Omega [REDUX]

Chapter 43

Anna had not been received the full set of augmentations that Elsa had received because Empyrean had rushed through it before Operation Blue Rose had hit their facility. Anna still had enhanced physical and mental capabilities compared to the average soldier, but to a lesser extent compared to Elsa's.

So now Anna was tired. Not exhausted, just a little sleepy, but Elsa knew that at times like these being on the alert was more crucial than ever. Sure, Elsa was tired too, but her average performance ratings under such physical conditions were almost on par with her peak performance anyway. Anna's ratings were lessened somewhat compared to her own.

Now that the Empyrean mole had just launched an attack on them, it would take some time for them to respond to the aftermath, giving the two of them some down time per se. So she had persuaded Anna, with kisses and cuddles no less, to catch a few hours of rest. They would need to be extremely cautious for the next few days, and it would do them no good to have Anna in the wrong frame of mind, she had said. Anna had finally agreed and kissed her good morning as the sun finally came over the horizon, retiring to their rooms to wash up and rest. Elsa had surveyed the premises one last time before heading off to take a shower herself.

Now she stood under the hot water that cascaded across her skin and began to think. Now what, Elsa? What does this accomplish? What does the enemy know now?

The attempt on their lives had not been successful, but would still serve as a test run for the mole. First, it ascertained that the soldiers would continue to answer to UIF orders with unquestioning loyalty, thus eliminating the potential to be exposed for the time being. The black ops squad didn't even know a sliver of what was really going on.

Second, it tested Elsa's and Anna's own capabilities. What the mole now knew was that the Ambrosia signal, as the tortured soldier had referred to it, had a limited effectiveness. Elsa reasoned that he or she would assume that the soldiers, having been killed, would have inevitably deployed the Ambrosia signal at one point or another. He or she would thus cut back their reliance on their supposed silver bullet. They could thus extrapolate that the new gear the soldiers were equipped with would have had limited effectiveness.

Elsa had previously confirmed with Anna that live feeds would not have broken through the signal blockade Anna had established, so she was certain that the mole was not aware of her new tactics. She'd have to thank Anna later.

This meant that a straightforward, orchestrated assassination attempt would now require more resources than what was safely concealable amongst the administrative chaos of UIF logistics and deployments. Elsa realized her predictions would hold true; their enemies would now deploy other, more subtle means to eliminate the threat the two of them posed.

Elsa shut off the shower and stepped out, reaching for a towel to dry herself down. If she was going to wage war against the UIF itself, she would need information about UIF movements. But she brushed the thought aside as she reformed the icy dress upon her bodice, deciding she could worry about overt, larger scale operations against them later. Right now she would need to ascertain the new angle of attack that the UIF would adopt. They wouldn't always use a bunch of soldiers to try to kill her.

She couldn't trust anyone within the chain of command. That much was sure; it was a risk she couldn't afford to take. She could however find ways to maneuver around this new obstacle. She'd wake Anna up within the hour and tell her what to do.

God, you make it sound so easy when you think about it like that, she thought to herself as she exited the shower, gazing and Anna's peacefully resting form, realizing exactly how scared she was herself. So much for a new life and time away from her past. Hope was one thing. Fear was another entirely, and both weren't mutually exclusive. That moment they had on the rooftop with each other a few hours ago was a byproduct of relief. Both of them were still very much scared to their core.

Not that she didn't think they wouldn't make it out. Or did she? She couldn't tell anymore. Some part of her felt she should be more worried, some part of her less so. Either way, as she glanced back at Anna, she knew exactly what the stakes were.

Kristoff was on leave.

The brass had reviewed his service record over the past few months and had decided his performance was commendable, given the circumstances. They were planning to give him an award. They also noticed how many missions he'd been involved in recently, and had given him a direct order to take a break. Maintenance of physical and mental condition, they had said.

He wasn't going to complain about the time off, though. He was one of the soldiers that could properly claim that he lived for the job, but every once in a while it was good to get away. He stowed his gear in his designated lockup and changed into military fatigues, grabbing his bag of personals as he left his room and locked it. His squad would be taken off active duty while their squad leader was away, so he had effectively granted his teammates a break too. They could banter about that later.

