Meeting in the Middle - SCP Foundation

Meeting in the Middle

2003

11 October

Site-43: Lambton County, Ontario, Canada

Nascimbeni didn't hear Couch approaching this time, because she didn't want him to. She slammed him against the locker as he shut the tablet away, and pressed a hand against his throat — not constricting the airflow or his voice, but demonstrating how easily she could. "What the fuck did you do?"

"What?" he spluttered.

"Don't 'what' me. You know what I'm talking about."

"No," he said. He meant it.

"I'm talking about the hatches."

"What hatches?"

She shoved him into the locker, hard, and stepped back to look him over. "The hardened hatches between here," she pointed back and forth between them both, "and there." She pointed at the ceiling, implying Applied Occultism.

He shook his head, and rubbed his Adam's apple. "What about them?"

"Don't fuck with me, Nascimbeni." She pointed at Mukami, sitting silently on the locker room bench. "I'll shoot your fucking woman in the uterus and let you watch your dreams bleed out."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" He hated the note of urgency in his voice, the quickened pace, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. "I didn't touch any doors! I've been working on—"

"I know what you've been working on," Couch spat. "I know everything you've done today. I know how big you shit, buddy. I know how much of my air you take. Don't make me take it back."

She stalked away, and slammed the door behind her.

He sat down heavily beside Mukami.

"Noè."

He ignored the voice.

"Noè"

"What?" He didn't look at her.

"I need a distraction."

He sighed. "I'll sing you a song."

He cradled her head in his lap, and softly chanted the lullaby he'd once sung to his granddaughter, Flora. "Stella Stellina," Little Star. She reached up to take his hand, and her lips began moving without making sound. They moved slow, very slow, and even though she was upside-down he realized he could see what she was mouthing.

She. Is. Going. To. Kill. Us.

He nodded miserably, then squeezed her hand once to show he understood.

Do. Something.

He squeezed again.

Open. The. Subway. Bulkheads.

He squeezed twice.

Our. People. Will. Help.

He tapped her chest. Your people.

Our. Our. She tapped him back. Trust. Me.

Nascimbeni hadn't written the code that governed AAF-D's systems. That had been Nancy Briggs originally, and later a combination of Eileen Veiksaar and Lillian Lillihammer. But he'd laid down the specifications, including the workarounds, and he knew by heart how each set of instructions interacted. He knew how to make this facility do whatever he needed it to, and right now he needed it to prepare for a worst-case scenario.

He, himself, was already prepared. Mukami had told him her story in Recondite Deplanarization, and he had turned around and tapped out a sequence of seemingly-innocuous requests on the filter tanks. If he needed to, if he absolutely had to, he could simulate a containment breach of the sort which had once destroyed the entire Section. It wouldn't actually happen, nothing would actually go critical, but every automatic override would be fooled. Those countermeasures hadn't been triggered during the original breach due to a combination of user error and equipment failure, but he'd seen to the latter problems already during his tour of enforced duty with OSAT. As to the former…

He really, truly hoped this wasn't going to be an error.

He took the tablet back out of the locker, opened up the command console, and saved a draft file into the server's memory.

"It's done," he said. He found that he was trembling.

Mukami pulled her microphone off gently, wrapped it in a towel, and placed it in the locker where the tablet had gone. "Good," she rasped. Her voice was coming back. "Thank you."

She stood up on the tips of her toes and kissed him. Her lips were dry, and tasted of dust.

"Now what?" he asked, setting the tablet on the bench.

"Now they're fucked," she grinned.

Alarms began to howl.

He took her hands. "Where do we go? What do we do?"

She flicked his hands away, still smiling. "I don't care what you do."

"What?"

She tapped her forehead. "I've got your password, and you've opened the gates. I've spent enough time in this shithole."

He hadn't felt horror like this since the last time alarms had been blaring in AAF-D. "No."

She shook out her arms, and stretched her legs on the bench. "I'm gonna need you to look away for a minute."

"No," he repeated. "No." This can't be happening. You idiot. You idiot you idiot you idiot you're an idiot…

He had a sudden image of Paul Nicolescu grabbing a wrench and murdering Emil Vanchev for dishonouring the memory of this woman. This woman. This dead woman, dishonoured again by whatever foul thing was pretending to be her, to be his, to be Ana Mukami, who was dead she's dead she's dead and I am going to kill whatever you are.

He reached into the locker yet again, and took out a heavy spanner. He tested the weight in his hands.

"You can't hurt me," she chuckled dryly. "You had your chance."

He took a step forward, vision clouding with tranquil fury. "I will if you make me."

She shook her head sadly. "You had your chance. Remember Paul? You remember Paul. And so do I."

She ran, relishing the freedom of movement, feet barely touching the floor in her haste to pursue. She knew he wouldn't run far. She'd programmed him to put up the appearance of a fight, so they could leave the old man behind, but nothing more.

And there he was, in the entrance to the Cavern of all places, a big blank wall of dark backgrounding his naked form. He was panting. She came up behind him, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Feel better?" she asked.

"I…" Nicolescu wheezed. "What happened?"

"Concentrate," she told him.

She could tell by the thrill of horror which crawled through each of his muscles in turn that he was thinking about holding a gun on his beloved boss, threatening him, speaking words which weren't his. "Oh my god," he moaned. "Why did I do that? Why did I do that?"

"You know why."

"I was possessed. That fucker possessed me." He shook off her hand, and pounded the doorframe with a fist. "I almost killed the Chief!"

She smiled at him. "He'll get over it."

He tried to push past her. "I need to explain what happened."

She placed a hand on his waxed chest, and guided him onto the catwalk beyond the door. "That way. I'll make him understand."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I still don't trust you."

She made herself look smaller, more eager to please, and favoured him with a winsome look. "But you want to."

He sighed messily. "Of course I want to."

She massaged his chest. "I might even go so far as to say you need to."

He took her hands by the wrists, stopping the motion. "Look," he began.

"You loved me," she cooed.

"Look," he insisted. "I still have no reason to believe it is you."

"You're the one who just started shooting at everyone," she reminded him.

He leaned on the doorframe for support. "I'm so tired of all this. I don't understand what's going on anymore."

"It's a complicated game," she agreed, "and you're not a complicated man."

"I want to be on the right side. I want the right side to win."

"Do you think the right side cares what you want?"

He stared at her. "What?"

"Are you even sure one of them is right? What if the stakes are beyond your comprehension? What if you're not a player, Paul? What if you're just the ante?

"Just say what you mean," he pleaded. "Just… just tell me what all of this means."

She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him. She let it go on for as long as he wanted it to. "It doesn't mean anything," she whispered when it was done. "It simply is."

"I can't believe that," he whispered. His hands were shaking. He was still holding her wrists.

"You can believe me," she promised. "I've seen it. Part of it lives inside of me." She placed his hands on her chest, and held them there. "I'm so close to understanding, Paul. I just need to get a better look at the board, rearrange the pieces a little, maybe get a glimpse of the rules."

"Who are you?" he whispered.

"Who I've always been," she whispered back.

His eyes glossed over. "We need to find the Chief."

She tilted her head to one side. "We should give him a little time."

"It's not safe for him to be alone," Nicolescu insisted.

She smiled. "You think he's safer with us? After what just happened?"

He stood up straight, and stared her down through unfocused eyes. "I'm willing to take that chance."

He turned, and walked into the cavern.

"You're braver than I thought," she said, as he stepped onto the catwalk and she followed with outstretched hands…

When Nascimbeni was himself again, the woman he had been was gone. There were tears in his eyes from the force of the memory. I'm so sorry, Paul, he wanted to scream. There was a dead man on the floor, bulletproof vest half-on, face half-off. There was gunfire in the distance. The door was open, and the sounds reverberated infinitely.

