A tangled network of veins threatened to rip through the epidermal shell in which her hand was encased and the exterior of the phone creaked softly as her fingers tightened their grip. She was known for exhibiting blinding rage when something in which she had any amount of faith went amiss, and this incident was certainly no exception. Still, a precedent had to be set so she sucked in a deep and shaky breath, closed her eyes, and implored herself to remain calm.
"And has a reason been given for this untimely discharge, X5-734?" she asked coolly.
Brin hesitated briefly, deftly subduing the sudden nervous tremors that had begun to pass through her system. She knew it wasn't an on-coming seizure, as the medics had corrected that problem when treating the progeria, so it was simply a need for "mind over matter." She steadied quickly and reminded herself that she was doing the right thing, whether or not she was being completely honest. It was only a half-lie, anyway.
"A norm traitor is suspected, ma'am," she finally answered. She fished for a name and recalled that of the idiot who had made several passes at her during the early days of her re-indoctrination and who presently still got off to leering at her. In accordance to the rules, all she had been able to do was intimidate and slap him around a few times, and by this point he knew that without the director's permission she had no authority to kill him, so such no longer had much of an effect. More than just the obvious personal vendetta she had against him, she could feel his knowledge beginning to spread like the disease it was through the impressionable minds of the other norms and she knew how detrimental that could be to the barrier of fearsome respect which currently separated them from the X-5s. He had to be eliminated, and framing him for treason was certainly the way to go.
"It is believed to be Staff Srgt. Reed, as he was seen nervously collecting Anderson's uniform from the washroom minutes before the prisoner's release and was then seen walking swiftly in the opposite direction of the now empty cell. Another reports to have seen him speaking with the prisoner earlier today; he may have been verbally coerced into allowing release."
Renfro bristled with relief at the mention of both a concrete suspect and a uniform for which to search and subconsciously loosened her grip on the phone. The unfolding situation might not be so dire as she had originally assumed.
"Very well...thank you, 734," said she before abruptly ending the contact. For a moment she leaned still against her desk and hung her head, collecting her nerves and emotions and assuring herself that another prisoner would not be foolishly lost. Soon after, guards were rushing to seal off all exits and a select few were wandering, watching, waiting, and another group was detaining Staff Srgt. Reed and dragging him screaming to the basement, shouting that he'd done nothing and that they had no right and "please don't take me down there...not with the freaks, not with the freaks, oh god..." and kicking and struggling but failing and eventually being beaten into submission. Their fearless leader, up above, removed her pistol from the desk drawer and relished the cold and the hard and the way her fingers molded perfectly around the handle, then tucked it into her pocket to give an appearance of normalcy before venturing out into the hall.
Brin, meanwhile, unable to control her smile and her joy at having simultaneously righted a wrong and eliminated a possible future threat, surveyed the preparedness of her team and then ordered them to move out, feeling as though all was right with the world and nothing could be better.
*******
They hadn't even been able to go a mile, probably not even a quarter that distance. The tires flopped and smacked the pavement awkwardly and the vehicle lurched in disapproval while the engine sputtered from exhaustion and the road itself seemed to beg for the torture to end. They gave up quickly and ran it off the road, bumping and bouncing and coming dangerously close to further injuring both the van and themselves. It was anything but a pleasant experience and they both knew that what was to come wasn't going to prove much better.
Deep down, it was known that at this point there was no use, but the instinct to survive is powerful and knows little of common sense. Original Cindy situated herself behind her friend and hugged him under the arms from behind, attempting to drag him. The muscle he had developed from having been confined to a wheelchair added much to his weight and even for an individual with a perfect bill of health (the genetically engineered variety aside) this task would have been somewhat daunting. Unfortunately, Cindy was attempting this with not only a severed tendon in her ankle but a bullet in her shoulder, and after much grunting and panting and whimpers of pain, he'd been moved only about ten feet or so and she entertained the idea of collapsing, going to sleep for the rest of forever. He understood the difficulty she was having and felt awful for having subjected her to this and embarrassed for the fact that he was disabled, so he flipped himself over on his stomach and decided to have a go at propelling himself with his arms and abs. It worked, but then so did the permeation of reality into both of their minds and as the futility of returning to Seattle in such a manner registered with both of them, their energies became devoted to moving off the road and settling into the woods.
Into the woods, into a pile of decaying leaves and pine needles, to sit against trees and to tend their wounds and to wait. Wait and watch for a savior, in any form, in any way. Someone or something to lift them swiftly out of the mouth of Hell and deliver them to the assumably more desirable and peaceful lives they'd been leading before their forced embarkment on this misadventure. But if they ever returned, there would be no peace, and happiness would come in quick, forgettable bursts and there would always be running, from the tangible and physical to otherwise. Waiting, and watching, and losing hope, because whatever might come, it would never truly be what was needed.
