Chapter 12— "Ohm's Law"
Royal Palace, Kyrat
Amita was up in the Royal Palace, eating some finely grilled sambar meat, thinking over how she had tried, and failed, to shape Kyrat into what she wanted over the years.
The people were not happy about her choice to conscript children into the military, and running a trade in opium was not as easy as it looked.
And now the Golden Path rebellion, led by her former right-hand man, Ajay Ghale, was on their way to knock on the Royal Palace doors to come and kill her.
But she had other plans than to die here.
She was talking to this woman whom Lucas called "the Serpent."
"I've had the Royal Army assist this 'Collective Force' group of yours up in the mountains as you asked…" said Amita. "But I have questions. What are they interested in up there?"
The Serpent said, "It is not my place to answer that."
"Then who might be able to?"
"I was told to provide safe passage for you to Yara in exchange for opium, and to take Bhadra to Peru as you agreed would be mutually beneficial for both our goals. I was not told anything about answering questions."
"You're working for Abstergo, are you not?" said Amita. "I'm not stupid, you know… I've heard rumors through my own political contacts… About the nature of the Selection you're having Bhadra participate in."
The Serpent said nothing.
"Hand me that smart watch of yours," said Amita. "I want to speak to your boss."
"I'm afraid I can't do that," said the Serpent, as her OPSAT was also being used as the detonator for the Red Mercury device being planted up in the Himalayas.
"Then tell me what interest Abstergo has in Kyrat?" said Amita.
"You ask too many questions," said the Serpent, who raised her crossbow at Amita and shot an airfoil round at her solar plexus, causing her to be unable to move.
The Serpent quickly bagged and tagged Amita.
"What are you doing?" Amita shouted.
"My boss said to leave you to die in the fallout if you asked too many questions," said the Serpent.
"Fallout… ?" Amita said as her eyes went wide in shock. "No… The Red Mercury's up in the Himalayas, isn't it? You— you're going to blow up Kyrat?"
The Serpent looked Amita in the eyes again as Amita screamed for her guards, but the Collective Force had made sure none were around as she reloaded her crossbow and put another airfoil round between Amita's eyes.
The Serpent said to the Kollektivnaya Sila lieutenant over her OPSAT, "Have your men put the bomb in place?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good. Ohm's Law. Have them hold back the Golden Path resistance, and any Royal Guard that get suspicious of our true motivations. They can't stop what's coming," said the Serpent. "ETA on the chopper?"
"It's an hour away."
"That's good timing."
"Why is it good timing?"
"Because the Selection's timer was sped up due to unpredicted resistance to Lucas's plans for change. It reaches zero in an hour. Once you arrive, I'll start the detonation timer."
"Copy that."
The Paladin
"We're nearing Kyrati airspace now," said Grim.
"We've gotta be at a pretty high altitude given we're in the Himalayas," mused Briggs.
"Let's go over what we know," said Sam.
"I managed to pull this Red Mercury bomb's schematics from the files of Takfir's computer in the shipping compound," said Charlie. "It matches the way Sadiq described it during his interrogation back in London. The process of defusing the bomb is simple, save for the fact that it will detonate unless the detonation switch is turned off, and the detonation switch runs on a timer."
"So where would the detonation switch be?" said Sam.
"It's programmed to be linked to an OPSAT of a Megiddo operative," said Charlie.
"An OPSAT?" said Sarah.
"Of a Megiddo operative…" said Grim. Her eyes went wide, and she then started looking through SMI data.
"What's going on, Grim?" said Sam.
"While I was in the midst of a shootout, I… dissociated a bit while I was guarding the truck back in the CAS shipping compound," said Grim. "I thought I was going to lose my mind again, but now I think that I saw something they didn't want me to see… or someone…"
Sam looked at Grim as she said, "It was a Splinter Cell… Clearly Megiddo, dressed in the same uniform size and type Sarah stole from the Engineer sleeper cell in Syria…"
Sarah said, "I was wondering who that uniform belonged to… Good thing I changed into a new one."
"It has to be them," said Grim. "They've got the detonator… and they've been spotted among the Collective Force ranks by a member of the Kyrati Royal Guard that's a double agent working for the Golden Path resistance. Someone named Rabi Ray Rana just broadcasted a picture of them on the local TV stations that was sent to them by the Royal Guard double agent before they were caught."
"Where were they last seen?"
"In the Royal Palace," said Grim as she sorted through footage on the SMI.
"Looks like I'm going to the Royal Palace," said Sam.
"And the bomb?" said Grim.
"I managed to plant a tracker on the shipping container the bomb was put in," said Sarah. "The bomb has to be nearby its signal."
Charlie said, "I've tracked the signal to an old gold mining camp, way up high in the Himalayas."
"I'm headed there then," said Sarah.
"Have you defused a bomb before?" said Sam, raising his eyebrows.
"Only in training…" said Sarah.
Sam made his decision.
"Charlie, you're our tech expert. You're going with Sarah to defuse the bomb," said Sam.
"Wait, what?" said Briggs.
Charlie looked nervous at this.
"Charlie's not a field agent, Sam," said Grim.
"Would you rather I send you then?" said Sam.
Grim looked away.
"As much as I'd love to risk sending you, someone showing signs of being brainwashed, with my daughter into a potential nuclear hellfire, Grim, I need you with me," said Sam. "The detonation switch is in the middle of a warzone. Freyja's combat skills are likely to come in handy there."
"Are you up for this, Charlie?" said Sam.
Charlie nodded apprehensively. "I just… I'm not exactly a badass like everyone else on the team."
"Stick to your strengths, Charlie," said Sam. "Sarah will keep an eye on you."
Charlie looked at Sarah; Sarah smiled slightly and nodded in his direction.
"Briggs will take our chopper with Sarah and Charlie to defuse the bomb. As for Grim and I… Marie will fly us to the palace in Kobin's spare chopper he brought us while Kobin keeps the Paladin airborne."
"I don't get you, Fisher…" said Kobin. "You're sending your daughter and most of your team to defuse that nuke, but not me in the way of the nuke's main blast radius?"
"Like I said," Sam said, "I need you to multitask and keep contacting potential pilots so we'll have a way to get to all four of the other bomb locations, and the detonation location for the final Selection at once… This bomb is just a test for Lucas's greater plans."
"Hell of a test…" said Kobin, "given it's going to kill a couple billion people. Right… Our goals are the same now I guess. Thanks, Fisher."
