Chapter Twelve
Tomorrow afternoon...
"Cheers. To your well-earned week off, in tropical paradise!" - Ben Saxon offered, raising his beer bottle.
The three of them, minus Kelso, were lounging on a terrace of a small bistro near the beach, the sun high in the cloudless, clear sky, early afternoon.
"Trust me, after two months slogging around Sankt Peterburg in the middle of Russian winter, this... this is my idea of heaven. Man I wish I could take a swim..." - Irwine nodded, as his own bottle met Saxon's in a subdued 'clink', glancing briefly at the cast around his shoulder, then longingly, at the crystalline-clear blue waters nearby, and sparse clumps of beach-goers visible on the expansive sand below the terrace.
The man was dressed only in swimshorts, bought just this morning, his chest and back coated in a liberal layer of sunscreen that Yelena insisted on applying to both of them.
"You should at least dip in... even with sunscreen, you will catch a burn if you keep just slow-boiling up here like this!" - the woman admonished, squeezing out some more on her palm, to rub up his shoulders, and the neck, paying special attention to his ears, already somewhat reddish.
"Jeez, ease off on the oil! I feel like a marinated turkey already!" - Irwine grunted with a grin.
"Better then a roasted one!" - she hissed playfully.
Then the woman looked out to the sea, her expression somewhat... wistful, under a pair of mirrored shades, as she stretched out on her longue-chair, reaching a hand to take a sip of her own bottle, of orange-juice. Her exposed skin under a single-piece white swimsuit she wore, was very much fully covered in sunscreen, which she took care to keep off of her cybernetic legs, however.
Unlike the two men, beer was very much not to her taste. It was either something stronger, or no alcohol at all. In this instance, she was in the mood for something fruity.
"I cannot even remember the last time I had a... vacation. I'm trying to... but..." - she trailed off.
"It's beautiful, though. And it is hard to believe a place like this still exists, after the Incident."
Saxon shrugged. He was also dressed in swimshorts, but unlike the two, he didn't apply any sunscreen. Given his tanned skin, it was not hard to guess why. He was very much acclimated here.
"There weren't many augs around here to begin with. Most regular people can't afford anything like that. And those few that could... well. LIMB doesn't have much market share here in Panama, given the heavy cartel presence. The beauty of a booming black market, is that a whole lot of people never bothered to swap out their biochips at all. They just went to their local dealer and had them flash-wiped and refurbished instead. So... no virus, no way for Darrow's signal to scramble them up. Not everyone, of course, but... it was a pretty minor disturbance, not a world-shaking event, over here."
Yelena mulled that over. It made sense.
"What about you? Did you... suffer?" - she asked, glancing at him. The man waved his cybernetic arm dismissively.
"Are you kidding me? As soon as I heard about the 'recalls', I had a bad feeling about it. So I did some digging on my own... and the name Versalife kept cropping up, as the supplier of these new chips. That really set off the red flags, since I was already briefed on their connection to... well. You know." - before he scowled, hard.
"Anna, though... god damn it. She just wouldn't hear it! Even after everything that happened she kept her faith in the institutions. Had her own chip replaced, just a couple of days before Darrow's stunt."
"How bad was it?" - Irwine inquired, with a vince.
The bigger man's jaw bunched in anger, remembering...
"Bad enough. Good thing I was with her at the time, to stop her from hurting herself too bad. If I could've gotten my hands on that crippled bastard..." - Saxon trailed off briefly, "...she first went berserk, then tried to jump out the window, screaming about voices ordering her to do it. Had to drag her, gagged and cuffed, to the underground clinic so the doc there could yank that fucking chip out and put in a refurb one."
"On a bright note, we were alone, so... no collaterals." - he finished.
Irwine shook his head.
"Times like that I'm kind of glad I'm not augmented. Not that I never thought about it... but it always seemed the price was too high. And not the money one. Drug dependency, software scrambling like what Darrow did... it's a mess." - he stated.
"It's a balancing act. But when it all works... man it kicks ass." - Saxon murmured, then glanced at Yelena.
"What about you? I'm guessing as one in the works, you knew in advance the biochip thing was a scam?"
She nodded.
"Jaron gave us all a direct tele-briefing on the subject. Me, Jenna, and Gunther. Said how 'disturbances are to be expected and we may be called upon to manage them in the upcoming weeks'. In my case, it was right before I was to meet up with a detachment headed for Montreal to intercept Jensen. No idea what the others were up to. We were very much on a need-to-know basis."
"Gunther's still kicking around the Tyrants? I thought he ended up exploded in a river, back before the whole Icarus thing? Anna made sure of that...?" - Saxon perked up. He hadn't forgotten the young German recruit, and their brief rivalry.
The woman shook her head.
"He survived and was rescued. And got rebuilt. Extensively, at some black site even Namir didn't know where he was taken. They turned him into an Ogre, more or less. For his part – he was happy about it. I always got the impression he wanted to get rid of all of his human self."
Saxon scowled.
