Rick's hands are shaking.
His knuckles are bruised and stained with drying blood. Not all his. Some of it Mike's.
He was dragged down to one of the Skyscraper Command bunkers, twenty blocks away from the blast zone.
He's been sitting here since then, waiting. For what or whom, he doesn't care.
They keep it extra cold in the holding cells down here, three levels underground. But that isn't why Rick is shaking.
The hot, unrelenting adrenaline of rage is still pumping through him. The cold is the only thing keeping the fury from erupting and turning his body to ash . . . like the pile of ashes where he found Michonne's sword.
Rick sits there, staring, but his glistening blue eyes can't truly see the room he's in.
He can't stop picturing Michonne's face right before she jumped from Tyrese's flyer.
She was smiling brightly. She told him she loved him.
Now, she's gone . . . and Rick's heart has gone with her.
All he wants now is to keep fighting. Punch something until he breaks his hand or breaks whatever it is he's lashing at. Half an hour ago it was Mike's face and rib cage. He can't bring himself to feel remorse for losing it in front of his team. All he can think of is Michonne. How he'll never hear her smooth voice say 'I love you' again.
The door to the holding cell suddenly slides open and Skyscraper Command Chief Pearl Thorne walks in.
She's the Skyscraper's chief of security and one of Monroe's personal strong arms of 'the law' according to The Powers That Be. Rick and his people are technically mercenaries for hire, even though they operate under deputization and funding from Skyscraper Command. It's always been a tenuous alliance, at best. Up til now, though, it seemed to work in everyone's favor. Peace is the name of the game in the Alexandria Safe Zone. At any cost. That's the unspoken rule here.
Rick barely lifts his head to acknowledge Thorne as she comes to a stop in front of the table where he sits. She sighs, watching him with an uncommon mixture of empathy and forbidding authority. She's petite and soft-spoken, but she's also no one to fuck with.
Rick remembers Michonne following her career as she rose in rank at Command. Thorne holds the highest, only outranked by the Smiths. Likewise, she had also been watching the fierce samurai's achievements from afar. Whenever they crossed paths, Rick always noticed they were friendly with each other, despite them working on opposite sides of the political spectrum. One doesn't exactly come across too many 'friendlies' among the Powers That Be in this day and age.
Thorne was always impressed by and respectful of Snow. The loss of such a formidable defender of their world is devastating, especially for those women and children out there whom Michonne always protected. The ramifications of her death will be felt throughout the ASZ.
Still, the worst of this tectonic shift in the ASZ's security is occurring right here in this chilly, sterile holding cell.
The Command Chief knows how difficult it is for this Captain of Peacekeepers to sit here quietly without exploding.
Michonne was his partner. His best friend. Perhaps even more, if one followed their history together with any modicum of shrewdness. Coming up through Command training, Pearl heard many stories about Rick Grimes and Michonne Snow. She's always thought of Rick as a good man, despite his near-legendary brutality. Even in the middle of all this gory mess he's currently caught up in, he's still a family man. That's rare in these days. She doesn't take it for granted.
When she got word that Grimes almost beat a man into a coma outside the operating room and Medical Tower One, she insisted on handling the case personally. She owes it to Michonne.
She watches him now, keeping her distance. The quiet in the room is so thick one could cut into it with a knife.
Rick just sits there, his curls hanging damply in his eyes from all the sweat he accumulated beating a guy senseless and resisting arrest. He looks dazed. Trapped somewhere that isn't here.
She can imagine where.
Chief Thorne clears her throat to formally announce herself. She ignores Rick ignoring her and reaches up to touch the invisible holoscreen that separates her side of the steel table from his. Skyscraper Command's backup Companion ALPHA is temporarily down, of course, so everything will have to be manually accessed until further notice.
Four sections of the holoscreen appear between them – one of which shows footage taken by the cloud beacons of the battle between every Peacekeepers' precinct in the city and one corrupt Companion. ODIN. Monroe's pride and joy.
Another section of the holoscreen shows a running roster of this morning's casualties. The small three-dimensional images of their faces turn this way and that as they stare straight ahead sightlessly, floating mid-air over the table. Michonne's is last, preceded by Glenn, Tara, Tobin, and Gabriel. Then the critically injured, including Abraham and a few others from the precincts scattered across the levels. The report says Abe is gonna get his wish after all. A new cybernetic arm.
Rick remains silent and fuming. He waits for her to state her business.
Thorne decides not to force him to speak just yet. She'll simply debrief him, first; show him at least that much respect.