"Thank me by getting us all out of here in one piece, Kobin," said Fisher.
"Sure thing, boss," said Kobin.
"You've hated him for years, Dad," said Sarah. "Why are you trusting him with the Paladin now?"
"Because I don't have a choice," said Sam.
"Fair enough…" said Sarah in a way that suggested she was confused.
"Everyone, you know your roles. Get your gear ready," said Sam.
Kyrati Airspace
Briggs was flying Chopper One through the whiteout in the Himalayan mountains with Sarah and Charlie in the back.
Charlie donned his Splinter Cell outfit for the first time, an arctic white Splinter Cell outfit.
"Just stick to your strengths, Charlie," said Sarah as she strapped on her arctic Splinter Cell mask, along with an oxygen mask and tank. "You'll be fine."
"Easy for you to say," said Charlie. "This is the craziest thing I've ever done."
"Most people on Earth wouldn't do something this insane, so that's fair," said Sarah.
"How did you do it?" said Charlie. "I mean, become as good of a field agent as you did?"
"First a lot of training, then a lot of experience," said Sarah. "That and I learned plenty of things from my dad as a kid that apply to this job well. We used to go hunting together."
"I…" said Charlie. "I want to be able to help fight. But once Sadiq overpowered me, back in London… In the end, I'm a hacker, not a field agent."
"You're a field agent now," said Sarah, "because you've been deployed. So, stay focused. Besides, Sadiq's a Sage… most people wouldn't have been able to take him down in a hand-to-hand fight if they tried."
"I guess you're right," said Charlie as he took off the safety locks on his SC-IS handgun and SC-400S submachine gun.
Sarah said to Charlie, "You'll want to show me how to defuse the bomb, too."
"What? Why?"
Sarah said while loading a magazine into her SC-3000, "The last four bombs… It's likely we're going to have to split up if we want to defuse them all. So, I'll need to be sure I know how to defuse them by then."
Charlie said, "So Sam goes after the detonation broadcast center… if we manage to find where it is… then Grim goes after the bomb in Washington, Briggs goes after the bomb in Moscow, Marie goes after the bomb in Beijing, and you go after the bomb in Lucas's hideout in the South Pacific?"
"Something like that," said Sarah.
"That's suicide!" said Charlie.
"Again, we likely won't have any other options by then."
"Fuck… forget I asked," said Charlie. "Let's just focus on this bomb first. Once we defuse it, I'll be able to breathe again."
"Speaking of breathing," said Sarah, "make sure to conserve your oxygen as much as you can. Our supplies are limited."
"Right…" said Charlie, "…of course they are."
"Approaching the gold mine," said Briggs.
"Here we go," said Sarah.
Charlie nodded, and breathed into and out of his oxygen mask.
Sarah tossed down the fast rope, and she and Charlie attached their carabiners to the rope, then descended into the caves of the gold mine.
Near the Royal Fortress, Kyrat
Meanwhile, Sam and Grim were in the back of Chopper Two.
"The war is getting intense down there," said Marie. "I see tons of skirmishes happening between the Golden Path and the Kyrati Royal Guard in the treelines."
"Keep an eye out for the Collective Force as well, Marie," said Sam.
"Of course, Sam," said Marie.
Sam looked at Grim.
"You know how I told you to put a bullet in me if I show signs of going under again, Sam?" said Grim. "You promised you would. You may have to make do on that promise pretty soon."
"You're not the only one who's a good liar, Grim," said Sam with a smirk. "I need you for this mission, as well as the next one."
"Sam, I can feel it," said Grim. "Freyja… she doesn't want me… or you… near that Megiddo operative."
"Then tell Freyja to put some mistletoe in her trap, because we've got a job to do."
"Why do you trust me now?" said Grim. "You didn't even trust me when I was—"
"Again, I don't have much of a choice," said Sam.
"I see," said Grim, looking out the window for a moment. "If by some chance, I manage to get Freyja out of my head… and we survive… stop Lucas's Selection… Do you think we can go back to being friends again?"
"It's going to take a considerable amount of time for me to start trusting you that much again, Grim," said Sam.
"Right. I understand," Grim said, and looked out the window again at the Himalayan mountains in the distance in the midst of the snowstorm.
Suddenly she squinted.
Sam looked out the window with her.
What is that light in the distance?
Then as the light grew closer, Sam said, "Oh shit…"
Some red lights started flashing in the chopper.
"Marie, missile incoming!" yelled Sam.
"I see it!" yelled Marie as she popped flares.
The missile barely missed the chopper as Marie managed to fly out of its way, but when the missile collided with a nearby snowy mountain wall, the resulting explosion and avalanche of snow and rocks caused some turbulence.
"Damn it!" yelled Sam as he clutched his seat.
"Hang on!" yelled Marie. "We're nearing the Royal Fortress… about to undergo heavy fire… I may have to set the chopper down somewhere in the treeline."
"Whatever you're going to do, do it fast, Marie!" yelled Grim.
Marie fired missiles of her own at the Royal Fortress, blowing some holes in its walls and destroying some of the surface-to-air missile sites on its roof.
But it was too late. The Collective Force was onto them, and some of their grunts in the fortress fired a barrage of missiles at the chopper.
One of them hit the tail rotor.
"Fuck!" yelled Marie. "Hang on to your seats, we're about to make an emergency landing!"
The chopper was falling out of the sky.
Bullets pierced through the glass of the chopper's windshield.
Marie yelled, "Come on, come on…"
"MARIE!" screamed Sam.
Then the chopper's rotors collided with some trees, and the chopper crashed right next to a bell tower of some kind.
When Sam came to, he found himself surrounded by the burning chopper's remains.
Sam quickly shook his head to snap out of his shock from the impact, and looked around briefly. Grim's seat was empty; he could hear her voice next to him.
"Sam!" yelled Grim as she tried to pull him out of his seat.
"Grim!" yelled Sam as he cut his seatbelt off with his combat knife.
"This place is a killzone for mortar fire! We have to go now!" yelled Grim.
Grim used the butt of her rifle to bash a chunk of burning debris out of their way, and they made it out of the chopper.
As mortars fell all around them, the bell tower's wooden framework exploded and it collapsed nearby them.
"Marie?" yelled Sam.
Marie was firing her dual MAC-11 submachine guns at the surrounding Collective Force troops; Marie then suffered an arrow wound to her right thigh.
"MARIE!" yelled Sam.
