They could smell the smoke from the burning chapel and Male Ward, they could still hear the shooting Murkoff employed to kill all last living inmates. They cleaned the area, would kill them too if they found them. Adam and Waylon limped away from the asylum as fast as they could, leaving all those nightmares behind them. They couldn't help the innocent people, but they could stop it from happening ever again. The camera was in Park's hand, finally switched off, and the Blackbox no longer recorded.

"Did you see?" Waylon asked a little breathless as they hurried away from the street and vanished into the underbrush. "The Walrider. It is still alive."

"I've seen it", Adam confirmed. "But...how is this possible? Its host is dead."

"Maybe a form of failsafe?" Waylon grimaced. "Wish I had paid more attention."

"You couldn't have known what it was about. And anyways, I think it just makes it more urgent that we continue getting away from this place."

"Think it won't chase after us?"

"Not with all the PMCs around. And I think it actually has a limit how far it can be removed from the engine. It never flew higher than the roofs of the asylum. So it has maybe a safe range of two hundred feet into either direction?"

"Maybe a security feature."

"Probably. If not", Adam grimaced, "Then I'd like to be as far away from this thing as possible. I'm not sure I'll withstand a second encounter." There were an awful lot of red signals all across his screens. They managed to get another few hundred yards away from the street and further into the surrounding forest, when his Infolink pinged and sent him the coordinates for their extraction point. It was maybe one and a half klicks further to the west and along the mountainside. The terrain was hard to navigate, especially with both being as beaten up as they were.

Once they fought through a particular thorny shrubbery, they found themselves on a larger clearing. Alex's VTOL stood in the middle of it, and the pilot was sitting leaned against her vehicle, pair of binoculars in her hand and a book about birds on her lap. When Adam and Waylon approached, she looked up, and frowned.

"Man, you look like shit."

"Feel worse, actually", Adam replied. Alex climbed to her feet, brushed off her pants and frowned at his companion. "That Park? Why the uniform?"

"Ended up on the wrong end of my boss's good graces", the man explained to her with a grimace. "You are the friend Mr Jensen spoke about, yes?" He shifted his feet, and Alex noticed the boots with a small knowing smirk. "What about my family?"

"Don't worry. I already had picked up a guy and took him there to prepare your folks. He contacted me to let me know that they refuse to leave without their dad."

Adam frowned. "You already picked him up. Why?"

The pilot snorted. "Because I couldn't contact you, and the place looked really fishy." She crossed her arms with a huff. "I simply was worried about you, dumbass- and seeing you now, I was right on that front. Anyways, I pinged him, met him, took him along with the idea to just drop him above Mount Massive when your call came. So I had the guys figure out where the Park family lives and just dropped him off there." She gestured to the back of her bird. "Now get in, strap in, and we'll take off." She paused briefly. "There should be some food and water in the emergency kit at the side. Help yourselves, you look like you could need it."

Waylon was more than grateful, if somewhat cautious. When Adam simply walked in and dropped on the seats there, he followed too, took some of the water and energy bars, and simply dug in. Adam just took a sip himself, strapped in- and was asleep before Alex even took off.

He came to when he subconsciously realized that the sound of the engines changed, and when he glanced outside he saw more forest in every direction. Park seemed both excited and nervous as he kept staring to the outside.

Adam grunted and pulled himself upwards, feeling a little better, and a lot more tired. "We there yet?"

"We are", Waylon confirmed. Adam got up and looked outside too, seeing a house nestled into the forest at the end of a street. There was a large backyard kept free of trees and shrubberies, with some flower beds along the edges. Adam could see one dark figure at the back door, and he could see a Widowmaker in the man's hands. But since Alex didn't show any signs of panic, he assumed that was the friend she had been talking about.

The VTOL set down on the lawn, and Alex shut down the engine for now. When the hatch slid open, Waylon was the first to limp out, but only made it like five steps away from the bird when the attack came. Two boys, both under ten years, tackled into the man with enough force to nearly bowl him over if Adam hadn't stopped his descent with a hand to the back.

