Jacinto Military Base

Eight Years After E-Day

"There could be no truce, no accommodation. Even humanity was divided; COG against Stranded, unforgivable and unforgiven."

-Professor Adam Fenix's thoughts on the separation of Humanity.

Bri was relatively sure she was dreaming. She could vaguely remember falling asleep in her little closet at Jacinto's military base, but suddenly she found herself transported back into Bane's apartment. She could almost feel the nimbly texture of the burnt and ragged carpet beneath her bare feet. The thick scent of stale whisky and cigarettes choked her with a sudden, all-consuming fear. She never believed she would have to come back here, not ever.

A loud thumping from the other room jacked her breathing rate up. She stared at the dingy white door in fear as the sound got closer and closer and closer. The door slammed open and banged against the nearby wall, leaving a small dent in the drywall. White dust sprinkled along the floorboards as her worst nightmare appeared before her.

Bane looked like hell. His long, string-like black hair was filthy and greasy. Black stubble decorated his thin jaw; sweat glistened on his pallid skin. His eyes were wild with a drunken rage and his yellow teeth were gnashed together like a predator baring its canines. His unwashed, putrid scent invaded Bri's small space and sent her heart into a gallop. She shrank back against the wall as he stalked forward. Grabbing her around the neck, his long, dirty fingernails scraped along the tender skin of her throat. "You're mine..." he hissed.

"What the fuck is this?" he snarled at her. A bowl of rice and beans appeared out of nowhere in that mystical way dreams had. He snatched the scratched and slightly dented bowl off of the counter and shoved it at her. "You trying to poison me? Or maybe you thought I wouldn't notice uncooked rice in my meal."

"I-I boiled it for an extra five minutes!" Bri protested. Her voice had adopted that scared, high pitched voice that she hadn't used since living with Bane. She felt terrified in a way she hadn't for so long.

"That's a damn lie." He shook the bowl angrily, spilling the sauce and rice on the carpeted floor. Bri watched as he stormed out of the living room, then out of the house, slamming the door on his way out.

Her eyes watered with fresh tears as she knelt on the floor to clean up his mess. She tried to pluck the warm, sticky grains of rice from the filthy carpet, but her hands were shaking badly. She had to wait for the shiver to leave her spine before she could continue. Dread pressed down on her chest and she felt like she was drowning with fear.

The front door opened behind her.

"Get up!" Bane snarled at her. "Come here, get up."

His dirty hand reached out and snatched at her wrist, yanking her to her feet and closer to him. He forcefully opened her fist and dropped in five, small pebbles.

"Put these in your mouth."

"What? I - "

"Put them in your god-damn mouth!" he roared at her. His powerful hands clasped her jaw, and, pressing two fingers against her mouth and prying it open, forced the cold, hard pebbles into it. Bri struggled against him, mumbling, but she was no match for him. He released her, but she didn't dare spit out the bits of crushed rock lest he beat her for it.

"Now chew," he said.

Bri whimpered against the rocks as saliva built up in her mouth. Tears ran freely down her cheeks as she murmured a plea for mercy.

"CHEW!" he bellowed. His whiskey-stained breath blew over her in a stomach-turning wave of scent.

Whimpering once more, she moved her jaw up and down, mimicking a chewing motion. One of the pebbles caught between her rows of teeth and something cracked in the back of her mouth.

"That's what it's like eating your food," he snarled at her before turning and heading back out the front door. Bri fell to her knees and spat out a mixture of rock, spit, blood, and a broken teeth. Pressing a hand to her sore mouth, she tried to hold back the sobs coming from her throat.

A door slammed open, jerking her back to reality. Bane's apartment was replaced by the slightly cramped room in Jacinto's military base. Her eyes fluttered open and she sat up on her cot. Bane was gone. The rocks were gone. She wasn't helpless anymore. She wasn't.

"Come on Bri," Ace's warm voice called to her. "Time to get up. You'll be late for school."

"Fine," she mumbled. She laid back on her cot and stared up at the ceiling, trying to get the last verges of the dream to fade from her consciousness.

Ace didn't leave, however. Instead, he walked further into the room. "You okay? Another nightmare?"