As Marie scooted to a corner and pressed her back against the bell tower's wreckage, the soldier that attacked her, a Royal Guard member who was a hunter of some kind with a pack of snow leopards by his side not attacking him, approached her, and whistled to the leopards.
Sam quickly shot the leopards in succession with his underbarrel sniper rifle before they ate Marie alive, causing the hunter to turn around and look for Sam, spotting him in the bushes and shooting a fire arrow that barely missed him but hit part of the bush he was hiding in.
Sam ran out of his hiding spot, and shot the man with his next sniper round.
Grim was firing her SC light machine gun at the remaining Collective Force and Royal Guard soldiers in the area to draw them away from Sam and Marie while crouching behind the burning wreckage of the now-exploded chopper they had been in for cover.
Sam kept running to save Marie.
"…strength… my love…" Marie muttered delusionally while clutching her stomach as she fired her MAC-11s at the Collective Force when Sam ran to her.
"Your leg… it looks bad…" said Sam.
"We can't get trapped here, my love," said Marie, shutting her eyes. "You have to keep going!"
"But what about you?" said Sam.
Grim said to Sam while approaching him and Marie as she kept the Collective Force troops off of them with suppressing fire from her SC LMG, "They just keep coming, we have to fall back!"
But then something odd happened.
The Collective Force and Royal Guard retreated.
From the other side of the battlefield, another faction emerged.
"It's the Golden Path," said Sam.
Their leader as indicated by his uniform decorations, a man who appeared closer to Sarah's age, approached them.
"My friend here needs help," said Sam.
"You're not from here," said the leader. "But you're also fighting against the group of mercenaries who started working with the Royal Guard, just as we were beginning to plot our final battle. Who are you?"
"I'm Sam," Sam said, reluctant to share his entire name. "This is Grim. That's Marie over there."
"Who are you working for?"
"No one. We've been disavowed by our government. And we're trying to stop a nuke from going off."
"Shit… How do you know about Pagan's nuke?" said the man.
"About Pagan's nuke?" said Sam.
The man raised his eyebrows.
"Listen, kid," said Sam, "I don't know if you've heard the news about the Engineers, or the Selection… but you need to know that it's going down in Kyrat. Right here, right now, and if we don't stop it… Your little micronation isn't the only part of the world that's going to burn."
"You're telling me Kyrat is going to be nuked by the Engineers?" said the man. "Bullshit. These men working with Amita… They've been speaking Russian and Chinese, not Arabic!"
"The Engineers aren't the only ones behind the Selection," said Sam, "not to mention the Engineers are borderless. Amita must've cut a deal with the people pulling the strings for safe passage out of Kyrat before pulling out."
The man said, "Whatever. Make sure to shoot the enemy and not us, help us get to the Royal Fortress, and we'll help you get to your nuke."
"That's all we ask," said Sam, raising his hands.
"Men," said the man, "help heal that woman's leg over there."
"Yes, Ajay," said one of his subordinates.
"Ajay?" said Sam. "Your name is Ajay?"
Ajay said nothing.
"You got a last name, Ajay?"
"Only if you do, Sam."
"Fair enough," Sam said with a smirk. "We'll help you and the Golden Path with your coup."
"Just one more thing, though, Sam," said Ajay. "When we reach the Royal Palace? Amita dies by my hand."
"Sounds like you two have some bad blood between each other."
"She took away someone important to me," said Ajay.
"I understand. The Mad Queen of Kyrat is all yours," said Sam.
The Himalayas, Kyrat
Briggs was doing a circle around with Chopper One so he could protect Charlie and Sarah with his sniper rifle.
Briggs said to Charlie and Sarah over comms, "You guys locate the package yet?"
Sarah said to Briggs over comms, "Yeah, it looks like the guards took the bomb out of the package I planted the tracker on, they must've placed it not far from here…"
"Are you sure?" said Briggs.
"She's right, Briggs. The package is here and its boxes are empty," said Charlie, looking at the package. "I recognize the shipping label number."
Briggs said, "They'd want to be careful moving the Red Mercury once it's outside its packaging in a warzone like this… You're close."
Sarah said, "Hang on… I see something ahead through these excavated mine areas…"
Charlie looked in the dark with his night vision. "They installed a funicular lift in here," said Charlie.
"KEO's biggest gold mine must've been right beneath us," Sarah said as she forced the doors open with a hydraulic rescue tool from her kit.
"KEO?" said Charlie.
"Kyrat Earth and Ore," said Sarah. "Kyrat's economy used to rely heavily on its gold exports during the reign of the East India Company. After Kyrat was given its independence in the 1950s their supplies dried up soon after… That's when the country descended into a civil war."
"How'd you learn so much about Kyrat?" said Charlie as they both examined the insides of the elevator. "When you were back in school?"
"No," said Sarah, "in the mission briefings... which I assume you didn't read."
"Must've skimmed over that part," said Charlie, scratching the back of his head. "Sorry."
"It was mostly just to get us acquainted with the territory and the locals since this is a micronation hardly anyone's heard of," Sarah said, and shrugged as she looked at the corpses in front of them.
"Royal Guard… and even a few Collective Force troops… The blood is fresh…" said Sarah.
"What does that mean?" said Charlie.
"They must not have wanted to go down with the bomb…"
"So it's at the bottom of the lift?"
"Must be," said Sarah.
Sarah tried to call the lift. "Oh shit… It's already being used!"
"Then… the elevator's coming up?"
"No, I think it's going—"
"It's going down?" said Charlie.
As they could hear the funicular lift start to descend on the other side, Sarah planted a breaching charge.
"This lift is bigger than I thought…" Sarah said as she looked around at the walls of the cave. "Cover your ears and get ready to jump on!" she shouted as she blew the doors open.
"What? Oh, fuck, fuck, FUCK!" yelled Charlie as he covered his ears just in time.
As the elevator doors were blown off their hinges by Sarah's breaching charge, they could see there were dual funicular lift shafts, one of which had the remains of a destroyed plane stashed on it, along with six guards… and the Red Mercury bomb.
The other shaft on the left side was void of a lift, and instead showed a massive drop to their death.
While the guards were stunned by the blast, Sarah jumped and barely landed on the funicular lift.
She rolled to her feet, and quickly transitioned into shooting at the six guards with her SC-IS pistol. She managed to shoot three before the other three recovered, one of which was a mercenary toting heavy armor and a machine gun whom she assumed was in charge of defending the bomb.
