - check youtube if you wanna see it. Uh. The Magnus Archives is a deliciously creepy audio series about a dude making audio logs of an archive of witness/victim statements from folks who've experienced weird supernatural shit. I know Edinburgh real well, so the first episode sent little shivers down my spine listening to it. Finished Remedy's new game 'Control', which I highly recommend. Fun world, fun story, fun game.

Oh, shit, there's a thing to say. I'm currently trying to finish two stories by the end of this month. This one, which has about six more chapters left until the end, and then either Bump in the Night or What We Behold, both of which also have about six chapters. If I can get both done, I will, but that's unlikely.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

"So, you all, a housewife, a cripple, a drunk, a photographer, and a maintenance worker, manage to get to one of the most secure points in this facility and you claim you were there to... fix things?"

The man's glare expressed what little scepticism his words didn't already.

I just nodded. I didn't really know what else to do. This room was scary and these people were armed and I had no idea where Chloe or anyone else was. Me included. Frankly, I was terrified they were just going to shoot us all. I had not come this bloody far just to get shot by the people we were trying to freaking help! That's hella stupid!

Man, I just sounded so much like Chloe. That's hilarious.

The EarthGov trooper leaned in, hands planted evenly-apart on the surface of the metal table between us. I shifted slightly in the chair. He was a little, um... yes. Scary. "You're lying to me, aren't you Maxine?"

"Max." I said instantly and I only slightly regretted it.

He blinked, and somehow it made me feel so much better. "What?"

"It's Max. Never Maxine." I said, enough vitriol in my tone for the hated name to take him aback a little more, just a second. It was almost enough to make me fully relax. If he was wary of me, I could do better than being scared by him!

Then, he frowned. Almost in interest. My heart began to race again. "You're married?"

I started, then flushed as I realised I was wearing a ring. I gently lay my hand over it, to hide it from this intimidating soldier's view. "Y-yes." Confident, damnit Max. Say it with confidence! "I mean, Yes."

Good enough, I guess. Sigh. So much for being relaxed.

The interrogator stared at me again for another long few seconds. Though it felt like minutes. Long, long minutes that stretched out as thin as my freaking nerves. Eventually, he nodded in some evident satisfaction. "Right then. Come with me."

I blinked. Okay, I wasn't expecting that. "What?"

The man frowned grumpily at me. "I said, come with me."

"Why?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I hardly think you're in any position to ask questions, Max."

He had a point. So, I stood from the little steel table and followed him out the room, down a long hallway and into a moderately-sized room. He stopped in the middle - I nearly ran into him! - and pointed to the wall. "What do you think of that, then?"

I peered where he pointed and saw five small screens. Leaning in, I could see that each showed a room just like mine. From the empty chair, I think one of them was mine. Made sense, having all your monitoring equipment for your cells in the same room, but it was a little disconcerting to think about how anyone could've been watching me and I'd've never known.

The other four active screens were occupied by some familiar people. David, Copse, Joyce, and Chloe. My eyes immediately set on her and I stared shamelessly. The relief coursed through my veins like a drug - not that I'd know what that was like - and my shoulders quickly sagged as a feeling of sheer, bloody exhaustion set in. Dog. This was so tiring, being emotionally flip-flopped all the time. No wonder Chloe was so crabby back then.

I blinked at Chloe's monitor and the image appeared on my rig, about three inches from my face. I'd tuned in mid-way through a question, so the first thing I heard was a gruff voice saying "-ou doing in there? The system is completely ruined with whatever you did."

Chloe scoffed, looked up derisively at the man. "I was doing shit you'd never fucking understand. Like, technical engineering shit. Can you even use that fancy EarthGov Rig of yours, or do they just give you pictures to push when you want shit?" Her voice went sing-songingly mocking "Push the pretty picture of the gun to get new ammo, and the big red heart for a medpack!"

The man growled. "You're treading rough ground, young lady, and-"

Chloe chortled at that. "Young lady? Fuck, man, you sound like my step-father. Gonna tell me I'm supposed to go to bed without supper tonight, huh?"

