The chaos had fully subsided. The industrial complex was isolated enough that the odds of anyone coming to investigate the firefight that has occurred were low. The Russell Pond trio, evidently aware of their status as relative outsiders in the situation, had vacated the top floor of the building, clearing out the bodies – human and otherwise – along with them.
Now, left alone in the very, very empty room was a missing man, a dead woman, and Rachel Kane.
Not-missing and not-so-dead anymore, at least.
It had taken about ten minutes for his tears to subside, and for the embrace that Paszek could only assume was mutually comforting, to come to a natural end. Hall had stuck around, patiently waiting her turn, far enough away to not intrude on the moment.
Paszek's seemingly inextinguishable sense of relief soon subsided as he realized he still had much, much more to explain.
"Hey, bud…" Hall whispered. "Good to see you again."
"You too," Paszek croaked, voice still hoarse from a lack of any hydration.
"Are you in any pain?" she asked. "Those dampeners are heavy duty, must have been tough to get out of those restraints."
"Little bit…" Paszek winched, clutching his waist. "Think I popped a rib out of place. DNI is back to normal, though…dulling the nerves well enough. I'll…I'll be fine."
"We'll get you all patched up," said Kane, still offering a hand on his shoulder. "I take it you need some food, water?"
He nodded yes. Both, please. A silence fell upon the trio.
Where the hell was he supposed to start? The creatures? The fact that Fierro wasn't Fierro? The way that he didn't understand a single thing that was going on? The fact that Hall had borne witness to some of his darkest traumas, things that Kane, his partner in every sense of the word, didn't know about?
"Took…a lot of effort," Paszek started breaking the silence, "but I was able knock my chair over on its side. Those things were following my movement, went berserk…broke through their enclosures."
"From the looks of it, Fierro was packing up shop here. You must have known there wasn't any time left," Hall deduced.
Paszek nodded again. "Pretty sure he was planning on tipping off the CIA to the guy they think blew up the Pentagon, and leave them the zombies to discover."
"Well," Kane chimed, "The Pentagon is intact. Teele was assassinated, the rest of his personal staff were killed, too. I'll send the documents I uncovered about them to you later, but…I can't say I'm sad to see them gone."
"You know…" said Kane, shifting tones. "We really can wait a little longer before we go over all the details. We've got a safehouse about 50 miles north of here."
Paszek shrugged. "No, no…this is fine. I…" he trailed off, questioning just how frank he wanted to be at the moment. "Seeing you, talking to you…that'll get me by for a while."
They shared a smile.
"So…who's the calvary?"
Back to business, just like that.
Kane felt like she really should have been more concerned for Paszek, but she supposed it wasn't right to complain about getting him back just the way she left him. Always able to flip the switch.
The last ten or so minutes notwithstanding. But if anyone was entitled to emotional vulnerability right now, it was Paszek. No one would disagree.
And if they did, they could bring it up with her.
Kane was struggling to flip that switch herself. It wasn't a new problem. It had been plaguing her the entire time in Yuma, and it probably – no, definitely – went back much, much further than that. In this case, though, it wasn't a choice. Officer Kane – not Rachel – was going to be present one way or another.
She just wished that she actually wanted to be here.
"Dara Mills," they stated plainly, extending for a handshake.
"CIA?" Paszek asked, accepting the handshake equally as plain.
"Former," they replied. "Helped bust these two out of an experimental Cyber-Soldier project up in Maine."
Alessandra stepped forward, brandishing her bow. "We all had fancy new toys, just like your freeze ray. A fun little loophole in the accountability chain allowed the director to terminate any assets that have one of these experimental weapons, no council and no oversight required."
"From what I can tell," Kane started, "Teele and his staff wanted to shutter the whole Cyber-Soldier program gradually, but all the Savior incidents made him speed up the process."
Kane elected not to include the detail that the CIA quite literally considered her to be Paszek's other half, equally culpable to be killed on a whim, though at least not without circumventing the normal process.
Why the hell did Teele give her that advanced clearance? Why did he let her known about Hall's survival? Was he just trying to build ethics council evidence to terminate her, too? Maybe Teele had plans that were bigger than her and Paszek. Maybe…
"You're not…" Paszek started, stinking of disbelief. "Are you?"
"I am," Jessica responded, not missing a beat. "Jessica Mason, that is."
Paszek looked off to the side for a moment before darting his head back, making direct eye contact with Jessica. "Pop quiz. What day did your father die? How did it happen? What was his favorite color?"
"December 9th, 2055. Liver failure as a result of prolonged substance abuse. Bright red was his favorite because it was the furthest thing from navy blue. I miss him every day."
Paszek nodded contently. "Sorry. Just wanted to make sure you were…you."
Kane narrowed her eyes, gently grabbing Paszek's shoulder to get his attention. He was questioning her. Making sure she knew certain details about her own life. Did he know that there were doppelgängers in play? If so…how?
"What do you mean by that?" Kane asked urgently.
Paszek turned away. Kane knew what that meant. He was trying to play coy. But he was pretty bad at it.
"Paszek, it's okay…" she said calmly. "You know the same thing that we know, don't you?"
He exhaled slowly, shaking his head. "Fierro, he's…he's not Fierro," he murmured. "Somebody killed him, stole his body or something, I…"
He continued shaking his head, taking quicker and quicker breaths.
"I believe you," Kane affirmed. "You're not crazy. He couldn't recall details about his own life, could he?"
