Still cooking! I'm very grateful for the positive reception that a few of you have offered, and hope that I can keep delivering! In any case, read on!
Hall took a few more moments to collect herself.
"In order of importance, I'll say…first, where are we? Second, where is Paszek being held? Third, do we have a way to transfer Corvus' out of his head? Fourth, where are my clothes? Fifth, can I please get a glass of water? And sixth…" she halted, finally, now gawking at Wes. "Who are you?"
"Uh," he responded stiffly. "I'm Wes. Uh, friend of the family, you could say."
Kane stepped forward a little more, being qualified to answer the first five questions. "This is a safehouse in Yuma, Arizona. We've had a few other…visitors in the past week or so, but it's as secure of a place as we have. Two of our allies are currently tracking a person of interest last seen in Winnipeg – it's likely that this person is at least connected to Savior, somehow."
"Well…" Hall started, with enough reluctance that Kane anticipated terrible news, "I should get this out of the way now. I know who Savior is."
Kane's mouth went agape.
"It's Fierro, Kane."
Kane crowed out of sheer incredulity. "Fierro?! Joe Fierro? You've got to be fucking kidding me…you're absolutely certain?"
"I saw his face," Hall responded, haunted. "I heard his voice. I know what you're thinking, okay, but he was only presumed dead. Not confirmed. Dylan Stone's suicide note says that Fierro wasn't dead when they got separated."
"Actually," Kane said, switching tones, "that's the least of my concern. Given what's happened here in the past couple days, it doesn't even matter if he was killed or not."
"Um, to elaborate," Wes butted in, probably sensing an unearthly level of confusion in Hall, "this Savior, or Fierro, or whatever, may or may not have the capability to produce or otherwise source exact physical copies of human beings."
Kane exhaled, shutting her eyes as she did. That clearly was not going to help the poor woman's lack of context. "I can give you a proper debrief in a bit. I understand that this is…a lot to deal with."
"Yeah…" Hall said blankly. Kane imagined she was almost scared to ask more detailed questions, for fear of what the answers might be.
But Kane knew well enough that the sympathy she held her Hall's state was outweighed by her empathy – the immensely large and dense shadow of not knowing that drove her mad.
So, more questions would be answered, happy or not.
"You've been…speaking with Corvus?" she posed, just trying to engage with Hall.
Hall formed a small smile for the first time since awakening. "Just the two of us for a long time. It's…oh God, January? About two months, then. He is…" she stopped herself. "I can't find any proper words for it right now. Do we have a place he can go? Once we find Paszek, of course."
Kane didn't have the heart to admit that she had not spent a single moment thinking about that since Paszek had informed her of the AI's desire.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there," Kane answered diplomatically. "And…" she began, circling back, "your clothes should be here soon. Another…friend is out shopping."
Having wordlessly left the room for a moment, Wes re-entered with water. "Just bottled, I'm afraid," he said as Hall accepted it. "No running water in this building."
Kane noticed Hall's recoil at the touch of the bottle. A matter of temperature? Texture? Kane had no metric for just how real, unreal, regulated, or unregulated the kinder Corvus' forest was. Maybe this was the coldest Hall had felt since the Singapore monsoon.
She needed someone to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. What did it matter to Kane, anyways?
Was she just sitting on her ass now, waiting for Spectre and Mills to bail her out? Is that what she was resigned to doing now?
Or…
Or was she just so fucking callous, so fucking numb, so beyond the point of acting like a normal fucking human being that she couldn't exist without an official objective?
It wasn't a question. She already knew she was. Jessica had looked her dead in the eyes, read her cold, exposed her for the frankenstein human/employee/doe-eyed romantic/soulless fucking husk that she was. Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you.
Wes, likely feeling too uncomfortable in the silence, had retreated from the room once more.
Kane turned to Hall, the latter staring at the floor
"It's too white in here," she said, gaze remaining unbroken.
Point A to Point B.
How did one get there?
Point A: Nova Six – the obsolete mustard gas that had a small handful of uses in the 60s, the Cold War cautionary tale you were taught in boot camp. Death within twenty seconds. No exceptions.
Point B: The transformation of a live human being into something resembling the undead.
Something, some series of steps, connected the two dots, if Paszek was to take Fierro at face value – an angle, which in spite of Paszek's continued exposure to the fallen man, was still a dicey proposition at best.
But it was all he could work with.
At the most basic level, there were similarities. Necrosis of the skin, most likely the muscle tissue as well. The now-undead individual, who had since been thankfully taken out of their misery by Fierro a few minutes after their transformation, had seemed to be going through the same motions as those afflicted with a toxin like Nova Six.
Both of those threads were stretched by themselves. Paszek simply needed more information, more context to do any more with this theory, to put together how Point A gets to Point B.
And after Point B, of course, there still came the story of how Fierro had this gas, why and how he wanted to use it, and well before those, how he came to escape almost-certain death in Latvia.
The alone time spent in the wake of his venture into the Frozen Forest also left Paszek to wonder a bit more intently about the twice-dead man in the glass box. Clearly he had failed Fierro in some capacity. What was it? What did any of Fierro's lackeys do, outside of kidnapping, blackmailing, and bomb-making and/or bomb-stealing?
Had the man made a mistake, or was it a deliberate choice? He certainly seemed to have an undying respect for Fierro, one that made the network seem less like a terror cell and more like a spiritual cult with a particularly well-funded extracurricular and outreach program.