*******
He wasn't afraid of being attacked. No, he could handle that and he knew they had gotten lucky when they'd knocked him out and he was alert and he was ready. What scared him was that he was walking through nearly empty corridors, and the few soldiers he passed stared long and hard and almost smiled with a secret knowledge he didn't think he wanted to share.
He wasn't an idiot. The suspicious registered easily with him at this age and this level of experience and he was able to make sense of it and he knew that Brin had likely betrayed him at this point. He hadn't counted on gaining her complete and unbreakable trust and hadn't worried about it because he only needed her alliance long enough to attain freedom. And for an instant that had obviously worked, because he was out of his cell and in disguise and roaming freely. He was a master of manipulation and another stepping stone had been left behind, but he was rapidly losing confidence in the reliability of the one on which he currently stood.
More fear entered his system when he neared the exit toward which he had been headed and took note of the guards collecting around it. Correct suspicions and assumptions were not his favorite kind and his heart began to race as he ducked away and started down a different corridor, his stride widening and his lowering as he passed a few more apparent stragglers, imagining them all reaching out at once from opposite directions, knocking him out with tazers and then beating the life out of him while he drifted into an unnatural sleep. He felt like snapping their necks; he wanted to take each one by one and make clear that he was the one in charge and that he was the only one that mattered and that THEY were the traitors for not trying to save him. But he didn't even know them, and at least one would have ample time to call for back-up and even if they didn't the exits were being blocked and he couldn't waste any time. He moved past, hating them and hating his own stupidity and praying his kids would be safe. And then he heard the crackle of a radio, and paranoia swept him and he saw them all as spies, everyone, everything.
He wanted to be at Logan's penthouse. He wanted to go back in time and take the out and help tear apart Manticore from the outside. But he couldn't. It was likely that Logan was dead, and if Lydecker was to escape the only thing he would have accomplished was to cause that death. He pictured the gallows and briefly he longed for them.
A part of him realized the importance of survival, though, as it seems to do in most of us. His wife used to write poems and he remembered a small part of one of them... 'And beyond a semblance I don't want to die / No one really wants to die.' He supposed that in some ways it was true, and took strength and imagined maybe fixing things once he got out of here. Maybe. If it suited him.
He then came upon a dark intersection of hallways, remembering those who almost certainly were spies and straightening with caution, peering left and right in the manner of one crossing a busy turnpike. He couldn't turn back, so he pretended to be sure of himself and continued on, seeing only one vaguely familiar figure coming toward him from the left. He fabricated an itch on his left temple and slipped his hand up under the edge of the uniform's helmet to scratch it, effectively blocking his face from the view of whoever was approaching. And then he was in the clear, and his pulse settled, and he was safe and he was sure. It was going to be all right. He was going to get out of this, he was going to see the sky and feel the rain and breathe without care.
And then the hairs on the back of his neck parted and tickled him and his helmet slid forward slightly, his blood freezing and sitting heavy and still in his overworked veins.
"Leaving so soon, Deck?"
He realized with horror who the figure had been and ached to move but feared the real. "Renfro..." he gasped softly. She replied by cocking back the pistol, which presently rested snugly against the base of his skull, and he was dizzy with panic. The distant hum of his brain was amplified until he could hear nothing else. His muscles tightened painfully and the world swayed to the point of almost tipping him over. Calmness was an impossible dream.
"You need me," he choked weakly, confused as to why fate hadn't yet slipped in to stop her. She laughed and he cringed.
"Not anymore."
Everything was still. One breath was a thousand lifetimes, forever and intense as he had never known intensity. There was clarity, and he was wrong, and this wasn't worth it. He would have died no matter what he did. He would have died. He would have died. He would have...
Her hand flipped backward slightly but she was used to her gun and so thusly controlled it. For a second the body wanted to think that it was still alive, but then it crumpled unceremoniously to the floor, the helmet rolling off to the side, and she pushed down whatever disgust she might have felt over the fact that she had just killed a man. She still had those twinges of regret, the realization of having done something wholly immoral and she did feel bad for it. But sometimes people had to be killed, and she was more important than they were anyway.
She stepped carefully around the body and kicked it over, recoiling slightly at the sight of his face. Half of it had been obliterated, while the other was fully recognizable as Lydecker. She must have been holding the gun at an angle; it would look a hell of a lot less disturbing if the bullet had gone straight through like it was supposed to.
Her breath hitched; maybe the disturbing nature of the body wasn't such a bad thing. She removed an object from her pocket (one she had been carrying since she got the hoverdrone) and clicked a few times, drawing stares of curiosity from the guards who had come running when the gunshot went off. She looked around at each of them after replacing the device and ran her tongue along the undersides of her molars as she huffed in aggravation.
"Are you just going to stand there, or is one of you actually going to bother to clean up this mess?"