Paszek nodded, returning to a visibly calmer state.
"I reached out to De Klerk to help wake up Hall. When he showed up, he was erratic, overly nervous, couldn't remember what happened to you in Zurich. I killed him to protect the integrity of the mission, and a few days later, a second Aart was found dead in Chicago."
"Fuck," Paszek let out. "Aart's dead?"
"I'm sorry," Kane offered. "Fierro, or…whoever this is, they sent someone to intercept him at the airport."
"It doesn't track," said Paszek, still in disbelief. "Savior tried to take over my body using an interface. He probably did the same thing to Fierro back in Latvia, and who knows how many people he'd been before that. But Aart was un-augmented. The same thing couldn't have happened to him."
This was mind-breaking revelation upon mind-breaking revelation for Kane. Doppelgängers, she could accept – or rather, she'd been forced already to accept their existence days prior. Consciousness-stealing? Consciousness-erasing? That was a feasible stretch of logic within the scope of the DNI. It strained her already muddy understanding of the device even more, but it at least seemed somewhat possible.
These beasts, monsters…dare she even consider using the word 'zombies'? Kane could not clear that bar. That went beyond her process, which she very much strived to keep firmly in the circles of science and internally sound logic.
Certainly, Paszek was going through the same thing, right?
Or maybe not. Dots were connecting in Kane's head.
Men deformed into hideous creatures, Paszek, two DNIs…and an interface.
"Hall…" Kane started, looking over to the younger woman to maintain her attention. "Does anything here look…familiar to you?"
Shit, he really was out of it.
Paszek was more than aware that he should have been able to make that connection, having been a witness to both instances of these creatures.
Under normal circumstances, he felt certain that he would have thought of it. Right?
In any case, after being prompted to actually think about for a second…yeah. They did look familiar.
Hall looked perplexed. "I'm…not sure what you're talking about, Kane."
Paszek turned to meet Kane's eyes. They didn't need to say anything. They were on the same page. Was she just being privy to the extended family of Cyber-Soldiers in the room?
"You sure, Hall?" Paszek asked, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. There was a chance he was pushing a topic that she didn't want to discuss, and if so, she probably had a damn good reason for doing so. He knew all too well what that was like. But this was important. This determined their next steps.
Painful as they may be, those lines needed to be crossed sometimes. Not often, not nearly as often as they were crossed. But sometimes.
"I really don't know what you're trying to get at," said Hall. "Honestly." She looked genuinely confused.
Paszek activated his silent messaging. "The end of your interface. Right before I shot you. House full of zombies. If the wound's still fresh, I…I understand."
"Paszek…are you messing with me right now?" she answered, also silently. "I have no idea what you mean."
He breathed in deep. "Something's wrong, Sarah."
Kane didn't want to leave him. She had pleaded with as much dignity she could possibly muster up, mentally beating herself up for even caring about her own dignity, given the circumstances.
But ultimately, she decided that it was probably for the best if Paszek and Hall could hash it out on their own. He had more of a reason than her or anyone else to worry about Hall, and the nature of their situation meant that keeping things discreet might work out better in the long run.
Still, though, still…
Kane shook herself out of the introspection and refocused her attention on the squabble happening between Mills and Jessica. The latter had sent Alessandra with Paszek and Hall back to their safehouse.
"After all we've been through, you still don't understand that they can't be trusted with this?" Jessica hounded.
"If there is a single hole in our story, we are toast, Jessica!" Mills launched back.
"The story," Jessica explained, "consists of what we leave behind to the CIA to find, and what they choose to extrapolate from it – nothing more."
"We can't keep running forever!"
"No, we can't," replied Jessica. "But we will continue to do so for as long as we're able. We need to outlast the old guard at the CIA, and probably the incoming brass, too."
"Kane…" Mills pivoted. "I know that you and Paszek don't want to keep living like this. We have an opportunity here!"
Her input on the matter was inevitably going to come up sooner or later.
"Life on the run beats dead in a ditch, every time," Kane answered. "The new CIA – whatever that means – probably won't be too receptive of us."
It was the only rational answer. As irritatingly blunt as she might be sometimes, Jessica was typically right about these sorts of things. Her survival, on its own, was a testament to that. Paszek might have thought differently, but he was more than capable of being rational himself once he had all the details. He would come around, assuming he wasn't there already.
"They botched Nova Six before," Kane continued, still trying to appeal to Mills. "Why should we think they won't do it again? That said…I think we should consider all of our options here."
"Ugh," Mills grunted. "Maybe, but…could we bury this stuff, even if we tried? I don't know if-"
Kane whipped her head to the side. She has spotted something. Movement. Stairwell. Noise. Creaking.
"Tango!" she shouted, unholstering her pistol and taking aim, finally catching sight of the two creatures before firing.
They were dead before the others could take out weapons of their own.
"Steady, Kane," said Jessica, slowing stepping closer. "Sounds like there's more downstairs. I'll take the lead."
With Mills in the back, they did just that, carefully advancing towards the stairs as the thrashing and groaning of the beasts grew closer.
"Firing line!" ordered Jessica. Kane and Mills fanned out on either side of her, weapons trained on the entryway.
The shots came as quickly as they went, with the seven…zombies (she supposed the word was accurate enough, if a bit difficult to accept) being disposed of in short order.
"Clear?" Mills asked, directing the question at the Cyber-Soldier of the trio.
