Okay, so I did label this as Adventure/Drama…
Chapter 12: As the Phoenix Flies
Monday morning Arthur was up early. He showered, shaved, and dressed carefully in navy trousers, white collared shirt, red tie. He used the solid-gold rising-sun tie pin his father had given him as a high school graduation present, carried his briefcase instead of the messenger bag, and managed to be waiting for his father at the door. Thomas Drake paused in the entryway of the brick house, surprised and assessing his son.
"You were out again this weekend," the elder Drake said as they simultaneously entered the Bentley from either side, Leon waiting silent but alert in the driver's seat.
Arthur chose to ignore the implied disapproval, as well as the unstated question. "Big day, today," he commented. "Drone-testing. Looks like you'll have beautiful weather for it." He imagined his father in his expensive suit and shoes, the military men in their class-blue formal uniforms, under a pavilion in a field somewhere, scanning the cloudless blue skies.
"Yes." Thomas Drake eyed his son. "You're welcome to accompany us, of course, though I hadn't counted on your presence."
"No, thank you, Father," Arthur said, pretending disinterest. "You'll have Leon, and the colonels. Lieutenant Spiers informed me that he intended to accompany the drone to the test site, also. I believe my place is in Camelot, this morning."
"If you're sure," Thomas Drake said, completely unconcerned.
Arthur checked his watch. "What time do you expect the test flight to take place?" he asked, exactly as if he didn't know the answer already, courtesy of Merlin's cyber-prowling.
"Eleven thirty, or shortly thereafter," Thomas Drake answered.
Three hours. Arthur tapped his ring on his knee. Leon met his eyes in the rearview mirror, and nodded fractionally – it was as good as a verbal promise, that the knight would fulfill his duty as bodyguard of the CEO of Camelot, this morning.
When they arrived, Thomas Drake ascended to his office as usual for Monday morning. Arthur nodded reassuringly to a nervous Guinevere behind the receptionists' desk, and headed reluctantly to his desk in the A.S.S. department. Hans spoke to him, giving him instructions, but he didn't remember actually hearing a word of it. He turned instead to the window, craning his neck to watch the front door for his father's exit.
There was more to today's activities than just preventing damage, destruction, loss of life – by hijacking Camelot's specialized drones, by using the prototype-testing schedule, whoever planned this had also planned on implicating Camelot Technologies. Even though Thomas Drake hadn't paid any attention to the threat, Arthur could not allow his father to take any part of the blame if things went wrong.
An hour later, Hans turned from answering a phone call at his desk. "The IT department has requested your presence," he informed Arthur.
"Thank you," Arthur said, politely enough. "I have a special assignment which will occupy my attention all morning, if not all day." Without giving the director of the department a chance to object or complain, Arthur headed for the back stairs, and made his swift way to the IT department.
Carol T's office was changed, a network of computer screens and keyboards and other equipment draped across Merlin's small corner desk. The sorcerer had clearly been busy, but Merlin was pacing again, looking more apprehensive than Arthur felt. "Oh good you're here," he exclaimed. "I mean I don't know where else you'd be unless your dad made you go with him or something went very wrong not that I think something is going to go wrong though there's a lot that could –"
"Merlin," Arthur said, with understanding and sarcasm, "shut up."
He seated himself in Carol's desk chair, and turned to face Merlin. "Leon will stay with my father, make sure he and the officers are fine," he reminded the sorcerer.
Merlin's gaze was on the floor. "You shouldn't take that for granted," he said softly.
"What?"
"Having your father around."
Arthur remembered why that would be a big deal to Merlin. "What was he like, your father?" he asked.
Merlin smiled, but it was a sad smile. "I don't know if he was the same," he said. "I don't remember him clearly enough, from my childhood this century. He was brave, though," he added, almost to himself. "A soldier. A – " he glanced at Arthur, who simply waited, listening. "A dragonlord." He collapsed into his own seat as if he'd just been denied the possibility of parole, one hand reaching up to cover his right shoulder, where the tattoo was hidden beneath his shirt.
Arthur closed his eyes momentarily, sifting through his own memories. How an old man in a red robe and long red beard – Merlin, he reminded himself – had commanded the white dragon over the Camlann battlefield. He hadn't had time to consider that aspect of Merlin's revelation before.
