On the eastern end of the island of Socotra, the FLU had set up camp in a disused United States Military base: a rudimentary set of cement buildings with tarps to cover shattered windows and emptied rooms covered in dust and sand. The 106th and the 107th units were loafing around: some were sitting around improvised tables playing cards games and sipping coffee while others were moving boxes around, only pretending to look busy because no one really gave them orders to do anything. The consensus about the mission was that they were all confused about why they weren't involved. If the Wielders' intervention was enough to thwart the terrorist threat, then why was the FLU dragged along for this mission? But nobody made a fuss about it because it was probably an order from above which the commander couldn't argue against. Ridgeway made a round of the pockets of soldiers that formed around the courtyard to check up on everyone and get a sense of the morale. The soldiers visibly appreciated that, and shared their concerns, which he attempted to calm. He was talking with Hasan Köse -captain of the 106th- when Sergio Mariola -captain of the 107th- came up to him at a fast pace. He saluted the commander.

"At east, captain," Ridgeway said.

"Sir, I just got off the radio with Captain Anderson. All hostiles were taken out."

"Understood. Captains," he turned as to face both, "round up your people, and load our gear on the choppers."

The two captains saluted him and Ridgeway walked away. He made sure to be far enough away from the soldiers to let his composure drop. All hostiles? Did Archibald lose his temper? If all hostiles were taken out, that meant that none of them were willing to surrender and fought to the very last, or it meant that the Attack and the Cart had not taken any prisoner. Both possibilities worried him in their own ways, but the idea that Archibald had ruthlessly killed them to the very last terrified him. He kept walking through the compound until he reached a three-meter-tall, cubic building of pale-yellow clay. The tarp that covered the window hung still and shaded the inside from the rising sun, and the door of splintered wood looked like it would give up at the lightest shove. Ridgeway carefully knocked at it and waited for a few beats. He grew nervous when he didn't receive an answer, so he knocked again a little louder this time. A bed's creaking was heard from inside, and a soft voice spoke out.

"Hm? Yeah, yes. I'm up," Xiomara said hurriedly as if she had been interrupted.

Ridgeway told himself to let her be, but he had to be professional. He pushed the door open and tentatively poked his head in first, then his whole body. Xiomara had sat up on the bed with the sheet still covering her legs, vigorously rubbing her eyes. She wore a plain white t-shirt and her hair was messily undone. She looked up and squinted at the door but failed to make out who stood there, so she tapped the desk next to her bed in search of her glasses and put them on.

"Commander," she said in a weak voice. "I'm… sorry. I dozed off, I thought it would be a quick nap."

"It's fine, Ms. Guevara. I'd let you sleep if it was up to me, but we've got an update. Phase Two was a success, the Cart and the Attack cleared out the rebel base."

"What?"

Xiomara flung the sheet off her legs, revealing that she had slept in her panties. Ridgeway pretended to see a mosquito and looked away, and she got out of bed to grab her jeans and was putting them on.

"So, what does that mean?" she asked. "Are we done here?"

"A Navy ship is on its way to the cape. We'll meet up with the rest in Somalia, then head back to the US base in Yemen. I'll have a chat with the Chairman to see what the next move is. But yes, we're done here."

"Thank god…" she sighed. She put on a blue and white checkered flannel over her t-shirt which she had tucked in her jeans, then proceeded to fix her hair. "So, what was the word? Did they surrender?"

"Not from what I gathered," Ridgeway said. "Mariola got word from Captain Anderson that 'all hostiles were taken out'."

Xiomara froze for a beat, then resumed brushing her hair.

"To be frank," Ridgeway continued. "I'm concerned about the Attack's Wielder. Without further context, it could be easy to assume that he lost control."

Xiomara looked at him with a thunderous stare. "Do you really believe that?" she scolded him. "Archie's an asshole, sure, but he's not a fucking psychopath. No, Roscoe's the one whom we should worry about."

Ridgeway raised his eyebrows. "Do tell why."

"Have you seen him? He looks like he's on his last leg, with the other one already in the grave. Compare him to how he was a two years ago, last time we were all together. He's sloppy, constantly distracted, and he seems hardly interested in the cause anymore. Did you know he planned to pass on the Armor?"

"Yes."