Just how did this process work? Were the transformed undead feral? Could they spread their condition? If so, through what means? Biting? Fluid transmission? Aerosols? Paszek certainly hoped it was the first option, as it was the only one that yielded any actual chance of survival for humanity in the event of a major outbreak.
This, again, was speculation. One way or another, Paszek's time was dwindling and every piece of concrete information he could get had a chance to extend that time. And, as unpleasant as it was, speaking more with Fierro would be his best chance for that.
His internal clock – not his digital one, which was out of commission as long as the EMP was active – told him that he probably would be getting something to eat or drink within the next two hours of so.
Whether or not he was content to do so, he would have to wait.
Alessandra's return from town, which yielded clothes for Hall and an actual goddamn meal for everyone, was a much-needed respite.
Kane and the younger woman had exchanged a single-digit number of words since the De Klerk debacle. Wes had broken the news involving the bodies to Alessandra, and based on her demeanor since, it wasn't settling well. When she felt up to it, Kane would try and resolve that. But she had another shell-shocked Cyber-Soldier to speak with for now.
Not ignoring Hall's words from earlier, Kane had taken the both of them into the head coroner's office to eat, banking on the faded-but-still-somewhat-colorful décor to ease Hall a bit.
She couldn't help but notice how quickly Hall had torn into her boxed sandwich.
"I take it you weren't…that you didn't…eat? In there?" Kane asked, mentally cursing herself for not actually structuring the question before she started speaking.
Hall didn't look up. "Would you be alright with tabling the…technical questions for a little while? I think we'd both get more out of talking about the real world."
Kane inhaled sharply. So much for that approach. Now she could only hope that the time spent stewing since their debrief would bring Hall to ask questions that she could actually have a chance of answering.
"How have you been holding up?" said Hall, taking another bite a nanosecond after she finished her sentence.
Kane didn't say anything. She let her face drop to where it wanted to lie and stared Hall down until the blonde looked up from her meal. She needed to force Hall to fully take in her response, to truly understand where it was coming from.
"Four days after Zurich, I took my first vacation in half a decade. I lived a normal life for six weeks, and I was happy. I don't know if I ever said it out loud or even thought it to myself explicitly, but…I could have stayed there forever."
She paused, letting herself relax physically a little. "And then the world was ending again. So, we went back to work."
"You and Paszek," Hall amended. It wasn't a question, but it demanded a response.
Kane nodded, less as an affirmation of just what Hall said and more as a means of acknowledging that she had said anything at all.
"He told you?" Kane spoke. This wasn't really a question, either.
"Not on purpose. But he did."
Kane nodded again. Just another acknowledgment. She still didn't know just how Hall felt about…this.
"I was upset at first. I was scared. I think I still had Hendricks or Diaz or someone else shouting in my head, telling me that you were evil, that you were corrupting him, manipulating him."
Kane stayed silent.
"But…" Hall stopped. "I remembered that I know Paszek. The real Paszek. And that if he believed in you, cared about you…well, I had to take it at face value."
"Plus," she added, "I should probably show a little more gratitude towards the person that saved me from whatever CIA shit was going on down there."
Kane re-calibrated. She was on thicker ice now.
"You and the rest of the unit were victims of the CIA's cruelty and negligence. You – all of you…deserved better. Paszek was…just a part of the reason I arrived at that conclusion."
Hall put down her sandwich. "You'll have to forgive me for asking, though…"
Kane could read her tone easily. She didn't like where this was going.
"What the fuck happened between you and Taylor?"
The food was worse this time. It was typical POW fare – nearly-rotten chicken and rice with the consistency of a breath mint. Evidently, Fierro's wine-and-dine strategy had left the picture once it became clear that an interface wasn't going to be possible.
Of course, the presentation of this hardly-a-meal gave Paszek another audience with the man of the hour. Silver linings.
"Anarchy still the plan you're going with, Joe?" he joked. "If so, you're taking the long way around."
Fierro almost smiled. "I thought you were well past talking philosophy, Captain."
Paszek laughed. "And why the formalities? We both know what's what…Joe."
It didn't seem to affect Fierro. "When the structures that society continues to desperately cling to are destroyed, the ashes will make this world fertile once more. That…is the plan."
"Seems overkill," Paszek chimed, not missing a beat. "Nuking the CDC, the Pentagon, destroying diseases and their cures, destroying information that could easily destabilize the world without resorting to…what? Zombification?"
"All a means to an end. A man of your intelligence doesn't need more to understand, I hope."
Paszek chuckled once more. "No, actually. I don't understand. If you were on a suicide mission, you wouldn't need me and you wouldn't need anything in my DNI. So, if you really do want to stay alive, why start a new plague that you have no chance of ever stopping, or succumbing or yourself?"
Fierro looked perplexed.
"That is…" Paszek continued. "Unless you have a cure?"
"As you saw, Captain…" Fierro started, the smallest amount of frustration present, "death is the only cure for that affliction."
"Then what hope do you have?" Paszek shot back. "If the undead can topple the WA, the CDP…how do you plan on living through it?"
"These creatures will do far more than that, I'm afraid," said Fierro, composure now regained. "And I will be more than content to watch."
"Ha!" Paszek laughed, now genuinely. "You're…ha, you're three fucking times as crazy as I thought you were! What a magic trick you've done, Joe…wow! I…you got fucked over once by some shithead computer guys in Latvia and you…what? You bought a fucking thesaurus and decided…ha, decided that, 'hey, you know what…I'm gonna get me and some of my buddies to whip up…whip up a fucking zombie potion! And I'm maintain that I'm dead for like…four years! Ha! What the…what fuck went wrong with you?! Ha, ha…"
It was hilarious. He couldn't stop laughing. It was too funny. Too convoluted. Too absurd. You couldn't make this stuff up. It was a golden piece of shit, served on a platinum platter. Somebody call Hollywood! Even someone as dull and humorless as Alfons would laugh at this. It was too much. Too much!
