Q&A

"So, what?" Colin asked as the chauffeur just stood, waiting for them. "We get in and, what? Drugged? Gassed? Taser-ed?" He asked Mag who shrugged.

"I wasn't expecting this." Mag admitted, looking around. The private airstrip was eerily quiet except for noises for the plane. The tiny airstrip seemed too small for the massive military jet, but Colin knew appearances could be deceiving. Mag looked like aircrew herself in the flightsuit, but she was dangerous beyond belief. Mag paused and then called out to the man in the tux. "Um, a moment, please?"

The man shrugged and moved to the side of the limo. He did not seem to be carrying a weapon, but then again, neither did Mag. He folded the sign and then stood by the driver's side door, clearly waiting for them.

"A van with a wacko mad scientist who I thought was my mother. A military airplane, but not run by the military." Colin said slowly. "A tac team that shot at you as silly as that was. That took me and you prisoner and were sending us somewhere." He looked at Mag who nodded for him to continue. "Add an escapee from a loony bin who was put in there following a warehouse filled with nasty things that ate all the workers but him." Colin shook his head. "I am not seeing a connection. Besides me that is."

"Neither am I." Mag was a bit dubious herself. "I mean, you are involved, but you have no idea what is going on any more than I do. That seems to be a regular limo. I am not picking up anything odd." Colin looked at her and Mag sighed. "You know I have powers, Colin."

"And I won't ask unless I have to." He smiled at Mag who returned it. "They are clearly bad-ass, but if real life rules apply to those? They have to have downsides." Colin heaved a sigh and then shrugged. "I don't see anyone willing to answer any questions out here except the driver and I doubt he has any of the answers we want or he probably wouldn't be standing out here waiting for us." Mag nodded, a frown on her face but then she shook her head. "I had a couple of friends who drove for…" He slumped. "Or… I think I had friends." Was anything he remembered real?

"Come on. We won't get any answers standing out here." Mag took Colin's hand and led him towards the limo. The driver nodded and opened a door for them, holding it open. Mag eyed the driver but he just nodded to her and held the door.

Colin was ready for almost anything when he entered the limo. Key word, 'almost'. He just about bolted when he saw someone else was sitting in the limo waiting for them and not just anyone! Colin stopped short, but Mag was pushing him and he wasn't about to argue with her. He didn't know the man, but Colin knew of him. Mag hissed when she saw the sitting man, but helped Colin in and get himself seated before she turned to the sitting man whose bald head shone oddly in the muted interior lights. He wasn't as well known as Donald Trump, but he was far richer than that man.

"I hope you have a good explanation, Jeff." Mag said flatly and Colin went still at her tone. She knew the man?

"I don't know about 'Good', Mag, but I do have bits of an explanation and an apology." The one time CEO of Colin's company said heavily as Mag fastened Colin's seat belt and sat herself, fastening hers. "An apology for both of you, actually." His stare was quite a bit intimidating even if he didn't seem to be trying.

"I…" Colin stammered, but Mag took hold of his hand and he stilled as she shook her head.

"Colin, it is okay. Jeff here is bit nuts, but as far as I have seen, he tries not to be a bad guy." Mag eyed the other as another door closed and the limo settled a bit. Then the engine purred into life and motion was felt. Neither of the newcomers looked away from the other man who met their gazes.

"In the world we live in, that is far harder than I ever thought when I was young. Money and power make poor consolation when decisions that I made haunt me. You were so right, Mag. I was a fool." One of the richest men in the world said sadly. "They did not hurt either of you, did they?" He seemed honestly concerned. Mag shook her head and he relaxed a little. Just a little. "I had to trust people that I shouldn't have had to to pull this meeting off. This has all been a mess from the get go."

"Were you involved with what they did?" Mag asked, her tone odd. Not gentle. Not kind. But calmer than Colin expected the woman to be.

"No, but I don't expect you to believe me." Jeff looked at the floor. Then he looked at Colin and when he spoke again, it was compassionate. "Colin. I am sorry for what you have gone through. I am ultimately responsible for what happened. It was not at my direction. Not at my orders, but it was my company that did it."