Seeing he had to jump too before he would hit the side of the shaft and get crushed under it, Charlie breathed heavily in and out as he ran at the side of the lift's entrance doors and made a leap after them.
He barely managed to land on his feet, however it caused him to hurt his feet a little due to the drop, and he stumbled.
Sarah shot the machine gun out of the brute's hand with an underbarrel shotgun round from her SC-3000 while hiding behind the wreckage of the plane. The shotgun's force caused him to stumble backwards. The guard's light machine gun skidded in Charlie's direction.
She managed to shoot the brute's helmet off with some submachine gun fire, but one of the other two guards bashed Sarah in the back with their rifle, knocking her to the floor.
"SARAH!" yelled Charlie.
The other of the two guards grabbed her, as the brute laughed and looked at Charlie.
"You are Charlie Cole, yes?" said the brute. "You must be getting desperate… sending his daughter and an analyst by themselves to be incinerated in the center of world's worst nuclear catastrophe to date…"
"You're the Collective Force's leader?" said Charlie.
The brute laughed even louder. "You think the CEO of one of Lucas's PMC subsidiaries would get sent on a suicide mission? Either you're a complete moron or you must've been thinking at a desk all this time, techie. You're not used to thinking while your boots are on the ground."
As Charlie reached for his combat knife, the guard shoved him back down and stomped on him, causing him to black out for a second. The guard then picked him up, yanked off his oxygen mask and put him in a chokehold while holding him above the drop to the abyss below.
Charlie desperately tried to breathe.
"Air is thin up here, no?" said the brute.
Looking over at Sarah from the angle the brute was holding him at, Charlie saw that she was getting bashed in the gut by one guard while held in a bear hug by the second.
"You ever heard of Ohm's Law, Charlie?" said the brute. "Let me show you."
The brute pulled Charlie back up from the drop and hurled him over his shoulder before he lost consciousness, causing him to hit the floor of the lift.
Charlie gasped for air, and grabbed his side, grunting in pain.
He was struggling to stay conscious now.
Sarah kicked one of the guards, and headbutted and elbowed the other, breaking free.
The brute grabbed Charlie and pulled out his crossbow from his holster.
"A sticky shocker? Da, perfect," said the brute after he checked the ammunition the crossbow was loaded with.
"Charlie! Get him where I shot him!" yelled Sarah as she shot the first guard with her SC-IS while holding the second human shield, then dug into the second's chest with her Karambit.
Charlie looked at the guard's arm where his armor around his arms was damaged and leaking blood.
Grimacing, Charlie pulled out his knife and stabbed the brute in his wounded arm, the one he was choking him with.
"Arrgh!" the brute screamed, and Charlie stomped on the guard's toes, then tried to get his crossbow back, but the guard headbutted him and shoved him to the floor.
Charlie's nose was bleeding. He looked up as Sarah shot the guard several times with her SC-IS, but then the guard managed to hit her in the shoulder with a sticky shocker.
"Blyat!" the brute yelled as Sarah stumbled to her knees and then onto her back, desperately trying to pull off the sticky shocker with her hands.
As Sarah fell unconscious, Charlie looked at the brute, whom Sarah had managed to shoot in the jaw. His face was now hideous.
The furious brute rasped and limped towards Charlie as he tried to utter the words with a half-destroyed jaw. Charlie could understand him, though…
"A powerful voltage… and an unstoppable current… is a collective force… that no resistance can stand in the way of," the brute slurred.
"Sarah!" said Charlie as he clutched his nose.
As the brute pulled out a Desert Eagle, and cocked it while aiming it at Sarah's head, he slurred, "Fourth Echelon failed their mission."
"No!" yelled Charlie as he desperately charged toward the brute and hurled himself into him with everything he had, managing to hit the guard in the jaw.
The guard stumbled, and landed a few feet short of the fall off of the lift into the bottom of the other funicular lift's shaft. His bullet barely missed Sarah's head.
Seeing the brute stumbling as he tried to get back onto his feet, Charlie got up, pulled out an adrenaline syringe, and plunged it into Sarah's chest.
Sarah started to regain her consciousness again.
"Get up, Sarah, I need your help, I can't defeat this guy on my own!" yelled Charlie.
"Dad…" Sarah said deliriously, "…is that you?"
Charlie said to Sarah, "No, Sarah, it's Charlie, I need your help!"
"Charlie?" Sarah laughed. "The techie on my dad's team with the cute smile?"
"Cute smile?" said Charlie, raising one of his eyebrows. "The hell?"
"What are you doing out here in the field?"
The brute got up, looked at Charlie, and made a tortured screaming noise mixed with the sound of his gurgling the blood from his destroyed jaw.
Looking at the brute, Charlie tried to shake Sarah out of her trance, "Sarah, snap out of it!"
"You're not hitting on me now of all times, are you?" Sarah giggled.
"Damn it… Briggs, can you reach us down here! We need help!" shouted Charlie.
"I'm a little busy right now, Charlie," shouted Briggs, "the Kyrati Royal Guard's air forces are swarming the chopper right now! Whatever's going on down there, you're on your own!"
"I don't think my Dad would approve of us dating though…" Sarah said as the brute limped toward Charlie, and picked up his Desert Eagle with his good arm.
"Fuck!" Charlie screamed, and pulled out his SC-IS pistol, and pointed it at the guard, his hands trembling.
The brute laughed as he pointed his Desert Eagle at Charlie, and he said in his tortured slur while they engaged in a Mexican standoff, "You've never killed someone before, have you, Charlie."
As Charlie couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger, the bleeding brute said, "Even at gunpoint? Really?"
Then he pointed his gun upward to taunt Charlie. "I'm right here, not even aiming at you, but you still won't shoot me." He then said, "You wouldn't mind if I did this then, would you?" as he shot the cables to the funicular lift, which caused the funicular lift they were on to plunge downward.
Charlie stumbled and lost his balance as the lift fell ridiculously fast. He ended up falling against Sarah, and Sarah giggled, "Charlie, what are you doing? Stop, my dad's going to find out about us! I'm afraid he'll be mad at you…"
"Well, it looks like you might've stood a chance at being promoted from base IT after all, Charlie… if you had what it took to survive long enough… It sounds like she really likes you."
"Shit… she must be delirious from the adrenaline shot I gave her to try and wake her up from after you hit her with that sticky shocker," said Charlie. "She'll wake up… Any second now…"
"And while we wait for her to wake up, you're still in danger of me… Not to mention the bomb," said the brute.