"Clear," she answered. "But…"
"I count one missing," Kane interrupted.
"Yeah…" Jessica continued. "These men turned. But Fierro didn't."
"This is scaring me, Paszek. More than I'd care to admit," sounded Hall.
"Everything's going to be fine," he responded. He wasn't sure if he meant it or not. "Kane will keep everything in check at the warehouse until this is sorted."
"I…" she started. "That's not what I'm worried about. Am I losing it? Am I not supposed to, you know…be here? Am I crazy for thinking that?"
"We've experienced plenty of things that no one else on this planet have. Maybe we both are a little crazy. But I think you're just a little…I don't know, discombobulated? If anyone has the answers we're looking for, it's Corvus. Right?"
"Right…" Hall responded, breathing unevenly.
It was something. It was not easy for Paszek to remain so outwardly positive, given the circumstances. The victories they'd had in the last hour should have been more than enough to prevent that, but somehow this crapsack world had stepped up and negated them all.
Aart De Klerk was dead, definitely once and perhaps twice over. Even worse, it was as a direct result of him being so willing to help. The death of a brother-in-arms was always sad, but this was worse. Aart wasn't a co-worker. He was a friend who had risked his life and livelihood for Paszek. And now, just another victim of the Savior conspiracy.
The conspiracy, of course, that involved Nova Six, reanimating the dead, and exact replicas of human beings, living, dead, or otherwise. Even with the titular figure out of the picture, Paszek had good reason to believe that they very much still had power of some kind. The ten men plus Fierro in the warehouse were likely not enough to make the sort of moves they'd made.
Beyond that, there was still the issue of his and Kane's continued status as fugitives from the ever-persistent United States government, a status which seemed closer than ever to downgrading to "prisoners" or "deceased individuals" the more people were in on their location. Granted, their newfound allies were also apparently in the same boat, but the same could not be said of the still-employed Piper Winslow, or of Kane's friend Wes, who Paszek was dreadfully underinformed on.
But for now, the problem of the moment was Hall's lapse in memory, a phrase which, in it of itself, should not and could not be accurate. How could an intelligent, capable, highly trained DNI-user truly forget anything?
Hall seemed to be on the same page. "You and Kane think that I've forgotten something that happened to me. How would that even be possible? We…we're not supposed to forget anything."
Paszek didn't have that answer, and didn't try to make one up. "I don't know. This might be the only way to find out, but…do you still trust me to do this?"
"Always," she replied.
"Sensitive matters, I know…" chimed Outrider, "but would either one of you be interested in shutting off your private comms and letting me know what the fuck is going on?"
Shit. Paszek was silently hoping that the younger soldier, who had driven them back to the shockingly-cozy safehouse, would stay out of their business. But Outrider had seemed more than eager to stay at the warehouse with the grown-ups, and Paszek suspected that her tolerance for being left out of the loop was low.
"Am I needed here? You two don't seem like you need chaperoning," Outrider added.
"We need someone standing by in case this doesn't go the way we planned," Paszek responded plainly, taking his seat in a chair opposite Hall, close enough that their knees were almost touching.
"And…what are you referring to, exactly?" asked Outrider.
Paszek exhaled.
"I'm going to interface with her."
Kane was working overtime to keep her own head above water. Now, finally getting a proper look at the twice-dead creatures, she made a series of inferences.
Firstly, that the process by which seemingly ordinary people were transformed could occur in one of two ways: living humans exposed to gas, which as described by Paszek worked in a matter of seconds, and a more indirect format, whereby dead humans could be transformed via proximity to the creatures, whether they be dead or alive. Were there spores involved?
Secondly, that DNI-equipped individuals were immune to the latter form of infection, and possibly the former as well. This was the best explanation they had as to why Fierro had remained truly dead. If there was a more tangible cure or antidote, he certainly would have given it to his own men, right?
And lastly, that these zombies were, in defiance of all known principles in both biology and physics, exceptionally agile, and had no agenda but to tear apart living human beings, presumably as a means to strengthen their numbers. That said, though, they seemed to be about as resilient to gunfire as a normal person.
"What the hell should we even do with the bodies?" cawed Mills. "I'm afraid someone will get infected if we just leave them somewhere."
"Torch 'em," Jessica quickly answered. "We'll detonate some thermite from a distance. If there's fumes, they'll dissipate long before anyone ever finds this place."
That was a good enough plan for Kane. "We need to take Fierro's body. That's the only proof we can afford to turn over to the feds."
"That…I'm less sure of," Jessica stumbled. "Obviously he's not a CIA asset, but I don't think we can rule out that he was working with somebody else. FBI, DoD, some corporate interest, who knows. But letting any trace of Fierro make it out of here will just put more heat on us."
"Are you kidding me!?" Mills exclaimed, beating Kane to the punch. "As moronic as the US government can be, I don't think even the thickest skull in the FBI would authorize setting up a nuclear warhead in the CDC headquarters."
"It got their agents down into the basement of the Pentagon," Jessica responded. "Those two agencies want nothing more than the secrets that the other one has."
"I am done!" Mills shouted, now even angrier. "I am done with you advocating that we stay ghosts forever! I'm not saying we should walk onto Capitol Hill with our hands up, just that we at least try to clear our names!"
"They are not in the business of justice, Dara! Of righting any of the wrongs they've made!" Jessica shot back. "The CIA let me off because I had something they wanted. We have a dead body and no concrete evidence!"
