Several minutes passed in silence with only the rushing of the freeway as they drove, and the high-pitched whine of hovering vehicles above them, to remind the group of the present moment. Augustin spared the others the heavy metal music that he liked to blast at full-volume when driving down relatively empty streets in the dark like this- instead he only murmured the words in a barely-audible whisper:

"Dying once seemed so heroic to me

Giving this body for a people in need

Now I realize there is nothing to see

Nothing but dirt and decay…"

It was a song that the men in his unit had often listened to when they were on their way to take care of a bomb threat, knowing that if any one of them made the simplest of mistakes, they could all be reduced to gory stains on the ground. In a strange contradiction, they were simultaneously acting to protect each other, themselves, the environment around them- and the corrupt institution of authorities who oversaw the Defense Force. Men and women who'd never worked a day in the hardship of the field themselves, who'd gone straight from the education system to office jobs and lived with their bottoms rooted to cushioned chairs… People who, ignorant to the struggles of their inferiors in society, easily made decisions that resulted in the deaths of thousands.

Knowing now that his unit was an extension of a cruel, exploitative regime, Augustin still couldn't escape the painful sense of purposelessness that haunted him in their absence. In the moment, he'd loved the work they did together, their accomplishments. In civilian life, directionless as it was, he constantly felt as though something crucial to his existence had been taken away from him.

Cade tapped his fingers impatiently against the upholstery, narrowed eyes staring out the window. This incessant waiting before a potentially deadly operation was the worst- he'd rather be in the thick of the action, where there was nothing on his mind but the task at hand. Behind them, Crypto sat with his legs drawn up close and his upper body hunched over them, running through a mental checklist of things that could go wrong and ways to prepare for them. To the hacker's left, Revenant was looking through surveillance footage on the mini-computer he'd taken off the Syndicate assassin; to his right, Wattson was still tinkering with her electronics. Torc sat all the way in the back with the cargo, sketching and scribbling on a steno pad, muttering equations under his breath.

The idea that he'd dragged everyone here into his problems, and was now putting them in harm's way, continued to nag at Crypto. It was silly, he told himself- Cade and Torc had been at odds with the Syndicate since he was a teenager. He barely knew Augustin; Revenant had his own long and complicated history of conflict… Wattson, however, he had dragged into this. No matter what she said about how interesting her time with the faction had been, he never should have gotten her involved.

A winged shape passed over the van, and he felt an intense surge of panicked adrenaline as he remembered the flyer that had attacked him in the arena- but it was only the shadow of some kind of bird, looking for its next meal.

"Here…"

Revenant reached around Crypto to hand his mini-computer off to Torc. The scientist glanced at it for a moment before he set his steno pad aside to take it.

"If you're going to run surveillance from a distance," growled the assassin, "this will be put to better use with you."

"I see," Torc replied. He briefly looked over the camera feed and the controls that enabled him to cycle through them- and to reposition the mechanical insects that served as surveillance drones for Syndicate assassins. "This is quite a useful tool!"

Revenant merely grunted in response. Crypto watched the two of them- a couple of minutes later, he reached into one of the cargo pockets on his uniform pants and pulled out a microprocessor about the size of a business card, connected via ribbon cable to an electronic key card.

"I had planned to wait until after tonight to give you this," said the hacker as he held the device out in front of Revenant. "Just to be certain that you see our mission through- but I trust you, now."

"Really," the simulacrum responded in a sarcastic tone. He snatched the data card out of Crypto's hands before the hacker could change his mind.

"I mean- I wouldn't trust you to act civil in a job interview, or at a market…" Crypto winked at him. "Right here, though, at this moment? Yeah. I do."

"Heh. All right, skinbag- whatever you say."

Cade rolled his eyes, but he kept his mouth shut. Augustin cast a brief, knowing glance in the enforcer's direction. If either of them had planned to say anything, they were interrupted by Wattson's triumphant squeal as she connected the last wire on her gadget and snapped the cover panel into place. She set it carefully in her backpack with the others she'd made.

The van pulled off the highway and onto a narrow gravel road. Torc's quiet muttering took on a frustrated tone- the uneven surface proved too bumpy for him to reliably continue sketching. Wattson looked over her shoulder in an effort to catch a glimpse of what he'd been working on.

When they finally came to a stop and Augustin turned off the ignition, they were in a dark, secluded area near a power relay station. As Revenant reached for the door handle, Crypto held one arm out in front of him. "Hold on-"

The assassin turned to glare at the hacker. "You'd better have a good reason for getting in my way."

"If we fail…"

Crypto's voice broke. He took a shaky breath.

"If we fail, when they bring us back, you'll be the only one who knows what happened- what we learned and how far we've come… The rest of us, our last memory will be of the staging facility before the Game."

