Here it is! I hope I didn't piss anyone off by skirting the big reveal and inserting a prequel/midquel chapter in-between, lol. In any case, please enjoy!
As much as Paszek wanted to shove this asshole's face into the dirt and stomp on him some more, his mind was simply too distracted to stay somewhere as…detailed as Ethiopia. Or anywhere else.
So back to the white void it was. He looked over his shoulder for a split-second to confirm that yes, Hall had managed to follow him in the nothing-scape.
There were bigger concerns to be had, though.
Paszek had spent an excruciating amount of time fixating over the smallest details that he had about Savior, and many of those details led to think that perhaps the answer to his identity laid in the form of a dead friend.
It turns out he was right about that.
But he'd picked the wrong dead friend, it seemed, as the beet-red face of Joseph Fierro stared back at him, half-engulfed in pain but still at least half-arrogant, too, as if the soldier could somehow remain smug about his reveal.
Paszek didn't want Fierro – or maybe, whoever attached Fierro's face to their skull - to have the first word, but he couldn't think of any to say himself. He had only enough cognizance to not keep his mouth wide open in confusion.
"Surprised?" said Fierro, smirking.
"What the fuck happened to you, man?" Paszek breathed. He wasn't angry anymore. He was just confused. Hell, he was almost concerned for the guy.
"I know we buried an empty casket that day, but…but I know you're dead!" he intensified. "And that the Fierro I knew would never pull this kind of shit, blackmail, terrorism…killing innocents!"
"I told you not to believe everything you, agh…read, Captain," responded Fierro, wincing faintly as he tested the tenderness of his ankle.
Paszek roared in reignited fury and thrust his arms towards Fierro, lifting the man off of the ground and tossing him backwards. Fierro spiraled at least fifteen feet back before crashing into what sounded like an invisible plane of glass, disappearing once he passed through it.
"What did you do to him?" Hall asked semi-accusingly, walking forward as she stared into the distance, examining the imperceptible window Fierro had just been launched through.
"Put him somewhere he won't bother us," Paszek responded, finally turning around to address her. "Clearly he's not interested in answering any of our questions."
"It doesn't make sense!" he exclaimed. "On any level!"
"Think," Hall mused. "Everything we know about that day comes from Stone. He was the only one there, Paszek…"
Paszek shook his head. "No…" he muttered. That was sickening to think about. Even given the nature of the many, many horrible things he'd seen, done, and heard of, it disgusted him to even entertain that thought.
"We have to start somewhere, okay?" said Hall, placing a hand on Paszek's shoulder. "Honestly, Paszek…I'm surprised that you've stayed in control for this long."
And it was then that Paszek had come to the same unfortunate conclusion Hall had. That understanding anything about Fierro – why he was still alive, why he was here, and why he was doing the things he was doing – would probably require that they re-analyze events which were not to be spoken about.
Mission Report for August 18th, 2069, Jēkabpils, Latvia: Senior Foreign Intelligence Officer Paul Friedberg (INTERVIEWED: Lieutenant Commander Dylan Stone)
Prior to these events, Commander Joseph Fierro and Lieutenant Commander Dylan Stone were both temporarily assigned away from Cyber-Soldier Unit Phi and placed under the handle of WA intelligence assets in Belgium.
Information gathered by these assets over a period of six months had concluded that a rural area in the outskirts of Jēkabpils was the site of a massive camp set up by the CDP, possibly to house political prisoners. Fierro and Stone were to perform reconnaissance on the area and report back, with explicit orders to not engage unless absolutely necessary.
Initial findings made by Fierro and Stone on the camp indicated that there were far fewer prisoners being held than once thought, if any. Reports communicated to Belgian intelligence by supposed resistance fighters in Latvia included details of a large presence of automated security at this base – this information turned out to be entirely false. There was virtually zero robotic presence at the camp, only human soldiers and gasoline-powered vehicles with no on-board computers. This meant that any possible advantage held by Cyber-Soldiers was now highly marginalized, especially given the flat, rural terrain.
Upon learning of this information, Fierro and Stone were instructed to infiltrate the base to discover its actual purpose. This order was strongly contested, but followed nonetheless.
And you should let the bad memories fade, you fucking moron. You absolute fucking moron. Eat your vegetables. Say your prayers. Imagine yourself in a hole in the ground. In a box. Imagine yourself in a frozen box. Frozen…fox? Frozen forest. You know me, I just go with the flow. You've taken 226 steps so far today, this is well below your daily target. Please consider. Kane. Rachel Kane. Bend over and touch your toes. Say your vegetables, eat your prayers. Imagine yourself in a frozen clearing, trees all around Rachel Kane. Frozen forest. Fucking moron.
"Hall, are you seeing this, too?" said Paszek, shaking his head quickly to re-adjust his eyes to the void.
"Uh, seeing what?" Hall shouted distantly. "Are you…okay?"
Paszek whipped his head around. She was easily twenty feet behind him, which was about nineteen feet more that she was when he pulled up the document mentally.
"The mission report on Latvia – Stone and Fierro," Paszek said plainly. "I was just accessing it remotely…you didn't see it?"
Hall started to close the distance between herself and Paszek. "You just sort of…teleported forward a little bit. I guess that wasn't on purpose."
Paszek furrowed his eyebrows. "It started out like I remember it, but halfway through it just got all…corrupted. Turned into a bunch of gibberish." He wasn't planning on disclosing the fact that said gibberish was really just a jumbled collection of his own invasive thoughts, real, unfabricated thoughts that had kept him awake, unawake, sane, and insane over the last who-even-fucking-knows period of time.
"It's like my own brain doesn't want me recalling these details."
"Or like it's slowly shutting off and isn't even capable of listening to you," Hall quipped back. "You bent Fierro enough that he took off the mask. Why not bend him some more, see if he finally breaks?"
"Do you honestly think that's really him, Hall?" he asked.
"It looks like him. Sounds like him, too," she responded. "And if it wasn't him, why conceal his identity in the first place?"
"I don't know," he said bluntly. "If that's actually the Fierro we used to know, then something beyond our comprehension must have happened to him. He's past insane, he's…he's a different person entirely."
"Trauma is…a powerful thing, okay? There could-"
"Do not get started on this right now!" Paszek interrupted. "Do not start comparing him to me, or Hendricks, or Corvus, or yourself, or whatever you're about to do!"
"So, Fierro snaps…" Paszek began. "And suddenly wants to destroy the world? And somehow gains supporters inside the CIA, and starts blackmailing a couple dozen people in very specific positions to do his…manual labor? It doesn't track."