Charlie looked at the Red Mercury bomb's timer, as the briefcase it was in had been opened, and the bomb's components started to glow. "Holy shit… the timer's started… it's going off in less than ten minutes!"
"Not to mention what will happen to the bomb once we reach the bottom of the floor. Out of all the additions to the collective force you're fighting against, it might just be gravity that kills you!"
"I don't want him kicking you off the team…" Sarah said.
Charlie looked at Sarah.
"Despite that you're a little reckless at times, you're good… at your… job…" Sarah said as she started to open her eyes.
Charlie looked back at the brute as he raised his Desert Eagle at Sarah. "But before we reach the bottom, I want you to watch her die—"
Charlie grunted, and pushed himself away from Sarah, then used the momentum to pull himself onto his knee, and then, as he fired his SC-IS at the brute's head, Sarah woke up.
The Royal Fortress, Kyrat
While the Golden Path was assaulting the Royal Fortress's front entrance, Sam and Grim were sneaking around the rear entrance through a minefield. Marie was hiding in the distance, providing mortar support for the Golden Path.
"Marie's leg injury looked pretty bad," said Sam.
"Are you worried about her?" said Grim.
"Less so now than for the world," said Sam. "I can't send her to Peru to stop the Red Mercury bomb there like I planned to. It'll have to either be Kobin… or Vic…"
"You're going to send Vic?"
"If he can make it to a rendezvous with us, yeah," said Sam as they crept through the minefield while detecting the mines in the snow with their thermal vision. "I don't trust Kobin to defuse it if I have a choice."
"Your trust is conditional, Yahweh," said Grim with a grin.
Sam stopped, and tensed himself.
"That was Freyja talking, wasn't it?"
Grim grunted, and shook her head.
"Easy, Grim…" said Sam, "We're in the middle of a minefield…"
"Would you trust me if you had no choice?" said Grim, her grin still there.
"I'd trust Grim… Not you, Freyja," said Sam with a grimace. "Give me my friend back."
"But you said you aren't friends on the chopper ride here," said Grim as she pulled out a frag grenade and put her hand on the pin. "Perhaps you can make a run for it, let her die here?"
"Look," said Sam with a sigh, "I need Grim's help now… Right now, my daughter, the rest of my team… We're all going to die here along with billions of people later on if I don't get to that detonator and stop that nuke from exploding… And if getting Grim's help back means trusting her… Well, you're going to have to let her decide whether I mean that or not, aren't you, Freyja?"
Grim looked at Sam wide-eyed, then looked at the frag grenade she was holding and blinked. She started breathing heavily.
"Grim, are you with me?" said Sam as he approached her, stepping around a mine in the process.
Grim grunted in frustration, shut her eyes, and nodded. "I'm with you," she said as she handed Sam the grenade.
"You've got a strong will, Grim," said Sam as he stored the grenade in his kit. "Freyja may be a stubborn god, but the Isu did create us in their own image after all."
Grim nodded, and caught her breath. "It's debilitating, living with a god trapped in your head."
"Tell me about it," said Sam as they scaled the fortress wall and entered the fortress interior through a window.
They used the shadows to hide as a set of Collective Force and Royal Guard troops moved past them to fight the Golden Path outside.
Sam and Grim navigated through the Royal Fortress, picking off some guards incoming on their position on the way out with some suppressed rounds from their SC-20K and SC-400Ss.
Sam and Grim did a dual breach of the back doors leading outside to the Royal Palace.
Just as they did, they saw the Royal Fortress's walls collapse behind them as Ajay and a unit of Golden Path soldiers charged upward toward the exploding pathway to the palace, and the unit of Collective Force mercenaries protecting it.
As Sam and Grim joined the chaotic battle, moving uphill behind the Golden Path, a mortar fire explosion caused Sam to hallucinate, and he looked up with frigid breath at a tower of some kind.
"The Tower…" said Yahweh as Sam saw Muspelheim, an Isu which was burning for some reason other than the First Catastrophe. In the center of the capital city, Eitri, was a tower with a glowing beam of light coming from it.
"Juno's experiments… she euthanized her lover, Aita… Aita… he's the other Prophet… The Tower… You saw him there!"
"What are you trying to tell me, Yahweh?" said Sam. "And why now?"
"I need to show you, Sam! Megiddo… The Prophecy… You need to know…" said Yahweh.
"Damn it…" said Sam as he continued shooting and fighting uphill with the others, slowly giving up to Yahweh along the way.
"The Tower… the Battle of Muspelheim… Odin killed the rival Isu warlord, Surtr, out of vengeance… Surtr needed his son, Baldr, to enact his plans…" said Yahweh to Sam. "Little did he know that his plans and Odin's vengeance were two forces that, when they clashed, would form the fangs of Ragnarok. The Toba catastrophe."
"Odin started the Toba catastrophe due to his own pride, all when he was allegedly trying to stop it, save his own people at the expense of others?" said Sam while laughing. "Sounds like history's repeating itself."
"Please, Yahweh…" said Sam. "Give me my body back… I need to stop this bomb from going off… My daughter is… is…"
"Half a key," said Yahweh. "The collective wills of Fourth Echelon will be half of the key to stopping Lucas's first plan for world domination and depopulation… You will be the other half…"
"I know," said Sam, "I know…"
… … … … …
Sam saw images of burning skies when Grim hit Sam with an adrenaline shot.
"Stay with me, Sam!" said Grim.
Sam looked up at the frigid skies of Kyrat again.
"What's going on?" said Sam as he got on his feet.
"We're about to breach the Royal Palace," said Ajay. "You fought like a maniac out there for a second… Then you were talking in the same language I heard when I was experiencing Shangri-La… Then you passed out. Seriously, who are you guys?"
"Shangri-La?" said Sam.
"Shangri-La? It's a painting broken up into five pieces, imbued with powers… it allows you to experience a sort of… history of ancient Kyrat that never happened. The thangka painting is at my parents' old homestead."
"No thanks, but we understand what it is. Sounds like Kyrat got its hands on a Piece of Eden," said Grim.
"A piece of what?" said Ajay. "On second thought, maybe I don't want to know who you guys are…"
Sam said to Ajay, "I have a bomb detonator to find."
Ajay nodded as two Golden Path members kicked open the door to the palace, and he said to Sam, "and I have an old friend I need to talk to."
As they entered the palace, they found Amita in a bag.
