Chapter 5
1
The next day, Dispatch relieved Ex-11 of their duties for the time being. Something about an excess number of Agents and a lack of tasks available. Daniel took this with a grain of salt – when was the last time there was a lack of tasks? Zima, on the other hand, was glad for the extra sleep, she could feel the bags developing under her eyes. This little break, they found out after another radio call, stretched over the whole weekend, but would resume on Monday morning.
Sunday afternoon came, and Zima was just coming back to the motel, carrying a shopping bag in each hand. She'd bought a few extra pairs of clothes, tailored for the winter, which was bearing on the city in full force. She moved past their parked car, glancing at the front left tire which looked a little flat. She'd have to let Daniel know about that.
Again the front desk was empty. She slithered up the stairs to the second level, and moved along to her designated room. She switched her bags to one hand and fumbled for her key.
When she noticed the graffiti on her room's door, she dropped all three things. The sound they made as they met the stone was loud and made her flinch, and her tail coil until it hurt.
Written on the door was this:
Snakes have a way of curling up when they die
Leave our planet, ZIMA
She twisted around and her eyes scanned over the street, her hand dropping to the butt of her gun. The world was dark and empty. Curfews had been strengthened that they bordered on total lockdown. Being an Agent gave her the privilege to be above the rules, but it also meant she had become a careless fool.
Without so much as a word, she left her room and her newly gained possessions behind and rounded the nearest corner, slithering as fast as she could to the motel's north side. Panic seized a tight hold over her thoughts. If she was being paranoid before, that message had brought on a whole new meaning of the word, and its ugly influence was rearing on her mentality like a... well, like a snake.
She did not hesitate before leaping over this floor's guard railing and plummeting the ten-meter drop. She coiled her tail beneath her at the last second, and she met the ground hard, strengthening her powerful lower body to absorb the impact.
Zima landed not two inches away from the edge of the motel's green and murky pool. Her own image reflected back at her on the water's surface. Ger face was so full of intermingling reactions it looked like she'd seen her own death. She took a breath and composed herself. She would have skipped town then and there if she could. The safehouse was no longer that – safe.
But she couldn't. Certainly, the idea had come and gone in the past, but Dispatch had her tethered here, much as she struggled to admit it. Where would she even go? What would she do? She'd become a fugitive who knew too much about Advent to risk being captured by the enemy, and Advent would hunt her down and kill her, and XCOM would likely torture her to death before the Elders could get their hands on her.
Then there was Daniel. Leaving without him was just not an option, even if there was an opportunity, which she knew there would never be.
Thinking of him brought her back to the present. Daniel! She checked her left blind spot for movement, saw none, and rose to her full height. As quickly and as quietly as she could, she moved around the pool and hugged the motel wall, shimmying along and rounding the corner.
She moved into a narrow alley, a thin length of space running down between a wood post fence and the motel's ground floor. The fence was rotten and a few pieces were missing here and there, the posts ending on jagged points, sealing off this property from the next. About a dozen identical doors coupled with windows lined the motel wall. The twelfth one's light was on. Daniel's room. She crept toward it, making a tiny uncontrollable hiss with the flick of her tongue.
As Zima reached the window, lit up with a peachy coloured light, she drew her weapon, holding it up across her chest in a guarding stance. She leaned and peered one reptilian eye through the half-closed blinds. Daniel was hunched over his writing desk. A terminal screen displaying a message flickered, and his face was planted on the keyboard in front of it. At first her heart tightened as she thought he was dead, executed in the dead of night without her there to help, but she relaxed after seeing his back arch and relax, arch and relax. She sighed, made sure no one was watching, and tapped on the glass with a long nail.
Even while napping, his reflexes impressed her. He whirled, still sitting, snatched his weapon from the table, was about to aim it at her when he his features relaxed as he recognised her. He stood up and moved towards the window, holding his palms up and shrugging – what're you doing?
She pointed at the door with the same nail.
He blinked sleep from his eyes and started undoing the latches. Being on the ground floor, his room had two doors, front and back. As soon as Daniel was done with the last lock Zima swept inside. "Damn it, Zee. Nearly gave me a heart attack." He locked the door and turned to look at her. "You know it's the middle of the night, right? Bit late for a..."
He was about to make a joke, opened his mouth to say it, saw how downright terrified she looked, and closed it. Her serpentine form moved to the front door and opened it a crack. She peeked through, closed the door, and locked it. She made for the back door when he stepped in front of her, placing a hand on her arm. Her eyes were dilated and full of panic. "Woah, Zee, hold on a sec. What's going on?"
She told him about the message, and Daniel's complexion hardened in anger, then slowly devolved into the same terror that she was in. "Oh, shit. How… How the hell do they know your name?"
"I don't know!" she shrieked, almost loud enough that her phantom-run to Daniel's room was all for nothing. "I don't fucking know!"
"Who could know your name?" he asked, more to himself this time. Only one person popped into both their heads at that moment, but by unspoken consent neither of them voiced the name out loud. They both felt ashamed that this was because on some deep, dark level, they were suspicious that the other Agent would rat them out if this was said.
"Okay," Daniel said suddenly. Zima moved to the back door, hesitated, walked to the front, hesitated again. "Alright, hold on. Let's just calm down and think-"
"Don't tell me to calm down," she snapped. She pointed outside. "Someone's been following me all night, maybe even all day! They must have left the message after I went out. Did you see anyone out there?"
Daniel paused, thought, shook his head. "No, I was busy reading up on some things." He nodded to his desk, which was scattered with papers and clipboards. "Then I went to rest my eyes for a minute and... Shit, they were right out there, whoever it was. I'll call Dispatch."
This time Zima stopped him, with a hand on his chest. She could just feel the muscles beneath his cotton shirt and tried not to think about it. "Wait, Daniel. What if the Resistance – who else could have left that message – intercepts you? They know me, but there's still a chance they might not know about you yet."
He seemed to consider this, but not lightly. He knew as well as she did that their technology was gradually failing them. Codes were always being changed to try and keep one step ahead of eavesdroppers. He ran a hand through his bushy hair and said, "Might have a point. I just don't understand. The Network should have screened you."
What he was talking about wouldn't have made sense to anyone outside of the Regime. The Network was, as well as a safety net for all of Advent, a failsafe measure for its members. Outsiders who come into contact with the Network might forget a memory here, a face there, a few names and locations. Nothing too obvious or too subtle. It was through the divine power of the Elders that this screening ability was shared and distributed among the lesser beings. If it had failed... what then? It never failed. It was why Advent had held its dominance over Earth for so long.
Had held. Zima tossed the thought away. Maybe there was a hiccup in the system, an enemy virus? She fumbled for any excuse and decided that yes, XCOM may have found a way to infiltrate the Network. Time would tell how long until they were purged. If they can be purged, her traitorous thoughts reminded her.
