This chapter contains some gore. If this is something that may potentially upset you, I advise that you read with caution.
As always, I hope that you enjoy!
What? No…he had to have been having some optic glitches. This didn't make any sense. It wasn't right.
How could it look like this? That wasn't what explosions looked like. He had seen enough of them to know that. He expected strewn body parts and blood and sinew. And it was there. But not in this proportion and not in this magnitude and not in this…abundantly grisly presentation. Explosions caused localized damage and some mild gore. Some torn pieces and maybe a limb or two removed. Not this.
Carnage was too kind to describe it. The term "bloodbath" was often used a bit too lightly – but Paszek was fairly certain that the amount of blood present in the stairwell was enough to flood a king-size, and then some.
Were it not for the presence of scraps of clothing and the painful, posthumously ironic armor, it might have been difficult to tell exactly what had been killed, and how many of them there actually were. There were human limbs and organs…but it looked less like men had been slaughtered mere minutes ago, and more like a mortician's ice chest had been unceremoniously tossed from two stories up.
How many people were in there? 6? It seemed like so much more. Paszek was baffled as to how an explosion could deal out this much human devastation yet leave the wing of the building – and the entire building, at that, relatively intact.
Was it even an explosion? Charring and rubble would indicate that. But the remains? What could even cause that? Was it something he could figure out in the moment? Not really.
He turned away from the wreckage and walked slowly back in the direction he came from, being careful as to stick to the same path he took to get there. Soon he found himself back at the same intersection where he ran into the two remaining soldiers.
With little else to do, he sent out a call.
"You have a thing for running into collapsing buildings or something?!
"Call it an instinct." Paszek didn't miss a beat. "Two soldiers just came out, did you see them?"
"The wounded one is getting treated. I talked with the other one, but he didn't say much. What's the situation like in there?"
"I…I can't even describe what it looked like in there, Kane. It's…it's bad. I…I don't even know what-"
"Should...should we count that as one, then? One bomb down?"
"Well…well if the rest of the bombs are exactly like that one, then I…I'd say we just evacuate the building and wait it out, really."
"What?"
"So…that last explosion hardly put a dent in the foundation of this place. It did some…some…well…some severe damage to human life, but…nothing that could…you know?"
"That's assuming that all of them are the same. We can't…especially since we can't even seem to track them."
A new voice sprung up in the communications.
"Sorry to interrupt," said Winslow. "But I've got news from the medical tent."
"How did you get on this line?" replied Paszek.
"Well…umm…that's a good question, but…but I think what I have is a bit more important, just 'cause of how, you know…much time we have and-"
"Spit, it out Winslow!" barked Kane.
"The bomb squad member, the one with his legs all torn to pieces, that one? The stuff, the stuff in his legs, that made them all torn up, it's all sorts of metal pieces. Ball bearings and screws and nails. Not the usual shrapnel."
"That sounds…" Paszek started.
"…archaic." Kane finished.
"Yeah, but, you know…it…well…it worked pretty well. We…we had no way of knowing where it was, and it…well…you know…" Winslow drifted off.
"She's right." said Paszek. "Whatever it was, it was…effective at taking human life. That…that's what he wants, right?"
Kane shook her head. "No, no…he's trying to make a point here. Killing soldiers won't do that for him. There has to be something in particular he's targeting. A certain virus or pathogen or chemical weapon."
"Well…" said Winslow. "Maybe he's targeting all of them? The bio-hazard wing of the building, he could just be looking to blow that entire section. Maybe these little ones are, like…distractions or something? I…I don't know…maybe…"
"Paszek, I think she might be on to something here." said Kane.
"Yeah…it…it makes sense. If these bombs are low-tech…it doesn't matter whether or not we can defuse them. Savior just has to stop us from getting to one…the one that really matters." replied Paszek.
"Winslow, can you pull up all possible routes to the biohazard area?"
"Give me a second…okay…okay…got it. Okay, both of you should be seeing it now."
Paszek studied the schematics that appeared on his HUD. Soon, a number of corridors on the map began being highlighted in bright green, likely Kane's doing from her tablet.
"None of the entrances to the lab are near windows…" remarked Paszek.
"That's on purpose." said Kane. "They designed the building like that so that there was a lesser chance of decontamination."
"So…does that mean we'll have to keep going on in through the inside?" said Winslow.
"Not unless they're willing to let us wreck the whole lab." replied Paszek.
"I know they ain't going to let you do that…" responded Winslow. "Looks like you're going to have to go in the old-fashioned way."
"How should I proceed? There's likely still more explosives on the route there." said Paszek.
"Working on it…" said Kane. "Judging by what we know now, he probably planted IEDs with plastic casings. Those are tough to track."
"Do they give off heat signatures? Any kind of frequency?" replied Paszek.
Kane shook her head. "Nope. Speculation, but…they probably only respond to motion."
"We could set them off remotely, then?" said Winslow.
"Not unless we had…" Kane trailed off. "Oh! Oh, we could do that! The grunts!"
"They have those here? In the CDC building?" said Paszek.