"That's an inherited thing, isn't it?" he said aloud, though he didn't expect Merlin to answer. No wonder Merlin had volunteered to ride out to face the great dragon – Kilgarrah. Probably he was the only one who could handle it, after all – and no wonder then, that he knew its name. Arthur's own memory of that night was hazy, ending mid-battle. He'd been only too happy to awaken alive, with the beast gone, no matter how it had happened. And earlier, he and Merlin had ridden to find the last dragonlord – the name came up from deeper in his memory –
"Damn, Merlin," he sighed. "Balinor was your father." He opened his eyes and looked at his friend, at the fear Merlin still carried, the fear that Arthur would be angry with him… He smiled, a little wearily. "Hey, I'll trade you," he offered.
Merlin's lips twitched. "No, I don't think so," he said, and if he didn't sound happy, he sounded proud.
They were interrupted by Arthur's cell phone. "Gwaine and Percival are en route to the hangar," Arthur informed Merlin, bringing them back to the present. "Camelot security and the military project liaison, perfectly honest and above-board."
"And Elyan?" Merlin said, sliding to the edge of his chair.
Arthur checked the list of texts from the young naval officer. "He says the navy is helping to cover the drones' locations in Moscow, Beijing, Paris, and London."
Merlin shook his head. "I still find it hard to believe," he said. "That they could organize something like this so quickly."
"Well, Elyan's specialty is counter-terrorism surveillance," Arthur said. "A tip of this magnitude, even without much evidence, the navy can't exactly ignore it, can they? And these nations can't exactly ignore a tip that the U.S. Navy wants to check out, either."
Merlin twitched, swinging his desk chair back and forth like an impatient child. "How can you be so calm?" he demanded. "All of this happening, and we're just sitting here?"
Arthur rolled his eyes. "I trust my knights," he said. "And so do you. Any of these other cities – even London – we could hardly have gotten there in time, even if they would have included us. No, our place is Camelot, this morning." He repeated what he'd told his father earlier.
The phone pinged. Another message from Elyan. The fifth team was in place in Tokyo. "All five missing drones covered," Arthur said. "Now we wait. Where's Carol, by the way?"
"She's taking care of a problem in Accounting," Merlin said absently. "They have a benign virus in one of their central programs, but it'll take her all morning to stop it replicating."
Arthur snorted, and the room returned to silence. Relative silence. Outside the IT office, phones rang and employees typed, gossiped, consulted, drank coffee, used printers and copiers. The janitor with his cart emptied waste baskets from each desk.
"I miss Lancelot," Merlin said abruptly, then glanced quickly at Arthur, as if afraid he'd said the wrong thing.
"I do, too," Arthur said honestly.
"Do you know," Merlin ventured, "when it happened?" His eyes were far away as he stared out the window. Perhaps remembering Lancelot's death – sacrifice – for the first kingdom of Camelot. Only Merlin had witnessed that. Arthur would not allow himself to think of what had come after.
"Percival said," Arthur tried to remember exactly, "a year ago on May eleven."
"A year ago on May eleven," Merlin repeated, his gaze sharpening. He looked at Arthur, the blood draining from his face.
"What is it?" Arthur said.
"That's – that's," Merlin stuttered, "that's when I had the – the fire, the burn – my leg." Growing dread on his face. "I woke up, and my bed was on fire," he said. "They told the cops I'd been smoking in my room – but I never smoke indoors…" He stared at Arthur, who stared back. "What if I knew? Arthur – damn… what if I could have – done something about it?"
Arthur said carefully, "If your accident and that IED were at all connected, I'm sure you would not have had the time to warn anyone, even if you had known who to tell." He paused, and added more forcefully, "You could not have saved him, any more than you could have the last time."
Merlin shook his head slowly, horror darkening the blue of his eyes. "I could have, before," he said. "I got distracted…"
"Merlin," Arthur said sharply. "What's done is done. Lancelot knew what he was doing, then and now, and what I know is this – he would not have wanted you to blame yourself."
Merlin nodded, but the misery didn't entirely leave his expression. Arthur thought of the odds of such a coincidence – an unexplained fire in Merlin's bedroom the day Lancelot was killed. He thought further back to the thirty-seven phone calls when Merlin's mother and brother were attacked… and seven-year-old Merlin, unconscious for two days.
"Merlin," he said slowly, not wanting to alarm his young friend, "where were you on 9-11?"
Merlin swung his chair around to face the blank computer screens waiting for him. "Sick in the hospital," he answered. "You?"
"School day," Arthur answered. "Fourth grade – middle of reading class. What did you have? You must have been pretty sick."
Merlin shrugged. "I don't remember. I think someone told me they thought it was meningitis. I was in a coma all week, they didn't think I would live."
