Several days later, when an exhausted and hungry Lena rolled back into Spearhead Squadron's base with a truck fully depleted of food and fuel, Lev Aldrecht did not mince words.
"Holy hell, you're actually still alive."
The remark and the sheer amazement in the mechanic's voice drew a thin laugh from Lena as she climbed out of the truck. "Yeah. I am." Her eyes met his grimly. "And I'm not the only one who's gone so far and survived… in one way or another."
In that moment, she could see and practically feel the tension that wound through Aldrecht's every nerve, and she knew he understood. More than that, she knew he really had been haunted by the same questions that drove her out into Legion territory in the first place.
"We'll talk inside," he said quietly, and led her to a cramped office space located off one of his repair bays. There he sat her down at a table piled with requisition requests that would never be filled, and maintenance reports that would never be read. Apparently noticing how peaked she looked, he first offered her food; yet as starved as she was, she accepted only water. He had the patience to let her sip half the cup before he leaned toward her, his eyes intent and visibly pained as he asked a single question.
"How is he?"
Lena's gaze dropped to the cup in her hands. "He's with his brother. They're one with each other now… and they're the Legion." She steeled herself and raised her eyes. "But you'd guessed that already, hadn't you?"
"I knew Shin. I knew that strange power he had, and I knew at least something about how strong his bond with his brother was—even years after Rei was dead. So when the Legion just up and stopped killing…" Aldrecht sucked in a breath through his teeth, let it out slowly. "Even when he was flesh and blood, I always had a sense Shin was linked to the Legion somehow. Like some kind of fate. Now it all just feels like it makes sense… and the fact you came back alive is proof enough." He paused soberly. "And the rest of Spearhead?"
"Now they're a part of him too. Along with other Shepherds whose minds were able to survive." A painful smile crossed Lena's lips. "And in twenty-four hours, they'll all be here—to free the Eighty-Six."
Aldrecht's head snapped up to stare at her in shock. "Shit, are you saying—?"
"It's okay. They have a plan. Shinrei—that's the name he's chosen now—he has no intention of letting anyone be hurt, even on the Republic side. But he needs your help. He knows you can't convince the Eighty-Six by yourself that the Legion is coming to save them instead of destroying them, but he's asked for you to start spreading the word anyway. He doesn't want anyone to be taken by surprise in what's about to happen. Even if the Eighty-Six come out prepared for a fight, it just means they'll have a front-row seat when the Shepherds try to prove their good intentions."
"How the hell do they plan to do that, when they've literally become the same monsters that have been slaughtering the Eighty-Six for years?"
Lena proceeded to outline Shinrei's plan to Aldrecht. He listened intently, if somewhat incredulously, and slumped back in his chair when she had concluded.
"Well, it might work. At least if we can actually get it through to these hard-headed kids that the Legion of all things is on their side now. If not, then regardless of any other defenses the Republic has left, the Shepherds will have every last Juggernaut in the Eighty-Sixth District coming at them out of sheer survival instinct."
"That's why Shinrei is counting on you to at least plant the idea ahead of time. If the Eighty-Six hesitate to attack for even a moment, it will give him a chance to win them over."
"If you say so. I've got my doubts—but I'll try." Aldrecht eyed Lena dubiously. "And what about your part in all this? You still haven't explained how you're supposed to single-handedly take down the Republic's defense systems."
"It's simple. I only have to deliver this."
Lena drew a small metal case from an inner coat pocket, opening it to reveal a sphere of metal and glass the size of a large marble. Silver-blue metallic liquid swirled within the tiny orb—visibly moving on its own.
"What on earth is that?" Aldrecht barked.
"Liquid micromachines. A variation of the technology the Shepherds use to form hands—but smarter, and able to function independently." Lena turned the sphere slightly, as mesmerized by the eerie beauty of the liquid's shifting sheen as she was when Shinrei gave it to her the morning they parted. "All I have to do is expose the computers at headquarters to these. They'll do the rest, and no one will be able to stop them. They won't just reprogram the system like a virus would, they'll physically rebuild it from the inside so the military can't access it at all—and they self-replicate too."
The mechanic let out a low whistle. "If the old Legion had ever managed to use something like this…"
"The old Legion probably couldn't have smuggled it inside the Gran Mur. Even the Shepherds needed me for that. But the thing is, the Legion apparently never had the idea to use its micromachine technology this way. It was too set in its patterns to think that far outside the box." Lena smiled grimly. "Instead, it took the creativity of a free human mind to come up with this hack. It took the Shepherds."
"Fine. But speaking of smuggling this stuff, you'll have to undergo a search after coming back from beyond the Gran Mur, right? How are you going to sneak it in?"