His footsteps didn't rise above the echoes as he ran.

"You son of a bitch," a voice snarled as he headed for the airlock. "You son of a BITCH!"

A bullet whanged past him, striking a mercifully empty pipe as he ducked beneath it. He crouch-ran to where the hallway widened, and dodged into a few more seconds' worth of cover.

It was Couch.

He wanted to scream back at her, something about how she was one less degree of separation from that curse than he was, but it was too convoluted to figure out while under fire. So he shouted back instead: "Get to your people!"

"You're dead!" Another bullet took the corner off, drywall exploding all around as he snatched at a metal rolling cart and dragged it behind him as a shield. "You are FUCKING DEAD, Chief!"

"Go down!" He waved one arm past the red metal barricade, pointing at the floor, and the next bullet drew a sharp feeling of pain from his hand. He looked at it. There was a burn across his palm. He ignored it. "Take your people to the fourth sublevel! It's defensible! It's safe!"

There was more gunfire, and he realized it was coming from farther along. He heard screams. Screams of pain. Of dying, of death. The attackers were coming for them both. He risked a look down the hall and saw flashes of iridescent nobodies, a few corpses in OSAT outfits, the back of their furious commissioner in a wide firing stance, and watching her from a blind corner, a figure wearing…

He felt a bullet whizz through his hair, and decided this was not the time to sightsee. He heard Couch's gun report three times, a deeper sort of bang, but nothing else in his vicinity abruptly aerosolized. She was firing back at Mukami's army.

"Get out of here!" she screamed over the next lull in the din. She was talking to him. "Get out of here, you—!"

"I'll send help!" he promised, diving down the hall so fast his knees roared in protest, making no effort to gauge her trustworthiness or to take further cover if this was a trick. He just had to get away, get away, get away get away get—

"Fuck your help!" she hollered. "Close that door and keep it closed! Step back inside, and I'll light you up!"

He felt like he should say that he was sorry.

He found that he didn't want to.

He found that he wasn't, really.

He ran down the AAF-D approach as the airlock swung closed behind him, realizing he'd performed the opposite of this maneuver twice in the past year. His thoughts were a jumble. He was weeping openly, he was sucking on the wound on his palm, he was badly out of breath, his whole body ached, his soul ached, he wasn't sure he cared if he caught a stray bullet in the back. He had only one recognizable, recognizably true impulse: to get away.

He got away.

He passed the blank wall where the mural hadn't been, the memorial to the murderer he was fleeing from, the one he himself had murdered. He passed the crater of Wettle's lab, and the corridor to S&C. He passed the strange power junctions full of Gwilherm-rope. He passed—

He didn't pass the niche where he'd been working almost a month ago, because before he reached it someone reached out and hauled him to one side. He slammed into the wall thanks to momentum, and they pulled him flush with it as his body ricocheted back, and they slapped a hand over his mouth, and pulled his face toward theirs.

"Who are you?!" he blurted into the woman's palm, and she shook it off in obvious disgust, wiping spittle onto his D-class uniform.

"I'm who I look like!" Lillian hissed. "Are you?!"

He had the sudden, almost irresistible urge to kiss her.

He hugged her. "I think so!"

He began to sob into her uniform, why is she wearing a uniform, and she shoved him away. They were standing in the equipment tracks maintenance access, he realized. "Can you prove it?"

"What?" His mind was freewheeling. "No! Can you?"

She made a sort of duck-face, considering, then offered a tentative "…maybe. 'Here's to the Survivors?'"

"Holy shit," he wheezed. Then he doubled over. He was far, far too old to be running marathons.

She put a hand on his back, not ungentle. "Say the next bit."

The next bit? The next bit? He tried to make sense of the words.

"Come on, Noè," she encouraged him. "'Here's to the Survivors'."

And suddenly, he could see the scene. One of the last happy moments he'd had before everything turned to shit. Not the very last, and not the very best, but the only unsullied sense of real camaraderie he'd have to cling to in the days to come. "'To the Survivors'," he agreed, and held up a phantom glass with one hand as he rubbed his knee with the other.

"'Who?'" Lillihammer pressed, still quoting.

"'Us'," he continued.

"'Oh, yeah I like some of us'." she finished.

He gave up the struggle and collapsed against the wall, mouth hanging open, eyes closed. "God damn your memory. I'd almost forgotten that."

She sat down beside him. "You don't keep a special little niche in there just for stupid shit Willie says?"

"I might now, if we're using it for code phrases." He sucked in a deep breath, then opened his eyes and searched for hers. "So what do you figure? Alternate universe?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Real bad one. Not at all a keeper."

"Do we have a choice?"

"Probably not."

"Where are we headed?"

"Headquarters. I've been hiding out in A&R, trying to find more info, then I ducked down here when I heard the gunfire. I've got about half a dozen different warnings to deliver."

"I'd rather go to J&M," he frowned. "I don't think I'm welcome at headquarters. Apparently I was neutral?"

"Neutral? Who between?"

"The Foundation and OSAT."

"Wow." She patted him on the cheek, a mock-slap. "Alternate you was a dumbass."

"Apparently." He didn't offer commentary on whether present him was an improvement.

"Okay, new plan then. We go to J&M, and you tell them you have me. Hand me over. Win some brownie points."

He shifted to face her properly. "What do you mean, hand you over? You're wanted there?"

She gave him one of her patented toothy grins, chin down, eyes dancing. "I'm always wanted, everywhere. But this is a special kind of want. They think I'm on the other side."

"Why do they think that?"

"Because I was." She gestured at her ensemble, security chic minus shoulder patches and badges. "Long story. You game?"

He tried to concentrate. Everything else vying for his attention would kill his resolve. Here and now. Focus on the here and now. "For the plan, or the long story?"

"The plan. I know where you stand on long stories, and honestly I stand with you."

"Won't it be a problem for you, being in detention?"

"I'll be in detention no matter how I walk in there," she pointed out. "At least this way someone benefits from it."

"You're in a much better mood than the last time I saw you," he half-smiled.

"Last time you saw me, I had problems. Now I've got solutions." She gestured at a bag of gear he hadn't noticed — which stank, for some reason — and a horrible-looking mishmash of metal in the very rough shape of a gun. "They're not for the same problems, but one's as good for the ego as another."

The bulkhead door to J&M proper was closed, of course, and he had a sinking suspicion that his passcode wouldn't get them through. He'd been missing for weeks. They'd have to be fools not to have written him off.

They watched nothing happen from behind a stack of crates shoved to one side. Lillian gestured at the approach. "You go first."

"Why? I'm dressed as a prisoner, you're dressed as a guard."

"Right," she agreed. "They'll shoot me on sight like this, but you might stand a chance."

"That seems backward."

"Haven't you figured it out yet? This is Backward Day: The Motion Picture."

"Backward the Future, more like."

Her red eyebrows shot up appreciatively. "You know, for the first time, I almost see what Delfina saw in you."

"Be sure to remind her when she's got a gun on us."

He shouldn't have pressed his luck. He said the word, gun, and he thought about Couch, and he thought about the invisible tide of attackers from the subway, and all the Mounties dead because of him, because of his mistake, his stupidity, his weakness, and he felt weak, and he realized why and clawed out at the crates which didn't budge an inch.

"You okay?" she asked, from far away.

"No. No. Give me. Nnnn."

Again she put a hand on his back. "Take it easy."

He saw Nicolescu, tumbling to his death. Because of him.

"Nnnnnnnnn. No. No."

"Don't have a heart attack on me," Lillian urged.

"Not that," he coughed. "Not that."

"Don't have a panic attack either."

