(A/N) Hey guys, sorry that this is coming up a bit late, but hey, that was one helluva RvB episode last night, huh? If you haven't seen it yet, well then, I don't know what you've been doing with your time, but go and watch it straight away! You may also have noticed that we unveiled a new fic today, Grifball: Symptoms of Rampancy, as companion fic to our main Grifball story, Grifball: Running Rampant. If you haven't checked it out yet, go do so immediately! So…this chapter was pretty fun to write, and pretty crazy at times, because I got all waylaid on various trains of thought and just ran away with myself. However, I'm pretty pleased with the end product, and I hope you will be too!

The image referred to in the chapter, that of the Crimson Sun's list of targets, can be found at to following link -

http:''thefreelancercollaboration,wikia,com'wiki'F ile:Targeted,png

(Just, as always, remove the space and replace every ' with a / and every , with a .)

Enjoy!

Chapter Four – The Consultant

The Director

Written by NicKenny

"The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ― George Orwell, 1984

I stood up from my seat as the Pelican began to descend, raising my harness over my head as I did so. From the cockpit, 479er muttered something about landing protocols, which I tactfully ignored. After all, given recent events, she should consider herself lucky that she still had a job. Attempting to lecture me about lecture me, about details that I was fully aware of, would not be beneficial to her maintaining her post.

She was just fortunate that she was the best damn pilot that we had.

After we landed smoothly onto the tarmac beneath it, I stepped out into harsh sunlight, my pupils contracting dilating to protect themselves, this suddenly illumination a stark contrast from the dimly lit interior of the old, battered Pelican that the UNSC had seen fit to grant me. I raised my hand the relieve them, sheltering my eyes as I took in the forms of several UNSC soldiers walking towards me, slowing adapting to the sunlight.

Their leader, a gruff looking lieutenant with a vivid scar running down his left cheek, a testament to the war that he was serving in, saluted tiredly as he approached, yelling over the noise of the Pelicans engines in order to be heard.

"We've been expecting you!" he yelled, gesturing for me to follow him, the soldiers behind him staring at me curiously, evidently not having been expecting me at all. "The witnesses were all discharged two days, we couldn't hold them for any longer, and we've been doing our best to keep the media out of this. Of course, your man's made that pretty much impossible, after his little stunt."

I frowned at this and increased my pace, catching up with the lieutenant. "He's not my man any more, Lieutenant, and I'd hardly describe the murder of a UNSC Colonel as a 'little stunt'."

The Lieutenant simply shrugged at this, his mouth twisting into a grimace. "All I know is that the word 'Freelancer' has been thrown around a lot recently, and nothing that I've heard has been good. I've spent the last week trying to maintain some measure of control over the situation, until HIGHCOM finally decided what to do." He paused and took a deep breath as we passed by a patrol, the soldiers snapping off smart salutes in our direction as we walked by, and yet again, I noticed their curiosity, but this time sensed the underlying hostility in their gazes.

"Then I hear that they're sending down the man responsible for this fuck up to serve as a Consultant during the remainder of this investigation, and, if you'll excuse me, sir, I fail to see reasoning behind this. I've had my best men search that place with a fine tooth comb, you ain't gonna find anything else there."

I glanced over to him, my interest suddenly peaked by what he had just inferred. "Anything else?" I repeated slowly. "What did they find?"

The Lieutenant only smiled back to me, his eyes sparkling viciously. "You mean, they didn't tell you?"

I shook my head, beginning to get irritated. "No, I received no information about any findings after the attack, only the basic summary of the actual assassination."

His smile grew wider, if indeed that was possible, drawing his lips back up to his molars. "You're gonna love this."

I stared at the image in front of me, my brow knotted in confusion. "What is this," I asked hesitantly, not able to tear my eyes away.

Next to me, the Lieutenant coughed into his hand, his voice betraying his confusion. "I should think it's pretty obvious, sir. It's a –"

"I know what that means, Lieutenant!" I spat, turning and pointing to the device sitting on the table next to me, pointing to it with exaggerated emphasis. "Where and when was it found, who found it, did they report it straight away or was there a delay, and are you certain that this was left by the Crimson Sun?!" I fired out, the Lieutenant looking visibly confused as he struggled to keep up with my questions.