Lena merely raised an eyebrow at Aldrecht… and his jaw dropped.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Isn't that dangerous? What'll happen if—?"
"It's fine. I'll be perfectly safe."
"I don't know if you're going to save the Eighty-Six or just get yourself killed—and that goes for the Shepherds too." Aldrecht sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Still, I'm on board with this. If nothing changes, the Republic brass could decide any day now that they don't need the Eighty-Six anymore. At this point, there's no time left not to take chances."
"Thank you, Mr. Aldrecht," Lena replied sincerely, smiling at him.
"Eh, whatever. Just don't die." The mechanic stood up. "I'll send word to the Capital to come get you. After being AWOL this long, they probably figured you'd gone feral like me."
Lena smiled crookedly. She was quite sure Uncle Jérôme did not think she would settle for running off to join the Eighty-Six after the loss of her pet squadron. Instead, he likely dreaded that she'd gone out looking for some new and mortifyingly public way to cause upset within the Capital itself. …Their reunion was not going to be fun.
Still, she knew the man was about to see his world destroyed—even if it was only in the political sense, rather than the literal one the old Legion would have wrought. She felt the least she owed him was some kind of explanation for the things she had already done… even if, for the sake of her mission, she had to lie about that too for now. When it was all over, then she would truly tell him everything, and bear any blame he wanted to place on her.
She wasn't going to remain here anyway.
The response to Lev Aldrecht's report of her return came even more quickly than Lena expected. Within two hours, a transport helicopter came roaring from the direction of the Capital. It set down in the field outside Aldrecht's repair bays, and a stone-faced Alba pilot emerged, curtly informing her that his orders were to escort her back to headquarters. His very expression and tone conveyed that she was in so much trouble.
As Lena steeled herself and moved to step aboard, Aldrecht met her eyes with a barely perceptible nod that made her heart rest a little more easily. At least the situation outside the Gran Mur was in good hands.
It was very clear that there would be no conversation from the pilot, which was more than acceptable to Lena. She strapped herself into a seat at the rear and settled in for the ride. Without even a view to look at within the empty and windowless bowels of the copter, her thoughts could go nowhere but back to the Shepherds; so as minutes and miles passed by, her mind replayed every moment she had experienced since the morning when Shinrei found her.
All she wanted was to be at his side again.
We'll be starting out in twenty-four hours, matching the speed of your truck to arrive one day after you do, Shinrei had told her as she prepared to leave the Legion's nest. After you've planted the micromachines, make your way to the Eighty-Fifth District as soon as possible—but keep a distance of at least three kilometers from the Gran Mur, to avoid being caught in any collateral damage when we bring it down. …I doubt you'll have much trouble finding us after that.
This wouldn't take long, she reminded herself. One very unpleasant meeting with her uncle, a few breathless minutes of playing saboteur… and then she could just slip away to wait for the Shepherds. It would all be out of her hands then. Everything else was up to Shinrei, from calming the fears of the Eighty-Six to keeping Kiriya's vast power and madness under control. Ironically, the one thing he wouldn't need to worry about was any reaction the Republic tried to make, so long as Lena was able to play her part and defang it completely.
When the pilot tonelessly alerted her that they would land in a few minutes, she slid the case from her pocket and opened it. As she gazed at the micromachines in their containment device, briefly losing herself in their hypnotic swirl, a dire warning imparted by Shinrei rang through her mind.
Whatever you do, don't make direct physical contact with the micromachines after you release them. They're small enough individually to enter your body through the skin—and some of the metals they're composed of would be highly toxic to you.
Lena's hand did not tremble as she carefully removed the tiny device from the case. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath… and swallowed the glimmering sphere.
Aldrecht was correct in his prediction that Lena would be searched. She knew the process firsthand already, having been put through it all those years ago. As a bereaved child still suffering from more than a little shock, she had been strip-searched by a female officer with cold and dispassionate hands, and then turned over to medics who poked and prodded and took numerous samples before even checking her for wounds. They tested her for any pathogens the public believed to run as rampant as the Legion outside the Gran Mur. And most humiliating of all, they inspected her body all over—searching for signs that the Processor who rescued her had done anything to her.
At the time she had not understood the purpose of that examination; yet even then, she knew their hands upon her felt invasive and unclean as Rei's never had when he lifted her up into his Juggernaut, or gently wiped the tears of traumatized nightmares from her face. Knowing now what they suspected by default and sought to prove without even asking her, the memory infuriated her on both her own and Rei's behalf.
Even so, to fulfill her mission, she would endure such a degradation again. To save the Eighty-Six and support the Shepherds, she was willing to sacrifice her body by any means necessary—whether that meant enduring an intrusive physical inspection, or even being poisoned by the very weapon that would help accomplish their goal.