No.
No, it wasn't very funny at all. It was disheartening. Frightening. It scared him to his core. He knew he wasn't going to leave here alive. He was dead already. Dead in the water, in the snow, in the plastic bag they would bury him in, already. Now look who's on a platter! Ha!
And yet, he couldn't stop laughing.
He could not stop laughing.
Dubai. 2062. Winslow Accord Black Ops Unit "Double-Double U", AKA "Wetworks Whiskey" alongside CIA assets.
"And?" she asked.
"And what, Kane?" Taylor responded.
"And…what do you want to do about this?" She was frustrated. She knew damn well that Taylor already knew exactly what question she was asking him.
"I plan to keep living the same life I've been living up until now," he answered. It was to the point, decisive, yet it once again lacked any actual verbal affirmation of what the question was in the first place.
This wasn't the Taylor that was talking to her yesterday. This was Taylor in denial.
Kane upped the sternness of her gaze towards the older man. She was not letting this go.
"I am sorry, alright?" Taylor relented. "Under different circumstances, I could see how-"
"The circumstances…can be different!" Kane interrupted. "I can file the request. I could go with you, or, if you really wanted, you could stay here and-"
Taylor cut her off, now heating up. "No! I mean…" he cooled off slightly. "You're just taking this further than it needs to go."
Kane was incensed. "You're the one who…ugh! You made this happen! You…you moved first! And now I'm wrong for wanting to follow through?"
"I could have handled things better," Taylor said blankly.
"So, it was a mistake, then?"
"No! No, no…I mean…I should have…"
Kane shook her head. "You told me you didn't think you were up to the task of leading your unit. Thirty minutes ago, I would have vouched for you. But I think you were right the first time, John. I don't think you know how to do this properly."
She walked away, fully intending those to be the last words she ever spoke to him.
And if only they were, Kane thought. If only they were.
"Taylor mentioned a 'Rachel,' like…three years after that would have happened," said Hall. "After we met in Singapore, I, you know, connected the dots. Figured it was you by Taylor's reaction when you walked in. But…God, how compromised was he?"
Kane shook her head. "I could never tell."
2064. Still Dubai. CIA, all by its lonesome.
Kane's phone buzzed. Voicemail. She hadn't bothered to take a call on her personal number for almost a year. It wasn't an American number. Peculiar.
She checked her agenda. Pretty much bone-dry. Dubai had been quiet, thankfully, for the better part of the summer. Probably because it was too damn hot for anyone to want to do anything.
So, why not? She clicked play.
"Kane? It's me."
Even through the static, she knew who it was right away.
"Look, I…I get that you might not want to hear from me now. But things have changed for me. I've…look, I've got a new perspective on things. I'm thinking about putting some transfer papers in. If you don't care anymore, I understand. But if you do…call back, okay?"
Well, if nothing else, this at least made her day more interesting.
"Rise and shine, Paszek…or should I say 'rookie?'"
Of all the voices Paszek could have awoken to after falling in a fit of insane hysterical laughter, this was far from the worst.
He opened his eyes to see Peter Maretti, hand outstretched, offering to help him up from the hot concrete that he laid belly up on. Paszek accepted, whiplash from the new surroundings fading a little as he swerved his head to figure out where he was.
It was obvious after a moment. Sahara Desert, just outside of Cairo. A derelict aquifer.
"Sorry your dad couldn't make it. Does that guy just pray all day? In the year of our lord 2071? Crazy, man…crazy. But you hate his guts anyways, so…"
Paszek exhaled, almost a chuckle, but not really. "And I don't suppose you can tell me why my brain landed on here?"
Maretti shrugged, looking out onto the horizon. There were no jets, no choppers, to surface-to-air missiles trying to shoot before the air-to-surface missiles annihilated them first.
It was almost peaceful.
"I feel like I got thrown under the rug a little bit," said Maretti, not touching Paszek's question. "Hendricks got all the press, Hall got all the guilt, but, hey…you killed me too!" he joked.
"You asked me to," Paszek responded blankly.
"That, I did. And given the shit we were into it was the right call. But…ah, I'm just being selfish…" Maretti trailed off, turning back around to face the interior of the aquifer. "You've seen more DNI mindfuckery than anyone else, I'll bet. Figures that I'd make it in somehow."
"Shit," he continued, changing tone entirely. "Where's the rest of the guys? Let's get the whole gang here! Diaz, Ramirez, Stone…hell, I'd invite Joe too if he hadn't gone all eco-anarchist on us. Can you scrape up some memories from '65? That Peruvian food was amazing…"
"I have plenty of memories of you," said Paszek, thinking out loud. "But what's allowing me to accurately re-create your personality subconsciously?"
"Corvus was in my head, too. Maybe he copied my brain activity. It's just code, once you strip it down, right?"
"Doesn't explain Alfons," Paszek shot back. "Not to mention that Corvus can't be in full operation. Not while these EMP dampeners are active."
"You talked to Corvus earlier today, Paszek. He seemed his usual self. Well, from your point of view, I guess."
"And the EMP was on…" Paszek replied, sotto voce. "Partially or otherwise…that thing isn't shutting down my DNI."
"That's critical thinking, champ. I just know you'll ace that ACT tomorrow," Maretti quipped.