"I'm fine!" she snapped at him. Her voice was more bitter than he was expecting. "Just...leave me along, okay?" He stared at her for a while longer before acquiescing and leaving her room. She didn't move for a long time afterwards. Her jaw ached with the memory of the dream. Even now, so far away from Bane and his horrors, he still continued to haunt her. She suspected she'd never truly be free of him. The fear he'd implanted in her heart would never completely fade away.

When she finally did stir and get dressed for school, her tongue wouldn't leave that spot in her mouth alone; that spot where her tooth was missing. Well, not missing. She knew exactly where it was.

It laid somewhere on Bane's floor, along with five bloody pebbles and a pile of sticky rice.


It was a mixture of the cold and the shock of my dream that finally drove me from my sleep. Cold, bitter wind blew in from the broken window. Snow flurries danced along the air and settled across the room, giving it a whitewash look. My fire had gone out during the night; all that was left of it was a pile of charred, blackened embers. Stretching my arms out above me, I felt each of my sore muscles begin to protest the sudden movement. The morning after a fight was always awful; pain was always worse the next day.

I looked around the room. The abandoned building looked like a million other derelict and decrepit places I had stayed before on my own. After Ace's death, it took me a while to figure out how to find a good, safe place to stay. I didn't know what to look for: didn't know to stay away from signs of recent use, didn't know how to spot the difference between a building that was sturdy and one that was bound to fall at any moment, didn't know to find a room with proper ventilation so a camp fire wouldn't choke you in your sleep. It took a while - a long, hard while - before all of these things became second nature. It was a wonder I'd ever made it out alive. I didn't sleep well back then; I didn't sleep very well now, anyway.

My stuff was relatively dry, so I packed it away in a moderately organized order. I pulled a ration bar out for breakfast and carefully folded the foil wrapper and tucked it into an empty pocket. Nothing was to be thrown away - everything that could possibly be reused would be.

I snapped the bar in half out of reflex and held it out for Sam. When she didn't automatically snatch the crumbly, brown block from my hand I had to do a double take. Realizing her absence was like a kick in the gut; I had to go get her. The world just felt wrong without her warm, furry body walking contentedly next to mine. I ate both halves of the bar before grabbing my stuff and heading out. The only evidence that I had ever been there was the charred pile of black in the corner.

First item on my agenda was a shower. I was sick of feeling gross and sticky, and I wanted - no needed - to wash the filth of Jacinto's streets off of my body. After emergency services had been set up - food and water tents, and ramshackle shelter - hygiene would have been first on the list. Disease would spread quickly in a shanty town such as this. Even if the emergency corps hadn't gotten the bathing facilities up and running yet, I'd scrub down with snow. It wouldn't be my first time washing up with icy water, and I was certain it wouldn't be my last.

Luckily, I wouldn't have to resort to the off-white snow decorating the town to clean myself with. The bath house was easily recognized - just off to the right of the town center, and a line sprawling out for half a block. I frowned; despite the early morning, I'd still have to wait for a while to wash up. If I waited until later, I was sure that the line would be even longer.

Positioning myself at the back of the queue, I pulled out my map and started calculating the distance back to the camp. The thin paper was brittle with water-wear and the ink was smudged slightly. I had to squint to find the thin text printed upon the page. "Port Farrall," I whispered aloud when I found it, tasting the words on my lips. I scanned the printed letters over and over again, re-adjusting my eyes to reading the slightly stooped symbols. It had been so long since I had anything to read, had any reason to read, that I felt a pang of nostalgia staring at the map. I knew the areas most frequented by gears for missions, knew the best hunting spots, knew how to maneuver myself around this new world by heart. It wasn't often I had to consult a map.

Shaking myself of the memories of homework and reading assignments - mostly assigned by Ace when I was younger - I started calculating distance. The scale was easy: one inch for every five miles. There were three inch-wide blocks between the camp and the Port. Fifteen miles.

Fifteen miles in this weather would kill someone.

"Okay, so...not walking," I murmured, just as another gust of bone-chilling wind snatched at the paper in my hand. That meant either waiting for the weather to clear up - which could be months - or begging a ride off of somebody. I knew from experience that nobody gave away anything for free anymore. A ride meant hours away from home and safety, fuel, and exposing themselves to danger. Plus, not many would be so keen to travel off to a Stranded camp. At least, not for free. I'd have to come up with something to trade for a ride there and back. There was no way I'd part with any of my guns, so that meant food. I'd have to go hunting, and soon.