He headed for the base shuttle. It'd take him to the hive city in the 4th Sector where his apartment was. Kristoff would drop off his personals and withdraw some credits to sustain him for the next few days. He didn't know how exactly he was going to spend his few days off, but he was more interested in lounging around rather than cramming his suddenly freed-up schedule with a myriad of activities to do.

His wrist-mounted datapad buzzed as a transmission came in. Sighing, he tapped the authorization command in and relayed the call to his earpiece, not bothering to look at the ID. Probably just some admin issue that command staff had been too lazy to clear up till now. "This is Kristoff."

"And you know exactly who this is."

He wasn't expecting that voice, of all the people who could be calling him. "And to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I need your help. Again."

He chuckled, knowing exactly who it was on the other end of the line. "What would you possibly do without me?"

"I'd find some way to manage. Though I'd probably have a much lower chance of survival."

Kristoff's eyebrows furrowed. "Wait, what—"

"I'd rather not explain over comms. Can we meet in person?"

He considered turning the request down. After all, he was just granted a break from command, and it wasn't often that he got that kind of time off. He did want to make the most of it. And yet, something in her voice unnerved him. Maybe it was her choice of words, or the way she said it. Everything was supposed to be alright, wasn't it?

"Roger that. Meet me at my apartment. I'll relay coordinates."

"You have an apartment?"

He snorted. "I have a life, remember?"

"Ah, gotcha. Keep forgetting that I'm new to this whole 'life' thing." That got a chuckle out of Kristoff. "I'll see you there."

He'd just finished showering and changing when the doorbell rang. Kristoff triggered the surveillance protocols to verify it was exactly who he was expecting. It was. He walked over and pulled the door open.

"I don't think I was followed," Elsa said as she brushed past him abruptly, "but I'm not taking any chances."

He felt his facial muscles contort with confusion as he closed the door, locking it behind him as he watched Elsa draw the blinds on the windows. "I take it something severe is going on?" He noted her unusual dressing: a dark blouse and jeans instead of her signature icy attire. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail instead of a braid, and there was a holstered pistol attached to her belt.

His companion finished shutting the blinds. "Can you digitally isolate your apartment from potential surveillance grids?"

"The apartments are generally free from surveillance—"

"You'll forgive me if I can't take UIF official statements as assurances anymore," she cut in rather alarmingly. "Please, just do it."

Still perplexed, Kristoff accessed his apartment's digital interfaces, methodically isolating its processes from the general electric and digital grid. "We're secure," he said once he finished. "What's going on? Why all the secrecy?"

"UIF black ops just tried to kill me last night."

His jaw dropped at the bombshell. "What the fuck?"

"They were targeting me and Anna," Elsa continued, taking a seat on his couch and motioning for him to follow suit. "I won't risk staying here too long because someone might take notice that you're off the grid and send a team to check this place out, so I'm going to make this brief. There's a conspiracy in play here. There's an Empyrean mole in the higher echelons of UIF command."

"You're shitting me."

"The bodies at Cradle Alpha will assure you that I am not."

"But why? They know they can't kill you with standard soldiers."

"They designed loadouts specifically to attempt to take us down. They were counting on the element of surprise to kill us before we realized what was going on."

"Hold on," he said, "slow down a minute. Why do they want to kill you again?"

"Because they want to make another Ascendant within the UIF without us in the way."

That hit him. Hard. It took a while for that to sink in and he couldn't speak for the entire duration. "I… what…? They want to…?"

"The problem is that me and Anna have Omega level clearance. We would find out if the project ever proceeded," Elsa said. "That's why they want to get rid of us. I don't know how much of UIF has turned traitor, but we're on the brink of a civil war if I don't play this scenario right—"

"Wait, wait. You're going way too fast. How did you figure all of this out? How do we know that this isn't just some UIF research based off Empyrean intel?"