"Now get back out there and get some answers!" he encouraged, gripping Paszek by the shoulders and shoving him over the edge of the aquifer.
2064. Later. Zurich. On leave, but not vacation.
"Ha…this is some timing, isn't it?" Taylor laughed dryly.
Kane was not humored, handing him a clipboard. "This is the documentation you need to transfer out of this hospital. Sign."
Taylor shook his head. "I'm WA property, honey…" he muttered, evidently still coming off of a morphine high. "They say I'm here…I'm here. Can't leave."
Given her own emotional state, Kane was willing to cast aside his first comment.
"Not anymore," she replied, matter-of-factly. "I pulled some strings. The CIA has jurisdiction…for now. If you sign this paper, I'll get you lifted to Orlando. They have limb specialists there that can get you walking again."
"We can do one better," a voice chimed in.
Kane turned, and she recognized the face from the photos.
Sebastian Krueger. He planted himself on the opposite side of Taylor's bed.
"When I heard what happened to you in Cairo, I had you rushed here personally, Sergeant Taylor. I can guarantee that you'll be back in the field in 6 months. And more where that came from, if you're interested."
Kane didn't dare direct a single percentage of her peripheral vision to the snake. "This treatment is still heavily experimental. Are you hearing me, John? There are potentially fatal complications from this thing. They've happened. I can show you examples of what's happened when-"
"Don't believe everything you read, Officer," Krueger interrupted. "We have countless success stories. DNI installation offers no more risk than a kidney transplant."
Krueger moved his stern gaze to Kane, as if to challenge her to refute his very-plainly false claim.
"It's your decision, Sergeant, but just know that we have your best interest at heart. For the good of your career and your country."
Krueger retreated, leaving a blank-faced Taylor to stare at the ceiling, ignoring Kane entirely. What the hell was he thinking? Was he…was he actually considering this? He couldn't be this dense. He had to know. Right? He had to know this was too good to be true.
"Kane…"
"You can not," she hissed, trying not to raise her voice and attract attention from the other parties in and around the room. "You can't agree to this."
"Kane…"
"They will own your body for the rest of your life!"
"Kane…"
"You don't know the things that I know about the DNI!"
"Rachel!" he hollered, not loud enough to disturb the room, but forceful enough to stop Kane from speaking anymore.
"I need to go back," he said. "I need to be back out there."
"John, I can find you a job. I can find you a place to stay. You can live a normal life."
Taylor shook his head. "No, I can't," he said plainly. "That's, agh…" he grunted, "…already been decided."
"I know that you know," Taylor continued. "We both know we can't return to the land of the living."
"I'm offering you a way out!" she protested. "No tricks, no strings attached!"
"You're just trying to help, okay? I get it. Why don't you take your own advice? Leave while you've got an excuse," Taylor argued, teeth gritting as he appeared to start feeling physical pain once more.
"I will…if you will," replied Kane, staring straight into Taylor's soul.
Taylor didn't respond for a few moments, time that Kane could only assume was spent internally answering the largest question he'd ever asked himself.
"This is who I am, Rachel. And it's who I'm going to keep being."
Kane furrowed her eyebrows and nodded quickly, trying her damndest to not succumb to any visible signs of emotion.
"I shouldn't have ordered you around like that," she said, voice beginning to crack. "But can I just ask one thing of you?"
It was rhetorical. Taylor knew that, and didn't respond.
"Don't forget me," she sputtered. "You're not allowed to forget me."
Paszek gasped reflexively upon awaking.
Fierro, who was less than ten inches away from his face, did not.
"Ah…" Fierro started.
Cue pseudo-intellectual bullshit coming in three, two, one…
"You've grown restless. Captivity takes its toll on the body, the mind, the spirit. You are learning, just as I have."
"Captive in Latvia?" Paszek queried, not missing a beat. He was going to take every opportunity presented to him. "Must've happened, right? The CDP found you, nursed your wounds, took you as a POW."
"I think you'd find the physical account of how I got here to be…unfulfilling, Captain."
"Well, how about the…what did you say…spiritual? The spiritual journey? I'll listen to that," Paszek replied.
"Oh, oh…" Fierro shook his head, backing away. "Actually, I think we've established that you won't listen."
"This EMP you've got on hasn't shut off my DNI," Paszek shot back, changing the topic.
"Of course, it hasn't. If it had, you'd have died in an hour."
"What's stopping me from breaking out right now, then?" he fired.
"Probably the fact that none of your limbs can properly communicate with your brain," Fierro answered smarmily. "Keep up, Captain."
An epiphany occurred to Paszek in that moment. Exact clarity? No, but a theory that was worth a test flight with his captor.
"Why do you keep dodging questions about your life? Why do you never use my name? I doubt you still respect the chain of command, do you? Shit…I don't even respect it anymore…"
Fierro shook his head. "Why bother? The past is behind us both."
"What information did you want from my head?" he continued his line of questioning. "I'll give it to you for free. Certainly doesn't look like I'm gonna need it for much longer!" he joked, laughing dryly.
"We're past that point, Captain."
"It was never about information, was it?" Paszek hounded, studying Fierro's face for the slightest tell. "You didn't need intel from me. But you still needed me alive. What possible reason would you have for that? You've made it clear already that I'm not capable of being your intellectual rival?"
Fierro didn't respond.
"You didn't interface with me to extract anything. You did it to insert something. Insert yourself into my brain, destroying my consciousness in the process."
Fierro chuckled nervously.