"It was plugged into the control room, inside the building," he began slowly, wracking his brain for the necessary information. "That image up there was the last thing they transmitted before leaving, but the reason why no one outside of this site has seen it was down to the UNSC regaining control of the airwaves before the Crimson Sun could broadcast it. We found it straight away - I found it myself, actually - when we were searchin' the building for any remaining Insurrectionists. Was just sitting there, right in the middle of the room, glowin' green, just like it is now."

"And you removed it, straight away, did you?" I asked curiously, calm once again, surveying the object next to me, my hand half-stretched out, almost afraid to touch it.

The Lieutenant spluttered in indignation. "Of course not, are you kidding me! I sent for the bomb-squad straight away, then high-tailed it out of there! We had no idea what that thing was, still don't to be honest, only that it's some type of computer with a purpose that my best technicians can only speculate at. Some spook from ONI came down three days ago and had a look at it, but since they then sent you down too, I'm guessing he couldn't get squat from it either!"

I raised my eyebrows, nodding slowly. "ONI investigated this?" I asked, more as a rhetorical question than anything else, which the Lieutenant understood, and remained silent. I continued staring at it for a few minutes, before he eventually broke the silence that had fallen.

"Do you know what it is, sir?"

I turned to him, and shot a fleeting smile. "I can be one of three things, Lieutenant. A clue, a message, or a trap."

With that I turned from him and picked up the glowing cube, which fit snugly into my palm, tossing it lightly into air and deftly catching it, ignoring the Lieutenant's look of baffled horror. It clearly resembled the cube that Ark had used to cripple the Covenant ship that had assaulted the MoI, and I had no doubt that his hand was just as much present in its creation.

"Sir, I believe HIGHCOM requested that the cube remain in UNSC possession. In fact, the ONI spook in particular requested that it would be delivered to them after your visit."

With a slight laugh, I waved his words away. "I have some experience with the Office of Naval Intelligence, Lieutenant. In fact, I used to work for them. Fortunately, I still have some friends there. If I ask for the cube to remain in my possession, I feel confident that they will allow it. If the worst comes to the worst, just blame me. It seems to be a popular thing to do, these days."

There was a slight pause before the Lieutenant finally sighed and shrugged in acquiescence, and I inclined my head towards him

"Should we move on?"

The body had long been removed by the time that I had entered the room, but the sense that someone had died here recently still lingered. I paused at the entrance, hesitant to make my way down to an area that Ark had previously visited, all too aware of the potential traps that he could have set.

"You're sure that the building is safe?" I asked cautiously, suddenly uncomfortable at the thought of entering. "There's no chance he could have set up anything down there, in the event that I should be sent down to investigate?"

The Lieutenant let out a bark of laughter and shook his head. "I felt the same way the first time I came down, especially after reading the file your project sent us, but the bomb-squad searched this area as thoroughly as they ever have, and we've had hundreds of soldiers movin' in and out of this building every day. If there was something here waiting for us, it'd have gone off a long time ago."

Still not feeling all that reassured, I nodded slowly, attempting to steel myself. The Lieutenant pushed the door open and marched in, and I hesitantly followed him, uneasy throughout the walk down the stairs. I glanced around me as we walked down between the rows of chairs, wondering what it must have felt like to have been those spectators: helpless to stop what was about to happen, unable to escape, trapped and exposed to the whim of a man who had just openly declared himself an enemy of the UNSC.

My still-not-quite-healed shoulder wound throbbed at that thought, and I raised my free hand to it, the one not clasped around the mysterious cube, massaging it gently. The Lieutenant, having reached the foot of the stairs and walked out into the front of the room, gestured behind me towards one of the guards at the front door, who disappeared for a moment.

A second later, the room's lights dimmed, and a holographic display took shape before me, using a recording of the assassination to recreate the events. I stood aside, head cocked, as Ark and the others made their way into the room, inspecting Penn's new armour, which appeared to be a bastardised version of both our own and the Insurrectionist's hastily constructed models. Harper too, had reclaimed something akin to his old suit of armour, which currently hung in a storage room on the Mother of Invention. Obviously, the Crimson Sun had either found a way to produce these suits once more, or else the URF had made more of them than I had previously suspected, before we had shut them down.

Ark's two soldiers entered with them, the giant holding a large camera, the smaller holding some sort of data-pad, possibly linked to Ark's cube, which had presumably, at this point, been placed within the control room. I studied their faces, making note of them should I see them in the future, and turned away just in time to see Ark execute Colonel Grant.

