Chapter 4— "Net Force"
Near Micronesia
The Paladin deployed Sam and Briggs in a set of miniature stealth submarines from the air that they were strapped to.
While they were falling through the air, Briggs and Sam communicated between their subs.
"Sam?" said Briggs.
"Yeah?" said Fisher.
"Uh… once you reach sea level, how hard does the surface usually-arrgh!"
They collided with the ocean relatively fast.
"…hit!" said Briggs between gritted teeth.
"Looks like you have your answer," said Sam.
"I'm glad that's over," said Briggs.
"Yup," said Sam. "Now we've only got the entire mission left."
Briggs sighed, and lay his head on the seat once the subs turned themselves upright.
"Cheer up, Briggs," said Sam with a smirk, "it gets easier the more you do it."
Briggs couldn't help but smirk in return. Then his smirk disappeared as he saw Charlie's awkward toothy grin on his OPSAT.
"What's so funny, Charlie?"
"Nothing, nothing at all, just enjoying the back-and-forth banter between you two," said Charlie.
"You really hate me, don't you, Charlie?"
"You think I… ?" Charlie gasped. "Wow… you actually are developing a sense of humor!"
"I guess it comes with age," said Briggs, looking at Sam briefly.
"Are you suggesting I'm old?" said Sam.
The three of them laughed.
As they piloted their submarines down through a massive, colorful coral reef to cover themselves from view as one of Lucas's yachts passed by them, Briggs said, "This mission's already gotten out of control. Despite that we're about to attempt to get her back, I still can't believe we're down a team member already."
"I guess that old adage about how no plan survives first contact with the enemy really is true," said Charlie. "Abstergo's been ahead of us every step of the way. It's incredible how much power they have. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it."
"So am I," said Sam. "The politics of our job used to be so much simpler back in the day. But until a few days ago… well, they were incredibly simple compared to now."
"Back in what, the 90s?" joked Briggs.
"I was going to say 70s… of course. Again, with the old jokes."
Charlie said, "What would you guys do if you had as much money as Lucas did?"
Sam and Briggs shrugged.
"I mean, aside from all that he probably spends on the massive private islands and estates and yachts and all the hot women and cars and food… you'd think he'd have money left over to help the world."
"Seems to me like he's just choosing to use that money to destroy it instead," said Briggs.
"Being that rich and destroying the world aren't exactly mutually exclusive realities," said Sam.
"What do you mean?" said Charlie.
"Not much. I'm just not a huge fan of Reagan's trickle-down economics spiel."
"Reagan… wasn't he, like, the President at some point in history?" said Charlie.
"70s right?" said Briggs with a smirk.
"Definitely the 90s," said Charlie with a grin.
"No, that was when Bush and Clinton were President, remember Charlie?" said Briggs.
"Probably the 80s then," said Charlie.
Sam looked at Briggs and Charlie. They then all burst out laughing.
As they bypassed some mines attached to chains that were floating around in a set of underwater caves, Sam said, "There's one thing I'm really trying to wrap my head around. It was something Grim told me."
"What was it?" said Briggs.
"In Tuscany, on the way to the estate, she mentioned she believed that Lucas was something called a 'Sage'… a reincarnation of a god… Lucas being Odin's."
"Odin's?" said Briggs in confusion.
"She called the gods the Isu," said Sam. "According to her, they were like a… precursor race of some kind, only humanity interpreted what little presence they had left later on in history as that of gods, once they went extinct."
"You're telling us Grim, of all the people it could have been, was the one that told you this?" said Briggs.
"Yup," said Sam.
"So… if they went extinct, how come they're being reincarnated?" asked Charlie.
"Space magic."
"You're, you're being sarcastic about that part, right?"
"Yeah," said Sam.
"…just that part specifically, though?" said Charlie.
"Yes, Charlie," said Sam.
"Huh," said Charlie. "I haven't read that Dan Brown novel yet. He's the one who fills his page-turners with mysteries about triangles and eyeballs and ancient aliens and stuff, right?"
"It sounded just as ridiculous to me when I first heard it," said Sam.
"So why'd you believe it?" said Briggs with a frown.
"I know Grim… at least somewhat. Despite that she's lied to me countless times before, this time I think she's telling the truth, and she's not a lunatic. She's not known to tell jokes as bad as that either."
"Why do you think she's telling the truth this time?"
"Because it sounds so ridiculous, she would've known I wouldn't believe it," said Sam. "There are other pieces of the puzzle I don't get entirely. According to her, this business with the Phoenix Project, it's a transhumanist agenda to augment humans with the DNA of the Isu, making them demigods… they collected the samples of DNA from Sages and then replicated them… I assume."
Briggs frowned. "I heard an Engineer talk about that in Rome."
"But… if Lucas is a Sage, why does he want to make everyone else a demigod? They could overpower him that way." said Charlie.
"I know," said Sam. "People like that don't play god without enacting some kind of control over others… but then again, that may be the point of the project. I'm no scientist… or pseudo-scientist."
"Then there's the Abstergo files in that bizarre code language… Grim seemed to imply that it was the language of the Isu. She also mentioned 'castes' of the Isu."
"Odin… Freyja… Asgard… Loki… Jotunheim… Wait, of course! Hey Sam," said Charlie, "weren't the Engineers speaking in a code talk that consisted of Norse mythological references?"
"Yeah," said Briggs. "Where do they fit into this?"
"We'll get to the bottom of this," said Sam, "and one thing I'm sure of is that Grim will be able to help us out with this the most."
Vic said, "Hey, are you three done yappin' or what? My guy's chopper is runnin' on fumes here. You've got a limited amount of time to get Grim back before he'll be unable to get you back onboard the Paladin."
"But we just got here... what happened to his chopper?"
"Hail storms… he flew too low and that shit hit his fuel tanks… Fortunately, the storm's startin' to let up… should just be rainin' once you get to the location on the island that we saw Grim's beacon appear at."
"On that note, according to the SMI, you guys are nearing the infil point," said Charlie. "You're coming up on a set of cenotes that lead to the surfaces… park your subs once you reach the surface in one of the cenotes."