"No."

"Attacks of conscience least of all. We haven't got time for self-recrimination, there's people criminating us in every damn direction."

"I just need—"

He was lost in the memories. He could hear the guns.

He could hear the guns.

He could hear the guns.

They're coming for us.

"You need to get up, and we need to get going." She hauled him to his feet by the armpits. "Hold the barf 'til you're looking at Falkirk's loafers."

12 October

She pushed him toward the bulkhead door, using him as a human shield. Considering their relative heights, it wouldn't have been difficult for anyone standing at a distance to headshot her over the top of his scalp, but he didn't feel like he needed to tell her that. There was a lockdown panel beside the door, the light gleaming amber; he pressed the comms button, and the light immediately turned green.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

He looked up at where he knew the camera was, camouflaged into the moulding, and said the first words that came into his mind: "Knock knock?" They didn't have time to be clever.

"Chief?" said a voice from an overhead speaker. "Is that really you?"

"Don't open the door," Nascimbeni said quickly.

"What're you doing?" Lillian hissed.

He ignored her. "What's the security protocol when someone goes missing?"

"Call OSAT to find them," the voice on the radio answered. He had it placed now: Phil Deering.

"What if OSAT isn't available?"

"Uh, call the safe zone for a consult?"

"What if there's an imminent threat?"

As if in response, the gunfire resumed. It sounded like it was nearly at the junction.

"Keep the bulkhead door down." Phil's voice was wavering a little. "Chief, are you—"

"Right." Nascimbeni began speaking very quickly. "There's an imminent threat out here, and OSAT is not available, they're very very unavailable right now, and I've been gone way too long for you to trust me, and I really don't want to be stuck out here when the people who are following me get here. Okay?"

There was a sound of rustling papers over the speaker. "We have a new thing we can try," Phil said after an agonizing moment. "Safe zone called it over."

"Okay?"

"Can you recite any Yeats?"

Nascimbeni stared at the speaker, then stared at the camera instead. "Yeats?"

"Yeah."

"What's that?"

"The poet, Noè." Lillian was still hissing, for all the good it was doing. The battle sounded like it was nearly on top of them now.

"I don't know any poetry. Do you?" Say yes. Say yes.

"I sure as fuck don't know any Yeats," she snorted. "More of a Harry thing."

Phil cut in. "Do you know any poetry that doesn't rhyme?"

"Sure," Lillian snapped. How's this?

Please let us come in.

Fucking now, preferably.

This is a haiku.

Nascimbeni stared at her. After a moment, Deering responded: "I guess that works. Chief?"

He began counting on his fingers.

Help help help help help

Help help help help help help help

Help help help help fuck?

"It does follow the rules," he added.

"Now we need one that does rhyme," Phil droned.

"Are you fucking serious right now?!" Lillian shouted.

"Sorry, that's the rule. One each."

She took a deep breath.

There once was a man from Nantucket

If you won't let us in, you can suck it

And she flipped the camera off.

"Chief?"

Nascimbeni could only think of one thing. He lowered his voice an octave, and began:

O Canada, our home and native land

"Oh god," Lillian moaned.

True patriot love, in all thy sons command

With glowing hearts, we see thee rise

"Do you have to do the whole thing?!"

The true north strong and free

From far and wide, O Canada

We stand on guard for thee

He started singing faster as staccato applause sounded from the end of the corridor.

O Canada, glorious and free

O Canada we stand on guard for thee

O Canada we stand on guard for thee

He thought the words had probably changed since he was a young man, but it was apparently good enough for Phil. As if in appreciation of their performance, the metal curtain rose.

"Do you know the French words, too?" Lillian snapped as they dove under the bulkhead.

"The only French words I know… would be very appropriate right now, actually."

"You guys look like you've got a story to tell," Phil remarked as he helped Nascimbeni to his feet. A wellspring of nervous energy as ever, Lillian helped herself.

"Two stories," she muttered, "and we haven't even told each other yet."

Nascimbeni sorted out his post-disaster priorities. "Where's Delfina?"

"Chief Ibanez?" Phil yawned. "Safe zone."

Lillian physically spun him around by grabbing the neck of his J&M vest. "Harry?"

"Uh, Blank? Probably also the safe zone."

"Udo?" Nascimbeni said to the technician's back.

Phil glanced over his shoulder. "Who?"

"Okorie. Udo Okorie."

He shrugged. "Don't know who that is."

"Allan?" Nascimbeni continued.

Phil turned back to face him, Lillian apparently having no further concerns. "Gone. Don't know where."

"Does Falkirk know I was gone?"

"No, boss. At least, I don't think so."

"Wait." Lillian walked around in front of him, standing beside Nascimbeni. "You didn't report your boss missing?"

Phil shrugged. "We called OSAT."

"Oh." Nascimbeni nodded. "Of course you did." He turned to look up at Lillian. "In that case, Falkirk doesn't know. That's good. He'll still trust me."

"Yay you," she glowered. "What about me?"

"We can call ahead and see if they have detention facilities?" Phil suggested.

She drew herself up to her full height, towering over the slouching junior tech. "I beg your pardon?"

"You were reported possessed." Phil tried not to look like he was cowering. "Months ago."

"Well, I dispossessed."

"I believe you," he nodded. "But the Director isn't an easy sell."

"Can't you stay here until it's clear?" Nascimbeni asked.

"No." She managed to say the word in half a syllable. "I need to get in there. There's about fifty things Del needs to know."

"Then can you do anything about Falkirk? Preferably something permanent?"

Her face split open in that familiar rictus as the sound of muted gunfire filled the air. "You know what? I think I can."

"What's this about?" Harry grumbled. He'd been working up the nerve to tell Melissa about the events of September 2002, the ones he couldn't be happier to have seen un-happen, when Eileen had burst into the makeshift cafeteria and hauled him to his feet. They were heading for her office now, and she wasn't saying a word. Their arms were linked, and she was squeezing until it hurt.

"You'll see." The vowels were clipped. She was still angry with him, or else consumed with some other thing raising her blood pressure; perhaps the thing which had caused her to be angry with him in the first place. She was whistling like a pressure valve about to burst as they brushed through the beaded curtain and its thick fabric counterpart, the cat yowling an inquisitive hello from under the desk.

There was a face on the computer monitor. Harry recognized it instantly, as of course Eileen would have. She'd dated them both at some point.

"Oh my god," Harry said. He sat down on Eileen's chair; the cushion was already pounded flat, but he hardly noticed. "Li, you're alive, thank—"

Eileen leaned over his shoulder, and tapped a button on the keyboard. He belatedly realized Lillian's face was frozen when it un-froze and she started talking.

"Surprise! It's me. I'm at J&M with Noè. How you kids doing? Phil tells me you're kinda up shit creek in there, and there's a total shitlord at the tiller. Well, good news on that front! I think I can get him shitcanned. How's the climate for that right now? This is a one-way transmission, should be untraceable, but you don't wanna send me anything detailed back because the outgoing stuff will get caught by filters I can't access from here. There's a security office near you that's close enough to the telekill to be out of mindfucker range, but I'll need an escort and it's kinda hot outside, if you take my meaning? If it's safe for me to swing by and depose the evil overlord, gimme an I. If not, I'll assume it's an O until further notice. We clear?"

She winked at the camera, and the video ended.

Eileen put a hand on his shoulder, and pressed her fingernails in so hard he could feel them through the sweatshirt. "I don't give half a shit about the politics right now. I'm too busy. But if you can replace the old man without fucking anything else up, I've got your back. He doesn't know computers for shit and it's like pulling teeth to get his attention, at least with my fucking sweater on."

She spun him around.

"Now get out of my chair."

