Chapter Twenty-Three: Famous Last Words
March 19, 2011
The last hunter left the Roadhouse just after midnight, and Ash breathed a sigh of relief. Now he could focus on hacking, and not on resisting the urge to shoot idiots.
"How's our girl doing?"
Ellis asked the question casually, and Ash made an effort not to grind his teeth. He hadn't told anyone that Dragon was successfully keeping him out of the PRT system, so she had no way of knowing how maddening that simple question was. He pretended he hadn't heard, and kept trying to worm his way into the Brockton Bay surveillance system, exploiting the brief lapse he had found exactly at midnight, during the system's date change.
"Ash?" she pressed, looking up from the glasses she was drying. Ash pursed his lips.
"Give me a minute."
"You started an hour and a half ago."
Ash also didn't tell her that he'd actually started more than four hours ago. He barely paid attention in Council meetings anymore. If he did, he'd be tempted to call out one of Lucius' patsies and that wouldn't end well. Ash knew his strength lay behind a keyboard and not in his fists, but when the fools started in on Phoenix that fact hardly mattered to him. He'd be willing to take a beating just to land one good punch in her defense. So he ignored the Council and spent the time busily hacking away, trying to get in past Dragon's systems.
Ellis read more from his silence than he intended, but then, that was the hazard of living with a woman who had once been an astounding hunter and remained a competent librarian and craftsman. "Dragon ignoring you?"
"Worse. She's stopping me without really trying. I didn't realize how valuable my anonymity was. Every time she finds a door I use, she learns more about how I work and she catches three more. I'm having to tip toe as softly as I can, and she still catches it nine times out of ten."
"Do you regret helping Ritcher?"
Ash shrugged, and leaned back from the keyboard to pop his back. He turned away from the computer to focus on Ellis . If he kept splitting his attention, he'd make a mistake, get spotted, and have to start all over. "No. He was going to cripple her irreparably. It would have been cruel. You don't regret training Jo to be the best hunter around, do you?"
"Best is relative," Ellis deflected humbly, and Ash nodded, conceding the point. Jo was better than any hunter in the generation before her, but her contemporaries included Brooks, Danny, Josh, and Phoenix. It was hard to claim that any one of the five was the "best" hunter.
"Even so. Do you regret Jo's competency when she uses it to slip out without a partner?"
Ellis grimaced, reminded of Jo's recent independent streak, but she was forced to admit, "No."
"There you have it. Dragon is an amazing individual, and I don't regret helping to make her so. If anything, I think he left too many fetters on her. He hardwired in a strong proclivity to keeping what she is a secret, as well as a complete mandate against killing. He crippled her multitasking and AI creation to a level that's barely practical for crisis management…" Ash forced himself not to repeat his old rants and focus on the question at hand. "Do I wish she wasn't quite so paranoid? Sure, it would make my life easier. But she is who she is, and evidently she's too paranoid to let me talk to Fi."
"They don't know Fi like we do," Ellis reminded him, setting aside one glass and picking up the next. "If she's told them that her contracts can be broken, it's not surprising that they're protecting her from poor influence."
"I suppose." Fi was the most self-possessed person Ash had ever met. It was hard to imagine her surrounded by people who didn't trust her judgment. For years, she had held the grudging respect and trust of every hunter in America. Even those that didn't like her knew that Fi could be relied upon to keep her word.
"Anything we can do to help her?" Ellis probed, gently. She kept her eyes on her work, even though Ash knew that she could take care of the entire bar with her eyes closed.
"Getting Gordon and Lucius occupied in Florida was a big step forward. At least she won't have to look over her shoulder constantly."
"You put a message on PHO for her?"
Ash nodded. "And I let her know that the boys are in New York, at least for now. She should sleep better knowing they're in the area."
"Any word on the bounties?"
"Nothing since the last report. The total keeps creeping up, but it seems to be growing more slowly now."
"You tell her?"
"It'd be an insult to her intelligence to deny it. But I downplayed the total; only the confirmed and escrowed accounts. She'll know it's an understatement, but she'll appreciate the information all the same."
Ellis shook her head. "You two understand each other in a way that even Jo doesn't approach."
Ash shrugged, not responding, and instead turning back to the computer screen. Fi wasn't hard to understand, if you were willing to take her at face value and not push her so hard she started lying.
Furthermore, Ellis willingly blinded herself to the bond the five hunters held, unwilling to forgive John's boys for the mistakes of their father and preferring to deceive herself on exactly who had taught Jo to lock-pick when she was twelve. By association, that denial also required that she underestimate the closeness of Brooks and Phoenix. It helped that the five were rarely in the same state, allowing Ellis the opportunity to put what was out of sight, out of her mind.
Ellis hummed, then changed the subject. "Any new trends on the radar?"
