TITLE: Break

NOTES: I must apologise yet again for the erratic chapter postings! I have hopefully solved my login problems and will be able to post more frequently now. Thank-you all who are reading for your patience, here's two chapters on me :)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN ~ Surrendering

"When will I wake?"

Evelyn Aresan's last words before her execution

CY 3821

^~*~^Rommie was on her way to confront Harper, knowing everything, and wishing she didn't. She hadn't mentioned any of what she had learned to anyone else, not even her other self. There were things she needed to know. In case Harper decided to shut her down again, she had deactivated the code he had used on her, but she hoped it wouldn't come to that. On her way she bumped into Tyr.

"Shouldn't you be in Command?" he asked her.

"I have to talk to Harper about something," Rommie replied.

"Good luck," Tyr muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"The flu," Tyr sighed. "I imagine it's affecting his judgement."

Rommie was mildly perplexed. She could hear something in his tone that told her he knew more than he let on. "Tyr, if I find out you found out something and didn't bother to mention it to anyone....I'm going to be very upset," she said cryptically. It was an indecipherable message to anyone who didn't know the context behind it. Tyr did. Well, if she did indeed know, hopefully she could make the boy see sense.

^~*~^

Harper was huddled into the corner of the room, his guilt replaced with paranoia and suspicion. He was trying to work out what Lane had done to him, and when. As soon as he had some concrete evidence, he could finally ask for the help he so desperately needed. He had to think, but thinking was incredibly difficult when your brain was overloading. He tried to focus on one question; When was the first time Lane appeared to him? ...It was two days after Autriva...so she must have done something to him before then, but what?

He thought back to the day Lane had come into his room and given him the holo-imager of Elri, the son of the man he had killed all those years ago. The recording that made him want to end his life. That was the beginning, the event that started it all.

Then he realised. It was so clear now. The holo-imager was the key. It must have been more than a mere recording. It must have done something to him, put some kind of AI designed to act like Lane inside his head. It was so obvious, why hadn't he seen it before?

But what about the attack in the halls? She was as real then as the floor he was siting on, but other times no-one else could see her. His gun fired shots right through her...Maybe it wasn't a case of Lane being real or not. Maybe she was both.

That had to be it. Lane had placed the AI inside his head, driving him slowly insane, but she wanted to see her handy work in person. Lane always did have a sick sense of pleasure, she revelled in other peoples pain, that's why she had to see the broken man she had created.

As Harper festered in the dark with his paranoid streams of thought, Rommie was nearing the machine shop. Harper had engaged privacy mode, something he had been doing pretty much all the time since the Autriva incident ended. Rommie undid the command and entered without knocking. Catching him in the act wouldn't do any harm now anyway.

Harper barely even noticed she was there. He was close to figuring everything out.

"What was in those syringes in your wallet?" Rommie asked.

Harper looked up at her. "The doctor gave them to me to get rid of the flu," Harper replied.

"And if I took them to Trance, she would tell me that they're used to combat Trisentian flu?" Rommie pushed.

Harper tuned into what she was saying. He knew he had been found out, but lies wouldn't stop passing his lips. "What is this, Rommie? What, do you think I'm doing drugs? I can't believe this." Maybe his answer would have been more convincing if he hadn't spluttered out his answer with anxious speed.

"No, I don't think you're using, I know you are. I found the hidden file," she said, angry that Harper was still lying to her. "I suppose you didn't have time to erase the memories, so you just hid them."

Harper was lost. Rommie, the one thing in his life that made him feel like maybe he wasn't a worthless junkie was calling him just that. And she was right.

Rommie was more upset than angry. "Why, Harper? Why didn't you just talk to me? To anyone?"

Harper snapped. "So you could tell me everything's gonna be okay?!" he shouted, getting up from the floor. "That it's going to take time, that you'll stand by me?! I talked to you, Rommie, all of you, and you all said the same damn things," he lowered his voice to a sadder tone. "And I still felt like this. You couldn't help me."

Rommie wasn't going to let him guilt his way out of it. "So you decided to fill your veins with chemicals because it worked so well in the past?"

"You don't know anything about my past," Harper spat back.

"I know about your future," Rommie retorted. "I know that if you don't have Trisentian flu, you're in more trouble that you think. You can't go anywhere here without avoiding me. I monitor you all the time, did you think I wouldn't notice your heart rate? Your pupil dilation? Your body temperature? God, Harper, you're killing yourself all over again!"

Harper focused all the rage into his yell. "I DON'T CARE!"

There was a silence filled with so much sorrow and anger that Rommie couldn't speak for a few moments. "This can't go on," she said quietly. "Give me everything you have, I'm going to take it to Trance to analyse, and you're coming with me."

"No," Harper replied, with no leeway in his voice. The threat triggered the addict to take him over again.

Lane, who had been ever-present and avidly listening, decided to speak up. "She'll try and take it from you, stop her."

"Shut up," Harper snarled.

Rommie was confused. She hadn't said anything. "Who are you talking to?"

"It's her...she's - "

"Don't tell her!" Lane shouted, and Harper was quiet again.

"You can't let her leave this room," Lane ordered.

When Rommie stepped forward, Harper didn't wait. Knowing there was no time for his shut-down code, he grabbed a live rod from the table and thrust it into Rommie's chest. The avatar shook from the electrical jolt as it fried her systems, and she fell to the floor.

"Way to go," Lane congratulated sadistically. "I didn't think you had it in you."

Harper stood disgusted at himself. This was the worst thing he had done, and yet, it wouldn't register. Nothing would. Every thought was howling, clawing over one another, he had to do something to stop them. Harper found the wallet and took a syringe from it, injecting it all into his left arm. Then he took the second.

^~*~^

"Where have you been?" Adonai asked when Syla finally arrived at the meeting point.

"I ran into Captain Hunt," Syla explained to her leader.

"Did he suspect you?"

"I said I was new, that my name was Gold."

"Good, good," Adonai said. "It's almost time."

"Where are we now?"

"In the Cirra system. We strike when we reach Persephone Point."

^~*~^

"Dylan? Something's wrong with Rommie. I think one of her main power units blew," Harper called over the com. "She's unconscious."

Tyr, who had been on his way to Command, overheard the message and stopped. This had gone far enough.

^~*~^

End of chapter sixteen

Next chapter: Lost