The line jostled forward a few yards, and I followed the herd. With my head dug into my map, it took me a while to hear the hushed whispers around me. Gradually I became aware that those hushed whispers were about me.

"What's her kind doing here? We don't need Stranded in our camp."

"Calm down. We don't know if she really is Stranded. We're all looking all sorts of rough nowadays, remember?"

"Come on! Look at her guns! Who the hell carries weapons now, besides the COG and Stranded? All other guns were collected for the war effort, if you don't remember."

The whispers were coming from a pair of women further up ahead, but who were staring back at me. A dirty-blonde glared accusingly at my pack and guns, while the brunette stood off to the side with an uncertain look on her face. She looked like she was slowly becoming convinced by the incisive blonde. To drive her point back home, the blonde spat another accusation my way. "Besides, we may look rough, but not like that. Only a Stranded could look that trashy."

Staring angrily at the frozen ground, I felt my cheeks inflame with embarrassment and anger. Yeah, a Stranded who almost got herself killed trying to save your worthless lives...The thought ran sharply through my mind like the blade of a dagger. It wasn't just the gears who had a grudge against Stranded, oh no. The hatred was even stronger among the civilians. I'd somehow forgotten that during the long years away from Jacinto. However, just because I was bound to be treated like a second-class citizen didn't mean I had to sit silently and accept it.

"You got something to say? Say it to my face," I snapped angrily. My jaw clenched tightly against the torrid of curses I was dying to send her way.

The brunette, to her credit, at least had the common decency to look embarrassed, but the blonde stared back at me without wavering. "Yeah, I got something to say," she said, with equal amounts of venom in her voice. "I wanna know what the hell a Stranded piece of shit thinks she's doing in our camp. You think you can walk right in and steal from us?"

I almost retorted that I hadn't taken a damn thing from anyone I didn't deserve, but I stopped short. It wouldn't exactly be easy to convince the general population that I wasn't taking from the COG when I had a COG-issued lancer strapped to my back, and the smell of a ration-bar on my breath. "Come on," the brunette urged her loud-mouthed friend. "Let's just go."

The pair vacated the line, but not without a parting blow from the blonde. "Stranded don't belong in society. They're animals - filthy, stinking animals that deserve the same fate as the Locust." With that, they disappeared into the growing crowd and sunlight.

Her words felt like the final punch thrown in a fight. A fight I never even saw coming, not even a little.

Maybe my time in Port Farrall would be more dangerous than anyone would have ever guessed.


I made it through my shower with little-to-no interaction with the rest of the group. Anger still pulsed through my veins at the unfairness of the blonde's words, so I didn't enjoy the luke-warm shower as much as I would have normally. The carbolic soap had stung on fresh abrasions and cuts; my burn wound had pulsed angrily under the stream of water. The water had been on a timer to get everyone through the line as quick as possible, so now my skin felt slightly sticky, like I hadn't quite gotten all the soap off. I'd taken the rough, grey towel out of the bathing area and wrapped it around my head to stop my wet hair from freezing against my scalp. There had been a woman passing out clothing at the end of the line, so I had scooped up a threadbare sweatshirt and a pair of black cargos. I planned on passing them on once I had a chance to wash my own clothes.

The blonde woman's words still echoed hauntingly in my head. I tried to justify taking the clothing with my fighting the grubs in Jacinto, but some small part of me wasn't buying it. That same part had adopted the woman's voice and resonated in my mind with the same message, played over and over. "You're not good enough. You don't deserve this. You're not good enough. You don't deserve this..." I tried to ignore the small, taunting voice, but the borrowed clothing didn't quite fit comfortably anymore.

The rest of the camp still had that shell-shocked feeling to it. It was a feeling I was quite familiar with; every time humanity said that things couldn't possibly get any worse, they did. And after they did, humanity stood around for a few days afterward and tried to get used to the next layer of hell they were thrown into. It wouldn't take long for the shock to wear off, however. Once it did people would either get very scared or very angry. Neither was a good option in times like this.