Hall shrugged impatiently. "Look, I don't know what to tell you," she said. "But you'll have plenty of time to think about this once you're no longer being interfaced with!"
Fair point. Paszek was probably more mentally compromised than he was able to recognize at the moment. Part of that meant that he was spending too much time in his default setting – questioning everything, accepting nothing, and finding every reason to ignore whatever was right in front of him. But this was an impossible situation, one that couldn't be operated in pure efficiency mode or in…other mental states that served different purposes.
"And by the way, you really didn't answer my question," Hall noted. "…where exactly did you throw Fierro?"
Rachel was really, really, really fucking tired.
No, scratch that. Kane – that is to say, Officer Kane – was very, very tired. Rachel only existed when she was off the clock, and technically she was, as "the clock" ceased to be relevant once her employment at the CIA ended. The point stood though, that every second of her current existence required her full, undivided, and at-least-marginally objective attention.
Frankly, she wasn't allowed to be Rachel right now, even if that meant driving herself insane and alienating the only other human company that she had at the moment. The only other conscious human company, at least.
The pieces of her psyche could be picked up after Paszek was home. And if not, well…it would still be worth it. It always would be.
Was this shithole considered "home," now? It certainly didn't feel like it, though she did recognize that it was probably the place that bought her the most time before the CIA found her. She had implied to Wes that they were virtually undetectable, but she knew it wasn't true. She knew just what the CIA was capable of doing to find that which already existed, and capable of doing to find things that didn't quite exist yet.
Of course, it was Officer Kane who assured to Wes that her tracks were covered. Rachel had revealed the more personal secrets; at least, that was what she thought, but…
Even in her attempts to appear vulnerable, Kane felt as if she was stripping off a mask only to find that three more masks were still underneath. Was there paydirt to be found? Naked emotional skin somewhere? She'd spent so long piling on layers that she wasn't sure if it was still there, if it was still the same, and if she even wanted to find it at all, let alone allow others to gaze at it unfiltered.
Whatever. That was always the conclusion. Kane did, in fact, have a choice in the matter. She could choose to grind herself down to the bone, emotionally speaking, or she could choose not to. Maybe the world would end up doing the deed itself, but until then, she was not going to budge; she couldn't afford to.
A ping on Kane's phone snapped her up. Just an automated notification – De Klerk's flight was halfway to Chicago. From there he'd take a connection to Vegas, and drive the rest of the way. Better to not get too much traffic into Arizona. And hardly anyone traveled south from Vegas anyways – too hot and too empty to be enjoyable. Kane had already shipped a disruptor to the Vegas airport. De Klerk just needed to pick it up from the storage unit and place it on his car – the rental company would then receive a steady stream of dummy coordinates. They'd think that De Klerk was on a pleasant drive to Mesquite to see some friends, and then to Zion for sightseeing.
Too big to fail. That's how she need to feel about these things in order to actually put them into action.
"Everything good in here?" Wes asked, leaning his head into the doorway.
"Yep," Kane responded. "Aart is on his way here. He was able to get your supplies in a carry-on, no issues."
"Might I ask why you're friends with a ZSF agent in the first place? Not that I should be surprised."
"He was with us in Zurich," started Kane. "For a little bit, anyways. Got pulled away from the scene to treat survivors. But a few hours later, he snuck off and found his way into the Coalescence building. Was there right in time to fix up a bullet wound Paszek had sustained."
"Good timing," Wes quipped. "Suspiciously good, or…?"
Kane shook her head. "Thought so at first. Turns out he's just a nice guy with good instincts."
She paused.
"You should probably know that we stumbled across the ruins of the COMET building there. I don't know if you knew any of those people, but…"
Wes sighed. "Didn't know anyone that well. Just talked to some of them in meetings. Claire Dragic and Jerome…ah, can't place his last name…I was told they were the only people inside to get out alive. R&D folks, very nice from when I've spoken to them."
"A couple others were out to lunch early, most of them were far enough away from Coalescence to be okay," he added. "That masked man on the news, I, uh…assume he was telling the truth?"
Kane swallowed. "Yes. Hendricks was especially unstable, from the virus and from…just being who he is. Those robots were all hijacked by him. Someone weaker would have fried their brain from doing that, but…"
"Someone interface with him?"
"Shot himself in the face," Kane said bluntly. "Probably had a split-second of lucidity."
"Oh…" Wes murmured. "Uh, sorry for asking."
Kane rolled her eyes a little. "You're going to have to stop apologizing for asking questions like that. This isn't traumatizing for me, Wes. It's just the same stuff I've been doing for a decade."
"Not to, you know…" Wes trailed off. "Well…plenty of soldiers reported PTSD after the LA attacks…and frankly…"
"Frankly…?" she egged.
"You've been involved in events that, frankly…are shaping the entire political atmosphere we're living in right now," he finished. "And you're treating these things like they're normal."
"Would you rather I reflect upon myself and collapse into a pool of grief?" Kane shot back. "That's not going to help anyone."
"It might help you!" Wes responded. "Maybe not right now, but…"
"Exactly," she said. "Not. Now."
And not later, either.
Sun?
Sun, Paszek concluded, feeling a distinct warmth radiating across his entire front half, along with the more obvious clue that it's yellow light, not white, that blinded him for a second before he could properly shield his eyes.
Sounds. People. Screaming? Combat?
No, no…not screaming. Cheering. But combat, yes. In a sense.
Stampeding…drums? Drum…cadence? Yes, yes. He could recognize it.
He knew exactly where he was now.
"And as the second half comes to a start, West Florida holds a ten-point lead over the Blazers. H.G Jones is set to boot it, and back to receive the kick for the Argonauts is-"
That was the loudspeakers. Normally a sleep-derived student would make those in-stadium calls, but they had long employed the services of a local mechanic who always took Saturdays off.
"That's a touchback. Now get loud and rowdy for your Valdosta State defense!"
And louder, it got. Not that it would matter, since Paszek knew that West Florida would score in just seven plays on this drive, further widening the score deficit. It would just make the 4th quarter comeback all that more exciting. No sweat.
Well, yes sweat. Since it was 95 degrees outside with 105% humidity. Thankfully, the stadium provided virtually zero shade to make it completely unbearable.
"Hello?"
It was Hall. Did he disappear suddenly again? He didn't mean to. But they had talked for a minute, and then he came here. At least she knew how to follow.
"Hey!"
Paszek turned his head to the side. Hall had just stood up from her bleacher seat, she was about five or six spectators down. Why was she over there? Or rather, why wasn't he over there?
Hall not-so-gently pushed her way through the row to reach Paszek.
