Revenant kept as far away from the others as he could- all the way at the back of the van, looking out the rear window to ensure that they weren't being followed. A different atmosphere surrounded the group now. The drive out here to intercept the convoy had carried a sort of nervous, tense energy- maybe even excitement, on some level… The return trip was saturated by cold, violent emptiness.
The assassin detested working as part of a team. He would no longer deny that the others had proven their worth- but their presence always seemed like a threat, regardless. Human beings were unreliable. At any time, their goals could change, and those who fought alongside him might decide that there was more value in - at best - killing him. At worst, he could become the experiment of somebody or some organization again.
Warnings still flashed across his vision here and there, informing him of mechanical and electrical damage, sensors that weren't functioning, and an occasional power routing error. They drove over a patch of particularly bumpy road, and the world around him was distorted by sharp, cutting static. The worst had subsided- he still didn't like the idea that the others could try to ambush him while he was in a weakened state. He ensured that he was turned away from them, separated from their line of sight by the equipment crates. His arms were raised defensively in front of his body, just in case one of them got any ideas.
Instinct - or what passed for it, to an AI - told him that at the first opportunity, he needed to get away- disappear into the shadows, as he always did; never look back. He had what he needed: Crypto's key card, which would get him access to the headquarters of Hammond Robotics.
But their fight against the Syndicate was his, too- wasn't it?
The corrupt government organization would gladly see him back under their control, by any means that they could find. It was Hammond who would design, fabricate, and implement whatever depravity they came up with, but only once the Syndicate gave the command… He hadn't thought much about that before, as he'd always had a sense of loyalty to them- for some reason that he couldn't figure out, now. Weakening them would certainly make it easier to obliterate the corporations that reinforced their power… Hammond included.
The vehicle slowed down and turned onto a side street. They passed a military truck at the intersection, and the tension at what might be to come amplified tenfold- but it drove away. The area they'd entered was a district of small shops and other businesses, packed side-by-side onto city blocks. With its dainty storefronts and a homely appearance, this town felt like an odd place for anarchists resisting the Syndicate - or soldiers of the government they were fighting - to pass through.
If the faction kept to small groups and made an effort not to stand out, it would be logistically difficult for authorities to look for them here. The citizens who owned these shops didn't like armed guards patrolling and scaring away their customers- and they were vocal enough about having their way that the Syndicate tried not to rile them up. It was late at night, and all the stores were closed. Several had left decorative lights on- wasting energy, Cade thought resentfully, while cyborgs downtown killed each other over power cells that they needed to survive.
Augustin pulled into an alley behind a corner bakery. He muttered under his breath in annoyance about other peoples' bad parking as he maneuvered between the buildings. They came to a brick exterior that appeared older than those on either side of it. Cade jumped out to hoist the garage door up, and Augustin pulled the van inside.
An overhead light clicked on as the corporal turned off the engine and Cade lowered the garage door. They were in a workshop of sorts that looked as though it hadn't been used in decades- rusted tools laid out on top of a grime-covered metal table; a thick layer of dust over everything. The plastic tote that Cade dragged out from under the table, however, appeared new. He lifted it up onto the passenger seat which he'd vacated, then unlatched the lid, revealing a meager assortment of first-aid supplies and freeze-dried food.
"I'm gonna go contact the command center," he grunted. "Let them know what happened, and that we're on our way back."
He walked away, up a creaky little set of stairs, and entered a code to unlock the door of the building. With a quick wave to the others, Torc jumped out of the van and followed the enforcer inside. Augustin stepped onto the garage floor, stretched, and began removing the license plates from the van.
Crypto stared at some far-off nothingness with a dead look in his eyes, unresponsive as Wattson sorted through the first aid supplies. She went on excitedly about the emergency medicine practices that Lifeline had been teaching her when they had downtime between Games. She complained about the texture of disposable gloves and the sharp smell of disinfectant, and how they reminded her of bad memories. Then she began rambling about the drills she'd run through with Lifeline- that she loved the technical skills involved, but didn't like the thought of having to reassure frightened strangers. The hacker cooperated with her as she took off his jacket and pulled his shirt up, though he didn't acknowledge her at all.
"It's going to be okay, Crypto," she murmured as she soaked a piece of sterile gauze in rubbing alcohol. "The Syndicate isn't perfect. We will find a way to get to them."
At the sudden searing pain that the alcohol inflicted, his eyes widened and his jaw clenched. The engineer felt him tense under her touch. In a way, it was a relief; confirmation that he was alert and aware of what was going on around him- that his injuries weren't worse than they appeared. At the same time, it made her awful to hurt him, even in the interest of preventing infection.
"People think that this surgical glue has the same chemical composition as superglue," Wattson rattled on as she untwisted the tube. "They're not quite right. Both of them are cyanoacrylates, but superglue is made with solvents that are harmful to organic material. Those solvents cause more of an exothermic reaction, too, which is why-"
Her words caught in her throat, and she flinched noticeably, as Augustin exited the garage and the door slammed shut behind him. She sighed. With all the combat training that she did for the Apex Games, she thought, she really shouldn't be startled by loud noises anymore- and yet here she was. That part of her body and mind refused to follow her will. It was frustrating,but she'd come to understand that those reactions were tied into what made her so uniquely good at understanding electricity and circuits. They were a downside to a superpower, a sacrifice that she accepted. In this moment, though, her superpower was proving to be quite useless.