Kristoff listened as Elsa explained. Anna's abduction. Augmentation. The assault carrier. A series of corresponding Empyrean files. A formula to make an Ascendant.

A formula for disaster.

"Why this way?" he asked numbly. "There are other ways to sabotage UIF operations."

"Maybe they've already done that," Elsa replied, leaning back on his couch and staring up at the ceiling. "Way I see it is that Empyrean knows that it's fighting a losing battle as the juggernaut that is the UIF. Decades on and it's only been growing weaker on almost every front, resources depleting every day, with or without their Ascendants. And now the UIF has two of us. They're losing, Kristoff. Empyrean knows that the only way to achieve their goals is from the inside out." She grimaced. "And they'll stop at nothing to achieve their goals."

"I'm going to need a drink." He could feel Elsa watch him with grim mirth as he pulled out a beer from his fridge. "Want one?"

"Can't risk it. Have to be careful everywhere I go now."

"Suit yourself." He popped the cap and took a swig. "So now what?"

Kristoff heard the intake of breath behind him. "I was hoping for your help."

"Huh." He drank from his cup again. "I'm curious as to what made you think it was safe to come to me. For all you know, I could be an agent planted by Empyrean, or have recently turned traitor too. And if I disagree, you know you're going to have to kill me to ensure—"

"I'm not going to."

Somehow he found himself believing her without much difficulty. "Why?"

"I trust you."

He raised an eyebrow. "You do?"

"After you passed up every opportunity that you've had to leave me behind to die? That has to count for something. You of all people have a clear incentive to get rid of me, and you've never acted on that."

Kristoff was surprised. He wasn't sure he trusted himself enough to let her trust him. He took another swig and put the beer down. "But for me to help? Me? This is bigger than me. This whole Ascendant conspiracy thing, that's your thing. I…" He chuckled. "I'd only be caught up and fucked over in this shit."

"I'd understand perfectly if you don't want to—"

Kristoff shook his head. "It's not that I'm not willing. It's just that I don't know how." And he knew that deep down some part of him genuinely meant it. That he wanted to help. Even though he was as close to terrified as he would possibly ever get. High-risk missions didn't faze him in the slightest. Bureaucratic conspiracy and black ops death squads were something else entirely. "I might even end up compromising the two of you in some way we can't even predict now."

"For now all I need are eyes and ears. Information. Anything you can get about incidents up the chain of command, suspicious changes in troop deployments and movements, shadily assembled operatives or operations. I can't and won't ask you to do anything more suspicious than that." The look in Elsa's eyes was pleading now. She was scared too. Desperate, even. She wasn't sure she could make it out alive either.

And so he had to ask the obvious question. "If you know that part of their plan is to kill you, why not just run away?"

That caught her off guard. "What?"

He shrugged. "Why not just disappear? I mean, with your skills and all, you're bound to be able to escape all of this. You've lost so much already; you don't need to lose any more than that by stopping this, whatever this is. You don't owe anyone anything anymore."

Elsa laughed, the sound tinged with bitterness and fear. "I thought I'd escaped my past in Empyrean after being shot down in a transport and waking up in a UIF hospital, Kristoff. Look at what I'm doing now."

"Point taken," he acknowledged darkly. She didn't need to remind him.

"But beyond that, I can't let anyone go through what I've had to go through all this time." She intertwined her fingers and sighed, curling up into a ball. This was a side of her he'd been privileged enough to see. Vulnerable. Scared. Human. "I can't let them succeed. I'd be leaving some poor soul to go through the very pain I've feared my entire life, the very same pain I've spent my life running away from. No one else deserves that."

"Neither did you."

She exhaled deeply again. "That doesn't matter at this point. I can't change what happened to me, but right now we have to stop this. I don't know who else in there I can trust except for you right now."

Kristoff knew what he had to do. What was the right thing to do. He also knew the risks, the unknowns, and yet he found himself possessing a potentially dangerous lack of hesitation. He knew exactly what his answer was.

