When broken bones healed in abnormal positions, the result was deformity. He hadn't known that. The hand contained twenty-seven bones, and he didn't know the first thing about setting them back into place. His nanites simply repaired the appendage as it was, without any intervention.
Rex had never had to deal with displaced bones in multiple places- not all at once and never on his his own. There was nobody to chide him about being more careful with his body, to warn him against being reckless, and provide him with splints; Holiday wasn't here. This was the grotesque result of allowing injury to heal over unattended to. The disfigurement stared him in the face; he stared back, swallowing down the rising tide of panic that he'd gotten over moments ago. The digits were each angled awkwardly in opposite directions from what was anatomically typical. They were splayed out like the petals of a flower. His hand was no longer in agony, but he lost the range of motion that he once had. Wiggling his fingers was the most he could accomplish, pathetic twitching from the way his nerves had been scrambled.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to stop looking, or he would just freak out again. Broken things could be fixed, he rationalized. He exhaled softly, peering out of the window from the floor of the passenger seat.
He was almost home, he soothed himself.
A Trojan horse, the black armored vehicle did not alert the presence of the others like it. Stowed away in the safe position on floor of the van, Rex peered out the window to watch as inconspicuously as he could. Without any intuition of their own, the other vehicles kept circling their preprogrammed parameters. They didn't even notice them, but he didn't get his hopes up just yet. Although they were getting through the quarantine block, he would not lower his guard until they got to headquarters.
Even as tense as he was, the hum of the engine, gentle rocking of the vehicle, and the soft moon beams streaming in from the window above him tempted him with sleep. If he closed his eyes, it would put the world on pause and shut everything out for a moment. He wanted that break, the small moment where unconsciousness made him unaware that he, the world, or life existed. It would be nice to turn it all off, but he wasn't the sort of tired that an hour of sleep could fix anyway, Instead of closing his eyes a minute longer, he kept reminding himself of why it was important to remain alert. Peering up at his hijacked chauffeur, he began interrogating him, both to keep himself awake and to get something out of the ride home.
Rex tilted his head. "Are you connected to Providence?"
"I am connected to Providence's network at all times." The agent confirmed.
"Can you tell me what the other bots are doing?"
"They have returned to their standard directives to patrol the area and scan for intruders."
Rex stilled for a moment, sweat beading on his brow. "If you know what they're doing, can the other agents see what you're doing?"
"We are connected to the same network. They will know what I am doing when they update their data with my information."
"When they update? Do they know I'm here now?"
"You were last seen being detained. They have no reason to update their information. They are not aware you are here until their next update."
Worry grew in the pit of Rex's gut. "How often are those?"
"Periodically. Every fifteen minutes."
Rex quieted, trying to guess how much time he had left until the soldiers were refreshed and came after him. How could he measure the update intervals when he had no clue when the last one had been? The pawns could be alerted at any moment.
He only had time to blink once before they were covered by total darkness. The inside of the van was pitch black. In his chest, his heart rate sped up. Quickly peering out the window again, he saw that the moon had been blotted out by a lonely fortress perched on the edge of a canyon; they were under its all consuming shadow as it blotted out the moonlight. They were nearing the craggy rockface; the change in altitude built pressure in his ears. It didn't hurt. Flying had made him accustomed to the highs and lows of elevation. Rex only relaxed when he saw that the darkness was only caused by home. They were almost there. By the time the black pawns noticed, it was going to be too late. He wondered if he could order his robot not to give them an update, just to stay on the safeside. Would that be more suspicious? Robots did not have the intuition to figure that out, though. Right?
He reached out. His blue-lit hand faltered, hesitating.
Right?
They let one of their own armored vehicles break formation when they didn't register that the pawn was an enemy. But there was still Black Knight. Would she take notice that one of her pawns was not updating her? She did possess human intuition. Presumably (he couldn't be confident in the way he saw the world anymore).
"They're sure going through a lot of effort just to keep me out." He mumbled. "What could they be trying to hide?"
