"No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man."
As always, his father spoke with passion. Pacing steps, energy-filled pauses, and calculated winks to the audience. James leaned in a bit closer. His favorite part was coming up soon.
"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him."
The pews were packed to capacity so that there was standing room only in the church. No listener was bored, and none wanted to leave. James held his breath for his favorite verse of the Bible, the one he'd read over and over again.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
James mouthed the words just as his father spoke them. They filled him with joy, gave him faith that his mother would have eternal life, that they would all be lifted up. And those who'd mocked James? Those who'd mocked God? The Bible told him that all of them stood condemned already.
"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God."
His father closed the Bible quietly. Now, James expected his father to be silent for a time, to keep the audience anticipating the next words of the sermon.
His father took his time putting away the Bible, stepping in slow, sweeping motion, and setting it down gently, like the sacred thing it was. His father closed his eyes in serenity before he spoke again.
"I am tempted." He said plainly. The words radiated without shame or concern. "Each day I see temptations, because I am Man."
James knew that this would be his father's confession.
"This is my confession, friends of the church. Every day I feel some pain, every day I feel some anger. Every day I feel some spite, every day I feel some envy. Some days I give in to temptation. Yesterday, I spoke harshly against a medical professional. I was angry at pain, and I bit the hand that was trying its best to aid my wife."
James never heard his father's sermons before the masses did. James liked the feeling of discovering great words in the midst of his flock. But he also liked the thrill of knowing the words before they'd been spoken.
"Harsh words are not the path of light, my friends. Harsh words come from darkness, and as regrettable as it is, each among us commit uncountable sins."
So, James thought, don't love harsh words.
"But we read in scripture not that the condemned are those who commit darkness. We do not read that harsh words lead to condemnation. We read only that the condemned are the ones who love darkness. We read that the condemned are the ones who love their harsh words."
Another pause. No 'ums' or 'uhs' would be heard tonight. If his father ever needed to think about his next words, he would not let it be known by speaking incoherently. 'Um' was uncertain. Silence was powerful.
"Every day I give some regret, every day I give some recompense. Every day I give some penance, every day I give some apology."
And his father didn't love harsh words.
"Because I speak harsh words, but I don't love them. I'm never proud of my anger, I never revel in spite. I am not afraid to think of them as mistakes. I'm not afraid to speak of them as such. Because I believe in God, and inhabit a world spilling over with light."
His father had shared enough anecdote. It was time to turn his light to the audience. And, James predicted a bit of noise.
"Friends! Do not be afraid of your darkness! Don't be afraid to expose it, to turn on it the light of truth, because this is the only way darkness is overcome! You walk each day with an almighty shepherd, and like Moses, Jesus never sets down his torch! When you fear the darkness is when you distrust your shepherd, and when you distrust your shepherd is when you stray into the darkness!"
The audience was riveted. James watched closely, constructing the most likely progression of the speech. Next would be a tragedy.
"We all remember the shooting at Nevada High." He said. The audience shivered; James's father had fearlessly pressed on a fresh wound. James's father refused to censor himself. "The perpetrators were not the kind to repent for their sins. They were not the kind to let light into the darkness. If they had been, they wouldn't have killed themselves at the end of their massacre. Suicide was a cheap way for them to run from the light. Pray to God, and he'll assure you that those who recognize and repent for the darkness will not be driven to such extremes."
Audiences didn't like to feel tense, of course. His father would ease them back with a bit of humor.
"Some sins can be smaller than others. My old beard, for example..." His father said with a smile. The audience gave nervous laughter. "Luckily, that sin didn't drive me into darkness. He told me in a dream that it wasn't the world wonder I thought it was." Another laugh. "Or maybe that was just my wife whispering in my ear. Well, it is just as righteous to protect the ones you love, I suppose."
James had thought of a better joke. But that one had served plenty well. James studied the remainder of the sermon, always thinking of his favorite verse.
James complimented his father at the end of the sermon, praising his passion. "Oh, please." Said his father, waving off the congratulations. "False praise gives no solace to this older man. My prose is getting tiresome to our audience. They want somebody young."