"But I don't think you really care about any of that," the engineer continued. Her voice carried the same excited tone, like she didn't know how to switch it off, even though she also spoke with noticeably less energy. "Looking at the detail - the intricacy, the complexity - in everything around me makes me feel better, when I'm afraid. It- it isn't like that for most people; I've figured that out, these days… but I don't know what would help you…"
The hacker finally looked up at her face as Wattson secured the sterile dressing in place with a bandage. She made a face as she peeled her nitrile gloves off her hands. Crypto smiled at her in friendly, teasing amusement as she held her hands out in front of her and shook them in an effort to get rid of the nasty texture.
"Of all the things that could bother you about medicine- having to wear gloves…"
She made a disgusted noise, but smiled at him in turn nonetheless. As she started to back away, Crypto caught her wrist and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
"It means more that I can say that you're here- whether or not you're going on about the chemicals used in superglue." His breath came out in a quiet little laugh. "I appreciate how much you love the small things like that- no matter how bad things get, the world can never become dull to you."
The hacker nodded firmly, then looked away. "I just- I need to think."
"Okay!" Wattson responded with a smile and a slight shrug. That was something she understood well- the need to process one's thoughts alone, without the additional strain of communicating or exhibiting social behaviors. She returned all the supplies she'd used to the bin and carefully backed out of the vehicle.
"I'll go inside and see if Torc has anything for me to do. I'm sure he does- he's always working on something!" The engineer pressed her hands together in front of her excitedly. "Oh- Revenant, if you-"
"I don't need your help, skinbag," the assassin cut her off in a harsh growl. Crypto glanced over his shoulder- Revenant had been silent for long enough that his presence had slipped the hacker's mind.
Wattson headed inside without bothering to retort. One day, she was determined, she would get him to learn some manners- right now, though, other priorities took precedence.
"Planning to go off on your own?"
Crypto asked the question in a quiet voice, and remained facing away from the other being. In truth, he was vaguely surprised that Revenant was still here… He'd expected the assassin to disappear at the first opportunity, as he always did.
"I was considering it," the simulacrum growled in response. There was silence between them for the next several seconds- Crypto not wanting to inadvertently provoke a fight; Revenant contemplating how much effort he was willing to waste conversing with this skinbag. Finally, the assassin spoke in a low tone:
"What you feel now - the terror, the helplessness - it won't last. Consciousness has a limited capacity for fear… Once that's reached, it gives way to rage. Energy building, burning you from the inside, all the time… it drives you. It keeps you going against any odds- and any adversaries."
Crypto's head turned toward him, eyebrows furrowed in a mixture of contemplation and confusion.
"Is that- supposed to be some kind of inspirational speech?" He snorted. "It needs work."
"When you remember what it's like to die, instead of being reset every time as if it never happened, you can judge me," Revenant replied. There was a harsh edge to his tone- though it was less threatening than usual.
The programmer nodded silently. He wasn't going to argue with that- part of him thought that he'd been wrong to have hated the assassin before all of this. Revenant wasn't as depraved as he appeared on the surface… He'd been forced to incredible extremes by his circumstances. Now that Crypto understood how that felt, he saw just how useless his younger, idealistic self's moral stance had been.
Heh. "Younger," he thought. My past self from- a week ago… It seems like so much longer.
At the same time, he felt the worry creeping up once again that this change in perspective meant that he was becoming corrupt. This week, he'd found a common frame of reference with Revenant… What if next week, he was finding reasons to kill innocent people just as ruthlessly? He looked down at his hands, which were clasped in his lap. Corruption had a way of spreading like a virus.
"Did you ever work on an assignment where you had to use a false identity?"
Revenant turned his head toward the hacker. "Huh- what brought that up? Looking into a career as an assassin, now?"
"No," Crypto replied quickly and firmly. He let out his breath in a slow sigh, contemplating how to put his thoughts into words. "It- I don't, ah… So much has changed since the Syndicate forced me to run- and the identities; it's…"
"It gets harder to tell where the façades end, and you begin." The simulacrum finished the sentence before Crypto fully had his thoughts in order.
"Yeah. Exactly. I-" He hesitated, and Revenant cut in:
"I can one-up you on that, skin-suit… Where does the human mind I was derived from end, and I begin?"
Crypto considered that, unsure of how to respond. It brought an image from his childhood to mind- himself and Mila living on the streets, taking shelter under a bridge. A ten-year-old boy, scavenging for food, always trying to look as fierce as his scrawny little body would allow, to dissuade people from messing with their meager belongings.
Always prepare for the worst, and never trust anyone.
It had been well over a year before he trusted the foster mother who finally got them off the street and gave them a loving home. To this day, he still found it difficult to let himself rely on others. Where did that scared little boy living under a bridge end, and the present begin?