"What should we do?" she asked him.
"Well you can't stay in your room," he said. "And I don't know of any other safehouses. You should stay here with me, at least until Dispatch contacts us. There should be enough room in here for us both."
There was, but Zima wasn't jealous about the size of the space. It was maybe twice as big as her own room, but that made it twice as cold, too. There was the desk in one corner, a half-drunk cup sitting precariously close to its edge along with the rest of the mess. Next to it was a lamp. Next to that was the walk in en suite, and she peeked in to see the tiny bathroom was identical to her own. On the other side of the room was Daniel's bed, blue sheets and a white pillow. A bedside cupboard stored all his clothes and gear. There were a few magazines on top of it. Beside that there was a small refrigerator and an even smaller television. Occupying the final corner was a metal bucket, directly below a damp crack in the roof.
"You got a TV?" she asked, and now there was a hint of jealousy in her tone. Daniel shrugged as if to say, so what?
Between all of this clutter there was a narrow gap of walk space. The place smelled of Daniel, but she didn't mind it one bit, even as it stuck to the roof of her ever-flicking tongue. To start this… what would you call it? Sleepover? Zima wasn't sure what to label it. To start this arrangement, they closed all the blinds save for the front entrance ones, leaving a little crack to keep an eye on the parking lot, occupied by only the Chaser. Daniel put a shade over the lamp to dim the lighting. The shift in darkness caused Zima to shiver for some reason, maybe because she'd never been alone in a dark room with the one person she was so fascinated with.
When they'd made the room as inconspicuous as they could, they looked at each other and shared a silent moment, neither knowing how to proceed. Daniel coughed into his hand and began. "Well, make yourself at home. I've got a few things to read up on, so..." He stammered.
"Where's the remote?" she asked.
"Oh, here. There's nothing on TV worth the time these days, Zee."
"I'll find something." She grinned, took the device. Daniel nodded and went back to his desk, plonking himself on the chair with a grunt. Zima moved to the bed, was about to plonk her own body on it before reconsidering. The sheets were rumpled and messy, and she didn't want to disturb it further. She could also feel Daniel's eyes on her neck. Instead she slid down to the floor and leaned against the mattress, tucking Daniel's pillow behind her back. She aimed the remote and the screen turned on with a click. She flicked through the channels, not looking too interested at anything that came up. Then one in particular caught her fancy and she stopped on it. Daniel, noticing the lack of sound at channels changing, looked up and quirked a brow at what she was watching.
"'Bake Off'?" He looked at the back of her hood. "Really, Zee?"
"It's entertaining. Shut it."
For a time, the only sound to reach their ears was the ranting of a contestant having an existential crisis on national television, and the flicking of papers as Daniel poured over dozens of documents. A commercial about how good gene therapy was for the human body interrupted the show, and Daniel got up from his seat.
"You want something to eat?" He moved across the room, momentarily blocking her view of the screen, bent down and opened the fridge. "I got, uh, some leftovers if you want." He rummaged around and pulled out a candy bar.
"I'm tired of leftovers," Zima huffed. The commercial dragged on and soured her mood further. "When was the last time we had a proper meal?"
"Can't exactly go out to the pub anymore." He closed the fridge. He wasn't just talking about the little message left on her door. The only time they went 'out' was to either kill or hurt someone.
"I want to make something," she said. Her tail curled around her torso a little tighter. "Something nice for once."
"Chocolate's always nice," Daniel said. He offered her another bar while chewing his own.
"I'm serious, Daniel. Maybe just one time I'd like to have something with some fucking taste. Elders forbid I at least try."
Daniel thought as he chewed. He remembered back in there last safehouse, an apartment down in the Fringe, also had a TV, and Zima often lingered on the cooking channels late into the night when she thought he was sleeping. He felt horrible for not having picked up this little inspiration of hers earlier. He savored the cocoa flavour on his tongue before swallowing.
"The kitchen's just three doors down," he said. "Might or might not be run down like the rest of this shithole. You got something in mind?"
She did a double take on him, and for the first time that day he smiled. "I do! You'll have to run down to the shops and get me a few things, though."
Daniel didn't like the idea of leaving her alone, especially after that thing left on her door, but the only other choice was to sit here and do nothing. Besides, he wouldn't be gone for very long, and she was positively beaming at this new idea. How could he deny her when she looked like that? He relented. "What sort of things?"
He flipped out his phone and handed it to her when she asked for it. Her long nails clicked against the screen as she typed down a list of ingredients. He took it back and gave the list a look over before pocketing his phone. "Okay, I'll be right back. Don't go getting into any trouble while I'm gone."
"Trouble's the last thing on my mind."
Daniel slipped through the front door, hesitated in the frame. She squeezed his hand with her own and told him with her eyes that she'll be fine. He seemed to get the message, grinned, and left. Zima watched him start up the car and pull out onto the street.
Now that he was gone, Zima suddenly didn't think she would be fine. The person, or people, responsible for her little rearrangement of living quarters were probably watching this place. She was handy with a gun, but without someone watching her back she wished she'd never gotten this idea of making dinner in the first place.
She retraced her steps (or tail) back out into the alley between the motel and the border fence, trying to quell her fear that was slowly reforming in her solitude. Her fingers felt the shape of her pistol inside her waistband and she moved down three doors. It was locked, but a quick and hard shove knocked the old door off its rusty lock. There was a light switch just inside. She flicked it and the room was painted a dull white by an old fluorescent.
It was nothing as grand as the Williams' kitchen, but just remembering that place sent a shiver up her spine. There was a stove, but whatever power source it ran on was long gone. The faucet still worked though, and there were a few utensils scattered throughout the cupboards that added up to something that suited her needs. She ran hot water and started cleaning up what she would use. Shame about the stove, though. What she had seen people do with a few vegetables, some spices, and a tiny bit of heat still amazed her.
Cleaning the gunk off of the pans and plates should have been tedious work, but she found the mundane-ness a little refreshing. She moved her clawed hands out of the soapy water and took a moment to look at herself. Here she was, a snake with arms, Advent Saboteur, who had served multiple tours as a commando working against terrorist forces – cleaning. If her younger self could see her now – the youthful hatchling who still had that gleam of innocence in her eyes , still naïve enough to believe her mother's words that all would be well – cooking up a dinner she intended to share with a human she was losing sleep over thinking about. How would young-Zima react? She had to laugh at herself then and there, her hands warm and covered in soap suds. Young-Zima would probably start altering her life choices right quick.