The man's glare hardened as he leaned in, planting both hands solidly on the table. "You know we can arrest you for belligerence, right? Frankly, you'll never want another supper again, tasting the prison food on Taryus III."

I facepalmed. Wowzers, Chloe. She really knew how to talk to people. Could she ruffle any more feathers than she already did? I looked over at the guard who'd escorted me in; he was eyeing an image of his own with no small amusement. "Your wife has been talking like that for nearly two hours straight."

Oh no. I might actually pity that poor EarthGov man now. What the hell was she thinking? Dog, it's a true freaking miracle that they haven't arrested her already. "I'm-" I let out a strangled sound as I try to work out what exactly I am. What the bloody hell do I even say to that? "Sorry?"

I tapped quickly on another screen, flipping the image. Oh. It's Copse. He's just chatting with the guy. Heh. At least he seems happy. I... I couldn't hear what he was saying, though. I decided the mike on this camera must have been broken and flipped again before looking up at the EarthGov man who'd brought me here.

The man shook his head. "It's not her that I brought you here to see." He reached out and tapped on one screen showing a slightly ruffled man glaring in silence at the slightly fidgety interrogator. "Your friend here used to be one of us. He tell you that?"

I nodded. "Sure. He left after an accident. And he's my father in law." Correcting them seemed right. Besides, it's not like they can't find whatever information they want on their own, right? Might as well seem helpful, right? That's a thing, right? Either way, there's no way in hell I was telling them about what we'd been tricked into by Kate, so talking about other stuff would definitely stop me verbally flailing off a cliff. Hopefully.

Woop. Not paying attention. The man was speaking again. "-and there's a serious implication of what he might've discussed with you. Did he get you into the base?"

My jaw literally dropped and, before I could stop myself, blurted out- "Did you seriously not see the front of your base?"

He frowned at me. "No. There's been no alarms, or-"

Of course, that was the moment the entire base alarm network apparently went off - judging by the truly ear-splitting noise. My hands immediately went to my ears. Dog, I couldn't even hear myself think! The other man mouthed something that I strongly suspected was a swearword and brought up an interface on his RIG, slamming a button repeatedly until the room went silent. "Oh, thank fuck..." He groaned. "Right, Max. You're going back to your cell while I see what the hell that was, then we'll talk about this front of the base thing. Understood?"

I nodded mutely. What the hell was this guy thinking? Hasn't he seen those... things? It's probably them! Wait, no. Calm down, Max. The base is on lockdown due to a message from the Director where he literally got murdered by the monsters. They've got to know. They're just... confident they can deal with them. Right?

Before I'd really thought too hard about it - because I was busy thinking hard about other things than what I was doing - I'd let him lead me back down the hall and into my cell. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at me for a moment. "You need to be more honest, Max. This could turn out very badly for you and your family. But if you cooperate..."

Whatever he saw in me during his little trail-off was apparently enough to satisfy him, because he gave a nod and tapped the door-close button, then turned to leave.

In a move that I think I saw on TV - because otherwise I have absolutely no explanation for how I knew to do it - I slipped one of the random bits of metal off of my suit and let it fall right into the place where the door met the floor. I spared a quick glance down and couldn't suppress the grin. My super-sleuth skillz totally came through! The little piece of metal was maybe an inch high, and that inch was keeping the door off the ground enough that I could get my fingers under it.

I listened for a moment... Okay, the guy had gone. That hallway was clear. I reached down and grabbed the bottom of the door - lift with the knees, not with the back - and pulled.

Huh.

It didn't move. At all. Shoot. Okay, there might be a flaw in this plan.

Ah. Well. Um.

What the heck do I do now?

It was about five minutes after my failed plan when I heard them go by. A squad of EarthGov troopers. I could see their boots glinting through the crack under the door. One of them - I guess the officer in charge - was barking out commands and reports. "We've got an ACE-36 in the Old Section; twelve tangos active and three down. No ID on the Rupe, but we think he's a Church Oppie somewhere behind the main squad. Try-"

The EarthGov Troopers passed through the next door and their words were cut off. Annoying, really, but that was enough to tip me off. The specifics of the code were meaningless to me, but I got the gist. The base was definitely under attack.