"Ajay? Oh, you've got to be fucking—no, Ajay, don't!"
Ajay approached her with his P416 rifle in hand.
"Ajay, listen, you have to get me out of here, there's a nuclear bomb that's going to go off…"
"Why should I, Amita?" said Ajay.
"Bhadra!" cried Amita. "It's Bhadra you want! She's still alive; I can get her for you!"
"Where is she?" said Ajay.
"If I tell you, you'll kill me!"
"If you don't tell me, you can die here," said Ajay as he lit a Molotov and tossed it at the floor next to Amita's bag.
Amita screamed. "Put it out, Ajay!"
Ajay found a nearby fire extinguisher hidden in a nearby cabinet. "Pagan gave me a tour of the place a while back before I shot his helicopter down. He even showed me Lakshmana's shrine," said Ajay. "But I lost Bhadra to you afterwards, along with half of Kyrat."
"No! She's alive, I swear!"
"Then where is she!" yelled Ajay.
"Lima!" cried Amita. "I traded Bhadra to the man who sent the nuke, the same man I've been trying to bargain with using our opium trade, in case he needed leverage over you too!"
"Good monkey," said Ajay as he sprayed Amita with the fire extinguisher.
Coughing on the extinguisher spray, Amita looked at Ajay as he unzipped her bag, saying, "Did you just call me a monkey? And I'm covered in this white foamy shit!"
"And speaking of monkeys throwing shit at each other…" said Ajay as he helped her up, "give my regards to Sabal."
Amita looked up at Ajay and screamed, "No!" as Ajay shot her in the head with a .44 Magnum revolver.
"So, you have a sense of humor after all," said Sam.
"You can thank my fucked-up upbringing for that," said Ajay.
Sam said, "You got your wish, Ajay… But I figured you weren't going to let us go. So we'll cut you a deal. We're already going after the man who kidnapped this Bhadra of yours. We know where his compound is; it's not in Lima, it's on a private island off the Peruvian coast. We're going after the compound no matter what, but there's a catch."
"What's the catch?" said Ajay.
"There's another nuke that's going to go off there soon," said Sam, "and I'm still trying to find the location where they're going to broadcast the detonation from."
"Shit…" said Ajay. "Sounds like I still need you guys around after all."
"Say that again?" Grim put a hand to her ear, then looked at Sam and her eyes went wide.
"You're not talking to Freyja again, are you, Grim?" said Sam.
"No, Sam… I'm talking to Briggs…" said Grim.
"What?" said Sam. "What's he saying?"
"It's Charlie and Sarah… We have a bit of a problem, we need to get the detonator now!"
"What?" said Sam. "What's the problem?"
"I'll explain to you as we go after the detonator!" shouted Grim.
As Sam and Grim heard a helicopter taking off nearby, they ran out of the Royal Palace.
The Himalayas, Kyrat
As Sarah sat up, she looked at Charlie as he stood up. He was staring at the abyss the brute fell off of that he was standing over with an empty look in his eyes.
Holy shit… thought Sarah, Charlie did it.
"Charlie?" said Sarah as she walked over to him. "Are you okay?"
"How do you and Sam do it…" said Charlie quietly.
"What?" said Sarah.
"How do you kill so easily."
Sarah looked at Charlie and put her hand on his shoulder. "The first time for me took place on a train… It was the hardest," she said. "The second time, it was slightly easier, but still pretty hard."
"How did you keep doing it?"
"Well… if things go according to plan, you won't have to," said Sarah.
"Things haven't been going according to plan at all for this entire mission," said Charlie, before he looked at the bomb, and snapped out of his trance.
"We still have a job to do," he said. "And… and the funicular is descending fast… how are we going to get off of this?"
"Good question… Briggs, do you copy?" said Sarah.
"I copy," said Briggs. "What's going on down there?"
"We're on a funicular lift… Its cables have been cut; we're going to hit the ground with the bomb on it soon!" said Sarah.
"Shit!" shouted Briggs.
"Has Sam reached the detonator, over?"
"Let me ask him," said Briggs.
Sarah and Charlie waited while looking at the bomb.
"Negative," said Briggs.
"Damn it," said Sarah. "Well tell him to hurry up, we can't wait until the last minute! We're going to reach the bottom of the shaft soon and the impact will blow up the bomb, and bury us and half of Asia with it!"
"Can you find a way to get out of the shaft with the bomb?" said Briggs.
"Negative, we'd have to climb the walls! That's a job for two hands!" said Sarah, while Charlie examined the destroyed airplane on the lift.
"Wait, Sarah, tell Briggs I've found a way out!" said Charlie.
"You have?" said Sarah as she turned to Charlie.
"Remember how this is your first time defusing a bomb?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Do you think you can try defusing it while I provide instructions in mid-air?"
"In mid-air?" said Sarah.
"The controls for the airplane's seats are still working!" said Charlie. "This is one of those planes where the cockpits come with parachutes built into the seats!"
"An ejector seat?"
"No, two of them!" said Charlie.
"Briggs, I'm going to have to keep you on the line for a minute," said Sarah.
"Copy that," said Briggs.
"We need you to bring the chopper to our location," said Sarah as she grabbed the bomb. Charlie held the cockpit open for her as she got in first, then he followed.
They strapped themselves in, and Sarah held the bomb tight as she and Charlie positioned their seats up at an angle so they were pointed in the direction the funicular lift was falling from, and ejected their seats from the plane, launching them up the funicular lift.
"SHIT!" yelled Charlie as they flew up the funicular lift.
"Briggs are you there!" yelled Sarah.
"I'm above your position," shouted Briggs.
"Briggs, we need you to cause an avalanche!"
"Cause what?"
"Blow the roof of the mine shaft off above our position with missiles, over!"
"Why not with bombs?"
"Missiles would move the roof forward and down the mountain, bombs would bring the rocks down on our heads! Basic physics!"
"Basic physics? Jesus Christ, I hope you two know what you're doing…" said Briggs as he could be heard breathing heavily over comms.
They all mentally prepared for the possible end; as their seats zoomed toward the top of the shaft, they could hear the lift smash against the floor beneath them and see Briggs blow a hole in the roof above them.
And suddenly they were out in the frigid whiteout of the Himalayas.
As an avalanche was starting beneath them from Briggs's missiles, they deployed their parachutes.
"Thank god…" said Charlie. "I swear I'm never ever getting in another elevator for the rest of my life."
