Author's Note: A short one, but it felt right. Next (and final, holy crap!) chapter should be up in the next few days.

The chapter title is punny again, I swear, though it's kind of weird. Well, weirder than usual.

Disclaimer: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc, and I derive no profit from this. Please accept this in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from this intellectual property.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Grounds

The whole base was in an uproar. It was after one AM, but it might have been noon for the number of people awake. People were hurrying here and there, having meetings, whispering in small knots, harassing guards, and wondering why the kitchen was cordoned off by said guards. Excited by the commotion, Junkyard went on a slobber attack in the armory and two lance-corporals were viciously licked.

Annie didn't see much of it. She was escorted/ordered/dragged to the infirmary, where she submitted to a quick-but-thorough examination by a tight-lipped Lifeline. At the end of it he pronounced her shaken but not apparently re-concussed and told her to stay where she was on pain of Medic's Displeasure. Annie, not being willing to court any more disaster, stayed.

Dusty also got a looking-over and was diagnosed (in Lifeline's words) terminally stupid but mostly healthy, with his his busted scalp requiring no more than a butterfly bandage. He was put into another ward, though, and Annie saw several officers—including the general himself—coming and going. Probably confirming bits of their story. The bits of microfiche were excavated from her bra and would hopefully lend credence to her account, though at this point she wasn't even sure she believed it herself any more.

Psyche-Out came to see her. He asked her gently about how she felt and if she wanted to say anything about what had happened. She suspected him of ulterior motives and said as much. He neither confirmed nor denied it. Doubtless that meant something in shrinkese.

At least he brought news. He didn't say so much in plain words, but Annie could read between the lines well enough. There were references to a "longstanding suspicion" and "surveillance of multiple possible threats," as well as "use of a stalking Trojan horse," which she thought she'd misheard originally.

After he left, she sat for a while, staring at the wall. Freshly-laundered BDUs and boots were left on her bed, but she didn't touch them.

How could she process something like this? She'd been used. Not just used in the general fetch-and-carry way—she'd expected that. Whether in the diner or the armed forces, her job was to take orders. But this was all a mess. Everyone was playing their own game, it seemed, and the games had rules she wasn't allowed to look at. And she wasn't a damn horse.

Her mind was still whirling when another pair of boots stopped in front of her. These had feet in them. Large feet in odiferous socks.

"Ten-HUT!" a voice bellowed. Annie's spine straightened automatically, and she found herself standing at attention beside the bed without knowing exactly how it happened.

The feet appeared to be the property of Sgt. Major Beach Head, who despite the late hour somehow retained his ability to convey a scowl right through thick knitted wool. "Private."

"Si—sergeant!"

"So yer memory's improvin'. Good. Yer wanted in interrogation, an' I'm here to make sure you don't accidentally end up in no more vents." His eyes narrowed slightly. "You've got sixty seconds to make yerself presentable. Move!"

"Yes, sergeant!" Annie's body appeared to move without any orders from her brain. She grabbed the pile of clothes and scrambled behind a screen to change. Someone had thoughtfully provided a shirt a size larger than normal, which made it easy to get over her cast, but her hands were still clumsy on the buttons and she emerged sixty-two seconds later dressed but not precisely presentable. Beach Head snorted a little when he saw her but motioned her towards the door anyway.

Vents, her ass. No one would send a sergeant major to escort a private, let alone sending Sgt. Major. This was some kind of message to the base at large, and unless Annie was very badly mistaken, that message wasn't for her. She wasn't yet very fluent in nonverbal Beachese, but she was willing to bet it ran something like "We are on top of this spy shit and any answers this here PFC has we will be getting, so if any of y'all out there are still on Cobra's pay you are in fecal matter above the optimal level."

She had never been to interrogation before, but there was a first time for everything in this unit. Sgt. Major escorted her down a long gray corridor lined with locked doors; when they drew level with the last door in the line, it opened, revealing Lt. Psyche-Out.

