TITLE: Break

NOTES: Had a bit of trouble getting onto the site, so here's two chapters to make up for the delay :)

CHAPTER EIGHT ~ Breaking Point

"Such a pity that we notice too late that which has been right in front of us all along."

T'Rel Nurac, pioneer of sciences

CY 3847

^~*~^

"Still no word from Harper?" Dylan asked, concerned. It had been three hours now and there had been no sign since his disappearance at the halls. The session was supposed to start again in a few minutes.

"Nothing. This is beyond a joke," Tyr replied disdainfully.

Dylan sighed. "Where the hell is he?"

"We need to put a tracker device under his skin. One that he doesn't know about. Let's do it in his sleep," Rommie said, trying to lighten the mood. Though her attempts at humour had often fell on deaf ears, she thought it best to try anyway.

"When we find him, it's a date," Dylan replied.

Beka was in no mood to make quips. She was genuinely worried for Harper. There was something in his eyes that she recognised from a long time ago. Something she didn't want to remember.

"I'll check his room again, see if he went back. You better get back to the investigation," Rommie told her Captain.

"Keep us up to speed," Dylan ordered and left Rommie to her mission.

^~*~^

Harper sat huddled in the corner of his hotel room, a place that was fast becoming the home of his madness. His wound stung like hell and was bleeding onto his bright shirt, along with the tears that streaked his skin. There was also dried blood on his hands which didn't belong to him. He had visited the dealer again. The meeting had gone badly.

^~*~^

Rommie reached the floor Harper's room was on. She too was concerned for her engineer. She couldn't figure out what had happened to provoke the response she saw in the hall. The timing was off for it to be something that was said. There were no noises or sudden occurrences. The best she could come up with was that something had dawned on him at that moment, a thought or realisation. Whatever it was, it scared him, and that scared her.

Rommie opened Harper's door, expecting the room to be empty. She scanned the mess that she had been shocked to find earlier, to see nothing. But a quiet whimper followed by a sharp breath drew her attention to the corner. There was a man there with streaks of blood on his face and hands, shivering. It startled Rommie to see that it was Harper. She had not seen him in such a state since she and Dylan rescued him and Tyr from the Magog world ship.

"Oh my god....what happened?" she asked immediately after her human exclamation.

Harper recoiled when he acknowledged her presence. "Rommie? What are you doing here?" He sniffed.

"Looking for you. We were all worried," Rommie said calmly. Harper appeared to be in shock. She wanted desperately to know what had happened to him in the three hours they had been apart, why he was bleeding, why he was shivering, but some things were best taken slowly.

"Yeah, well there's a surprise. Everybody's worried about Harper. Fat lot of good it does anyone." His words ran together in a nervous mess.

"Tell me what happened, Harper," Rommie tried soothingly. Harper looked at her for the first time since she entered the room. Then, as if he were doing something wrong, he looked away again.

"I didn't mean to...it just happened. You know, like when you don't know what you're doing." Harper spoke quietly, but Rommie heard every word. She grew more worried with each one.

Harper got up and stumbled to the bathroom. He turned the faucet with trembling hands and started to wash the blood from them. "He said he didn't have any but I knew he had some."

"Who?"

"I don't know, just...just some guy, he wouldn't...I had the credits and he..." As Harper rambled Rommie considered informing Dylan of Harper's condition, but she didn't. She wanted all the facts for herself before she relayed anything, but given the situation that could take a while. She approached Harper and gently put a hand on his shoulder. "Please tell me."

Harper turned around with sore eyes and a bloodstained cheek. He told her everything.

^~*~^

THREE HOURS AGO

The cold numbed Harper's fresh wound as he made his way back to the alley. The walk had given his mind time to make sense of what had just happened in the halls. Scenarios charged through his head; the Hex was tainted or it was reacting badly with the suppressants already in his system; it wasn't really Lane who attacked him, but someone else; or the scariest possibility of all - that Lane was still alive and punishing him.

Whichever it was, Harper was heading back to the only person he knew that had answers.

"Hey, back for some more? Don't blame you, that was good stuff," Jeck said to the approaching human. "What happened to your face, man?"

Harper said nothing and instead rammed the dealer up against the wall.

"What's your problem?!" Jeck shouted. He was a scrawny man and unfortunately been subject to some nasty beatings in his time, but then, that was the life he chose.

"The Hex, what did you do to it?" Harper demanded, his mind three steps behind his body.

"What? Nothing! It's clean, it's pure!" Jeck insisted.

Harper studied the man's face and decided that that particular possibility was unlikely. After all, he had been seeing Lane Farrow long before he took any Hex. He released his grip on the dealer.

"Jeez, you didn't take it all at once did ya?" Jeck asked the wild-eyed man.

"It didn't work," Harper barked. "I need more."

"Hate to be the bearer of bad news but I'm all out. All I got is some pep pills. I don't get much business for the stronger stuff during the day."

"You must have something," Harper insisted irately.

"Sorry, nothing."

Harper ran his hands through his hair. The half-dose of Hex he had taken that morning was still coursing through his veins. A voice whispered in his ear. "He's lying."

Before Harper knew what he was doing, he was throwing his fists across the guy's face, harder and harder. By the time his mind caught up with his body, Jeck's features were barely recognisable. It was Carna all over again. That same alley, the same victim and the same Harper, the hopelessly dependent junkie that he thought had died all those years ago. Horrified at the notion of what he had let happen, he ran, not knowing if the man he left behind was dead or alive.

^~*~^

Rommie cried inside. She had no idea of the emotional pain that Harper had been through. The guilt she thought was subsiding had actually been growing all this time, getting more and more vivid. God only knew what was going on inside that mind.

"It's going to be okay," she said. "We'll get you some help. First thing's first we'll get that wound seen to." She looked around the messed up room for any sign of unused drugs and soon found six syringes bound in a leather wallet.

"I told you he had some," Harper scorned, his face unusually void of emotion.

"Everything's okay now," Rommie assured.Harper looked at her with a new determinism. He knew what he had to do, and it didn't involve getting help. In a clear voice he stated; "Emergency shutdown, authorisation Zelazany seven seven Alpha."

Rommie had no choice but to fall into the void of unconsciousness. Betrayal was the last thing she remembered.

^~*~^

End of chapter eight