Now that I was relatively clean, my next step was to get my lancer in the same condition. I had a mental list going in my mind, and I mentally checked off each item as I went through it. Step one was a shower; step two was to get my lancer clean. Step three: reveal to Dom that I was his long-lost daughter that he abandoned when she was four years old to be raised by an abusive drunk in an apocalyptic shit-hole. Easy, right?

"Piece of cake," I muttered under my breath. I maneuvered my way through the rapidly-growing crowd as the sun climbed higher in the sky, searching for a familiar face. A hasty command center had been set up in the heart of the city. Other important buildings - barracks, armory, and garage - would spring up around it. The gears who weren't currently patrolling the outside of the Port would most likely be hanging around there. Someone would hopefully be willing to toss me an instruction manual, if any still existed.

I saw Cole long before I saw anyone else. How could I not? He was the only gear crazy enough to go with bare arms in this sort of weather. The air was so cold that it hurt to breathe it in. Watching his dark skin ripple as he worked made me shiver in sympathy. "Yo, Cole!" I called up to him. "You got a sec'?"

"Hey, Lil' Sis!" he hollered to me in his booming voice. I had to crane my neck all the way back just to look him in the eyes. As he moved out of the way, I saw he had been speaking to Anya and Sergeant Mataki - the same Mataki I'd met at breakfast what felt like a lifetime ago. At least they both had more appropriate clothing on. Both of their faces were graven, and that more than anything clued me into the tone of their conversation. It was serious, despite Cole's levity.

"What's going on?" I asked, my tone sharp. I pressed my mental checklist to the back of my mind. Whatever they were talking about was more important now.

"Nothing," Mataki snapped quickly. Her sharp voice surprised me; what had I done to piss her off? Her grey eyes stared coldly into mine and I got the feeling that she didn't trust me - not even a little bit. There was a tense moment as I raised my eyebrows at the elder sniper in shock. There was something about me she didn't like. Something that may-or-may-not be an issue in the future.

Cole wrapped a heavy arm around my shoulders. It surprised me how warm he was, despite his bare arms. "It's cool, Bernie," Cole said, but his tone was slightly worried. "She was down there with them. She knows what happened."

Finally, it hit me. They were talking about Dom and what happened in the Hollow. No wonder Mataki was so malicious towards me; she was trying to protect Dom from prying eyes. I squirmed uncomfortably under Cole's arm. This was probably the last thing I wanted to discuss. "Uhm...I was actually just looking for Baird. Any idea where he's at?"

Baird wasn't exactly the kind of helpful person I had in mind, but he was the first name that popped into my head. I'd do anything to get out of discussing this. Even - and I'd probably end up regretting this - enduring Baird's presence for the better part of the day. Cole cocked an eyebrow in surprise, "You and Damon Baby? Err...sure, he's over by the motor-pull. Keep walking about a block in that direction. You'll probably find him chest-deep in some engine somewhere."

I nodded, pulled out from under his arm, and started walking away. "Thanks. See you guys later."

Anya and Cole chorused a good-bye - Cole's face still slightly positioned in a state of surprise - but Mataki only dismissed me with a detached nod. Something about me bothered her, but I wasn't sure what. Hell, right now? I wasn't sure I even cared.

The streets were slowly becoming more and more crowded. It wasn't a rushed crowd, however. The people were just standing around, some talking, some not. There was nowhere to go, nothing urgent to do. They were a scared group with no direction. If it was back at the Stranded camp, Dix would have had their asses for doing nothing. The civilians in Jacinto were different, however. They had gears and others to provide for them. The government had reinforced the "Leave it to us" attitude among their constituents, so they did. Once the gears told people what to do, they'd do it, but until then they stood in the streets with that 'Deer-in-the-headlights' look.

I turned the corner around a building, heading towards the outer edge of the city. I looked down to adjust the straps of my sidearm, and almost walked face-first into the chest-plate of an armored gear. "Oh, excuse-" I started to say until I caught sight of the gear in question.

It was Marcus.

Immediately my guard went up. Almost without my meaning me, my stance widened and muscles tensed. That 'Fight or Flight' feeling made the tiny hairs on my arms stand straight up. It was a ridiculous reaction, but that realization didn't keep the suspicious note out of my tone as I snapped, "What are you doing here?"