"Who made me." Colin whispered and the creator of the company that had employed him nodded.

"I got out of the CEO chair. I stepped back. Worked to separate myself from all of it. This? This makes me wonder all of what I have missed not getting daily briefs on the company. Add to that? I started looking for answers and I got way too few of them. I have been getting the runaround ever since I got the call from Hayden, Mag." Jeff was very unhappy now. He looked out the window, his face pensive. "I didn't believe him at first, but then Lynn got on the line and her explanation…" He broke off and made a sick face as Mag chuckled. The laugh had little mirth.

"Lynn is a lot of things, Jeff. Politically correct is generally not one of them." Mag kept hold of Colin's hand and her face held a sick smile. "I can just imagine how it got."

"I learned more about human genetics in five minutes than I ever wanted to know." Jeff agreed with a matching sick look. "Mag, you were right." Jeff took a deep breath. "They want weapons. They want to do the same as those fools tried in Mexico, if slightly less harsh." Colin stared at the man who had more money that any three millionaires and Jeff snorted. "Do not make her mad, Colin. Bad idea." Mag looked prim and Jeff shook his head. "Mag, I don't know what I can do. They are not listening to me. After all, I was 'corrupted'. I saw firsthand what the virus does." Colin stared as the insanely rich man shuddered. "If not for you, I would have been turned into one of those things just as surely as anyone else." Colin's jaw dropped and Jeff shook his head. "Some of my subordinates got the idea for a new product. Something to sell. Unfortunately, they decided that they needed to test said product first. Not that Mag and her people hadn't tested such fairly thoroughly, but my erstwhile employees, may they all enjoy whatever hell they landed in, didn't care. So they had a test and a demonstration all in one." He chuckled, but with little mirth. "Hell of a demonstration."

"You were there?" Colin managed and Jeff nodded with Mag.

"I was." Jeff pursed his lips. "I was, am, still the face of the company, even with as little as I do for it on a day to day basis. They wanted me there to open a new facility. No one told me all of what was being made there. I learned that day that sometimes, it is best to ask such things before showing up." Colin stared at him and Jeff nodded. "Yeah. I saw firsthand what you did in the warehouse, Colin. If not for Mag here, I would be dead." Again, the chuckle that had little mirth. "After I calmed down, I asked Mag and her people what I could do to help. They gave me a much better formula for a counter to the Technocyte virus than the company had come up with. Not a cure, but a counter."

"Enferon." Colin looked at Mag who nodded. "You gave him the recipe for Enferon?"

"He had and has contacts all over the world." Mag shrugged, but still held Colin's hand. "We have been seeing more and more attempts to weaponize the virus. It is a very powerful and scary weapon. So many people see it as the ultimate weapon and want to use it as such. Eventually, no matter how hard we fight or learn to use our powers, we will fail to stop an outbreak. It is not a question of if, it is a question of when. When that happens… Humanity needed an edge." Mag looked away. "I may not be human anymore, but I remember being human. Even with all the bad I see on a daily basis, I do not want humanity to die."

"Which proves my point all too well, my dear." Jeff was intent now. Odd. "You Tenno are so much better than we humans are, it is just not funny."

"Different." Mag looked at the floor of the limo. "We are not better or worse, Jeff. We are different."

"Mag, any human would be crushed by the duty you and your kin took." Jeff replied, still intent. "In the last few years, humanity got a glimpse of the true scale of horror that you and yours face every day. Few of us had any idea how bad things would get when COVID first appeared and all that the coronavirus does is kill. Technocyte is far worse." Mag was shaking her head, but Jeff wasn't done. "It is not nobility, or naivete or pragmatism or realpolitik or whatever. It is what you do, Mag and you are good at it."

"You are not unbiased." Mag retorted, but the corners of her mouth were turning up.

"You made a hell of a first impression, girl." Jeff smiled wide as Mag actually blushed! Whatever disguise she was wearing, it was darned good! He turned to Colin and his smile tightened a bit, but as still heartfelt. "If you ever do make her mad? Even if it is not your fault, apologize instantly. Grovel. Do whatever it takes to make her smile. Do not let her stay mad or it will get very messy."