"I see what you meant by 'one of them', Charlie," said Briggs as he and Sam navigated through the caves. "These caves are a maze."
Sam and Briggs parked their submarines in the cenotes, and donned their scuba suits before diving underwater into the next cenote.
Charlie spoke into their comms. "Be careful not to touch the surfaces of the caves when possible… could be sea urchins or other creatures down there."
Sam looked at the explosive mines floating in the water around them, and kept his distance. "I'm more worried about the mines right now, Charlie."
"That squeeze between those mines up ahead is thin. Looks like we'll have to go one at a time," said Briggs.
Sam went first, slowly and carefully swimming his way through.
"Briggs?" He could hear Briggs's heavy breathing on his subdermals.
"Thank god," said Briggs as he managed to swim through and past them.
"Nice work, Briggs," said Sam as they continued onward.
Sam and Briggs managed to make it to what appeared to be a sunken Cold War-era submarine in the underwater cenote, where more mines were floating around it.
"This ship had to come from somewhere," said Sam. "We must be getting close."
The space was relatively open, so it wasn't hard to avoid the mines as they navigated through the destroyed submarine.
"The more things change…" said Sam to himself as he looked around the vessel.
"This isn't… the legendary Red October… is it?" said Briggs as he looked at the old sub's equipment.
"No," said Sam.
"How do you know?"
"Because the Americans dry-docked it in Norfolk, Virginia after they got it back safely from the Soviets…" said Sam. "After that, I assume they made more like it to spy on the Soviets. How'd you know it was the Red October though… even if it's just a copy?"
"I took a guess," said Briggs.
Sam smirked as he swam out the other side of the sub. He was moving ahead when he saw a medium-sized fish swim toward…
"BRIGGS!"
"What the hell—"
Next thing Sam knew, the fish hit a mine eerily close to Briggs. The chain of explosions knocked him into the side of a submarine until he fell unconscious.
"Briggs!" yelled Sam as he swam back toward Briggs as the submarine started to fall over. That combined with the now-collapsing ceiling of rocks would easily crush them both. He hoisted Briggs onto his back, wrapping his crossbow's hook line around their waists to keep Sam from dropping him while continuing to swim.
One of the submarine's decaying walls falling toward them was then smashed in two by a massive falling rock that missed them both by inches; however, it severed one of Sam's oxygen tubes.
Sam would have to hold his breath now; he could tell he already lost several seconds of air from the shock of the impact.
If he drowned, so would Briggs, and then Charlie and Vic would be the only ones left.
The way ahead to the surface of the final cenote had been blocked by a thick amount of collapsed rocks, but there was a small spot where light was shining through. Sam desperately swam toward it as the cave collapsed. He then took out his Karambit knife and started digging through the rock for his and Briggs's life. He kept smashing it against the rocks as hard as he could; the opening was starting to get bigger. Still, he was losing strength fast, and oxygen with it.
Sam dug the knife's blade's curve into the rocks again until they started to give and kept trying to smash them with the knife's handle. He was almost there.
He kept punching them with the handle. The rocks were coming loose.
Almost there.
The opening was almost big enough for both of them to fit through!
Sam could feel his lungs straining as the remaining rocks he was digging through finally broke open, and pulled him and Briggs up, although he severed Briggs's tank too in the process. Sam was starting to take in water when…
He hit the surface.
Stumbling onto the rocks on his knees, he released the wire he used to strap Briggs to his body, throwing Briggs onto the ground and inadvertently waking him up.
Sam then coughed up water onto the rocks, his knees bruised from climbing onto them in shallow water.
"Hey Sam, Briggs, I lost track of you for a moment down there, are you all right?"
"Yes, Charlie—" Sam paused his speech to cough up more water. "We're… we're out of the water, almost at the infil point."
Briggs was gasping for air, trying to catch his breath.
"Are you sure you're all right? Because you sure don't sound all right."
"Giving Briggs a shot of adrenaline," said Sam. "Come on Briggs, get up."
Sam grabbed Briggs's hand and hoisted him up to his feet.
"I'm good," said Briggs as he caught his breath.
They then heard some voices coming from outside the cave's exit.
Sam used his SC-20K to launch a sticky camera at one of the cave's rock formations that was at an angle to the exit.
"Lucas's guards. We're in the right place," said Sam. "I'll lure them."
Sam used the sticky camera's controls to make it generate a noise.
The three guards went over to investigate the sticky camera.
"What the fuck is this thing—"
Sam then activated the camera's gas canister function.
The guards then coughed and tried to cover their mouths, but it was too late. The three guards dropped unconscious. Sam and Briggs hid their bodies in the cave.
Two guards were on a low bridge above the water in another set of caves next to the one they came out of as they crossed the beach, talking to each other in Chinese with their backs turned to the sides of the bridge. Sam climbed up to one side, Briggs the other, and they simultaneously yanked the guards off the bridge, and snapped their necks underneath the water.
They continued through the cave until they reached the entrance to the jungle pathway. As the rain fell through the jungle's canopy and splashed against the foliage, they crawled through reeds in the water to avoid detection by several quad-rotor drones patrolling the area.
As they climbed out of the creek, they used the darkness and the bushes to their advantage as Lucas's guards used flashlights to search for potential intruders.
Anticipating their paths, Sam and Briggs timed and synchronized their movements so they were able to move past them without alerting or attacking any of them.
The sound of lightning drowned out the sound occasionally, but they had to hide in the bushes when it happened. Eventually they crossed an open area of trees. Sam could hear a buzzing noise incoming.
"Hit the deck, Briggs," said Sam.
"I see it too." Briggs followed suit.
Several men on hovercraft passed above them in the lower canopy, shining searchlights below in an attempt to search for intruders.
Sam could hear shouting in Chinese over a set of speakers coming from the hovercraft.
"What are they saying, Charlie?" said Briggs.
"Using the SMI's translator… shit, this is no better than Google Translate…"
"They must've found the bodies," said Sam.
"That or they were expecting us from the get-go," said Briggs.
"Do you still think this could be a trap, guys?" said Charlie.