"It's a mandate by Coalescence…every building they have an official residence in must have security. Specifically, their security. There must be at least a handful of them somewhere."
"Winslow?" she added.
"Yes…yeah, let me try to…okay…yeah, here. I just marked it. You both seeing this?"
Paszek's eyes shot to the bottom of the two-dimensional grid displayed on his HUD. A flashing neon blue outlined a small portion of a room labeled "Protocol".
"Is that down in the basement?" asked Paszek, somewhat confused by the way that the map was oriented.
"Looks like it." responded Winslow. "Kane, can you tap into them remotely?"
"I just tried…and it's looking like a no…" She let out a sigh. "I need a special access code to get in."
"Would Dr. Berg know it?" queried Paszek.
"Doubt it. This isn't his building…or his specialty. We already evacuated all the staff…anyone who would have the code is out of the immediate area. Assuming we even know who they are…"
"You sure there's no way you can break into their system?" he asked.
"No." Kane paused. "But…"
"But what?"
She exhaled. "No, no…you…we can't do that."
"Kane, what are you talking about?!"
"You…might be able to…to remotely take control of the grunts with your DNI."
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"I agree!" she exclaimed. "Even if we ignore the fact that the DNI isn't really designed to take over processors that complicated…I'm not going to let you take that plunge in the state that you're in. Especially seeing how the last few people we saw turned out…"
"I hate to interrupt y'all…" said Winslow. "But we are running dangerously close on time here. We need to find a way to get into the biohazard lab, like, yesterday."
"There's no other way we can draw out the explosives?" asked Paszek.
"There might be, but we won't know until we try…and we don't have any time to try! We…we just need to do!" responded Winslow. "We…we're even wasting too much time right now! 2 minutes! We wasted 2 minutes just talking here!"
"Cool it!" shouted Kane. "Paszek, tell the rest of the units to re-adjust their course to head towards the third-floor main corridor. And tell them to tread carefully."
"Look where 'carefully' got them before! We can't risk more lives!"
"What else is there to do?!"
No one spoke for a full three seconds, but Paszek could hear one of the others stutter their breath.
"Don't…you…you're not going down there!" said Kane. "I…I mean it! You're not going near those grunts! I…I…that's an order! I'm ordering you to exit the facility immediately!"
"No! No! I'm not going to tell these soldiers to walk into an explosion! This is the only way!"
"You don't know what will happen! You don't know what you're risking!"
"I know exactly what I'm risking! That's why I'm doing it!"
"This…you…no! No, you're not doing it! Do not go down there!"
Paszek let out an audible sigh as he shut off his communications for perhaps the dozenth time that day.
You fucking idiot. You absolute fucking idiot, Paszek.
He was just trying to get himself killed. Or piss her off. Probably both.
"Make sure they don't move a muscle!" she shouted into her comms. She disconnected immediately after but kept them open to calls from both Winslow. And Paszek…just in case…
Kane quickly sheathed her tablet and started making headway towards the closest entrance, which naturally was the same one that Paszek had used just minutes ago.
As she ran through the doors of the CDC building, she experienced a brief moment of worry that, at any given instant, an explosive device could be set off and turn her into mincemeat. This soon subsided upon her realization that Paszek, who surely would've been moving at a much faster pace than her, had yet to encounter one himself. Kane just needed to follow the same path that he did.
She was less assured, however, of what exactly her plan was, going forward. What the hell was she going to say when she caught up to Paszek? Assuming she even could, of course. The past few days had just been a spiral of more and more chaotic decisions by him – how would her being there help any more than it had before? Was there anything she could say that would actually reach him? The only thing that even kind of worked was scolding him, and she didn't feel too confident in the long-term effects of doing that.
And even if Kane could convince Paszek not to use the grunts, where would they go from there? Paszek was right – she couldn't throw the bomb squad under the bus. They needed a way to enter the lab without setting off the other devices…or at least not by stepping on them. Was that even possible? Was it even possible to come up with and execute a plan like that in…what? 18 minutes?
It was times like this that she fucking loathed that mindset she used to have about her job. That it was exciting. That her enjoyment of her own fucking life came from the rush. From the thrill of it all. What was she thinking? How could she be so ignorant? So naïve? She should've learned her lesson long ago. Long before Zurich. Long before Paszek. Long before Taylor.
Why did she forget about that safehouse in fucking Singapore so quickly? How long did it take her to forget the pain she went through? A day? They had taught her how to repress things. Did she want to forget it? Did she somehow think it would make things easier?
And this all somehow was happening, even though she was running through the halls of a place she'd never been to, presumably surrounded by a fucking megaton bomb, and…oh God. Oh God, no. The bomb goes off and there's flames. There's flames everywhere. And it's crackling the skin on her fingers. And that Immortal bitch just stuck that knife in her gut. And the chair's tipping over. And her eyes. Why did her eyes burn, again? It must be the light. Goh Xiulan is screaming in her ear. It's gibberish or a foreign language or something. Or maybe it's English, and she just can't hear it. She's…oh no…she's crying now. No, what are you doing!? That won't help! Stop it! Stop! This isn't what you were taught! They're going to know you're weak! But you're not, right? Maybe you are! No! No! Stop it! Either keep holding out or just let yourself die! You can't do both! Stop lingering in-between! They're not coming back for you!