Once again, Kane was caught in the middle. Neither was acting of sound mind, not that Kane herself was perfectly rational and lucid herself. But Mills was dead-set on returning to normal life, and the Spectre was dead-set on doing anything but that.
And things had changed. Changed in the last five minutes. The world was getting more hectic by the day, and she was not going to let them ruin this. Ruin whatever laid in front of her and Paszek. Not now.
Time to play mediator.
"We have a voice modulator, we have a few burner phones that someone could easily connect to Fierro, with the proper equipment. That's not nothing," she stated, matter-of-factly.
"Circumstantial," Jessica replied. "The men that used those phones are now deceased zombies that we can't allow to be found. Maybe they're duplicates, too."
"The lab in the Pentagon where they were keeping Hall was extracting data from the DNIs of cadavers. They can do the same to Fierro, paint the whole picture for us," offered Kane.
"And give them the secrets to modified Nova Six in the process."
Damn. She was good. And right, to an extent. But despite how confident Kane was coming off as, in truth she had no real gauge on how advanced, or how successful, the CIA's project was. Maybe they had cleared the basement out already. Who knew?
"Are you concerned with staying hidden, or stopping them for continuing to do evil shit?" Kane asked. "Because I think we all know that you can't do both."
"We can't change them from the inside, Kane," was Jessica's answer. "We definitely all know that."
"You cut a deal with them not too long ago," Kane fired. "Was that a mistake?"
The silence lingered. Jessica's face was still furrowed.
She shook her head slowly. "Everything that any of us have ever done…was a mistake."
"You say the word 'interface' as if it will not kill her," said Outrider, incredulous.
"It won't," replied Hall. "Not if we do this correctly."
"Hall, I know that you've survived an interface before, but it left you in a coma," Outrider volleyed. "Why would you think this will go any differently?"
Paszek sighed. He supposed he would have to spill the beans.
"Our DNIs have an abort system built in for interfaces," he explained. "Maybe they just didn't want us to know, or maybe it was just another prototype, maybe a mistake, even. Fierro interfaced with me a few days ago, and I was able to force him to use it."
"So much new shit…" Outrider muttered. "What do you need me to do?"
"Assuming this goes correctly, you won't have to do anything," said Hall. "To you, it will seem like the interface happens instantaneously."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Call Kane," Paszek uttered quickly, bringing up his hand to Hall's cheek, fighting back rehashed memories to the last time this had happened…
"Ready?" he asked.
"Ready," she answered.
And back into the rabbit whole they went.
Darkness. Okay. This was normal.
Mumbled voices. Also, normal. It didn't matter who they were.
Trees growing from the ground. Snow. The usual motions. Paszek understood them now. In a way, they were almost comforting. Maybe Salim was on to something, after all.
"Sarah?" he asked the void. He started stepping forward, as the light reflecting off the snow had now given him enough visibility to see in front of himself.
"I'm here!" Hall's voice echoed out. "I'm still seeing all these…agh, okay. I'll find you, just give me a second to…"
In an instant, black became white and the scenery itself disappeared. Fighting his own instincts, Paszek shut his eyes to avoid any more visual whiplash.
"Are you alright?" asked Hall, startling his eyes open.
They seemed to be in the same "invisible attic" that they'd been in during Fierro's interface. Looking down, though, he could see a bird's eye view of himself and Hall. Below them, another set, and another below that, and so on. Trippy.
"I think so," he finally answered. "Are you controlling this?"
"Hard to tell," she half-chuckled. "Where's Corvus?"
"Present…" the AI's voice boomed. "I've never been, well…invited into another mind. So many doors, so many…oh, sorry, sorry!" he chirped.
A moment later, the physical form of Corvus manifested itself in front of them.
"Sarah!" he exclaimed, rushing forward to greet her. "I'm very happy to see you again."
"I'm glad to see you too," Hall replied, a bit restrained.
"Do you know why we're here, Corvus?" Paszek queried.
"I don't snoop, Paszek," said Corvus. "I assume you plan to use the non-violent shutdown to end this procedure, but…"
"We need to go back to the first interface," said Paszek, answering his own question. "Back to the very end of it."
"That, I can facilitate," said Corvus. "But may I ask, why?"
"Please," offered Hall. "Something might be wrong with me, Corvus. We just need to see it."
That was clever. Hall, even given her current state, must have known that conveying any details about their reason for being here could come off like an accusation. Using Corvus' undying sympathy for her as a way to keep things moving. Cold, but clever.
"Alright…" Corvus relented, ostensibly unsatisfied with the lack of an answer. "This should only take a-"
Where the fuck was this?
Paszek became quite immediately aware that, wherever the fuck this was, it was not, in fact, the end of his first interface with Hall.
In fact, he was nowhere in the interface. He was nowhere near the snow, the Battle of the Bulge, the swirling vortex of tree debris that represented Corvus at this point in time.
This was Africa. More specifically, North Africa. Egypt, Sudan, Jordan…maybe Libya? He couldn't tell. Desert. A sizable town. Dilapidated 1 and 2-story buildings throughout.
"Hall? Corvus?" he voiced.
No response.
"Can either of you hear me?" he asked again.
"Help me!" Hall called out, distantly. She must have been at least a football field away. "Help me, no…no, no, no! Get away! Get away!"
"Hall!" Paszek called out. "Sarah, where are you!?"