"It doesn't matter," said Sam. "We're already trapped inside the belly of the beast. There's no turning back now."
As the hovercraft convoy passed them, Sam and Briggs stood back up, and continued onward toward Lucas's main compound.
Outside the compound, Sam and Briggs climbed a set of nearby trees to do some reconnaissance with their trifocal goggles' enhanced electronic vision.
"The compound is surrounded by barbed-wired electric fences," said Briggs.
"I see a gap in the barbed wire over there," said Sam as he marked the location with his OPSAT. "If we can somehow disable the electricity, then we can climb over before the backup generator comes online."
Charlie said, "The tri-rotor should work for that. I just need to get it next to the power source and hit it with its explosive charge."
Sam said, "I think that's it… over there, by that satellite antenna."
Briggs said, "That should disable their comms, too… but they'll be onto us after that. They might kill Grim."
Sam said, "We have to risk it—wait a minute!"
"What is it?" said Briggs.
"See that window inside the compound?"
Briggs zoomed in with his EEV.
"It's Lucas."
Sam said, "Charlie, I'm deploying the tri-rotor. Try to get it close enough to Lucas so that we can eavesdrop on his conversation."
"Roger," said Charlie as Sam launched the tri-rotor drone. Charlie piloted the tri-rotor through the maze of electric fences and security forces, and used the tri-rotor's built-in laser mic to eavesdrop; he also used the facial rec technology built into his cameras to ID his clients.
"Patching the feeds to your OPSATs," said Charlie.
Lucas was speaking to some Swedish clients, likely heads of state, while another one of his mistresses poured them some glasses of red wine over a decadent meal of lobster, pasta, fresh fruit, and steamed vegetables.
"So, you're saying that you're willing to protect us from your depopulation agenda, Mr. Richards?"
"That's correct. Europe will stay mostly intact after the initial detonations, but just in case, I'm installing bunkers all over the world to protect selected candidates from the fallout. Whether they're willing to be protected or not."
"What do you want in exchange?"
"A large portion of my inner circle was decimated back in Tuscany. I'm trying to rebuild my organization."
"I thought you were the CEO of Abstergo though."
"Abstergo's grip on its political backers is fading due to recent controversies… Because of President Caldwell, Washington is a lost cause at this point. Moscow and Beijing are getting to that point too. So, I'm going to send them a reminder of who's in charge of conducting law and order. One that will cost them billions."
"Billions in currency?"
"No. In lives."
"What?" said a female head of state, a Swedish princess. "You're insane!"
"The world is overpopulated," said Lucas. "Global climate change is leading the Earth toward the next catastrophe. On top of that, resources are dwindling. If we don't act, the Earth will act for us."
"And you're planning on fixing this with nukes?"
"My methods may be draconian…"
"You think?"
"But they're a necessary step for humanity's evolution. The current world order is too timid to do anything to change course. They're too concerned about short-term profits to realize that we're on the brink of catastrophe. My Selection and the Red Mercury bombs will help them realize that change is necessary."
"Father, please tell me that you agree with me that he's insane!" said the Swedish princess.
"He has a point, though… as much as I hate to admit it," said the Swedish head of state.
"Are you kidding me?"
"It sounds like your daughter is unwilling to go along with the Selection," said Lucas.
"It's all right, Lucas," said the head of state, "I'll make sure that she doesn't blow the whistle—"
"No," said Lucas, "I will. I'm afraid I can't leave that to chance. You both will be staying here until I find the appropriate bunker location to send you to. Don't look so glum about it, though… After all, right now you're in paradise… and you'll live to see an amazing new world."
Turning to his bodyguards, Lucas said, "Men… escort them to Bunker Level -2. In the meantime, I have an… old friend I'd like to check up on in Bunker Level -9. Level -9 is rather… icy, so make sure to bring your protective gear."
"You won't get away with this, Lucas!" yelled the Swedish princess as Lucas's guards grabbed her and dragged her away.
Lucas grinned, and said, "She is quite a cute little princess, Mr. Bergstrom. I promise I'll take good care of her."
The head of state nodded, and wiped the sweat off his forehead with a napkin.
As Lucas walked away, Charlie said, "I bet the old friend he mentioned is Grim."
"Time to cut the power, Charlie," said Sam.
"I'm on it," said Charlie as he flew the tri-rotor toward the power box by the comms antenna and detonated it.
Sam and Briggs saw the blue glow of the fences disappear.
"Good work, Charlie," said Sam, and they hopped down from the tree they were on and moved toward the fence, avoiding a maze of land mines they spotted with their thermal vision along the way.
"Lucas will know we're here now," said Briggs. "We need to hurry."
Sam and Briggs quickly climbed over the fence before the backup generator came back online.
As Sam and Briggs shot several incoming guards searching for them with sonar goggles with their SC-20K and SC sniper rifles from the darkness, they got an incoming call from Vic.
"What's happening, Vic?" said Sam.
"I had to have Charlie and my boys divert course," said Vic. "We nearly got detected by a nearby vessel deployin' jets full of Lucas's PMC troops not too far from the island. Lots and lots of fuckin' jets."
"I hacked into their comms; SMI identifies them as being from a PMC known as Kollektivnaya Sila," said Charlie. "Russian for 'the collective force.' Mostly consists of ex-Russian and Chinese special forces disgruntled with the way things are going in the world right now, so it'd make sense that their motives line up with Lucas's. They're the best of the best," said Charlie.
"If we really did take out a large chunk of Lucas's inner circle back in Tuscany," said Briggs, "and he's part of a power struggle within Abstergo, then he has less control over the world than we thought."
"Abstergo seems slightly more human than I thought," said Sam. "They're not all mad enough to blow up the world just to maintain control. It sounds like Lucas is frustrated that their control of the primary global superpowers is slipping."
"That doesn't make Lucas any less dangerous, though, Sam," said Vic, "and from the looks of it, he was merely waitin' for us to show up before throwin' his mercs against us in full force. Anyway, Charlie and I are circlin' around, but it's gonna be rough gettin' you guys outta there once Kollektivnaya arrives."
"How long do we have, Vic?" said Sam.
