Wash scrambled away from the unconscious Freelancer. It was like seeing a real ghost, not counting Church when he thought he was one. West had been identified dead for almost three years now. Everyone thought that she was the Meta's first victim. Yet here she was, completely insane and as deadly as ever.
Wash was curious, and he crawled back towards West's body. The last time he saw her face, she was a little kid. If you call a nineteen year old a kid. How old was she now? Almost twenty one; he remembered that West's birthday was in the fall.
Carefully, Wash unfastened West's helmet. He took her helmet off and then set it beside him. Wash could feel Grif limping towards them. Grif was gasping in pain from his injured wrist.
"What the hell are you doing, Wash?" Grif asked.
Wash shushed him as he observed West's face. It looked almost the same, except older. It was extremely pale; Wash wondered if West had gotten any sun since she disappeared. There were three long scars that started on the right side of the cheek bone and went down her neck. Her nose was a bit crooked, just how he remembered it back during training. Wash was actually the one that caused that accident, and a gut wrenching emotion emerged in his stomach when he thought about it.
Wash opened one of West's eyes. It was bloodshot, probably because of her current mental state. Wash had never seen West this crazy before, but he had a pretty good idea why she was.
"Okay, can you tell me what the fuck is going on?" Grif impatiently asked.
Wash looked up to see that everyone was by the knocked out Simmons. Doc was treating the maroon soldier's injuries as they spoke. The rest were intently watching Wash examine their attacker next to Doc.
"Let's talk with the others." Wash negotiated, "Just help me carry her towards Simmons."
"Dude, I can't carry anything when my wrist is like this." Grif held up a blood seeping hand that looked pretty damaged.
Wash nodded and stood up. Like a fireman, he picked up the unconscious Freelancer and swung her onto his shoulder. West was heavier than she used to be, but he had almost no issue going uphill from where he was. Grif followed Wash, glaring at the unconscious girl and wishing that he could just shoot her right there.
"I see you two are fine." Tucker addressed when they were in earshot.
"Say that to my wrist. And my face." Grif muttered as he headed towards the medic.
With Simmons' bleeding stopped, his head all bandaged up, and still unconscious, Doc turned to help Grif. He let out a startled, "Oh my!" before getting some more gauze ready. Doc started to disinfect the wounds when the rest of the Simulation Soldiers ignored the two. Soon, all eyes were on Wash and the drugged Freelancer.
"Is that the Freelancer you were talking about?" Tucker asked, "Why didn't you kill her?"
Wash had already told everyone at the meeting about the Freelancer, so the only one left out of the loop was a Grif. But to tell the truth, he was in too much pain to worry about who had attacked him.
"Because I know her." Wash stated as he set West down onto the ground next to Simmons.
He took off his helmet to get a better look at the Simulation Soldiers. Everyone did the same, and their faces were a mixture of hatred, shock, and fear.
"But didn't you know all the Freelancers?" Sarge asked, his voice gruff and eyes steady.
"I should rephrase that: I know her like a little, infuriating sibling, who hates me." Wash explained, "I couldn't kill her."
"That doesn't mean that I can't." Tucker said as he activated his sword. He lunged forward, but was stopped by Caboose. "What the hell?"
"It's not polite to kill people." Caboose said, still holding Church's blanket.
"Like you're the one to talk, Caboose." Tucker muttered.
"And what does that mean?" Caboose questioned, his voice rising with each word.
"I think you know just what it means!" Tucker shouted back, his voice dripping with rage.
"Now settle down, you two." Sarge said as he put himself between the two Blues. He still had Amnesia, but a Freelancer was worse news than two incompetent Blues. "Let's just talk about this like rational men, you turds."
Tucker shoved himself away from Sarge's touch and made a grumbling sound. He crossed his arms like a little kid. Caboose followed suit, but not before tying Church's blanket around his waist.
"Now start from the beginning, Wash. Who is this Freelancer and why would she want to attack us?"
Sarge calmly asked.
"This is Agent West Virginia. Another one of Project Freelancers experiments. I told you about North and South Dakota, right? How North was the one that had the AI, and South went without. West Virginia was a part of another experiment like that. Except this one was with age difference. West was the youngest Freelancer to have an implantation, while Agent Virginia was the oldest." Wash started.