When she was done setting out all she needed on the counter, she went back to Daniel's room. She watched the cooking program a little while longer and made some mental tips. When another ad-break cut in just before the finale, she grew disinterested. That was, until she sauntered over to Daniel's desk, noting how his terminal was still online and logged in.
She felt a little nosey about using the mouse and opening up his emails, but there was nothing else to do and curiosity got the better of her. She clicked the inbox and a number of messages appeared. Most of the newer ones were from Advent Intelligence. Daniel asking them for something, them replying, him asking, reply, and so on. They had sent him a number of documents about local underground gangs that had surfaced these past couple months. One group was called Gray Phoenix, mostly a Muton-oriented group (she hissed at this fact). Another smaller gang was called Progeny, growing in numbers steadily. Why he was looking up this wasn't clear. Zima scrolled through and clicked on the older messages. Nothing remarkable stuck out at her until she found this little gem from Dispatch. The date was one year ago.
Greetings, D-49, our Australasian branch has had an opening in one of their administrative positions. We recommended you and after careful consideration, they wish for you to transfer. Please message back if you are interested.
Daniel's reply: Does this offer extend to Z-22 too?
That was Zima's personal callsign – Agent Z-dash-22. Dispatch replied with this: Unfortunately 22 has not, as of now, put in the time and effort to qualify to be considered for candidacy. I can only hold this offer open for you until Monday.
Forget it. Tell the land down under to find someone else.
Zima hummed to herself. So Daniel could have left this place? He hated City 31 almost as much as she did, but he turned down an offer because of her? Something about that made her chest tighten and her cheeks warm. She closed the program down and left the mouse cursor where it was before she had started snooping.
The stacks of papers drew her attention down. Notes written in Daniel's handwriting were comparing dates to times, times to places, places to people. Most she couldn't make sense of at first glance, but the more recent papers, the ones he'd been scribbling over while she was watching people cook on TV, she could understand.
Dossier's on several humans, and although she didn't recognise the names, she remembered the faces. Three men, three women, one infant. The little box below their descriptions was labeled STATUS. The current status for these seven people, was PROCESSED. The reason was the same for all seven of them, printed below: Associating with dissidents with full intention to supply information to local terrorist groups. During interrogation each individual confessed to these claims and admitted their traitorous intentions.
The Williams' were there too, deeper in the paper stack. They were processed too. Even Ramos' file was there, under Daniel's forgotten cup of coffee. The little ring stain left by the mug printed a circle around the Chancellor's own status. DECEASED.
Zima wondered why Daniel hadn't told her about this. Judging by how much paper was here he'd spent a good bit of time trying to find... whatever he was looking for. Just like Daniel when he first saw Conner's strange device, something about this sight struck Zima as unusually familiar. She just couldn't place why that was.
About twenty minutes passed before she heard a car roll into the lot. Zima peered out into the night with her pistol drawn, but when she recognised the Chaser's frame she holstered. Daniel came in with two large objects in his hands. One was a bag, bulging at the bottom from its contents, the other she didn't know what it was.
"Got everything you wanted and then some," he said, putting the objects down and reaching into the bag. He pulled out a bottle of red liquid she knew all too well. "I assume this is for getting you through the night?"
"Are you calling me an alcoholic?" She let out an amused hiss and snatched the bottle. "I'll have you know this is an ingredient."
"Uh-huh. Oh, I also got some gas." He nodded to the other thing he'd brought in. "I figured someone already stole the one in the kitchen. Was I right?"
"As always," Zima confirmed. She thought about addressing what she'd found on his desk and computer, but decided to hold back. There would be plenty of time to talk later, and right now she was itching to get started. They took their gear and moved it to the kitchen. She inquired how to hook up the gas container, and Daniel showed her. After a few minutes she turned one of the little black nobs, and flames rose out of the stove top.
"There we are," Daniel said. Zima smiled at him. "Do you need some help to get started? I'm no chef, but..."
"Neither am I, but I think I'm okay. Consider this repayment for letting me bunk with you."
He raised a hand. "You don't have to repay me for anything. And you know you could bunk with me whenever you want, right?"
Did I really just say that? Daniel thought, suddenly wishing he could turn back time. Zima looked up at him, her bombardier-blue eyes wide as her tongue flicked out of her snout. "R-Really? I never wanted to impose or anything..."
"I don't mind," he said, a bit too quickly than was necessary. "Motel gets a little quiet sometimes."
"That it does." She swayed on the spot and tapped her claws together, like someone who doesn't know who should speak next. Daniel decided to take that place.
"Well, call if you need anything. I've got some things to look into before... before dinner, I guess. Didn't think I'd be saying that out loud. See you, Zee."
Looking into what, exactly? But her smile directly countered her suspicions, and he grinned at her before leaving. "See you," she said.
It didn't take too long, in the end, and Zima thought the meal didn't look half bad. It was a heated experience, a lot of running around and a lot of mental exhaustion as she struggled to remember the recipe, but it was a process she found she could get quite used to if there would ever be time for it.
She brought two bowls back into Daniel's room. Daniel was back reading over the files of the deceased, and tucked them away to try and hide the words he was reading. She pretended not to notice and held out a bowl. Her friend took it and looked into its contents. For some reason Zima was nervous of what his reaction would be.
"What is it?" he asked, looking up at her. Zima grinned.
"The website called it 'Beef Stroganoff'."
"Huh," was his response. He glanced at the TV, still online and blaring something about next months Unification day. "Wanna watch something while we eat? I've only got the one chair."
"Okay." She placed herself back on the floor in front of the television, leaning against the mattress. Daniel sat beside her, his foot brushing against her tail, which took up a lot of room in the suite. Zima didn't adjust herself, she was too anxious waiting for Daniel to eat first, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as he raised his fork to his mouth. He curled up two bits of beef and ate. His haggard face lit up as he swallowed.
"So what do you think?" she murmured.
"It's amazing," he said, causing her snout to flush a low red colour. He turned to her. "How much wine did you put in the broth?"
"Well, the recipe was for one serving, so I had to multiply, and…" She trailed off. Zima remembered pouring one shot of wine in, hesitating, adding another, then shook her head as if to say fuck it, and poured half the bottle out. In her excitement she may have gone a tad overboard, but Daniel didn't seem to mind. They ate together, Daniel turning up the volume so they could get some entertainment. For a while they were silent, simply enjoying one another's company. Zima could feel the heat radiating off of his body, and inched a little closer to him to relish in the sensation. When Daniel finished his bowl, he asked if there were any seconds, or thirds.
"I'm plum-out," she said. She half smiled, half frowned. "You really liked it that much?"
"Hell yeah," he said. "You're amazing, Zee. Wish you could have come around sooner."
Confusion and embarrassment washed over her, but rather than looking away and backing off from the topic, she looked him in the eye and pressed him. "So why didn't you?"