"I'd say fifteen minutes, tops."
"That's not very long," said Briggs.
"I'll say," said Sam.
"We need to hurry up."
Sam and Briggs approached the entrance to the inner compound.
Looking at the door locks, Sam said, "Looks like the entrance is locked by some sort of dual biometric scanners. Options, Charlie?"
"Not any that I can find, Sam," said Charlie. "The scanners respond to either placing one's hand on it to read their fingerprints, or by entering a blood sample of one's DNA into the scanners. From the looks of it, only three biometric signatures are registered: Lucas's, along with two others codenamed 'Tyr' and 'Freyja'."
"More Norse mythology bullshit…" said Briggs.
"More of Lucas's mistresses?" Sam mused.
"Regardless, neither my hacking software nor brute force will work on these locks for some reason. You're going to enter via the backdoor instead. Marking it on your OPSAT."
"All right, Charlie," said Sam.
They circled around, avoiding the guards, cameras, and drones searching for them by staying out of the light. Every now and then, Sam had to use his pistol's OCP device to disable a camera or small drone.
There were four guards and two dogs in front of the back entrance, which was locked with a keypad.
Sam and Briggs quickly shot all of them with rapid suppressed shots from their rifles as fast as they could. Sam then approached the door and hooked up Charlie to the lock while Briggs scanned for anyone behind them. Once Charlie hacked the lock, they quickly entered.
"I'm seeing some laser tripwires on thermal," said Briggs.
"Lucas must've activated them once he knew we were here," said Sam.
Sam watched the guards in the room from behind the cover of the chair Lucas was sitting in while he had been talking to those Swedish heads of state, and tried to anticipate their paths. He said to Briggs via subdermals as a guard with a set of sonar goggles approached him after whistling, "I've got an idea. Their uniforms must be tagged to disable the laser tripwires."
"Good thinking," said Briggs.
Sam grabbed the guard, pulled him around cover, and then plunged his Karambit into the man's throat, then yanked it out from the side; his blood leaked over the carpet.
Sam then picked up the man's corpse, and carried it on his back while using his pistol with one hand, clearing the way through Lucas's private island's mansion's first floor with Briggs's help as the lasers shut off around them.
As they followed the direction Lucas went with the heads of state in tow, Sam said to Briggs, "Lucas said that Grim was in a bunker underground somewhere. You see an elevator or anything?"
"No," said Briggs, "just this massive fish tank over here… wait a minute…"
"What is it, Briggs?"
"Sam, drag the prisoner toward the fish tank."
"What? Why?"
"I want to see if I'm right about something."
Confused, Sam complied, and to his surprise, the fish tank rotated, and revealed a hidden elevator built into it.
"Fancy," said Sam. "Good work, Briggs."
The two of them entered the elevator and descended into the bunker level -9 Lucas mentioned.
They exited the elevator when, to their shock, Lucas said to them via their subdermals, "You seem to have a bad habit of entering someone's home without a proper invitation, Sam."
"Lucas!" said Sam. "How the hell did you manage to get access to our subdermal frequency?"
"Simple," said Lucas. "I obtained access from your ice queen."
"What did you do to her, Richards…"
"There's a security camera in the room where her enhanced interrogation process went underway. If you can find and unlock the camera footage archives, you can see for yourself."
"You tortured her?" shouted Briggs.
Lucas laughed. "MK-Ultra's successor program is a very nasty way to deprive someone of their humanity."
"You piece of shit," said Briggs.
"Says the former Company Man," said Lucas. "You pledged your loyalty to the CIA in spite of knowing all of the things that they've done over the decades, Briggs. MK-Ultra was one of them."
"Experimenting on America's own citizens in order to find a proper 'truth serum'… Domestic or foreign, you're a terrorist, Briggs. And you always have been, not just now. And you're good at what you do. Perhaps that's why Sam's training you to take his place. After all, it's in Sam's nature to kill for a cause… but then again, he's just fine with killing without a cause too. He went on a killing spree after he lost his daughter, without access to the Fifth Freedom. Isn't that right, Sam?"
Sam shivered, and grimaced.
"Don't listen to him, Briggs," Sam said out loud rather than over subdermals. "I'm sending a signal to Charlie over a separate channel to let him know not to contact us."
"How are we going to extract without them, though?"
"I have an idea… but it'll be risky."
They traversed through the bunker's hallways, shooting incoming guards approaching their position along the way as the alarms blared throughout the compound.
Briggs said to Sam, "It's getting cold in here."
"Yeah… unusually so for somewhere in Micronesia. I wonder why."
Sam could see guards approaching them from both directions of the hallway they were currently in.
Looking for a way out, Sam said, "Through that air vent, Briggs. Hurry."
Briggs crawled into the air vent while Sam deployed a couple of proximity mine gadgets of Charlie's on the walls to cover their tracks. Sam then followed suit before the guards arrived and were blown up.
They crawled out the other side and entered a freezer area full of frozen corpses.
Briggs and Sam covered their noses as they moved through the freezer area.
"God, that stinks," said Sam.
"No shit," said Briggs. "Why'd Lucas kill all these people?"
"The Phoenix Project," said Lucas over their subdermals. "I knew that attempting to advance humanity's evolution wouldn't come without setbacks. Like how most of the people I hope to protect from the Selection weren't willing to cooperate with me, I knew that most people wouldn't want to volunteer for undergoing Abstergo's experiments to improve the human condition, especially given the dangers involved with the experiments. Being augmented with triple-helix DNA is a painful process, and hardly anyone survived the initial experiments until a recent breakthrough. Abstergo had people kidnapped from all over the world for this reason. There was a location not far from here on an uncharted island that was a test center for cross-species experiments within a sub-branch of the Phoenix Project, mostly between humans and the local wildlife."
Grim was right about some of this Phoenix Project stuff if Lucas is bragging about it to us, thought Sam. We need what she knows.
"I'm getting pretty sick of him interrupting us on comms…" said Briggs.
"He's somewhere close to our position," said Sam. "If we can find him, maybe we can ask him to stop. Politely, of course."
Briggs smirked at this.