Although he'd been talking to himself, the guard responded to his question anyway. "Under the orders of the Consortium, no information about the quarantine has been hidden. All information can be accessed and is publicly available at Providence's official website and . The area is restricted because of an EVO threat."
Rex scoffed. "So I've been told, but I'm not buying they spilled everything."
"White Knight is a highly volatile EVO and a threat to public safety. All of the information that Providence was able to gather about the threat has been made public to deter trespassers." The pawn repeated.
"Yeah? So all the mind games they've been playing with me were just for the kicks? I guess Black Knight's just really invested in practical jokes. "
Maybe White Knight was unstable just like they said- as psycho as him willingly infecting himself sounded. With all the precautions that new Providence had taken to maintain order, the man couldn't still possibly be a danger, not with the control collars they were slapping on EVOs left and right. Causing a problem should have been like attempting to start a wildfire on the ocean floor.
Imprisonment? It was a possibility that his friends were just being held against their will. It seemed more likely. After all, if White Knight didn't agree with the way new Providence was operating, he couldn't have been the only one. It made sense to lock away any dissenters to prevent them from becoming potential problems. Everything began falling into place. With clarity, he began to understand what was going on.
The sound of gunfire pelting against the armored vehicle brought their conversation to a halt. Rex flinched and screwed his eyes shut, his hands clapping over his ears. The car jerked, but the black pawn, with the skill of a practiced racecar driver, kept it from spinning out of control. At the sound of the assault, Rex cursed himself for deciding not to reprogram the update schedule. That's what he got for hesitating.
"Rex Salazar!" boomed a voice from a loudspeaker behind them. Rex's heart all but leapt out of his throat. Bishop's mechanical voice was made more dreadful, louder over the roar of his army's engines. Both were inhuman precursors to agony. "You are unauthorized to be on the premises. Turn back now or you will be incapacitated through any means necessary."
Not again. This couldn't be happening. They were almost there! This couldn't be so difficult! They were just robots. Tech was supposed to listen to him, not the other way around. He squeezed himself into a smaller ball at the bottom of the floor, trying not to recall the pain of Bishop's staff too clearly. It was hard to forget the sensation of being pulled at the seams; he'd felt like nothing more than a tinker toy himself. They were almost there. He just had to keep his distance until the reached the canyons.
Pulling his hands away from his ears, he looked up at his chauffeur. "Can't you go any faster?"
The vehicle rocked. The last, well-aimed blast had damaged a back wheel. The car unsteadily persisted forward, bumping along precariously.
"An increase in speed will cause us to lose control of the vehicle." the pawn informed him. Rex gritted his teeth, fingers digging into his palm. The adrenaline in his veins stopped feeding into his fears and began to fuel his anger. "The back wheel has been damaged."
A new voice cut into their conversation. It pierced through the air from the speakers inside the van. "If you turn back now willingly, you won't face the consequences."
Rex grinded his teeth together harder, exhaling out of his nose. So she did know he was here.
"I'm warning you not to continue further." Black Knight stated flatly. "You must be well acquainted with my pawns by now. This won't be pleasant for you."
Closing his eyes, he wondered if she would shut up if he simply ignored her. He was almost there. The car jerked unsteadily again, but he ignored that too.
"You aren't going to like what you find."
"Oh, I won't?" He shot back. "Why? Because you're holding my friends hostage?"
"I've done nothing of the sort, you insolent , snot-nosed shit." Black Knight snapped, finally losing the calm control in her voice once she finally realized he wasn't ever hers to control. "Get it through your thick head. Providence didn't touch your precious friends. You're running head-first into a danger you don't even understand."
"Aw, you're really flattering me here, guys." Rex had to laugh, putting his mangled hand over his chest. "You really seem to care about my well-being all of a sudden. Get real. Where were you when I was being thrown through buildings at thirteen? You've had zero issues with throwing me "head-first into danger" before. You don't care about my safety at all, so what else could this be about?"
"When you hear hooves, think horse, not Zebra."