"You won't talk about yourself, Joe. That's because you're not yourself, Joe. I was right, wasn't I? The Joseph Fierro I knew really is dead."
Paszek could see it. He was right. He was looking past the body of Joe Fierro and into something else. Some person, creature, entity, whatever. Moments later, Paszek imagined he would be once again internally cowering, searching for rationalizations. But for this brief-but-punishingly-slow microcosm of time, he was winning.
"You're…smarter than you appear," the skin-thief replied.
"I wish I had someone like you back then," Hall said, staring into neutral space. "Someone who advocated. Could give me the other side of the coin about the DNI."
"Yeah…" was all Kane could muster.
"I probably wouldn't have listened either," Hall continued. "The job meant too much for me. Well, not the job itself, but…the purpose. I feel like everyone says that, but most of them don't mean it."
Kane couldn't bring herself to reply with anything now.
"Why didn't you quit back then? Why not quit after Taylor? Or after Zurich?"
Kane shook her head. "Wasn't an option. CIA has had asset retention monitoring me for the last ten years. And…"
Potential extensions to that answer flooded her mind, namely ones involving attachment to Paszek, but she was feeling decidedly less candid now than a few minutes ago. It was enough emotional vulnerability for a lifetime, let alone a day. She was breaking her own rules, letting herself get bogged up with the practically unimportant while there were more pressing matters.
"…and I figure you would know a thing or two about being a fugitive from the CIA."
Hall adjusted her gaze to the floor. "Kane, I'm just trying to say that I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Kane choked. "I think I'm the only one that needs to apologize here."
"No…" Hall deflected. "No, I just…we all didn't trust you, didn't consider you. We all felt special for having these stupid robot arms, and…and we all thought that you couldn't understand our trauma."
"I need you understand this…" Kane started, drawing out a sentence that she knew she needed to utter, but didn't want to. "I ordered Paszek to interface with you. Hendricks, who probably saw some equally fucked-up stuff inside of Diaz's head, tried to warn us. I ignored him and did it anyways. I am directly responsible for everything that's happened to you since that moment up until now."
Hall nodded. "I do understand. And I'm grateful. Realistically, even if I'd made it out of that ambush, I'd have been killed in Cairo by Hendricks, or driven to Zurich and eventually died there. Because of the interface, I met Corvus. He helped me, and I helped him. In a way, you saved two lives by making that call."
"That doesn't change the fact that I'd have killed you and Corvus back then if given the chance," Kane argued. "You got lucky."
"All of us were different back then!" Hall protested. "All of us were willing to do terrible things for terrible reasons! And that was before Corvus infected us. I'm just…" she paused, cooling off a little. "The world isn't sitting here criticizing the things we've done. So maybe we shouldn't, either."
"You, Hall. You were step one in undoing the things I've done. Step one on a long, long list."
Kane was unstartled by Wes' opening of the door, his three knocks on the half-opened entryway not affecting the two inhabitants of the room. They were heavily trained soldiers. They heard him before he made it halfway down the hallway.
"Kane, you haven't checked your messages, have you?" he asked, still apprehensive to actually enter the room. "Dara called both me and O.R…"
She flipped over her phone, curing herself for not being proactive since Hall's awakening.
The message was short, clear, and concise.
"Tracking was clean. Heat signatures confirm about a dozen men, thermite present. We move on your go."
"Why am I so special?"
"The war of attrition has taken the lives of most of the world's Cyber-Soldiers…" spoke the figure. "The video evidence speaks for itself, but your survival thus far would be more than enough."
"Fierro was plenty capable. His body not good enough for you?" Paszek asked, still eager to gain any fiber of information he could.
"A body is only as good as its face. And what use is a dead man's face?"
"Missing in action. Presumed dead. You could have salvaged a story," said Paszek. "But instead, you waited, what…4 years? Just to steal the face of a guy who's probably the CIA's most wanted right now?"
"I'll take what I get, Captain."
"I'm not a Captain anymore. I'm just Paszek," he spat. "So, who does that make you?"
"No, fucking obviously do not breach now!" Kane shouted into the phone.
She was livid. Relieved, but momentarily livid.
"Not gonna lie, Kane," responded Jessica, "we thought you were dead there for a second when you didn't respond immediately."
"You'd have cut me a little more slack if you'd known that Sarah Hall is alive and well in the room next door," said Kane, now decidedly less livid.
"Damn…" Jessica breathed. "Well, the point stands. They're planning something big in this building. The longer we wait, the greater chance they take it into action."
Kane shook her head. "No favors to be had by not properly surveying the entire area before busting down the door. Winslow might be able to get us a drone in the sky."
"We're all pros here, Kane, but these people are a mystery. Our position could be compromised at any second. That message was a courtesy, okay?"
"No!" Kane shouted into the phone. "You're not breaching that building until I'm there with you! 24 hours is all I need."
"I already gave you this talk. You are not in an acceptable emotional state to be conducting a raid, let alone one of this significance. I…" Jessica trailed off. "Dara, don't start with this again, you know that…"
Jessica sighed harshly through the phone, with Kane unable to hear the other end of the conversation.
"Fine. 24 hours. Give Dara hourly updates. No more slack - if you go dark again, you'll be presumed dead. Got it?"
"Thank you, Spectre," Kane responded, disconnecting the call.
It was finally, finally, finally time to end this.
"Who I am doesn't matter. Not to someone as smart as you," Savior replied.
Paszek would beg to differ. "Zurich? Were you there? One of Krueger's test subjects for Project Corvus 2.0?"