They followed the signs in the bunker to the security center. Inside, Sam and Briggs shot the technicians inside in the backs of the heads, and plugged in Charlie's drive to the security camera footage.
"Charlie, are you on the separate channel?"
"Yeah," said Charlie. "That Lucas guy gives me the creeps. I'm uploading a program that should glean the security camera archives' footage, so we can see what Lucas did to Grim. You guys think she's still alive?"
Sam's face lit up. "We won't need the archives to tell us whether or not she is, Charlie. We see her on camera right now."
Lucas was talking to Grim in an interrogation room. Grim was standing in the corner, with her wrists and ankles cuffed to a set of steel bars behind her. She was trembling, and her breath was visible; the dirty T-shirt and shorts she was wearing were soaking wet.
"Looks like they sprayed her with freezing water," said Briggs. "I see electroshock cables in the room as well. They tortured her."
"That bastard!" said Charlie. "At least she's alive..."
Grim avoided eye contact with Lucas as he spoke to her. "Are you there, Freyja, my darling?"
Grim said nothing. Her eyes were wide open, and she was shaking, but she appeared to be a little out of it.
"Come on, Freyja. Where's my ice queen hiding away at?"
Grim continued to say nothing.
"I know my men successfully infused her DNA with yours, Freyja… but I want to know if they managed to infuse her consciousness as well. Now tell me… am I speaking to you, Freyja… or am I speaking to your human vessel?"
Grim said nothing, despite frowning in a way suggesting that she was close to broken.
"No matter. It seems my men didn't properly finish the job, so I will. We need to get you ready before your former friends arrive to 'rescue' you."
Plugging the electroshock cables into a battery built into the wall, Lucas manipulated a few switches and turned a knob to the right to increase the voltage levels, and then pressed the cable ends against each other to create a spark in front of Grim's face.
Grim screamed, and started speaking in what seemed like gibberish.
"Good girl," said Lucas with a grin. "Still though, you're not convincing me enough."
Lucas then partially ripped open Grim's shirt, and started to zap Grim with the cable ends. Grim screamed, and shook underneath her bonds.
Sam and Briggs looked away.
"You guys have to stop Lucas, now!" yelled Charlie. "What are you waiting for!"
"For the footage to finish downloading," said Sam. "Something about the way Grim was just speaking… she's not herself. I want to know why."
"Well, it's done," said Charlie, "so get to her before she's never herself again!"
Sam and Briggs hurried out of the security center, then ran in the direction of the interrogation room Grim was in.
They stacked up at the door and did a dual breach, then entered the room, and shot Lucas's bodyguards. Lucas was leaning against the wall. Grim was in the corner, screaming.
"Clear," said Briggs.
"Hands where I can see them, Lucas," said Sam.
Lucas didn't comply. Instead, he cranked up the knob on the battery, and smiled as he crossed his legs.
Grim started screaming louder. Sam looked over at Grim.
"Put your weapons down and let's fight fair," said Lucas. "With our fists, since I don't have a gun on me at the moment. If you two put your weapons down in a matter of ten seconds, Grim won't be killed by the electricity."
Sam looked over at Grim, and frowned.
"You see now? She's still connected to the battery. You've heard of Ohm's Law, right? Judging by the lack of resistance due to her being covered in freezing salt water, combined with the intense amount of amperage and voltage that I'm applying to her body would be more than enough to—"
"All right!" said Sam as he tossed his SC-20K on the ground and kicked it aside. Briggs frowned as he looked at Sam and Grim, and then followed suit with his SC sniper rifle.
"There, I lowered the current somewhat, but it's not off," said Lucas. "Your pistols and your kits, too."
Sam and Briggs tossed their pistols and kits aside as well, along with their trifocal goggles.
Lucas smiled, and lowered the current enough to keep Grim alive for the time being.
"Why didn't you turn it off completely!" said Sam.
"It's two against one," said Lucas with a grin. "I'm sure you can get past me long enough to turn it off."
"Whether you're being brave or just plain stupid, Lucas, it's going to be the death of you," said Sam as he and Briggs ran at Lucas.
To Sam's surprise, Lucas managed to block Sam's punch to his face and Briggs' kick to his groin, and landed a chop to Briggs's throat and a kick to Sam's ribs.
Briggs was heavily stunned by this, while Sam was merely surprised by Lucas's combat capabilities.
As Briggs clutched his throat, Lucas kicked Briggs hard in the face, knocking him backwards onto the floor.
Sam then slammed Lucas with a punch to the back of the head; Lucas countered with a spinning hook to Sam's jaw.
Spitting out blood, Sam hit Lucas in the solar plexus twice, and then uppercutted him. He barely budged; instead, he grabbed Sam in a bear hug, slammed him against the wall behind him, slugged him in the stomach, and then as Sam sunk against the wall, kneed him in the face, smashing his head against the wall.
"Your close quarters combat training notwithstanding, Sam," said Lucas. "You should be able to take on a mere businessman like me."
Wiping his face, Sam said, "What are you… ex-military of some sort?"
"Not in this life," said Lucas with a grin, "but a good question nonetheless." He charged at Sam, only for Sam to barely dodge the attack at the last minute and kick Lucas in the back of his knee and put him in a chokehold.
Lucas threw Sam over his shoulder easily, where Sam ended up lying next to Grim, who was still screaming and cuffed to the wall with the electroshock cables attached to her chest beneath her shirt.
Sam looked over at Briggs, who was clutching his throat and getting back on his knees to crawl toward his pistol.
"Not playing by the rules of engagement I set after all, Briggs?" said Lucas as he stomped on Briggs's hand before he could grip his pistol, then his face and torso. "You're a poor excuse for a Splinter Cell."
As Briggs screamed while Lucas picked him up, and butted heads with him until Briggs's face was bloody and heavily bruised, Sam scrambled toward the battery and turned it off.
"Sam, watch out!" yelled Briggs as Lucas swung a long metal instrument of some sort at Sam, barely missing as Sam dodged to the side and it destroyed the battery. Sam looked at Grim briefly before while he ducked under Lucas's next swing and slammed into him, trying to push him forward so he and Briggs could crush him together.