Arthur took a deep breath. Okay. Even if he was right and Merlin might have instinctively felt the attack, this wasn't the time or the place to get into it. He made a mental note to discuss the issue with Gaius.
"Why don't you do a last check on the locations of the drones," he suggested. "And maybe give this hacker a sense that we're still – looking. In the dark, but looking. If it was me, I'd be suspicious if my enemy backed off suddenly and completely." Merlin glanced at him, initiating start-up sequences to bring his network to life, and Arthur saw the question. "I want him to think he knows what we're doing, think he's far more clever and in control."
Merlin smiled, a mix of two personalities showing in an open approval of Arthur's plan as well as a darker glee for the havoc he'd been instructed to wreak. "You want him to underestimate us," he said.
Arthur seated himself at Carol's desk. "Exactly," he said, opening his email account and preparing to use the Instant Messenger feature. Texting wasn't fast enough for this morning's work, but they needed more discretion than the radio system they'd used when entering the hangar.
Report, he ordered each one of his knights.
All teams waiting for orders to move, from Elyan. Technicians included, capable of recapturing signal in case of early launch. Twenty-nine minutes and counting til greenlight.
Arrived at test site safely, from Leon. Waiting for remaining drone to arrive. TD, 2 Cols, and UAV operator.
Arthur messaged Leon back, Suspect operator involvement?
Not at this point. Behind him, Arthur heard Merlin's keyboards clacking away as he typed at his usual top speed.
A message from Gwaine arrived, the longest of all three. In truck with Percival, Acheson, extra guard – new man. We were not allowed inside the hangar, drone removed covered with concealing sheet, we were not allowed to check it. Acheson and extra resentful of our presence, but unsuspicious. Shall we take the drone?
Arthur responded, Hold. All six simultaneous. Twenty-one minutes.
"Merlin?" he said, turning his chair around to check on the young sorcerer.
"The five are still in the same locations," Merlin reported, his voice sounding tense. "I let this guy notice me trying to hack his system, being clumsy…" Arthur smiled, though Merlin still had his back to him. "But he reacted by hacking into Camelot's system, and with my network tied up monitoring the drones, I'm having a hard time keeping him out… He's trying to pin me down…" Merlin's fingers flew, key clattering as he worked first one keyboard, then both, then just the second, his head turning in an attempt to follow all his screens at once.
Arthur stood. "What do you mean?" he asked, not wanting to distract Merlin, but unable to shake a sense of foreboding.
"If I let him into Camelot, he can do a lot of damage in a split second," Merlin said. "If I let him find me, he finds that we know where all the drones are. If I stop him, he knows I'm not some idiot beginner…"
Suddenly he stiffened, his hands freezing midair. Arthur was at his side in an instant, though he understood next to nothing of Merlin's work. "What?" he demanded. "What is it?"
"His screen name," Merlin whispered, his face ashen. "Mordred."
That name struck Arthur's heart, also. Surely not… Then common sense overruled irrational fear. "It's not him, Merlin," Arthur said.
"How can you know?"
"Think for a minute. We retained our ages relative to one another," Arthur said. "Gaius is around seventy, my father is upper fifties, Leon is almost ten years older than Gwen the knights and I, and you're a few years younger. When you were eighteen, how old would Mordred have been?"
Merlin breathed a little easier, some color coming back in his face. "He'd have been… eleven or twelve."
"It's not the same Mordred," Arthur said confidently.
"Then why would someone –"
"It makes sense, I guess," Arthur said. "If you're planning to attack Camelot…"
"You'd take the name Mordred," Merlin finished, beginning to work the keyboard once again. "Yes, you're right, I shouldn't have –"
He froze once again, his head turned sideways to stare at one screen. "No," he breathed.
"Merlin, what?"
"The London drone has been launched."
"Give Elyan the order - greenlight, greenlight," Arthur snapped instantly.
The sorcerer flung one hand out behind him, and the keyboard at Carol's desk began to rattle and type. Arthur leaped for the seat, studying the screen. Merlin had sent a near-instantaneous message – GO!GO!GO! London team exposed – drone launched. Take all other sites immediately!
"No, you don't, you sonuva –" Merlin muttered behind him. "You may think you're a slippery little – oh! you jackass!"
Arthur took control of the computer once Elyan had messaged a confirmation of the order. It made him feel cold and sweaty at once to think that in five major capitals in Europe and Asia, elite teams were deploying to secure heavy explosives from a terrorist threat. Somewhere outside the IT office a woman laughed.
Arthur messaged Gwaine – Take it now!