Kane snapped out of it. Kind of. But she still kept on running. She never stopped. She didn't want to. She needed to find him. Stop the bombs. But, at the same time, she wanted to freeze in her tracks and find the smallest space she could find. Just to sit. To be nowhere.
Why is this happening now? Why did it have to bubble up now? What did she do wrong?
She felt just like Paszek. At least, that's what she thought. That's what she had gathered from everything he has said to her. At war with yourself. Wondering every second why you just couldn't think the things you wanted to. Focus on the things you wanted to.
Kane had to rub her eyes with her palms to notice that she was about to run into a broom closet.
He didn't forget.
Paszek hardly forgot anything – the DNI made sure of that. But it did an especially good job of forcing him to remember his pitiful last moments as a man unalerted by machine.
The basement security room was clearly added for legal purposes. There was nothing in there save for a seemingly arbitrary chair and table at the front. And dust, as well. Plenty of dust. No one had set foot in here for some time. Or maybe ever.
Well, there was something else in the room. The half dozen grunts. They sat on both sides of the room, three by three, staring right into the sockets of their counterparts opposite to them.
Yeah, now the memories were there. That crunching sound they would make as their burst out of their resting places. The horrible and careless efficiency that their cold strength provided. Those eyes – those beaming, piercing, soulless fucking eyes. They would always glow with blue or red or yellow, but color was hardly a factor in how downright terrifying they were to Paszek.
As he took a few more steps towards the first grunt on his left, he realized that he wasn't actually sure of how exactly to do this. After all, the DNI was never intended to do this. It was never supposed to allow control of bots this complicated. Bots this smart.
Was he supposed to just…interface with it like anything else? That's what he assumed the others had done, but he had never seen it in person.
He hovered his hand over the small glowing blue screen that stood on the pod.
A cranking sound.
He jerked away. He slowly brought his hand back to the same position, quickly pulling away again out of instinct – no sound this time.
Did he just imagine it? Did it come from somewhere else? Someone else? Whatever. It didn't matter. He had to do this.
As he closed his eyes – or rather, his eyes were closed by the mechanics of the interface – he heard that familiar sound, that strange warped…beeping? He never could put his finger on just what it was. It sounded a bit like someone was typing…but…pitched? Pitched very low. Changing.
Sometimes, he could see things, too, while it happened. He could trace his way through the wires. The circuits. At least, that's how the others had always described it. Maybe it was something weirder. He had fiddled with it too much a while back, eventually Maretti had told him to give up on it.
"It's like a big-ass corn maze, but there's no hints, no prize, and no exit. Drives you crazy just the same, though."
Perhaps that was what had always distanced him from the others on the squad. By that point in their careers, Taylor, Hall, Diaz, Maretti…they were all willing to stare at the corn maze from the entrance and not dash in. They already knew they couldn't find their way. But Paszek, and Hendricks, for that matter, either hadn't learned this or didn't care. They would gladly rush into whatever spider's web stood in front of them without a moment's hesitation. It's not like either of their methods had proven to be better than the others. Most of them were dead, after all.
With no warning to come from it, Paszek had no time to mentally react to that godforsaken fucking sound before the steel hands gripped his shoulders and spun him around.
The sound of his own hyperventilating was deafening as the faced the grunt, whose hold on his body felt overpowering beyond measure. Then there was the pressure. The sharp and scolding pressure that he had felt in his shoulders more times than any human should. He didn't feel as desperate or as scared or as he had imagined he would be. Just angry. Fucking furious that he could do something this stupid. Why the fuck did he think he was capable of this? Capable of conquering this stupid fucking DNI trigger bullshit? Now he was going to get blown up in a few minutes. This was perfect. This was definitely the way he had planned on dying. Not by getting shot in the back halfway across the world, but by getting crushed by rubble from the soon-to-be-exploded building that he voluntarily chose to enter and start an impossible task within. Great job, you absolute fucking moron.
To Paszek's surprise, though, the pressure began to let up. Soon it was gone. The grunt's left arm was pulled back…but by what? Paszek couldn't see. It was too dark. Then the right arm. It was pinned. With an all-too-satisfying thwack, its head was bashed in from the top, leaving blue sparks to sputter out onto the floor. And the culprit…
"Don't worry, Captain. It's all in your head."
The black and pixelated form of Corvus stood in front of him. Paszek couldn't find any words to offer the artificial intelligence, only dumbfoundedly staring as he slumped to the ground.
Snow. The floor was the ground was the snow. But the rest of the room remained the same. The basement of the CDC building was still here. No grunts. A couple lights were still on. The door was snowed in.
As Corvus removed his grasp the grunt's crushed head, it dissolved into dust as it fell, being completed materialized before it could be make a dent in the snow. Corvus then extended the same hand outward, offering it to help Paszek up from the ground.