Briggs ended up punching Lucas as hard as he could in the back of the head and spine as Sam landed a blow to Lucas's elbow, forcing him to drop the metal staff. Sam managed to dislocate Lucas's arm after twisting it as Lucas used his other elbow to hit Briggs in the solar plexus, causing him to stagger backwards. Lucas then swung his arm he elbowed Briggs with forward to hit Sam in the face, then Lucas kneed him in the groin, and kicked him to the ground.
Sam grabbed his Karambit knife, and got up to fight Lucas again.
Lucas picked up Briggs's gun and aimed it at Sam, only for Briggs to stab Lucas in the back with the metal instrument, which to Briggs's surprise, emitted an electric current that zapped Lucas and knocked him forward toward Sam.
Sam was about to stab Lucas when Lucas managed to block him with his good arm. Sam looked at Grim, who looked back at Sam briefly. For some reason, despite that she should've been in critical condition, the color was starting to return to her face.
Sam managed to rip his arm free of Lucas and shoved him towards Briggs. Briggs tried to hit him with the large metal cattle prod again, and did, only for Lucas to somehow stay conscious and hit Briggs hard in the side of the head, and kick him in the arm, causing Briggs to drop the metal instrument.
Sam managed to cut both of Grim's arms free and bent over to cut her first leg free, succeeding in doing so when Lucas prodded Sam in the back with his metal cattle prod, causing Sam to black out for a moment. Lucas threw Sam aside before he turned around to beat Briggs in the ribcage with the prod, and then zap him in the chest with it.
Lucas sighed, and picked up Sam's pistol as Briggs clutched his chest over next to Sam, out of breath.
"Goodbye, Fisher," said Lucas before a shotgun shell from Sam's SC-20K underbarrel shotgun attachment hit Lucas in the chest, causing him to fall onto his back on the cold basement floor before he could shoot Sam.
Sam looked up at Grim, who was holding Sam's rifle, breathing heavily, before dropping the rifle and holding her head as she began to speak in gibberish.
Sam sighed, and began to black out again.
… … … … …
He was remembering when Grim finally managed to reunite him with Sarah back in Washington during the Third Echelon Conspiracy.
All those years, thinking she was gone, and finally getting to see Sarah again, even in the midst of an unprecedented attack on Washington…
Should Sam have been more grateful to Grim for keeping her safe? He supposed that it was all she could've done while preserving her cover as Caldwell's double agent within Tom Reed's Third Echelon…
Sarah recommended that Sam forgive Grim a while back, but he just couldn't let it go. They parted ways the moment Reed was dead, and Caldwell was safe again.
Yet they always crossed paths with each other again and again. Perhaps Sam needed Grim as a part of his team more than he had realized. There was so much more he needed to know from her about Megiddo… but after what Lucas did to her, perhaps it was too late…
… … … … …
Sam was shaken awake as Briggs injected him with adrenaline.
"Come on, old man, get up," said Briggs as he helped Sam to his feet.
"Briggs," said Sam, "you're okay."
"I'm managing," said Briggs. "That was a hell of a fight."
"Where's Grim?"
Briggs gestured over to Grim, who was looking at a set of vials and syringes and muttering something incomprehensible.
"She's still speaking in gibberish," said Briggs. "I think she's traumatized. Lucas fucked her up. Badly."
Grim looked at Briggs, then Lucas as he was bleeding out on the floor, and her eyes went wide.
"Odin isn't with us..." she said cryptically.
"…well, I understood that part." said Briggs after scratching his head.
She looked at the vials. "Isu bloodline… Aesir… Freyja… I'm—"
Grim gasped, and started to crouched down and grasp her head, stifling a scream.
Sam approached Grim. "Are you all right, Grim?"
"Grim… I'm… Grim…" said Grim.
"That's right," said Sam, "and as glad as we are to see that you're in one piece, we need to get out of here Grim."
"Sam's not kidding," said Charlie, "and I think the window of opportunity for Vic to extract you guys passed a few minutes ago."
"Charlie's right," said Vic, "I'm sorry, Sam, if Megiddo discovers that my boys are trying to extract you two, Paladin Nine is fucked. You're on your own for extraction."
"What?" said Briggs. "But—"
"It's all right, Briggs," said Sam. "Like I said, I have an idea, but it's risky. Do I look like Lucas?"
"What?" said Briggs.
"Do I look like Lucas?"
"No," said Briggs, "well… I mean, your faces are nothing alike, and he's blonde, and doesn't have a twelve o'clock shadow, but otherwise you're both pretty—"
"Looks like Odin is with us after all then," said Sam, "because I'm going to sneak us out of here dressed in another one of Lucas's suits aboard one of his private choppers. We'll ditch the plane as soon as we reach land and then rendezvous with Charlie and Vic. We're going to walk right out the front door."
"But the front door is biometrically locked!" said Charlie. "Remember?"
"We don't have to go out the front door, Charlie," said Briggs.
"Oh, but we do," said Sam, "and we will." Looking at Lucas, Sam said to the others, "Let's say I'm Odin, and Lucas here is Tyr."
"Again, with the Norse mythology references," said Briggs, rolling his eyes.
"The biometric locks are fingerprint based, Briggs," said Sam. "You remember what happened to Tyr in Norse mythology that made him part ways with Odin?"
Briggs smirked, and nodded as he looked at Lucas, who was groaning on the floor.
Grim said, "That really is Tyr."
Looking at Grim, Briggs said, "What, Grim?"
Shaking her head and shutting her head as if to collect herself, Grim said, "Tyr. Lucas's double. The real Lucas was never here. He knew you'd come for me. As for me, I'm Freyja now… While he was torturing me, Lucas injected me with the triple-helix DNA of the member of the Aesir caste, Freyja. He did the same to Tyr to help make him into a clone of Lucas. Almost completely identical, down to his very genes themselves."
Briggs said, "Sam, do you have any idea what she's talking about?"
Sam frowned. "She's saying Lucas was never here, Briggs. He had us fight and kill his double."
"Damn it," said Briggs.