*******
A/N: I love Lydecker, I swear! But his death is important to the plot. Yes. Mmm hmm. Anyway...just 3 more chapters to go. *ominous music*
"And has a reason been given for this untimely discharge, X5-734?" she asked coolly.
Brin hesitated briefly, deftly subduing the sudden nervous tremors that had begun to pass through her system. She knew it wasn't an on-coming seizure, as the medics had corrected that problem when treating the progeria, so it was simply a need for "mind over matter." She steadied quickly and reminded herself that she was doing the right thing, whether or not she was being completely honest. It was only a half-lie, anyway.
"A norm traitor is suspected, ma'am," she finally answered. She fished for a name and recalled that of the idiot who had made several passes at her during the early days of her re-indoctrination and who presently still got off to leering at her. In accordance to the rules, all she had been able to do was intimidate and slap him around a few times, and by this point he knew that without the director's permission she had no authority to kill him, so such no longer had much of an effect. More than just the obvious personal vendetta she had against him, she could feel his knowledge beginning to spread like the disease it was through the impressionable minds of the other norms and she knew how detrimental that could be to the barrier of fearsome respect which currently separated them from the X-5s. He had to be eliminated, and framing him for treason was certainly the way to go.
"It is believed to be Staff Srgt. Reed, as he was seen nervously collecting Anderson's uniform from the washroom minutes before the prisoner's release and was then seen walking swiftly in the opposite direction of the now empty cell. Another reports to have seen him speaking with the prisoner earlier today; he may have been verbally coerced into allowing release."
Renfro bristled with relief at the mention of both a concrete suspect and a uniform for which to search and subconsciously loosened her grip on the phone. The unfolding situation might not be so dire as she had originally assumed.
"Very well...thank you, 734," said she before abruptly ending the contact. For a moment she leaned still against her desk and hung her head, collecting her nerves and emotions and assuring herself that another prisoner would not be foolishly lost. Soon after, guards were rushing to seal off all exits and a select few were wandering, watching, waiting, and another group was detaining Staff Srgt. Reed and dragging him screaming to the basement, shouting that he'd done nothing and that they had no right and "please don't take me down there...not with the freaks, not with the freaks, oh god..." and kicking and struggling but failing and eventually being beaten into submission. Their fearless leader, up above, removed her pistol from the desk drawer and relished the cold and the hard and the way her fingers molded perfectly around the handle, then tucked it into her pocket to give an appearance of normalcy before venturing out into the hall.
Brin, meanwhile, unable to control her smile and her joy at having simultaneously righted a wrong and eliminated a possible future threat, surveyed the preparedness of her team and then ordered them to move out, feeling as though all was right with the world and nothing could be better.
*******
They hadn't even been able to go a mile, probably not even a quarter that distance. The tires flopped and smacked the pavement awkwardly and the vehicle lurched in disapproval while the engine sputtered from exhaustion and the road itself seemed to beg for the torture to end. They gave up quickly and ran it off the road, bumping and bouncing and coming dangerously close to further injuring both the van and themselves. It was anything but a pleasant experience and they both knew that what was to come wasn't going to prove much better.
Deep down, it was known that at this point there was no use, but the instinct to survive is powerful and knows little of common sense. Original Cindy situated herself behind her friend and hugged him under the arms from behind, attempting to drag him. The muscle he had developed from having been confined to a wheelchair added much to his weight and even for an individual with a perfect bill of health (the genetically engineered variety aside) this task would have been somewhat daunting. Unfortunately, Cindy was attempting this with not only a severed tendon in her ankle but a bullet in her shoulder, and after much grunting and panting and whimpers of pain, he'd been moved only about ten feet or so and she entertained the idea of collapsing, going to sleep for the rest of forever. He understood the difficulty she was having and felt awful for having subjected her to this and embarrassed for the fact that he was disabled, so he flipped himself over on his stomach and decided to have a go at propelling himself with his arms and abs. It worked, but then so did the permeation of reality into both of their minds and as the futility of returning to Seattle in such a manner registered with both of them, their energies became devoted to moving off the road and settling into the woods.
Into the woods, into a pile of decaying leaves and pine needles, to sit against trees and to tend their wounds and to wait. Wait and watch for a savior, in any form, in any way. Someone or something to lift them swiftly out of the mouth of Hell and deliver them to the assumably more desirable and peaceful lives they'd been leading before their forced embarkment on this misadventure. But if they ever returned, there would be no peace, and happiness would come in quick, forgettable bursts and there would always be running, from the tangible and physical to otherwise. Waiting, and watching, and losing hope, because whatever might come, it would never truly be what was needed.
*******
He wasn't afraid of being attacked. No, he could handle that and he knew they had gotten lucky when they'd knocked him out and he was alert and he was ready. What scared him was that he was walking through nearly empty corridors, and the few soldiers he passed stared long and hard and almost smiled with a secret knowledge he didn't think he wanted to share.