Paszek silently accepted it, and he was momentarily shocked at just how firm Corvus' hand was – virtually indistinguishable from a human's. As he was being pulled up, Corvus stretched out a bit more, and Paszek realized that his texture wasn't confined to his palms. His forearm and his wrist felt the same. Paszek was left to assume that the rest of Corvus had to be this way, despite the fact that he looked less like a solid object and more like a collective series of particles, all attempting to shape themselves into a body, their volatile nature be damned.
And now the room was gone, and as Paszek should've expected, the Frozen Forest took its place.
"It's easy to forget it in the moment, I imagine. These robots…they are not malevolent on their own. They require a malevolent master for that."
Again, Paszek didn't respond.
"I hope I didn't startle you. You know why we're here, right?"
"Well…" he trailed off. "I have an idea…."
"In times of crisis, people often retreat back into their own minds. For someone with a DNI…it might end up looking like this."
Paszek started to feel short of breath. "Time…how much…how much time is left?"
"In all honesty, I'm unsure of how time passes while you are here. I'd hesitate to assume anything. With that in mind, I suggest we try to work through this as quickly as we can."
"Work through? What…what do you mean?" he continued to wheeze after he spoke.
"You are currently experiencing something of a traumatic episode. The presence of the grunts has released numerous brain chemicals – chemicals that have effectively paralyzed your body and caused you to hallucinate."
"Not…the first time this has happened…"
"But there's something more to it. You are in the process of trying to take control of the grunts. Put simply, your DNI doesn't want you to do that, especially since the rest of your brain is fighting it, too."
"You still…haven't explained…what I need to do."
"If you want to stop this from happening in the future…and if you want to be able to take control of these grunts properly…you're going to need to confront this. Confront this trauma from the inside."
"What…are…what are you talking about?"
"Paszek…if it's alright that I refer to you as such…I have seen and learned enough to know that this is the only way. You can't continue to ignore it. It has been eating away at you. I can see it. I can see that it's hurting you. I don't want you to be in pain any longer."
"Don't…you…you don't have to pretend…that you care…I know…what you are…"
"You know what I have done. You know how I came to be born. But, Paszek, at the risk of sounding harsh, I must say – you do not know who I am."
"…No time…no time for this. Need to…get back…"
"What you need to do is listen to me! I'm trying to help you! I want to help you! How…how will we ever save Sarah if you don't get past this? How? We won't. We can't. You must do this if we want to free her!"
"Fine…." Paszek exhaled. He could feel his pulse steady.
"Let's start from the beginning. Can you take us there?"
"Beginning of what?"
"Of your fears."
"Like you don't know where that is already…"
"I don't. I have never looked into your mind – into your memories. I told you that I wouldn't…that I would never do that."
Paszek could hardly formulate a thought, let alone a response, to what Corvus said.
Suddenly, the Frozen Forest found itself dissolving, with the snowy turf soon replaced by off-grey concrete. In the distance, a tarmac. Helicopters. Drones and soldiers running around. The tranquil landscape was now filled with sirens and klaxons and the whirring of the engines.
"Tell me where this is."
"Ethiopia, an NRC prison. 2065."
"What were you doing here?"
"Hostage rescue. My first black op. Hendricks was in charge. We freed a minister, Khalil, a few others…"
Behind the pair, a helicopter took off. From the edge of the cabin sat Hendricks, desperately reaching his arms out to pull a man up. It was a futile effort.
"You got left behind?"
"It wasn't his fault. Hendricks always apologized for it. But there was nothing he could have done. I think…I think it always weighed on him. That he thought he…that he's the reason I ended up like this."
The two watched as Paszek – the vision of Paszek, at least – stumbled to the ground as a grunt pushed him down with great force.
Just as the grunt brought down its first strike, the world seemed to stop, as if someone had paused it.
"I don't …I don't think either of us needs to see the rest."
"How badly were you hurt?"
"…Bad."
"Can you…can you elaborate a little more?"
Paszek, not even making eye contact with Corvus, rapidly shook his head, averting his gaze as far down as he could.
"…No…no, no…no. You…I…I don't think…I don't think you get it, I just…"
"It's not easy to say out loud."
Paszek looked up.
"Am I correct?"
"How do you think I got this way? These arms and legs?"
"DNI patients chose to have their limbs replaced…"
"Well…well…I didn't! I didn't get that choice!"
"You lost your limbs in this…incident?"
Paszek half-nodded.
"It's a wonder you survived. I would expect that you had fallen unconscious due to shock."
Again, a half-nod.
"If so…they how did you escape? What stopped the grunt?"
In an instant, the world around them moved at lightspeed, but after a short moment, returned to normal.
In front of the two, Paszek lied on the ground, bleeding profusely from three stumps, with only his left leg still intact. The grunt continued to strike Paszek, but, seemingly out of nowhere, was struck by a flurry of bullets, soon collapsing to the side afterwards.
From behind the grunt emerged Taylor, who soon moved over to cradle Paszek's head as he continued to cry out in pain.
And then, as quickly as it did before, the world stopped.
"John Taylor. How did he save your life? You were very badly injured."