"At first, the experiment looked like a success." Wash continued. "The younger the person was when they were implanted with an AI unit; the easier it was for both the AI and the person to cooperate together. However, there was one side effect that permanently damaged West Virginia. Her brain had grown to depend on an AI unit to help function. If an AI unit was removed from her brain, she would gradually loose brain function."
"It was determined that if she went for half a year without an AI construct, she would die." Wash stated.
It was silent for a second.
"Well that doesn't answer squat about why she attacked us!" Tucker yelled.
"To tell you the truth, Tucker, I don't know why. Maybe she was close to death and wanted to see if I had an AI unit with me." Wash said. "I didn't even know she was still alive."
"I can tell you why she attacked us." Grif said as he stood up with his new bandages. Doc also stood up to check on the drugged, unconscious Freelancer. "She wanted Caboose."
Everyone turned to face Caboose, who had stopped listening to their conversation a while ago. He was currently snuggling some more with Church's old blanket. Wash was starting to regret giving him that thing. Caboose noticed that everyone was looking at him and he stared back.
"Hi." Caboose waved.
"Then my only guess was that she heard about Caboose having the Epsilon Unit." Wash presumed, "I told you that she needs an AI to live."
"Okay, so a mentally insane Freelancer came here to find an AI unit to save herself from death. And along the way, she wanted to kill of us." Tucker summed up, still holding his activated sword ready.
Wash nodded, knowing how bad that sounded.
"Okay, I think it's time for a poll." Tucker announced. In the past few weeks, polls had become a daily thing for the Simulation Soldiers. Any decisions that affected all of them were made in the form of a poll. "Everyone raise their right hand if they want to kill this Bitch."
Tucker raised his own hand. Grif also raised his hand, as he was carrying a grudge from his injured wrist. And unexpectedly, Doc raised his hand too in agreement.
"Doc?" Wash asked, surprised about his involvement.
"I may be a pacifist, Wash. But I don't want her to wake up and kill all of us. This girl is bad news." Doc explained as he was treating her wound to the shoulder. "The only reason why I'm treating her is because it's my job."
"Okay, everyone raise their right hand if we should let West Virginia live and then decide what to do from there." Wash said.
Wash raised his hand and waited to see who else would too. To his amazement, and Grif's, Sarge raised his.
"What the fuck, Sarge?" Grif asked his superior. "Why do you want her to live; she almost killed Simmons!"
"Yes, but she also almost killed you!" Sarge said, approving the insane woman's actions. "She had the opportunity and she took it without hesitation. Besides, Blue Team always gets the Freelancers. First Tex, and now apparently Wash. Its high time Red Team gets our own Freelancer. And she's just what I want. I call Dibs!"
"I can't believe this is happening . . ." Grif muttered.
Everyone turned to face Caboose, who was still thinking if he should raise his hand or not. Sarge had said that the mean lady had almost killed his team member. And Sarge sounded . . . happy about that. And Caboose had killed Church more than a couple times. And Church was happy about that. So . . . that meant the lady had a lot in common with him.
And to everyone's utter bewilderment, Caboose raised his hand, smiling like a little kid.
"I think we should not kill her." Caboose said through his huge smile.
Tucker and Grif groaned in unison. Tucker muttered out of everyone's hearing range, "I don't even want to know why he said that."
"So, it appears that we are at a standstill." Sarge announced, "Three votes to kill her, and three votes to not kill her. The suspense is tearing me apart!"
"What about Simmons? I'm sure he'd vote to kill her." Grif pointed out.
"Grif, Simmons is out cold. It's not fair to vote for someone else." Doc said, reverting to his pacifism, "We just have to wait for West Virginia to vote for herself in a couple minutes."
It was silent as everyone took in Doc's last sentence.
"What did you just say?" Wash asked.
"I said we have to wait for the girl to wake up. The dart I used to knock her out only has an effect that last's for twelve minutes. And that was ten minutes ago." Doc said in an almost jolly manner.
Everyone snapped to attention. No matter if they wanted to kill the new Freelancer or not, she was still a danger if left unbound. They had to use precaution around her.
"Quick! Tie her wrists together!" Wash ordered. Caboose jumped to help Wash.
"I got her ankles!" Tucker joined in. "Give me an extra pair of hands, Doc!"
"No! I'm treating her injuries! Get Sarge to help you!"
"I'll never help a dirty Blue." Sarge muttered, still having no recollection of the past few weeks.