"On all accounts, no. I'm quickly growing tired of your questions, to be frank," he said. "Here's the only answer you need, Paszek."
He paused.
"Even after all you've seen…if I told you who I am, you wouldn't believe me."
And somehow, Paszek did believe him.
"Go home, Wes," said Kane.
Wes shook his head, smiling in disbelief. "I can still help you, Rachel! You saw that shot I made out back – I can provide overwatch for you!"
Kane took in a deep breath. "I know that you could, okay? But it's not about that. You've done your job. I can't put you in any more danger than I already have. You mean too much to me."
She meant it. Wes had kept faith in her at her absolute rock bottom. He had successfully brought Sarah Hall back into the world of the living and waking. He was one of the only friends Kane had left. She couldn't bear the thought of him dying as a direct result of her rash actions.
"This is my purpose now!" Wes protested. "I'm doing what I always wanted to do – I'm actually helping people! Making a difference!"
"Wes…" piped Alessandra, now making her presence known. "You can continue to make a difference. To help us, to help others. But you have to still be around to see it through."
Wes sighed. He must have known better than to argue with both of them. "Somebody…somebody please give me a call when it's over."
Kane nodded. "Be safe, Wes."
Fever-pitch.
That's where Paszek was now. Not just because the room's heat system had seemingly turned to full blast, leaving him sweating where he once was shivering. Everything seemed louder.
His questions had stopped, not because he couldn't think of any – on the contrary, they were all he could think about. They had stopped because the man, the figure, the beast, Savior, whatever, had stopped paying attention, and instead had taken to setting up the room – more glass boxes, more unconscious people in them.
In his haze, Paszek could still take note of more information. There were lackeys, underlings, more people working for Savior. Of course, he knew that already, but it was relevant that they were in the building, and based on the equipment they were wearing, probably armed.
No DNIs. Not augmented. They couldn't be stolen bodies, either. Maybe just crazy. Or brainwashed. Or who the fuck cared.
His ability to analyze was slipping quickly. Heat. Noise. Intrusive thoughts.
You know where it would be nice to go to?
"You don't need to drive the whole way," said Hall nonchalantly. "I'm a little out of practice, but I'm sure I can manage."
"Need to stay alert," Kane responded. "If I change seats I'll fall asleep."
"Could use it," Hall said frankly. "Sorry," she corrected, immediately. "Spent a long time being…radically honest."
"Too warm?" Kane asked. They were far enough north that they needed the heat. And, despite the more important circumstances, she still had a lingering curiosity about what Hall had seen, and how she was holding up.
More specifically, how she was holding up so damn well.
"Not warm, it's…" Hall trailed off. "It's too…everything. The forest was…dull, in terms of sensations. So, everything feels too hot, too cold, too soft, too hard. Just have to hope it will all come back to normal, eventually."
Kane changed lanes to pass the truck in front of them.
"24 hours is not really reasonable, is it?" Hall asked, changing the subject.
Kane shook her head. "Not on the backroads, no. On the parkway we could coast at 120. But there's a lot of cameras, and we're driving a black pickup with three fugitives in it."
"Parkway?"
"Ha," Kane chuckled. "New York thing."
"I thought you were from Hershey?"
"Oh, I am," Kane responded. "Picked up the lingo in Rochester."
She checked her mirror. Alessandra looked to be fast asleep.
"That's where Wes and I met, actually."
Hall looked back, too, though Kane doubted it was for the same reason. Kane didn't want to talk about him too much with Alessandra around. They had developed something of a camaraderie, especially given that she, and not Kane, that ended up convincing Wes to return home and lay low.
"Doesn't seem like a place that either one of you would have gone to," said Hall.
"Not a lot of intent on my part," said Kane. "Which…yeah, I guess is not the sort of thing I would do now. I just wanted out of town. Wanted to be somewhere quieter."
"I know it contradicts my own logic earlier, but…" Hall started. "Damn, I should have gone to school. Anything would have been better than the Army. Wes and I were actually in basic training together…not sure why I didn't mention that until now."
Kane craned her head over. "You're kidding."
"I barely saw him. Never spoke. If it weren't for the DNI, I might not remember him at all. But once I read that article, it all clicked."
"World's getting smaller…" Kane thought out loud. "Take advantage of those unredacted documents while we have them. Sooner or later, they'll catch on and change the system."
"Kane…" Hall began, now suddenly more serious and far more personal. "What am I going to do after this? The whole world thinks I'm dead."
"I wish I could tell you."
"Well, this isn't the first time you've encountered something that goes far beyond your current worldview," Corvus offered, pacing around as Paszek sat on a tree stump.
"Case in point…me," he continued. "Although…well, it's…"
"I appreciate the effort here, Corvus," replied Paszek. "But I'm not sure even you can crack this one."
"Why wouldn't we be able to believe who he is?" said Corvus, undeterred by Paszek's words. "He can't just be another deceased individual. That's no longer exceptional, in our eyes."
"The assumption is that he had a DNI installed, and that's what allowed him to take over Fierro's body. Maybe there's another way, another process. If Coalescence knew, they would have shared it with the CIA. Who else was messing around with digital consciousness? I don't think COMET was, not anyone in the CDP, either," said Paszek, adding to the fairly literal brainstorming session they were having.
Corvus continued pacing. "I'm afraid that we can no longer rely on assumptions of any kind. These creatures that you describe may not be rooted in the science that we are familiar with. Who is to say that our captor isn't equally, well…unrooted?"