"This is where you sent Fierro?" she asked hurriedly. "A…football game?"
"What?" he flinched. "What about Fierro?"
"I asked you where you had sent Fierro," Hall prodded. "You never gave me an answer. You just sent us here. Is he here, Paszek?"
"Uh, no, he's…" Paszek shook his head, more focused on what was happening on the field than Hall. "I don't know."
"You…don't know where he is?"
"No, I…" he stopped himself. "I can't remember."
"Well, I can't imagine he's having too good of a time right now," Hall sighed. "Is that…cinnamon?" she asked, changing her tone.
"Yeah," replied Paszek, not taking his eyes off of the field. "It's from the pretzel stand. I'd have at least one of those a day during the season."
"I figured athletes normally watched their diets a little more carefully," said Hall.
"Normally, they do," chimed Paszek. "Scouts were telling me to gain weight. Only chance I would have had to play after my four years were up."
Paszek whipped his head sideways to face Hall. "Wait…why the fuck am I even talking about this? Shouldn't we be thinking about Fierro or something?"
"Given the circumstances, being in a pleasant memory like this is just about the best-case scenario, Paszek," said Hall. "Bad timing, I know, but…you think I could grab one of those pretzels? They just-"
"No, it's not…" Paszek interrupted. "This isn't a pleasant memory."
"This is the day my mom died."
Mission Report for August 18th, 2069, Jēkabpils, Latvia: Senior Foreign Intelligence Officer Paul Friedberg (INTERVIEWED: Lieutenant Commander Dylan Stone)
Fierro and Stone spent the next few hours scouting the area to ensure they would not be spotted while approaching the base. As they made their way towards it, though, they discovered that the base was not holding any prisoners at all, and was merely a distribution center for medicine and other supplies.
Relaying this information back to command, Fierro and Stone were then instructed to rendezvous with local intelligence operatives to re-assess the situation. Once again, Fierro insisted that the mission be terminated, and requested exfil back to Belgium. This request was denied on the grounds that Latvian forces were quickly surrounding the area.
At this point, Fierro and Stone slowly exited the vicinity of the base, taking refuge in their own stupid fucking fantasies. Reminiscing about the glory days? Do you know have ay idea how many people you've hurt? You let down everyone that believed in you. You've killed people that believed in you. Do you think she'll stay if she knows everything? She won't. You know she won't. She and everyone else will just tell you what you want to hear. Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right?
Wes had wanted her help with checking Hall's extremities for any signs of disease or decay. Kane was far from convinced that he actually needed that help. More likely, he just wanted an excuse to not be alone for another hour. Whatever. It couldn't hurt.
"You checked under her nails?" Wes asked, gently laying Hall's head back on the padded table after combing her scalp.
"A little discolored on both feet," Kane replied. "The room in the Pentagon was pretty heavily chilled, I think it might just be from the temperature change on the way here."
Wes walked around the table. "Let me check." He palmed Hall's left Achilles and lifted her toes to his eye level.
"Fungus," he said. "Nothing serious. Once she's awake, I'll give her some antibiotics. And I could grab some topical cream from the town if needed."
Kane nodded, placing Hall's other leg back down and replacing the sheet with a fresh one. Just in case.
"Listen…" Wes started. "I apologize for what I said earlier. I know you might think I'm not taking this seriously enough, and I understand completely. Didn't mean to cross a line."
"It's fine," she responded reflexively. "You're doing everything I expected you to."
Wes cocked his head for a second, but shrugged it off. "So, we wait then?"
"Yep," Kane replied. "We wait."
"Gotcha," said Wes, removing his gloves and sanitizing his hands. "I'm gonna ride into town and grab some supplies. You need anything? I'm told there's a great Indian place that-"
"Stop," blurted Kane, sticking a hand out towards Wes.
"Um…"
Kane stuck her hand out further, placing her opposite pointer finger over her lips.
"Shhh," she whispered.
Somebody had driven past the morgue twice now. Once in each direction. The car was idling now. Closer, closer, closer…
They were pulling in the front.
The car shut off.
"Get to my office!" hissed Kane. Wes scrambled in that direction as she followed him. That's where the weapons were. That's where they actually had a chance to defend themselves.
"What's going on!?" shouted Wes, visibly confused as Kane opened a file cabinet to reveal a stock of firearms and ammunition.
"Somebody's found us," she responded, handing Wes an unlicensed MR6 with a suppressor. "Take position on the left side of the door. I'll go behind the desk," she added, loading a Man o War rifle for herself and propping up the stand on the desk, shoving away any loose papers beforehand.
"How do you know they're here for us?" Wes asked frantically, checking his weapon's safety.
"Just stay quiet," she said, readying a concussion grenade with her other hand.
The lights flickered. Not just the lights, the whole building. The power to the entire building.
Cyber-Soldiers.
"Change of plans," Kane said. "Get in the closet."
"What?"
"Get in the closet," Kane said sternly. "We're not fighting our way out of this one."
Wes did as he was asked, once again checking his safety as he entered the broom closet. He carefully closed the door behind him, with Kane giving it a small nudge to ensure it was fully shut.
More noise. Somebody had entered the building. Front door. It looked abandoned up there. Disheveled, disorganized. That was on purpose. But these people probably knew better.
How did they even find her? Not important now. She needed to talk to them. Otherwise, she was dead. And then nothing mattered.
The noise was getting closer. They were past the entrance, past reception. Into the morgue proper, where they no doubt saw Hall's body sticking out through the sheets. Multiple sets of feet. At least three people. Maybe more.
Getting even closer. She couldn't hide anymore.
"Identify yourselves!" Kane shouted. "I'm armed and fortified! If you want to negotiate, now is your chance!"
The footsteps stopped.
"Rachel Kane?" a voice echoed. She didn't recognize it at all.
"Identify yourself first!" she replied.
"We're not here to kill you," said the voice. "Or to take you in."
"I said, identify yourself!" Kane shouted once again. This wasn't going well.
"Dara Mills!" the voice responded.
This changes everything.
"Who's with you!?" Kane yelled. She could hear the steps slowly starting to creep forward again.
"Specialist Outrider, and…yours truly."
Kane nearly jumped out of her skin as the warbled voice boomed through her earpiece at max volume.
What kept her from firing her rifle wildly, though was the fact that the highly digitized voice in her ear was unmistakably that of Spectre, the former paramilitary fugitive turned CIA asset…turned fugitive again, she supposed.
If Spectre wanted to kill her, she'd probably be dead already.
And if they didn't want to kill her, then Kane figured she probably should not try to change that.