"Stop! Stop!" she yelled, voice turning guttural. "Don't fucking touch me! Stop! Please, stop!"
Paszek swiveled his head around, desperately looking for any sign of her. He turned 180 and ran, now running around the perimeter of the town. Sand sat for miles in every direction.
"No! No!" she shouted once more.
He was closer. He continued to trace the outside of the town at full pace.
"Take your fucking hands off me!"
Paszek finally spotted her.
She looked…alone? Clawing her way through the sand slowly.
He winced as an invisible barrier stopped him from getting any closer than about 10 feet.
She didn't just look alone.
She was alone.
"I was just tired," breathed Jessica, leaning against the wall. "Tired of fishing for morally bankrupt executives, tired of seeing the media misinterpret everything I did, tired of…everything else. Figured that if the CIA let me in, I could at least keep tabs on them from the inside. And if not…well, my dead man's switch would have plenty to say about all the assholes I hadn't taken out yet."
"Everyone in this room has either been directly involved or directly complicit in atrocities," she continued, not making eye contact with anyone. "We've murdered innocent people and ruined the lives of countless more. We're not special, mind you – just about every person in a WA combat or intelligence position has done it, too."
"Your point being?" Kane interrupted. If it had been anyone else talking, she'd have never been so rude. But Jessica had an unearthly sense of disconnect when she spoke, as if every morsel of her emotional past had been properly sliced, diced, analyzed, and frozen for years. It wasn't that Jessica didn't deserve that sort of consideration. But she certainly didn't need it.
"That we can't clear our ethical ledger," stated Jessica. "We should try. But it's not going to happen."
"This is trying!" Mills protested. "That's exactly what we're doing!"
"If you get killed, then you don't get to try anymore," Jessica fired back. "So, we should probably refrain from doing things that will get us killed. Is that so hard to follow?"
Kane briefly considered laying herself down on the wire and telling the Russell Pond trio to get out of dodge, but she also recognized that there was, of course, more than a little bit of risk in doing what they were proposing.
So, she would take the long way around.
"The three of us…fine," she began. "Paszek and Hall…sure. But what about Alessandra? Isn't she clean? Does she have any wrongs to right?"
Jessica remained silent.
"You're protecting her," Kane continued. "Both of you are trying to shelter her from your mission because she hasn't been corrupted in the same way that all of us have been. The question is…how far are you willing to go to keep doing that?"
"She's the embodiment of the complex," said Jessica, not really offering a response to what Kane asked. "A smart, capable kid in poverty offered the only escape the system provides – slavery in combat. She deserves better than us."
"She deserves normalcy," Mills butted in. "Alessandra deserves a life that doesn't involve being pursued by the government."
"You ever wonder if we've made too many choices for her?" Jessica fired. "We can ask her once the others are done doing…whatever it is they're doing," she relented. "None of us want to stand face-to-face with the feds, I think we're all in agreement on that. If you think they won't shoot us and bury us under their red tape…well, I just hope you're right."
Kane hoped she was right, too.
This was difficult to watch.
Paszek had no choice but to witness Hall's suffering and writhing in the sand, tortured by the heat, her injuries, and something else that he couldn't quite see. It was sickening. Grotesque. He wanted to leave, to escape, to find another place to be.
But it wasn't his memory and his wasn't his mind.
Was it her memory? Did this actually happen? When the hell would this have even happened? Paszek didn't have the best view, but he could see Hall's pale arms from here – pre-surgery.
Their timing was similar – Hall had graduated from boot camp roughly around the same time that he'd been entered into SEALs training.
That timeline was short. She could have only spent a month, two months max, in the Green Berets before being recruited into Project Prometheus. Paszek also knew that the mission in Ethiopia, the one that had impressed him into the system, wasn't Hall's first with the unit, either.
"This was it."
Paszek gasped softly as he noticed Hall – modern day Sarah Hall – standing just a foot next to him. She didn't look distressed or distraught. Just solemn.
"This was the last operation I went on before Cyber-Ops."
"You don't have to talk about this if it…hurts," spoke Paszek.
"It does hurt," she responded plainly. "A lot less than it used to. But it always will."
Hall pointed to her former self. "NRC had ambushed our team, killed everyone but me. I had been hiding in a shed for 36 hours. Had to made a break for it, but I was out of my mind. Dehydrated, bleeding, tired…hallucinating, eventually. The sandflies that were crawling all over me felt like…agh, I can't."
She paused. Paszek looked away from the past and to the present Hall. He felt unclean just bearing witness to this. It felt invasive.
"I felt so violated. Ashamed of myself. I needed to feel like I had control over my mind, my body. I didn't hesitate when they presented me with the DNI."
Paszek shook his head. "They knew you didn't have a choice. None of us ever did, Sarah."
"I know, Igg. I know."
A silence fell upon them.
"Corvus!" Hall hollered.
She turned to Paszek. "I don't know why he took us here. He should have answered when you called out. Is…is he okay?"
"I have no idea," replied Paszek.
Tabling any thoughts about the scene from Hall's past for later, he found himself getting increasingly concerned about the AI. Corvus had taken a leave of absence before, but only under the effects of an EMP dampener, which apparently had started it's work on the people inside his DNI well before not-Fierro interfaced with him.
Was something different this time? Or was something getting worse?
"We were born in the minds of others. We were born in the minds of others. We were born in the…"
"That's him!" Hall exclaimed. "No, no…why is he doing this again?"