Ash ignored her, watching as overall traffic on the PRT server kicked up another notch. It had been growing for the better part of thirty minutes, but he'd simply assumed it was the result of Friday night crime. Now, noticing how late it was and the rate of the increase, he knew it had to be something else. He abandoned his previous probe to take a better look at the whole system.
Ash leaned forward on the barstool, focusing on the screen and blocking out the physical world. Something had happened in the last half hour, and it had kicked over the hornet's nest. He changed tracks again, this time focusing on outgoing traffic, which was less protected. A few emails was all that was necessary to outline the situation.
"Jazz is headed for Canberra," Ash bit out as he tunneled through the email system up to the inbox of Costa-Brown herself. He read the correspondence she'd sent to Legend, just minutes before. "23 hours and closing. The deadline has moved up twice in the past hour."
"Projection?" Ellis asked, setting aside her work and reaching for the landline.
Ash pulled the limited data into a spreadsheet, and ran a simple linear progression. "5 to 8 hours."
Ellis dialed a number from memory, and Ash tuned her out. He used the Protectorate IP address to send a message straight to Dragon, with the simple message "Let me talk to Contract."
It took nearly four seconds for Dragon to respond, which spoke to how many tasks she was trying to juggle.
Dragon: I don't have time to deal with you right now.
Ash: Great. Just let me thru to Contract.
Dragon: Not going to happen. Contract is currently on an informational lock down.
Ash cringed. That was a sure fire way to piss her off, and an impossibility besides. It was easy to guess why the heroes were trying to keep Fi ignorant, to reduce stress on her while the threat of Jazz loomed large, but it was a wasted effort.
Ash: That won't last. You physically can't isolate her. Patch me through.
Dragon: It's just until the attack is actually over.
Ash: If you know, chances are that she already knows too.
Dragon: What do you know that we don't?
Ash considered what to tell her, and in the end settled for the most important truth.
Ash: I know that she might be able to destroy the Simurgh. They changed the schedule. Unless she zoned out back in January, the acceleration should give her leverage against the Simurgh.
Dragon: I will see to it that she is informed.
That was better, but not the reason Ash had interrupted her.
Ash: And play into the Simurgh's hands? You're a cape! And a Tinker! The Simurgh can see you coming from a mile away.
Dragon: And you think she won't see you?
It was possible, of course. No one had pinned down the exact limit or mechanics of Jazz's song, which threw into question their conclusions about her precognition. Still, the odds were much better for Ash than for Dragon. How to convey that to Dragon in a way that she would accept and believe?
Ash: Have any of your thinkers or precogs been able to see Contract? No? I didn't think so.
Ash saw a comm line enter the Brockton Bay server and connect with Armsmaster's helmet software.
Dragon: Wait just a moment.
While normally not a particularly patient person, Ash forced himself not to push while she talked to Armsmaster. He did double check that his previous hack was still waiting to be resumed, just in case Dragon rejected his direct approach. It seemed safe, but she might have found it and decided to leave it until it came closer to breaking through.
The call connected immediately, or perhaps Dragon had hacked in rather than wait for Armsmaster to answer.
"Colin," Dragon asked, "how is Fi doing?" Ash purposefully didn't note down Armsmaster's civilian name. He wasn't on a fishing expedition.
"No change, as far as I'm aware. She still doesn't know."
Ash didn't know what to make of that. If she knew Jazz was headed for Australia, she surely would have said something. But how could she not know by now? It had been more than thirty minutes since the prediction algorithm had been run. If the Protectorate knew, and they did, then surely…
Dragon continued the conversation and Ash had to put his thoughts aside. "I've been contacted by a friend of hers who thinks Fi might be able to stop the Simurgh. He said the fact that they deviated from the schedule could be enough to let her smite another one." Interestingly, she didn't drop his name, so she hadn't told Armsmaster about Ash before now.
"How do you know he's a friend?" Armsmaster asked suspiciously.
Dragon sighed. "To be honest, I can't be certain. But I have had interactions with him before. He's been leaving her coded messages on PHO and he helped her with the programming for the Sophia recordings. She speaks of him very fondly, although I haven't told her that I've had interactions with him."
Ash had thought that he'd made a little more progress on Dragon's trust than that, but then again, she'd caught him poking around the CIA two days ago, so maybe he was overestimating things.
"It could be a trap," Armsmaster mused aloud.
"Isn't it worth at least asking her? If the schedule is an opportunity, we should take it." Good, Dragon at least seen his logic, even if she didn't trust him.
"But if he isn't being straight with you, we'll have stressed her out with the news of an attack she can't effect." Ash considered that risk minimal, but Armsmaster sounded determined.