"Jeff." Mag's tone turned frosty in warning.

"Five fighter jets and how many APCs filled with mercenaries?" Jeff inquired, his smile wide now as Mag sputtered.

"What the hell happened?" Colin asked, bemused by all this. Jeff sighed, his smile fading and Colin stiffened. "Um, sir?"

"Like I said, I was in Mexico to open a new facility." Jeff was not looking at either of the other occupants of the limo now. He was staring off into space at something only he could see. "Truth be told? I wasn't thinking about much beyond my next expansion into space. Trying to beat Musk into the final frontier. It is my thing." He shrugged as Colin eyed him askance. "The test subjects broke containment in the facility and I was whisked into a saferoom with all the other VIPs. Security promised us they had it under control. Probably to keep us from panicking."

"Almost certainly." Mag reached out with her free hand to pat Jeff's still hand where it lay on an armrest. "It wasn't your fault, Jeff."

"I know that, Mag." Jeff took a deep breath and then continued. "But the knowledge does not help me sleep at night. Every security person in the facility died, Colin. The creatures were battering at the door to the safe room. There were nine of us crammed into an area maybe the size of this limo. We had access to the security cameras but I wish I hadn't looked." Jeff continued, almost in a monotone. "I did things that crossed the line as a CEO. Compromised in far too many ways, but I had never seen personal violence on that scale before. It was an eye opener for me, watching people I knew and trusted getting eaten."

"Yeah, me too." Colin muttered, aghast that he and the former CEO of his company had shared such a horrific thing.

"What was done to you was bad, Colin." Jeff wasn't pulling any punches. He wasn't evading or obfuscating like Trump had. No, he was facing the music. "What is worse? I don't know if it was my fault or not."

"Jeff." Mag chided the richer than rich man gently but Jeff wasn't dissuaded.

"You saved us all that day, Mag." Jeff looked at Mag and his eyes held wonder, awe and more than a bit of fear, but also respect. "They would have bombed us. Hell, they were on their way to."

"They were bombing me, Jeff." Mag shook her head. "You lot were just in the way."

"You didn't see the full report, did you?" Jeff asked and Mag stared at him. Then the female shook her head. "The Mexican government was apprised that a nasty bioweapon was loose, so they sent that squadron with orders to napalm the site." Mag went still and Jeff nodded. "In so far as it goes? A good idea, but we were still there and we would have fried along with the Infected. You would have survived, I am sure. Us? Not so much."

"So, when I tried to get them to abort, they ignored me because they had orders." Mag slumped. "Damn… I didn't know. Hayden might have, but he wouldn't tell me if he thought it would hurt me to know."

"All the pilots got out safely, Mag." Jeff was gentle now as he covered her hand with both of his. "You didn't kill any of them. Now, as for the others? You shocked me with what you did, but when I found out what they did from Lynn and Hayden? I don't blame you in the slightest." His tone was warm, comforting. "Yes, it was excessive, but hey… It was you and they kidnapped you from your vacation! You had every right to be mad."

"They what?" Colin scowled as both the others looked at him. Where had this rage that bubbled up inside Colin come from? Why was it rising so fast? "Who?"

"Colin. Calm." Mag all but pleaded as Jeff shied away a little bit. "They didn't hurt me. They wanted a slave, not a corpse."

"Who?" Colin demanded of Jeff who sighed.

"I don't know." Jeff admitted. "I have been trying to find out who this 'Agency' was who did it. It wasn't the CIA, NSA or any other US government organization. It wasn't a military group. They had military backing, but they were not military. Whoever the hell they were, they were imbeciles for angering Mag." Now, Jeff smiled again, but this time it was more akin to a shark than anything friendly. "Like I said, don't make her mad. They did. End of story and them." Colin stared at the former CEO and Jeff nodded. "She got away from them and no one would have blamed her for simply running, but she saw the facility I was trapped in under attack and did her duty." When he looked at Mag, his eyes held heartbreak. "I had no idea, Mag. None."

"How could you?" Mag asked reasonably. "What I do is insane by any human standard. Some days I wake up and I am astonished I am as sane as I am. Which is not much." She muttered as Colin gripped her hand.