Marcus' expression didn't shift in the slightest. "Looking for you."

"Of course you are." I just didn't expect him to be so upfront about it. "What for?"

I figured he wanted to talk about Dom - probably wanted to convince me to have that conversation with him. Well...tough. I wasn't going to have that conversation until I was good and ready. Which, judging by my reaction upon seeing Marcus, wouldn't be for a very, very long time. Maybe never.

"I just want to talk," he said in a neutral rumble.

"Go ahead and talk," I snapped off in a snarl. "Didn't say anything about me listening."

For a brief moment, I considered walking off. I didn't owe Marcus anything - far from it, actually. I didn't have to listen to whatever he wanted to talk about. Curiosity got the better of me, however, and instead of storming off in a dramatic manner I fixed my expression in a sour glare and waited.

"I'm sorry," was all he said.

That threw me for a second. Marcus didn't strike me as one who apologized often, or at least not somebody who did things he needed to apologize for. "Well then," I spat bitterly in an attempt to cover up my surprise. "Congratulations. Looks like everything is forgiven. No hard feelings, and all that shit."

Marcus wasn't stupid enough to believe my sarcasm. He just continued to look at me with that slightly chilling, 'I'm-trying-to-read-your-thoughts' stare. His expression unnerved me more than anything. Talk at me all you want - I knew how to fight with words. Just don't stare at me and expect me to talk. That's usually when I got myself in trouble. Not this time, however. This time I was going to be as quiet and stoic as Marcus himself. My lips were sealed.

"Here's an idea, Marcus, why don't you friggin' tell me next time you know an earth-shattering secret about me?"

Okay...mostly as quiet and stoic as Marcus.

"Deal." Marcus stared at me for a second longer before reaching a hand into a pouch on his belt. Fishing for something hidden within there, he finally came back with a small, silver chain. A heart-shaped pendant dangled upon the child-sized chain. The pendant caught and reflected the brilliant light off of the snow at our feet. It turned over and revealed my mother and brother's mockingly happy faces, smiling forever out at the world.

"My locket..." I whispered on a shocked gasp. But...it was lost in the Hollow! I...I'd dropped it when...

"I picked it up for you," Marcus explained. His hand was outstretched, offering me back my link to the past, to a better world. "Figured that if you held on to it for fifteen years, it's gotta mean something."

Speechless, I reached out and took the necklace from his hand. I turned it over in my palm and rubbed my fingers over my initials embedded on the sides. S.C...the last letter had been lost when the locket broke on E-day. These letters, however, held new meaning to me. Sylvia Carla. My name. A real person, unlike this 'Bri' persona I'd adopted. I wavered on the edge between the two realities. Neither one truly felt like me - not completely. How could I expect they ever would?

"T-thank you," I stuttered breathlessly. My cheeks burned in embarrassment when I remembered the brash way I'd treated Marcus only seconds beforehand.

"He's a good man," Marcus said to me in all seriousness. His blue eyes burned with fervor and there was no question that he was talking about Dom. "He deserves to be happy. Be angry at me all you want, I don't care. Hate me for the rest of your life, but try to make things right with him."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I just nodded slightly. The anger and ire I'd felt when I first bumped into Marcus was gone. He started to move around me, but paused for a parting sentence.

"Believe me," he said, "There are worse people to have for a father."


The motor-pull was just an area of open ground. All the Ravens, 'Dills, and Centaurs were parked there. It was an eerie graveyard of machine and weaponry. A few Ravens and things were still in use - mostly used to patrol the camp and keep an eye out for Locust stragglers - but for the most part the armada of the COG laid silent and lingering. There wasn't enough fuel to run the engines.

Marcus' parting words still resonated in my mind. It hadn't taken me but a second to remember who his father was - Professor Adam Fenix. Savior of the world and slayer of humanity. He was the creator of the Hammer of Dawn system - the same system that was used to demolish the world in an effort of "asset-denial". He was the main reason that the Stranded hated the COG so much. He was also - some said - the reason humanity was still around today. Love him or hate him, everyone knew Professor Adam Fenix. I'd imagine Marcus knew him much better than the rest of us.

I heard metal clanging on metal and a low, muttered oath. Found him...I thought to myself. "Baird?" I called out. "You back here?"