"It's happening again," said Paszek, shaking his head rapidly to wipe the mental fuzz from his last attempt to read the mission report. "Something inside of my head doesn't want me going over it again."
"I…I saw it scroll by on the jumbotron," Hall responded. "Figured that's what you were so lost in there. Things are bleeding through. Memories, thoughts getting crossed with one another. Not that you need me to explain that…"
The crowd cheered wildly, rabidly. Paszek couldn't keep track of where he was in the memory. Was it the 4th quarter already? Was this the last drive? Did any of it matter?
"I think you just scored, actually," Hall added, her tone drooping as he turned to face Paszek. "And…I'm sorry. Did she get into an accident?"
Paszek shook his head. "Small-cell lung cancer. They caught it way too late. And before you ask…" he trailed off. "I knew she was in bad shape. Her doctor called me to say she had less than a week…that call was a week before this day."
"The team wouldn't let you leave?"
"I never asked. I never…I never even told them. I was just…scared," Paszek said plainly.
"Seeing someone you care about in that kind of condition is difficult."
Paszek huffed. "Actually, that's not…"
Hall cut him off by pointing back at the scoreboard. "Hey! Look, look, it's coming back! I think it's-"
Mission Report for August 18th, 2069, Jēkabpils, Latvia: Senior Foreign Intelligence Officer Paul Friedberg (INTERVIEWED: Lieutenant Commander Dylan Stone)
For reasons unknown, local resistance forces became unable to communicate, and did not meet the rendezvous point. It is suspected that these forces were somehow compromised, either having been captured by Latvian officials or temporarily placed in hiding to avoid bringing down the greater operation.
This failure to rendezvous led Fierro and Stone to suspect that their own position was soon to be compromised, so they retreated into their own fucking head, like they always did. Gonna find the answer this time? Of course you won't. Fucking moron.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the part of yourself that wants to imagine yourself inside of a Frozen Forest memories all around you snow cold melting fire ice TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX STEPS pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain. Hey, snap out of it. Hey snap out of it. Hey, snap out of it.
HEY!
Hall shook him awake. Awake? Was that a fitting enough term? Really, he was already asleep in the first place, and his drifting into the past was just another layer in a series of...
"You're slipping," she said, concerned. "The fact that your internal processes are showing up externally is…bad."
Paszek blinked his eyes rapidly to re-adjust to the sunlight. "What do you suggest I do?"
"I need you to remember where Fierro is," Hall stated, walking in front of Paszek so that he could no longer see what was on the field. "The longer we stay here, the harder it will be to find him."
"Yeah, yeah…" Paszek muttered. "Sorry, I…"
"You probably didn't mean to send us here, did you?" Hall asked rhetorically. "I never wanted you to have to fight through the Bastogne. But my brain was pulling me towards there. It was…symbolic. A virus was worming its way into me, just like how those details of the battle had, years ago."
"So, this memory is…" Paszek started.
"Symbolic, yeah," Hall interrupted. "Maybe there's another memory, another place. Something to do with school, with the football team, with your mother, maybe?"
The fans went silent. So did the shaking of the stadium. The buzz of the intercom and the music was gone a second later.
Paszek turned his head. Time was frozen. The sun shined exactly in the same place it had a second ago, unwavering.
"We're getting somewhere," Hall half-beamed. "Was it the last thing? About your mother?"
No. Well, yes, but…no. Not there. He didn't want to go there. No! That was unthinkable. Things to not be thought about. Things he had moved past. More or less. No!
But…yes.
"I wasn't scared to see her," he whispered, not using his vocal cords to avoid hearing his own voice break. "I was…I wanted to see her. But I was too scared…to-"
The stadium disappeared. The void had returned. Paszek shuddered reflexively.
Hall gripped him gently by the shoulders. "Paszek…is Fierro at your father's house?"
He nodded.
"Nice to meet you in the flesh," said Mills, removing their overshirt. "It's been an eventful two weeks, with regards to CIA officers defecting while breaking out captive Cyber-Soldiers."
Kane didn't budge with her stern expression. "How did you find me?"
"Trust me," they replied. "With the amount of effort Spectre had to put it to do it…no one else is gonna come close to finding you."
"You didn't answer my question."
"Dara's right," Spectre interjected, placing their rifle on an empty table. "Wasn't easy. You covered your own tracks perfectly. If you were rolling solo on this operation, you'd be a ghost. Your associate, on the other hand…"
"Associate?" she replied, feigning surprise.
"Tell your friend they can get out of the cabinet," said Spectre. "No reason for him to hide."
Kane craned her head back. "Wes!" she hollered. She could hear the closet door creak open ever-so-slightly.
"Ah…" Spectre started. "So…it is Mr. Myers, after all."
Kane shot them a glare.
"We weren't sure," jumped in Mills, choosing to field the question themselves. "Wes was the only person we could find in your past that we figured you might contact. He led us to the Northwestern alums, and that led us here. Spectre assumed that you'd string along someone with an actual medical degree, but…"
"Ouch…" muttered Wes, just now wandering into earshot.
Kane cursed silently. He still didn't really understand how serious this situation was.
"There's other people I could have contacted," Kane stated, matter-of-factly.
"And if you had," said Spectre, "We would have shown up here anyways, and been back to square one. You should consider yourself lucky that we did find you."
She refused still to let her guard down.
"Kane, we're all friends here," said Mills. "You can take your hand off your holster now."
She shook her head and smiled insincerely. "You seem like good people. But I'm not in a trusting mood right now."
Spectre walked over to stand right next to Mills. "How about a show of faith, then?"
Kane grabbed the handle of her sidearm tight. Neither Mills nor Spectre was carrying a weapon. It didn't matter. They could overpower her in an instant if she weren't on her full guard. Shit, they probably could regardless.
Spectre raised a hand up to the back of their neck.
"Spectre, if you don't…" Mills started, clearly protesting.
"It's fine," they replied, pressing a series of keys on their masks' rear. The apparent depressurization of the suit made a sharp hissing noise.
As the mask telescoped back into the suit, Spectre tapped a final set of buttons on her sternum.
"And now we…" the now-apparently-female voice spoke. "Can say we've finally met."
Kane was pretty sure she recognized that face. And judging by Wes' expression, he definitely did.
Voicemail from DATE REDACTED (deleted): 771-xxx-xxxx (Stone, Dylan) to 771-xxx-xxxx (Paszek, Ignacio) – CONTENTS CLASSIFIED – DO NOT PUBLISH
DS: Hey…hey…hey, man, I…
DS: Buddy, hey, it's, it's…it's nothing personal, I just…
DS: I…yeah, you know…I already knew this would go straight to voicemail, and I guess, uh [sic] didn't want to have a chat with anyone.