I stared down at Grant's corpse for a moment, observing it dispassionately, as one might observe another stepping on an ant. From our brief period of time working together during the relieving of Haven, and the blockade of Byzantium, he had struck me as the kind of man who always sought for more power than he currently possessed, the kind of arrogant, grasping fool that the UNSC was plagued with in these days.

He did, however, have his uses, proving an adequate leader of men on the battlefield, and if his murder led me to Arkansas and Pennsylvania, then I would remember him fondly. I looked up towards the Lieutenant as Grant's holographic blood slowly began to cease leaking out of his chest wound, the carpet beneath him slowly staining a deep red, matching the real one that lay beneath the hologram.

I glanced over to the Lieutenant, who stood a few feet away, leaning up against the wall, looking uninterested, having seen this hologram play out time after time already. "Is this everything you have?" I asked slowly, preoccupied as my brain sought to analyse every detail that I had just witnessed. "You have no footage of their break-in, or anything like that?"

The Lieutenant looked considerably uncomfortable as he replied. "No sir, they fed a continuous loop to our security cameras, which was only realised during the attack. They then wiped the memory banks, so the only footage that we have, is what they broadcasted."

I nodded slowly, absorbing this, when the Lieutenant's sudden look of confusion caught my eye, which quickly changed to horror as he opened his mouth and gasped, pointing to the cube in my hand. I looked down, and realised that it had started to glow even fiercer than before, then began pulsing in a seemingly irregular pattern.

Around us, the lights dimmed further, and the holographic projectors shut off for a brief moment, before flickering on again, but this time, instead of witnessing Ark's assassination of Colonel Grant, only Ark was projected, standing right in front of me, an exact copy of the cube that I was currently holding in his hands, but for the fact that it glowed blue.

"Hello, Director," he said, and I could sense the arrogance and amusement in his voice. "I must confess, I didn't think that they'd allow you down here, given your track record. The again, I guess we can take this as a compliment, if our actions have troubled the UNSC enough to resort to this most desperate of tactics."

"Arkansas," I returned, inclining my head slightly. "It appears we meet again. Perhaps, in hindsight, we should have spent more time in Project Freelancer concentrating on your aim. After all, here I am, alive and well, despite your best efforts."

Surprisingly, Ark laughed at this, and nodded in reply. "Yes, Director, perhaps we should have. However, I would like to guarantee to you that if I get another chance, my next bullet will go through your heart. And I can assure you, I will have another chance."

I smiled grimly at this, a looked away for a moment, meeting the Lieutenant's eyes, who nodded back to me, signalling to his men who were coming down to investigate to begin tracing the transmission. "Yes, Ark, I can see that you've made putting a bullet through me one of the aims of your new Insurrection."

Behind Arkansas, the image that I had inspected with the Lieutenant in his briefing room appeared, and the nine faces and names stared back out of me, the first image stamped diagonally with a crimson-red Executed, obscuring Colonel Grant's features. The other seven I skimmed over with my eyes, recognising some of the names and faces, the names Dr Simon Eisenberg, Dr Isla Grace and General William Petrarch catching my eye in particular, but it was the last name on the list that gave me reason for pause, as it was below my own face, which stared back out at me.

"A hit list," I murmured, smiling somewhat at the lack of originality displayed by one of my formerly most-talented agents. "I assume you have your reasons for each of these names?"

Ark nodded back to me, and the image blinked out of sight. "All of them are murderers, Director, just like you. Between the nine of you, I have evidence conclusive enough to prove your collective responsibility for the deaths of over three million people. A small drop in the human race's currently population, but an unforgivable one all the same."

Turning away from Arkansas, I raised my free hand to my mouth, and began to chuckle. "I'm sorry, Arkansas, if you mean to frighten me. You wish to set yourself up as the embodiment of Justice and Nobility? Very well then, just know the people that you claim to be protecting and avenging will never support you. When annihilation is at the door, petty grievances are laid aside. The survival of the human race is at stake, Ark. Against that, what support can your cause hope to gain?"

The former agent titled his head slowly, and I got the sense that he was no longer staring at me, but something beyond me. "We can gain justice, Director, whatever the cost. That is enough. Just know that we will never surrender, we will never stop, and we will never compromise, for there can be no compromise, not even in the face of annihilation."