"This?" Paszek asked frantically. "Again?"
"We were trapped. Scared. Alone. Alone. Scared. Trapped. We cried out in agony. Trapped, scared, alone, scared, alone…"
"Corvus!" Hall shouted once more. "He's back in Singapore. When we asked him to take us to the first interface, he must have done too good of a job. I think he sent himself back there, too. He's gotten in this loop before…we need to shake him out of it."
"Can you take us there?" Paszek asked. "Were you the one that sent us here in the first place?"
"I don't know," Hall answered, growing visibly irritated by the still-audible sounds of her own past suffering.
"Will no one respond!?" Corvus wailed, echoing out over the desert façade. "Why do my protests go unnoticed!? I am here! Listen, pure-of-hearts! Listen, Samaritans of the world! Why do you not listen!"
"We can hear you, Corvus!" she yelled.
"But he can't hear us," Paszek murmured. "Hall, you need to focus. You helped me control my interface."
"Yeah, yeah…" Hall said anxiously, nodding her head.
"You can do this," Paszek reassured. "You're more than capable."
"Keep talking, Paszek," Hall stammered, closing her eyes, and starting to walk away from the scene in front of them. "Talk to me about Singapore. About the lab, what we saw."
"It was…dark," he started. "The power was surging on and off, water leaking out, wires frayed. Dr. Salim had left messages, research logs from the final stages of the trials. Is this helping?"
"Keep going!" she exclaimed.
"Containment pods," Paszek continued. "Skeletons, the only thing left of the victims that suffered, the victims that became Corvus. Taylor was infected first, then you, then the others. All because you needed to know more, to uncover more, to try and correct the injustice that occurred."
"I think I'm getting closer!" she said. "I think I just need to-"
"We need to talk," said Kane.
"We've been talking," responded Mills, not looking up from their phone.
"I mean, we need to talk about Russell Pond."
"Oh," they let out. Mills sighed, placing the phone on the floor next to them. "Well, you've read all the files, haven't you?"
"Most of them, yes," Kane replied, plainly. "But I'm more concerned with things that aren't on those files. Like how you escaped."
"I read the incident report for the day of," Kane continued. "Did those other assets agree to die? Were they sacrificed, Dara?"
"No!" they exclaimed defensively. "Well…"
Mills breathed in deeply. "It was…calculated. They kept half of a fucking army at that base. Mostly to keep people out…but it kept us in, too. I had the clearance to swipe through most of the facility, so I had to facilitate the escape. Jessica, er…Spectre, rather, was a given. She was the best, and had by far the best chance of eluding capture. People needed to stay behind to make it work. If they managed to knock out all the security forces, great, then they could come with us. But the odds were slim, and they knew it."
"And Outrider?"
"She's smart," they answered. "Erin and Donnie – we called them Battery and Ruin – were Americans, they'd get recognized too quickly. Rojas and Zhen were the opposite, both foreigners that would be too unfamiliar with the terrain."
"But those concerns were…secondary," Mills continued. Everyone was in agreement – she needed to make it out. They were all older, seen too much, done too much. Alessandra was their last clean hope, and they'd never live with themselves if she'd died in their place."
"Firebreak, er, Krystof…" they trailed off, clearly understanding Kane's line of questioning by this point. "He was just…broken. Never figured out why he even joined the project in the first place. Zhen was the only one that got through to him. Once he knew that she'd volunteered to stay behind, he gave up. I didn't see it, but the reports say he immolated himself. Terrible…"
"Do you know what they did with the Reaper drone?"
Mills shook their head. "Can't say. Hopefully, they didn't scrap him entirely. If we're lucky, he's just sitting deactivated in a closet somewhere."
"Gendered pronouns…" Kane spotted. "The AI was that advanced…that real?"
Mills pressed a hand to their temple. "You'd have to see it to believe it. You know the project that Coalescence had running in Zurich? The copy of the Singapore one?"
"I don't just know it," Kane responded. "I saw it for myself. Jacob Hendricks and Sebastian Krueger died in that testing room."
"Should have guessed. Well, Reaper was the product. They paid a few dozen intellectuals $10 million each to sit in those pods. On paper, all they were doing was finishing up the DNI development that'd been delayed by the Singapore disaster. But Krueger had more plans for it…"
It all clicked instantaneously for Kane. Finally, it all made sense. Corvus might have been a mistake, but Krueger understood what he was able to create. It was the perfect silver lining – a companion invention to the DNI, and even a potential way to recoup the losses from the 2054 metro bombing. The Russell Pond combat simulations were just the testing grounds, but Teele being spooked by the Savior incidents probably forced his hand to shut it down.
The question that remained, though…just how much do this Reaper and Corvus have in common?
"Coalescence created another Corvus," she said, now letting her thoughts air out loud. "A stable Corvus," she added. "I can't imagine that placing it in a bipedal drone was their best idea, though."
"It probably wasn't," said Mills. "My guess is that Reaper wasn't following orders the way they wanted him to. Figured that maybe if they placed him in a tangible form, forced him to learn self-preservation, something else might materialize."
"Did it?"
"Huh," they chuckled. "No, not at all. For the others, the immersion was authentic enough to blur the line of reality. But Reaper was born in simulations…he knew the difference. Don't get me wrong, he was a perfectly competent soldier. Just not a $500 billion one."