"Well, there you go. I won't say that Archie isn't prone to degeneracy, but he's level-headed, he knows what the goal is. Ross, however… well, I'm not too sure where his mind's at."

Ridgeway hummed softly. That certainly was interesting food for thought, and he was going to chew on that for a while. But right now, there were other priorities. "We'll leave once you join us."

"Alright, see you."

Ridgeway left her. Once she was satisfied with her hair's state, she arranged it half up in a bun and half down, then proceeded to collect her few belongings and put them in her backpack. When she picked up her smartphone and turned to the door, the slightest noise came from behind her, which she normally wouldn't've paid attention to, but she nonetheless turned around. A small, folded piece of paper from those yellow legal pads fell on the floor. She tentatively picked it up and studied it front to back before unfolding it. It read in a careful handwriting:

N: 12°35'11.13" E: 54°21'15.44"

She checked both sides of the paper, but only these illusive numbers were written down. She put her backpack down and turned her smartphone on. She inserted these numbers on a global positioning system app and, sure enough, a pin appeared on the map, about ten kilometers away from where she was. She threw a final glance around the room for any other loose paper before she put her sneakers on and went out. She looked to her left to see if anyone decided to check up on her, but the area was deserted, so she turned to her right and walked to the Kawasaki M1030 she had left the night before. Not concerned about safety regulations, she got on and rode off towards the coordinates. Because of the uneven and rugged terrain, it took her fifteen minutes to get to her destination, where lush grass covered the ground and the endemic cucumber trees grew sparsely here and there. She rested the bike on the ground and fixed her flannel loosened by the wind as she took in the environment. Quite surprising for an otherwise arid island. The greenery and shade from the mountain gave a much-needed coolness on this warming April day. She took a few steps towards the cliffside, where the coordinates led her, and she was met with another surprise: a gaping hole led to a cave inside the mountain.

"Huh," she let out.

She tried to get a footing as she entered the cave, testing the grounds for loose stones or other inconveniences. Once she reached leveled grounds, she took a few steps into the darkness. That would've normally been the point where she would turn around and call an end to this silly adventure, but something gnawed at her from inside. She risked some light with her smartphone's built-in flashlight which, although it didn't illuminate a large enough area, gave her a good sense as to where she was walking. Speleothems decorated this cave from one end to the other; stalagmites threatened to pierce her feet, stalactites loomed over her like Damocles' sword, pillars gave her comfort in trusting that the whole place won't collapse around her, and she pressed on. Where to, she did not know, but she knew that turning back and leaving would torment her somehow. She frequently stopped to pan the room with the flashlight. Just rocks and mineral deposits. What else was she expecting? She shook her head in disbelief, cursing herself for going down such a stupid rabbit hole. She turned around dedicated to leave the cave when her flashlight panned over something that gleamed back at her. Her heart skipped a beat and she flinched, thinking that someone had responded to her light, but upon closer inspection she was able to make sense of what it was. An unremarkable plain steel door was incrusted into the cavern wall, although its presence in here was quite remarkable. She studied it from corner to corner and noticed a fine coating of caulk between the door itself and its frame. She ran her index along the part adjacent to the lock, and it frittered down to the ground.

"Hm…" she pondered.