Sudddenly, three large explosions racked the base. I could feel them through the freaking floor. It didn't shake me enough to knock me down, fortunately.

"Oh dog, o-oh dog." I took another deep breath. Dog, that was harder than I expected. It felt like my lungs were full of those little coal-shovellers from old locomotives, only they were shovelling air out of my lungs instead of fossilised carbon into a fire. "Someone will come and get you out. You're not going to be trapped in here with monsters. It will be fine."

"What'll be fine, Maxie?"

I looked up and immediately grinned as I saw Chloe's face poking under the now five or six inch high gap below the door. "Exactly."

She blinked. "What?"

I shook my head, smiling fondly at her completely baffled expression. "Nothing. Can you get me out? Do I need to do anything?"

"Nah," She smirked at me. "You just sit there and look pretty."

I nodded. "That I can do."

"Yeah you can." She winked. I blushed. Damnit.

"Okay," I started. "Where are the others?"

Chloe shrugged. "No idea. One of the other doors, I guess. I just saw the crack under yours and came to check it out."

I blinked, opened my mouth to continue, then stopped. "Wait. How did you get out of your cell?"

She snorted in the most derisive manner I'd ever heard from her - and believe me, that was freaking saying something. "These fuckers wouldn't know the difference between a wrench and a code-lock if I hit them with my class textbook on them and gave them a couple months to read it." She paused. "Partly 'cause they'd be in hospital recovering from head injury - those textbooks were hella heavy. Could do some real damage hittin' them with that shit."

Wow. That's so... Chloe. I gave a little chuckle, rolling my eyes at her victorious expression. Yes, wifey, you brought up the mood. Good work. All of her textbooks had been electronic, though, so her musing was mild bullshit.

She pointed towards one of the other doors. "That one." It... was pretty much identical to all the others, except maybe having some scratches and scrapes in different spots. I really couldn't tell why she'd picked it over any of the others, but hey.

We strode over and Chloe... the best way I can describe it is that she just 'did something' to the door - right in the sides where the actual door proper met the frame - and, after a slightly awkward pause, it slid open. "Mom!"

Chloe darted into the room and wrapped her arms around Joyce, who was stood up and seemed to have been pacing around the table. Aww. That was painfully cute. Which Chloe seemed to realise after a half-minute or so and she pulled back, coughing roughly and burying her emotional vulnerability back behind a wall of swagger and style and a darn cute grin.

I let her retreat as she felt she needed, then went in for my own hug with Joyce. Mine lasted slightly less time than Chloe's, but I pulled back too.

"I am so glad to see you both. How'd you even-"

Chloe interrupted. "Because I'm a hella awesome genius with technical shit and these idiots couldn't wire a fucking plug. Now, can we go get the old dudes and grab our shit and go? We put a lotta work into getting those parts and we're stuck on this shithole without 'em."

Oh. Oh no. I hadn't thought about that. What the heck had happened to all the parts we'd been carrying with us? "Did they survive the, um, tentacle monster thing in the generator room?"

Chloe nodded, and my body flooded with relief. "Yep. I left 'em in the back by the door, so the boxes probably got beat up when they fell after we turned the gravity back on, but that's about it."

Well, that's great. We'd need to go find them there. I pursed my lips. "So, we can ask David and Copse where they'd keep our stuff when we find them. Hopefully they keep your guns with them - if there really are monsters in the base here, we're screwed without weapons."

Chloe and Joyce both nodded agreeably and we headed back out into the corridor again. Chloe picked correctly before, so she can pick again. I turned to her. "Hey, Chlo'. Which door next?"

She frowned, paused for about two minutes straight as we watched her. Then, she pointed again. This door was two down from mine, towards the end the interrogator had taken me to the surveillance room through. We walked over and she did whatever it was she did again, and the door slid open to reveal Copse. He was leaning back in the crappy chair they'd given us, feet up on the table, and hands linked behind his head. He also appeared to be snoring slightly.

"Uh..." We all looked at each other. "Copse?"

No response. We walked a little closer, tried again. "Copse?"

De nada. So, Chloe walked right up to his ear, leaned in and screamed at the top of her lungs "Copse!"