"I came as soon as I could," Charles said, wheeling up the secret entrance, finding Anna standing in the courtyard, admiring a potted plant. "What's the matter—"

Anna whipped around, arm already morphed into a plasma cannon, shoulder mounted device scanning him up and down with blue light. The entrance sealed shut behind him. Charles raised his hands slowly in surrender, dropping the datapad that he was holding away from him. "I take it that something drastic has happened."

"You could say that," came the blunt reply, her cold eyes glancing down the barrel pointed straight at Charles. He thought he detected a hint of fear in her voice. But he kept himself quiet; he decided it unwise to antagonize Anna in her current state. "But I suggest you refrain from speaking unless prompted. After all, I am the one with the gun, and my scans indicate you don't have any weapons on you."

Now he was confused. "Why would I have such things on my person?"

"That's what I intend to find out." The barrel whined as Anna proc'ed her safety off; he could see the interior glowing a gentle, lethal blue. "Who called the operation in last night?"

"Last night?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Oh no oh no, he thought. Something very wrong has happened. Very, very wrong.

"Maybe we should take a step back—"

"The black ops teams. With their advanced suits and power sapping signals; don't play dumb with me, Charles! I don't have time for your games!"

"Look," he said, trying to reason things out with her, trying to remain calm himself. "If you check your scanners you won't find anyone else outside. If you extend your scanning radius you'll find no suspicious activity in the vicinity. If I really sent an op to kill you, you think I'd be dumb enough to come here when you called with no weapons? Or no backup? I assure you, Anna, I wouldn't have been this careless if I really meant to kill you. After having studied your files and Elsa's for this long, if I really did mastermind this, I can assure you that you wouldn't be alive and standing here right now."

He was dead if his answer was unsatisfactory. And it could very well be; it was tinged with too much anger produced by his fear. There was no way he could outrun Anna on his wheelchair, and defending himself against this mechanically augmented woman was practically impossible. But Charles stared defiantly back at the augmented irises scanning him, knowing he'd be dead anyway if he didn't try saying anything. Wait, scanning—?

"You're clear." The barrel re-morphed back into her hand, the shoulder mounted device retracting. "My bio-scanner and lie detector have you cleared of any nefarious intentions you might have had. I'm sorry about all this."

Charles let out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding in. "Thank god." He took a second to catch his breath, leaving Anna standing there awkwardly. "Now can you tell me what happened? What black ops and advanced armor where you rambling on about?"

Anna told him. Along with everything else she'd figured out in the past 24 hours. He cursed out loud when she was finished. "You fucking serious?"

"I can show you the bodies if you want. We've yet to properly get rid of them."

"Please don't."

"Elsa's been trying to outmaneuver any possible UIF trap," she said. "She wasn't sure if you were compromised by Empyrean. I lured you in here to make sure." She fumbled about. "I'm really sorry about that. We don't know who to trust right now; anyone could be in on this plot."

"S'okay," Charles replied, still a little shaken and inwardly disagreeing with the statement. "I'd have done the same in your position." Now that, he agreed with. "Glad we straightened that out."

"We were hoping for your help with all of this… bullshit."

He chuckled. "Of course you did," he remarked dryly, "you didn't just lure me all the way here to kill me, did you?"

Anna wasn't sure how to respond, and that only amused him more. "Sure, I'll help," he said. "You'd probably have to kill me if I didn't cooperate anyway." That got a smirk out of Anna, and the tension between them lessened somewhat. "What do you need?"

"Any information that passes your way over the next few months. To be honest, we don't know what we're looking for other than suspicious activity." She shrugged and leaned against a wall. "For now we probably need to look at sudden personnel rotations or deployments if we want to stay alive."

"Then we should probably evaluate how ready you are, in case you need to go rogue."

Charles watched her eyes visibly widen. "You mean, defect?"

"The mole could just brand you as defectors and that would do exactly the same thing," he said. "Either way, UIF territory would immediately become hostile, and you'd be forced to run away."

She folded her arms and considered the possibility. "Shit."