DS: They never understood. Every single fucking suit, every doctor, every…
DS: Every fucking bureaucrat! They never knew why they were wrong, why…
*audible shattering of glass*
DS: It was all a set-up! We…I didn't know, but…but they should have! It was plain as fucking day to see with their intel. The intel they never shared with us. And…
DS: Ah, shit, you…you already know this shit, I just…can't [sic] even…
DS: I shouldn't be alive, man. And I don't mean…
DS: It wasn't some fucking miracle…I…
DS: I don't know what they told you, but…but he wasn't dead when I…
DS: Joe wasn't dead when I left him! I left him to die! He…
DS: He was hurt, but…
uNkNowN eNtiTy: PASZEK WAKE UP WAKE UP GET BACK TO ME PASZEK WAKE UP I CAN'T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU PASZEK WAKE UP
"I'm here, I'm here!" Paszek shouted, less to communicate to Hall and more to reassure himself that he was, in fact, here.
Here, of course, referring to the surgically trimmed lawn in front of 8260 Cobb Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina.
The Paszek household.
Hall stood next to him. "This is the place?" she asked.
"Yeah," he breathed. He was sweating. Sweating hard. It was at least twenty degrees cooler than Valdosta, but it didn't matter. He scrunched his face in a largely feckless effort direct the droplets away from his eyes.
"Before anything happens…" Hall started, looking at him reassuringly. "I just want to say that I'm sorry you have to see whatever this is again, and…" she paused. "And…if there's things that you've never told me, or Kane, or…anyone…I understand."
Paszek formed a glum smile. "Thanks," he murmured. He didn't have it in him to be a man of any more than one-word sentences.
It was quiet. That wasn't a good thing. He had plenty of bad memories which involved being yelled at. But he had way, way more than consisted of him sitting under the silent supervision of his father. Those were long, excruciating memories. Ones that felt like they lasted a year. Each.
Paszek stepped forward, taking a direct path through the lawn to the front door. It took more than he imagined to do such a thing; normally, stepping on the grass in boots like the ones he was wearing would have been a punishable offense.
But that didn't matter today.
He gave the door a light push. It wasn't locked, but it made a distinctively loud screeching noise as it opened. At least, distinctive in Paszek's mind.
Hall followed him inside. It was practically deserted. Alfons called it "minimalist," at least when the inspectors showed up. The rest of the time, it was designed to emulate some nonexistent platonic ideal of a pious man's lifestyle. One chair in each room, none of them especially comfortable, and none of them for a child to occupy.
The kitchen, which opened up into the living room, was pristine, stinking of bleach and lemon. Paszek walked through at a snail's pace, slackened by some combination of disgust and reverence. Hall didn't push him, in spite of the growing urgency of the situation.
"This is…" Hall started gently, "this is what you expected to see?"
Paszek nodded.
"It had to be clean," he said, suppressing himself. "It had to be."
"Is Fierro inside?" she asked.
Paszek turned back towards the entryway. "Maybe. He could have wandered off…I don't know how long he's had to poke around."
Hall was staring straight over his shoulder.
"Paszek," she uttered.
He turned to see. It was at the dining table.
"A man of faith, Captain?" said Fierro, palming a Bible.
"Jessica Mason?" said Wes, incredulous.
"Yes…" replied Jessica, placing her mask on the table. "You know what people say about…reports of their death?"
Kane finally relinquished the grip on her weapon. As if the prospect of the underground death machine, Spectre, showing up at her doorstep wasn't enough to drive her blood pressure up, the identity of said death machine was none other than the very-famously-dead daughter of the David Mason, alleged savior of the free world.
Not that it was the first time that a dead woman ended up being…less dead than she would have imagined. But this one didn't come pre-packaged with a fantastical story of science fiction. Just a series of scars around Jessica's jaw and cheekbones that likely had a far grittier and less fantastical story to tell.
"Well, I'll be damned," Wes continued. "How many other people know about this?"
"That are alive?" she shot. "None, outside of us. You're lucky that you know Kane, because otherwise…"
Kane shot Jessica a death glare.
"Kidding…" she corrected. "If it were up to me, everyone would know. But there's been some…compelling reasons for that not to be the case."
"Your father?" Kane asked, intending the mere mention of him to be enough of a question.
Jessica didn't miss a beat. "Died not knowing. And Chloe Lynch died with the burden of knowing, and not telling him. Not that you needed more evidence as to why the CIA is a sack of shit."
That was enough to shut Kane up for now. There was probably a lot more common ground between herself and Jessica than she had realized.
"I come bearing gifts!" shouted Outrider, walking down the hall with a small paper box in her hands. "Dara, do you-"
Outrider stopped her sentence abruptly after catching a glimpse of the mask-less Spectre. "Oh, okay," she stuttered, awkwardly shoving the box onto the now-crowded table. "It, uh…looks like we're all friends, here."
"That's…" started Mills, nervously scratching the back of their neck. "That's one way of putting it."
"Alessandra, right?" said Kane, addressing her for the first time.
"Oh, please," she responded. "Outrider. Nobody's used my name for years, and I'd like to keep it that way."
"Fair enough," Kane exhaled. She wanted to turn this conversation to business. "You ran with the ZSF for a while, yeah?"
Outrider perked up. "Yeah, indeed!"
"I've got one of their medics coming in through Chicago Midway. Any chance you know him?"
"Aart De Klerk, I presume?" Jessica interrupted.
"What a guess.." Kane said sarcastically. These people had clearly been stalking her records.
"Aart?!" Outrider practically squealed. "Oh, gosh, I love that guy! He was always so, so nice. So sweet…"
"Uh huh…" Kane murmured. She still wasn't really convinced of any of this. Or maybe the place was just suddenly getting too crowded with people she barely knew.
"Why do you need Aart's help?" Outrider asked. "You only needed a neuroscientist to get access to the morgue…right?"
Kane swallowed. "Now seems like a good time to make a startling reveal of my own."
"Now this…" Fierro beamed, holding up the Bible to display it. "This is a real work of art. A collector's item, really."
Paszek stayed silent.
"A Holy Bible in four languages!" he continued. "English, Hebrew, Spanish, and…Polish, of course. Why would someone commission such a thing?"
"Tell me yourself, you pretentious fuck," Paszek snapped. The expression of his face hardly changed.
Without warning, rhyme, or reason, Alfons apparated into sight, standing with his arms crossed in the corner. He stared with stern intent at the chair in which Fierro sat.