The man barely flinched. He gave a brief snort, turned slightly like he was trying to get more comfortable, then gradually blinked his eyes open. He spoke a burst of what I guessed was Spanish again, then breathed deeply before trying again in English. "What're you doing in here? Shouldn't you be whistlin' Dixie-" A truly awful impression of Joyce's drawl came out of his mouth. "-in a lockup somewhere? Y'know, somewhere not here?"

I cut in before he could talk any more. Eeesh. "The base is under attack. We're getting our stuff and getting out of here."

He paused for a beat, then nodded. "Right then. Sound logic." He hopped to his feet, then strode past us to the corridor, booming "Come along, then. Lets find your errant step-father and get along with this!"

We trailed him out, following him immediately to the door next to Chloe's. He did something to it - something that apparently confused Chloe, if her expression was any indication - and the door slid open. David had been standing just inside it, cane raised threateningly. He relaxed and lowered it the moment he saw us. "Thank God," He rushed to Joyce and embraced her tightly. I grinned - dog, that was cute as heck.

When they separated, David stayed by her side and we grouped up in the middle of the hallway. "Right, where do we think they took our stuff?"

I was expecting Copse to weigh in, but apparently a Pilot wasn't up-to-date on Prisoner Handling as David was the one to weigh in while he stayed silent in the background. "There should be a room up past the monitoring station. It'll probably have an armoury-door on the front, so we'll have to find a cutter to get inside."

"Oooh," Chloe chirped. "I can hella fucking take that one. I saw a req-station a couple corridors back while they were dragging us here. You and Joyce stick to the door while me, Maxie, and Copse go grab a cutter?"

David paused, then nodded. "I suppose that will work. But you be careful, Missy. If this place is under attack, you'll need to move quietly to get there."

She promptly groaned. Teenage rebellion never quite goes away, huh? "Fiiine. Ugh. It's not like we didn't survive a shitload of horrible shit to get to you guys, y'know. Hella dangerous shit that we were hella dangerous to."

Copse very audibly snorted.

She turned to glare at him.

He beamed.

"Right," I said, jumping in. Chloe looked like she was going to eviscerate the man. Tensions were high, but that was slightly ridiculous and we did need him, so... yeah. I jumped in. "We'd better get moving."

Chloe turned her glare to me for a second before nodding begrudgingly. "Fine. Lets go get the thing so we can do the thing and get outta here already. Hope the engineers haven't all died on us or anything - fighting our way back to the ship would be hella annoying."

Real optimistic, Chloe. That's why I love you.

We'd made it to the surveillance room, left Joyce and David to work on it, and continued past the first corridor when we heard that sound. Shrieking. Chloe and I both swore under our breaths. That confirmed it, then. There were monsters in the base.

"Fuck."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Copse quipped.

We made a rapid dash from the corridor we were walking along to the next, turning right at the end and finding ourselves in front of a store kiosk. A small metal plate extended from the steel-lined alcove that showed a small RIG-display requesting access credentials. Shoot. "Do we, um, have those?" I asked.

Chloe nodded. "Yep." Then, she shoved Copse towards it. "Do your thing, EarthGov Boy."

He smirked, gave a jaunty little salute. "Yes ma'am."

It took more than a few moments for him to access the store - his credentials seemed to be really long. But eventually he opened up the main Gooey and a full library of weaponry, suits, and equipment appeared. Chloe pushed past him and scrolled downward. "Ooooh, you can print a rocket launcher! I could totally upgrade from the grenade-"

Copse very carefully pushed her back and scrolled upward again. "Sorry, Chloe. Can't give a civvie a weapon like that."

"Why?" She glared. "Do you think I can't use it properly or something?"

He raised an eyebrow. He didn't really need to make the obvious comment. Chloe agreed, given her blush. "Fine. Spoilsport."

He gave a wide grin. "You bet, sweetheart. But hey, if you get any more desires to blow shit up, we'll go hunt down another big monster and you can take a whack at 'em, huh?"

She matched his grin and then some. "Hell Yes."