"We should evaluate your capacity to hold up against UIF forces. Can you isolate Cradle Alpha from information streams, or are they constantly able to monitor you?"

Anna brought up the structure's systems and sent them to the wheelchair's display, allowing Charles to glance at it. "I'm running a decoy data stream to main UIF networks for now. They'll think everything is normal even if I make changes to the system. Been running it since we restored systems after the 'incident' last night, so they'll think it really was a system maintenance issue."

"How stocked are you?" Charles asked, swiping through their system scans. "How often will you need resupplies?"

"In terms of weaponry, that's mildly redundant either way," Anna began, "but we are fully stocked on everything from firearms to explosives, to specialized equipment. In terms of sustenance it'll likely last us through the next year before we need a proper resupply, potentially longer given that we can ration. When accounting for optimum combat readiness—" He heard her pause as she ran some calculations. "I can go for about 3 weeks without proper sustenance, Elsa can go for 4. Sustenance should be no problem for quite a while."

"I assume that structure and systems shouldn't be a problem, but the scenario you describe is very, very optimistic. I sincerely doubt the response you'll meet will be mere isolation," he stated as he analyzed base defense systems, scanning for potential weaknesses in infrastructure and wiring. He couldn't find any obvious ones; the place was built pretty well, with various failsafes built in. "What's your estimate for holding out against a full scale assault?"

"What kind of scenario are we talking about?"

Charles mulled over her question. There was no point in talking about a normal assault anymore.. "They might attempt an overkill response to deal with you. So your worst case would be… say they deploy an Assault Cruiser to the location."

"You're kidding me."

"May as well be prepared. They know even well-prepared black ops, with what they considered to be an element of surprise, was insufficient to take you out. I'll wager they're completely willing to do overkill."

He watched her ponder the information, shifting her weight from one foot to another. "Then I'd give us about less than five minutes to escape, at best." She sighed. "Not very good odds at all."

"Do you even have an escape plan if they attack? Where would you go? What would you do?"

"Assuming we survived an assault we could probably go off the grid. But given the expanse of UIF territory, and the fact that Empyrean territory is out of the question, there aren't a lot of places we can go to." Anna pursed her lips. "I could start constructing hideouts. Caches of supplies, weapons and datapoint access."

"You'll need a few to switch back and forth between."

"Entirely possible," she replied without hesitation.

"But how would you live like this long term—"

"We only need to survive long enough to end this crisis."

"What?" He couldn't stop the words from spilling out of his mouth; Charles was not expecting that of all things. "You're going to fight against this madness? You actually want to do that? Do you even think you can do anything—"

"What exactly are you implying, Charles?"

He shut up. He'd stepped a little too far in his semi-justified panic. "Just run away," he quickly added. "Why stay here? Get out of UIF reach. There's bound to be some place that is away from all of this."

"And where could we run that all of this would not catch up with us?" Anna turned to him, a fire in her eyes previously hidden from him. "Where could we run that our conscience would not tug at our heartstrings, knowing that we left despite being some of the only people that could do anything about it? Where could we run that we would be free of the guilt of condemning someone to suffering under an Empyrean plot?"

Huh.

Losing his legs hadn't been the most pleasant experience he'd had to go through. He didn't think he'd heal. He was half-right; he wasn't any closer to walking, but he had healed in a different way, knowing the one Ascendant that was the cause of all his pain still worked to redeem herself somewhat.

It wouldn't change the past.

But it could change the future.

And now two people that would do anything to change the future were asking for his help.

"Fine," he said. "But if you're going to wage war you still need to hide well, and that's going to be a problem if they track your kinesis signatures. If they synced the entire UIF network to scan for this specific signature, you can't hide anywhere. And believe me, if they did it once just organize your rescue mission, you can be damn sure they'll do it again to kill you."

Anna sighed and buried her face in her hands. "But if that's the case, then that means…" She looked upward to the sky. "That means there is literally nowhere we can hide. We're doomed from here on out." He could see the faint traces of brimming tears in her eyes. "We've lost even before we've began."