Then she'll have to start the interrogation, whether he's willing or not.
She hopes in time he'll understand – it's better for her to be doing this rather than Monroe or The Smiths.
The Smiths are hybrids of the nastiest caliber. As brand new technologies are being developed, tested, and implemented every day, they are one of Monoroe's latest projects; her experimental bodyguards, created from the donated DNA of the same man, a renowned Peacekeeper from what used to be Chicago. Vincent Smith.
Well, now a small army of Smiths. Cloned. Uplinked to everything like ODIN had been. Thorough. And deadly. So far only a handful of them were created. But if the beta testing is successful out here in the real world, who knows how many more will be grown in Monroe's secret labs?
Today's catastrophe will no doubt push the ambassador's paranoia over the edge. The cyborgs she shipped in and the ODIN program she installed all went rogue without warning. As if ODIN simply booted up that morning and decided in the blink of an eye that war was necessary . . . for entirely unknown reasons. What human can know the mind of an intelligence that advanced? This whole thing is a huge mess. The diplomatic repercussions will be massive. Thorne has a million things on her plate; she should be holding press conferences, and arranging meetings with the other chiefs from the outer colonies. Not to mention answering to Ambassador Monroe, whom she is currently avoiding.
Instead of all that, Pearl is here, trying to get somewhere with a broken man.
Sitting down to face Grimes, she starts with the easy stuff.
"You fractured six bones in Mike Gaston's face, Captain Grimes," he barely flinches as her soft voice and South African accent break the silence in the room. She continues without waiting for his acknowledgment. "Bruised two of his ribs. Burst a blood vessel in his right eye . . . pretty impressive for a full human, the hybrids would say. I'd agree." Rick's blue eyes shift across the table surface, but he says nothing in return. She keeps on: "He's in surgery, now, in the hybrid ward along with Sargent Ford, but he'll be good as new in no time."
Pearl raises a perfectly arched eyebrow at his bowed head, her hand resting against the high-velocity weapon holstered at her hip.
"I dunno if I can say the same for his ego . . . "
Rick doesn't respond to her joke. He simply sniffs loudly and finally lifts his head, an electrical storm raging in his blue eyes. That's about all the indication she's going to get that he's paying attention. So be it. A little more patience, then.
"He wants to press charges," Pearl gets serious with him again. "I had to do a bit of smooth talking, but I worked it out with Smith Four. You're very lucky you're not going to The Grid, Grimes. You almost killed that young man."
Rick's jaw hardens as he glares at her. He doesn't speak, but he may as well have uttered 'I should have'.
"Look, at the very least I should be giving you time down in the underground levels, working in the Replicant factories – thirty weeks of hard labor. I still could, Grimes . . . "
He scoffs, but otherwise her words are wasted. She has to take a deep breath to calm her temper as he continues to ignore her authority. She hates when smug assholes get testy with her, but Rick isn't just any asshole and this isn't just any situation. He's a good guy, she knows that in her gut. He meant a lot to Michonne. Michonne meant a lot to him. He's hurting. She changes tack, trying a new approach.
"It's gonna be okay. Under the circumstances, I get it. So, we'll call it even. Mike gets transferred to another precinct as soon as he recovers. You get no charges. I owed you one, anyway . . . I owed Michonne."
Rick stares at her. She leans forward slightly, catching his gaze so they can really talk.
"You just have to take some time off. Go home. Spend some QT with your kids. Get your shit together, yeah?"
She keeps going with more easy stuff. Just to get him to calm that active volcano inside of him.
"Ford is gonna be okay, too. He's stable. Recovering. He's got himself a new battle arm. Word on cloud comms is he's already causing a ruckus, trying to get the nurses to sneak him some whiskey and a cigar . . . "
Rick's lips twitch into a ghost of a smile. It's not much, but it's something she can work with.
Another deep breath and the Chief surges ahead. Now the hard stuff.
Chief Thorne raises her hand and swipes it across the holoscreen, pushing everything to the side. The infographics rearrange themselves to line up like a sidebar, ready for her to pluck out info streams to expand and view at will. Pearl folds her hands across the table now and meets his glaring blue eyes head-on.
"We need to talk about what happened, now, Grimes . . . about ODIN."
Rick's very brief, very faint relief at hearing that his friend is going to be okay vanishes in an instant. He clenches his jaw so hard, it feels like he will break it at any second. The heartbroken Peacekeeper gives an almost imperceptible nod for Thorne to ask her damn questions and get it over with.