"It's not over yet," said Sarah as she opened the briefcase to the Red Mercury bomb. "Tell me how to defuse this thing!"
"All right…" said Charlie. "Start by scanning for the correct right wire with your OPSAT… It'll be green…"
The Royal Palace, Kyrat
Sam and Grim were running toward the helicopter the detonator was on, avoiding its lights while hiding amidst the whiteout while Marie was providing mortar fire to try and bring the helicopter down.
As the helicopter was taking off, Sam saw that neither of them were going to make the jump.
He looked at the Splinter Cell aboard the back of the cargo bay, waving with the detonator to taunt them, and aimed his SC-20K at the netting in the bay holding some other cargo up, which then fell out of the plane and was held up by the netting.
"Provide cover fire, Grim!" yelled Sam as the enemy Splinter Cell barely avoided getting knocked off the helicopter by the cargo, and Sam jumped and grabbed the netting.
The cargo seemed to be several packages of refined opium, as well as some hallucinogenic compounds.
As Sam climbed the netting up toward the top of the helicopter as it took off, the enemy Splinter Cell fired back at Sam, only for Grim to fire at her to distract her for a moment.
But then the Splinter Cell aimed back down at Sam, and hit one of the hallucinogenic packages, which spilled the drug onto Sam's face.
"Looks like this supply of drugs used for MK-Ultra will finish you off," said the Splinter Cell above Sam, as Sam struggled to get out of the way of the drug getting in his eyes and soaking through his mask.
"Damn it…" Sam started to see Yahweh again. "No, I'm so close!"
"The Prophecy…" said Yahweh, "Are you willing to fulfill it, Sam?"
Sam looked at an avalanche in the distance.
"You may have to lose everything to do so…"
"No…" said Sam.
"You could just as easily turn tail with your daughter and run, let the world burn, now that she's with you. Instead, you'd likely be putting her in danger again…"
Sam grimaced, and tried to wipe the drug out of his eyes.
Grim was covering Sam as the helicopter was disappearing into the Himalayas.
Switching to her underbarrel 40MM sniper rifle attachment, Grim zoomed in with her SC LMG's sniper scope, and looked at the Splinter Cell through the lens of the scope when Grim felt Freyja walk next to her and put her hands on Grim's gun.
"That's right… point it… at Sam!" Freyja said as Grim struggled against Freyja's grip on her.
"I can't let you kill my friend!" yelled Grim.
"Even if he doesn't care about you?" said Freyja with a grin. "You've betrayed him plenty of times… One more shouldn't hurt too much..."
"Damn it, get out of my head, Freyja!" screamed Grim.
"I'm afraid I can't do that," said Freyja. "Ohm's Law has to do with electricity… and electricity is inside the human mind. If we provided the spark to give your kind its collective consciousness, we can take it away just as easily… All that is needed for that to happen, is for you to stop resisting… My electric current, coursing through your veins, is stronger than your resistance to it, Grim. It's inevitable."
"No, it ISN'T!" yelled Grim as she yanked the gun upward out of Freyja's hands, aimed, and fired her sniper round.
The bullet pierced through the enemy Splinter Cell's right arm, and knocked her over.
Sam climbed up the netting and entered the cargo bay, and found that Grim's bullet had dismembered the woman's right arm, severing the part of her suit with her OPSAT on it from the glove.
Sam picked up the woman's dismembered arm, plugged his OPSAT into hers, and quickly deactivated the detonation controls on it.
Sam called Sarah, Charlie, Briggs, Marie, and Grim. "The detonator's turned off. You've got three minutes left on the timer, Sarah, have you defused the bomb yet?"
The Himalayas, Kyrat
Hearing Sam's voice relieved Sarah.
Charlie said to Sarah, "Thank god he made it… Okay, we're good, now cut that last red wire."
Sarah cut the wire, and the bomb's lights turned off.
Sarah sighed with relief, along with Charlie as they floated down through the whiteout as the avalanche was happening beneath them.
"You did it," said Charlie.
"We did it," said Sarah.
Charlie smiled at this. "Looks like I survived my first real combat experience."
"Hell of a combat experience it was…" said Sarah, looking at the avalanche below them.
"Hey, um… what you said back in the funicular lift… about my smile, among other things…" said Charlie nervously, "…did you mean that?"
"When did I say something about your smile down there?" said Sarah, appearing confused.
"Oh… Uh, never mind," said Charlie. "I must've uh… That brute must've clocked me so hard that I started hearing things."
"Oh…" said Sarah, her face turning red, "…right."
"We're still cool, right?"
"Yeah, of course," said Sarah.
"All right," said Charlie as they looked away from each other awkwardly.
"Sarah, Charlie, I'm bringing the chopper towards you two. Shit, this ought to be a mission for the history books," Briggs said.
"All right, Briggs…" said Sarah, "we'll use the hook to attach to the chopper."
"Copy that," said Briggs. "Also, word is it sounds like we won the civil war in Kyrat… The Golden Path took the Royal Palace. We'll regroup with Sam, Kobin, and the others at the Kyrati Airport."
"The Selection failed," said Sarah.
"For now," said Charlie as Briggs approached them.
… … … … …
"The bomb's defused, Dad," said Sarah over comms.
Sam sighed with relief, and looked over at the enemy Splinter Cell.
She furiously hurled herself at Sam, but Sam managed to fight her off and throw her into the wall of the helicopter. This stunned her long enough for him to chuck a frag grenade at the cockpit and then run for the cargo bay, grab a parachute, and leap off the helicopter. Seconds after he jumped, the helicopter exploded.
Sam then used the parachute to land safely in the snow.
He looked at the burning wreckage of the helicopter.
The enemy Splinter Cell ran out of the helicopter.
As Briggs's helicopter landed nearby with Sarah, Charlie, Grim, and Marie aboard to come pick up Sam, Sarah hopped out of the chopper.
"Dad, let's get out of here!" said Sarah. "Kobin messaged us, he says Uncle Vic messaged him aboard the Paladin. Vic's been trying to tap into Lucas's comms… he says there's another set of Collective Force reinforcements entering Kyrati airspace. Lucas is upset that we stopped his first Selection attack…"
Sarah then looked at her dad as he approached the wreckage silently.
"Dad?"
She then looked at the enemy Splinter Cell.
As the helicopter exploded again, the Splinter Cell, whose face and left arm were partially covered in fuel leakage from the helicopter, screamed as her face and non-dismembered arm caught on fire. She tried to put out the fires on her arm and face by rolling in the snow, and she tore off her mask.