He pulled a clenched fist out of a pocket on his tactical jacket. In his hand was the data card he'd been carrying since he escaped from the biomedical facility. He'd managed to protect it all this way… now he offered it to Revenant.

"If things go wrong, I need you to give this to Bloodhound," the programmer said insistently. "Please- it's important. They deserve to know…"

He waited for the assassin to refuse, to mock him, to do what was in his nature- but for once, Revenant didn't act in such a manner. Silently, a clawed hand reached out and took the data card from Crypto. The hacker gave a quick nod of gratitude before they all jumped out of the van.

Around the back, Augustin was doing a final check on the gear bags before dropping them on the ground in a neat row. He opened one of the tactical cases, which contained mini-computers in protective padding. As the corporal began handing them out, Crypto caught a glimpse of a wristband he wore, made of polished black metal- a tribute to a soldier who'd gone missing in action.

"The government has never cared about us," Augustin muttered when he noticed Crypto tilting his head to get a better look at the inscription. "We've always been a means to an end for them."

"Took me far too long to realize," Crypto responded in a hushed voice. He leaned against the side of the van as he synced the data feed from his drone to the mini-computer that Augustin had given him.

Cade knelt over a crate that he'd dragged out onto the gravel, assembling a massive, high-power sniper rifle. Once it was ready to go, he stood up and brought the stock to his shoulder. He looked through the scope- experimentally; careful to keep his fingers outside the trigger guard even though the weapon was not yet loaded.

"Give that to Paquette," Revenant growled behind him.

Cade lowered the rifle so that he could turn around and give the assassin a disbelieving look. He briefly turned his attention to Wattson, who was around the side of the van chatting excitedly with Torc about something- the enforcer didn't particularly care what. It obviously didn't pertain to the mission.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he hissed as he looked the engineer's slender build up and down. "It's almost as long as she is tall. The recoil will snap her in half."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? But- that scrawny little skinbag has the highest sniper scores in the Apex Games."

Cade raised an eyebrow. Revenant stared him down, unmoving.

"Besides," growled the assassin, "you don't seem like the type who likes to calculate from a distance. You'd rather be up front where the action is… Wouldn't you?"

"Huh…" Cade glanced back and forth between Wattson and Revenant, then down at the weapon in his hands. "Better be right about this, Sim."

As the assassin watched, Cade walked around the van and thrust the heavy rifle into Wattson's arms. He conducted himself in a direct way, with a distinct air of purpose- in contrast with the engineer's careful, delicate mannerisms, his efficiency could easily be mistaken for impoliteness. If it bothered her at all, she didn't let it show, instead focused on her own task. The way she handled the weapon was… awkward wasn't quite the right word. She clearly knew what she was doing, but she treated it like a shiny new prototype rather than an instrument of death.

Well- that wasn't Revenant's prerogative. Without the influence of his human predecessor, he didn't feel the need to bully the engineer for her eccentricities… The only thing that mattered was the skill and precision with which she'd carry out her task, and her performance in the Games proved her worth. He didn't like her. He still had no doubt that she wanted to disassemble and study him- but that was irrelevant to the current operation.

"Comms check," Crypto called over the commlink. His voice seemed to echo slightly, as he could be heard beside them as well as via the mini-computers. "I've synced the data feed from my drone to the commlink. The computer will show you what I see- just like in the arena."

"Copy. Augustin, over."

"Copy. Cade, over."

…

"I heard you, skin-suit."

Crypto rolled his eyes.

"Comms are working! Apologies, I just need to - umph - get this thing set up!" Torc responded from the back of the van as he moved a padded case that had contained computer equipment off to the side. The hacker looked inside- to his astonishment, Torc had put together a radio, a signal repeater, six monitors, and at least two servers. His equipment was powered by portable hydrogen fuel cells, mounted into a weldment that he could stow under a folding table with the servers. He was prepared to watch the Syndicate's surveillance network, listen in on their communications, take control of the insect-shaped camera drones that the assassins had hidden among the city… One of the devices looked like a transmitter of some sort, but Crypto couldn't discern what it was for.

Currently, his state-of-the-art setup wasn't going to do him much good, as he was struggling to figure out all of the cables and connections for his equipment.

"Let me take care of that," offered Crypto. He climbed over a now-empty crate and into the back of the van. Torc jumped out to give the hacker more room to work.

"I have something for you," the scientist said to Revenant. He held out a metal case- it fit neatly on the surface of his palm and at first appeared to be a business card holder.

"This had better be worth my time," Revenant growled as he picked it up and flipped it open. It contained flexible plastic sheets with microprocessors printed into them- each identical to the security device that Colomar had used against him when he'd first met the faction.

"If you run into any problems involving robots," said the scientist, "stick one of these to them. I'll be able to access their electricals and their code- could shut them down from here if it's necessary. I figured it's best that I give these to you… Don't want you to have to concern yourself, trusting the others with them."