I rolled my eyes and leaned in to tap the Ripper key, setting the auto-fabricators to do their work.

"Why does shit always explode around us?"

Both Copse and I stopped walking and turned to stare at Chloe incredulously. She stared back. "What? These Unitologist fuckers always follow us around and they keep blowing shit up and just generally being assholes. Like, don't they know destroying other people's shit is hella rude?"

...She said, without a hint of irony. Copse and I both look at each other in utter disbelief. I honestly thought Chloe couldn't surprise me any more.

"Uh... yes, Chloe. You're totally right. Destroying other people's things with explosions is very rude."

Several more explosions rock the corridor. Wowzers. How much explosive crap do they even have here? It felt like things had been blowing up for an hour straight.

We took that right again back into the surveillance room corridor. Joyce and David were right where we left them, standing aimlessly in front of the door. David seemed to be poking it with his cane, his face all creased up kinda hilariously. "Everything okay?"

Joyce jumped a little before Chloe swaggered over and threw an arm across her shoulders. The older woman still looked a little frazzled, a little more her age than she should, but after a moment wrapped up in her daughter, she relaxed. Chloe and I shared a smile. Dog, when Chloe got all... caring... It was nice. Real nice.

That was when Chloe raised the large rotary-saw contraption that we'd gone to get. The Ripper. She held it up to the door, then stopped. She turned her head back to look at us. "You, uh, you all should probably get back."

With that, her suit helmet unfolded over and covered her face. Then, she began cutting.

I immediately clapped my hands over my ears. It... it was like a screaming cat mixed with nails on a chalkboard. And good god, it was loud.

"That's going to..." Oh no. "Cut quickly, Chloe!"

"I am! This shit takes time, y'know. It's a fucking steel door, not cardboard!" She called back. She did hurry ever so slightly though.

If this'd been a movie, it'd be right about now when we'd get a montage of empty rooms throughout the base, with the roar of the saw echoing through until finally, they reached a room that was occupied. A monster would raise its head, tilt it curiously to listen - viewers would shiver, thinking about how much like a dog the thing that used to be a person now was - and then it would scream, so, so hungry, and charge toward us.

But this wasn't a movie. So, the first indication we got that pursuit was getting too close was a screaming from inside the room. I blinked. How was it coming from inside the room? If there were people in there, they'd've heard us freaking slicing through the door already.

Chloe swore under her breath - I could barely hear it below the roar of the saw - and just sort of... shoved downward with the Ripper. The circular blade detached, still spinning, and another popped out to continue cutting.

I blinked. "You could've been doing that the whole time?!"

She looked back at me with a grin. A small shrug. "I forgot."

Freaking heckballs.

Double the saw, double the cut. With the extra blade, we made it through the door in less than a minute - and boy, was I irritated about that delay - and practically launched ourselves inward. The room had several lockers in one corner that I hadn't really notice last time; Copse and David both immediately went over to them and started pulling out weapons.

I got the machine-gun back - the one I'd almost forgotten I even had, given how little I'd used it since we got blown out into space. Chloe got her grenade launcher - though it was quickly confiscated by Copse - and her own machine gun, adding a plasma cutter and some kind of pistol-like thing with a barrel that seemed to glow a faint blue.

Even Joyce got a weapon, though she shook slightly after being handed it.

We lined up by the door, ready to blast away as the monsters entered. One. Two. Three.

A scream.

What little was left of the door shattered.

We fired.

Chloe slung another corpse into the corridor outside. "Fuck, these things stink."

"Yep." I agreed, though I'd clamped my nose shut ages ago and couldn't smell anything any more. A freaking blessing, let me tell you.

I got distracted from grabbing the next - and thankfully last - body by a low curse from David. I looked over to see him glaring forcefully at an empty locker. "There's nothing here."

"What?"

"There's nothing here!" He turned to us. "They put our weapons here, but the parts have been taken elsewhere."

"Shit." Chloe popped up behind me. I checked back and she'd apparently taken out the last two dead while I'd been gawping. "Where'd they put them, then?"

Copse thought, but David got there first. "They probably went to one of the store rooms. Those boxes were pretty big, so they'd need to leave them out and-"

"And where's more secure than an EarthGov store." Chloe finished for him.