"He…he got me out of there. Straight to Coalescence. By the time I woke up…they were already prepping me for surgery."
"The DNI surgery?"
"Yeah."
"Do you resent Taylor for doing that? For getting you the surgery?"
Paszek exhaled. "No. Not, really, at least…" He paused. "There are times…times where I wish he hadn't…but it wasn't his fault. He saved me. I can't…I couldn't hate him for that."
"So…if it is not regret that drives this fear…then what does?"
Corvus took a small step towards Paszek.
"When you think about this incident, how do you feel?"
Paszek opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated.
"Powerless."
Kane didn't know what exactly she expected to see when she entered the basement.
But it wasn't that.
It wasn't Paszek standing there, right arm outstretched in front of a grunt, still as a statue. It wasn't a Paszek that wouldn't respond to her speaking to him. And it certainly wasn't a Paszek that didn't seem to have a sense of sight or sound or touch. What was happening? He was blinking. His eyes would blink every twenty seconds or so.
She checked her watch. 15 minutes. 15 minutes to disarm the bombs. And they didn't know how. And they didn't know where. And she didn't know…she didn't know where Paszek's head was.
"A part of me still wanted to believe that you wouldn't do this. That you wouldn't try this."
Sometimes Kane would talk to herself. Not often. Usually when she was driving. Just to remind herself that she was rational. At least, that she could be rational.
"I guess that was pretty dumb, right? I know you. You are always willing to get yourself hurt to save people. And you don't order people into harm's way, do you? Not like I do. Not like the things I've done."
She briefly closed her eyes and shuddered.
"I hope it doesn't keep you up at night. I really hope it doesn't. I still don't know why you do it for me. Why you came back for me in Singapore. I lied to you. And to Hendricks. I never gave him a fair shot, you know…"
Kane took a few steps closer to Paszek, now within arm's length.
"I just want to know what you saw in me. What you saw in this…dumb, selfish…battered CIA agent who didn't cough up the truth until she thought you were going to die…"
She shook her head.
"I don't get it. I don't get why you do this. Why you…risk yourself for me. Do you know how important you are?! You're the only competent cyber-soldier left in the whole fucking world! What would have happened if you died in Singapore, like I thought you would?! The whole world would be screwed, that's what! And you risked that for me!? I'm not worth that! I'm not!"
She quickly paced around to stand just adjacent to him, so that she could look at his eyes.
"And what happens if you die here?! If you can't do this, or if your brain gets fried like Diaz's?! I lose you! I lose you, that's what happens!"
She wrapped both hands around his left forearm.
"Don't you get it?! Don't you know why I keep getting so pissed off at you? Worried about you? Why I can't stand it when you're going crazy and running into danger like this?!"
She brought her forehead to meet her clasped hands.
"I love you, Igg! I love you more than I can stand it! It pisses me off just how much I care about you! Because I want you to be better…and to be safe! But you won't have it! Because…that's just who you are! You're the guy who does anything to protect me and to protect good, honest people! And I love that about you, and I hate it too because it worries me sick! But mostly…I love it."
Kane slowly retracted her face and hands, now back in a fully upright position to get a proper look at Paszek.
"Come on…can you please…please come back soon. I….I…."
She couldn't finish. In her most vulnerable moment, her most self-intimate moment – when she needed herself to dig deeper more than any other time in her life – she couldn't do it.
Old habits die hard. Dying, sometimes, can be much easier.
"Powerless?"
"I couldn't even put a dent in that fucking thing! It caught me…and that was it."
"You said that you don't blame Taylor or Hendricks for what happened."
"Yeah, I said that…what do you…what do you mean by it?"
"Are you looking for something…or someone…to place the blame on?"
"What?"
"It's common for people to try to rationalize the thing that happen to them. To place it properly within a greater context."
Corvus paused.
"Do you believe in a higher power?"
"…No."
"So, then…do you believe that things happen for a reason?"
Paszek let out half of a chuckle.
"Nothing ever seems to."
"Then, why do you think this incident happened? What could have allowed this to terrible thing to happen to you?"
Paszek turned towards Corvus.
"What are you…what are you getting at, already? What do you want me to say!?"
"You felt powerless…but how did you get there? You said that it wasn't Hendricks or Taylor's fault…then whose was it?"
"It was no one's! No one else could have done anything!"
"No one else?"
"Oh, fuck you, man!"
"Is that what you think? Do you think it was your fault?"
"No! …Maybe! I don't know!"
"You felt inadequate as a soldier, and by extension, inadequate as a person. So you carried that with you, everywhere you went. The DNI, it fixed you as a soldier. It made you faster. Stronger. Smarter. But it didn't fix you as a human being. You felt like you were becoming less human by the minute. And the grunts. Every time you saw the grunts, you were terrified by the trauma you endured. And every time it happened, these feelings of inadequacy would come back, stronger each time. The grunts are constant reminders that you, by your own assessment…are weak."
"You…you…"
Paszek turned away from Corvus and started walking in the opposite direction, his step pattern faltering in much the same way that his emotional state was. Soon, the Tunisian prison tarmac drifted off into memory, the Frozen Forest dominated the subconscious once again.