"What? Well, I uh… I didn't know you knew how to cook."
"I'm not talking about the dinner anymore."
Daniel frowned, considered for a moment, and asked what she was talking about.
"I read some of the things on your desk while you were out," Zima explained. "You've put a lot of time into some things."
"I told you not to get into any trouble while I was gone," Daniel said. "You go through my computer too?"
She ignored him. Sharing the meal had felt very intimate, but that feeling seemed forgotten now. "Why are you so interested in the local gangs? Gray Phoenix, and Progeny? You know they're small fish, as the saying goes."
"I just thought there was something there. But look-"
She cut him off. "And you've got the files on the Williams', and their people. You're delving into mountains of information and linking things together. It's almost looks like you were…" Again, she trailed away. Daniel set his bowl down and faced her directly.
"Go on," he said. He set his bowl down and looked at her. "You were about to call me something. Go on and say it."
"It's like you're a dissident." She hissed. "Comparing notes, drawing links, like you're unraveling a fucking conspiracy. You question every little thing Dispatch gives you, and you come in here and write things down for Elders know how long."
"Are you calling me a sympathizer?" Daniel asked.
"I'm not calling you anything. I just can't ignore how you've been acting lately."
"Right," he said defensively. "So I ask a couple questions, and now all of a sudden I'm a dissident, is that what you think?" He stood up. So did Zima.
"What I'm thinking, Daniel, is that you're second-guessing the Regime," she said. Daniel's fists clenched until they went pink with strain. Her friend's brow creased in growing frustration.
"What would you do if I admitted that I was? Would you go and report me to Dispatch, get me processed along with the Williams', and that child you found in the back of their car? I thought you…"
The room fell quiet. Daniel and Zima stared at one another for a long time, trying to appear in control of themselves. Zima was eventually the one to break the silence. "Every chance you get, you question Dispatch. Insubordination in Advent has harsh punishments, believe me, I've seen it happen before. I don't want anything like that to happen to you. You have to stop this way of thinking, right now."
"Insubordination? I only started asking questions because Ramos' guard almost killed you that night. It would have been Dispatch's fault if one of us didn't walk out of that alley, and now you're defending him?" Daniel shook his head. Neither of them could believe what the other was saying.
At least some of what was bothering Zima had finally been answered. Even at this moment she could feel her emotions for him swirling up into a huge mess she couldn't sort through. "Daniel… The Regime's what's best for Earth. For everyone. Turn your back on it and you're no better than XCOM."
"Glad to see Advent's the most important thing to you, Zima."
She went to counter him but hesitated, and she would hate herself for letting nothing but air come out of her mouth at that moment. Between choosing Advent and choosing Daniel, what should have been a clean-cut answer was instead clouded in hesitancy. Daniel looked into her eyes and saw this clear as day, and she would never forgive herself for not choosing him immediately.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that," Daniel murmured. He rubbed his eyes with his palms. "Can you just let me show you what I think I've found?"
He went over to his desk without waiting for an answer. She followed in his shadow, curling her body below her as she moved. Processing was the term given by some of the troopers to the Elder's ultimate plan. If you were classed as non-essential, for example a murderer or a thief or some other criminal, you were Processed, given the opportunity to help the Elders progress by sacrificing your body, your life essence, in order to make a new host-body for the Elders themselves. The Elder's biggest weakness was there frailty, and so people, human people specifically, were refined into the new body Template. It was a brutal method, but that wasn't what bothered Daniel. What bothered him, was that even though the Williams' smuggling ring qualified them for that punishment, the same didn't extend to those people who employed them, not by legal standards. The infant was not exempted from the group either.
So the Avatar Project was ramping up and lowering its criteria for specimens. Daniel's point, in the end, was how long until that criteria reached him. Coupled with the fact that Advent's presence in the city was thinning, and the Network's invisible influence was bending and breaking, as they both agreed it was, Advent was getting desperate, and might not need their services if present events continued on their current course.
"I still believe in Advent," Daniel assured. "and the Elder's. But Dispatch is hiding something, and whatever it is, its big. I have a feeling that we need to know what that is, for both our sakes."
Zima didn't speak for a long time. The fact that she was considering Daniel's accusations proved that she was a dissident herself, and a part of her screamed that she report him right now. Eventually she spoke. "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" She gestured to the stacks of paper. "Maybe I could have helped.
"Honestly? I was afraid you'd turn me in." He chastised himself. "I'm such an idiot for thinking like that, and I'm sorry. You're all I have in this shithole city, Zee. You have to believe me."
She came up to him, right up to him, enough to bask in his warmth and become lured by his muscular chest. She slipped her hands into his, looked into his eyes for a moment, then leaned her head down. Her forehead connected with his forehead, and she flicked out her tongue a little as she said, "I do believe you Daniel. You're all I have too."
In the two years she had known him, this had been one of the more intimate things they had said to one another. They had both looked younger then, Zima moreso than Daniel. He had done things that had chiseled away his humanity to the breaking point. Daniel grinned, remembering the innocence in Zima's eyes when he first met his newly assigned partner. This was in the main lobby of the Advent Tower, and she'd been sitting in a chair in the corner, twiddling her claws in anticipation. At first he had been startled, not quite used to seeing Vipers around this part of town. The overhead fixtures caught her ebony scales at an angle that made her look as cerulean as her eyes did. Daniel remembered their first words with vivid clarity.
"Mr Daniel? My name is Zima. What is our first task?"
"Getting a drink. You like Chardonnay?"
It turned out that she did, and Zima told him all about her tastes she'd picked up in France, chatting long into the night. That whole 'Mr Daniel' thing had taken a long time to wear off though, as she hadn't worked so directly with humans before and wasn't sure what title to use. Now that innocent youthfulness in her was gone, her inhuman snout drooped in tiredness because of this screwed up job she'd been transferred to. She was still so alien and so unique to him, but he did miss those qualities she had.
"I'm not sure what to do next, Zee." He opened his eyes and looked right into her blue ones. They dilated and relaxed and her eyelids grew heavy.
"We, should sleep on this," she said. "Figure something out in the morning."
"Speaking of which…" He pulled away from her, smiling when he saw a little blush forming on her snout. "You take the bed, I think there's a spare blanket in one of the other rooms."
"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped. "This is your nest. I'll take the floor."
"Zee…"
"Danny…" she said, matching his mock-motherly tone. He darted an eye at the bed. It was the only furniture he had, and he knew Zima wouldn't give up this little argument. One solution did turn up, but when he went to say it, he stuttered and pulled it away before it could escape his lips. "We could always, uh…"
"What?"
"No, never mind."
"Let me hear it, Daniel."
"Well… We could share."