This again. James's heart beat faster at the thought of it. "I'm no speaker. Not like you. I could never write something so moving."
His father laughed, eyes twinkling, and patted James on the back. "You are God's creation, are you not?" He asked. James nodded. "Well, doubting God's creation is a hazardous sin. We all play a part in His plan, and I think we both know what your part is." His father said, wearing a goofy face.
"Maybe someday." James replied.
His father thought for a moment. "You're very quiet, James. A soft spoken man. There's no trouble with this, only that for you, I think it arises from your level of confidence."
James didn't reply. He supposed he was too soft spoken for that.
"You'll trust the creator, James. Actually, I think you'll trust him next Sunday." Said his father with a smirk. James knew exactly what his father meant. He knew that his father would let him out of a sermon if that was what James wished, but he also knew that his father would not let him escape the guilt of doing so, and that James would end up speaking regardless of what he said now. He decided so skip this process and agree.
"Alright." James said. His father's eyebrows raised high.
"Really?" His father asked. "I thought that would be a battle."
It never would have been. James was excited for the speech, already constructing a few memorable phrases in his head. By the time they'd driven home, he'd picked just which passages to include, planned a stirring outline, and conceived psychologically surgical rhetoric.
He told his mother about his planning as soon as he got home.
"I might not be as animated as dad, and I probably won't enunciate as well. But I know what a sermon looks like, and that's something of dad's I can surely emulate. The creation. Maybe not the delivery." He told her.
She put an adoring hand on his shoulder. It was frailer than ever before, but her frailty was the only thing James didn't notice. He was too intent on his mothers sharpened mind to notice her dulled body. "Delivery comes with confidence. Enunciation, energy, projection, and all the rest. An infant confident enough could engage a listening crowd."
James smiled. His mother and father were both funny, but James took after his mother's humor. "Calling me an infant isn't doing anything to bolster my confidence, mom."
She laughed, but it turned in to a cough. He grabbed her water without thinking about it. Coughs didn't matter until blood came with them.
"Dad uses your illness as inspiration for his sermons. He talks about the pain in illness, the pain in life, and how he and the flock can overcome it. But I don't think that would work for me."
She furrowed her brow. "Why not? Am I not sick enough for you?"
He shook his head. "When dad sees you, he worries about the illness, how we're going to cure it, how it's hurting you. Every moment of pain it causes you probably causes the same to him tenfold. But when I see you, I don't see the illness at all. My sermon will still be inspired by you, but it won't be about overcoming the illness and fighting the darkness. It'll be about seeing the joy and enjoying the light."
His mother agreed. "Why spend all your time warring against the bad when you could be campaigning for the good? One sounds much more fun than the other."
James smiled at that. A nice, concise way of putting his words. His mother understood him. James was reminded of an old place they used to go, a pretty grove that only the two of them knew about. She'd gone there as a child, and had passed the place on to James.
"I know that my sickness has limited my attendance at church, but I need to see your sermon. After all, it might be the only one I'll ever see from you." She said dryly. James was upset.
"That doesn't sound like a campaign for the good, mom." He said. She laughed.
"It's not, but I think I don't think my campaigning will matter for much longer." His mother.
"It'll matter to dad and me." James said without thinking. "And it will matter to you too. We've been seeing the best doctors in the world."
"Then the world must really not give a shit." She muttered. She apologized for swearing in front of James, but he would only be comfortable if she were comfortable, so he told her that apology was unnecessary.
James thought about his mother's words. "I suppose I can't ask you to hope that you'll get better." He assumed. "But dad would say..." James caught himself. Dad would say that faith in the shepherd was the only path to righteousness. Dad would imply that his mother didn't have enough faith, and he would make her feel guilty of sin. James didn't think that would help his mother. "Why don't you wait until the sermon." He said, and left. This really would need to be special.