"There is one way out," Charles said cautiously, not wanting to give false hope. "But it'll be risky."

"At this point I'll take anything you've got."

Charles punched in a few commands into his wheelchair's mounted data banks and isolated his own data streams, pulling up another display. "What you could do is change the registered kinesis signature in the database. If we replace all known copies of that signature with a falsified one, and spread it throughout UIF databanks, no one will realise the change for quite a while." He fired off a series of files, coordinates and codes to Anna's display.

"That… could work," Anna muttered as she scanned the data. "But why would anyone grant us access? It'd be way too suspicious—"

"Agreed. No one could and would grant you access." Charles wheeled around with a small smile on his face. "That's why you're going to hit it."

"Let's go through this again."

The last thing they wanted to do when attacking the main data facility of the UIF was to let anyone know that they were the ones doing it. Elsa decided it'd be best to throw the mole off by using Empyrean suits: it'd conceal their identities, and let the mole think that some of their forces were getting out of hand. More confusion meant they'd have more room to maneuver around their enemies.

So when they did hit the base, it'd look like an Empyrean attack. In addition to falsifying the kinesis signatures, they'd also siphon out data like troop movements, anything that'd help them figure out what was going on. UIF would probably realise this and change network security, of which Anna and Elsa would still be informed of back at base.

Elsa had salvaged armor pieces from the bodies they disposed of to reconstitute two full Empyrean powered armor suits. For some reason, none of the soldiers they had killed had realized that the modified armor they wore was built on an Empyrean base template. Anna had been able to strip the modifications and reconfigure individual pieces into lightweight variants, so they'd look every part the Empyrean soldier.

She watched Anna lean back against the pillow projecting the operation details they had planned as she paced their bedroom. "0400 hours we deploy in our drone after simulating our own signals at base," she went on. "We deploy at cruising altitude and burn in, landing within the perimeter. You'll remotely disable any perimeter alerts we trigger. From there we get you access into a mainframe and then you can do the rest. After that we trek four klicks out to await extraction."

"I still think we should be going in hot," Anna said, pouting a little as Elsa chose to sit on one of the chairs in the room instead of next to her. "Let them know that it's definitely an Empyrean attack."

Elsa sighed, looking back at her. "I've told you that it's too risky."

"And we can handle it, Elsa," her lover replied. "You know even without our augmentations we still put up one hell of a fight."

"A lot of things could still go wrong—"

"Do you want the statistical probability of us losing in a straight up gunfight? Because I can calculate that for you right now."

Elsa chuckled. Feisty Anna; she loved her all the more. "No, but there's a lot more variables to consider."

"Like what? How you'll completely exceed me in kill count when I'm busy hacking the database? Please. I can easily make that up on our next mission."

That got a proper laugh out of Elsa. "I have no doubt about that."

"Then?"

"Well for one, I'm not sure we should even be shooting them, Anna," she said softly. "After all, the guards there will just be people doing their job. People defending an organization, a cause, an ideal they believe in."

"They certainly won't hesitate to shoot us," Anna retorted.

"Yeah, but if we kill them just because they're in our way, that'd make us no better than Empyrean, would it?"

Anna's gaze softened at that, and she motioned for Elsa to sit next to her on the bed. Elsa complied. She received a soft, tender kiss on her lips. "Even when we're being hunted down you still find a way to care for people," Anna murmured as she broke away. "I don't know how you do that."

"Pain has a way of changing you," Elsa replied, averting her gaze. "I've had quite a bit of that, I think."

Anna embraced her, cradling Elsa in her arms. Elsa leaned back into the embrace, cherishing the moment while it lasted. "You deserve so much better than this," her lover whispered.

"What for?" she replied. "I have you. And that's all I'll ever need."

A half-scoff, half-giggle into the crook of her neck. "You're really cheesy, you know that?"

"I know you love it all the more."

Another giggle. "You're pretty right about that."

to be honest, i have no idea where this is going anymore but i'm probably going to go on with this to see where it goes. end goal still in mind, i just don't know the best way to get there :P