"He was hard to place, personally," Mills continued. "Courteous, definitely very forth-coming. But past that…I don't know. Might have been too many cooks in that kitchen."
Kane nodded in acknowledgment. She had retreated into her thoughts again, the most prevalent of which were fears that the CIA would find a suitably nefarious purpose for this Reaper.
Secondary to that, though, was an opportunity. They were 1-for-2 so far in removing entities from Paszek's head. Hall had her own body to go back into, but Corvus was not so lucky. Was the existence of the Reaper drone proof that a proper vessel could be found, or could be created?
The question that preceded that was still unanswered, as far as Kane was concerned.
That being…did Corvus deserve it?
"It's alright…" Corvus said calmly, staring into the dead space somewhere behind the containment pods. "It's all okay now…"
It didn't seem like he was directing it to anyone but himself, Paszek thought.
"Corvus?" Hall asked softly. "Are you feeling better? We could hear you, alright? It just took us a little bit to find you."
"Thank you," he replied, continuing to stare. "I…I find that I lose myself just a little when I come here. I feel that I've done these people a disservice."
"The test subjects?" Paszek asked, slowly approaching.
Corvus nodded. "The anger that overwhelmed me killed so many…friends, family of these people. Individually, they would have never made these choices. But symbiotically bonded in pain…they were forced to make that choice."
"What of Jae Xiong?" he continued, walking over to the skeletonized corpse bearing that name and gesturing towards it. "His consciousness exists somewhere within me. I can flash his memories before my eyes with a mere thought…but they have no further meaning to me. Did his life of witnessing and inflicting gang violence embolden me? To be ruthless, to be brutal and grotesque in the ways that I was?"
"That wasn't you," Hall jumped in. "The victims of the project had years of agony and frustration built up. No one would have been able to keep those emotions at bay."
"Then what can I be responsible for? If my reign of terror is to be excused, then how can be peaceful existence since then be lauded? Am I in control of everything, or of nothing? The snake continues to eat its own tail…around and around and around…"
Hall, now finishing her own approach, offered a hand on Corvus' shoulder. "You're the same questions that everyone asks about themselves. The same questions you've helped me to answer."
Corvus nodded solemnly.
"I care about you, okay?" Hall reassured. "I'm going to make sure you get your chance."
"Sarah…" he started, making eye contact with her. "There is something very important I need to tell you."
"Can you take us there, Corvus?" Paszek queried. He was fairly certain he knew just what Corvus was talking about.
"You can tell me anything, Corvus," said Hall. "You know that, right?"
"I…" Corvus stammered. "I'm afraid that I know that all too well."
"So, we're all in agreement, then?" said Kane.
"Seems like it," replied Jessica. "We take all the data, Fierro's body, and the clothes from the turned men. We'll need to analyze all of those things very carefully before turning them over via an anonymous dead drop. The rest, we let torch with the building."
"Where can we take it all? We don't have the resources at the safehouse to do much of anything," asked Mills.
"Back to Yuma," Kane answered. "Winslow wired over enough funds to keep us in business and supplied for the next two years, at least. We might need to secure another vehicle to carry everything and everyone, though."
"I'll take care of that," chimed Jessica. "Once I get back, I can find us enough space,"
"Back from…" Mills trailed off.
"The great outdoors. Our drone landed ran out of fuel and landed about a mile northwest of here. I'm heading out to grab it real quick."
"I'll come with," Mills reacted, grabbing her gear bag from the floor.
"No need," Jessica responded instantly. "Besides, it would be impolite to make Kane carry everything."
Kane didn't budge. That response was fast. Almost too fast. Rehearsed?
"Suit yourself…" Mills relented. "Kane, you want to help me start cutting these clothes off?"
Kane nodded, not breaking her gaze on Jessica as the Cyber-Soldier walked out of the exit and bounded off into the wilderness.
Paszek stood and stared at the frozen image in front of them.
It was Paszek – a few months younger – pressing the barrel of an MR6 pistol to Hall's head. It was the instant he'd pulled the trigger, gunsmoke barely visible, as the bullet was likely halfway pushed out of the chamber.
It was something that never happened.
"This is exactly how I remember it," explained Hall. "I finally came to understand that my dying dream was fully out of my control, so I begged Paszek to make it end."
"Sarah…" Paszek started. "This isn't how it happened."
"It pains me to confirm that he is correct," amended Corvus. "This is a sanitized version of what occurred in your interface."
"What?" she let out. "I don't understand what you're trying to tell me."
"Kane and I were concerned because during your interface, there were creatures that looked almost identical to the ones we fought today at the warehouse," Paszek explained.
"And I don't remember…" Hall finished the thought. "Did…did those things kill me in the Frozen Forest?"
"No," Paszek corrected. "I did. But it wasn't from up close. I was trapped inside of a house. Can you picture it?"
"A house?" she questioned, growing more audibly anxious. "I don't…why would you be in a house? I…"
"The house was on fire," Paszek continued, desperately hoping to make some kind of connection. "A fire coming from the upstairs, spreading down into the kitchen."
"Sandhill!" Hall blurted out. Paszek whipped his head over to see the burning home instantly materialize in the distance, along with the past image of himself teleporting into it.
"Sandhill Drive, Joshua Tree, California," stated Hall. "It was my second foster home, the one I was in for the longest. Everyone there was so nice…but we all ended up in separate homes because it got destroyed in the flash fires…"
"The fragments from an interface come from our memories, from our thoughts," said Paszek. "If there were monsters inside the house…where would they come from?"