Sam examined her face from a distance, now half-charred beyond recognition.
His eyes opened wider.
The Splinter Cell looked at Sam as she stumbled up from the blood-covered snow, with both of her arms now destroyed.
"She's…" said Sarah.
"…Sadiq's daughter?" said Sam.
The woman let out a blood-curdling cry at them.
"Are you going to kill me now?" she screamed. "Or leave me to die in the snow?"
Sarah said, "Jordan, you don't have to fight for L-"
"Jordan… You say that name as if it means something to me…" she said. "I am Serpent. And all I want is to live long enough to watch the world I hate burn around me."
"The Selection isn't over," she said. "The last Red Mercury bomb will be planted within Lucas's secret private island in the South Pacific… one where he has mined deep within the Earth's crust. The resulting nuclear explosion will ignite the Ring of Fire… accelerating global climate change considerably."
Sam and the others shivered upon hearing this.
That could cause even more deaths than this bomb could've… depending on how deep the mine is, he thought.
The world will have no choice but to realize its fate lies in Lucas's selection of who lives and who dies. And among the casualties will be all the people used as leverage against those who failed to keep their promises to Lucas… including me."
"I'll see one of you there for a rematch," the Serpent said as she looked at Sarah. "I'm sure Lucas will grant me new arms like he granted him new legs." She looked at Sam one last time, and then walked away.
"We should kill her, Sam," said Grim.
"I can't do that, Grim," said Sam. "Let's go."
Aboard The Paladin
In the cockpit, Kobin said, "By the way, you're welcome for me not leaving you guys down there to die in that shithole."
"…thanks, Kobin," said Sam. "Marie's going to take over now."
"I assume you want me to get back to contacting my black market connections for some free rides into hell?"
"You assumed right," said Sam.
As Sam and Sarah helped Marie into the cockpit, Kobin headed back into the command room to look at the SMI with the others.
"Where to, my love?" said Marie.
"For starters, away from Kyrat," said Sam. "But other than that… we don't know yet. I need to work out a rendezvous with Vic."
"All right," said Marie.
In the command room, Sam looked at the SMI with Kobin, Grim, Briggs, Charlie, and Sarah.
"The Selection is going down in Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Lucas's island in the South Pacific," said Sam. "What we still don't know is where Lucas is going to broadcast the detonation of the Red Mercury devices from. Knowing how Lucas is likely going to accelerate the timetables for the attacks since the last one failed, we have less than a week to find out the location."
"Victor says he's been monitoring Lucas's comms," said Kobin. "You needed to contact him anyway, right?"
"Yeah," said Sam. "One of us is going to have to go to each of the locations of the bombs, plus the detonation broadcast center. Now that Marie's badly wounded, Grim, Briggs, Sarah, and I are the only ones capable of doing this… That's four of the five people we need to pull this off."
Charlie said nothing in response to this, and looked at Sarah for a moment.
"Normally I'd say something smart like I'm plenty capable… but to be honest the thought of having to defuse a nuclear bomb while waiting for one of you to turn off its detonation broadcast scares the fuck out of me, so I'll keep my mouth shut," said Kobin.
"I was originally going to contact Vic anyway to be the fifth person while Marie was the fourth, but it looks like Sarah is going to have to be the fourth," said Sam.
Grim said, "Contacting Vic now."
Vic said to Sam over the SMI, "Sam… Your team looks like shit."
"I could say the same about you, Vic…" said Sam. "You look like you haven't slept for days."
"That's an accurate assumption," said Vic.
"Where are you hiding out at?"
"You're not gonna like this…" said Vic.
"Go on."
"Georgia," said Vic.
Sam recalled instantly the myriad of enemies he made in Georgia during his mission to assassinate former Georgian President Kombayn Nikoladze amidst the Georgian Information Crisis, along with Phillip Masse, the man responsible for the Masse Kernels that fueled that crisis, and eventually Displace's and now this one as well.
"The place's become a living hell ever since that spooky CIA puppet leader took Nikoladze's place," said Vic. "Anyway, I've been chillin' at a cozy little safe house up in the eastern part of the country, sandwiched somewhere between the Russian and Azerbaijani borders."
"Why would you hide there of all places, Vic?" said Sam.
"Lucas's huntin' me, Sam," said Vic. "You left me with few other options."
Sam said, "We're going to meet you there. I have one last favor to ask of you."
"I was hopin' you'd say that," said Vic sarcastically. "Lemme guess… You want my help with stoppin' the Selection?"
"Are you in?" said Sam.
"I was already tryin' to stop it from the start by trainin' Sarah," said Vic, "and because of that, I owe ya."
"All right," said Sam, "send us the coordinates. We'll be there shortly. Once we're there, we need to figure out where Lucas is broadcasting the detonation frequencies from."
"You still haven't figured it out?" said Vic.
"Not yet," said Sam.
"Shit," said Vic, "things really have gotten bad… All right, I'll have my boys dig through Lucas's comms in the meantime and see if I can find any intel."
"Thanks, Vic," said Sam. "We'll talk to you when we get there."
"All right, Sam," said Vic. "Goodbye, brother."
Sam ended the call.
Kobin said, "Dude, that is a bad fucking place to be in the world right now…"
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Sam?" said Briggs.
"I don't like it either, Briggs…" said Sam. "Something about it seems off."
"I could tell too," said Sarah. "Vic didn't seem like himself."
"You don't think Vic's been turned, Sam?" said Grim.
"As much as I'm torn on this one," said Sam, "again, we don't have a choice. We're headed to Georgia."
Victor's Safe House, Georgian-Russian Border
As Sam ended the call, Victor sighed and looked down at his desk.
"Good boy," said Lucas as he sat across from Vic. "Your associates at Paladin Nine that we captured will survive the Selection thanks to your cooperation. Now get up. It's time we prepared to greet our incoming guests."
"You're gonna pay for this, Lucas," said Vic as he frowned.
"Perhaps," said Lucas with a grin, "but not as much as you."
Lucas sighed, and said, "Sadiq and the Engineers are on their way to shoot down the Paladin. They just need to announce the second phase of the Selection to the masses first."
Victor said, "I assume I need to send them bad intel?"
"Don't try anything cute, either, Vic," said Lucas.
Victor sighed, and nodded, as Lucas got on the phone.
"Sadiq?" Lucas said. "Start the broadcast. Phase two starts three days from now."