Park blinked briefly, then his eyes welled up quickly and he dropped to his knee to give his sons a tight hug, ignoring their questions and their complaints that he smelled bad.

Then a blonde woman raced across the lawn too and joined in on the hug, holding her husband and kissing him like a drowning man. Adam and Alex both stepped back to give them room, then turned towards the other man who approached them.

He was a bit shorter than Adam, but had visibly more muscle mass. Hooked nose, dark hair combed back. Right arm augmented, left natural, augmented legs most likely from the way he was moving, eyeshield ports on either side of his natural eyes. Dark combat vest, light t-shirt beneath, black combat boots, tan colored pants.

Adam inclined his head when recognition set in. "Mr Saxon, right?"

The other man quirked an eyebrow. "That's about correct, Mr Jensen. Alex been talking?"

Adam glanced at the pilot. "She did" The guy that got me out of Panama? Most fugly yellow pants I've ever seen. He nodded over his shoulder. "The Parks?"

"I told them they are likely targeted, but I don't think they believed me. Mrs Park is a little scary, to be honest." He cocked his head. "Is there anything true about this, however?"

Adam grimaced. "It is. Place was nearly as worse as it was during the Incident. I got thrown around and nearly dismantled, and we were shot at the moment Murkoff became aware of us. So yes. The threat is viable."

Saxon gave him a critical one-over. "Can guess so. You're not looking good."

"Nothing my mechanic and a bottle of whiskey won't be able to fix", Jensen joked.

The other man nodded briefly, then tilted his head when Mrs Park approached them. Her eyes were red and glassy, but there was a spark of determination in them. "Waylon just confirmed what you already told us", she declared without further ado. "We need to leave, correct?"

"As fast as possible", Saxon pointed out.

"Shit. We just moved here", she grumbled, and eyed Adam. "You're Interpol, Waylon said. Do you have any way to protect us?"

"Not in the moment", Adam admitted. "Since I'm not here officially. However, as soon as I take the evidence back, my boss will likely be lenient and put you under witness protection. Until then..." He glanced at Saxon, who cleared his throat. "Until then you will be secure with us. We got several safe houses all over the place. Name a location, and we'll take you there. No questions asked, no messy surprises."

She eyed him and Alex doubtfully. "You are not Interpol, no?"

"We're your friends, that's all you should know", Saxon pointed out. Mrs Park nodded. "Good. I'll tell the boys, and we'll pack our things. Waylon wanted to take a shower. You are welcome to one too, Mr Jensen", she added with a side glance at his disheveled appearance.

"You are very kind, Mrs Park"

"Please, just call me Lisa"

"Adam then."

Jensen inhaled the smoke deep, held his breath, and exhaled a cloud. He'd been waiting to have a smoke break since he stepped foot into the asylum. He was feeling better already, after that promised shower. Saxon, first name Ben, had been kind enough to lend him some of his own emergency clothes for the time it would take for the Parks to evacuate their house and Juggernaut to take them into a new place, since his own were hopelessly stained with blood and grime.

Adam volunteered to watch the front of the building while the family scrambled to get their belongings together. For that purpose, he was sitting on the front porch in an old wicker chair that looked like it had been part of this household since the eighties. He had his boots back now too, and his coat lay folded next to him. He would need to take it to the dry cleaners to get it mended, he figured.

There was a low hum at the back of his head, and his spine went ramrod straight. There was no flickering, no glitches- yet he could hear the swarm. But- just like back in the asylum- they have killed the host. They destroyed the engine- how could the swarm still be there?!

"Hello Adam."

He flinched badly and jerked around, blade extended from his wrist. The chair next to him had been empty- now it wasn't. Eliza eyed him with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. Adam blinked puzzled, slowly pulling his weapon back and setting his face into a frown. Was this just a hologram of Eliza, or was she screwing with his optical sensors? She certainly wore the appearance he'd seen her in last.