No. There was rhyme. There was reason. Because that's where young Ignacio would sit while dad watched him study. Watched him "study" the good word of the Lord for hours upon hours of every weekday.
After so long, there was only so much that Ignacio could extrapolate from the Bible. After the verses had become burned in his mind, a branding iron with the density of a phone book and the heat of the less-than-physical Hell that the book described.
Alfons would remain wordless, as he always did.
"What a well-rounded youth you must have been," said Fierro. "A rigid, pious, polylingual youth. Such ambition!" he cried, the smarmiest grin present.
Alfons, being nothing but a hollow, unspecific afterimage, did not move a muscle. Not to Fierro's comment and not to Paszek's advancing towards the soldier.
"This is funny to you?" Paszek asked indignantly.
Fierro tilted his head back and forth in a sort of swaying rhythm. "Funny…morbid…soaked in irony…feel free to select your most favorite out of those. A man with a physiology so fascinating as yours…it should only feel natural that your psychology is equally irregular."
Paszek calmed down one quarter of a notch. "You're supposed to be interrogating me. The Fierro I knew talked like a sailor, not a fucking Rhodes scholar."
"Let us not forget whose head we are in right now."
Before Paszek could grunt out a response, the phone rang.
The phone rang?
No, it couldn't have, because Alfons would unplug the phone entirely unless he was expecting a call. And he never was during study time.
But yes, the phone rang, because the monophonic hum persisted.
"That's probably for you, Captain."
Paszek, wanting less to listen to whatever memory or fragmented subconscious idea hid within the phone speaker, and wanting more to stop the damn thing from making such a loud noise, walking over slowly and picked it up.
Stone's voice reverberated.
Voicemail from DATE REDACTED (deleted): 771-xxx-xxxx (Stone, Dylan) to 771-xxx-xxxx (Paszek, Ignacio) – CONTENTS CLASSIFIED – DO NOT PUBLISH
DS: I could have saved him! I could've…
DS: Oh fuck! This stupid fucking…fuck!
DS: You didn't pick up! I didn't want…just fucking…agh! No! No, I'm not even fucking gonna…fucking bullshit!
Hey, fucking moron. Yeah, you. Yeah, I'm fucking talking to you. Stupid piece of shit. You didn't pick up the phone. Why didn't you pick up the phone? You knew he was in a bad place. You'd read the statistics, read the studies, read the papers. You knew he was at risk. You knew the whole fucking time and you didn't do shit. You sat on your lazy ass and did nothing while he fucking killed himself. You deserve everything. Everything you're gonna get, you deserve. Maybe try saying fucking sorry for once in your life to the people you let down. Fucking stupid piece of shit.
THIS GUY CAN'T HEAR ME PASZEK ONLY YOU CAN PASZEK DON'T LEAVE ME HERE ALONE WITH HIM HEY HEY HEY HEY PASZEK YOU CAN'T KEEP DOING THIS PASZEK
Paszek was used to it by now. He didn't even react to being placed back into the surroundings of his home.
"You haven't even mentioned him!" Paszek roared, throwing aside a dining room chair. "You never even said his fucking name!"
Fierro laughed. "That's your problem. You're still-"
"Stone blew his fucking brains out because of what happened to you!" Paszek interrupted, tossing another chair, this one crashing through the window that looked out into the patio. "We all grieved for both of you! Whatever it is that you wanted, you left us all to rot because of it!"
"Paszek…" Hall started. He ignored her.
"You wanna sit there and dig into my past, the shit that happened to me?! Fine! I don't fucking care! You'll put on that stupid fucking smug face and make a half-assed generalization about why I am the way I am…good for you!" he shouted, now grabbing Fierro by the throat.
"But you're nothing but a load of fucking garbage," he spat. "There's no justification for whatever you've become!" He slammed Fierro onto the windowsill, loose shards of glass crackling as a result.
"You did save my life once," Paszek said plainly. "And I thought the world of you, but…" he stopped. "But the Fierro we used to know is dead, and some heartless fucker got put in his place."
"Paszek!" Hall blurted. He snapped his head back, expecting to be frustrated by her interruption, but instead gasped, seeing the contents of the kitchen begin to levitate, with Hall herself standing on air.
"Focus!" she shouted, directionless wind rippling through the scene. "You're losing your grip on this memory!"
Paszek turned back around. Fierro was still dangling by his neck, struggling fruitlessly to free himself. Outside the window, though, was Valdosta State University's football field, and Paszek just barely caught a glimpse of his younger self pancaking a cornerback to clear the way for the game-winning score.
"Shut it down!" Paszek yelled, tightening his hold on Fierro. "You wanna live every day of my shitty life all at once, huh!? I would be happy," Paszek grunted, lifting Fierro now fully out of his chair, "to facilitate that!"
Fierro's mouth moved, but his words were drowned out entirely by some dreadful combination of the howling wind, which dissipated around Hall entirely, and the roar of the home crowd, screaming rabidly at the upset win happening out on the patio, on the football field, four hundred and fifty miles away, fourteen years in the past.
And after another moment, that loudness turned into silence.
Kane debriefed Jessica and Mills on the situation. On Savior, on Hall, on her communique with De Klerk and Winslow, and of the trade secrets that the latter of those two had spilled. Of course, in the meantime, Winslow had let loose her possession of the late Caitlin Hernandez's redaction program, which Jessica seemed more than eager to use for herself.
Kane found it oddly comforting to get back into business, so to speak. In most ways, their meeting was functionally identical to one held in the Pentagon, or her cubicle in Singapore, or a jet flying over the South Pacific.
Maybe that said something about her.
Outrider had elected to skip out on most of the meeting, evidently finding Wes to be an interesting enough source of conversation. Or maybe she was just itching to speak to a normal human being for a while.
Either way, Kane didn't mind. There was a small, but realistic danger of having too many cooks in the kitchen with regards to her operation. Not a conflict of ideas or of ideals, but the fact that a largely unrelated party had found her left her more than concerned about her and Wes' safety.
Her phone pinged. De Klerk's flight had now fully de-boarded. It would be any minute until he was supposed to send her another update. Then it was time for Wes to head back into town. And for Mills to move their damn car into the back.
Unless any minute was…now?
"Rachel!" De Klerk heaved into the phone. "Rachel, I…"
He sounded out of breath.
"What's wrong?" she said. "Are you at the airport?"
His voice cracked. "I…you…he's…no!" he cried, incomprehensible.
"Aart!" Kane commanded. "I need you to calm down and speak clearly. Where are you right now?"
"Outside! Out, out…out, out…no, Officer…no, you cannot!"