James scribbled words every day of that week. Easy classes weren't nearly enough to divert his attention from the sermon to come. He took biblical notes during lectures, drove concepts on the way home, ate scripture for dinner, dreamed of eternal sleep, and woke to developed thoughts. His days of being were replaced by days of writing, and he had so much material by the end of the week that he had to shear huge chunks of it to keep it short enough. What he had left after all the editing was only the best portions of his writings. His father pestered him incessantly for details, but James would not tell him a thing.
The Sunday of the speech finally arrived. The sanctuary seemed different to James now that he'd be on stage. His father gave the standard greeting and said a few words, then introduced James as a first time speaker. He was received with a torrent of applause.
He stepped up to the podium. His notes were written clearly on the paper before him, but James had already memorized the speech. He searched the crowd for the churchgoer that hadn't gone to church for months. There she was. She looked fragile to the flock around her, but James saw intent, intelligent eyes.
"Perception." James said. It wasn't a word that often came from this stage, as there was only one perspective the flock was intended to have: one looking from the earth to heaven. But it was important. Without perception, how would the first man have perceived his creator? "Our perception is our eyes, our hands, our ears, our tongue, our nose. You all are good at focusing, my father can attest to that. He's good at keeping your attention on the Bible, where it should be. God would have us look first to him, then to others, then to ourselves. Your eyes see me speak, your ears hear my words. You all know how to perceive God, how to see him through the sermon. God, others, self. You're good at the first, but I wonder if you skip over the second."
James scanned the crowd. He was paying attention to the second right now. Not the first, not the third. All on his mind were the reaction and presumed thoughts of the audience. They didn't understand, he could tell, which they weren't used to. They could always comprehend the words of his father. Still, he pressed on.
"I believe that you see others. You see me as a piece in God's plan, the deliverer of my own interpretation of the Bible. You wonder whether you'll enjoy my sermon, or whether you won't. You see each other sometimes as helpers, and the rest of the time as obstacles. You see you spouses and children in mostly a positive light, as things that make you feel happy. Sometimes you see them as things that make you upset or exasperated." James said.
Some of the crowd was nodding assent. They were beginning to understand this concept of perception, and how they saw everything around them. But even if they thought they did, they had no clue as to the sermon's direction.
"This is selfish." He said. He allowed a pause for his audience to process the three words, then continued. "You see me as a thing that gives you words, and my value is based on whether you like the words or not. You see each other as things that help or hinder you, and their value is based on which one of those they do, and how well they do it. You see your families as things that make you feel happy, and their value is based on their never making you not so."
He'd made the crowd uncomfortable, but not with a tragedy. With accuracy.
"It is only human to be selfish." He consoled. "So long as we try to help those in need, how can we be blamed for the nature of our minds? There's nothing sinful about selfishness. But I wonder, might increased perception yield extra enjoyment to the self?" James studied the audience. Even now, he perceived what their minds said.
"Illness is painful. It's the first thing you'll perceive, but it is uncomfortable, and it will have little value to you. You'll retract your attention from something as soon as it hurts. And in doing so, you'll fail to see anything but the pain. I posit that any pain can contain pleasure, any sorrow can contain joy. Perceive the good." Now the audience was beginning to see. James wasn't sure, but maybe some of them, maybe his father was seeing a healthy woman's mind in the light of comprehension. Or in the light of God.
"'Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.' So, live by the truth. Come into the light. Be seen by God. And let also the rest of the world live by truth, come into your light, be seen by you. You're created in God's image, and God is infinitely perceptive. You may not be omniscient, but you can be perceptive, just like Him."
James continued. The rest of his sermon was more standard for this church, and allowed them to relax their walls in the sight of the Lord. He incorporated all of his hard built rhetoric and lines, and left the stage to the loudest clapping he'd ever heard in this room.
After the service, his father seemed awestruck. James was generally quiet around his father, honestly in reverence, so had seemed a radical leap from James's ordinary demeanor. His mother just smiled, though. Together, they always spoke like this. She only spoke about his sermon when they were alone and he was helping her into bed.
"Touching sermon." She said. "I think it's obvious that you have a gift for that delivery you were so worried about."
He laughed. "Maybe so. I've been watching expert delivery for the past sixteen years."