"Damn. Anna won't be happy when she finds out. So how about you... ? What happened in Montreal, betweem you and Adam Jensen?"
Yelena looked at him. Noticing that Irwine was also paying very close attention. Clearly more then curious.
She smirked mirthlessly.
"I lost. He won. Didn't finish me off, obviously. On the surface. Now, looking back at it, I'm not so sure. Now I think I won, by losing there. I was... made to think about certain things, lying there bleeding. And I never looked back, until I closed a circle that needed closing. Meanwhile, he lost everything. His job, his woman... the company he worked for... his city, now in chaos... everything."
She paused.
"I had nothing to begin with, when we fought. Nothing to lose. Not even who I really was. The only two ways to go were to die, or to find out who I really was. Thanks to Eliza Cassan, I chose the latter."
"What does Cassan have to do with it?" - Irwine was curious.
The woman paused. As far as she knew, neither of them were aware that Eliza Cassan wasn't who she appeared to be. Saxon wouldn't be privy to that information, since he wasn't with the Tyrants for long. And Irwine of course never knew. And from the way Saxon frowned, it was clear that he never found out either. From Jensen or anyone else.
Should I tell them... ?
There was little reason not to, of course. But somehow... Yelena mentally shook her head. Now was not the time.
"She was... persuasive. Let's leave it at that." - she simply said, with a surprisingly... affectionate... smile.
"Well, I for one, am glad she did!" - Irwine smiled back, leaning over to kiss her.
Saxon's frown deepened, however, remembering a news-report from London, about bloodshed near Knightsbridge, that happened around the same time. The names of the victims were... redacted... by an unknown source, but the location, the timing...
"Circle that needed closing..." - he murmured, before he connected it... "Oh my god. Namir's wife and children. In our safehouse in London... ? What the hell did you do, Fedorova?!" - he demanded.
"What needed to be done! Nothing more." - she rose to pace to the terrace's railing, as Irwine looked puzzled.
"What're you talking about-" - the ex-Marine began, but Saxon didn't pay any attention, scrambling after her.
"They had nothing to do with any of it! For fucks' sake, they didn't even know Namir was-" - he growled, reaching a hand to turn her to face him, before she struck it off, cutting him off with a venomous glare.
"And that makes it all right?! Is that it, Ben? That absolves them?! That lets them off the hook? Lets him keep up his disgusting pretence?! NO. NO IT DOES NOT. He took my family from me! I watched, do you understand?! I watched, as he did. Then had it blocked, for seven years. You had your unit murdered in front of you. I had my FAMILY murdered in front of me." - she snarled, that old rage and fury surfacing again.
"I took his in return. I make no apologies for it, and I'd do it again." - with cold fury, suddenly standing very still. Almost daring him to attack her.
Saxon glared, not knowing what to say. In the background, Irwine looked stunned. She wiped a sudden tear in her eye, as she continued.
Where I was born, Georgia... Kakheti... a family is sacred. Not everyone sees it that way. But we, the Svani... we do. A family unavenged - is lost forever. As the last of the line, I have a duty to them. And to myself."
"Blood vengeance..." - Saxon murmured under his breath. Irwine nodded to himself. Now the sorrow and fury he witnessed on the plane, made so much more sense. It wasn't just personal, for Yelena. It was... cultural, as well.
The woman nodded.
"Call it what you will. Call it primitive and backwards, and whatever else you want. I do not care. If not for it, I would be dead now. I would have nothing left to live for. It was all taken from me."
"So when will it end, then?" - Saxon growled, "...because you can't think Namir was the starting point." - pointedly. He knew a thing or two about the principle, from his interactions with various tribal cultures during his time in the SAS.
Yelena turned away, face twisting in disgust.
"No. He wasn't. I saw what I needed to see, in the Killing Floor. He was a weak, pathetic little man, who allowed them to turn him into a tool, using his own family as a bargaining chip. And who coped by trying to turn all the rest of us, into his likeness. Me first. Jensen robbed me of a chance to kill him, but that's fine. He's dead, that is what matters. But his masters... my former masters, the ones who gave the orders to begin with... they are not." - she paused.
"Their families are not. No doubt living in luxury and privilege, thanks to their... entitlement over the world. The... five ruling Illuminated families. And I'll find out who they are, eventually." - darkly, her gaze losing all aspects of humanity to it.
"How do you know there's five of them? Why not more? Or less?" - Irwine put in clinically, sounding a bit less... stunned, then Saxon might have expected him to. He gave the other man a look of surprise. Was he actually... aboard with this?!
"I heard Jaron mentioning the term 'Council of Five' , more then once, after receiving instructions we were never privy to. Call it a hunch. The more secrets they think they have, the more details slip out. As a rule, people are not good at keeping secrets. Even those who are trained to do so. Now that I can begin piecing the puzzle together." - Yelena explained.
"And what will it accomplish? Say you do find out eventually? And kill them all. How will more innocent deaths bring peace to your folks?" - Saxon demanded.