Rex blinked several times. "What are you talking about? We're in a van."
"It's an expression, numbskull. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct one. You were already told multiple times, from various sources, what transpired during your disappearance. There's nothing up our sleeves. You're refusing to accept reality because it's not what you want to hear, but the truth is never convenient. We are not your storybook villains. To you, it might seem that way. The sudden changes couldn't have been comfortable for you to return home to, and perhaps I have not expressed much sympathy to you, Rex."
He stopped scowling, his fierce expression faltering.
Black continued, "The only home you've known is gone. I am aware of what you've had to sacrifice for the good of humanity. As you've pointed out, you haven't been given much opportunity to be the child that you are. And so I thought it would be easy for you to accept these new changes with the professionalism of a soldier or one of my pawns. That was wrong of me. You are still just a kid. I am sorry for you, Rex."
Although he'd heard her, he wasn't understanding her. What was the purpose of apologizing to him? It was a little too late for that. She couldn't give him back a lost childhood through a single 'sorry.' It wasn't going to save his friends either. Clearly, it was a manipulation tactic. But it hurt for some reason. Worse than having his hand slammed in a door. Worse than the way his ears were threatening to pop from the pressure, a light migraine building in his temples. He was used to those things. His lip quivered despite himself, and he jerked his head away from the speaker, gaze falling resolutely on the floor of the van.
They weren't sorry; they had wrung the use out of him. And maybe that's just how Providence operated, he realized. Everything was a resource to be used up, even the lives of others. It was no wonder Providence had gotten away with experimenting and killing EVOs before they had found Rex. But they'd been so quick to let him know that if he didn't jump to their tune, he would be tossed aside. And White… He was probably expected to jump, too. Rex never really considered the role his boss was playing, mostly because he'd never known that White had his own higher ups. They were in the same, sinking boat. White kept everything in order for them and was the face of Providence. How convenient when the public needed a face to blame for all the tragedies that the nanite crisis left behind. White probably kept a neat record of every soldier he sent to die and every causality that resulted from the battles they were sent on. And when Rex disappeared, when White failed to meet expectations, he was removed from Providence.
So Black Knight could shove her apology.
"I forgot that you're just a boy. I know it can't be easy for you to accept, but you have to understand that White Knight is no longer the man you knew. You know as well as I do, maybe even better than I do, what happens to a person's mental faculties once they become an EVO. I don't think I have to tell you what might have happened to your friends who were trapped inside with him."
"But why?" Rex's voice broke. "That doesn't make sense. White wouldn't just do something like that for no reason. It was you. You did something to him."
"Why?" Black Knight wondered. "What would be the purpose of doing something like that?"
"I don't... I don't kno-"
"From the very beginning, the Consortium has paid every expense Providence needed of them: damage control, weapons, uniforms, facilities. We supported the organization without question. Providence would have never existed without our contributions and through the collective effort of the worlds' governments. Do you see now? Going through the effort of reinfecting White after all the resources it took to build him a nanite free office would have been an incredible waste. If we had malicious intent, if we intended to do harm, we would have done it long ago, and all it would have taken was a simple budget cut."
"No." Rex denied stubbornly. He rose to his feet inside the armored vehicle, getting close to the van's speaker. "No. I'm not stupid. This isn't chess, and you can't play me like a piece."
He slammed his mutilated fingers straight into the speaker, cutting off whatever she might have said next. The vehicle tremored after the motion. Rex grabbed at the seat to keep himself steady; thankfully, the wheels never lost their grip on the ground. There was a beat. The vehicle was bombarded with another spray of ammunition, causing it to shake. Keeping himself upright with a grip on the seat, Rex moved to the back of the van to see what equipment they had at their disposal. Crouching next to a dirty crate, he pried open the lid, scanning the contents for something that would slow down their pursuants.