She sighed as she rested her head on the pillow. "Sixteen years. You've gotten old, James."
"Nearly a senior citizen." He quipped.
"You jest, but sixteen years is a long time. Just think, you've gone from an infant with nothing in its head to a man contemplating perception and calculus." She said.
"Calculus is just school. An infant could do it." He replied.
"But with all your sixteen years of perceiving, you never learned how to perceive." She continued. This stopped him entirely. The conversation he thought was a game for him to easily play had transformed into a complex, obscure beast of a puzzle.
"I perceive. Better than the rest of our flock, probably. Didn't my sermon show perception?" He asked. He really couldn't predict what concepts his mother would bring.
"Your perception is strong, if only you'd use it. You tell your audience to perceive the good in the world, just like you do. You tell them to determine what others are feeling and thinking, not just what other's are doing to them. But you perceive no more fully than they do. You perceive what you want to perceive." His mother thought about her next words carefully. "My world is ending." She said. "That is something quite clear, but you never would have imagined it happening."
"Yes I would." He answered. "I know that death comes for everyone. But it doesn't need to come for you yet."
She shook her head. "Firstly, it has come for me twice in the past month, only barely to be fended off. Secondly, you still fail to perceive my full meaning."
He tried to perceive what her full meaning might be. All he could think was that she had resigned herself to death, given up faith in medicine. She didn't seem to be saying anything more than that.
"I suppose that nobody's perception is perfect. So, tell me what to see, and I'll see it." He said. "Just tell me."
She shook her head again. "That's not perception. That's cordiality. And that is unhelpful for anyone, the selfless or the selfish."
"Mom, I..." He began.
"You should go." She said. "I need a little time."
He talked to his father about the sermon after he'd left the room. His father hadn't perceived the meaning underneath the words, the one about sickness, but he'd loved it in any case. "They want you again next Sunday." His father said. "I accepted for you, so don't worry about trying to refuse. It's fine if it's hard to top the whopper you gave during the service - Sunday is Easter, and they'll be looking for something lighthearted. I anticipate the day."
So did James. But he couldn't keep his mother's words out of his mind. How could he be imperceptive? He'd mastered perception, from perfect predictions to skillful crowd manipulation. What more was there to perceive?
The week went by quickly. School was light, so he had plenty of time to write for the service and talk to his mother. Their talks were of ever increasing joy to James. Each day she seemed to be happier to see him than the last. Importance steadily drained from their conversations, and the burden of thought was lifted from his shoulders whenever he saw her. The thought of her sitting through his lighthearted Easter sermon was just too exciting. He was hopeful about her future, and loved her beyond compare, and on Saturday night she died.
He didn't actually believe it, of course, even when he saw her body being wheeled out of the house and taken to a mortuary. She could not possibly be dead, because God's plan would not have included that, and he perceived a great faith from the Lord, and he wanted to put off his sermon until she could be there for it. He told his father that he couldn't give the words. He needed time for healing.
"You're right, James, you do need healing. Church is how we heal. And as for giving a sermon, there is no greater catharsis." Said his father. James hadn't seen his father cry yet. Just further proof that his mother was alright.
James entered the church Easter morning, prepared near the community had already been shaken by the death of his mother, and they didn't know what to expect from the boy who'd just lost his entire world. So when his speech began chipper and dapper as ever, they were put off.
James began, with plenty of jokes, to discuss the gifts and miracles of God. Omit all the surface bad, he'd deliver them perception of the purest good. James talked first about biblical miracles, then about miracles in his own life. When he mentioned the miracle of rebirth in reference to his mother, the crowd began to murmur.
And his father began to weep.
James perceived this. It seemed unusual, considering that his mother would be reborn. Didn't his father know this? Didn't he have the proper faith?
No, his father had to have the proper faith. He was the pastor. He'd taught James everything James knew about God. So, his father was faithful, but still didn't believe that his mother would be reborn. One of great faith believed that his mother was dead.