"Grim," said Sam, "if your biometric signature is… Freyja's… now, like you said it was, you can open the other dual biometric lock on the way out. In the meantime… Charlie, can you rendezvous with us with the Paladin in Chinese airspace, somewhere near Hong Kong? We need to head straight into our next mission as soon as we can."
"Sure, Sam," said Charlie.
"Good," said Sam. "Tell Vic he and his men are good to head home."
"But what about Grim? Doesn't she need to see a doctor or something?"
Looking at Grim, Sam frowned and said, "Not one that we know."
Briggs said, "I also checked her vital signs… Despite being zapped with a ton of electricity, she seems to be healthy… uncharacteristically so."
Sam said, "We don't have time. Lucas is still out there, along with Sadiq and their respective organizations. You told me that Lucas is manufacturing more Red Mercury in Hong Kong, Charlie. Enough to blow the entire world to kingdom come."
"Yeah," said Charlie. "All right. In the meantime, I'll do what I can to scramble enemy comms to cover your tracks, and work on opening the files of Grim's interrogation footage. In the meantime, the SMI's picking up the Collective Force's troops closing in on your position, dozens of them… you might not be able to make it out with just a disguise!"
"All right," said Sam, "then we'll release the prisoners being kept here and escape among the chaos. But first… Briggs?"
Briggs nodded, and proceeded to cut Lucas's double's arm off as the double screamed in pain before slitting his throat.
Holding up Tyr's dismembered arm, Briggs said, "I almost feel like a monster for doing this."
"Become whatever you need to if it means it'll help us stop Megiddo, Briggs," said Sam. "In the meantime, let's go find me another suit."
After Charlie released the locks on the prison cell doors in the security center, Briggs quickly told the prisoners that they were free to go, and to form groups and run for their lives out of the bunker.
As Briggs and Grim disguised themselves in the clothes of one of Lucas's bodyguards and the Swedish princess, respectively, Sam dressed himself in Lucas's attire plus a hat and sunglasses to cover his face.
As Lucas's PMC members flooded the bunker halls from one direction, the prisoners flooded the halls from the other. They managed to walk right out via the elevator.
They then headed through Lucas's private island compound's ground-level mansion façade.
At the front entrance, Grim opened one of the dual biometric locks, and Briggs used Lucas's double's arm to open the other. It worked, and the doors opened.
They then walked out the front entrance and then broke into a run toward Lucas's private chopper at his helipad.
The pilot shouted to Sam over the noise of the landing chopper's rotors, "Lucas, is that you? We need to get you out of here!"
"Agreed. Mind if I drive?" said Sam as he shot the pilot with his pistol, and pulled his body out of the chopper, then got in. Briggs and Grim hopped into the back of the chopper and the passenger seat, respectively.
Briggs said to Sam as he looked at a machine gun turret in the back. "Last resort. If our cover's blown, we'll shoot our way out."
"No need, Briggs," said Sam.
"You ever flown a chopper?"
"Plenty of times," said Sam as the chopper began to take off.
As they flew past the lines of sight of the guards below them, Charlie's scrambling of their comms helped them make it out of range of the Collective Force's planes in time.
"Lucas? Come in?" said a commander with a Russian accent over the radio. "I repeat, Lucas, where are you—"
Sam turned the radio off.
"The tracker beacon's disabled," said Sam. "We made it."
"Barely," said Briggs. "My skull still hurts from fighting that prick. There's no way on Earth a businessman like Lucas could hit that hard—"
"He can," said Grim. "You weren't listening. That may have been his double, but he was still identical to Lucas. Meaning his DNA is the same, and so are his fighting skills."
Briggs said, "Bullshit. He's a fucking businessman, not an elite soldier—"
"It doesn't matter, Briggs," said Grim. "He's a reincarnation of Odin. An Isu. He's a member of a race far superior to humans… and therefore, his combat skills are as well."
Briggs said to Sam, "Do you believe this Sam? I mean, it sounds like stuff out of a bad science fiction movie."
"I don't know yet, Briggs," said Sam, "but Grim managed to unlock the fingerprint reader as if she was another one of Lucas's mistresses, and shake off a near-lethal amount of electricity and brutal torture as if it was nothing just in time to save us… I'm starting to wonder if her story has more truth to it than fiction."
Briggs said nothing in response.
"What exactly did they do to you, Grim," said Sam.
Grim looked out her window, and shivered.
"Everything," she said.
The Paladin, Chinese Airspace
Sam was in the medical bay with Briggs and Victor, watching over Grim, who had been sedated.
"If it weren't for what you two told me, I wouldn't have even known she'd had a number done on her," said Victor.
"That's merely one of the things that's weird at this point," said Briggs.
"One of my boys checked her blood," said Victor, "and they discovered some… abnormalities… Basically, her biometric signature isn't even hers anymore… but we're not sure who the person the signature is belongs to. It's like they don't exist."
Sam frowned and looked at Grim.
"What happened to her, exactly, Sam?"
"I'm still trying to understand it myself…" said Sam. "If Lucas wanted to test out the Phoenix Project on any of all people, why Grim? She's with us; she's trying to take him down!"
Briggs frowned and started to rub his chin as he looked at Grim.
"Hey guys," said Charlie as he walked in. "I managed to open the lock on the archive footage. You need to see this."
"Is it safe to open, Charlie?" said Sam.
"What the hell does that even mean? Nothing we do is safe!" said Charlie, frowning. "Whatever, come this way."
Vic says, "If it's all right, I'll stay here and watch over Grim. Part of me doesn't want to know."
Sam looked at Vic briefly and said, "That's a wise decision, Vic," then headed toward the SMI room with Charlie and Briggs.
Looking at the enhanced interrogation footage, Charlie, Sam, and Briggs frowned.
"Lucas is a sick man," said Charlie quietly.
"Rewind to that last part, Charlie…" said Briggs.
Charlie looked at Briggs, nodded, and complied, manipulating the SMI's console.
While Grim was being shocked in the room they found her in with several of Lucas's men watching over her, the real Lucas looked at his double, and asked, "has she been implemented with Freyja's DNA?"
