"The only friends I've known are the streetlamps I follow home." ~Billy Talent, "Tears Into Wine"
How could this have happened?
How could he have let this happen?
He sat in the middle of a growing despair, staring in numb disbelief at the door through which his coincidental informant had just left. He didn't know how the man had heard the news of the deaths so quickly, but he supposed the information had leaked; that'd be nothing new.
And now here he was, being confronted again with the facts he had fought to repress since last night, since the day a week ago when he'd heard a rumor of a planned attack…
He had done nothing to aid the attack, as his conscience would no longer allow it- not after the last time, when his orders had been disobeyed, the people he so foolishly thought of as his sometime-friends nearly killed. But he had done nothing to stop the trap from being set up, either, for that too would violate his pathetic sense of duty.
They were dead, and there was no getting around it. He was being honored at the celebration for his tiny part in helping, and now he would've given up all the honor in the world to get out of going to that.
If he went to the party, he'd be just as dead as the ones whose deaths he had caused.
But he had to. If he didn't, it'd look suspicious, like he was connected to the terrorist attacks. He was, kind of, but he was supposed to be preventing them, and not attending a victory celebration would mean admitting that he was willing to use more information than just those little snippets of their lives he received from the ones he watched.
It was all too damn complicated.
What if he just went there and did nothing, as he was quickly growing accustomed to doing? If he simply sat there and was blown to bits with all the rest of the people he should be working with? That seemed like the easiest answer, but something inside him recoiled at the thought.
He could not die now, for with him gone, no one would ever know whose side he was really on.
Not that he was sure himself.
He sighed and went off to change into his dress clothes.
At the party, he found a decent opportunity to sneak out and was pleasantly and a bit guiltily surprised when he found that he had been locked out. So much the better, or was it much the worse if he was the only insider who knew the swiftly approaching fate of Outpost 9?
There was no time to bother with that now, though; he had to get as far away as possible. As he walked around the back of the building, he was met with a horrible sight: the parking lot was littered with corpses, some mutilated beyond recognition. A few arguments and counterarguments flitted through his mind like remnants of shredded cloth. I told you they were evil. No, after what we did to their comrades' bodies?
He shook this ongoing civil war out of his head for now and tried to focus on escaping. Someone had left a motorcycle nearby, with the keys still in the ignition, and he wasted no time in swiping it and driving out of the lot. On the way into the street, he saw the car parked out front, recognized the man sitting inside, and wondered, as he always did, whether to apologize to him or shoot him.
He was struck with a sudden, sharper guilt than that constant nagging itch that was as familiar as breathing. He wondered if it was wrong to be fleeing such a thing, and if there was anything he could do. There would be no heroic rushing in at the last second with his gun ablaze, because there was still the problem of who to shoot, but maybe if he could do something to say that at least he tried…
He turned the bike around and drove along a small dirt path for a few yards before coasting to a stop. He got off and trekked back silently, now with a little fear joining the ever-present remorse and fighting for control with the circling thoughts in his head.
The parking lot now had two more occupants; both alive, thankfully (thankfully?) and too preoccupied with sealing up the door to notice him crouching behind a well-placed car.
Out of habit he reached for the blaster at his side, but his hand slipped before he'd even removed it from its holster. He knew that, though he was well within sniping distance and had plenty of cover, enough to take out both people before they realized where the shots were coming from, pulling the trigger would be an impossible task.
His hand settled instead on his camera phone, the video recording button of which was much easier to push.