Thorne continues plucking out a narrow video stream of footage from the attack, taken by the cloud beacons posted all over the city towers. As she does, she narrates what they're watching play out before them from every angle possible.
"Your unit arrived on the scene before you and Captain Snow, correct?"
Rick's throat is bone dry. He swallows hard, shifting around in his chair. "That's right," he drawles hoarsely.
"You and what – four other precincts engaged in direct combat?"
"Yes . . . "
She knows this already, or she should. That's their job, and they did it, while she and her special, unexpendable force hid in bunkers. He wants to add bitterly, 'and where were you?' The footage shows flashes of HV bullets flying back and forth between Peacekeepers, cyborgs, and that goddamned tank. Some crew from the other precincts perished. Everyone suffered heavy injuries. They had to pull back. Then Glenn. Tara. T-Dog. It's all right there, replaying over and over on a loop. Why Thorne needs Rick to confirm all this horror verbally is beyond him.
Of course, he knows why. To get him on the official record admitting that every decision that led to every death was on him and his other captains. For Monroe's political playbook. Scapegoats, all of them.
Rick has no desire to have his heart ripped out again, but he also understands that he is lucky this is Thorne interrogating him, not someone (or some hybrid) else. He adjusts himself in the stiff chair again, ignoring the looping footage on the holoscreen. He decides to play along. For now. Maybe the sooner he gets this over with, the sooner he can go home.
"The first reports outta the gate were that ODIN had taken over the entire cyborg fleet. The shiny new ones," he begins, his throaty drawl ragged from all the crying and fighting he did in the last few hours. "They were crawlin' all over the damn place. Hard to break through, no matter how many of 'em we took down. Between all of us, we had every Skyscraper surrounded . . . but it made no difference."
Rick shrugs, slowly. His eyes wide, his body stiff, he fights off the pain of the memories flooding his mind like a movie reel he can't switch off. He reaches up to rub a bloody hand across his face, over his beard. The blood is dry, so it doesn't leave a streak, but Rick looks like he's been through hell and back anyway.
He keeps talking, reliving the last few hours.
" . . . we tried for a ground operation. Tried to infiltrate from the bottom level up . . . " he's forced to pause for a moment, losing his voice. Thorne watches patiently. Finally, he continues: "We figured we at least had a chance to get the hostages out, even if we couldn't save the Skyscrapers. But . . . ODIN had other plans. He had us. Right where he wanted us. He had everything. He was playin' us from the moment we started."
Rick jerks his chin at the footage he still refuses to look at directly, continuing to glare at Pearl.
"Give me the report, Captain Grimes," she urges calmly.
So he does. Rick braces himself, trying with all his might to get through this without breaking down.
" . . . we had a debugger ready . . . but we couldn't locate ODIN in net space. So, we were gonna try to use the Watchtower . . . that failed. We lost people . . . then our Companions, somehow . . . he tricked us."
After about an hour of talking, Rick and Pearl sit staring at nothing, both of their minds clouded with thoughts of Captain Michonne Snow's last moments alive.
Rick remembers his last vestige of hope that she could set off the EMP in time – landing on one of the lower sky bridges after racing fast toward the outer rungs of the city once they realized they wouldn't be able to stay and extract Michonne. They flew down there (Daryl, Mike, and Maggie hot on their tails with bikes and a prowler on its last legs).
He didn't know the details . . . he just knew they'd been tricked. He could hear it in Michonne's voice. She didn't find what she expected to find in that vault. Rick remembers feeling his insides hollowing as he stumbled from the flyer, shouting for Michonne. Then the explosion.
A bright, blinding light. A blast wave so strong it knocked them all off their feet.
Then . . . nothing. Silence from Michonne. And the pain . . . and the grief. The blown open vault. Her sword . . . and the stardust . . . and breaking Mike's face. Now the cold underground cell . . . beginning to chill him to the bone.
Thorne sighs, slowly leaning forward to reach across the table. He watches her hand coming but says nothing as she grasps his bloody knuckles, offering him a warm, empathetic squeeze.
"Thank you, Grimes."
Rick merely nods. He swallows hard and waits for her to release him. She does, now reaching upward to tap her authorization code into the holoscreen to close the report.
"Can I go now?" Rick rasps, a dull thrum of a headache developing in the front of his skull.
"Not just yet, Captain . . . "
An emotionless voice sounds from the suddenly open doorway.
Rick bristles, cutting his eyes toward the tall, dark figure of Smith One standing there staring at him through those stupid, ubiquitous dark shades. Of course. His luck had to run out sometime. Now is as good a time as any.