Even so, James thought, we'll see her once we, too, ascend to heaven. It will all come in time. He knew for a certainty that his father would agree with that. Maybe James should have perceived that his mother would die, and he should have consoled her with words of the afterlife.
But then James remembered something his mother had said. "My world is ending," she had said. This was strange wording, wasn't it? She could have said that her life was ending, or simply that she was about to die. James remembered how carefully she had thought about her words before she'd said what she'd said.
Then James understood. Her life wasn't just ending. Her entire consciousness was. His mother had believed that when she died, there would be no heaven to receive her. And she had been right that she was close to death.
His mother was right. She was more perceptive than he had ever been, for though he looked deeper than most, he still never saw what he didn't wish to see. He'd seen through her illness so thoroughly that he missed the illness itself. Now he knew that he'd applied that same selective vision to the church he loved.
James's arms fell to his side, papers drifting carelessly to the floor. The sermon was over. The jokes had dried, shrunk, and flaked to dust. James was done.
He didn't go home. And hard as his father tried to find him, James knew a place where he'd never be discovered. The old grove that he and his mother had picnicked at when he was a child. He remembered what his mother had said about the place.
"I found it as a girl. It was the only place I could go when my parents were yelling and my friends were being stupid." She'd smiled to a toddler who could identify with the second.
There was no yelling here. But James felt a great deal of stupidity.
"That's why I never showed my friends or my parents. Even your dad doesn't know. You're the only one, James." She'd said.
So, his mother wouldn't be reborn. She wouldn't live on in heaven. The church had been wrong. The church had lied. The pastors were evil. Christianity was evil.
His father was evil.
James slept until dark. When he awoke, he was still on the soft grass of the grove, and knew what he would do. He decided to remember everything about this place during his service.
His military career began with a lie about his age. He was surrounded constantly by men older and stronger than him, and he had to become strong to compete. Drills went from impossible to easy, exercise went from atypical to routine, training situations went from complex to pliant. Soon, he was truly eighteen, and his physical strength was a much closer reflection of his mental power.
He did a tour. It was his first trip out of Nevada. His first kill was hard, knowing that the dead man would not be resurrected in heaven, but as war taught him more about human nature, he forsook morals in retaliation against his amoral surroundings.
His aversion to Christianity faded, emotion left behind. There had been no lie, only inaccuracy. He was no longer atheist from sorrow, but just a lack of perception of any gods. This was a sad thing, to know the world was harsh and lawless, but his mother had taught him postmortem to accept all of reality, not just the good.
James became a renowned soldier, but always enigmatic. This, due to distaste for any fellow soldiers. Eventually, after countless tours without reason, James gained a distaste for America. When no longer wished to be a patriot, he deserted and returned to his humble home in Nevada. He'd grown a small black beard, and he knew that nobody would recognize him if he stuck to the shadows, so he sat through one of his father's sermons. He was not impressed. The passion had left his father's voice, and the pews held maybe a third of their former occupants.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but will have eternal life." Said his father in a tired voice. Under his breath, James said it too. Afterwards, James found that the preacher spoke that verse at the end of every sermon, as it had been his son's favorite. James perceived that the verse had a special meaning to his father. One about losing a son.
After only a few days, James missed the feeling of a gun in his hand, and applied to some agency whose flyers were ubiquitous around SIN. He shaved his beard and showed up to the interview with a fake last name - Christoff, in memory of his old religion - and showed no credentials but impressive strength and accuracy. He found that the Agency required no more than this. He went through a month of easy training that he quickly tired of. He was placed in what they called 'Squadron C' of 'North Complex', the place to be if you were a rookie of under one year's experience.
Impressive feats of violence bumped him months prematurely to Squadron B, where he was actually engaged with his assignments. He experienced a level of freedom that he hadn't experienced in... well... his entire life. Christian parents (or just parent) had allowed very little in his sixteen years of living with them, and the following six had somehow managed to be even more restrictive. The Agency required absolute discipline during assignments, but outside of this, it didn't care what you did or what happened to you.