Maybe it would yield with a bit of strength? That would be assuming that the door hadn't been locked. Should she try it? What awaited her behind this door? Her doubts were pushed away when she saw a gilded glimmer on the handle, contrasted with the otherwise silvery door. She clutched the handle and pulled ever so gently at first, then incrementally increased the strength as she was met with resistance. The door gave up in a stretching noise like hooks torn away from loops, and made way to a commodious room with four velvet chairs with pots between them on one end and an office desk on the other, on which sat a Devonian computer. She walked up to the desk and sat on the swivel chair to inspect the computer. She was baffled. Such an ancient piece of technology, eclipsed by anything that came even ten years after its creation, sat gathering dust in this odd room. She pressed a few keys and buttons to no avail, concluding that this place had been deprived of any electricity long before she had learned to walk. She shrugged it off with a smile, amusedly disappointed that she couldn't peer into the past for just a moment. As she swung her legs to her right to get out of the chair, she hit something that clattered on the steel framing of the desk, starting her into getting up which sent the chair tumbling backwards. She knelt and looked at a swinging chain at the end of which was attached a handle. Alright, that's enough, she told herself. This is a good time to leave now, no need to go deeper. But her curiosity overcame her, and she had come this far already. The chain still swung furiously, so she held it to a halt and pulled it. A muffled clanking noise resonated from inside the walls around her followed by the groaning of cogs and gears sent in motion after years of sleep, then finally a piece of the wall halfway between the desk and the chairs began to sink downwards, revealing a dark tunnel. Once the mechanism had completed its task, everything around her went quiet again, and she only realized then just how quiet everything was. She could hear atoms colliding with each other. Her resolve did not falter. She walked through the opening and onto a long and narrow steel platform built over what she assumed to be a collapsed portion of the cave, the bottom of which her smartphone's flashlight could not reach. Putting her trust in such an old construct was a tall order, but she pressed on and carefully listened for any undesired sound. Once she reached the end of the platform, she arrived on solid ground which oddly comforted her. She stood before a tall and wide blast door with a digit pad on the wall to its right. That was the end of it, she thought. There was no electricity back there, why would there be any here? But she was stubborn. She had wasted enough of her time on this personal mission, so there was no excuse to give up now. A digit pad… twelve buttons, from zero to nine, an asterisk, and an octothorp. But too many countries use this format. Ah! The computer's keyboard from back there had a QWERTY layout. It was a stretch, but at least she knew of US military codes, ancient and new. She tried a few combinations, and in a welcomed surprise, a red bar appeared each time she inserted the wrong one. She went through the decades. Codes from the 'forties. From the 'fifties. The 'sixties. The 'seventies. The 'eighties. The 'nineties. She stopped herself in confusion. She had gone past the decade she believed this whole place was built in. Could it be from the 'aughts? No… The 'tens?

"No fucking shot…" she uttered.

She tried the most basic code that she used to step into rooms of her security clearance back at Juggernaut Station. 860829#. She started in pure shock and froze when the blast door split in half with a reverberating clang. It whirred and hummed its way apart, giving way to a room almost as large and wide as a warehouse. It looked altogether well-kept, unlike that first room. No cobwebs, mold, or accumulation of dust anywhere: this room was cleaned recently. She walked around and shone her light on various crates and containers, but a few towards the end of the room caught her attention. She walked tentatively towards them and clearly made out the universal radiation symbol slapped on its side, and next to it: the logo of the United States Army. She turned her smartphone on and quickly opened the phone call app and dialed Sergio's number, only to be shut down by the lack of service so deep underground. She grunted in exasperation as she switched to the camera app and snapped a few pictures of the labels and the container. Then, with every cell in her body made heavy by fear and dread, she slowly lifted the container's lid open. A round, silver ball roughly the size of a bowling ball sat comfortably on a foam-like material. Her hands trembled as she snapped more pictures before slowly and very carefully shutting the lid. There were a dozen other boxes like this one. She could hear her heart thumping in her ears.

Once she got back to the base, she stashed the bike where she got it earlier. On the ride over, she realized that the lack of service in the bunker had been her salvation: who could she talk to about this? Archibald and Roscoe are both American, so she could not trust any of them with such information, they might be in on it. Any of the captains were out of the question. Kwan? She feared that Kwan might be too close to Roscoe for her own good, a paranoiac thought that had never crossed her mind until this instant. Friedrich seems too loyal to his nation to be trusted with this. She was on her own. She sat down on a low wall near the building where she had slept and tears poured out of her eyes. She wept as she thought of her mother and brother, who led the fight in Colombia. She wept because she needed their counsel, but she was on her own on this one. She wept long enough, then wiped her tears and cleaned her glasses before she joined Ridgeway. He looked up at her as she neared the helicopters and frowned.

"Where were you?" he asked impatiently.

"On the phone with my mom," she said dryly.

"That hardly seems appropriate right now."

"Yeah? Well fucking fire me, then, Ridgeway. You have no idea what it's like."

She stepped onto the helicopter and strapped herself to a seat. He was taken aback, and slowly felt guilt creeping up on him. No harm done, he thought, as he climbed into the helicopter and sat across from her. Captains Mariola and Köse joined them, the rest of the soldiers got on the other helicopter. And they flew to join the rest. Xiomara looked out and saw a group of Soqotri children looking up at them, jumping and waving excitedly. In that moment, she sympathized with the Texan. Her resolve in her own cause shattered inside her.