There was no response. Arthur imagined Gwaine shutting his laptop, signaling Percival, both men bursting into action. Gwaine would subdue and secure the guards, while Percival - next to Merlin the most knowledgeable about the drone's technology - would be responsible for grounding the weapon.
"Oh, no you don't!" Merlin gritted between clenched teeth, fingers racing across the keys. Arthur left Carol's computer to stand silently beside his friend, whose face was twisted into a nearly unrecognizable snarl of determination. Blue eyes flashed golden – and again – and again. "There – see how you like your little toy at the bottom of the North Atlantic," Merlin said, sitting back with a grim laugh. He glanced up at Arthur, and wiped a trickle of sweat from the side of his face, wincing at the pull of injured muscles. Arthur too felt the tension mainly in his left shoulder blade. "I think we did it, sire," he said, looking a teenager again.
"You remember what you said when we were waiting to face Cenred's army?" Arthur asked. " 'Look what we've got – you and me.' "
Merlin scoffed. "You said, Merlin, what exactly are you going to do?"
"Protect me, like you've always done," Arthur finished, feeling an exultant smile coming to his face, as he gave a twist to the conclusion of that brief exchange, fifteen hundred years ago, "And God help anyone who gets in our way!" Merlin laughed.
Ping! came from the computer behind them. Ping! It was a pleasant, jolly sound, an alert to good news received, confirmation of victory. Arthur didn't hurry, but collapsed in the chair and keyed to open the message from Elyan. Moscow secure. Paris secure. Beijing and Tokyo secure. London-based UAV launched, but inexplicably crashed into the North Atlantic.
Arthur laughed out loud. Inexplicable – that was Merlin, all right. "We did it," he whispered. "We did it."
Ping! Message from Leon. He clicked it open. DRONE LAUNCHED! Orders received two minutes after truck arrived at site during unloading. Two guards and UAV operator detained, Percival mid-deactivation when drone launched remotely. DC DRONE ROGUE!
Arthur straightened. Behind him, Merlin spat a sudden and surprising curse. "No," the sorcerer said. "No, no, nonono! Arthur!"
"Where's it going, where's it going?" Arthur called. Where could it go? – eight missiles – D.C.
"I can get it back," Merlin mumbled. "Just give me one – second… Hell. Fire."
The lanky sorcerer burst from his chair and scrambled for the door, ignoring Arthur's startled yelp of "Merlin!" Arthur barreled out of the office in time to see Merlin slide down the banister like a suicidal lunatic, reaching the ground floor in seconds. "You idiot," Arthur muttered to himself, "You left your computer behind!" He leaped down the stairs, taking several at each step, but careful not to fall and break his fool ankle.
"Arthur?" Gwen questioned, standing behind the receptionists' desk, eyes wide and frightened.
Arthur slammed through both sets of glass front doors and followed Merlin to the wide front lawn, green, unshaded, and sticky with humidity.
The sorcerer was now motionless, face uplifted, eyes closed. Arthur stopped an arms' length away from Merlin. He didn't speak. He heard nothing but a soft buzzing, like a platoon of bees in a rose garden, or a model airplane in a suburban backyard. Merlin's face turned fractionally to the north – and time slowed.
Merlin's arms came up, his whole body braced like he was an outfielder in the World Series, and the game-winning catch was dropping, the size of a watermelon.
Or the size of half a Mustang.
Arthur blinked, and just that fast, the sleek white UAV hung glittering in the air above them, nearly touching the top of the metal sculpture. There was a moment of absolute silence, broken only by the whirring of the turbo fan propellers and the power source.
You can catch, he wanted to say, but the horrible tension in Merlin's body, the grimace of pain twisting his face, stopped the words in Arthur's mouth.
"I can't – hold it long," Merlin gritted between his teeth. Sweat stood out on his pale face. His fingers were like claws. "You have to – remove those missiles."
Can't you just set it down, died also. Merlin was doing what he could – all he could. Arthur dashed back into the lobby. "Gwen – a screwdriver," he demanded. Patty gaped at him, but Gwen unquestioningly yanked open a drawer, rummaged, then yanked open a second, handing Arthur a single yellow-handled tool.
Arthur turned to leave, and froze. Noticing the trajectory of the drone, realizing the target the angry unknown Mordred had sent the last drone toward. Camelot. To the location of the other computer wizard who'd managed to frustrate the attack.
"Gwen," he said. "Pull the fire alarm. Get everyone out of here."
Her chocolate brown eyes widened, but she nodded wordlessly.