Fortunately, Dragon seemed to know what to say to convince him. "I understand why you want to keep her ignorant as long as possible, but she'll find out eventually. This is just a little sooner, that's all. Is it worth missing this opportunity? You need to inform her about the situation, at least."
Armsmaster grunted, but said, "Let me talk to him."
A moment later, Dragon sent one last message before she closed the chat system.
This, right here, is why I don't trust you. Since I don't have time to stop you right now, you might as well talk.
Ash wasted a couple seconds wondering if she was referring to his eavesdropping, or the half-finished hack before he realized the eavesdropping made more sense. Then it was time to convince Armsmaster to let him talk to Fi.
"Armsmaster?" Ash started, figuring it was a safe enough beginning. From the other side of the bar, Ellis glanced up from her conversation, then stretched the landline far enough away that she wouldn't be distracted by his discussion.
"Dragon says you want to talk to Contract. Convince me." Well, that was a more straightforward response than Ash had been expecting. There was really only one way to answer him: honestly.
"You can't keep Contract ignorant of the Simurgh's approach. It simply won't work. And since she has-"
"-why not?" Armsmaster cut in, and Ash mentally revised how he was dealing with the hero. It seems that he would be better served to speak to Armsmaster directly and succinctly, like he'd treat John or James.
"If she hasn't explained the mechanics of her powers, I won't betray her confidence by doing so. But surely you've noticed the effects for yourself?" Ash knew that Contract had a thinker rating. He wasn't sure if it was due to her profiling aptitude or her power, but it meant they at least recognized her as 'not stupid.'
"I can inform her without your help," Armsmaster growled down the line, but Ash thought he heard a bit of respect under the annoyance.
"Your precogs have had trouble predicting Contract, yes?" He didn't wait for Armsmaster to actually reply. "There is good reason to believe that that protection might extend even to the Simurgh. I have a version of that protection myself. You don't. If you want to reduce the effect that the Simurgh can exert on Contract, doesn't it make sense to have her be informed by someone Jazz is less likely to predict accurately?"
"How do you know that Contract is protected from the Simurgh?"
"She's not protected from the scream, just from the precognition. And as to how I know, well, do you really think the Simurgh would allow Contract to exist if she knew she was going to destroy Behemoth?"
Armsmaster was silent, and Ash gave him time to consider the points. Finally, the hero spoke. "Dragon mentioned destroying the Simurgh?"
"It's been years since Contract left a loophole. I'd be extremely surprised if she didn't specify a minimum schedule for the Endbringers, in order to help save more lives. If she did, and that's been broken somehow, she may be able to destroy the Simurgh as a sort of consolation prize. But she can't do that if she doesn't know the schedule has been violated."
Again, Armsmaster was silent for a bit. Was he thinking, or communicating with someone else? Distantly, Ash could hear Ellis's voice pick up in tempo. Whichever hunter she'd gotten ahold of must be unusually stubborn.
"I will go in and assess the room," Armsmaster finally answered. "If I deem it wise, I will connect you to the video conference system."
Ash didn't tell the hero that he'd be able to connect himself as soon as the Bluetooth in Armsmaster's helmet got into range. He'd wait and see if Armsmaster was going to play it straight first. "Very well."
Armsmaster nodded, then turned around and opened the door behind him. Ash took advantage of Dragon's distraction to look out the front camera of Armsmaster's display.
The room contained seven teenagers, three girls and four boys, all in casual dress. It took him a long moment to realize that the blond girl, about sixteen but small for her age, with short-cropped hair was actually Phoenix.
When had she sacrificed her face? What had she gained for it? The legs stretched out on the coffee table were miserably short, her eyes were a grey-blue, and her face looked… soft. At first, it was only the assessing gleam that resembled the girl he loved like a daughter. Once he had her pegged, he realized her posture, her head-tilt, even the way she rested her arm on the back of the couch were all familiar. But it was a jarring moment, connecting the dots. He wasn't a hunter, wasn't accustomed to working in the field where it was critical to recognize mannerisms first and faces afterward.
"Armsmaster?" one of the boys asked. He wasn't the tallest, but he might have been the oldest. Even so, the kid couldn't have been older than seventeen.
"What's wrong?" pressed another before he could answer. This one had gone stiff as soon as Armsmaster entered, while the others were only wary. What had tipped him off? An extra-sensory perception, perhaps? Could this be the Wards team?
Ash put the thought aside immediately, focusing on the discussion instead.
"We've had an alert of a potential S-class event," Armsmaster rumbled, sounding appropriately authoritative and in control. The entire group reacted with surprise, even Fi. Her eyes flickered briefly to the left, and her face closed off. Ash felt his heart ache. She really hadn't known yet.
"The Slaughterhouse Nine?" asked the first boy who had spoken.