He wasn't an idiot. The suspicious registered easily with him at this age and this level of experience and he was able to make sense of it and he knew that Brin had likely betrayed him at this point. He hadn't counted on gaining her complete and unbreakable trust and hadn't worried about it because he only needed her alliance long enough to attain freedom. And for an instant that had obviously worked, because he was out of his cell and in disguise and roaming freely. He was a master of manipulation and another stepping stone had been left behind, but he was rapidly losing confidence in the reliability of the one on which he currently stood.
More fear entered his system when he neared the exit toward which he had been headed and took note of the guards collecting around it. Correct suspicions and assumptions were not his favorite kind and his heart began to race as he ducked away and started down a different corridor, his stride widening and his lowering as he passed a few more apparent stragglers, imagining them all reaching out at once from opposite directions, knocking him out with tazers and then beating the life out of him while he drifted into an unnatural sleep. He felt like snapping their necks; he wanted to take each one by one and make clear that he was the one in charge and that he was the only one that mattered and that THEY were the traitors for not trying to save him. But he didn't even know them, and at least one would have ample time to call for back-up and even if they didn't the exits were being blocked and he couldn't waste any time. He moved past, hating them and hating his own stupidity and praying his kids would be safe. And then he heard the crackle of a radio, and paranoia swept him and he saw them all as spies, everyone, everything.
He wanted to be at Logan's penthouse. He wanted to go back in time and take the out and help tear apart Manticore from the outside. But he couldn't. It was likely that Logan was dead, and if Lydecker was to escape the only thing he would have accomplished was to cause that death. He pictured the gallows and briefly he longed for them.
A part of him realized the importance of survival, though, as it seems to do in most of us. His wife used to write poems and he remembered a small part of one of them... 'And beyond a semblance I don't want to die / No one really wants to die.' He supposed that in some ways it was true, and took strength and imagined maybe fixing things once he got out of here. Maybe. If it suited him.
He then came upon a dark intersection of hallways, remembering those who almost certainly were spies and straightening with caution, peering left and right in the manner of one crossing a busy turnpike. He couldn't turn back, so he pretended to be sure of himself and continued on, seeing only one vaguely familiar figure coming toward him from the left. He fabricated an itch on his left temple and slipped his hand up under the edge of the uniform's helmet to scratch it, effectively blocking his face from the view of whoever was approaching. And then he was in the clear, and his pulse settled, and he was safe and he was sure. It was going to be all right. He was going to get out of this, he was going to see the sky and feel the rain and breathe without care.
And then the hairs on the back of his neck parted and tickled him and his helmet slid forward slightly, his blood freezing and sitting heavy and still in his overworked veins.
"Leaving so soon, Deck?"
He realized with horror who the figure had been and ached to move but feared the real. "Renfro..." he gasped softly. She replied by cocking back the pistol, which presently rested snugly against the base of his skull, and he was dizzy with panic. The distant hum of his brain was amplified until he could hear nothing else. His muscles tightened painfully and the world swayed to the point of almost tipping him over. Calmness was an impossible dream.
"You need me," he choked weakly, confused as to why fate hadn't yet slipped in to stop her. She laughed and he cringed.
"Not anymore."
Everything was still. One breath was a thousand lifetimes, forever and intense as he had never known intensity. There was clarity, and he was wrong, and this wasn't worth it. He would have died no matter what he did. He would have died. He would have died. He would have...
Her hand flipped backward slightly but she was used to her gun and so thusly controlled it. For a second the body wanted to think that it was still alive, but then it crumpled unceremoniously to the floor, the helmet rolling off to the side, and she pushed down whatever disgust she might have felt over the fact that she had just killed a man. She still had those twinges of regret, the realization of having done something wholly immoral and she did feel bad for it. But sometimes people had to be killed, and she was more important than they were anyway.
She stepped carefully around the body and kicked it over, recoiling slightly at the sight of his face. Half of it had been obliterated, while the other was fully recognizable as Lydecker. She must have been holding the gun at an angle; it would look a hell of a lot less disturbing if the bullet had gone straight through like it was supposed to.
Her breath hitched; maybe the disturbing nature of the body wasn't such a bad thing. She removed an object from her pocket (one she had been carrying since she got the hoverdrone) and clicked a few times, drawing stares of curiosity from the guards who had come running when the gunshot went off. She looked around at each of them after replacing the device and ran her tongue along the undersides of her molars as she huffed in aggravation.
"Are you just going to stand there, or is one of you actually going to bother to clean up this mess?"
*******
A/N: I love Lydecker, I swear! But his death is important to the plot. Yes. Mmm hmm. Anyway...just 3 more chapters to go. *ominous music*