"Paszek, I am only…"
Corvus stopped himself from speaking as he noticed the way Paszek was walking. Waiting a few moments until Paszek stopped and sat on the ground, he materialized right beside him.
"I…I don't get it. How…how…"
"It's all about perspective. Every mind, every person…is unique. They view themselves and the rest of the world is a way that is…individual to them."
Corvus sat down next to Paszek in the snow.
"I'm the product of over sixty different people. That is sixty different lives. Sixty different sets of experiences. Perspectives are unique, yes…but I've learned that they can also be similar. Many philosophers and artisans discuss the 'human experience.' Perhaps it doesn't exist. But there are feelings…feelings that all of them had. Guilt. Regret. Anxiety. Every one of them felt them."
He paused.
"You might see this vulnerability…this weakness…as something that makes you less human. But it's not. To be human is to have weaknesses. To be fragile. It is in their nature."
"I thought…I thought that getting this…getting this thing, the DNI…I thought it would fix me, make me better. I didn't want to be human anymore…I just wanted to be…"
"What? What did you want to be?"
"I…I don't know."
Kane soon found herself able to wind down from her angered, impassioned state, and moved on the next order of business.
She couldn't let Paszek stay here.
If he wasn't going to wake up within the next minute or so, then she would have to move him – there was no telling how destructive the remaining bombs would be, but she knew that it would be foolish to think that the basement would be spared.
She gave his torso an experimental push. Paszek stumbled a bit, not in the way that an unconscious person would, and soon his body corrected itself back to its original position.
Where was he? Where was his mind? Kane's initial fear had been that his brain had been overloaded by the interface, but that clearly wasn't the case. He could move. His body – and therefore his brain, was still active.
But how would she wake him up? Could he hear her? After some of the things she'd let out earlier, she'd almost rather that he couldn't. Almost, of course. Because waking him up was the only chance there was of Paszek escaping the blast.
"Paszek, can I tell you something?"
He remained expressionless and pale.
"It probably sounds weird coming from someone like me, but…you know what? Those two months we had together in DC? Those were great. Every second of it. I thought…I thought it would be boring or unfulfilling, or…I don't know. But I…I really did like it."
Kane really, really wanted to think that she saw his right eye twitch, but she knew that it probably didn't.
"Well…maybe it was a little boring. But that was okay, you know? It was nice to just be there with you. And if you don't get out of here…well, we won't be able to do that again. To have that time again."
Still no change.
"This guy…Savior…he's still out there! If you don't make it, who's going to stop him? You think the rest of the CIA can handle this? They've been running in place for months! This is on us! We have a responsibility to bring him down!"
The ticking clock and Paszek's unconscious indifference was making Kane dangerously anxious.
Fuck no. Not this again. Not this bullshit. It hadn't even been 10 minutes!
Seeing red. Red. Not ruby red. Blinding red-orange. Like someone had thrown blood into the fire and it made a splash. It was stupid. Fantasy. But it happened. It happened to her and she saw it and she felt it and she was there and she saw it and she saw it and she saw it and she felt it.
Why did she let this happen? Why did she just sit there and wait for them to take her? Some of the others ran, and they all got captured…but she could've made it. She was smart.
And then it's her abdomen that Goh Xiulan brutalized with the fire poker. It almost made the pain in her knees and her shoulder and her neck and her hands go away. But it never stopped the burning sensation in her eyes. That would never go away. Closed, open, blinking – it hardly made a difference.
You fucking idiot! You did this to yourself! You were the one that lied to them! You left them in the dark! This is what you deserve! For everything! For everything you did!
Everything.
"…Are you hearing that, too?"
Corvus did a double-take. "What are you referring to?"
Paszek didn't respond, instead standing up and pivoting around in an attempt to locate the source of the unknown noise.
"Don't tell me…that you're not…"
He craned his head further as he cut off his own thought. It was someone…talking? No, that wasn't right. But it sounded like it. Like someone was talking.
Paszek knew that he must have heard that voice somewhere before.
He couldn't tell what they were saying. It was garbled – scrambled. But still pitched. It was high. Not too high. Not shrill.
He hadn't just heard it before…it was familiar.
No…no…
It was her. It was Rachel.
No no no no no no no no no no. This was bad. This was really bad.
He had never heard her like this before. Not ever. She wasn't…she didn't…do this. She wasn't the person who went through things like this.
She wasn't the one who sobbed over her muffled words. That wasn't her.
What happened? What could have possibly happened that made her end up like this?
Did he do this? Did he do this to her? Had all of the stupid shit he'd done finally caught up? Did she finally decide, once and for all, that this asshole just isn't worth worrying about anymore?
"Paszek?" Corvus meekly chimed in.
He gained no response from his query.
"Is…is something else wrong?"
Paszek continued to walk forward, and the snow-capped trees of the Frozen Forest slowly decayed into…nothing. A black void, that for some reason, still had light – one could see exactly what was there, and absolutely nothing else.
He sat on the invisible floor beneath him. It felt like smooth tile.