His eyes settled on brick-shaped explosives that were nestled innocently enough inside. The jerkiness of the vehicle now suddenly made him feel anxious at the sight of them. Were all of Providence's armored vehicles equipped with bombs? He grimaced and, with child-like uncertainty, tucked the crate underneath his arm. It was stupid to be so nervous, he thought. The adults in his life had never been gun shy around him. In fact, they would have probably placed firearms in his hands if he didn't already have his own arsenal of personally assembled weapons- none that would help maintain the distance between him and Black's army. Slam canon was long range; unfortunately, it was aptly named and needed to be slammed into the ground to gather material it could use as projectiles. It would lose Rex precious time.
In any case, he wasn't a stranger to the tension of driving through rocky terrain with a live bomb in tow. Recalling the time he and Noah had been tasked with transporting highly unstable nanites, he wondered how non-robotic agents could manage to stay calm under that type of pressure. At least for him, his nanites would most certainly assure he recovered from an accidental explosion. Most could not say the same. Carefully, he wobbled his way over to the passenger seat, throwing open the door.
Air whipped across his face as he leaned forward, hanging out of the door. Behind them, Black's army was a relentless sea. The little light of the desert moon made them hard to make out with his eyes alone. Instead of vehicles, they were a tide of ominous, indistinguishable dark clouds. Rex tipped the box of explosives, letting them fall behind their van one-by-one like a trail of breadcrumbs.
Only a second after he had dropped the last bomb, the vehicle was sent somersaulting. The resulting explosion had created a powerful shockwave, and the last bomb's explosion had caught the back of their van. The heat warmed his skin but did not scorch him. The warm air merely bushed across his face. It would have felt nice if it hadn't been followed by the lurching of the van. It tumbled in the sand again and again. Not fastened into his seat, Rex was slammed against the interior: first the ceiling, then the dashboard, and through the windshield.
His own fault. There was a throbbing in both his ears. He could feel the warm wetness of his own blood sliding down his jaw. His skin and eyes were smarting from glass shards prickling his body. Behind him, the engines of Black Knight's army were a very faint sputter, like they were struggling to continue working. He didn't have to look back to see they were no longer an imminent threat, but he wondered dimly if the bombs had gotten all of them. It hurt to move, so he couldn't be sure. The sting of sand rubbing into his glass wounds became secondary next to the realization that the crash was his good fortune. Pushing himself onto his knees, he saw that if he sprinted, he would be able to touch the base of the cliff where Providence's fortress stood. The launch had propelled him further away from Bishop and closer to headquarters.
Forcing himself to stand, he ignored the protests of his body. In a few minutes, the pain would subside like he'd never been injured. He gazed up at the shadow of headquarters, squinting from the way the the rectangular building bounced moonlight in his eyes. Having spent the only life he could remember within the walls of Providence, all of the possible entrances he could have taken flashed through his mind.
"Shortcut!" He assembled his boogie pack, grinning widely.
For stealth, he could take the sewers or vents. He could have landed on the aircraft landing pad and simply walked in. Patience wasn't his strong suit, and he'd been kept waiting long enough. He flew skyward until he was hovering above the laboratory tower. Only when he was in a good spot did he let himself freefall. It felt like he'd been getting himself slammed through and smeared across surface after surface. What was one more? Mid-spiral, he quickly put together his Smack Hands, shattering his way in through the skylit ceiling. For the first time in months, Rex landed on his feet perfectly, gleaming glass showering all around him.
"Everything's going to be alright now. I'm here, guys." He stated firmly. There was nobody in the abandoned laboratory. Still no Holiday in sight, and his brother was noticeably absent as well. Nevertheless, it was an important reassurance to his family on the off chance that they could hear him. "Don't worry."
He was going to get them out of here.
The frontlines of her army had been destroyed in an explosion that swallowed her best soldier, Bishop. If they had successfully acquired the cure, it wouldn't have been for naught. No good had come of following the little shit through the desert. She thought that would be the end of it: a few less robots.
But one.
By.
One.