On the one hand, Ibanez only got to kill half a dozen nobodies to get the two fugitives through the rough part of their brief trip between J&M and the security station.

On the other hand, she got to see Lillian as close to shitting bricks as she'd likely ever been.

So long as there was still more carnage to come, the math worked out.

They listened for the click of the camera connection. When it sounded high above them, over the doors to the server hall exit, Del moved like she had a purpose.

All three of them did. It felt nice, having for a change.

Harry followed close on her heels. Wettle was reluctant, and dragged his feet. They passed by the guards on duty, O and Ayodele; Del had waited until Holt and Bosch were in their bunks to schedule this little reunion. Down the access corridor, a brief turn to the right, and then another, and the I&T workgroup security station came into view. She drew her service weapon, just in case, then opened the door with one smooth motion.

And there they were.

She stood stock-still, gun still raised, staring at Noè Nascimbeni in his silly orange jumpsuit. She looked like she wanted to shoot him, and Harry told himself it was the D-class outfit playing on her trained instincts. Before she could decide what else to do, the red-haired woman in the security outfit had plunged through the door and tackled Harry so hard they both nearly fell over.

"Hey," he laughed. "Whoa. Don't, it's okay, hey." He didn't stop laughing, and hugged her back. For the first time in living memory, the other woman tried and failed to think of something snarky to say.

Noè nodded at Del.

She nodded back at him.

"Alright." Del grabbed Harry by the belt and pulled him bodily off his best friend. He wiped tears from his eyes, and Lillian looked up at the ceiling to dry her own unobtrusively. "Everybody's happy to see everybody, yippee, hooray, spill the dirt already."

Kettle Point: Lambton County, Ontario, Canada

Udo said it felt like they were Merry and Pippin waiting to hear how the Entmoot went. Brenda said that was racist, and they were arguing about whether or not it was when the All-Sections Chief let himself into their tent.

"In short," he smiled, "they agreed."

"That's a relief," Udo beamed.

"Don't get ahead of yourself. This is a very delicate thing."

"Delicate combat?" Brenda pulled her hat on. "Sounds real effective."

The ASC knelt on the nearest sleeping bag. "You jest, but you're on the right track. We've got people with experience hunting, we've got a few who've been involved with barricades and occupations, and we've got some AIM people from the States, but that's not going to do very much against a trained and turned MTF unit."

"AIM?" Udo asked.

"American Indian Movement. They know resistance. But we're still going to have a hell of a time defeating the agents, even on our home turf."

Brenda was nodding. "What about the Mishepeshu?"

"They'd likely take our side if the enemy comes to our camps, but that won't happen. They aren't stupid. They've been waiting all this time for us to starve; I suppose there aren't any history students among them." This time his smile was equal parts fierce and sad. "If we hide out where the panthers can protect us, the enemy won't be drawn, and you won't get your chance."

Udo patted her reagents pouch. "Maybe I could help you fight them."

He shook his head. "No."

"I know I'm not a native, but—"

"That's not the concern. Your offer is appreciated, but you're an inexpendable asset. We need you using your powers to put Dr. Reynders' plan into motion."

"I could lure them," said Brenda.

"A dog would do just as well, and still achieve nothing. They'd hunt you down in an instant."

She stuck out her chin at him. "I don't think they would, actually."

Udo touched her shoulder gently. The ASC glanced down at her hand, and she knew he knew. "What're you not saying, Brenda?"

The other woman seemed to be wrestling with something. Her next words were halting, uncertain. "You know how… not all theologians, are occultists?"

"Yeah?"

She sighed. "I'm not one of not all theologians."

Udo performed some quick calculations. "You're saying you have a Talent?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you mention this before?!"

"I keep it to myself, because it's… unregistered."

"Oh dear," said the ASC.

Udo found she was clutching her friend's shoulder until the flesh turned red. "Brenda. Seriously?"

"I know! I know. But I was afraid that if I told them, they'd make me use it offensively, like in a unit or something, and—"

"I mean seriously," Udo almost yelled, "you kept this to yourself because you're worried about a witch hunt? There's no more Foundation! There's no more anything! There's just us, Brenda." She wanted to kiss her, to hold her, to assure her with physical affection that it wouldn't matter, that nothing else mattered, but she didn't want to do it with one of her god-damned bosses looking over her shoulder. "Just us," she finished simply.

There were tears in Brenda's eyes. "Okay."

"So tell me."

"I'm a little bit telepathic."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"How much is a little bit?" the ASC asked.

"I can pick up mental vibrations from way, way off." She was still looking at Udo. "That's how I kept safe when everybody else… that's…"

Fuck it. Udo did hug her. "It's okay. You don't have to talk about that now. There'll be time after. I promise."

Brenda squirmed out of her grasp, and reoriented to face the ASC. "Yeah. All right. Well here's the thing, then. These asshats have some sort of weird voodoo connection between them. I'm pretty sure I can intercept it, give it a bump."

"A bump," he repeated.

"Throw off their radar. Maneuver them where we want them. You set traps, I'll walk them into 'em. "

Udo didn't like the sound of that. "But where will you be during this?"

"I'm the only one who isn't vital to getting this thing done. You know that."

"Fuck off." She was surprised at the vehemence in her own voice. "You're not getting in the thick of it. I'm not letting you."

"Gonna bury my head in the sand?" The other woman gave her a look of defiance so confident that if Udo had been standing, she would have taken a step back.

"Ladies." The ASC raised a hand between them. "I think there's a solution that might work for both of you."

"Do tell," said Brenda. Her voice was tight. She was holding back more tears, and Udo felt a sympathetic response building in her itching eyes.

"Note that I said it might work." He glanced at Udo speculatively. "Not that you will necessarily approve of it."

My name is Desagondensta. I have been called Nimkii, "Thunderer," by the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point with whom I have made common cause. I have never shared my true name before, as I was something of a public figure in my former life; whilst simultaneously the All-Sections Chief of Site-43, I was a trained and accredited lawyer engaged in treaty law and negotiations with legal authorities on behalf of missing and murdered First Nations people. As that context has now changed irrevocably, I place both of my names on this testament. I am Mohawk, and my fate is linked inextricably with the Anishnaabe on whose land I live.

It was my estimation on the 12th of October, 2003 that we faced the combined numbers of nine Mobile Task Forces and two Stationary Task Forces. The latter set, the Site's standing garrisons, would be the most dangerous: STFs Alpha-43 ("Strong and Free") and Beta-43 ("Back Door Men"), together commanded by Gedeon Van Rompay. The first unit resided in barracks at the main body of the Site, and would arrive late to the engagement. The second was stationed at Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-A, guarding the very entrance Dr. Okorie would be using. Of the remaining opposing forces, the most concerted effort was expected from MTF Zeta-43 ("Canadian Sword"), the sole unit with a strictly offensive role. MTFs Alpha-43 ("Witch Hunters") and Beta-43 ("Con Trollers") would act in a support capacity, searching for enemy units and reporting their locations. Delta-43 ("Pit Bosses"), Kappa-43 ("The Mediators") and Rho-43 ("Home Invaders") would essentially be cannon fodder, as their proficiencies were unrelated to guerrilla warfare, while Pi-43 ("Garbage In, Garbage Out") and Epsilon-43 ("Day Trippers") would provide transportation and extraction. MTF Gamma-43 ("Pond Scum") had been destroyed in February by the serpent of Lake Huron, and the remaining units had been moved from Site-43 to execute new missions in distant locales.