Having intimate knowledge of freedom, James felt a spark of life reignite inside him. He could finally take what we wanted without fear of being reprimanded by his father or dishonorably discharged by the military. It felt as though he'd never truly lived his life before, and he was just now beginning.
He began falling asleep to a mind full of thoughts, and waking up with the grin of a good dream. He decided to anonymously donate large sums of his paycheck to his father's church. He jogged in the mornings, trained hand-to-hand at noon, sprayed bullets in the evening, and boxed at night. Best of all, his sense of humor returned.
His drill sergeant quickly realized that James was far too experienced for a rookie position. He was moved to Squadron A, where he met a whole host of new people. He'd never seen most of them, and it would be a blank slate. A chance to start over.
He decided to advance from the shadows, take leave of his emotionless, non-empathetic mask. The first people he met were a tightly knit, skilled couple of professionals who were grieving for their lost member.
They consisted of Kara and Harry. The woman was not welcoming to him (although he was quite attracted to her), but James quickly befriended Harry. Harry privately told James that he was pining for Kara, and James immediately decided that their couple name would be harakiri. Harry enjoyed that.
He'd been with the group for a few months, and both Kara and Harry had gotten distinct impressions of James. Then they got news of an attack on East Complex.
James's perception was sharp. Curiosity boundless, James knew books of information about the East Complex, Sheriff Jay, and the more highly guarded aspects of the Agency. He calculated that Sheriff Jay was being extorted in some way, but the methods of such extortion were difficult to grasp - it had been a long time since he'd been in Nevada, and new developments, such as teleportation and ethereal hostiles, had come as a surprise to James. Maybe he'd been too sheltered, but he'd never heard of such things as a child.
So James was skeptical that the attackers of the East Complex were any more threatening than the average, fragile human. He mocked Kara, suggesting that she believed in "teleporting ghouls and gooks and other monsters of the scary kind." But he'd learned to question his own beliefs. His mind was open to the supernatural.
So he kept up his carefree, slightly dopey demeanor on the way into the East Complex. But, inside, every second was a display of the utmost vigilance. Every table was noted, every room was catalogued. James had no margin for error.
The top floor was where things became interesting. After a game of pool and a joke about masturbation, the lights went out. Uh-oh. Perception required sight, and James was probably the first one to turn on his light. He saw a gate blocking the stairwell just before Matt called it out.
"There's a gate blocking the stairwell." Matt said. James could see even before Matt pushed on it that he wouldn't get it to budge. He predicted that the headstrong Kara would then attempt either to shoot or kick it down, that Harry and Alex would join in, and that Erik and Matt would be scared of the dark.
Thirty seconds proved him right on all counts. He smiled at himself, pool cue in hand. The world could be very, very predictable.
Except, of course, for the supernatural events that James had such little experience with. So when they descended to Floor Four to find a lone man taking a shower, James was put off. He joined Kara behind a locker, preparing to give cover fire should she need it.
She locked up for a minute. He could hear her breath. She seemed scared of the man beyond reason, despite the fact that he only had a gun. He decided not to touch or speak to her, as she was so tense that she might've fired in his direction.
The lights flickered out, and the man appeared one shower closer to the locker, as though he'd been there the entire time. That was unusual.
Kara finally gained the nerve to shoot three rounds at the man, forgoing any preemptive questions. It seemed rational enough - the man could hardly have been anything but a threat.
But it turned out that the dead man was Matt's friend, and Matt was very upset at Kara. A strange fury overtook James when Matt whispered that Kara was a bitch, and James used his years of emotionless, inveterate coldness to deal an agonizing blow to the man.
He whistled, stuck his finger in the corpse's bullet wounds, and commented on the strength of the group's guns. When Matt pushed James back, it only took two words to push him over the edge. James dodged Matt's blow, Kara intervened, once again receiving the brunt of Matt's anger. Then she calmed him. James took note of the tactic she used.
"You've really got a firm grip on their balls, don't you?" He asked her after. As his facade dictated, he was obligated to use coarse language to describe a true concept. Her level of control was truly impressive. And he didn't believe it to be for the good.