Zima's appearance changed before his eyes, and a look he had never seen before washed across her face. Her unreadable face looked soft, but agitated at the same time. The end of her tail rattled heavily, like he'd seen happen the few times they'd entered a gunfight. That long tongue of hers flicked out fast, lightly connecting with his neck with a tap of flesh, and retreated. "You…" She cleared her throat. "You want to sleep, together?"
"That's a way to put it," he said, not really answering. He was too embarrassed and awkward and annoyed at his flapping gums. Maybe Zima had a point about his incessant talking skills. "Forget I said anything, just thinking out loud."
"I see no alternative," Zima said professionally, and that made him laugh. He noticed that all this time they were still holding hands. He let one go so he could gesture towards the bed. "Well, unless you want to stay up late…"
"No," she said. "Let's… hit the hay, is that the saying?"
He nodded, and started towards the bed. He sat down on the head end, and offered her his only pillow. She sat beside him and raised a hand, "No, it's yours."
"I insist."
"Daniel."
"Fine," he relented, and with all the awkwardness he could muster, he laid down on his back. Zima recalled her tail and coiled it up below her, taking the lower half of the bed. Her body was too long to sleep side by side, and she'd probably end up knocking something over in her sleep. Daniel decided against taking his shirt off, as he usually did. He opened up the blankets and slipped into their warmth.
Carefully, Zima did the same. Her cool air mixed with his own warmth and created a mild temperature between the few inches separating them. Zima poked her head from out from under the covers and cocked her head up at him, and from this angle she had never looked so cute before.
"Daniel, I… Goodnight."
"Night, Zee."
It probably looked ridiculous from an outside angle, seeing her ball-shaped form bulge through the blankets right beside his feet. Probably looked like he was wearing massive shoes. But despite the initial reaction and the unconscious cringing away to give her larger form more space, he fell asleep much easier than he thought he would. He'd think later that this was because Zima was a powerful ally to keep close by, but he wasn't aware that she had just filled the void in his lonely nights with her presence that stretched beyond mere friendship.
Unconsciously, Zima's body stretched towards his natural warmth. Zima, awake, let herself come closer to his side. She had a feeling he wouldn't mind in the morning.
2
While they slept, the fighting began.
It should have woken them up right away, but both Daniel and Zima had found a certain comfort in spending the night together. Zima had even draped a section of her tail over Daniel's waist, absorbing his body heat. Outside the rear window, the tops of the buildings within the Stacks district could be seen. The gunshots erupted from over that way, short bursts of machine gun fire howling into the night. Green tracer rounds streaked up into the night sky, leaving long trails aimed up at the occasional passing transport ship. The two Agents slept through it like babies, not even moving as the occasional fragmentation grenade detonated. They would have slept through the entire morning if not for the explosion.
Daniel's eyes flashed open a second after the sonic boom reached his ears. He reached around and behind his mattress for the weapon he hid there instinctively. From the corner of his vision, just visible through one of the cracks in the blinds, was the top of a cloud of fire reaching into the air.
He moved Zima's tail off of him without really noticing, got up, and opened the blinds. The sound wasn't like a conventional bomb, but more intertwined with a wet, almost electrical sound. Bright green streaks of energy coursed through the miniature mushroom cloud, slowly expanding outward and upward from somewhere in the Stacks.
"Oh shit."
Somehow these words, not the grenades or even the giant explosion, stirred Zima. She murmured his name and looked over at him with groggy eyes. He was too busy staring at the display before him to notice her come up to his flank. He scrutinized the distant plume of smoke, slowly coming to a realisation he should have made sooner. He knew the layout of every building in this city, and he guessed one of the office blocks was the explosion's center. For every reason possible he started remembering Conner's mysterious package.
Not so mysterious now. The electric veins in the cloud was all the proof he needed. "I want to hear you say you'll secure it – this is precious cargo." That's what he'd said. Precious, dangerous cargo.
"It was a bomb!" Daniel pointed at the cloud. "That's elerium feeding through the smoke. That was what Conner's device was made out of, elerium! I should have seen it sooner. Why didn't I see it sooner?"
The wires coming out of the box was such a dead giveaway, now that hindsight had kicked in. It was a crude IED, but it looked like it had levelled at least half a block. And they'd drove across town with it in the back, secured by a seatbelt.
"Who is fighting over there?" Zima asked. Of course, there was only one answer to that. Zima was just thinking out loud, woken up from a pleasant dream she was having.
He'd almost forgotten about the shooting. It didn't matter to him anyway; he had delivered an explosion that had caused Elders knew how much destruction. He clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms. Zima looked at him and they exchanged a look of fear on her part, anger on his.
"I have to get over there."
"What!" Zima barked, looking at the explosion, then back to him. "You can't be serious! The city's under attack. We have to lie low until Dispatch calls us."
"Dispatch," Daniel snapped. "made me blow up my own city. I have to know what's going on." He moved over to his hoodie hanging on his chair's backrest. Zima was on his flank in an instant, and slapped his clothing out of his hand.
"Daniel! You're not thinking straight!"
"Aren't I? What else could that thing Conner gave us be? I have to go and see it myself."
Zima bore into him with her lazuli eyes. After a long stare she shook her head. "We, have to go, Daniel."
"No. One of us has to stay here and wait for Dispatch. Here." He put his phone on the table. "I'll cut off the car radio, so he'll have to call on this. Don't tell him where I'm going or I I'll be as good as dead."
"You can't just leave me now!" Zima said, almost to the point of yelling. "What if you die out there? Did you stop to think what that might do to me?"
Silence was his answer. Rapid bursts of automatic magnetic weapons filled the air with distant violence. Daniel considered his next words carefully. He knew Conner's device was a bomb the moment he saw it, but his memory had failed to see it sooner. That made it his responsibility, not Zima's. He didn't want to leave her, but he had to, he had to know what was going on out there, had to see what's happening. If he was wrong then good, but he knew he wasn't. "Dispatch will call in a few hours. I might be back by then, might not. Just pretend I'm right beside you until I come back."
He picked up his hoodie zipped it over his chest. Daniel stepped around the reptilian and headed for the door. "I'll tell him!" Zima said, and now she was yelling. "I'll tell Dispatch that you went trudging off into a warzone because of an accident!"
"Can you even hear yourself?" Daniel yelled back. "'Accident'? How is that thing out there an accident? You might be able to sleep at night accepting all this death we're dealing, but I can't. I have to do this, Zee. So go ahead and report me, if you care more about Dispatch's opinion of you than your own damn morals."
He jammed his gun in his pocket, ignored Zima's death-stare as he moved to the door, snatching his keys out of the bowl on the desk. "Daniel!" Zima cried. He ignored that too. The air was cold enough to instantly set this teeth clattering. He swept across the lot and unlocked the car.