Everyone who was still conscious turned to face Sarge; their faces were the same copy of panic and fear. It was surprising for Sarge to see the whole lot of them, Reds and Blues alike, acting as one whole body. As if they were all equal. For a brief second, it looked like it didn't matter what side they were on, they just acted as one group to yell at him.
"Just do it!" Everyone shouted at Sarge at the exact same time, except for Caboose who shouted just a couple seconds after they finished. "Just it . . . do!
Sarge grumbled out a response and bent down to help Tucker.
As fast as they could, the simulation soldiers used Doc's extra gauze to bind up her limbs. Although extremely stretchy, the gauze held together as Wash and Tucker wrapped it around the Freelancer's ankles and wrists.
Just as they finished tying the girl up like a cow, West started to moan and fidget around. Everyone except for Wash readied their weapon of choice. Sarge even bent down to make sure his shotgun was in her face. Wash shoved him out of the way so he wouldn't scare West into another attack.
They formed a half circle around the Freelancers. Doc, Tucker, and Sarge were just behind Wash as he eased West bake to awareness. Caboose was poking around Tucker and Sarge, curious and yet frightened of the new arrival. Grif stayed out of the circle, with Simmons. He wanted to make sure Simmons would be alright.
"Hey, West." Wash whispered to try and arouse her. He bent down so she could get a better look at him when she actually would wake up. "Come on, West. Wake up."
West grumbled a bit and then answered him with a soft, "Fuck off."
Wash laughed a little, remembering that that was the first thing she said directly to him. She probably didn't mean to say those exact words. It's just what she was thinking in her ailing state.
"If you don't wake up now, I'll leave you with our Medic." Wash threatened sternly.
"What does she have against medics?" Doc defensively asked as he finished bandaging her bad shoulder. Doc was quickly shushed by the rest of the Simulation Soldiers.
"Alright, alright." West muttered. She tried to rub her eyes open with her hands, but they were tied down. As soon as she realized that, her eyes opened wide and they took everything in. "What the fuck did you do to my hands?"
Grif exploded then, and he pushed everyone out of his way so he could give West a piece of his mind.
"What the fuck did you do to my hand?" Grif shouted. His face was as red as a tomato, furious, and he raised his hand at her to make his point.
Sarge shoved him back behind the circle so he couldn't spook the girl into another attack. But it wasn't needed, because West wasn't paying an ounce of her attention to any of the Simulation Stooges. Her eyes were, actually only one eye was, fixated on a single face. Her jaw slightly dropped from the shock.
"David?" West whispered.
"Yeah, it's me, Leslie." Wash nodded his head.
"Man, you look old." West said, taking in every detail that was changed over time. Wash looked older to her, not the college kid she remembered. "I thought you were dead."
"I could say the same thing." Wash stated, "But you look pretty close to death right now."
"Oh, ha ha." West muttered, not actually being jolly about it. She then looked around her, "Who the hell are these people?"
But before anyone could say anything to her, insulting or not, Doc intervened. He stood up to look down at her and tried to feel more superior than he was capable of.
"Now's not the time for introductions." Doc said, waving a finger at her. "Now's the time for resting. From what I can tell, you need to recuperate your brain and rest your shoulder."
West could immediately tell that Doc was a medic, and she scowled at him. Memories of medics from Project Freelancer jumped in her head, and they shot down her faith in Doc. However, Wash had complete trust in the incompetent medic and picked the constrained Freelancer up. He groaned at the weight difference, but she was actually fairly easy to lift.
"Wha—, Wash? What are you doing?" West panicked as Wash began to follow Doc into Blue Base. "I'm not going in there with that butcher!"
However, Wash ignored the screaming girl and continued towards Blue Base. Doc was leading the way and was humming merrily for some odd reason. The rest of the Simulation Soldiers just watched them as they entered the base, the newly arrived Freelancer screaming at the top of her lungs.
"So," Grif said, "can we bunk with you guys tonight? I don't want to be within a hundred feet of her."
Tucker nodded understanding. "Dude, can we bunk with you guys forever? I have a pretty good guess that she's gonna stay with us. I mean, with Blue Team after Doc stops torturing her."
Everyone nodded their heads and gave out some other form of agreement. Without further adieu, they turned around and grabbed an unconscious Simmons and started to make their journey towards Red Base.
Poor Simmons, they dragged his limp body on the ground as they left; only pulling him forward with his left leg. That would be sore when he would wake up later.