"Just in time," the shrink said. "Come on in."

The room didn't look like a place where people came to be waterboarded, which was slightly reassuring. A desk and a couple of chairs were set facing a long soundproof glass window. On the other side of the glass was a much smaller, plainer room, with a familiar red-haired figure sitting slumped in a chair with his manacled hands resting on a table. His arm was heavily bandaged, and from the slightly glazed expression on his face, he was on a lot of painkillers. Annie's heart gave an odd flip at the sight.

In the office with Lt. Psyche-Out were Warrant Officer Flint, First Sergeant Duke, and—oh God—General Hawk. Annie's spine stiffened again and she saluted as best she could.

"At ease," Hawk said. Annie didn't exactly relax, but at least now she could stare at the floor if she wanted to. "PFC Anne Gorshin, currently known as Short Stack. Correct?"

"Yes sir," she said. There didn't seem to be anything else to say.

"Take a seat, private. No one's going to hurt you." Hawk gestured to one of the desk chairs. Annie sat cautiously on the very edge of the seat, waiting for the ax to fall.

To her surprise, Hawk looked tired. There was a fine drift of stubble on his jaw, showing silvery-gray touches, and his eyes had deep lines in each corner. His back was straight, though, and despite the late hour he was fully dressed and definitely alert. There was even a touch of humor as he looked back at her.

"All right," he said. "We're all thoroughly exhausted and annoyed by this whole mess, but there's no time like the present. Private, you were part of a larger plan implemented by myself and these men here. Partially thanks to your hard work and—what was the word you used, Flint? 'Shitkicking,' thank you—two spies inside the Pit have been eliminated. We suspected something like this was going to happen for some time, but you helped push it to this point, and Uncle Sam appreciates your efforts."

Annie sagged a little. This was not the reaming-out she'd expected. "Sir," she said. "I'm completely confused."

"That's understandable. Most of this material is still classified, but if you have any questions, now's the time to ask them."

"Sir, I …" Annie massaged her face with her good hand. Her head was spinning. "Sir, what the fff—" She was cut off by a rising cough in her throat, possibly out of self-defense. Sgt. Major was still right there, after all. "Sir, I don't know what I'm doing any more. How is Murphy a spy? How is Long Arm a spy? I think he was a spy, he tried to kill me. And Murphy had the bottle and the radio and stuff, but he shot Long Arm first? I'm lost."

Hawk smiled wryly. "Our Cobra intel suggested for some time that they had a source inside the Pit. Long Arm was suspected from the beginning, but while some of his movements matched what the spy was doing, this source had information Long Arm couldn't have accessed. Support looked like the most likely weak spot and an inside man was necessary, so when you were disciplined for—what was it, sergeant major?"

"Shoving a jarhead under the sink," Beach Head confirmed. Annie fought the urge to cover her face. God, it was worse than having a permanent record.

"That's right. It's not behavior we like to encourage, but in this case it was a blessing in disguise. We needed an obvious counterspy to draw out Long Arm's accomplice."

Annie looked at the floor for a moment. She wasn't sure how to react to that. Finally she looked up and did what she never thought she'd do: look Hawk in the eye. "Draw him out," she said. "By being obvious. You didn't expect me to find anything?"

"No," Hawk said simply. She would have been happier if the word had come out disdainfully, or with a laugh in it. This was just the plain calm of a man accustomed to moving people around like chess pieces. "You performed above our expectations. G.I Joe is so used to tolerating strange personalities that nobody noticed a box of bullets or a sober drunk."

She looked down again. "What happens now, sir?"

"Now, you're going to help us answer some of the remaining questions." Hawk's tone remained amiable, but there was a hint of steel now. "Murphy isn't talking, and as much as I would like to turn him over to Snake-Eyes, he's a United States citizen and will be treated humanely. He might talk to you, though. Are you willing?"