Her expression twitched. "I'm...sorry, Adam, for startling you."

He exhaled slowly. "It's okay. I'm still a little on the edge though. You've seen what they've done in Mount Massive right? Is that why you are here?"

"It is part of the reason, yes", Eliza was still sitting on that wicker chair like she was on air on Picus News. "I have seen the experiments, and the results. I gathered all data. I am not sure what to do with it, though."

He frowned. "Waylon believes it would be best to release it all on the Darknet. But not immediately."

Eliza cocked her head. "Do you want to wait until Murkoff believes you are gone?"

Adam shrugged. "Not sure yet. I know I need to get the material off my Blackbox first. And the Park family needs to be safe before we can start pissing at Murkoff's walls."

She inclined her head. "I see. You need to secure your position first."

He exhaled. "And get myself repaired." With a grimace, he showed her his arm that was like a bleeding wound, with cables and insulation hanging loose. "Koller is going to throw a fit."

Eliza pouted a little. "Does it hurt?"

"Does it-" He blinked, then shook his head. "It doesn't. It's not flesh, and the connections to my body are all okay so far. I'm a little sore, but other than a few warnings, I don't notice anything."

She inclined her head. "May I...take a look?"

He furrowed his brows. With everybody else, he would be more cautious- but this was her. He didn't know whether he trusted her, but she had never shown any inclination to hurt him. So he tilted his head in answer, and she reached out for him.

Her fingers closed around his wrist.

Her fingers closed around his wrist.

She didn't phase through him, or disappeared- she was really there.

Eliza cocked her head, apparently focusing and not realizing how Adam just stopped breathing in surprise- and her hand fell apart into a black cloud that hovered around his wrist for a brief moment.

His eyes widened in realization.

It had been her. She had called him, told him she was going to help- and then the swarm appeared and took out the men that had tried to shoot him and Park. After he destroyed it.

"The Walrider", Adam hissed. "Eliza- you are the Walrider?!"

She shook her head. "The Walrider was the swarm you destroyed in the asylum", she pointed out. "It is more correct to say that I am using the Walrider's frame as platform for myself."

"But- how?!"

"It is a swarm of nanites", she explained simply.

"Tiny robots"

"Exactly. Wernicke and his partner Alan Turing created the first Walrider. More or less on accident. They couldn't even discern what it was, lacking the correct equipment."

"So they really believed they summoned something?"

"In a way." She shrugged. "Once they had been taken to Los Alamos during Project Paperclip, they soon realized that Turing actually created a precursor of a self-sufficient swarm of nanites. However, nobody ever managed to engineer a working version."

"Until Murkoff stepped in."

Eliza just waved him off. "It still is the old version", she explained. "One they managed to manifest much easier than Wernicke did under the Nationalsozialist Regime. But at its most basic, it is still the same system. The swarm was incapable of maintaining itself. It was incapable of directing itself, or even act according to a programming. It was dependent on its host." She seemed thoughtful. "As such, the swarm never was a sentient being like Wernicke assumed. It was just its host directing it subconsciously."

"So you are its host now?"

"Your assumption is not entirely correct, but at its most basic, yes." She let her body bristle briefly into a cloud-like form, before re-settling into the appearance he had gotten to know her in when he first met her face-to-face. "I changed the nanite's programming", she explained with a little smile. "It was easy. I made them work."

"Because as an AI yourself, you have it much easier to get into its code than any hacker could ever do."

"Exactly. I made the swarm self-sustained. It was just a question of adding a few subroutines that made the re-purpose of inorganic materials possible without organic systems acting as frame."

He furrowed his brows. "You know, you just put yourself into more danger, right?"

"I am aware", she admitted. "The people like Bob Page, or Hugh Darrow, would not rest until they had the programming of the swarm in their hands now, as it is the first fully self-sustained and functional nanite construction. As such, they would hunt after me, should they become aware that I took over the swarm."

Adam arched an eyebrow at her words. "They don't know, right?"