"New possibilities, new, new, new…" he muttered, pacing faster. "Frightening, frightening…"
Paszek stood up from the stump, walking a few feet away from Corvus, staring aimlessly into the distance. It was virtually hopeless. His powers of deduction rarely reared their head as it was, and he just couldn't expect to unravel this kind of fractal complex nonsense conspiracy like that. And even if he could, so what? Savior was making his final preparations. His clock was up. 11:55 PM.
"I don't think I've been approaching this the right way," said Corvus. "This information is stimulating, yes, but it does not immediately help you out of your situation."
"The real question is…what can you do to stay alive until help arrives?"
"Shit, that's a lot of thermite," Alessandra exclaimed, looking at the scan provided by Jessica.
Kane knew better. "I've seen this trick before. Those are almost certainly empty casings with a thin layer of thermite around them. Harmless. The real threats are probably totally analog IEDs – nail bombs and the like."
"Good to know," Jessica breathed. "But once again, it makes your presence in the raid a liability. We can survive the blast of one of those, you can't." She turned to Mills. "Same goes for you."
"If I die in that building, it won't be on your hands," Kane shot back, standing her ground. "You're not going in there without me."
"Yes, it would be. And yes, we will," said Jessica, closing the scan and picking up her sidearm from the table to inspect it. "Don't lose your head, Kane."
"I have every right-"
"You have every right to compromise this and ruin everything we've worked for, yes," Jessica interrupted. "But we're not going to allow you to exercise that right."
Hall stepped forward, as if to offer a rebuttal, but found herself cut off by a surprising voice.
"No," spoke Alessandra. "We have all lost…so much. More than any of us, she has earned a chance to bring something back. I'm not going in without her."
Jessica sighed. "Plan B it is."
"What's Plan B?" asked Mills.
"The one I haven't thought of yet."
Back in the real world. Paszek blinked rapidly to adjust.
The commotion had largely stopped, and there sat 5 more glass boxes, placed face-to-face with one another. Two unconscious people sat in each one. There were no holes or openings in any of them, just a small string hanging from the top, balancing a small gas grenade as to let it dangle inside.
Paszek was pretty sure he knew what was inside of those grenades.
Now he could count the number of Savior's men. 2, 4, 6…okay, 9, with Savior himself making 10. Maybe there were more in another room. That didn't matter. He couldn't figure that out by himself.
The EMP dampeners were visible once more. The threshold was there, he just had to reach it.
But how? Would they shoot him if he tried to move? Could he move at all?
What could he move?
Arms or hands? No. Legs or feet? No. Hips? No.
Face? Yes. Head and neck? Yes.
Shoulders? No.
Torso, chest, ribs? Yes.
Okay, progress, perspective. Without the hips and shoulders, he probably couldn't make any forward movement. Backwards movement was probably on the table, but seemed counterintuitive.
Shit!
Gas released. Men transforming. Disgusting displays of body gore and viscera. Why now? Why in the boxes?
No, no. Useless questions. Meaningless. Of no value at the moment. Move on.
To the left is a wall. To the right is…a wall. In front are the boxes, behind them a door, diagonally, the dampeners. Untransformed men, soldiers, whatever, on the left and the right, in front of and behind the boxes. They must have set off the grenades.
"This, my dear friend Paszek, is where I say goodbye. These poor souls will stay here with you, to keep you company. When the authorities arrive, I am content to imagine that, well…curiosity will kill the cat."
"You need me!" Paszek shouted desperately. He didn't mean it. He just needed to stall. More time. More time with possible means of escape in the room.
Savior shook his head. "Men like you are few and far-between. But men in general…they are plentiful. I will find more. Find another."
Paszek struggled in his chair. He strained his neck over towards Savior.
And a pair of eyes followed him.
He struggled harder.
And ten sets of feet stumbled over to right.
"Overwatch is up. Everyone copy?" said Mills, echoing through the speaker.
"We copy," Jessica answered, doing so for herself, Hall, and Alessandra, who were all positioned on the ground, cloaked and embedded about 25 yards behind the building in question. It stood four stories tall, a dilapidated relic of a once-thriving industrial district, and its beyond faded grey coloring confirmed that story.
"I copy," Kane added, peering through the scope of her Locus rifle from a taller-but-equally-dilapidated building half a block away. Mills was inside, operating a surveillance drone "borrowed" from the border patrol.
The plan, crude as it was, was as close to watertight as they were going to get. A quick, loud breaching of the building by the Cybers, sniper cover from Kane, and drone overwatch to keep anyone from being too surprised.
The presence of the thermite was a concern. Kane felt more than confident that they weren't powering any explosives, but it still indicated a level of preparedness on the part of whoever was behind this.
But again, there was no getting any cleaner than this. And the first move to make was hers.
"I've got a shot on a hostile. Not augmented. Breach on my fire."
"Copy," whispered Jessica.
This was it.
Kane took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger.
With all of his possible might, Paszek continued to contort his body out to the side. The creatures responded to his movement, crowding the left side of each of their boxes.
He felt something pop around his ribs. Immensely painful, but he pressed on, nonetheless.
No use. Full extension, and still not enough commotion. He released his body back to its original posture.
And noticed the front-right leg of his chair lifting ever so slightly. Savior was occupied elsewhere, Paszek could tell as much from his peripheral vision.
Still pain. Pain pain pain. But he kept swinging. Fully out, fully back in and then some. Out, in, out, in, out, in…
The noises from the creatures were growing louder, more guttural. Paszek continued his motions.
Savior turned his head. He must have noticed.
He was too late.
Out and in turned into…
Over!