"Daniel!"
She was in the doorframe, hesitant to come out any further. He looked back at her once before getting inside the vehicle. He started the engine. If whoever had left that message on Zima's room was watching they could have killed both of them then and there with a few well aimed shots, but this fact didn't register to Daniel, not in his current state.
He leaned back over the chair and reversed out onto the street. Stepping on the gas and putting the revs to max. He looked in the rear-view mirror and half expected Zima to be out there, slithering after him. Of course, she wasn't, she had more sense than he did.
He turned off the street and went full speed. That look on Zima's face, as she called his name the second time, that look simply broke his heart, and but no matter how much he willed himself he would not turn around. He was committed now, and if he needed to do this, then he needed to be fast.
3
Daniel drove over the south bridge a few hours later, feeling like the most despicable douchebag in the city, in the world. It was too late to take his words back, but it was never late for regret, as his father used to say. He just admitted to her earlier that she was all he had left, and then he went ahead and snapped at her about her morals. Who the hell was he, who could have quit this line of work ages ago if he wanted to?
He was so brooded in his own thoughts that he hadn't noticed that he'd run a red light until a bump in the road snapped him into the present. The first car he'd seen this morning came flying in from the right. Daniel slammed the brakes and turned away sharply. The other vehicle, a blue sedan, screeched to a halt not half an inch from the driver's door. The car's owner slammed his fists onto the horn.
Daniel, acting as if near-misses were a common occurrence, was about to pull away when the other driver leapt out of his car, gave him the bird with one hand and shouted: "What the fuck, man! What, the, fuck, are you doing?!"
It was a big man with dark skin, face drooped into an eternal frown. Daniel took one look at him and went to drive again, but the man came up to the window and punched it. The reinforced glass wobbled, but held. "Get your ass out of that car so I can kick it! Just who the fuck taught you to… to…"
The moment he said, 'ass', Daniel opened the door, slipped into the cold morning air, and placed his plasma pistol on the rightfully-pissed off man's forehead with a calmness Zima might have laughed at, had she been here. There was no laughter from this other man, whose lower lip began to quiver, and all thoughts of beating up this skinny Advent-cop drained away.
"Woah, man, wait, I was just kidding around," he murmured, eyes glued to the whirling energy running along the barrel.
"I know you were." Daniel tapped almost playfully on the trigger, and the man whimpered. "What are you doing out here so early, if I might ask? You do know the city's under attack, right?"
"I know, yeah, I know." Just as he said that another grenade boomed. "I just got off work, okay? I was going back home, back to my wife, man!"
"Do you know anything about what's going on at the Stacks?"
"Nah, man, nothing! Honestly!" He was shrieking at this point. And Daniel was accusing Zima about her way of thinking? Here he was, threatening some guy in the middle of an intersection in the middle of dawn. Maybe this man should have crashed into his car and killed him, spare the world a problem.
"Go see your wife." Daniel tossed his pistol back in his car and followed in after, strapping his seatbelt on. "And don't come outside until…" Until, what? Until it was safe? When was the last time City 31 was safe? "Just get out of here."
"Yeah, yeah, okay." But Daniel didn't hear the last word. He'd already shut his door and was speeding away, leaving a stunned stranger to watch after his taillights. This was the only disturbance on his way to the Stacks.
There was one main bridge leading into the district, and as he pulled up into the curb leading down the road towards the crossing, he saw a massive tide of humans, hybrids, and aliens alike running form the east side of the river. People were shoved out of the way, and a few unfortunates not to regain their balance were trampled under the stampede. There were two Advent squads trying to rally up some sort of order on this side of the bridge, but they weren't having much luck in quelling the chaos. Not good for Advent's image, but good enough for Daniel. He should be able to slip by without notice.
He made sure the Chaser was locked and stuffed the keys in his pocket. The rest of the way he'd have to go on foot. The soldiers were too occupied to question him, as he must have stuck out like a sore thumb, being the only man to be heading toward the gunfights. He melted into the crowd and watched a tide of scared faces sweep past his vision.
Daniel pushed aside men and women, even a Sectoid at one point that looked so much like Conner he almost started lashing out. Sectoid's used their mind powers to tell each other apart, most everyone else thought they were all clones. At one point a big Muton swatted him out of its way like he was an insignificant bug. Daniel would have been trampled if he hadn't caught himself. It was really no wonder Zima despised those brutes.
Screams of pain and fear and general panic erupted in every direction, but after a long couple of minutes the crowd began to thin as Daniel approached the rear of the civilian pack. People too slow or too unwilling to join the fray trying to fight their way into Old Town dotted the highway here. Daniel frowned when he saw a woman trying to keep five young kids together all by herself. One of the kids had blood on his hands, and his arms were scarred from something sharp, and black soot dirtied the wounds.
Daniel moved on quickly, sea-breeze howling in his ears. Somewhere at the midpoint of the bridge he went to draw his gun, but thought it best if he tried to look as harmless as possible. Just a man coming back for a loved one – hopefully he looked the part. Cars and trucks angled into crisscrossing patterns, jamming up the highway lanes. All of them were abandoned save for one, with a panicky hybrid behind the wheel, statue-still as if she was just waiting for the traffic to start flowing. Daniel told her to get out and run but she didn't seem to hear him. He gave up and kept moving, navigating through the dead congestion of vehicles.
Daniel expected there to be an Advent checkpoint on the far side of the bridge, a good choke-point if there ever was one. He was disappointed at Advent's disorganization, and his loyalty to the cause further came into question. He was telling the truth to Zima before –he really did believe the Elders were good for humanity. They had a noble goal, a cause worth fighting for, and their interests stretched to all the races. What was humanity doing before the occupation? Squabbling on this rock called Earth, bickering instead of acting. The Elders gave his kind some sort of initiative they had not had in dozens, maybe hundreds of years. This might have been just propaganda and brainwashing drilling into his head from that stupid chip they'd put in his skull, or it might not. It didn't matter right now.
Maybe it was just Dispatch, hoped it was only Dispatch that was corrupting the system, and not the Elders grip becoming weak on Earth. If that was the case, well, all was lost, simple as that.
Daniel tried not to tell himself it was the beginning of the end of '31, seeing the Stacks turning from a rich district, into a ashen-covered warzone. He ran from hiding spot to hiding spot, using alleyways and abandoned cars as cover for whenever he heard movement nearby. The smoke trail from the bombsite still lingered in the air, black against the golden hues of dawn. He headed directly for it, gunshots on his left, explosions on his right. Never in his life did he ever imagine his own city would become like this, could become a damn warzone. All the effort he'd put into the Regime, his whole life, and this is what it was turning out to be? It didn't hit him all at once yet, he was too distracted by Zima and the bomb to quite realise the depth of the current situation City 31 was in at this moment.