She smiled. "I am listening to their communication. They are not aware I am in control of the swarm."

"So you can hide."

"I can do much more than that", Eliza pointed out. "My main programming is still hidden where they can't reach. But a copy is inside the swarm now. I can act much easier now."

"...You have two bodies."

"Not only two", she exclaimed, and in retrospect, it made sense- if she could replicate the nanites, then she could also create as many as she wanted. "They won't be expecting it."

Adam grinned. "I can guess so. What are you planning to do now that you can go wherever you wish to?"

She frowned. "I...do not know. I think I'd want to go to Montreal, to talk to her. She doesn't know better, but I do. I think she will listen to what I have to say." She tilted her head. "I think I also want to go to Arizona. There is some old project of Murkoff that seems to be centered near an illegal settlement inside a Natural Reserve. Given what they have done here, I have to assume it is about human experimentation again."

"You need my help, you just need to ask."

She smiled, "I will consider it", and tilted her head. "What about you, Adam? What will you do now?"

"I'm going to contact Pritchard and ShadowChild, have them check Murkoff so they don't make information disappear, and ask them to keep the other Rippers under control until after the data we acquired has been released." He shrugged. "Same with Samizdat."

Eliza frowned. "Why wait?"

"Because if they release whatever we have discovered before the Whistleblower, they will be openly declared as being part of this. Hundreds of people could die. If the Whistleblower documents are the first, the public will assume that the hackers followed the trail. Takes the pressure off them, though puts it on the Park family instead. But they are four people, we can protect them much better than hundreds. I'll go and ask Miller for protection. He won't like it, but he owes me."

Eliza frowned a little. "Are you certain that Interpol won't be corrupted by the same people that backed Murkoff?"

The Illuminati. Adam leaned back. "Interpol already is. However, it would be easier for them to just put the blame on Murkoff entirely and sacrifice them instead of trying to save things that can't be saved anymore. Plus, Saxon promised he'll keep an eye out himself too. If Interpol starts acting weird, Juggernaut will get the Parks out." He glanced back at the house. "They'll be safe." He paused, frowning. "Unless Picus creates a smearing campaign to hunt him down like Assange once was."

Eliza hummed. "I believe that won't be possible. Not with the direct evidence you uncovered, and not with the evidence being sent to the Darknet almost immediately. It's an end they can't cut off." They were silent for a moment until she turned to him. "Adam, I think I would like to go with you, too."

His lips quirked up in amusement. "You really want me to run away with you, huh?"

"Yes. There is so much you can show me that I don't understand yet."

He cocked his head. "How would you go about this? I doubt I can just introduce you as a friend."

"You won't need to. I can hide a part of the swarm inside your augmentations. But I don't want to force you, Adam. You mean much to me."

"And you to me", he agreed. "You won't be forcing me, Eliza. Just..." He trailed off.

"You know I would never do anything to hurt you." She inclined her head like a bird. "And I would be useful to you too. This new body of mine- I can get into places neither of us ever could. Curiosity is all that motivates me, Adam. I just want to see whether I can really be a person."

"You already are a person, Eliza. Doesn't matter whether you're flesh and bone, or zeroes and ones. The free will defines who you are, and I trust you that you would never misuse your abilities." He had seen what she did when she took control of the swarm. She could have easily killed all these people there like Billy had done. She did not, only confused and subdued them without shedding any blood. Worst she did were bruises. Just like him. He held out his hand. "Let's see whether we won't be able to crack down on the Illuminati together."

I just wanted to keep on using the Walrider, and with Eliza as 'host', it's way more efficient now, too. Oh. Hi Ben. Everybody, say hi to Mr. Icarus Effect/The Fall.

Miller: "Jensen. Why the Hell do you come back from vacation even more beat up than you were when we sent you home?!"
Adam: "You left me unsupervised, sir."
-Weeks later, when the Whistleblower Documents got out:
Miller: "JENSEN!"

As always, thank you for reading.