"She…she…I don't…"
"Officer Kane?"
Paszek let out a defeated breath.
"I can hear her…she's…she's hurting, and…and I don't know why! I don't know why…and I need to help her!"
"Do you feel a responsibility to help her? To…protect her?"
Paszek scoffed. "Of course I do!"
"Because you love her?"
"Yes! Well…no, I mean…yes, I love her, but no, that's not the reason why."
He paused.
"She has…always been there for me. I'm always…the broken one. I need fixing. I need someone to tell me that everything's okay. She…she does that for me. But I…I never do it for her! I have to…I have to protect her because…that's what she does for me! And for nothing! She does it for no reason other than that she wants to! I've never…I've never been there for her! It's not fair! It's not fair that I don't do that! I wanted to believe that she was so strong that she never needed it! Why?! Why did I think that!"
Paszek turned to Corvus, red flushing his face and eyes.
"You! Tell me, with your ultimate fucking wisdom, tell me why I'm such a fucking idiot! Tell me why I can't protect the people…the…the person that I care about most!"
"This is it. This is the thing that drives you, yes? You still feel inadequate. It transcends your career – your combat skills – and enters your personal life."
"You're a fucking robot, not a psychiatrist! Don't bullshit me!"
"The last time you lashed out at me was when I told you a harsh truth. Would I be right in saying the same has happened here?"
Paszek turned back around.
"I hope you can still understand that I only do this to help you."
As much as it pained Paszek to admit to himself, Corvus was right. Corvus couldn't possibly again anything from this, he couldn't have any ulterior motives to doing this. For talking to him like this.
He. It still sounded strange to use the word like that. To call Corvus…this unfathomably long series of ones and zeroes…a man. A living thing. Not an object. Not a program.
"There isn't an easy answer to this. Officer Kane is a truly remarkable woman, from all accounts I've received from Sarah. You should know that I hold you in high regards as well. But neither of you are indestructible. No one is."
Corvus took a step forward.
"You're trying to take over these grunts…but don't forget that you're just as fragile as everyone else, physically. You are strong…but you are still human. Don't forget that. Never let it slip your mind that you are human and you are in control of you…and absolutely nothing else. Do that…and the grunts will never take you."
"…Did…did Diaz forget? Is that why he went insane?"
"Perhaps it was, but…truthfully…I never want to go back and find out."
Paszek couldn't blame him.
"I think it's about time you woke up, don't you?"
The cycle of irrational anger and silent worry had already taken quite a toll on Kane, even though it had only been happening for the last ten minutes or so.
Her continued attempts to move Paszek had been equally unsuccessful as her first – he effectively reversed every inch of forward progress she made, albeit unconsciously. At one point, she used her knife to lightly prick him in the neck. Still no dice, but a little bit of blood. A sign of life, she supposed.
A dim mechanical noise turned Kane's attention to the grunt. Kane's own eyes flickered as she saw the grunt's do the same, starting with a dull white hue, and within a few seconds they had settled on a light blue.
"Hey! Paszek! Are you…are you seeing this?! Hey!"
She gave him another light shove on the shoulder, which, like before, made his body somewhat stumble. But it was different. Instead of his legs correcting themselves and retaining his balance, he started to tip over, his eyes darting open on the way down.
In an instant, Paszek stood up and hot his head around, where Kane stood next to the now-active grunt.
"Oh my God! Thought I lost you there for a while!" Kane was half-chuckling out of pure shock, despite the still-dire situation they were in.
"Are you alright?" Paszek hurriedly asked.
"Am I alright? I should be asking you that! You were unconscious for at least ten minutes there."
"I think I'm good now…"
Kane took another glance at the grunt.
"Is that…are you controlling that? Its eyes are blue. That…usually means it's on our side."
She flinched as the grunt took a step off of its platform and onto the basement floor next to her.
"Yeah, yeah…I think I've got it. I'm going to take it upstairs, you should be able to get a view of it."
Kane whipped out her tablet and punched in a few codes, and after a second of buffering found herself looking from the perspective of the grunt, which, at the time, was staring right at her face.
"Make it quick! We've got…9 minutes left here."
The grunt turned square around, started in a slow jog and soon burst into a sprint as it made its way across the basement and through the door that Kane had left open.
As the robot continued its mad dash throughout the building, Kane found herself glancing every few seconds or so at Paszek, who had his eyes closed and right arm outstretched. She was in utter disbelief. This wasn't supposed to be possible. At least, not with the level of cognizance he seemed to be displaying.
She wished that she could just stop worrying about this kind of shit, especially in the heat of situations like this. But she just couldn't. It wasn't in her nature to just…stop thinking about things. To shut that part off.
Her eyes – and thoughts – quickly shifted back to the screen, where the grunt controlled by Paszek was barreling itself down the halls of the building, swerving into adjacent corridors with no apparent hesitation.
Before long, the grunt had climbed three sets of stairs, and was just a doorway removed from the second-highest level of the facility.
A doorway removed, of course, when it was blown to hell by an explosion.