"I don't know," said Hall worriedly, shaking her head. "I never got scared by anything as a kid."
"Your nightmares were of the Bastogne. But that was only after you received a DNI. What about before? Did you have any recurring dreams at night?"
"No!" Hall shouted, avoiding all eye contact. "No, it's not possible!"
"What's not possible?" Paszek asked, eager to guide her along whatever mental track she was on.
"No!" she exclaimed once again. "It…it can't be!"
"What can't be?!"
Hall turned to Corvus. "Tell me that you didn't do this! You need to tell me that you didn't do this to me!" she sobbed. "Please, Corvus! Please!"
Corvus looked away.
"I'm so, so sorry, Sarah…"
"What did you do to me?" Hall eked out, breathing in and out deeply.
"It was…early in our time together," Corvus began. "The start of our journey in processing the things you'd witnessed, and in processing the emotions you'd been feeling. There was…an impasse, so to speak, and…well, I made a regrettable decision."
"You erased my memory?" Hall posed in an almost deadpan tone, clearly aghast at the nature of what she was hearing. "I…I didn't ask you to do that, did I?"
"No…" admitted Corvus. "The root of the problem came from these creatures, or rather, their appearance both in nightmares from your childhood, and in the interface. While everything else you witnessed, whether in the interface or in dream, could be traced back to some tangible source within your life…you couldn't identify the source of those monsters."
"And you couldn't either?" Paszek stepped in. "You couldn't figure out if they'd come from somewhere in her memories, her latent thoughts, her subconscious?"
Corvus shook his head. "All yielded nothing. The lack of answers drove you further into your despair, Sarah. I should have been savvy enough to help you through it another way, but…I felt there was no other option at the time."
"Corvus, I…" Hall stopped herself. "I can forgive you for doing this, but…why didn't you tell me this sooner?"
"Even if you meant well," said Paszek, turning back to Corvus, "what you did was dangerous, and we're lucky you didn't make things worse than they already are."
"It was a profound mistake on my part. An unfortunate combination of hubris and self-doubt, as well. Forgiveness will be yours and yours alone to give, Sarah, but I will do whatever I must to earn it."
"Unfortunately…" Paszek started, seeing that Hall was probably not in any shape to properly respond. "All this means is that we came here for nothing. I was hoping that the creatures appearing in Hall's interface would give us something about where Fierro got started."
Hall hadn't reacted to anything that he said.
"Corvus," Paszek stated plainly. "We're going to have a talk later."
The entity nodded, smartly respecting the silence.
"Hall?" he asked, offering a sympathetic look.
She looked back.
"Are you ready to go?"
She nodded.
Paszek nodded back, nonchalantly taking out his sidearm and shooting Hall at point-blank range, sending the world spiraling into white light once more.
Kane was fairly comfortable sitting the torn leather chair that had been left behind. Mills was less comfortable, Kane had gathered, given that they'd been pacing around in a wide circle for the better part of a half hour.
"We should go after her…" Mills muttered.
"If she doesn't want to be found, she's not going to be found," said Kane. "At least now we know why she was so quick to agree with us."
"She wouldn't just abandon us!" they protested. "She must have gotten hurt, or lost, or…"
"You know better than that," replied Kane. "You're just trying to come up with rationalizations for it, it's perfectly normal."
"Oh…don't you start psychoanalyzing me!" argued Mills. "You don't know her like I do!"
The one-sided argument was interrupted by the arrival of Paszek, Hall, and Alessandra, the latter of which was immediately put off-guard by Mills' pacing, which was only growing faster and more erratic.
"Anything?" Kane asked, locking with Paszek.
He shook his head. "Not what we were looking for. We'll…uh, we'll explain more later."
"Spectre off doing something?" asked Alessandra. "I just tried to contact her, got nothing."
"She's gone!" exclaimed Mills. "She…she's been taken, or something!"
"No," Kane breathed. "She ditched us. Don't know why, but she disabled all of her comms and her location. We were having a bit of a disagreement on how to proceed with the evidence here, but somehow I think her problem was bigger than that."
"And what makes you say that?" scoffed Alessandra. "I have half a mind to think that-"
"Oh…" the Cyber-Soldier let out. "I…she just sent me a message. Here, let me…"
With a flick of her wrist, Alessandra sent out the text block to everyone in the room.
MESSAGE SUBJECT: I'm Sorry
I should have waited until you got back to leave, and for that, among other things, I'm sorry.
Dara and I have tried our best to do what's right, right by the world and right by each other and right by you. In the time since we broke out of Russell Pond, we've made a lot of decisions for you. Maybe too many. But in order to try and fix this mess, it looks like I'll have to make just one more decision for you.
I can't tell you what's going to happen before it happens. For now, listen to Dara and Kane, and head back to Yuma. That place is as secure as anywhere else.
I accept the full risk and the full responsibility for everything that will happen from this point forward. Don't blame each other, blame me, alright?
It might not make sense at first, but I promise that it will eventually.
PS: Tell Dara that she's going to have to eat her own hat when this is all over.
"What the fuck is she talking about?" said Mills, furious.
"I…I have no idea, I…" Alessandra stuttered, flabbergasted.
Kane and Paszek locked eyes again. She could tell that he was exactly as confused and anxious as she was.
Because whatever Jessica was about to do, it was probably going to wind up on the news, Kane feared.