"Yes, sir," said his double, Tyr. "She should have her partial genetic makeup underneath the surface, despite that she should still look like herself given the amount we injected her with."
"Good. And her mind?"
"She's been speaking fluently in the Aesir dialect for the last few hours… but we're not convinced she's been broken yet. Her will is unusually strong for an analyst."
"She was the one who managed to fool even Tom Reed all those years…" said Lucas, rubbing his chin while looking at Grim while she was crying, trembling, and hyperventilating before they zapped her again. "They should be here soon. Hell, I'm surprised they haven't shown up to save her already. Maybe they have. You need to hurry up and break her so she can be rescued. That way we can make sure she remains loyal to our cause. If her human consciousness isn't overtaken by Freyja's, then it simply hasn't been weakened enough by the pain yet."
"All right. Should you try talking to her?"
"No… if she understands what's happening to her any more than she already does, I'm afraid the brainwashing process won't work. After what happened in Tuscany, we have to keep an eye on Fourth Echelon… and him. We can't allow our plans to be ruined by a few loose ends. In the meantime, I need to head to Paris for the summit."
"Anything interesting going on there?"
"Not really… mostly meaningless gestures towards improving global carbon emissions and the economy… The part I'm interested in is what the world leaders are going to do regarding the Engineers…"
"You don't think Caldwell will be able to hold onto Sadiq, do you?"
"Not a chance," laughed Lucas.
"You can pause it for a second, Charlie…" said Sam.
As they did, the three of them looked at the footage with worrisome looks on their faces.
"Brainwashing process?" said Briggs.
"I looked up the whole MK-Ultra thing Lucas's double mentioned," said Charlie. "'Truth serum' my ass. The CIA tortured citizens of America and several other nations using agents embedded in various institutions to help run experiments to find a proper way of controlling people's minds back during the Cold War. Run by scientists that were leftovers from Nazi Germany brought over to the US at the end of World War Two."
"Basically, the official story about the program being disbanded in the '70s after being 'brought to light' was a sham. The program merely went underground, and is being continued to this day… as well as by Abstergo and some of its subsidiaries, not just the CIA."
"I'm surprised I haven't heard of this shit…" said Briggs. "I might not have signed up if I knew about it."
"Don't get down, Briggs," said Sam. "Every country has their own dirty secrets. I wouldn't be surprised if other countries have similar mind control programs… especially Russia and China, knowing they're key nations working with Megiddo."
"How does this fit in with what they did to Grim, though," said Briggs, "along with all this… Isu mumbo-jumbo?"
"Well, I don't know about everything regarding the Isu and all the Norse mythology stuff," said Charlie, "but what I do know from my research after looking into the CIA's databases—"
"—and didn't get caught," said Briggs with a frown.
"Definitely not. I swear, I double-checked!" said Charlie.
Briggs sighed.
"Where was I…" said Charlie. "Oh yeah, what I do know about the current MK-Ultra program after looking into what files haven't been redacted is that the mind control process involves torturing the target victim badly enough to traumatize them into developing dissociative identity disorder… then 'suggesting' an alternate identity of theirs that they can program to follow orders without their base identity even realizing it.
"Put simply?" said Charlie. "If that's what they did to Grim… then I suspect this 'Freyja' she kept mentioning, she doesn't just have her DNA… she's got her personality in her head, and the real Grim's personality is fighting for control… I also suspect she's losing."
Sam and Briggs looked worried at this.
"Sam, Lucas said in the footage that he wanted to 'keep a closer eye on' us. Do you think he meant…"
"We can't rule it out," said Sam. "I'm going to have to tell Vic to keep a closer eye on Grim in the meantime. She seemed all right enough when we rescued her… but something about her seems… different."
"That bastard, Lucas…"
"We're going to make him pay for this, Charlie," said Sam.
"Hey guys?" said Charlie. "I have a request."
"Say the word, Charlie."
"Don't show Grim the footage of me trying to kill one of the CIA assassins sent after us in Tuscany."
Sam and Briggs looked at each other for a moment.
"Footage?" said Sam.
"Oh…" said Charlie. "You didn't know about that? Damn it… I guess I need to at least show you then."
"We promise we won't judge, Charlie," said Sam.
Sam looked at the footage of Charlie nearly getting shot by one of Lucas's assassins back in Tuscany upon being detected by him, only for Charlie to stun the man from behind with one of his tri-rotors' sticky shockers. Then an angry Charlie nearly shot the man with his gun, only to drop the gun at the last minute.
"Jesus, Charlie," said Briggs. "I didn't think you had it in you."
"Very funny," said Charlie bitterly.
"Why don't you want to tell Grim about this?"
Charlie sighed. "For a moment, I wanted to kill him… even though I ended up not going through with it. I wasn't scared of killing him… maybe of getting hurt by him, but not killing him. I wanted to… I don't know what that says about me, but I just remembered getting so pissed at the thought of losing Grim, and then I just lost it! I… I don't know what that says about me…"
Briggs looked surprised by this.
Sam said to Charlie, "You aren't used to killing, Charlie, so the feeling's new to you. That much you probably understand. But the fact that your motivation to kill was for the sake of saving Grim… that says a lot about your character, and more of it is good than you think."
"It didn't feel like it," said Charlie, looking away.
"This mission is likely going to be the most dangerous of our lives. While I'd rather have you up here backing us up as an analyst, if you need to kill someone again for the sake of saving everyone else… do it."
"I'm not going to have to kill Grim, am I?" said Charlie. "I mean, you heard what Lucas said… he was trying to brainwash her! Maybe he succeeded."
"It won't come to that," said Sam. "Like I said, I'm having Vic keep an eye on her."
"All right," said Charlie, sighing heavily. "Where to?"
"Hong Kong," said Sam.
"Dr. Aswat's Red Mercury manufacturing facility," said Briggs.
"Right, the one Grim discovered in Tuscany," said Charlie. "After our setback with Grim, we're another step behind Lucas… There are already four Red Mercury bombs out in the wild, but if he manages to make more…"
"Then chances are we won't be able to stop Lucas from starting Armageddon," said Sam. "We have to shut down the production line."