She shook her head.
"If you have to ask, you'll never understand. And just by calling them innocent, I can tell you don't understand." - without another word, she vaulted over the terrace's railing, heading for the sea. Suddenly, a long, relaxing swim was exactly what she needed.
"Jesus fucking Christ... maybe Kelso had a point about her..." - Saxon snarled, as Irwine came up.
"Makes sense, though." - the ex-Marine offered. As Saxon opened his mouth to protest, he continued, "If we are dealing with some kind of elitist circle of wannabe rulers, it stands to reason they'd have hereditary succession. Kind of a global kingdom, if you wanna call it. Kings, princes, princesses, the whole nine yards. You cut off the heads of the hydra, they'll just grow back. What you wanna do is kill the body of the beast."
"You sure you haven't been spending too much time around her, mate?" - the other man glared briefly.
Irwine frowned hard.
"Am I into her whole blood-vengeance thing? No. No, it's... messed up. But I can see where she's coming from. I've seen how it affects her. Those memories. She told me that if she forgave, she'd die. And I believe it. I can't pretend to know how I'd feel, if I saw my folks murdered like that. I don't want to. But this is more then just about revenge." - he looked at the other man.
"We got a global terrorist organisation to deal with." - tone hard. "One with possible hereditary links, and lines of succession, masking as a 'secret society' bullshit. Not to mention money and connections at all levels of power and arrogance to match, but that's beside the point here. If we're to eradicate the threat, we'll have to do it all the way. Like it or not. If we don't, they'll just regroup in a generation or two. And we'll be right back at square-one." - taking a swig from his beer bottle.
"I don't know about you... mate... but I don't feel like leaving our war for our kids to fight, in - thirty, forty... fifty years, all over again. It's gotta end, once and for all. If that means making a clean sweep, then that's what we do. Down to the last family member, if necessary."
Saxon sighed.
"You make it sound like it's a circle we need to break. Maybe you're right. But if we start targetting civvies who may or may not be involved, what makes us different from them? Tell me that. If we had... concrete proof... of the hereditary links within the Illuminati, I'd go along with it. But until and unless we do, we'd be operating on assumptions." - his tone just as hard.
"Sometimes an assumption is all you've got to go with, before you pull that trigger. But yeah... I get where you're coming from. Let's hope we don't have to rely on them, when the time comes." - he chuckled darkly.
"For right now, we don't even have a fucking clue, who they are. So we're several steps away from that anyway. Let's not worry about it until we need to, huh?"
The cyborg scowled unconvincedly.
"Yeah, fine. Listen... I need to go check up on Anna. She said she was gonna meet with one of our local contacts, to coordinate the prisoner transfer."
"And the materiel? Any chance of gettin' a clue where it's all going?" - Irwine asked.
But Saxon shook his head.
"Sorry mate. Different cells and all that. Quinn's orders were very clear. No cross-cell information leaks. Especially with what happened at the Hole. All I can tell you is that they care more about Chow and what she might know, then the materials. I'm to ride along as an escort."
"Have fun." - the man shook his head as they parted, then decide to take a walk down to the beach, and take his own chances in the sea.
I mean... one-armed swimmers are a thing, right? And I can't let her have all the fun!
He thought, sprinting for the sea, as Yelena beckoned at him from some distance in the water. She seemed to be swimming in closer, as he entered, clearly ready to help out if needed.
As they met, her giggle as she sprayed him in the face, was that of someone very much not in the mood to let her memories out for long. The day was too - perfect - for that. He laughed, dipping her underwater, before she wiggled out like a slippery eel, surfacing behind him, with a grin. He grinned back.
"Not fair! If I had both my arms workin' right, you'd never get out!" - he sprayed her.
"Keep telling yourself that!" - she dove in again, before he felt her hands on his ankles, pulling him downwards with a gasp.
"Bad girbbbllugbbl..!" - his exclamation was lost in the bubbles, as her face appeared in front of his, and she pulled him into an underwater kiss.
Oh yeah... to a well-earned week off, indeed!
He thought, as they surfaced together, laughing.
"So. What do you wanna do this evening?" - he asked her.
"More shopping! I saw this... gorgeous... crop top and lace jeans! The cut was just perfect for my legs. Now that our commissions have been wired, I feel like spending... and make the most of the nightlife here! You don't expect me to be seen at a club in a swimsuit?" - Yelena purred.
"Actually, I wouldn't mind if you wore nothing but it..." - he deadpanned, which got him a shove.
"You don't mean that! Think of all the guys staring... would it make you jealous?" - giving him a hooded gaze.
"I'll get back to you on that..." - he wisecracked, then caught her hand before she could shove him again, pulling her in for another kiss.
"And afterwards?" - he asked softly.
"What do you think... ?" - she murmured just as softly, biting her lower lip.
Then she pushed off, diving down again, and surfacing a few metres away.
"Catch me!" - swimming away freestyle.
"NOT fair! You minx..." - he growled, trying to keep up.