Annie would bet it wasn't actually a request, but in some oblique way she appreciated the pretense of choice. Her gut was knotting up again and her hands felt clammy, but she couldn't say no.

The idea of Murphy as a spy was just so … foreign. Inexplicable. Weird. He hadn't shot her and probably could have, but that didn't excuse the radio hidden in the bottle or the messages passed in the bullets. She was half-hoping he could provide her with some kind of explanation that would make it all make sense.

"Yes, sir."

Murphy looked up as the door closed behind her. He looked like ten miles of bad road; in addition to the bandaged gunshot wound, he had clearly been tackled by some very unsympathetic MPs. "Hi," he said.

"Hi." Annie settled into the chair opposite him and leaned forward, folding her arms on the tabletop and resting her chin on her crossed wrists. "So. You're a spy."

Murphy barked out a laugh. "Are you serious? That's not very subtle." He raised his shackled hands and gently probed his right eyelid, which was swollen shut and a rather striking shade of violet.

"I'm tired and I am so, so through with this military bullshit." Annie looked up at him under her own half-closed eyelids. "Lifeline is gonna have to clean Long Arm's brains off those pony pajamas, and I don't think he's happy too. Nobody is happy. Please, just tell the truth so we can all go to sleep."

"I'm telling the truth. I'm not a spy." He slumped a little in his chair. "I'm tired too, y'know. This was not what I expected on guard duty."

"You weren't on guard duty. Sgt. Major told me." The words came out a little sharper than she meant. Being lied to, even once, made it that much easier to imagine being lied to before. She didn't want to imagine Murphy lying. She didn't want to imagine someone in support, one of her own fellow 92Gs, being responsible for this. "If you're not a spy, why did you shoot Long Arm?"

"If I was a spy, why would I shoot Long Arm?" Murphy countered. "Wouldn't I have shot you instead?"

Wrong tack, definitely. Now he was putting the burden of proof on her. "Maybe you meant to," she said. "If you recall, I shot you first. But if I was a spy and saw my partner being interrogated by my enemies, I'd do anything to keep him from spilling the beans—"

"Well, there you go. Smart thinking. Maybe you're the spy."

She sighed. "Murph," she said quietly. "Don't play that game with me. Please. I found the hidden radio. It must have been broadcasting for days, maybe weeks or months—beaming out all that gossip right from the horse's mouth. That'd be a valuable resource to Cobra, never mind that crap with bullets in the steam trays." Murphy's mouth tightened a little. "You were the one with the bottle. You were the one G.I. Joe couldn't pin down. I'm betting you were the more valuable one, right? Long Arm had an excuse to hang around guarding things and steal information, but you …" Her voice cracked. "Murph, you were in it from the beginning. You told me. You were in from the beginning! How could you do this? Don't you have any—"

"Any what?" he shot back. "Pride? Honor? We're fucking cooks, Short Stack, not soldiers! Don't give me that shit."

She sat up and planted her hands on the table. "I don't care about pride, Murph. If I had any pride, the pony pajamas and humming pretty much took care of it. But we have a job to do. We keep the army moving. How can you just turn your back on that?"

"Easy." His lips thinned. "I'm surprised you haven't. I thought you were smarter than that. Doesn't the grinder bother you?"

Annie started a little. "The what?"

"This. All this." He tried to gesture, but with his hands out of commission he was forced to use his head and shoulders instead, making a jerky motion towards the walls and door. "Weren't you the one who was so hot on the inter-branch rivalry, and talking about how you didn't like the ninjas and all that? You were right, 'Stack. This place is insane. It's a grinder, a meat grinder for talent." He slumped a little. "Look at Snake-Eyes. Have you ever seen him without his mask off?"

"Of course I ha—" Annie paused, her thoughts whirling. "No—no, I haven't. So what? He's secretive."