Copse snorted at that. "Nothing's secure if you know the code."

"Do you know the code?" I asked.

"Uh, no. Sorry."

"Exactly." I said.

Chloe just raised the Ripper again and grinned.

Oh yeah. This was going to go great.

I took another shot at one of the horde pressing in on us. "I told you so!"

"What?" Chloe fired a couple of times and two monster heads exploded. I could barely hear her over the gunshots and screams.

"I said, I told you this was going to be terrible!" I yelled, firing again and taking two arms clean off. Those arms were on separate monsters, so the things kept coming. They were everywhere.

"No you didn't!"

I squeaked and darted right just in time to avoid a swipe from one monster that'd gotten closer than I really liked. "I totally-" Another shot took a monster's head clean off, but the flipping thing kept coming. Dog, that's just wrong. I gibbered to myself, just a little.

Just before the thing skewered me, Chloe stepped in and blasted a bolt of plasma through its elbow. The girl spun and used the motion to tear the arm off. I was expecting a spray of blood, but... nothing. Carrying through the spin, she hurled the arm like a spear and it pierced the chest of another monster. That... that just went right through. Either these things are really freaking weak or those arms are... I reiterated my mental vow not to be stabbed by those things. They'd rip me into itty bitty pieces and laugh as I floated apart.

We pushed forward, Copse taking point and Chloe watching the rear. The three of us helped them out as needed, moving to each side as the number of monsters coming at us swelled or decreased.

We broke through the busted door and found ourselves in another large lobby area, identical to the one with the modern art. The only difference here was the more arboreal decorations - the central spot was dominated by a large tree, and several bushes and hedges lined the walls. Copse stopped and I ran into his back. What the heck was he doing? I vaguely registered David and Joyce moving back to help Chloe with the still-coming horde behind us. I think I was starting to get used to the shots - I barely registered the extra sounds and loudness. "Copse, what-"

"Back!" He whirled and let loose a near-random barrage of bullets into the doorway we'd just put our sweat and elbow grease into getting through and practically shoved us all back into it. It was all I could do not to trip on the - ulp, so gross - bodies we'd left behind us. He leaned back and shot again, this time down the corridor. A door at the end sealed itself. We were safe from our pursuers, but we couldn't go backwards.

"What are you doing?" I hissed at him.

He just pointed. Nine Unitologists appeared from another doorway across the way. I almost swore at him. It's not like we (they) couldn't deal with those guys. Why would we-

Oh. A hulking mess of tentacles and pain ooozed through the door after them. It... it almost hurt to look at it, writhing and undulating. I couldn't identify what it was, or even what it used to be, but the closest description I could give was that it looked like a ball of seaweed made of scorpions and squid. Plates and pincers and tentacle arms moved sinuously, giving the creature an oddly armoured-gelatinous look.

The Unitologists seemed to be leading the thing along, though they had no chain or collar. I don't even know where you would put a collar on that thing. As the rear of it came into view, I saw... they have our parts! Some kind of anti-grav tow-platform bobbed along behind the thing as it moved. "Copse, they-"

He held up a hand and I stopped mid-sentence. The Unitologists, luckily, never stopped. One of them started talking. "We need to get back to the Church soon. The Next Ceremony is supposed to begin and the girl says there's one of... them on board."

"Shit, really?" Another said.

"Yep. I shit you not." Said the first again.

"Shit." Said another.

"Yep." Said the first.

"When did they get here?" Another asked. He was one of the ones closest to the back, so the first one that spoke had to turn fully to reply.

"Just before the First Ceremony began. I think the Vested said they'd just landed as the Marker was freed." So it is called a Marker! How did I know that..? The Unitologist shrugged. "It's not like it matters. If they tried to stop us, they failed then and they'll fail if they try again."

A small cheer went up, which even the monster seemed to join in with, before they left through another door and their voices slowly faded to nothing.

Copse's hand dropped and we all slunk back into the room. The tentacled horror seemed to have left... a trail. It was almost like... bloody phlegm. Little tints of red in the slime.

That was gross.