The assassin stared at the case for a moment longer before he flipped it closed. His mechanical body concealed his surprise at the gesture.

"Would it work on Cade?"

Torc raised an eyebrow. "You know, that's a good question! I wonder- hey… Don't make me regret giving you that!"

They were interrupted by a soft thud as Crypto jumped out of the back of the van. "All set," he announced quietly as he walked past Torc. "Natalie- comms check. Good to go?"

"Ca c'était quoi? Oh… Sorry- yes, comms are working," the engineer answered in a somewhat distracted way.

"All right," said the hacker. "We have a little over two hours to get to the overpass and be ready before the convoy arrives at this location. Let's get going."

Augustin waved goodbye to the others as he climbed into the van beside Torc. The rest of the group picked up their gear bags and started walking. Cade had fully expected Wattson to slow the rest of them down, unable to manage the weight of the equipment and a high-power sniper rifle- to his surprise, she kept pace with seemingly little effort. Revenant kept a watchful eye on Cade as they walked… He'd seen Crypto and Wattson in the arena enough times to have a sense of how they handled themselves, but Cade was a variable. Crypto started in the lead… As they made their way toward the overpass, he intentionally slowed his pace so as to reposition himself in the back, where he could see the other members of his group.

It was about a two-and-a-half kilometer walk from where they'd concealed the van to the overpass where Revenant had suggested they stage their ambush. The trip was made mostly in silence- save for Torc's constant, indistinct muttering, which carried over the commlink. Crypto wondered how much processing power he'd had as an android; if a human brain was slow in comparison and unable to keep up with the amount of data he thought of at once. Wattson wondered if he, too, might be autistic.

"Position yourself over there," Revenant growled at the engineer as the overpass came into view. He pointed her to an area that had a good sight line of the street under the concrete structure, and where the curvature of the ground offered some cover from enemies standing in that position.

"You should say 'please,' you know," Wattson replied cheerfully- but she did as she was told regardless. Crypto found a location that was well-obscured from view by brush and concrete supports, where he deposited his gear bag. Cade and Revenant followed- the three did final checks on their rifles, and made sure that spare magazines and ammunition were within easy reach. The hacker wasn't familiar with this particular weapon, but it seemed similar enough to the R-301 he'd used in the arena… He hoped that that was a safe assumption to go off of.

"Don't either of you get carried away and let my sister get hurt in the crossfire," he said fiercely to Cade and Revenant.

The assassin answered with a dismissive grunt. Cade didn't respond at all.

Crypto got down on one knee beside the gear bags and, after ensuring that he was well concealed from line of sight from the road, activated his drone to scout the area. Cade walked along a perimeter behind Crypto, keeping an eye out for any surprises that posed a threat to the hacker or to Wattson. Revenant climbed up one of the structural columns that supported the overpass, made his way across the underside of the bridge, and positioned himself on top of a steel girder, across the street from the other three. He was perfectly still and silent- to anyone who wasn't looking for him, he blended in convincingly with the metal structure of the bridge.

They were set up, ready to go- and so began the seemingly endless waiting, that each of them knew would eventually be brought to a sudden and violent end. The atmosphere felt charged around them despite the cool, comfortable night air; the tension felt palpable…

Crypto thought about his sister, how it would feel to see her again. The overwhelming rush of relief and joy to know that she was free of the Syndicate and safe for the time being- coupled with fear that when she saw him, it would be coming out of a massacre, covered in the blood of guards and agents with a weapon in his hands. He was doing what he had to, but necessary and right could be far from the same thing, he'd come to realize.

Wattson was thinking about her childhood- happy, cozy memories of her parents, blanket forts, hot cocoa, and stuffed animals. She'd had a good life, which she was grateful for… provided to her by the Syndicate, at the expense of people less fortunate than her. Was her taking a stand against the harm they caused a meaningful act for the underprivileged, or was it a form of insolent, juvenile rebellion? She wasn't sure… She owed so much to them, and yet she couldn't stand by and watch as her friends suffered under their oppression.

Revenant wondered what the hell he was doing here. Crypto's sister meant nothing to him- the hacker had given him the key card he needed; he could be off to launch a full-scale assault on Hammond Robotics… But for once in his infernally long existence, he wasn't in a hurry. He didn't need an impossibly fast pace and the chaos of the battlefield to prevent an onslaught of alien thoughts, memories, and sensations from invading him and violently forcing everything else out. He'd been free of the Syndicate's control for several years, but this was the first day of his existence that he'd been truly free. As much as he disliked the idea of community or teamwork, he did owe Crypto for that…

"I see the convoy," Torc informed them over the commlink. "They're approaching your position now, about five kilometers out."