He raced back outside – it was unseemly for a prince or a king to hurry when not directly involved in a battle – but for a random intern, not so much… and weren't they directly involved in the battle, now.
His Kenneth Coles slipped on the smooth silver finish of the sculpture and he dropped half a foot downward. Sweat ran in his eyes and he gritted his teeth on the handle of the screwdriver, resuming his climb.
The metal sculpture hadn't been designed with save-the-world climbers in mind. He slipped again and sliced open the heel of his left hand. The silence and heat was eerie and oppressive, every movement felt agonizingly slow. He didn't waste time trying to check on Merlin, verbally or visually.
The drone slid forward about three inches before stopping again. It quivered in midair.
Arthur wound his legs around the curve of sculpture closest to the drone and reached up. His own hands were shaking. The cuff of his left sleeve was already soaking in blood from the cut on his hand.
He found, to his relief, that though each missile had its own snug jacket of support, he could remove the apparatus holding all four to the drone's wing at once.
Unfortunately, the designers and builders had never intended the part to remove from the UAV so easily. Arthur worked grimly in silence, vaguely aware of the shrieks and shouts of Camelot employees exiting the building to such a bizarre sight. He made haste slowly, knowing that to strip any one of the screws was to condemn them all.
Finally the four conjoined missiles came away in his hand – heavier than he thought, and he almost dropped them. He almost fell in not dropping them. He wedged the grouping into a gap in the sculpture.
"Arthur," Merlin warned, desperation in his tone. Arthur risked a quick look over his shoulder as he shifted to the opposite side of the sculpture to retrieve the second set of HMX explosives.
Merlin hadn't moved except to drop his head down between his arms – but he lifted it again, deathly pale. His arms shook. A trickle of blood ran from his nose, over the corner of his mouth, down the side of his jaw, mixing with the sweat.
Arthur worked faster.
He hoped everyone was out of the building. He hoped they were all still running – driving – whatever – as far and as fast as they could. He hoped Guinevere was safe, wished he'd taken one split second to say those three words one more time.
Maybe it was sirens he heard, not his own heartbeat screaming in his ear. The fire department responded to a pulled alarm, didn't it? The drone shuddered above him, crept forward along its flight path. Arthur moved to maintain contact with the screws, switched the tool to his left hand as it was now out of reach of his right, unless he took the time to completely reposition himself aloft the sculpture.
"Almost, almost," he muttered. Hold on, Merlin.
His eyes watered in the glare of the summer sun, high overhead, in the shiny new skin of the drone. The screwdriver slipped from the grooves of the last screw, the handle slick in his hand from the blood. He lost his grip on the tool and it spun to the manicured lawn eight feet beneath him.
Merlin moaned. The UAV leaned toward the sorcerer. Arthur surged upwards, fingers twisting at the final screw, the weight of the combined missiles pulling against it – fumbling.
"Arthur…" He heard – felt – Merlin's breath leave his lungs, and reacted, lunging upwards to grip the four-missile device, trying to physically wrench it from the drone, as time sped up and everything happened at once.
His legs knocked together, fluttering behind him like a pennant in the breeze of sudden and swift flight. One shoe vanished from his foot. He felt the very faintest grinding in his fingertips, before the concrete of the circular drive rushed upward to meet him.
It seemed more important, for one second, to draw breath into his lungs than to pay attention to the immense cacophony of destruction somewhere above and beyond him, when the blast sent him tumbling, scraping knuckles, ribs, elbows, knees, before he came to rest on a very comfortable patch of grass.
Arthur opened his eyes to see four innocuous tubes on the grass just beyond his outstretched hands. Completely still. Intact. His vision blurred, and he made no attempt to correct it.
Vaguely he could hear the sobbing of someone familiar, someone he cared about. Someone he was connected to. He felt hands on his body, pounding, thumping… It didn't matter. He tasted blood, and that didn't matter, either.
A warm liquid sense of peace filled his chest. Like a bath – or a hot tub, with the whirlpool feature bubbling, soothing, massaging his aches away from the inside… it was beautiful… miraculous…
Arthur let go, and drifted away.
Thank you to those who review! Thank you to LFB72, you always seem to 'get' what I'm doing!
My holiday company is coming tomorrow, 24 hours early. And while I'm excited to see my family, I am aware I've left quite a cliffie again. I will honestly do my best to steal a few minutes here and there to get the next (last?) chapter up ASAP. :P
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Text translations:
Arrived at test site safely. Waiting for remaining drone to arrive. TD, 2 Cols, and UAV operator. Thomas Drake, two colonels, and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) operator.