All told, therefore, I expected our live and reasoning enemy force to number approximately seventy persons in full combat gear. At my disposal I had fifty persons with assorted equipment, as well as the unknown quantity of our supernatural overseers and a comprehensive knowledge of the terrain. Many of these warriors had worked together before: Mohavi from the Colorado River who had occupied Ward Valley, California in 1996; Sioux from Minneapolis who had patrolled the city in the late 1980s to prevent the murder of native women; even one veteran of Wounded Knee, who refused to tell me whether his experience had been in 1973 or 1890. Unlike the enemy I also had a sizable population of innocents to defend, some three hundred Canadian indigenous and American Indians. We could not fail.

I dispatched Dr. Okorie back to AAF-A via the swiftest possible route, if not the safest, escorting her to a cave entrance once obstructed by the lashing waves of the lake that was, and was no longer. We sent her roaring into the Earth on a borrowed all-terrain vehicle, with a warning: do not speak to anyone you encounter beneath the Site.

It was a quick ride. The ATV's headlights illuminated the smooth cavern walls and floors, and she had no difficulty at all proceeding forward. There were signs of human occupation as she delved deeper: recessed lights, deactivated; old generators, silent; conduits snaking up into the ceiling, or snapped and lying in coils on the ground. She almost passed by a plaque on the wall without noticing it, only a telltale glint betraying its presence, and against all logic she stepped out of the vehicle to give it a quick glance.

It read:

OUTPOST-43

8 September 1941

She didn't know what that could possibly mean, and she didn't have time to ponder. She drove, and drove, and drove through the dark, until suddenly she hit a brick wall.

She didn't literally hit it, but it was literally brick. Totally flush with the uneven tunnel shape, as though slotted in by some massive and all-powerful model-maker. There was a simple door in the wall, so she shut off the ATV, walked over, and opened it.

"Chief?"

My radio chirped, and I plucked it off my belt. "Dr. Sýkora?"

"They're gone. Headed your way." The other man paused for a meaningful moment. "Almost all of them."

I nodded, though only the men and woman arrayed around me could see. "Thank you. Best of luck with your program."

"Knock 'em dead, sir."

I smiled grimly. "Only if I can't help it." Nexus Affairs was my main portfolio, but intra-Section diplomacy was a major secondary consideration. I'd have hated to tell Chief Von Rompay that I'd sent all his agents to Valhalla.

Udo had no idea where she was.

She understood her surroundings on a basic level. She was standing in some kind of university building, or maybe an expansive private lab. The walls were painted in rich, warm tones, the lights were incandescent and even warmer, but the feeling of institutional simplicity was everywhere. The problem was, she knew she was many hundreds of metres below the deepest sublevels of Site-43. It was simply impossible for her to be standing in an SCP Foundation facility, even a very old one. The Site didn't extend down this far. It couldn't.

Still, the path ahead was relatively simple. She was moving in the direction the ASC had indicated, and she was making good time. Before long she'd be directly beneath AAF-A, at which point she'd been assured there would be an access point prepared. "The Pit Bosses made an early expedition in September," the ASC had explained. "Their equipment will still be there, because access was soon blocked by a landslide on the upper levels. You should be able to move the rocks aside and escape back into the facility proper."

"And if that doesn't work," Brenda had grinned, "you can try out that flying trick you've been holding out on me."

She had almost hoped for the latter eventuality, but now it was far from her mind. She was focused instead on the fact that she was walking through a space which didn't belong in the space it occupied, and she knew by what little she'd been told about it beforehand that nobody was quite sure what would happen to her there. It was the fastest way back, and that was all that mattered. The natives would have already begun their diversions, and the MTFs would be streaming out to meet them. Brenda would be preparing to lead them astray. The battle would be joined before long, and it was time for her to put the plan into literal motion.

She was thinking about this when she walked through the next door, and found herself back in the cave system. She frowned, and glanced up.

And gasped.

Indigenous peoples have been on the front lines of colonial conflicts on countless occasions in this continent's history, often to great effect. Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee warriors were in several cases the most competent, if not the only competent combatants in the key land battles of the War of 1812 — on both sides — and before that were instrumental in fighting the Seven Years' War for both France and England in absentia. Indigenous troops served in both World Wars. The empires considered their colonies essentially expendable, however, and the allies of said colonies more expendable still. Native peoples suffered dearly fighting for causes they would see little benefit from in the long run, and I was determined that this would not be the case for us. I wanted to reconnect Dr. Reynders and her little band with whatever survivors might remain in the Site's main facility, but that was not the reason I convinced my friends to fight alongside me.

We were fighting to take back the land which had been promised us, and never granted.

There had never been an inquiry into the crisis we precipitated at Camp Ipperwash in 1995, and with the fall of the Canadian federal government, there never would be. We would seek instead redress ourselves. Dr. Corbin led the attackers astray, planting tiny seeds of doubt and nagging suspicions and alternative tactics, and instead of approaching from the south, they approached us from the north. On the shores of the dead lake.

Her part was simple, but vital. She forced our enemies to face us in a fair contest, on the land they were hoping to gain.

They never stood a chance.

"Are you lost?"

It took Udo a moment to react to the voice. She was too busy staring, transfixed, at the crumbling tower of twisted metal which stretched so far above her that its end, if indeed it had an end, was lost in blackness. It was like a crude circuitboard stood on its edge, or… or… no, it was like nothing at all. It was a factory in skyscraper form. It was inconceivable.

But it wasn't speaking to her, and the man beside her was, so she forced herself to look at him. She'd seen his face before. She knew who he was.

"Hello," said Wynn Rydderech.

He was translucent. He was disappearing, and re-appearing. He was an outline, he was only the fill, he was a swirling mass of pinpricks. He was young, he was old, he was something entirely different.

"Hello." She wasn't sure what else to say. She found herself looking up again.

He looked up with her. "It's very difficult."

"What's very difficult?"

"Keeping it all up there." He sighed, and his image wavered. "It's trying to fall back down. They've done an awful lot of damage, and they're trying to do more, and that's not to speak of the abhorrent things leaking into it, and I'm holding it together, but oh…" He rubbed his forehead. "Have you ever been bedrock? It's so very tiring."

She felt a strange euphoria passing through her. "You know what? I think I can relate to that."

He smiled at her. "That's nice. I don't get to relate to people very often, these days. I'm sure you have many questions."

She nodded.

"That's too bad," he said. He looked like he meant it, in the instant before he winked out entirely.

And then the cave followed suit.

She was standing in front of the ADDC window.

She screamed.

Ilse screamed.

Imrich screamed.

I am a diplomat.

I have never led a battle before. I was among the occupiers in '95, and I spent my time on the barricades, but there was no need for me to put my height and weight to better use than mere intimidation in that conflict. The present situation demanded my physicality to a certain degree, but I was much more valuable as a leader. And so, I led.

I had conferred with the elders, the warriors and the community leaders. We had developed a plan of attack, and should that fail, a plan of defence. We were familiar with the ragged treeland, the rocky shores. We knew where all the best hiding places were. The Mobile Task Forces were primarily urban-focused, and would have preferred roads and trackways and open fields. By redirecting them to our killing ground, Dr. Corbin negated their tactical advantage.

We still had to press our own.

We did not array ourselves on either side of a wide plain and advance like the armies of old Europe. They crept along the cliffsides, and we dropped down on them or pulled them into hidden sinkholes where the lake had eroded the cliffbase away. They took the higher ground, only to discover that with hours of preparation and an array of hunting equipment, camouflage and blinds included, we had been able to craft higher ground still in the upright trees. When they tired of being picked off one by one, I called a general attack from the front. I stood, making a target of myself, and I do not know what I expected to happen next. I knew I would be fired upon, and I suspected I would be hit. I knew I was buying time for my people to get into favourable positions, to flank the invaders and continue our harassment of them. Perhaps I hoped that a gust of wind would blow down upon us from above, a thunderbird deigning to intervene on my behalf, flattening the trees and the enemy and perhaps even myself but allowing the advance guard to do their jobs.