Besides, the containment device in itself was not toxic, and swallowing it did not necessarily mean it would leak. The tightly sealed sphere felt perfectly seamless, and a voice-activated release mechanism meant there were no buttons or switches to trip by accident. While she was well aware of the gamble she was taking, she was confident in her odds of remaining safe.
After landing, Lena stepped out of the dim helicopter and into blinding-bright sunshine on the helipad of the Republic Army's headquarters. As her vision adjusted, she saw the entrance to the building a stone's throw ahead of her—and two very stern-looking soldiers flanking it, as well as the foreboding gateway of the metal detector she would have to pass through. She drew a deep breath, steeled her nerves, and strode toward it.
The metal detector's alarm went off as she passed through, and the soldiers instantly lashed her with cutting, suspicious gazes.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Lena coolly reached beneath her coat and withdrew Shin's pistol, holding it out butt-first to one of the guards for inspection—even as she silently apologized to Shinrei for using it as a decoy. "I forgot I was carrying this. …I did need protection out there, after all."
As the soldier carefully took the weapon from her, a familiar voice cut through the air like a rifle crack.
"I'll take that. You're both dismissed for the moment."
Her heart skipping a beat, Lena turned to see General Jérôme Karstahl striding briskly down the hallway, his eyes dark with a restrained fury that was aimed entirely at her.
The soldiers did not linger to witness that wrath. The one holding Shin's pistol quickly handed it off to him, and then they bolted like scared rabbits, clearly wanting to be nowhere near their superior in his current mood. Uncle Jérôme waited long enough for their steps to recede before he spoke, in a voice that was quiet but taut with anger.
"Explain yourself, Captain Milizé."
Meeting his eyes without flinching was difficult, but Lena managed it. She clenched her fists at her sides, refusing to show any trace of intimidation or apology.
"Before Spearhead Squadron was sent on its Special Reconnaissance Mission, I learned a great deal from them about the behavior of the Legion, sir." She bit the title off with her own trace of temper seeping through. "I believed it was my due diligence to investigate further, so I went to the Eighty-Sixth District to confirm it with other Processors. Needless to say, it took time to get any of them to trust me with further information—"
"Bullshit."
The word was rapped out with a sudden force that took Lena aback. Her eyes widened as Uncle Jérôme leaned closer to her, his eyes boring into hers.
"We know for a fact that you didn't remain within the Eighty-Sixth District. With the Legion suddenly scaling back its activity, you decided to go out and try to follow your pet Processors." The General's eyes narrowed at her. "You have no idea of the consequences you've brought upon yourself. I wish I could say you're lucky you weren't killed by the Legion on this insane little field trip of yours, but since your actions constitute open desertion… the truth is, you might have been better off if you hadn't even come back."
It was difficult to breathe. Lena gulped and shook her head slightly, struggling to remain calm in the face of the implications. Even so, a tremor in her voice betrayed her. "But I was on suspended duty—"
"That's not the point. The point is that you fled to enemy territory while facing disciplinary action." Uncle Jérôme seemed to hesitate, but his hard expression wavered for only an instant. "It won't just be demotion and censure you face now. Your reckless insubordination has endangered this Republic for the last time—and I can't shield you, Lena. I won't."
"Then… I'm under arrest?"
"Not as of this moment, but you will be—very soon." The smallest fraction of something relenting softened in his eyes then. "Report to the lab for examination. This is all the time I can give you before you're taken into custody. Your friend Annette has been told to expect you… so if there are any personal arrangements you want to make, you can leave instructions with her."
In spite of the ominous prospects Uncle Jérôme had outlined, a flicker of relief washed through Lena then.
There's still a chance. I can get access to a computer in the lab. Just a few minutes is all I need… and then it won't matter what happens to me.
"Thank you, Uncle," she said demurely. Her eyes darted to the pistol that still hung loosely in his grasp, but she knew better than to try asking for its return now. An officer who was about to be arrested for desertion would obviously never be allowed a weapon; but despite that, she was consoled by a whisper of more selfish thoughts.
I'll get it back. When the Shepherds come, Shinrei will have me taken out of here, and I'll make sure it comes with me.
Nevertheless, walking away and leaving the pistol in Uncle Jérôme's hands was even more painful than all her anxieties of what lay ahead.
"Lena, you idiot!"
Annette's strident greeting was more or less exactly what Lena expected. With hands on hips, she stood glaring at the girl who felt a little ashamed to call herself a friend after manipulating Annette before—and needing even now to do so just once more.
"I'm sorry… but there was something I had to do." Lena dropped her gaze. "I can't explain now, but I will soon. Then you'll understand."