After making a couple of turns he found himself facing the backs on a six-man squad. They were wearing dusty green fatigues, black balaclavas, and carrying old-world ballistic weapons. Vaguely reminiscent of a troop column formation, they creeped up the street, combat boots clicking on the pavement.
Resistance. The one with the headset was calling the shots, whispering for the group to keep their eyes peeled. Daniel held his breath. They might shoot him on sight, might let him walk, but he wasn't willing to take that chance. He prepared to sneak away when one of the soldiers, perhaps hearing Daniel's own shoes crunch against the gravel, or maybe just taking his officer's advice, peeked over his shoulder.
Daniel dropped to the ground a second before the shooting erupted, but it was happening over him, not at him. He craned an eye open and saw on the opposing side of the street a handful of figures, led by an armoured car with a giant turret strapped to the top. Red magnetic bullets from the mechanized Advent squad intermingled with the green tracer rounds coming from the resistance soldiers, who were taking up positions behind bits of fallen debris. Daniel crawled on all fours as fast as he could, not towards Advent, but towards the rebels.
By some miracle none of the enemy soldiers spotted him. Daniel snuck around the edges of the firefight, ready to run, draw his weapon, or cry for help, whichever would result in him living for a bit longer. Advent had the clear advantage, the shrapnel exploding from the rebel grenades doing little to stop the APC acting as the shepherd for the troopers. He watched the APC's canon do a one-eighty, and now three barrels were staring down the enemy forces. These barrels were topped with egg-shaped protrusions. Daniel knew about the experimental class of turrets currently in the manufacturing process, but had never seen the barrage-canons in action.
He did today, slipping on a chunk of rock after a bullet zipped by his head, whether that shot was on accident or on purpose he didn't care. The rocket-turret let loose six small missiles that packed a heavy punch. They decimated the resistance soldiers' positions in great displays of fire and shrapnel. Whoever lived through that would be too stunned to fight back against the troopers who would mop up the survivors.
Daniel kept moving, and the screams of the dying soon faded into the backdrop, along with the rest of the fighting and violence. He coughed as he breathed in smoke. The site was just around the corner.
The bombsite was, Daniel wasn't surprised to see, not two buildings down from where he had left Conner's device. The drop point was still there, but the lid to the dumpster was open. Some other Agent must have displaced it. A crater reached out from the target building's foundation and halfway into the street. A bunch of people were gathered near there, some were armed and escorting injured civilians away from the bombsite.
Daniel ran over and quickly melted into the crowd. There was enough confusion that he slipped into the site while avoiding the guards. As he suspected, the bombsite was right on top of an office building. It had been obliterated. Black scorch marks reached out from a central point, where a few outer teel columns still stood, and more resistance personnel were gathering around and trying to salvage any functioning equipment.
It was the screams that got to Daniel's head. He passed by people with blood on their faces, wounds spilling out from cuts in their lips and brows and ears. Some poor man even had a jagged shard of rock sticking out of his dislocated shoulder. Only one of every ten wounded were being tended to by a medic.
Rows and rows of body bags were lined up to his left. A pair of soldiers were just about to zip up another one. To his right he saw the upper remains of the office block had collapsed onto the next street over. A group of people were trying to put out an inferno over there. A squealing sound that could only belong to a child filled the air.
"Eye's open, civvy," someone said. Daniel blinked and spun around. A woman brushed past him, dressed in white battle armor from head to neck. There was a drone following after her, floating on four sonic panels emitting little waves of energy. She put down the box she was carrying and ordered a nearby soldier to distribute the contents. The soldier saluted and did as she said. On the back of her armour was that old-word, red cross symbol.
"Hey," Daniel said, and walked over. The drone had two eyeholes on its front, and watched him walk by. He could just faintly hear the sound of a charging taser. A combat drone of some sort. "Hey, excuse me, but-"
"You need a doc, civvy?" The medic cut him off. Daniel blinked.
"What? No, no I-"
"Then go wait with the others, I have people to tend to."
Brushing by him again, the doctor swept away further into the half-destroyed camp. The drone came right up to Daniel's face, hovered for a moment, then returned to its master's side.
"Wait!" He caught up to her flank, but she didn't turn around, so he talked to her backside. "Who's in charge here?"
"Captain Henderson was, but he was killed in the explosion, and command was given to me. Not how I imagined I'd get my next promotion, replacing my dead friends. What do you want?"
She moved off once more, Daniel and drone in tow. "I want to know what happened here."
"What's it look like? Someone set off a goddamn bomb right in the middle our camp. I thought I saw someone skulking about a few hours ago, holding something in his hands. Can you believe that Advent's bombing their own cities now? They're no better then what they portray us as."
"Was the bomb elerium-based?"
The doc gave him a suspicious glance over her shoulder. "Matter of fact it was. Much more devastating than anything even Shen could come up with. How did you know, civvy?"
"I could tell by the cloud," he explained, not delving too far into the specifics. All his suspicions were correct. Of course they were. He wanted to see the damage, but now that he was here… it didn't make him feel any sense of accomplishment. He'd just left his only trusted ally behind to confirm what he already voice cracked halfway through his next question. "How many people died?"
Her face dropped in a grimace. She walked as she talked. "Fifty-three confirmed dead, twenty-nine wounded. I just had to euthanize ten men in the last hour. Whoever made that bomb knew what they were doing, where we would go, when to detonate it. God's sake, civ, this was a makeshift hospital! Who could do something like this?"
"H-Hopsital?" he croaked.
"Yes, and not just for our fighters, but for the families they came to liberate. Help me with this would you?"
Families? He looked around, and now he could see it. It wasn't just soldiers lying in the cots and inside the body bags, but women, and children too. Advent propaganda assured the public that XCOM blew up medical centers all across the globe. The fine line of hypocrisy had been crossed, and Daniel had helped that happen. He felt like he was going to throw up.
"Did you hear me, civvy?"
"Yeah." She was holding down a distressed patient with one hand, needle in the other. Daniel kept the struggling man down while the doc did her work. After the blue liquid entered through a vein the man visibly relaxed, then went unconscious.
The doctor moved away like nothing happened, and reached for something on her belt that turned out to be a handheld radio. Compared to her futuristic-looking armour, the HAM looked very ancient. She held it to her mouth. "Colonel, it's Outpost Charlie…. Yes, we're recuperating for the next wave, perimeter's not secure… We'll be ready in half an hour; how many are there?... Damn. Okay, I'll try to make some room. I understand Colonel. Vigilo, Confido."
She let the radio fall back into its place, then turned to Daniel. "Are you alright?"