Only the first of those things happened. The shots went wild, and emboldened by the adrenaline, I raised my hand and shouted: "Onkwehonwehnéha!"

The native way. Dramatic, to be sure, but as I said I am a diplomat. I knew if we survived, I would want to tell this story. Others would need to hear it, to understand what we had done, and why.

So, we needed to make it a good story.

When they stopped screaming, Udo snatched at her reagents pouch and hurled the contents to the floor. There was no time to discuss the manner of her return to AAF-A; Dr. Rydderech was alive-ish, and he was magic, and he had given her a few extra minutes with which to expedite her plan, and she was not going to waste the miracle. Brenda would never have forgiven her.

Brenda, in fact, was relying on her.

"Holding up, Corbin?" Imrich said into his radio, as though reading her mind.

"I am surrounded by cats," the voice came back. "That was my retirement plan. I'm reconsidering as we speak."

Uh oh. "What are they doing?" Imrich asked her.

"Just the creepy-ass reflecting eyes thing cats do."

"Don't make eye contact." He made eye contact with Udo; she didn't have anything more helpful to suggest, so she shrugged and finished her preparations. She pulled off her sweater, and pulled on the AAG labcoat. She'd cut the sleeves off for ease of motion; it was really just a cape, and that was why she needed it. It made her feel heroic. "Toms take that as a sign of aggression."

"If that applied here, I'd already be dead." Brenda's voice was strained, but solid. "There's no direction I can look in to avoid eye contact."

She was standing in the Mishepeshu tunnels beneath Kettle Point, where Udo had left her. She was radiating her bad vibes out to the MTFs from a place of total security beneath their feet, where they'd never think to look even if they could locate her.

That was the hope, anyway. Hopefully the water panthers were able to recognize Métis as friendlies.

Udo kicked her shoes off, and stood in the steel frame. She wriggled her sock feet in the sand, and began to hum.

Imrich switched off his radio, then he and Ilse recited the necessary instructions as Udo spun up the sands, completing the circuits and patching into the makeshift computer they had laid down on almost every exposed surface not required for personal transit. They called out the code, and she programmed it in. Imrich kept calling, since it was his predictions that made their magical machine stochastic enough to do what it needed to do. Ilse watched the display hooked in via easily the world's strangest interface connection, monitoring the input and output, and when the first compensatory cyberattack arrived as the hardcoded system recognized their intrusion, Udo burned it out with a literal firewall the instant she heard the warning. She felt the vibrations of the water pipes inside of her, the cycling of the air, the unspeakably vast presence in the caverns far below as it wheezed in its long death throes, all of it at once, and she didn't feel it when her feet left the ground.

They could never have hacked Site-43's telecoms with a real computer, no matter how long they had to construct its architecture. They needed to be able to move beyond the constraints of programming language while still, in the end, working within them. They had to overcome countermeasures designed to block ontokinetic interference, electromagnetic pulses, and transmissions from alternate universes. It was an endless, continually evolving battle, and it took all three of them to make it happen.

It didn't happen.

"The connection keeps breaking," she panted. "To the array." She was not overwhelmed; her mind was vast and powerful now, she was AAF-A, she had never been wiser or seen things more clearly. But her body was aching all over, the strain was tremendous, and if they were going to make this work they had to work it now.

"I'll go." Imrich picked up a loaded gun from the dinner table.

"No," she said, zeroing in on the particles linking her with the ceiling cable which fed all the way to the comms array tower, the location of the recurring gap. "I'm already there."

She took form in the far-distant corridor, and saw the man with the rifle at the same moment the man with the rifle saw her. He blew her apart in a hail of bullets, faster and more forceful than what Brenda had managed a month ago, and she struggled to keep her balance even as she realized she didn't really need to. This isn't a human body. It's not subject to human rules. She floated in the stale air, moving toward him, allowing the pockets of sand he hit to arc out of her back and then arc back to her, sealing the holes without stalling the advance. Her silicon avatar was on him in seconds, this lone MTF soldier with sand on his boots which in her confused state parsed as her blood, he had been rubbing out her veins with toes of steel, he had been killing her, and she had to stop him or everyone else was going to die, too.

She fell on him, held him in place, enveloped him, and then worked to repair the connection. Far away, her ears were still receiving instructions, and she was still inputting them. She focused on the code. She felt barrier after barrier fall away before her. She was in the tower, she was the tower, and the tower was theirs, the connection was made, and the final step of the plan stood before her.

She took it.

We had been waiting for the final signal to complete our victory, and when it finally arrived it was just a matter of mopping-up. The most vital part of the plan outside of our control concerned enemy communications: if they could radio back to the Site, tell them what they knew, another attacking force could emerge to harass us at any time. With the comms array in Dr. Okorie's control, however, this would not happen. Their radios were jammed, and they were left almost leaderless. I removed the final qualifier by cudgeling Gedeon Van Rompay on the head with the butt of his own rifle; "Are you going to scalp me, now?" he growled, and it was so much like a thing he really might have said that I wondered how much of him was still in there, struggling to escape.

I didn't wonder long. I struck him again, and his body went limp. His mind could wait.

And that, it seemed, was that. We secured the perimeter of the camp, assured ourselves that there were no flanking attacks incoming, captured the last stragglers and reviewed what we had won and lost.

Fourteen warriors had fallen.

They had taken sixty-four prisoners.

I counted seventeen dead agents, meaning all the MTFs had emptied from AAF-A to face us. They had, in their ignorance, imagined there were no further threats. We were flush with the heady rush of victory.

You killed him.

In her haste to finish the connection, to take over the array, she'd forgotten about the agent in her grasp. She lowered him gently to the ground. He wasn't breathing. In a blind panic she sent the vim harenae through his mouth, expelling its final gasp of air, and searched for some means of starting his lungs back up. But it was useless. They were collapsed. She had crushed them.

You killed him.

"Brenda?" Imrich's voice was tense; she could hear the tension even drifting out into the trackless depths of panic as she allowed her murdering self to disperse, as though she could thereby absolve her own person of its evil deed.

"Yeah, sorry." Brenda was out of breath too. "Somehow they figured out where I am."

Are you okay? she wondered. Because I'm not.

"Are you okay?" Imrich asked.

"Yeah."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah."

Udo was standing at the window again. She blinked. She blinked back tears. She fell into the nearest chair.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Ilse crowed, tapping at the keyboard on her window, "don't touch that dial. You're on Radio AAF-A."

Brenda's voice came through just seconds later.

"I, uh. I think I'm a dog person now."

I would later realize that among those in MTF gear had been a few scientists and technicians, pressed into service in service of a ruse. The Pit Bosses had traced Dr. Corbin to her lair in the tunnels, and attempted a kill or capture. They had met with resistance they had not expected, and the conclusion had been swift and decisive.

We thought it was over.

It was at this moment the enemy played their final card. From Intake Point-94 in the centre of the lakebed came a stream of jade and gold, an army of eldritch attackers formed from what water remained in the deepest murk. They had no weapons, but they would need none; there were hundreds of them, and dozens of us.

We arrayed along the lakeshore to open fire, hoping our higher ground and the advantage of range would produce a miracle, but we never fired a single shot. We had won the human conflict, and the inhuman one would be fought proxy-to-proxy. The caves along the shoreline exploded with a torrent of serpentine bodies, copper tails shining in the dim sunlight, fangs bared and teeth sharp. The Mishepeshu army crashed against the Nobodies and tore them to shreds, which splashed into nothing on the rotting bottom of Lake Huron. It wasn't a fair fight. It wasn't really a fight at all. The cats gave no quarter, and the Nobodies offered nothing resembling resistance, and when the latter were gone the former streamed into the Intake Point to reclaim the tunnels they had made.