Thorne implores Grimes with her gaze to cool it as she forces an acerbic smile and turns to face her least favorite Smith.
"Mr. Smith . . . bad timing, I'm afraid. I was just about to close the report. Grimes has given his full account of the event."
She shrugs, closing the holoscreen and standing up from the table.
"I think we should let him go home to his family, don't you? He's been through enough."
Smith observes them both without speaking for a few beats. He turns his head from Rick to Pearl, offering her a tight smirk. He folds his hands behind his back, his perfect posture straight as an arrow as he takes a step into the room.
"Ah . . . sentiment. A tactic you humans like to employ when it suits you."
His head turns down to Rick again, his smirk frozen in place. Thorne bites back a retort.
He seems to have forgotten – he used to be human once. She can't do anything for Grimes now. There are a dozen Smiths, all linked together like some kind of hive mind. As much as she wanted to, she can't take him on without the rest of them descending on her like flies on shit.
"What is it that you need, Mr. Smith?"
"I need you to file your report, Chief Thorne," Smith croons, a hard edge cutting across his otherwise 'cordial' tone, ". . . and leave me and Peacekeeper Grimes alone for a moment to . . . have a little chat."
Rick simply glares up at him, saying nothing. Thorne can't help sending a sympathetic look Rick's way. He can see she doesn't want to leave him alone with Smith One. Right now, though, he can't tell if she's more worried about Smith digging into Rick or about Rick trying to tear his hybrid head off. Perhaps both.
"Ambassador Monroe is expecting that report as soon as possible. Tick, tock . . . " Smith shows teeth, leering.
At the sound of Smith's last words, Rick's fists ball up on the table surface and he feels like he's going to break his own jaw as he clamps down on it. He doesn't move otherwise, afraid he'll lunge across the table at the hybrid freak if he does.
Thorne swallows down her apprehension, nodding stiffly. With another glance at Rick, she leaves the room.
Smith waits patiently for her to leave before unbuttoning his suit jacket at the waist and taking her seat.
He doesn't take off his glasses as he shrugs into a more comfortable position in his fitted jacket, placing his hands flat and neat on the table. Rick pulls his own hands back, putting them in his lap as he tries to sit as far away from this asshole as he can in his chair. They stare at each other, neither of them strangers to the rules of interrogation. Intimidation.
"Captain Grimes . . . " Smith One finally utters robotically, reaching up to pluck out an info stream on the holoscreen.
It's a file on Rick and Michonne.
"The Safe Zone owes you and Captain Snow a debt of gratitude."
Rick doesn't believe one slick word oozing out of his mouth. He remains silent, again ignoring the digitized report running like a ticker of images, maps, and other miscellaneous data across the bottom of the invisible screen.
His whole life, all summed up in a translucent holograph. His partnership with one of the most remarkable women he's ever known, encapsulated into a bunch of pixels. Streaks of light. Ones and zeroes.
"I'm pleased to inform you that you will be compensated for your service here this morning . . . " Smith continues as he brushes imaginary lint from his pristine cuffs. He pauses, sitting perfectly still, his hands resting again on the table. "However, Captain . . . there is still the matter of . . . your silence."
Rick frowns hard, tilting his head. He waits, wanting to hear the words before he tells him to go fuck himself.
Smith smirks again, flexing his wrists.
"You caused quite a lot of damage, Captain."
And he plucks at another stream of data.
"The inexperienced staff you employ at Bottom District headquarters constructed a debugging program – and I use the term loosely – that nearly wiped out . . . " he pauses his eyebrows rising so they are visible above the rims of his glasses, "hm . . . the Watchtower, along with nearly all of our defense grid. Not to mention crashing a flyer that is three years overdue for inspection into a civilian home, killing six humans . . . "
He plucks at more data streams, examining them with cold scrutiny behind his dark shades. He continues in his singsong drawl, ignoring the darkening gleam of anger in Rick's eyes:
"Then there is the damage you caused by accelerating the detonation of an explosion that wiped out every Skyscraper within five . . . city . . . blocks. Killing an unverifiable number of humans and human-cyborg hybrids, including several of your colleagues."
Smith closes the data streams one by one as he finishes, flexing his cuffed wrists again and leaning back in his chair. He finally takes off his glasses, blinking against the harsh overhead illuminator, and places them neatly on the table.
He leaves just one data stream open. The one starring Michonne.
His eyebrows rise to meet his hairline again.