Her display had no sound. She could still cold faintly hear it through the walls. But the suddenness of it still made her flinch. Kane looked back at Paszek, whose reaction to the blast was delayed for a second.
He violently shook his head back and forth as he snapped back into consciousness.
"Fuck! There was a charge up there!"
"I know, I just felt it down here!"
Paszek turned around in the cramped room and approached another docked grunt.
"Two bombs down, right?" he asked as he raised his hand upwards.
"Yes, but…" Kane hesitated. "I don't know if we can assume that he told us the truth…about how many a-are left, that is."
"I wish we had the privilege to speculate about that now, but…"
Kane silently cursed herself and pressed a finger to ear. She had no urge to see Paszek undergo the control process once more.
"Winslow, did you guys hear that explosion out there?"
A short notable beat of radio silence.
"You're still there!?" exclaimed the younger woman. "I was worried sick after you ran in there!"
"Did you hear the explosion?!"
"No, no! Well, we saw it, but we didn't…well, you see, we didn't hear it, because…you know…"
"Because why?!"
"Command told us to clear back. 500 yards is as close as I can get right now without breaking orders. They're prepared to setup quarantine is there's a larger blast."
"What about bomb squad?"
"Yeah, well, I asked about that, and they said they wouldn't send in another team. You know, because, because of the causalities, and…"
Another beat, this time courtesy of Kane.
"Kane, you have to get outta there. I know you've got a job to do and that you want to stop this, but…but maybe it's too late. Maybe…maybe we just have to let this thing go off, and…and see how we can fix it afterwards."
Winslow exhaled.
"But this isn't worth dying for! Just grab Captain Paszek and hoof it over here!"
Another pause.
"Please."
"Winslow, keep the hazmats at bay. Call forensics and get them over here to sweep the place once we're done."
"But what if-"
"We'll get it done, okay?"
"I…fine. G-good luck…"
The fact that Winslow, just like Paszek too many times today, had chosen to disconnect from the line made Kane's own confidence drop from just below average to a step above rock bottom.
Was this really it? This wasn't the way she was supposed to die. She was supposed to get caught off guard in Iran, or have her car wrecked by a semi, or contract heart disease, or…something! Something else! She wasn't supposed to be at ground zero of a terrorist attack.
No one was supposed to die like that.
As the grunt whizzed its way out of the basement and up the staircase, Kane once again glued her eyes to the tablet screen, anxiously soaking up the increasingly faint sounds of the grunt's footsteps.
Paszek took the robot along the exact same path as earlier, even passing by the caved-in, grimy husk of the last grunt, along with the expected blackened rubble from the explosion.
After surpassing the route of the previous run, Paszek slowed the grunt to a leisurely walking pace, carefully scanning each side of the corridor for signs of another explosive device. After the right turn out of the stairwell, the hallway extended about a hundred feet; halfway through was when it split out to the left, with a sign reading "BIOHAZARD", decorated with the usual symbol, pointing in the same direction.
If she wasn't so tense herself, Kane likely would have chastised Paszek for traversing through the corridor so slowly, given how tight they were on time. But she understood his apprehension. There was no way to know if each step would be the one to set off a deafening blast, or two, or even three, if Savior was a particularly slimy figure.
It was only natural then, that Kane nearly jumped out of her skin when the explosion shook the table her leg was resting against, and when it caused two layers of dust to fall off the ceiling, and when it left a faint ringing sound in her left ear that just wouldn't go away for the rest of the day.
"Shit!" she involuntarily exclaimed. She peered over to notice Paszek shaking and clutching his head.
"You alright?"
"Just…surprised me, is all…" he replied. "How are we on time?"
"Shade under 7 minutes."
"Shit…" he trailed off. "Enough time for another sweep? Or should we just…go?"
Kane couldn't give him an answer she had any amount of confidence in. It just wasn't going to happen.
"You think Savior told the truth?"
"I don't think he's lied to me yet."
"Except that he has!" she retaliated. "Back in Ethiopia, he told you that BS…about me being dead! That wasn't true!"
Paszek clutched his head. Kane could tell he was processing the realization that he wasn't right.
"He's messing with me. If I go upstairs…get blown up and die…what does he gain? The game is over. Savior wouldn't be obsessing with me if he just wanted to kill me. Not like this, at least."
"So…what? He wants us to find the bomb? He wants us to defuse it?"
"I don't know…maybe?"
Kane couldn't tell if Paszek was actually thinking it through any further, but she herself had, beginning earlier in the day, asked the same question in her head over and over.
What was the point of the game? Of the time limit? Why even tell the public at all? Given what she knew, Savior could have blown the CDC and Coalescence sky high whenever he felt like it.
Before Kane could express her concerns further, Paszek chimed in himself.
"It's your call."
Kane exhaled heavily.
"Let's go up. Follow the same path as the bot. But I go first."
Not wanting to give Paszek a chance to revoke the proverbial torch, Kane walked past him and through the open door that led out of the basement.
That's it for Chapter 11! I hope you enjoyed it. In the coming weeks, I'll be going over the earlier chapters and making some edits to make everything a bit more cohesive.