Now fully perpendicular to the floor, and about 3 or 4 feet further to the right than he was before, the creatures followed his move, charging against the right side of their respective boxes.
They gave way, tipping over, knocking the next one faster and faster, like dominos. No one was smart or quick enough to react, and the final box tipped last.
Knocking over the EMP dampener.
And truly unshackling Paszek.
Bang!
Clean headshot, from what she could gather. Kane could barely catch the outlines of the three Cybers breaking through the back door.
She took aim again. Another moron stepped right in same place, broken window apparently not enough of a deterrent.
Bang. Headshot number two. Volleys of gunfire came an instant later, which became Kane's cue to discard her Locus and set up her own entrance to the building.
Forty-five seconds. That was how long it would take to secure her line and ride it over. In that time, if the top floor was still crowded, she was likely be shredded instantly by gunfire or an IED.
She was placing all of her trust in the Cybers to prevent that from happening.
Line fired. It hit square on the mark. She tugged on it, testing the tensile strength of it. Clip secured.
Ten seconds.
She made the leap of faith. The line held.
Three seconds.
A flurry of distinct sounds. One high-caliber round striking a human skull. Muffled crashing and automatic gunfire from below.
Paszek burst free from his restraints effortlessly, his limbs now functional. Seeing two of Savior's lackeys drawing their weapons, he boosted to the side to avoid their fire, tossing the chair that once confined him as a distraction.
A second high-caliber round. This one also struck a human skull. But it also shattered a glass box.
The fourth party entered the chaos.
One of the masked goons managed to gun down two of the creatures, but he and his compatriot were quickly overwhelmed, forced to the ground, and torn into.
More commotion, more gunfire. More creatures dead, more lackeys dead. Paszek ducked to the back corner of the room, still without a weapon or cover.
The door burst open. Movement…
Cyber-Soldiers! Two he couldn't recognize.
And Sarah Hall. Alive. In the flesh. Thank God.
Within seconds, the creatures and faceless soldiers had been dropped.
That left just Savior.
"Stop! Stop it!" he cried, holding out a gas grenade in his outstretched hand. "I've already engaged the switch! Shoot and it will release!"
Paszek emerged from his hiding spot, treading slowly with his own arms up as to not alarm Savior.
He made eye contact with Hall, shaking his head as to discourage her from doing anything rash.
"Heads up!" she shouted, not breaking eye contact.
He turned.
She entered.
Smashing through what remained of the window, Kane landed just past the bodies of the two men she'd killed.
The situation was assessed. Cybers had entered. Cleared of armed hostiles. Towards the door, Cybers. On the floor, dead men, and…what the fuck were those? Compartmentalize that for later. Paszek, unarmed, facing off with – yeah, holy fucking shit – Joe Fierro, holding what looked like a grenade in one hand.
Kane only had another split second to react.
If it was a fragmentation grenade, one of the Cybers could deal with it. If it was a flashbang or concussion, there would be more confusion, but ultimately the Cybers would prevail.
But if it was a thermite grenade…
Paszek was already looking towards her. He must have known what was coming.
Paszek knew what was coming.
He knew that the object flying towards him, launched from the hands of Kane, wasn't meant to kill Savior.
It was to stop the grenade that Savior, who had already thrown the grenade directly towards the ground, simultaneously moving to draw a sidearm.
In the span of less than a second, both of those variables would be resolved, one way or another.
Savior, pistol halfway drawn, turned to the Cybers.
He was gunned down before he could fire a single round.
Paszek caught the item flung towards him. Was it…
It was. He took aim at the grenade, still bouncing erratically on the floor.
He fired.
And it froze.
The grenade, literally. And time, figuratively.
Looking for a brief moment to confirm that yes, Savior was dead, he collapsed to the floor.
It was over.
Oh my God, it was over.
"Clear," Alessandra exclaimed, walking back in through the door the Cybers had burst down a few minutes earlier.
"The place is clean," Jessica added. "No traps."
Kane barely paid any mind to them. Paszek hadn't said a word yet, hadn't even made eye contact. But she didn't want to rush him. So, she stayed silent, too.
Without warning, he started to stand up, wincing as he did so. Kane quickly brought her shoulder under his arm to steady him.
"Whoever you are…whoever, you, agh…work for," he exhaled. "No one can be allowed to get their hands, agh…on that gas."
"Turned them into these creatures, Paszek?" Hall queried, examining the corpse of one of the zombies with a cold curiosity.
He nodded in response. "Variant of Nova Six…he said."
Kane turned Paszek by his shoulders, forcing eye contact.
"Paszek?" she started, gauging his level of attentiveness. "We can go over all of this later, if you want."
He looked focused. Too focused. He hadn't woken up from the battle yet.
"Uh huh," he nodded, still steel-faced.
"The gas could transform a seemingly normal man into one of those things. It needs to be destroyed," he continued.
Kane exhaled. He still wasn't here.
"Igg?" she asked, desperate for a single shred of movement in his face. She reached down to grasp his hand.
"Rachel…" he answered, softer. "Rachel?" he said again, now a question.
Kane nodded feverishly in response.
He smiled for a brief moment, then leaned forward, face entirely flushed.
Kane held Paszek as he wept in her arms. She was emotional, too. She had tears of her own to shed. It was relief. Unbridled joy. Grief, undone and re-done and undone again. Catharsis. Weights upon weights of emotional burden lifted. A great loss, the memory of which was only trounced by the victory, pyrrhic as it may be, of this moment.
But as Paszek continued to sob, Kane didn't let any of that come up.
Her tears could wait.