"It will take years to rebuild the Skyscraper Command Towers we lost. This was a situation that could've been handled . . . much more efficiently, wouldn't you say?" Smith One waves his fingers dismissively at the air before folding his hands again, frowning as though puzzled. "Without all the collateral damage . . . without the loss of life."
At the emotionless utterance of 'collateral damage' and 'loss of life', Rick gets an overwhelming urge to knock Smith's hybrid head off of his shoulders. Michonne, Glenn, Tara, the others . . . they aren't just collateral fucking damage. And 'efficient' is a word reserved for cyborgs.
That's strike one.
Rick decides right then and there. Smith One, along with all the other Smiths, is now his enemy.
"What d'you want from me?" Rick growls, ignoring the murderous urges he's feeling.
"I told you, Captain. Your silence," Smith doesn't miss a beat. "I know that the loss of Captain Snow must be . . . " he tilts his head as if the next word is foreign to him, " . . . difficult."
Strike two.
"Be that as it may, we cannot simply look past the destruction your people caused taking down one corrupt Companion. Both to our city . . . and to yourselves . . . under your leadership, Captain."
Rick feels as though the floor has fallen away. Smith continues in his emotionless meander of a cadence.
"So . . . a decision has been made. Skyscraper Command will take full control of this case and its ongoing investigation. The official report will state that there is evidence suggesting this was orchestrated by the rogue terrorists you failed to wipe out on your patrol last night, just hours prior.
"This report will further state that the terrorists managed to infiltrate Command towers using a mid-level scientist – a Dr. Miles Dyson – to gain access to ODIN and hack into our defense grid. There, they managed to hijack control of our sentinels."
So they're gonna bury Thorne's report.
Smith waves a hand across the holoscreen, causing a small ripple across Michonne's face.
"However, it's not all bad news . . . you and Captain Snow will be officially commended, as will your team. You'll face no criminal charges or be forced to take responsibility for the destruction you caused . . . in return for our leniency, you will now be under the direct supervision of Skyscraper Command . . .
"Some changes will be made in the wake of this tragedy. Peacekeepers will no longer enjoy free reign in the ASZ. That is a very small price to pay . . . and someone has to pay it, Grimes. The public will not accept anything less.
"All you have to do is stick to the story. There is no Companion with a soul. There was no corruption or ulterior purpose beyond what ODIN was programmed for. Certainly not in violation of The Three Laws. This was premeditated murder by human terrorists, nothing more. Do we have an understanding, Captain?"
Rick scoffs again, having to crack a smile at the hybrid's audacity. He takes his time answering, forcing himself not to look at Michonne's hologram in search of patience and silent backup, the way he used to with the real thing.
"Hm . . . well, that sounds real nice and all. I think I might have a better idea, though," he scratches at his beard for a few seconds before smoothly flipping Smith off with a bloody middle finger. "Why don't you go fuck yourself? And let me the hell outta here."
Smith smiles.
"I hoped I wouldn't have to mention, Captain, that this is not a voluntary arrangement. Let us call it . . . protecting the best interests of the public if you wish. And of yours, naturally. Think of your family – both of them."
He shrugs, adopting Rick's fake nonchalance.
"That is, of course, unless you would rather be banished to The Gates of Hell, where you will no doubt be put to death on The Grid. Your unit will be dismantled, your legacy tarnished . . . you'll become a failure and a criminal. Not a hero. Your silence can be bought the easy way . . . or the hard way. I leave it to you."
Rick no longer cares about his reputation, but he thinks of Carl and Judith learning that their father has been skulled to death by Lucille in front of thousands of viewers.
The door to the cell slides open before he can answer, This time Ambassador Deanna Monroe walks in, her slight figure dwarfed by the cavernous tension in the room. She looks as though she hasn't slept a wink. Rick has no sympathy for her.
She's been hidden deep in a bunker, rendering a whole battalion of skilled fighters useless by hoarding them at her side in the dark. While Rick and his people were dying like dogs in the sky, she was cowering like a rat. Like the machines . . . like the walkers . . . he hates her, too.
As far as Deanna Monroe is concerned, every brick, steel beam, and goddamned computer chip in this place is there because of her blood, sweat, and tears. Her husband, her son, her sisters . . . they all carried on in the name of their family and humankind until they couldn't anymore. They worked for decades with Dr. Morgan Jones to relight the world anew, and she'll be damned if anyone is going to take it from her now.
Least of all this smug cowboy staring her down as if he wants to kick her teeth in.
She wants answers for why her Command towers are gone. Why her best pilots abandoned their posts. Why Rick Grimes couldn't just do what he and his gang of vermin swore an oath to do in the first place – get her the results she paid for.
