((Chapter heading is a line from Scarborough Fair, which you might know from Simon & Garfunkel. Their version doesn't have that line, though.))
Chapter 23
And Never Let One Corn Of It Fall
Adam let himself fall the moment the shot bellowed. The pain never came, but he heard a wail. Looking up, Adam saw Soutar clutching a bloody hand. Sergio advanced on him. 'You're done,' he said. 'I've watched too long already.'
'Sergio.'
'He's a monster, and he made me one, too!'
Adam picked himself up and took a careful step towards him, reaching out towards him. 'Sergio, don't do this. The police are on their way.'
'I … I've got to run!'
Adam plucked Soutar's gun from the ground. 'You won't get far. The MANES will knock you out cold. We have to wait, it'll let in the police.'
The fight bled out of Sergio, his shoulders sagging. 'I've lost everything, though. There goes my chance to ever have a normal life again. I should have stayed at home.'
'I know someone who was in jail and has picked himself up nicely,' Adam told him. 'For a different kind of crime, granted, but he wasn't being forced. Your life doesn't end here.'
'Oh, but it does,' Soutar said. He darted to the turret and hit a switch. Adam shot towards Sergio and knocked his knees out from under him, collapsing them both behind the counter and outside the line of fire. Soutar swore. 'MANES! Do something! Make them pay for me.'
'I will need more specific instructions.'
The AI's words were followed by complete silence.
'What … what is he doing?' Sergio asked.
Adam glanced around one corner of their counter. Soutar was lying on his side, facing them. He was clearly dead. 'Suicide pill, I'd guess.' He couldn't get himself to care. 'Listen. I found a letter from Soutar blackmailing you, and if you've got more of them, all the better for you. You probably won't get out of this unpunished, but it's not as bad as you think right now. There's also the fact that you just saved my life, and I'm more than willing to testify what happened.'
'Jacob, please specify your request,' the MANES said with a note of urgency no AI should possess.
'Fuck,' Adam said. 'MANES, Soutar is dead. He committed suicide.'
'You do realise I cannot let you go.' The bloody thing sounded so much like Francis it hurt.
'Yeah. Do your worst. But do kill that turret. You don't want it to harm the police.' This time, the effect wasn't painful. In fact, it was almost bliss to fall into the darkness that came with the shock.
Ϡ
Adam opened his eyes to too bright light and an antiseptic smell permeating his being. He allowed himself a groan. A hand, its touch so familiar, cupped his cheek. 'Slowly, Adam. Take your time. You're safe, mostly intact, and I'm here.' Adam captured the hand and brought it to his lips to kiss it.
'Glasgow hospital?'
'No, you were both brought up to Aberdeen. None of you were in a critical condition and Aberdeen has at least some people who can deal with augment malfunctions. It seems they're the go-to hospital for lack of a L.I.M.B. clinic.' Francis's voice was strained. 'I've never felt so useless. I'm a coward, hiding behind his desk, while you risked your life out there.'
Adam struggled to a sitting position and looked at Francis. The clouds in his head were starting to clear. 'Francis listen to me. Without you, I'd be dead. I'd have died in Montreal, maybe even earlier, but that was one situation I would never had escaped without you. Your presence was only via infolink, but I knew I could rely on you even then. That was the hardest part about Prague. I missed you having my back.' He looked at Francis and couldn't help smiling. 'Hey. Remember how we met the Juggernaut collective? They held you at gunpoint, and you were completely calm. You are a brave man. You've got to be, to be with me.'
'You really think that, don't you?'
Adam nodded. 'Absolutely.' He rubbed his forehead. 'Any idea how long I have to stay? I'd like to get out of here.'
'You can, if you're not dizzy or sick. Then they'll keep you. But Sergio wanted to see you. He's been up for about half an hour, but he's a lot more shaken than you are. Also he's going into custody.'
'Yeah. Figures.' He found his clothes folded neatly on a chair. Only now he realised he was in one of those horrible patient gowns. 'Any chance you're going to turn around to protect my modesty?'
'Keep dreaming.'