Kane huffed. The man was clearly having some kind of psychotic break. As far as she knew, he had no history of such things. Was he dosed with something? Jet lag was not enough to explain this.
"Aart?" she asked, trying to calm him.
"No, no, no, no…no…"
"Aart?" she pressed again.
She heard him breathe heavily.
"Aart, can you tell me what's happening? Is anyone else there?"
De Klerk swallowed loudly. "Don't trust anyone, Rachel. Not anyone." This wasn't the same De Klerk she was just talking to. It was different. Sober?
He hung up.
She called back. No answer.
She called back three more times. Still no answer.
This was bad.
Paszek was back in the Frozen Forest.
And he was also in Singapore. And in his father's house, in Greensboro. And in Ethiopia. And at Naval Base San Diego. And on that aquifer just west of Cairo. And a few other places.
Every place at once and also nowhere. The void was still around, still present. If anything, the void was the default, with fragments of the other memories popping up around.
He was standing on solid ground, at the very least. The same went for Hall, who spawned about two yards to his left.
Fierro, however, was nowhere to be seen.
He swore he could hear Hall say something to him, but each syllable seemed to float out of his perception before he could parse it, like the words themselves were being sucked out of an airlock forty miles away.
And the wind was still there. The wind and the airlock sounds someone didn't cancel each other out, or combine into something unholy. They both just…existed. On top of one another or side by side or underneath the folds of the universe. Whatever.
Each movement of his eyes gave him a new glance, a new window to peer through and see a cobbled mess of memories and ideas. He was pretty sure some of them were never real in the first place.
But then came the noises from these memories and ideas, the oh-so-loud noises of gunfire and alarms and tires screeching and the infernal screaming of bleeding, burning men and the guitar lick to Thunderstruck that seemed to play every five fucking minutes in every stadium in the country.
This was the antithesis to where he began his journey into becoming brain-dead. He was smart enough to infer that soon he would lose himself entirely, and be nothing more than a slowly asphyxiating soon-to-be corpse. And any progress that Kane might have made towards reviving Hall would be rendered pointless.
He blinked rapidly. Hall was violently shaking him by both shoulders. She was shouting something. Her lips were too fast for him to take a guess at what she was saying.
He felt drunk. Concussed. His eyes wandered around, distracted by what now looked only like flashing colors and lights. An arcade.
Hall slapped him. He didn't even feel it.
He blinked again. Hall was on top of him, choking him. Now he could feel it. Why would she hurt him? Why would she try to kill him?
He blinked yet again.
It wasn't Hall.
Kane didn't mention her phone call to anyone else. The Russell Pond trio had caught on quick. Too quick for her liking. The ZSF had a thousand doctors. Why should she believe that Outrider just so happened to know the same one as her?
And assuming she did believe it, why did they know about Kane's connection to De Klerk? Evidently, they also didn't claim to have any extraordinary access to CIA files. So where did their evidence come from? She certainly wasn't going to ask them upfront. Not now.
Another call went unanswered every ten minutes. Kane wasn't expecting De Klerk to pick up, but she was holding out hope that someone else might. Maybe a security guard who found him unconscious. Hopefully not a cop. And she hoped with most every fiber of her being that it wasn't someone who had nabbed him. Or worse.
But that last fiber within her hoped that somehow, Aart was still okay. She didn't have any lot of faith in that thought.
Hours passed by. Some time was spent in idle conversation and not-so-idle conversations. More time was spent staring aimlessly at her desk, or at Sarah Hall's limp figure, perhaps out of respect but also perhaps out of something far less tangible or meaningful.
The rest of that time was used doing her due diligence on the three. Outrider, unfortunately, did not have much of her early life documented, and thus the only information Kane could acquire came from her CIA profile, obtained courtesy of Winslow, who also provided a litany of other classified documents about Mills and Jessica (or rather, Spectre).
Mills had about as domestic of a CIA career as one could have, only making a pair of trips to Quebec, otherwise remaining entirely stateside. They never saw action. Not real action, anyways. Their appointment at Russell Pond didn't appear to be a product of a particularly illustrious career, nor of nepotism. It simply happened.
Kane speculated that Mills' sudden betrayal was less due to a buildup of grievances, like her own turncoat arc was, and instead was based on a single inciting event – the termination of the DNI-enhanced "specialists" merely flipping on the light-switch that had been sitting neutral for who knows how long.
Whether Spectre and Outrider were specifically chosen amongst the group to escape, or it occurred only out of pure circumstance was something she hoped to get to the bottom of. Eventually.
The emergence of "the Specter," as the documents referred to them, came in 2055, as a masked and bio-augmented figure assassinated a series of pharmaceutical executives. Along with these slayings came leaked files detailing payments made by said pharmaceutical companies to populist conservative coups all across South America. Next came a four-star general, who was not outright assassinated, but rather driven to suicide by the release of more documents linking him to these same operations.
In a way that Kane could very much relate to, the CIA was able to locate "the Specter" and offered amnesty and additional cyber-augmentation in exchange for two decades of service. They accepted, swapped the last two letters of their codename, and the deal was done. Anonymity was another condition of the agreement, although the clever girl must have known that her DNA would be run through the system, since it notably was not a match for anyone in the CIA's vast, vast system of genetic material.
Spectre was assigned to the usual suspects – Southeast Asia and the Middle East – at least for a little while. They volunteered and were accepted into a re-vamped Cyber-Soldier pilot program being launched out of Russell Pond, and the rest was history. Kane earmarked the profiles of the rest of the participants. Some seemed less obvious choices than others.
And one was a robot. That was interesting.
Kane didn't need to read up about Jessica herself. She'd heard enough from the news, back when she was presumed dead. Once again, her getting the real story was on her to-do list. But the gap between the first few items on that list and every other item was so large that it couldn't be properly represented on paper.
Her phone buzzed. She moved to grab it from her pocket with the same agility as when she would reach for her holster.
It was De Klerk.
"Officer?" he asked tentatively. It was definitely him.
Kane dropped her professionalism from earlier. "Where the fuck have you been?' she sneered. "I've called you over fifty times!"
"I'm sorry, Miss Kane," he answered. "I…I must confess that I forgot to take my medication. It is rather embarrassing."
"What medication?" she fired back. "You never told me about any medication."
"It is…erm…" he stopped. "It is for anxiety management. I do not usually need to take them, but I suppose the stress of flying may have aggravated my condition."
"Okay…" Kane brushed it off. "Why didn't you call me sooner? It's been two fucking hours."
De Klerk exhaled into the microphone. "I…well…"
"Well?" Kane snapped.