"So, they tried to what? Brainwash you?" Colin asked, calming a little.

"Yeah, but they used human methods and those don't work on me. Drugs only work if you can get them into a person's brain and colored lights do nothing to me." Mag smiled a bit grimly and Colin relaxed further. "I broke loose and took off, as Jeff said. But then I heard the cries of Infected." Her face was pensive again. "Once you hear them, you don't forget." Colin nodded. He heard them in his own dreams far too often. "I called my kin and then went in hard. There were not that many of them but if I had waited, they would have used the dead bodies to make more of themselves."

"Ew." Colin and Jeff chorused and then eyed one another.

"Thinking back? Bombing the place with napalm before they got loose in the countryside was a good plan." Mag shrugged, relaxing. "It wouldn't have stopped the virus, but it would have slowed it enough to maybe contain for a bit."

"And it would have killed everyone still alive there, including my own humble self." Jeff quipped and Mag smiled a bit more naturally. Then the former CEO shook his head. "I don't blame you for stopping the force that was pursuing you. Yes, it was excessive, what you did, but as I said? I don't blame you at all. Heck, Mag! They shot at you and us! I didn't blame you much then and less now."

"They shot at her." Colin shuddered. "Ouch. I saw what happens when people do that."

"From the report I read just before your plane arrived, you saw a tactical team do it." Jeff corrected the man quietly. "'I' saw a full armored column start shooting at her with all kinds of stuff. Cannon, machine guns, rockets, grenades and other things I could not identify. But yeah." He shuddered too. "Like I say, do not make her mad."

"Bad, yeah." Colin agreed even as Mag pouted, but it was clearly fake and she was calmer. So was Colin. Good? Maybe. "So, you and her have history and she gave you Enferon." Jeff nodded. "Where do 'I' come in?"

Jeff looked at Colin and then at Mag who glared at him. The former CEO shook his head but then spoke.

"I am not entirely sure. All records of you start a year after I met her." Jeff was quiet, slow and careful. Clearly he did not want to upset Mag or Colin further. Smart man. "As I said, my investigations into what was done have been given the runaround. What I have found is disturbing." Colin stared at him and then discarded subterfuge.

"Was I made to slave in your warehouse?" Colin demanded and Jeff flinched but then shook his head."What?"

"I am not sure why the people who did it made you as you are." Jeff admitted. "I read all the files that are available and a few that are not supposed to be. HR was a pain, as always." Colin had to chuckle at that. From his tone, even the former CEO had trouble with massive and often unwieldy HR department it seemed. "I do know that you are the only one they made and they shut down the project afterwards." Colin and Mag both looked unconvinced and Jeff shook his head. "That is confirmed by people I know I can trust, Hayden among them."

"You had Hayden investigate?" Mag demanded.

"No." Jeff admitted, a bit sheepish. "After the fire and Colin here was in custody, Hayden snuck in to the offices, searched everything and then told me what he wanted me to know. No more, no less." That last was sour and Mag chuckled with real humor this time.

"Actually, that does sound like Hayden. You never know he is there until after. Sometimes." Mag gave herself a shake. "So, what?"

"Mag, the only thing Hayden said he found that my other investigators did not was an old hard copy manila file folder. It held no file. That was apparently destroyed when the hard drive data was deleted and then the drives formatted. No recovering anything from those." Jeff said with a wince. "That said? None of us can figure what the name on the file folder means."

"What was it?" Mag and Colin asked at the same time and gave each other a look.

''To have and to hold'. That is part of Christian wedding vows, which makes no sense at all." Jeff complained. "None of the other files recovered from that place say anything about that. We don't know if it is important or-" He broke off as Colin hissed. "What?"

"Mag is not human." Colin said softly. "Neither am I. You say I am not supposed to be mass produced, which flies in the face of all the human nature I know of. So, why make one man? It is not like I am going to marry her or...?" He broke off as both of the others stared at each other, shock pouring from both faces. "Um… You did say 'wedding', right?" Now all three shared the same poleaxed expression.

"Oh dear!" All three of them chorused as one. Then they all laughed, but it more than a bit strained.

Who could blame them?