"That's doubtful," Annette shot back. "What did you think you were even trying to do by going out there? You have to know… Shin is dead by now. Even with the Legion diminishing its attacks for some reason, there's no way he could have survived in their territory for this long."
"…You're right," Lena whispered, struggling to resist a faint bitter laugh at the irony of the truth.
Something in her tone must have struck a sympathetic note in Annette. The other girl's hands dropped, and she sighed, her voice softening.
"I'm sorry, Lena. I wish you could have just accepted it and moved on… but now it's too late for that." She shook her head. "Come on. I have to run some tests, so while I'm doing that, we can talk about whatever you need me to take care of after they lock you up."
It was now or never, then.
"Can I ask you for one favor first?" Lena looked up at Annette with pleading eyes. "The rations I had with me ran out two days ago, and I haven't eaten anything since then. I'm starting to feel a little faint. Can I just have some food before we start?"
"Geeze…" Annette let out a huff and ran a hand through her hair. "Fine. I haven't eaten my lunch yet. I'll let you have that—if only so you don't pass out on me. Stay right here while I go get it."
Annette headed for her private office deeper within the lab facilities. Lena watched her go—and the instant the scientist was out of sight, she was on the move toward the computer terminals lining the far wall.
Her most immediate problem right now was getting the micromachine containment device out of her stomach.
In hindsight, she hadn't even needed to swallow it, since Uncle Jérôme's intrusion had disrupted any bodily search she might have been subjected to. However, there was no way she could have predicted that. She'd made her plans based on past experience with the security procedures, and now she had to deal with it—even if she wasn't quite sure how to accomplish what she needed to do. All she knew was that she had to, and quickly, because there was no time to wait for things to work themselves out the other way.
Leaning over the keyboard of the first computer she came to, she jammed two fingers down her throat as far as she could.
It was incredibly difficult and unpleasant. Lena didn't even have any real idea of what she was doing. She choked and gagged at first, triggering mere coughs instead of anything deeper, and began to fear that the device had already gone too far to bring back up in this way.
Questing for something that would sicken her and aid the process, she thought deliberately of what her mind had most vehemently fled from until now: the horrors Shin endured before his rebirth as the Legion's will. The cold white steel filling his sight in his last heartbeat before the Legion claimed its prize. The agonizing expectation he must have felt that he would only become one of them—the tortured phantom voices that haunted him. His headless body left behind like something worthless within its Juggernaut tomb, lying silent and unprotesting as it was gradually buried by equally cold white snow.
That did the trick, and Lena's stomach heaved. Nearly empty, it clenched and balked before at last surrendering the little contents it contained—and she painfully hacked up the slimy, marble-sized containment device out of her throat and into her cupped hands.
The exertion combined with her lack of nourishment made her lightheaded. She caught herself with one hand gripping the edge of the counter, swallowed hard, and blinked her vision to clarity before looking down at the device.
To her stunned dismay, she saw the dark line of a crack almost fully bisecting the glass portion of its surface, and her pulse began to race with quiet panic as Shinrei's warning rang through her mind again.
The micromachines. Don't make contact. Toxic metals.
Calm down… just calm down, Lena told herself fiercely, even as one hand curled instinctively around a stomach that now felt sick for an entirely new reason. The crack might only be on the surface. This doesn't mean any of the micromachines escaped into my body…
But even if they did, it doesn't change what I have to do now.
She heard Annette's voice somewhere behind her, saying something that was garbled to her adrenaline-addled ears. Hastily she dropped the device on the keyboard, where it landed neatly between the Y and J keys. A tiny white light had begun blinking on the metallic portion of it. That was new, but with her friend approaching, she couldn't spare the time to wonder what it meant.
Almost without thinking, the activation password Shinrei had guided her to memorize fell urgently from breathless lips.
"Initiation code: Reaper zero-one."
With the very faintest click, the device split open at a hidden seam; and in a swift and startlingly deliberate movement, the now-freed metallic liquid it carried oozed down between the keys and disappeared.
The micromachines would find their way from the keyboard through the cables and into the heart of the computer system. Shinrei had assured her of that. Now that contact with the electronics had been made, nothing would stop the fast-replicating devices from spreading throughout the entire Army headquarters, paralyzing the Republic's defenses and paving the way for the Shepherds' arrival. Lena's mission was successfully completed; and whatever personal consequences she faced from superiors, or even from stray micromachines that may have lingered inside her, she counted it a small price to pay.
Letting out all the breath in her lungs, she turned away from the computer terminals—to find Annette standing frozen several paces behind her, agape and wide-eyed with shock.
That expression was the last thing Lena saw before a dizzy lurch swept through her body, and she tumbled into the dark embrace of unconsciousness.