"It…my pills take some time to, er…kick in. And I turned my ringer off."
Sure.
"What's your ETA?" she asked, peering around the corner to make sure that no one was listening in.
"An hour, maybe less," De Klerk replied, not missing a beat.
"Keep taking your meds," Kane said coldly. "Call me when you get into town."
Paszek's arms felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. He could only lift them up an inch, maybe two, before they fell back to the…pavement? Grass? Vinyl floor? It all seemed the same now.
Fierro had him pinned to the floor, both knees pressed against his sternum while both hands choked the life out of him. Par for the course, he was shouting something. Something that he couldn't hear.
Where was Hall? She was right next to him a moment ago.
Paszek struggled to process information properly with the pain in his throat, and indeed his entire body, multiplying rapidly.
Hall was just over by the kitchen. Which floated away into the void.
No. Not the void. Into the…white?
The snow.
The Frozen Forest.
The ground gave way a smidge. It was snow. Thick snow caked over roots. They dug into his back. It hurt, but it was progress.
The wind returned. Fierro cocked his head in the direction that it came from, but didn't let up on his grip.
Paszek tried to choke out a word. Nothing.
But he could finally hear again. A faint voice.
His own voice? This had happened before.
"Listen only to the sound of my voice."
Why this? Why now?
"Let your mind relax." Not going to happen.
"Let your thoughts drift." They already were.
"Let the bad memoires fade." He wished they would.
"Surrender yourself to your dreams." Safe to say that was also already happening.
Paszek coughed. "Let them wash over you like the gentle waves of the bluest ocean!" he shouted, now able to raise his right arm enough to grab Fierro's.
"Imagine somewhere calm!" he howled. "Imagine somewhere safe! Imagine yourself in a frozen forest."
The scenery began scrambling itself like a Rubik's cube, a haphazard effort to form a coherent picture. Within a few seconds, the forest began to take shape.
Paszek lifted his left arm and brought it over to meet his right, using every bit of strength he had to shove Fierro's hands off of his neck. Kicking his legs back, and then forward, he timed his movements along with another harder shove to launch Fierro a few feet backwards, giving him room to stand up.
Incredulous, Fierro shouted another inaudible swear and wiped snow from his face. Readying himself to charge, Paszek halted when he noticed a small root lift itself from the ground and wrap around Fierro's calf, ensnaring him.
"What?!" Fierro gasped, now audible. "What are you doing!?"
Paszek smirked.
"You…" Corvus' voice boomed. "You…are not welcome here!"
Fierro thrashed as more roots, some entirely blackened by lack of exposure, violently emerged from the ground, weaving themselves around his body.
Levitating out from above the tree-line, Corvus' physical form finally became visible. Fierro made a panicked double-take, looking at Corvus, then turning to Paszek, then turning back, horrified. Hall levitated next to Corvus, stone-faced.
"You will not trespass here any longer!" said Corvus, lowering himself and Hall to ground level and approaching.
Fierro recoiled as Corvus' faded hand reached out to graze his exposed face.
"Leave! Leave this neuroscape and never return! If you do, I will infect every corner of your mind…I will not stop until your goals are thwarted beyond repair, and your worst fears are realized. And if you don't believe me…"
Fierro roared in pain and Corvus fully connected his hand. A cloud of black energy dissipated above the two, circling far up into the sky.
Corvus relented, and the energy stopped, reverting back into Corvus like a pressure chain.
Fierro turned back to Paszek. "This. Isn't. Over…" he hissed.
"You're damn right it's not," Hall snarked. Fierro turned and gasped again, evidently now able to perceive her presence.
Giving Corvus an acknowledging nod, Paszek closed his eyes as the frozen forest began to collapse, hopefully for the final time, as the light and dark of the void combined into one.
Ending the interface.
Jessica and Mills were on either side of the building, hidden in alcoves originally intended for dumpsters. Outrider was on the roof. Wes was a hundred yards into the desert, staring through the scope of a Locus rifle.
The CIA-trained folk had simple instructions - watch Kane's back. Wes's direction was only marginally more detailed – don't shoot until someone else does.
Kane herself was standing just outside of the back door to the morgue, armed with only a concealed MR6.
De Klerk never called again. Or texted. But based on her calculations, he should be arriving any minute.
Or right now.
The car screeched to a halt about ten feet away from her. A gaudy white Sedan. Not the car she had ordered for him in advance.
Of course, she already knew that. Because that car had never been picked up.
"Officer," he spoke plainly, shutting the door behind him.
Kane, sunglass-clad, didn't affect her gaze in the slightest. "What is my full name?"
"Um…Miss Kane? Rachel?" De Klerk said awkwardly. "Are you alright?"
"I told you specifically to call me by my first name," she said. "And you did. Until right after you had your little anxiety attack."
De Klerk laughed nervously. "I'm…I'm sorry?" he offered.
"You didn't collect the package I left for you, Aart," spoke Kane. "Why?"
He stepped forward once. "The…the package? Oh yes…" he trailed off, acting as if he just remembered. "I could not make it there. Police officers were following me. This is the same reason why I could not retrieve the car you so generously rented for me."
"So, whose car is this?"
De Klerk breathed. "Different rental service. One outside the airport. Less paperwork, yes?"
"Aart?" Kane posed.
"Erm…yes?" he responded, advancing further.
"You helped Paszek in the Zurich Coalescence building, after the virus was purged," she said.
"I did, correct."
Kane exhaled. "What did you do to him? You know, to fix him up?"
De Klerk went pale. That was quite a feat in the Arizona sun. "I, well…I…"
"You what, Aart?" she pressed.
"I…administered first aid," he said.
"No, no…" Kane shook her head. "Like…what did you do, specifically?"
"Well…if I, erm…recall correctly…" De Klerk wandered. "He had a shrapnel wound leg from the bipedal robot? Or a grenade, perhaps? And then…"
Without any further hesitation, Kane unholstered her weapon and fired three suppressed rounds into De Klerk. The first round to the head was likely a kill shot, but she added two more in the chest for posterity's sake.
"Do not fire, Wes!" she said into her microphone. "Stay in position, but do not fire."
Outrider hopped down from the roof a moment later. Kane was now flanked entirely by the trio.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Outrider shouted. "Flying him out here just to kill him!?"
"Kane…" Jessica started. "He didn't answer your questions correctly, did he?"
She shook her head in response. "No, he didn't."
"Think he was compromised?" asked Mills.
"Negative," Kane replied.
"I don't think this person is Aart De Klerk at all."
Whew! A long and narratively exhausting chapter. Looking forward to bringing you more soon!