"He's not secretive, 'Stack, he's deformed." Murphy shuddered. "I've seen the files. Used to be a normal, quiet guy. Then he got in a helicopter crash courtesy of G.I. Joe and—" He pulled a horrible face, rolling his eyes up until only the red-laced whites showed. Annie recoiled. "He doesn't talk because he can't. Because his voice box is all ripped up and his face is hamburger. He gets scar tissue removed every six months, did you know that? The government pays for it. They've done a lot of plastic surgery on Joes over the past few years, because they keep getting ground up!"

Her first instinct was to call him a liar. Between the betrayals and the multiple attempts to kill her, Murphy had pretty much lost the right to tell Annie what to think.

But why would Sgt. Snake-Eyes hide his face? Why wouldn't he talk? Why would he always sit in the corner of the mess hall, hidden in the shadows with Storm Shadow and Scarlett shielding him from the rest of them? Had she ever actually seen him eat?

"So what?" she said finally. "Even if you're telling the truth—and I'm not saying you are—it's part of the job, isn't it?"

"Is it part of yours?" Murphy snapped. "I remember how you were acting during Pitfall. Your job is to make pancakes, and you wound up on the front lines of a base invasion. And don't tell me you were prepared for it! PTSD sure fucked up your cooking."

Punch him, Annie's lizard hindbrain suggested. Her fists clenched. Only the lingering specter of Sgt. Major hovering over the scene held her back … which was a damn good thing, considering that she already technically had a record of prisoner abuse via hot dog casserole.

"It's the job," she repeated. "Okay, I'm a 92G, but I still joined the army with my eyes open. It's a good way to get to college—"

Murphy jumped in again before she could finish her thought. "No," he said. "Nobody signed up for this. We join the military looking to serve our country or find adventure or some shit, and then if we're good enough, we get pulled into a nightmare. Robots, mad scientists—" He cut himself off this time with another bark of humorless laughter. "Mad scientists. It's so Hammer Horror, isn't it? Doesn't really do justice to a bunch of guys who can turn your brain inside-out and scrape out everything that made you you."

Annie wasn't sure what he meant by that, but it was clear that it had him rattled. She swallowed a lump in her throat and leaned forward. "But Murph," she said softly. "You betrayed them."

"Fuck you!" The violence of his words made her jump back. "I didn't betray shit! They betrayed us. I sat here watching and cooking as these fuckers ground up and spat out dozens, hundreds of people. Thousands. People get shot and brainwashed and possessed and set on fire and tortured." He leaned forward, baring his teeth. "You know who Cobra sends to do their dirty work? Robots. America is so great, why can't they send robots too? The sooner Cobra shuts this shitheap down, the fewer people are gonna die."

"They don't always send robots," she said. Carter Hall's face rose in her mind.

"And when they don't, they send fuckups and idiots no one is gonna miss. Here? They pick the best of the best, the smart ones, the strong ones, and they just … use 'em up." Murph's eyes burned into hers, and she saw to her shock that there were tears beading in his eyes. "I couldn't do it, Stack. I couldn't sit on my ass and watch more people get ground up. If that's called being a fucking spy … then you know what, fine, I am. Just don't pretend like stopping me is some kind of achievement."

The door opened. Murphy sat up straight in his chair, resting his manacled hands on the table. "General Hawk," he said calmly. "Sir."

"Thank you, Short Stack," Hawk said. He sounded weary. "Dismissed. Get some rack time."

She rose, knees trembling a little, and saluted as best she could. The last thing she saw before she turned away from Murphy was his diamond-hard gaze fixed on Hawk. The moisture was still glinting in his eyes, but he didn't seem to notice she had gone.

It seemed to take her forever to walk back to her bunkroom. A few people glanced her way in the halls, but to most she was just a rumpled greenie looking as tired as the rest of them probably felt. She wasn't sure if she liked it or not.

Eighty-Six was waiting for her at the door. Annie tensed, waiting for a scolding about Chopper, but the other woman just sighed and stood aside. Annie fell face-first onto her bunk and was asleep before she hit the pillow.