A few shimmering stragglers are said to have fled into the mouth of the dead serpent. I can neither confirm nor deny these reports, as its mouth has since closed, and cannot be re-opened.

And that, in brief, is the story of the Second Ipperwash Crisis and the conquering by force of Site-43 by the united peoples of Kettle Point.

— Desagondensta

in Dr. Harold Blank, The Lines Are Down: An Oral History of the End of the World

"Udo? Udo, are you there?"

Imrich was holding a black box towards her. She took it without knowing why, and stared at it.

"Udo?" the box said.

"I'm here," she said.

Nothing happened.

Imrich leaned forward, and pressed the transmit button on the radio.

"I'm here," she whispered.

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"We won."

She nodded.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yeah." She nodded again. "We won."

Brenda's voice was full of nervous energy, tinged with a note of worry. "You're sure you're not injured?"

"I'm fine."

She wasn't.

13 October

Site-43: Lambton County, Ontario, Canada

Wettle watched from behind the barricades as the six of them met in the corridor. Okorie was approaching with Corbin, and Corbin had an arm draped lazily over her shoulder. Moving away from the server hall, Harry was flanked by Bradbury and Veiksaar, one on either side, both of them radiating some sort of possessive instinct.

I have no idea what's happening.

Ibanez was standing in the middle of the hall, the pair and trio closing on her from the north and south. "You alright?" she asked when the newcomers were close enough to hear.

Okorie looked like she was only half-present. "Still intact. You?"

"Unbreakable." Ibanez looked over her shoulder. "Say hi to your girlfriend, Harry."

And she walked past them. Wettle saw her speaking into her radio. He couldn't hear what she was saying. He walked toward her, but she didn't look back again, so he kept walking until he had a much clearer view of the happy reunion.

"Hi," Harry was saying to Okorie. He had the hood of his sweatshirt up, and his hands in his pockets. Veiksaar was glaring at him, for some reason. Bradbury was watching him with her usual spaced-out expression. He wasn't making eye contact with anybody.

"Hey," Okorie responded. She had her hands clasped behind her back. She looked nervous, and… bored? Drunk? Something like that.

Corbin still had her arm around the other woman's shoulder. When she said "Howdy," she casually reached down and squeezed one of Okorie's breasts. The thaumaturge came alive, grinning maniacally, shooting her partner a look of complete panic.

"Right," said Harry, and he turned to follow Ibanez without another word. Okorie rushed to follow him, and he quickened his pace. They both disappeared through the far door.

Bradbury and Veiksaar exchanged complicated looks. Corbin walked up to Wettle, and stuck out a hand. "Hey," she said. "I'm Brenda."

He shook her hand. "I'm a third wheel."

She laughed. "Buddy, this car's nothing but third wheels. It's a miracle it hasn't flipped over yet."

"You're sure it's the right time?" Nascimbeni fidgeted with his zipper pull. "I don't much like walking in there dressed like an escaped damn inmate."

"We're going to tell him." Ibanez was physically maneuvering him out the door of the security station. Lillian was already in the corridor, watching Harry pace in circles to avoid conversation with Udo. "We're going to explain everything to the old man. We've got numbers on our side, he's going to have to listen."

The All-Sections Chief was also in the hall, a pair of natives in camo outfits standing casually beside him. One, a woman, gave them a friendly wave. Nascimbeni waved back. "I didn't mean to overhear," said the ASC, "but I think you just suggested making Edwin Falkirk listen? I don't see that working out."

Harry attempted to engage Lillian in conversation. In response, she turned and headed into a side passage running along the telekill sheathe where she would be protected from the dual threats of mind control and other people's problems. Udo remained behind him, and so he stared resolutely at the wall.

"You've got an army, right?" Ibanez stopped tugging at Nascimbeni's jumpsuit and looked up at the Mohawk warrior. "Push comes to shove, we threaten to push and shove. There's no more OSAT. We're exposed. If he's in one of his paranoiac downswings, he might even want to let an army in to help shore up the place."

"An army of red men and red women," the ASC reminded her. "There's no chance."

"We're not going to phrase it as a request." Ibanez indicated her holstered gun. "I've got most of the guards on my side. The ones who don't trust me are way outnumbered. Now that we're all working together—"

As if in response, Harold Blank began to shout.

Lillian didn't have a plan for where precisely she was going to walk, she just had to get out of the drama and get her much more important thoughts in order. She'd already told Delfina some of what the Survivors needed to know, but she was still fairly bursting with vital information. Things were going to start happening very quickly in the static stagnant swamp that was Site-43, of that much she was certain, and it was going to be in large part thanks to what she'd discovered in the enemy camp.

She considered heading back to J&M to check on the rifle…

Footsteps.

She weighed her options quickly. She could shout, and risk only being heard by the approaching party. She could try to hide in a well-lit corridor, wearing a blue outfit and being six feet, three inches tall. Or she could stand her ground, and see what was coming. Only one of those options carried any weight at all.

She stood her ground.

A service hatch squeaked open just down the access way, and a slim young man with dark skin and haunted eyes clambered out in front of her. When he saw her, he froze. When he saw what she was wearing, he turned back to the hatch.

She raised a hand. "Hey! Hey. It's me. It's really me. What the hell are you doing out here?"

Because, of course, she recognized the young man. More than his immaculately-groomed appearance, she recognized the sweater vest and slacks. He dressed for the job he wanted.

"I'm scouting ahead," said the secretary. "Could you find the All-Sections Chief, Dr. Blank, Chief Nascimbeni, Chief Ibanez, Dr. Okorie and Dr. Wettle, please?"

She laughed. "Yeah, I think I can manage that. Come on."

Harry hadn't meant to shout, but she'd pushed him to it.

"We should talk," Udo insisted, her voice oddly flat and affectless. "While we've got a free moment."

"I'm not feeling chatty," he told the wall.

"Fine, I'll talk. I'm seeing Brenda."

He scoffed. "Gonna take her to a nice restaurant? Check out a movie downtown?"

She put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't be like this. There's nothing anyone could have done to stop it from happening."

He shook off the hand, and turned to face her down. "You could have. I think you definitely could have. You just didn't want to."

He waited for her to tell him he was wrong.

"You're right," she said. She still didn't look like she very much cared.

He felt like a little kid deprived of a promised toy. His face was hot, embarrassed. He felt betrayal on a pathetic, superficial level. "I know," he said, hating both her and himself.

"I am sorry, Harry."

"I don't know that part." He wanted to reach out and remove her stupid huge glasses and look her straight in the orange eye. "You don't really seem sorry. You don't look guilty. You don't even look sympathetic — which is fine, really, because I can't fucking stand sympathy."

"You need to know—"

"No!" he shouted. "This is going perfectly well. Don't ruin it."

He could feel their eyes on him now. All of them. He didn't care.

"You'll have the chance to—"

"Fast forward. Fast forward." He rolled his hands in the air. "Skip dialogue. Next."

She stared at him, exhaustion writ all over her face, and something more he couldn't identify — and didn't care to. "Why are you making this so hard?"

"I'm trying to make it over," he growled. "I don't feel like being angry about this, and I will be angry about it if you keep poking the wound. It doesn't need to be addressed. Leave it alone. Let it go. You let me go so easily, you should be able to do the same with your pointless obligation to express false concern." Dramatic speech came as easily as breathing when he was angry.

"It's not fucking false." She was getting angry too. "Stop whining, and let me explain myself."