His own experience was no comparison to being the first sentient AI trained by a human consciousness, either- he wasn't arrogant enough to think that he understood.
"That might be a better question for Torc," the hacker finally replied, "but you already know: there won't be a simple answer."
He got up, wincing as the tension on his injured shoulder shifted, and clambered over the crates in the back of the van. Outside of the arena, he didn't have the benefit of syringes filled with smart polymer to mend his body near-instantaneously. He remembered thinking, during the Game, about how cruel the technology could be- a fighter exhausted, in pain, and on the brink of death, pulled back by the miracle and forced to keep going as if it had never happened.
It sure would have been nice to have that technology now, outside of their control. Of course, that would never happen… The material was kept from the public; used only to keep those who belonged to them in fighting condition, so they could continue to profit off of war and bloodsport.
Careful to keep several inches of space between them, the programmer sat down beside Revenant. The assassin turned to glower at him. Metal claws tapped lightly on the floor of the van, as if impatient. "You tell your girlfriend you need to be alone to think- then you decide to badger me…?"
Crypto's breath escaped in a short, stifled laugh. " I don't need to worry about protecting you."
The look that Revenant gave him - the tilt of his head, the way he moved his shoulders - was almost sarcastic. For a machine, the hacker thought, he could be surprisingly expressive… The hacker briefly wondered whether he'd been programmed with reactions like that, or they were something he'd learned.
"I didn't plan that setup."
The assassin faced straight ahead as he spoke, as if he were looking out the van's rear window- not that there was anything to see but a grungy garage door beyond it. "The prisoner transfer order was real. Same ones we used when I-"
"Yeah- I know that now," Crypto interrupted. "It occurred to me, at the time- but if you wanted to hand me over to the Syndicate, you'd do it yourself. The last thing you'd ever do is call in a team of grunts to take care of your dirty work."
He sighed. "We can't let them pit us against each other. We're stronger working together than either of us were alone."
Revenant didn't respond, which Crypto took as a good sign- he'd half expected the simulacrum to insult him, or make some offhand threat. He didn't even dismiss the sentiment with an uninterested grunt. Compared to his usual demeanor, the hacker thought, he was being exceptionally amicable.
Several seconds passed- which turned into a couple of minutes. Crypto thought about what the automaton had said during their attack on the convoy. He wondered if his sister really had managed to get away, or if it had simply told him that in an effort to get him to surrender. He pictured Mila's face, and hoped that she was safe and warm, wherever she was.
A vehicle passed by outside. It vanished, and he let out a breath that he didn't realize he'd been holding. Beside him, Revenant had remained perfectly still the entire time… It was so easy for the assassin to fade into the background. Those who weren't looking for him might not notice his presence. Though it was in his peripheral vision, Crypto had a clear view of the damage that had been inflicted on Revenant. It drew his attention- he turned his head slightly. Without really thinking about what he was doing, he found himself reaching toward the assassin, as if to put a hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. Revenant snapped to attention and grabbed his wrist- the hacker's eyes widened; he clenched his jaw to keep from making a startled noise.
"Don't."
The angry, snarling command made Crypto keenly aware of just how easily Revenant could snap his arm, if so inclined- but the simulacrum let him go without a scratch. He pulled his arms in closer to his body after that, hands folded in front of him.
"If you hate to be repaired so much," said the hacker, "then why are you so reckless in combat? Your tactics are always high in risk. You're not an idiot- you must know where that leads."
Revenant glared at him menacingly. "If you don't like knowing that your cloned body is in a warehouse somewhere, why are you in the Apex Games?"
For a moment, Crypto's face contorted into a disgusted expression. Why, he thought, did Revenant have to bring up that warehouse…? He suppressed the reaction as quickly as he could, but it was too late- the assassin had already seen it.
"You didn't answer my question."
He wondered, after the words had left his mouth, if he should have just backed off. The last time he'd tried to push Revenant into giving him information - in that awful warehouse - the simulacrum had used a positronic charge on him. Though it was ultimately harmless, he didn't want a repeat of that experience.
Well- too late to take the decision back now. He folded his arms over his chest - awkwardly, trying to keep strain off his shoulder - and glared sideways at Revenant, demanding an answer.
"Have you seen my statistics? My tactics work, skinbag."
Crypto rolled his eyes. He tilted his head back and glanced up at the ceiling of the van. That was probably the answer he'd have to settle for. In the silence that followed, he almost missed the arguing. At least it had been keeping his mind off his failed mission…
"Repair was connected to- experiments that the engineers at Hammond wanted to run. Always. If they didn't need me at the facility for that, my commandant at the Syndicate would 'kill' me and let me re-upload. It saved the entire corporate network time and money."
The assassin's voice was unusually quiet. His claws raked over the surface of the van with a screech of metal on metal. Crypto gave him a disconcerted glance- hands clasped tighter, legs drawn up closer to his chest.
"No need to react that way," Revenant growled in a low tone. "You never liked me, anyway."
The corners of Crypto's mouth turned up into the slightest smile.
"I didn't," he replied, "but I'm glad you're on my side now."