"Dammit!" I heard him holler back. "You stupid, stupid, piece of-!"

I held back a smirk. Ninety-percent sure he wasn't talking to me, I navigated through the jungle of rubber tires and shaped metal until I caught sight of him. He was tucked underneath the hood of a 'Dill; the only part of him I could see was his legs and backside. I stared for a second and appreciated the view. It wasn't a bad view, after all...

Stop it! I snapped at myself. I almost called out to him, but I remembered the grey towel wrapped around my scalp. I snatched the ragged cloth off of my head, and then tried not to look too hard at my reasons for doing so. "Hey," I called to get his attention. "That 'Dill kicking your butt?"

He emerged from under the hood. He had swipes of oil coating his skin and, in his hand, held some complicated looking metal part. "The damn distributor seating is cracked. Hell if I know where to find a new one. I guess I'll just fix it - again - until it breaks - again." He tossed the sliver metal onto the hood of a nearby tailgate, and then turned to examine me. "You're not here because of that, though. Why are you here, and what can I do to change that?"

I joined him by the open tailgate and placed my lancer besides his engine part. "This," I answered. "It took a dip back in Jacinto. I'm sure I can clean the gun parts, but the chainsaw mechanisms might be a bit past me. Figured I'd ask someone before I broke a pin or something."

"You came to the right place," he muttered, taking my weapon in one hand. I was braced for a sarcastic remark but all he did was turn it over so he could see what he was doing. "See this take-down pin here? Depress it to release the rear hinge There's your trigger mechanisms and shit. I'm sure you can figure out how to clean that. But," he continued, flipping the gun over to reveal the chainsaw part, "rotating the rear hinge allows you to take the chain off. Pull the fuel port and air vent like...so...and, there you go. The rest you can scrub down without worry."

I examined the dismantled gun interestedly. It had been a while since I'd taken a lancer apart, but memories of doing the same thing with Ace flooded my mind. Baird pulled the parts out of my hand and put the lancer back together. "You're turn," he said, passing the lancer back over. "Take it apart."

Now that I remembered what I was doing, taking apart the gun was a piece of cake. I took it one step farther than what he showed me; I dropped the firing pin - carefully, since it was spring-loaded - then spun the bolt cam-pin counterclockwise to remove it. The bolt separated from the carrier group in my hands.

Baird didn't look impressed, but I hadn't expected him to. He grunted before picking up his engine part - the distributor, I think he called it. Car parts were a bit out of my grasp. I knew enough emergency maintenance, but vehicles weren't my forte. I'd never scavenge enough fuel or parts to keep one running properly. I hopped up on the tailgate beside the dismantled lancer and got to work scrubbing down the metal bits with my wire brush.

I worked contentedly in the silence for a while. I could hear Baird tinkering under the 'Dill's hood and occasionally he'd curse, but that was it. His usual steady stream of never-ending sarcasm was silent. That was the first clue I got that something was wrong.

Setting aside my gun barrel, I started watching Baird work instead. There wasn't anything obvious that hinted as something being wrong - he worked methodically under the hood - but there was still something...off. Baird didn't do silence. "You alright over there?" I finally asked.

He didn't answer immediately, which confirmed my suspicions. His hands stopped flying over the labyrinth of engine parts but he didn't turn to face me. Clue number two... Finally, when he did turn around, his smirk was gone. Instead, he looked almost...worried.

"Let me ask you something," he began after a second. "You were down in the Hollow with them, right? What happened down there? The only thing Dom said about it was that he found Maria, and he 'helped her go'." He made little quotation marks in the air with his fingers on the last three words. "I mean, what the hell does that mean?"

I froze, my fingers tightening on the bolt carrier until the sharp edges made indentation on my flesh. Maria's - mom's - ghastly pale face flashed through my mind, along with the sudden, piercing gunshot. This was the exact conversation I had hoped to avoid by seeking out Baird. But...maybe it would be easier to talk things out with him. I didn't care what he thought about me, so I wouldn't be worried about losing face with him.

"We found her in a Locust torture cell," I finally answered once I found my voice. "She was...she was in bad shape. He...he, uh...he ended her suffering. Put a bullet through her skull."