He was happy to have it escalate. He didn't want to make up. "You've got nothing to explain. I spent months with a woman I used to love throwing herself at me, and… "

"And?"

"And there were other things I could have done besides," he said miserably, "but I didn't. Because I thought it would be wrong."

"Because you thought it would be wrong?" Udo's eyes were blazing as only Udo's eyes could. "Not because you didn't want to. Do you see the problem here?"

He wasn't going to give her ground, even if she earned it. "The point is, I waited. You didn't."

"We weren't committed."

His eyes widened. Seriously? "You certainly weren't. I'm not even sure why you bothered with me, if Brenda's more your speed."

Her lips twitched cruelly. He'd burned up all her sympathy. "I've always swung both ways."

"More of a revolving door, apparently." He relished the unnecessary vehemence. "It's great to know that the problem is one hundred percent me."

"If I'd never kissed her," Udo said, like she was reciting a grocery list instead of describing the contents of her heart, "I wouldn't have found out so soon, but I would have found out eventually, so… it's better this way. It's better it happened before we got in too deep."

"Speak for yourself." He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to say it. "I was already in deep. I had the chance to do what you did, and I didn't do it. Because of you."

"I'm sorry." She looked away. "I'm looking for the one, Harry, and I think we have that in common. I don't know if it's her or not, but I think I know it isn't you."

Before he could stop himself — not that he knew he would have — he said the words that closed the book on the entire sorry affair.

"I always knew it wasn't you."

He watched in sadomasochistic satisfaction as her face sagged before he stalked away to cry.

He found he didn't want to.

Melissa was standing at the door to the server approach, and he wanted to sweep her into his arms. Eileen was standing beside her, and he almost wanted to sweep them both into his arms, to be better for each of them than he'd been these past years, to make them see how sorry he was about how everything had turned out, the mistakes that he had made. He wanted to do the same for Udo, even as he also wanted her to feel like a cartoon villain, wanted her to regret what she'd done and think him noble for his own acts of sacrifice. Fat fucking luck. That bridge is burned and gone.

Nascimbeni was looking at Del. Del was looking at Udo. He didn't look at Udo, but he saw Corbin approaching from the security station — she gave him an apologetic smile — and figured they were probably looking at each other. Wettle was looking at the walls, and Lillian was looking at him.

"Hey," she said softly. She never said anything softly. "Let's go back inside."

"We're ready to do this thing?" He had the energy now. Better to burn it while it was there.

"We're going to have to be." She turned to place a hand on Del's shoulder, barely having to bend her arm to do so. "Can we get everybody back in the hall approach?"

Del glanced up at her. "Why?"

"Because it's the closest thing we have to the main street of Deadwood."

Del laughed. "Shootout at the IT Corral, huh? Why not." She snapped her fingers, then twirled one in the air. "Wrap it up, folks. We're going back in."

They had almost returned to the barricade, walking in pairs or alone, or alone in pairs, when a voice called out from the exit behind them: "Don't shoot! Please."

They turned as one, Ibanez already unholstering her gun, as the double doors finished opening and a thin, well-dressed young man stepped through, hands raised in the universal signal of defeat.

"Zulfikar?" said Harry.

Then the secretary stepped aside.

"Good afternoon, Harry."

Harry weakly raised a hand in greeting. "Allan?"

"Holy shit," said Nascimbeni.

"Uh, Chief?" said one of the agents.

"Falkirk's already on his way." Del started to smile, and didn't stop until her cheeks were visibly burning. "With spurs on."

The instant the Director of Site-43 saw his predecessor at the far end of the hall, hands in his pockets, standing casually beside his assistant, all the air in the room rushed out. Not literally, but Falkirk's sudden apoplexy gave the space the feel of a spree shooting waiting to happen. In the month since they'd all woken up alone and confused in the midst of a world-ending threat, none of them had ever felt so close to the edge of disaster, or salvation.

"Thought you were dead," the old man snarled. He was flanked with two guards, one tall, one short. Holt and Bosch. "Long dead."

"Happily not," said McInnis.

"Not so happily." Falkirk waved a hand, as if he could dismiss the entire encounter with body language alone. "You're superfluous now."

"I could perhaps say the same about you," his opposite number replied evenly. "That's what you're worried about, is it not?"

"You lack the capacity to worry me, Allan." Falkirk advanced on him, this time waving to keep his escorts from following. "You're not anybody now. You abandoned your post."

"This is not factually true, though you could make the case morally." The former Director looked rueful. "I would welcome a review of my actions, and the motives driving them, at a later date. But not today."

"You're wildly misinterpreting your position right now." They were almost face to face now. "You're not in charge. You're a prisoner."

"I certainly understand why you would wish to frame it that way," McInnis nodded. "You have the position you always desired, though not in the best of circumstances. I understand you won't wish to relinquish it. Nevertheless, I will not be taking orders from you."

"Allan?" Harry said again, as though waking up from a dream to discover it was repeating itself.

"Dr. Blank," McInnis smiled with genuine pleasure. "It's good to see you again. How has the year been treating you?"

"Hard to believe it's been real," he responded slowly.

"I understand." McInnis looked from face to face, reserving a particularly warm smile for the All-Sections Chief. "Who else feels as you do?"

"What are you talking about?" the old man snapped.

"The Survivors, Allan," said Del.

"Exclusively?"

"Exclusively."

"Interesting."

Falkirk glared back at them. "Have you been in cahoots with this traitor? I think I'm going to have to do some spring cleaning."

"It's winter," said Wettle. "I think?"

Falkirk looked like he was about to order the idiot shot. McInnis took a step forward, regaining his attention. "My retreat from view was ordered by the Overseer Council, Dr. Falkirk, to preserve continuity of leadership once the situation became more stable."

"Bullshit."

"I have evidence." He gestured at his assistant, who nodded. "My absence from the fray was deemed important by those to whom we owed allegiance. They were, I now feel, mistaken in this, but the damage is done. We must move forward, not look back."

"I think a little looking back couldn't hurt, actually," said Lillian.

"What's the prisoner doing out?" Falkirk snarled. "Chief Ibanez, I'm beginning to wonder if I've made a mistake retaining you at your post."

"She's been telling me about the day you closed the subway bulkheads," Del said. She was smiling. "We've been putting two and two together."

A flicker of fear passed over the old man's grey eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"It's good to see you as well, Dr. Lillihammer. Chief Ibanez," McInnis called out.

"You owe us a few months' worth of explanations," Del told him.

"It'll be a closed trial," Falkirk snapped. "Perhaps I'll release the highlights when it's over."

"I don't think you want to be opening that particular can of worms, Eddie." Lillian leaned on the barricades, and crossed her arms. "You're gonna want to let bygones be bygones, for precedent."

Falkirk favoured her with a look of unbridled hatred. "I'm not speaking to this man. He's a pervert and a subversive."

Almost everyone in the hall took a step toward Falkirk, but McInnis made his dress shoes echo loudest on the tiles. "That's enough," he commanded, his voice now absent its conciliatory tone.

"I'll decide what's enough!" Falkirk shouted, waving his arms like a madman. "You've had plenty of time to make your point, but in your usual droll manner you've chosen to dance around it instead. Seize this traitor!"

He turned to face them all.

"Seize him!"

The guards looked to Del. She looked back at them, measuring their loyalty. Ayodele and O made no move to act. Holt was twitching. Bosch was looking up at her.

"You will do no such thing," McInnis commanded.

Falkirk wheeled on him again. "Are you under the impression you're still Director of this facility?!"

"No," the other man smiled sadly, "I'm afraid we're quite beyond that now."

Hooking Up

The Breach Goes On: Wrong Tomorrow

Underlude