Later, Kara found a non-existent something on the floor. James had no trouble believing that it had existed before, then vanished, and he studied her eyes with a keen curiosity. Something in this place was trying to destroy her. Because she was the leader, he understood. Because she was the strongest, it would make her feel insane. James subtly questioned Alex, Erik, and even Kara herself to determine that she'd seen a trail of blood leading into the room, and knew that he would need to address this.
On their next sweep, he took her into a room, removed their masks, and made her comfortable on the bed. He voiced her thoughts from his mouth in an attempt to make her feel better. Unfortunately, she was smart enough to see through it, and she looked at him with a wondering face.
"Why are you trying to make me feel... I mean, I never thought... why are you doing this?" She asked.
He couldn't answer her, but if he could, he'd tell her that parts of the world she was seeing were not a delusion, but someone's lie. Instead, he told her that she needed to be strong, and that this was the time for her to rest.
He perceived that she was going to kiss him, and he stopped her before their lips touched. But he couldn't help feeling the energy. His passion was the same as hers. "A leader needs to be focused." He reminded her.
She got up when Harry knocked, moving as though she'd been repaired. Still, James knew his work wasn't done.
They descended to a fancy B1, where James faux begged to stay, and a freezing B2, where James acted as tired as all the others, and they lost Erik and Alex. Sweeping for them was unsuccessful, and James was quite certain that they were dead.
They could have left then. Probably, they could have escaped the complex unscathed, which was a luxury most other Squadron A members probably wouldn't have. But James was still bound by a strange desire to fight that had steadily risen in him since the age of sixteen, and he couldn't ignore the opportunity. He'd seen the door almost as soon as they'd entered B2, and he had to go through. He knew that Kara would take them.
"It's not the last floor." James told them. He opened the door with a blue key from a scientist's room, and allowed Kara to make them descend.
He got a little angrier at Matt when Matt once again called Kara a bitch.
Prison. No, more like a cage full of lab rats. The scientists likely made vile use of these men in their chemical testing. James kept an eye on Kara, making sure she was safe as she entered a cell and fought off a black-eyed prisoner. Of course, every cell had two prisoners, so he knew when Matt screamed that Matt had found the other one.
James took careful note of a couple exits that he may need as contingency. Among them was a grate leading into a sewer.
The hostiles started pouring in. An easily surmountable obstacle, had they been human, but there was an alien quality about them that made them resistant to multiple bullets. James assumed that this was due to the smoke, and was glad to be wearing an gas mask. In any case, knowing that they could not kill them all, James satisfied himself by killing a large swathe of them and ensuring that Kara had an easy path to the stairs. They fired until Harry came back, then they went upstairs.
Only, upstairs wasn't upstairs. James was sure that he was the only one to notice it, but the B2 they returned to was not the B2 they'd come from. He couldn't place the differences, but...
Oh. Well, the differences became more pronounced when they rounded the corned to see a dead Erik hanging from the ceiling.
A smoke addled Alex appeared behind James, slashing a finger from James's hand and breaking his gas mask against the wall. Harry ran away, Kara fell into Erik's pool of blood, and James shot Alex in the side of the head just before the devilish creature did terrible things to the pretty girl.
And then the dead man supported James's theory by implying that the two of them were 'not where they thought they were'. James shot him again, and walked Kara to what should have been B1, speaking calming words all the way.
But when Kara arrived at the door, she shook, and when James opened the door, his theory was confirmed. He was staring into the shower room of Floor Four, complete with a dead Harry and a once-again-standing Axel.
They moved back down to B3 in a hurry. James was no longer burdened with a full group of people, so he mowed through all hostiles until he found the sewer that he remembered. He blew it up and lowered them down, then walked with Kara until they found Matt, reconciled with him, and continued on until he found a nice truck loaded with heroin.
He hopped in and revved the engine, shouting out inspiration as a horde of scientists appeared around the corner.
"Hey!" Shouted Kara. "Someone could have heard that." And then she saw the hostiles as well.
"That someone's going to get run the fuck over." James replied. "Who wants shotgun?"