Her remaining vehicles joined in vanishing along with the ones Rex had detonated. She looked at the command board, brows rising on her otherwise carefully composed face. Each camera went down like rows of dominos, falling until every monitor she looked into became dark. No signal. Even still, she remained calm. Watchful. Leaning back in her office chair, her perfectly filed nail rested lightly on one of they command keys, stopping just short of pressing the 'call' button.
It couldn't have been Rex, she thought. Although she had underestimated the reckless little fool, she was right about one thing. He was only capable of fleeting bursts of brilliance and momentary cleverness; he was not the genius his elder brother was. Yes, he had hijacked one of her pawns, but from what she could gather from his files, Rex wasn't practiced in using his technopathic abilities. His powers seemed instinctual, unrefined and untamed. If he did not have physical contact with a machine, his range was limited. To overpower an army of robots should have been beyond him.
She pressed down the 'call' button, wondering if there was any point. "Hello?"
She watched the monitors, pressing the button one more time. "Agent 00223. Agent 00112. This is Black Knight. Come in. Agent 00223? Agent 00112. Who is online?"
The other end of the communication link was dead silent. Just as she'd thought: a waste of time. Her eyes became narrowed slits, the only indication of her affected mental state. No matter how she tried to ignore it, there was no way to delude herself into believing the Consortium wouldn't care. They were going to have to be notified. Dread stirred within the pit of her gut. She knew they weren't going to like the news. But what was the worst they could do? Her comfort, her one security, was knowing that they no longer had White. She was safe in her position. Without many options, they could do nothing to her.
Disrupting what little peace she found in the turmoil was the sudden flickering of the monitors. She pushed her chair back, standing up to examine them closely. They monitor lights flipped on and off. They only displayed static when they were briefly on, fading to darkness before showing static again. The inconsistency of the flashing monitor gave her an uneasy uncertainty. She felt clueless for once. For once, she did not fight off her first instinctual reaction when the impulse shot through her arm. She smashed the 'call' button with a sense of urgency.
"Rex?" She called into the communication link. No answer. The monitor settled on black-and-white static. It remained on this time, but she could still see nothing.
She could only hear a horribly warped, twisted voice. "Not Rex."
Her eyes widened when a video feed finally appeared on her screen. It was Bishop, half buried in a wreckage of sand and metal. His video feed was no longer streaming a point-of-view shot to her monitor. Instead, he had ripped the camera out from his wrecked, metallic corpse and aimed it at himself. She could see the extent of the damage he had received from the explosion; he had sustained the worst of it since he had been at the head of her army. As much as she hated the little twerp, it almost made her concerned for Rex. If this was what Bishop looked like… Had the teenager been terribly close when the bombs went off?
Then, she remembered that the explosion was the boy's fault to begin with. Her little sympathy was immediately wiped away. What had he expected would be the result of playing with fire?
But something wasn't right. She stared into the golden glow of her best robot's eyes. Bishop was still functional. He was moving when he really shouldn't have been able to anymore. Her soldiers may have been built to last, but surviving a series of bombs was just an exaggeration. She frowned.
"Bishop." She stated.
"Not quite…" Bishop replied.
An awful epiphany struck her. She had forgotten that there was a reason they had decided to monitor the old Providence base from a distance. White Knight had complete control over the building, the building which occupied more space than being a mere fixture perched on the edge of a cliff. Beneath headquarters, there were a series of interconnected tunnels, vents, and multiple secret entrances. It stretched on beneath the ground, well beyond what was visible above the surface.
"I'd call this a checkmate, wouldn't you?" Bishop continued.
The grim reality stared her in the face. The chase Rex had led them on resulted in several repercussions for new Providence. They had lost their cure for the second time. And although Providence was capable of managing without him, the danger lay in the fact that he was in the hands of an enemy. It would have been preferable if Rex had never resurfaced, if he had just stayed missing, a loss without consequence. If only the world bent to her will as easily as her black pawns did.
White had access to their security feed. White also had a master control nanite, along with the only person capable of controlling them, in his grasp.
Black Knight could not see into the future, but she never needed things spelled out for her either.