"What? Yeah, fine. Why?"
"Your hands are shaking. Did you have family here, or…?"
Daniel forced his hands to steady, which took much more effort than he would have liked. "Yeah," he lied. "I live here with my brother, well, lived here, I should say."
"I don't know how you can live in this place, and not in one of the havens. There's enough propaganda on the buildings to put the Cold War to shame. Give me your name and I'll point you in the right direction."
"Oh, its uh…" Daniel hesitated for a moment, but it was a moment that didn't escape the doctors notice. "Cameron. Daniel Cameron." He hadn't used that name since the beginning of his service.
"No one here by that name, and it's my job to know everyone in the outpost off by heart. You're a local, then, and not one of ours."
Daniel, who had only been caught in a lie twice before, and that was when he was green and first starting out, felt alarms go off in his head. In comparison the doctor looked quite calm, fiddling with an armour strap as she said: "I need you to come with me. You knew about the elerium bomb. Maybe you know something else as well. 'Sides, can't have Advent locals running around my outpost."
Daniel's arm was a blur. He reached for his pistol, but at the same time the doctor's drone flew towards him, and slammed into his chest. He went down with a grunt, but before he could level his weapon an electric jolt shocked him into paralysis. His arm lay half raised towards the doctor, the fingers and palm twitching. She approached him, staying out of his frozen line of fire.
"So, Advent sent there spy back. Why? Count the dead so you can display the numbers on your notice boards?" She planted a heavy boot on his chest and applied pressure. "You must think you've got balls the size of moons to come back here, dog. Wipe that look off your face, it's not fooling anyone."
Pain exploded up his fingers, through his wrist, and up the inside of his arm. Fighting the drone's shock was useless and painful but he tried anyway. Never in his service had he been so easily overpowered. Too late, he noticed the insignia decorating the doctors shoulder plate. A rigid circle shape with an X slashed through the inside space. Up until now he'd dealt with thugs and lowlifes, resistance soldiers and the like. He hadn't underestimated the troubling reports on XCOM's elite ranks, but then again he had literally tossed himself at this ones mercy for his own selfish reasons. He could not let himself die like this, on the ground at this terrorist's feet. If not to save all the information he had on Advent, but for her sake. Zima's. I wasn't thinking straight. I should have stayed with her.
More resistance soldiers were coming over to see what was going on. Even if he could release himself, he could not fight them all off, right in the heart of the enemy as he was. "Commander would want me to capture you, bring you in for questioning." The doctor made a face that did not match her medical background. "But we stopped building containment chambers twenty years ago." She put more pressure on his chest, hard enough that Daniel felt his bones bend. "And what's one life compared to fifty-three others? Tera, up the voltage ten-fold."
Tera could only be her personal drone. It buzzed and clicked deep from within its core in confirmation, and was about to execute Daniel when, in an ironic twist of fate, Advent chose that moment to swoop in and save his life, indirectly as it ever could.
The APC rounded the corner and fired a barrage without so much as rendering the threats from the civilians. Four rockets detonated to Daniel's left, one to the right, one hit the doctor square in the back as she turned to run. Shrapnel flew in every direction, mangling Tera, the drone, and sending the nearby soldiers off their feet. Daniel's arm came free from the drone's electric influence, but couldn't bring it up in time to shield his face. Shards of rock and glass and metal cut up into his face. One singed through the place where the neck met the chin. Another sliced across from his lower left lip to the corner of his right eye, and here the shard cut into his eyeball. He felt a squirt of liquid eject from his eye, like a piece of fruit squeezed too hard. He curled into a ball and felt heat wash over him.
His eardrums snapped and all he heard was ringing, broken by the occasional muffled gunshot. Pain exploded from every joint in his body, but he forced himself onto his elbows and looked around. The doc was lying beside him, her chest plate, scorched black, rising and falling very slightly. That armour must be made of something special if its occupant could live through a direct impact like that. Maybe that was why Advent lost the Stacks so quickly.
He started crawling, placing one ash-covered arm after the other. A gallon of his own blood dripped into his mouth and he spat it out, but the coppery taste would remain on his tongue for a while yet. Half his vision was blurred and black, and panic began to brew as he tried to guess if the damage to his eyesight would be permanent. His pistol was just visible, lying on the ground a few paces ahead of him, and with agonizing slowness he clawed his way toward it.
He reached out to grab his weapon when a black combat boot stomped on his hand and broke two of his fingers. He cried out in pain but his own voice didn't even reach his busted ears. He looked groggily upward, expecting to see the barrel of a rifle as the last thing he'd look into in this life. His expectations were met, but it was the one wielding the weapon that brought him totally unfounded relief.
An Advent trooper had broken his hand. Funny, wasn't he just thinking about betraying them not a few hours ago? And now that he looked into that smirky, alien face half covered by the helmet, all he could feel was a sense of security.
It was saying something, but even while deaf Daniel knew what it wanted. He reached into his pocket with his free hand to pull out his identification, while at the same time yelling out the phrase-codes that assured his loyalty.
The trooper took his ID, looked at it, then helped Daniel up like he was an old friend. The hybrid didn't apologise for mangling his hand. Daniel read its lips and concluded he was actually telling him to stay put.
Daniel told the trooper he had to go, and needed his identification back. He read the hybrids lips as well as he could, and judging by the way the trooper shook his head, this idea was a no-go. This one was better trained than the others – Daniel did look mighty suspicious right in the middle of an enemy camp. Did they think he was a traitor, or had been captured? Maybe Zima had reported him in to Dispatch. He supposed it didn't matter what the answer was. If he was in the trooper's shoes, Daniel wouldn't let himself go either.
The trooper ducked when a burst of gunfire sailed past. Daniel ducked too, but not out of fear for his own life. He grabbed his pistol off the ground and shot the trooper in the head. Its yellow blood spewed out onto the rubble, and the trooper crumpled into a pile.
Daniel's lip quivered at what he'd just done. No one had seen his stunt – the troopers had moved ahead, rushing the enemy positions, and the APC had been disabled by the blast of an RPG, fired from somewhere up above. A flicker of movement caught his attention. It was his hands. They were still shaking. He got no satisfaction from killing the trooper, only more and more regret as he knew he was digging himself deeper into a hole he would not be able to escape from if he didn't do something about it soon.
Idiot. I should have listened.
A mechanized Advent column was closing in from the right. Another resistance cell was dashing out onto the street to meet them, grenade-launchers and machine guns setting up a powerful ambush. Daniel blinked when he realised he was right in the middle of both sides.
Scabbed and bloodied, Daniel stumbled towards the unconscious doctor, and ripped away the HAM radio from her belt. He had a few questions he needed the answers to. Then he did something he should have done a long, long time ago. He ran.