The quiet in the room is as jagged as a shard of glass. Monroe closes the distance, folding her arms across her petite chest.
"Grimes . . . if I hadn't had to watch my husband and son turn into walkers with my own two eyes . . . " she begins in a no-nonsense, chastising tone, bringing up her survival story, the story that 'won' her re-election over and over again. "I wouldn't fucking believe what I now have to report to the United Colonies. It's bad enough that we still have to carry this godforsaken mutation in our blood, but now you want me to say publically that everything we've accomplished, everything we've built to stay safe using the tech we managed to claw out of the world's end has failed us?!"
Rick barely flinches at her outburst. He tilts his head at her, narrowing his eyes without pity.
"What the fuck did you expect, ma'am? You put your security in the hands of outlawed machines. You activated somethin' that advanced without a kill switch. You thought none o'that was gonna backfire?"
Deanna walks forward and stands next to a silent and very still Smith, putting her hands flat on the table without having to bend down terribly low to manage it.
"I expected it to do its job, Grimes. And that it did. ODIN showed me that maybe Peacekeepers are past their expiration date. It might've tried to kill me, like everything else in this shitty, rotting world," she growls, "but there's one lesson all of this meshugas has taught me above all else . . . "
Her beady eyes narrow across at him; her greying, light brown bob trembling with what he can see is an ocean of rage and resentment trapped in her tiny body.
"I'm only as safe as my best defense. You barely scraped by on this one . . . lost me my towers."
Rick looks her square in the eyes. He silently wills her to step onto the land mine she's so obviously poking around for.
"You're too lax with your team. You treat them like family instead of what they're supposed to be – soldiers. The old days of Peacekeepers running shit are over.
"Be glad I'm only tightening your leash after the destruction you allowed today, instead of throwing you on The Grid like a criminal . . . be glad, Grimes, that Captain Snow went out like a hero instead of being turned into an abomination."
She finds it. And, miraculously, she steps on it.
Strike three.
Rick bolts upward, sending his chair flying back into the wall behind him, and grabs hold of Monroe by the throat before she can take her next breath. His eyes drilling down into hers like cold, blue daggers, his thick, bloody fingers squeezing tighter and tighter, Rick's mind goes blank with hatred while he tries to choke the life out of her.
Smith One speaks finally, while Monroe sputters and struggles for release. His voice is unbothered. Eerily calm.
"Captain Grimes . . . if you do not release the ambassador, I will have to subdue you . . ."
He slips his dark sunglasses back onto his emotionless eyes and waits for compliance. Monroe gurgles and trembles, her face turning bright red. Rick knows that 'subdue' means Smith will probably rip his arm from its socket if he doesn't stop.
"I'm sure you'd rather not end up like your fellow Peacekeeper Abraham Ford. I am simply not interested in ruining my suit with your blood."
It takes everything Rick has, but he releases Monroe just as she's turning purple.
She stumbles back, raking in huge gasps of air, leaning against the far wall by the door.
Rick drops his hands to his side, stalking around the table toward the door and out of the room without another word.
No one tries to stop him.
Weeks later . . .
What was once Skyscraper Command Tower Nine sits empty and haunted.
Water drips . . . dust floats . . . darkness roams.
A small, silent extraction drone the size of an old-fashioned toaster oven flies through the ruins, searching.
It zips along, scanning the levels as it goes.
It is not scanning for signs of life. Quite the opposite.
The drone, silent, efficient, focused on its single purpose only, is searching for any remains of someone who once was alive.
Someone formidable. Someone with records in the cloud that are made from the stuff of legends.
Someone The Powers That Be are very keen on meeting again.
The drone finally enters the hollowed-out atrium, where the vault door still sits holding up nothing in its foundation.
It flies past the vault, into the tomb of a mainframe room. Silent, fast, searching . . .
Finally, it comes upon a small pile of ash, settled from being scattered about a hundred times over. There's no telling what is mixed in this residue, this ashen petri dish. But it's not the ashes that interest The Powers.
The drone does its work, scanning and then extracting the remains of what was once the tip of a finger, now nothing but charred bone. Depositing its condition, the drone stores its find in a small compartment inside its body.
Then it flies off, just as silently and quickly as it came.
Carrying the charred finger bone of Peacekeeper Captain Michonne Snow, along with some scattered, remaining fragments of others the drone picked up along the way.
Dr. Morgan Jones has devised a miracle again, against his will.
Now his first test subject is on the path to resurrection.