I peered towards the corridor they'd come from, bending slightly around the odd fern-like plant sitting between us and it.

My eyebrows bunched as a thought popped into my head. I turned to Copse and poked him. Right in the arm. It probably hurt. "How did you even see them?" I smirked at him. "Can you see around corners?"

He shrugged. "Heard 'em coming. That slime-thing made a hell of a noise." A pause. "Seeing around corners would be kind of cool, though. Last I heard, an EarthGov research department was still working on replicating a weapon from the old days that did that."

I... I guess? It was pretty big. And wait, what? "A gun that can see around corners?"

He nodded. "Yeah. The barrel tilts or bends, and there's a screen in the stock that links to a camera attached to the end. None of them work anymore, they're just museum pieces now, but the idea was fun enough that the brass actually agreed to spend money on it."

"Wow."

"I know, right? The Brass never agrees to spend money on anything!" He chuckled. "Sometimes, miracles do happen." [AN1]

The conversation lapsed from there. Interesting stuff, but we had more important things to be worried about. Like the fact that our hard-gotten parts were now being taken right to the freaking Unitologist Church. That place was probably monster central, just like the Marker complex.

"We... we have to follow them."

Everyone turned to me and stared. "What?", "Maxie, your ideas are usually hella awesome, but that's fucking crazy.", "She's right."

Everyone turned to David. Me included. I am? I mean, "I am?"

He nodded. "We can't get off this station without those parts, and the manufactury is overrun with these things." A slight shrug. "Unless you have any other ideas, I think this is the best plan we got."

We all exchanged looks. I could see it in their eyes. Darnit. I really didn't want that to be our best plan. Surely we could... No. There really wasn't anything else, was there? Nothing for it, then. "We'll follow them. Now."

"Right." Copse sounded almost gleeful at the idea of a hot pursuit. "I've got nothing better either, so..."

I guess being chased by hungry monsters wasn't enough of a thrill for the flight jockey. He had to be the chaser in the cat-fight. No, that's not it. What the heck do they call two planes fighting?

"-we could always-"

"No, Chloe. You suggestin' that repeatedly does not make it a good option. Your friend is a criminal."

Chloe shrugged. "Yeah. What's your point?"

"He's a criminal!"

"Again, you're just repeating yourself, David. What's wrong with being a criminal?" Her arms crossed and her glare hard, if she'd just rolled her eyes, maybe looked even the slightest bit more irreverent, she'd be a picture-perfect callback to her teenage years.

"You-"

"You have a good idea, but I think this pursuit idea is unfortunately the better one. We can follow them to the Church, find their base!"

All of us frowned at him. "We... we know where the Church is, dude. Everyone on the station knows those lunatics are down on Cosgrove. Why would followin' them tell us any different?"

Copse rolled his eyes. "Not what I meant." A pause. "Sorry, I phrased that kind of badly, didn't I? I meant that we'd be able to do some recon, find their secret ways in, if there are any. We might be able to sneak in and find out what caused all this mess in the first place!"

This time, just Chloe and I frowned at him. "We... told you what caused this already. We released the Marker-" MakeUsWhole "-And the monsters came out of that."

The look Copse gave us in return was utterly patronizing. "And who tricked you into releasing the Markers?"

"Kate."

"And Kate was..?"

"A-... Oh."

"Yeah," He smirked. "Oh."

Kate was a Unitologist and if the ones passing by had been being honest - and why wouldn't they be, they didn't know we were listening - then the Unitologists had planned this out.

Huh. Chloe and I both looked at each other. Did this seem like a good idea? It might be justified, but it could also still get us all killed. Chloe's eyes screamed that she wanted to do this. She looked confident. Not only that we should do this, but that we could. I wasn't so sure, but... sod it. For better or for worse, right?

"We're going after them."

Copse's eyes lit up with elation and for a moment I was mildly scared he might try to hug me. He looked like a spinner; I'd only been spun once, by William's brother after he'd heard how close Chloe and I were - my head still spun when I thought about it. "Woo! Let's go get those parts!"

We went.

AN1 - God, will this chapter ever end? I feel like this one has been going on for aeons.