Baird's blue eyes were wide with shock. He was a battle hardened gear, so it took a lot to have that impact on him. "Son of a bitch..." he breathed. "The man was...almost normal on the Raven. Not a word about it. When a guy blows his wife's brains out, you don't just shrug and carry on, do you?"

I couldn't help it - I winced at his bluntness. That wound was still so fresh and tender that the slightest prodding sent twinges of pain around my psyche. "Yeah, well...that's not all of it..."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean-" I started to say, but halted on the third word. I couldn't tell him. Could I? From the looks of things, Marcus had kept this secret between us. If I planned on telling anyone who I really was, Dom deserved to be the first to know. Except...the pressure and desire to tell someone was building, threatening to burst. I needed somebody to talk to about this. Instead of telling him the whole story, I chose a difference tactic.

"Suppose - hypothetically - that you knew a secret," I began. "A secret about yourself. A secret that you just found out about. And suppose - again, hypothetically - that you were dying to be able to discuss this secret with someone, but you couldn't because this secret was also about someone else, and that someone else didn't know about the secret. And you're just drowning in secrecy and have no idea what to do and - "I stopped talking so abruptly that my mouth stayed frozen in the shape of my next words. Too late I realized I was rambling."Never mind...I'm not making any sense."

Baird was staring at me like I'd lost my mind. Who could blame him? There were times I looked at myself in the exact same way. "You...are so lucky that you're talking to one in maybe three people still alive who stand a chance of deciphering that."

I rolled my eyes and focused on the sarcastic banter. I hadn't realized I'd started shaking during my disjointed ramblings. Trying to hide the tremble in my voice, I answered him. "Yeah, yeah, I know, 'Oh-Great-One'."

"Seriously, though. As crystal clear as that was, I think I got it. You want to discuss something about another person, but are afraid it'll somehow get back to them. Well, don't worry. I may have a big mouth, but I don't use it to spread gossip. I'm here if you wanna talk."

For a brief moment, all I could do was stare at him in shock. I couldn't believe he actually understood me. Usually when I went on a disconnected ramble people either tuned me out or told me to shut up. The only person who typically understood me so easily was Ace, and he was long gone. We stared at each other - him leaning against the engine of the 'Dill, me still perched on the tailgate - and there was almost...an understanding that passed between us. Maybe Baird was more insightful than people gave him credit for. People were just another form of machines, and I'd seen firsthand how good he was at dissecting anything technical. Maybe that same skill went further than anyone else could imagine.

"Thanks, Baird..." I said softly - more softly than I'd ever imagined talking to him.

He harrumphed uncomfortably before turning away from me. He slammed the hood on the 'Dill and started gathering up the rest of his tools. "We gonna have to hug now or something?" he growled in my direction. I smirked as I started putting back together my clean lancer. I didn't answer, but that was okay. It was almost like meeting Baird - the real Baird, not the sarcastic bastard persona he put on for everyone - for the first time. Maybe he wasn't all bastard; that half of his personality was probably just a front to protect himself. That was something I understood all too well.

Just as I punched the take-down pin back into position, the faint sound of screaming reached my ears. My eyes snapped up to meet Baird's. We paused for maybe half a second before leaping to our feet and sprinting through the maze of military vehicles. The cacophony of gunfire beginning could be heard on the other side of the city. All the inert people I'd noted earlier in the streets were running and screaming in panic. There was only one thing that could cause this kind of panic. As Baird and I rounded another corner, I found my darkest nightmares had followed us here.

Locust. Locust were in the middle of the city.

Oh no...


Author's Note: Dun, dun, DUN! Things are beginning to pick up again!

Lot of dialog in this chapter, but still not the conversation everyone's been waiting for. Don' worry, that WILL be in the next chapter. Pinky swear. As soon as I get through my finals at school, I'll have it up. I've actually already been working on it already. :)

So, what did you think? Was the dream-within-a-dream at the beginning of the chapter alright? Can you feel the tension building already between Stranded and Civilian? What about Mataki - was she just protecting Dom, or does she have a vendetta against Bri? I want to know what you think!

Oh, and did everyone enjoy the subtle flirting between Baird and Bri? ;)

Hopefully you'll leave a review on your way out? I promise I'll send you a preview of the next chapter if you do! At any rate, thanks so much for reading! :D