Ark straightened up, and his gaze seemed to refocus on my eyes. "We will have our revenge Director. You can hold me to that."

He paused for a moment, before casually adding. "You should probably start moving."

With that, his hologram blinked off, leaving in its place a glowing red number ten, and the room's lights suddenly flickered back on, but I was already moving before it changed to nine, the Lieutenant hot on my heels, Ark's cryptic warning flashing in my mind as I descended into a state of near hysteria, running faster than I would have thought possible of myself only a few moments previously.

Behind me, the Lieutenant was yelling out a series of commands, ordering his soldiers to abandon their posts immediately, and in my head I could hear the seconds passing by.

Eight.

I rushed out the main doors into the foyer, the soldiers milling about in front of me looking more than a little surprised, but their faces quickly grew taut with understanding as I passed by them.

Six.

They began to follow my lead, packing in behind me, all thoughts of their post removed from their mind, their only desire was to get out of the building as fast as they possibly could.

Five.

I was nearing the front entrance, just as alarms began to sound throughout the building, the security systems no doubt having suddenly detected Ark's explosive devices, now that they had been placed back online. Behind me I head yells and muffled thumps as soldiers sprinted towards the exits with every remaining shred of energy that they had remaining.

Four.

I passed through the main entrance's doors, but continued running, fully aware that the building was going to erupt at any moment.

Three.

My side was beginning to throb, a sentiment which was shared by my healing shoulder, and I felt the traitorous beginning of a stich develop, threatening to kill me just a assuredly as a bullet or knife.

Two.

My body was in full protest about this overexertion, not realising the danger that existed as I began to pass out of the building's shadow, and hopefully the range of whatever bomb Ark had planted. I began to slow down, wheezing, but still determined to increase the distance between us.

One.

I threw myself forward, landing on the smooth earth and rolling behind a parked Warthog, already anticipating the blast that I had little doubt would soon make itself heard.

Zero…

I tensed…then, as the seconds passed, and the yells of panic around the site began to be replaced with the quiet murmurs of confusion, I dragged myself to my feet, noticing that I had destroyed the suit that I had been wearing in my desperation to evade Ark's revenge. Brushing myself off, I looked up as the Lieutenant began to make his way over to me, the several dozen soldiers standing about, looking confused as to whether or not they were now expected to return to their posts.

"Do you reckon he was bluffing?" the Lieutenant called out over to me, when the sudden blast detonated and threw us all into the air, the building collapsing upon its foundations in a blaze of fire and a deafening eruption. I was thrown against the Warthog that I had previously sheltered behind, and bounced off it, ending up sprawled on the ground next to it, moaning quietly.

Eventually, when the pain had become more manageable, and the voices of the UNSC soldiers began to ring out, rather woefully, around me, I opened my eyed and, with a certain amount of agony, pushed myself to my feet.

The complex had been completely obliterated, there was scarcely a trace of it left, other than some blackened, smoking rubble and the small crater that had been left to denote where it had previously stood. I turned slowly, looking over to the Lieutenant who was slowly getting to his feet next to me, and smiled grimly. "I think your bomb-squad needs replacing," I noted, "They must have planted something in the foundations, possibly even drilled under it in order to avoid detection."

The Lieutenant only nodded weakly to me, and staggered away, no doubt wanting to make some very embarrassed calls to his superiors. A pity, I mused, that this would no doubt reflect heavily on his career. He appeared almost capable, indeed, more so than many of the other UNSC representatives that I had been forced to meet over the past few months.

I pulled myself to my feet, and my attention was caught by the glowing cube, which had been knocked from my grip in the blast, and lay several feet away. Walking over to it, and picking it up, I realised that perhaps this visit hadn't proved the colossal failure that I had expected it to. The cube clearly functioned as some sort of transmitter and receiver to the one that Ark himself carried.

If he could listen in on me using it, then perhaps I could reverse its intention, and use it to track down his location. Of course, he would have anticipated that, and no doubt have built in fail-safes, but that wouldn't prove a problem to those with the skills to circumvent this.

And I had been keeping tabs on a few such individuals. Perhaps this would give the UNSC enough pause to agree to my demands, and reinstate Project Freelancer. After all, we were the ones most qualified to handle the threat posed by Ark and Penn's Crimson Sun.

I straightened myself up, and my smile was reflected in the glow of the cube. At the very least, I now had a plan, and something to barter with.

I could work with that.