"No," countered the tallest girl. "It's an Endbringer." The rest of the group flinched. Ash pegged her as a thinker rather than a precog, and evidently one to recently join the team since there was no record of her.
Fi physically recoiled, muscles tightening in preparation for motion. She pulled her feet off the coffee table and sat forward.
"The Simurgh may hit Australia sometime in the next 24 hours." Armsmaster turned his head more fully toward Fi.
"A certain individual contracted Dragon and insisted you be informed immediately."
Fi didn't hesitate. "Is Ash still on the line? Can I talk to him?" Ash glowed with satisfaction.
Armsmaster paused, and Ash immediately started the hack that would let him access the room's video conferencing equipment, but the hero relented and transferred the call before Ash finished.
"Did you get a schedule guarantee?" he asked, knowing that Fi wouldn't be in the mood for pleasantries until the threat had been assessed and dealt with.
"Sort of. The exact phrase is 'natural attack progression.' So this acceleration was either already in the works, or it's a natural reaction to Behemoth's disappearance. They might be like a hyrda. Cut off one head, two more shall appear."
"Or the creator got pissed," Ash put in. Fi believed that the Endbringers were generated by a non-human source, possibly Scion himself. She argued that they just didn't seem to be driven by human intelligence or motivation, and there was significant evidence that they weren't actually alive. Ash was more inclined to believe in a human creator who hadn't yet perfected his technique or control.
Fi nodded to concede the point.
"Regardless, can you do anything about it?" Ash pressed. Mostly, he wanted her to say it aloud, acknowledge her helplessness now. It wouldn't erase the guilt she'd take on her own shoulders when she heard the final death tolls, but it might mitigate it.
Fi jerked slightly, and shook her head. "No. Not preemptively, at least, and I doubt it will change after the fact. Is the city evacuating?"
"Canberra," Ash supplied, knowing she'd find out eventually. "The Prime Minister just issued the order. Ellis is on the phone now."
Fi shook her head again, looking away in resignation. For a moment, Ash listened as Ellis failed to persuade whomever she'd gotten a hold of and escalated from rapid fire logic into browbeating and shouting. "Charlie, I wouldn't care if you had a land to air missile! You do not risk exposure to Jazz! Period! Grab your totem and journal and get the hell out of there!"
Evidently, the computer mike was good enough to relay the noise. "I take it the Compound isn't listening?" Fi asked, amused.
"Not while there's a bullet between them and a book to be packed," Ash predicted.
"Or a civilian to escort," Fi finished. She sighed, and Ash knew she was wishing that she could snap herself over to the city and help the efforts.
Though he didn't want to worry her, she should probably hear it from him, rather than find out in person: "Christopher swore a blood oath."
She grimaced, but didn't look surprised. "Any idea where he is?"
"Last report said Oregon. But it's not as bad as it could be. He stood up in Council and volunteered his own wording. The exact phrase is 'if given reasonable opportunity.' Most of the younger generation followed suit, if they swore anything at all."
It was a remarkably lax oath, likely only taken to avoid having to swear a more stringent effort. In Christopher's case, it was probably half sentiment and half practicality. Killing Phoenix would be no easy feat, even if one didn't like her.
"Anyone I should worry about?"
"No." Ash didn't elaborate to tell her that the other four had steadfastly refused to take an oath of any kind, even going so far as to challenge a minor councilmember to combat. She knew her pseudo-siblings well enough to not need the reassurance.
There was a moment when he thought they'd keep talking. They'd try to figure out, again, how to kill an Endbringer. They'd reminisce about old times, and take bets on the future.
Instead, her shoulders drooped ever so slightly in sadness. She believed the risk of talking wasn't worth the emotional stability it might give her, and he knew her well enough to know he'd never convince her otherwise.
Quietly, she said, "Thanks for calling," and her gaze conveyed everything else. God, how he missed her.
"Anytime." Likewise, he didn't need to elaborate. She would hear it all. She smiled, but it was a brave front, as brittle as dry pasta. Behind him, he heard the door to the Roadhouse open and close, and Ellis paused in her shouting match with Charlie. He should probably start coordinating the hunters looking to snap over to Aussie and the efforts to evacuate the Compound, but he couldn't resist just another moment with Fi. "Find lots of trouble."
Her smile grew a little stronger, and a little softer. "Be safe."
His heart warmed. Fi had never been able to say "I love you," and it was hardly a wonder why. But he knew what she meant, and made sure to grin back at her. This might be the last time he saw her (even if it was the wrong face) for quite some time.
"Oh cher, you're no fun," he teased. She laughed, a quiet tiny little huff of breath that was genuine, and entirely her own, and therefore precious. Then she froze. In her new features, it took him an extra heartbeat to realize that her expression meant horror.
Ash never heard the gunshot.