Ϡ
Frank led the way into the cafeteria. Sergio greeted Adam with a handshake. 'I wanted to thank you. For not condemning me.' He swallowed. 'I've got a request. There's another patient here, Reginald Jones. Reg.'
'Yes, the one who wanted to remove his augment.'
'Yeah. Talk to him. You've been where he is.' A smile tugged on Sergio's lips. 'I may have asked Reg to meet us. I want to come clean to him, but I'd rather not do that alone.' He looked at Frank. 'You're the guy he was talking to, huh?'
'Yes. I … thank you. For saving Adam's life.' He shuddered. 'I don't know what I'd do without him.'
Adam put an arm around Frank and pulled him close to kiss his temple. Sergio ordered coffee and drank it with a light tremor in his hands. 'There's Reg.' He waved the other man over. 'Hi.'
Reg was a wiry man, much shorter than Adam and with a bitter expression on his face. 'Serge. You got yourself electrocuted or something?'
'Or something.' He swallowed. 'I need to … Look, Reg. I … uh … It wasn't a monster that took you. That was me. I lured you to a certain place and I knew what would happen to you there.'
'You did what?'
'He was being blackmailed,' Adam said. 'A former N-Pro Tech doctor threatened Sergio into bringing him people.' He smiled. 'Sergio quit and made sure that no-one else would get hurt.'
'And you are …' Reg stalled himself. 'Hang on. You're Jensen, that badass cop-type. You've been on the news.'
'So I've heard.'
'Look,' Sergio said. 'I handed myself in already. But I wanted you to know.'
'Just be glad I don't believe in violence.' He glared at Adam. 'And what do you want?'
'Look. I know you didn't want to be augmented.'
'That's an understatement. I was part of the Humanity Front, for God's sake.'
'I wasn't one of Taggart's followers, but I saw his point, to a degree.'
'Yeah, then it was your life, and all of a sudden you saw things differently.'
'No.' Adam leaned forwards. 'I wasn't even asked. I believed that I was dying, and when I woke up, I was … this. And I hated it. I couldn't stand the sight of myself.' Adam felt Francis's hand on his arm, the gentle pressure soothing away the ghosts. He covered it with his own. 'But here's the deal. You're still a man. You can still have it all.'
'It seems that you do.' Reg shook his head. 'I don't know. I used to be someone, you know. After the Incident I lost my job, even though I wasn't augmented. But the entire economy was fucked up, and no-one needed me.'
'What did you do?'
'I was a mechanic.' He made a face. 'I landed myself in that shelter and ultimately with that fucking aug. I didn't even try properly. It felt as if God had forsaken us all. And then this happened. At first I just wanted to kill myself. But I … I need to get out of here already. I want my life back, damn it.'
Sergio licked his lips. 'You're still a mechanic, Reg. And we've got enough industry around here. You'll find your place. No-one's taking your education from you.'
'The man who augmented you is dead,' Adam said. 'If you seek it, you'll find closure. I know I did.'
'Yeah. Just … let me be. And you get out of my sight, Serge. I may not bash your skull in, but I don't want your company, either. Get lost, the lot of you.'
((On a side-note, and because I'm a nice person I'm doing this after the chapter rather than before, I got a comment on Ao3 that I wasn't going to kill Adam. True, I wasn't. But I did take this opportunity to look through my fiction on both platforms and make a headcount as far as I remember by just looking at the titles.
The sum total of canon characters murdered by me is 10 or 12. One of them isn't dead yet (not this story, don't worry), but I know they will die. More than that one will die, but of this character I am sure. One of my corpses is a gender-bent version of an original character whose sex or name I didn't know when I wrote them, even though I did know they existed and just guessed wrong. There is also one instance of a character that can die in the canon universe but doesn't have to. This headcount is spread over 5 stories. Sometimes it's just one death per story, in one case there's five canon characters (or four, if you don't count the recreated one) that bite the dust within the same fic, seven within its series.
So trusting me to let people live because they're canon or because of their age or anything else might be a very bad idea.))
