...

Nausea grips my stomach like a fist squeezing my organs, and I struggle to breathe as Barra marches me like a fuckin' dog, but I don' fight nor care to focus. 

I can't bear it; I can't bear the thought of Reid dead. A deep, guttural terror grips me, so nauseating that the beginning of a gag creeps up my throat, but I swallow harshly. I can't get his look of betrayal out of my head. I couldn't have picked a worse fucking time to blurt that shit out. If tonight goes bad it's gon' haunt me till the day I die. 

Barra stops at a new door, scanning it open before he nudges me inside gruffly. I glower at him, flinching when he swings it shut and hastily grabs my cuffs. "What are you doing?" I gulp, terror gripping me but then the cuffs hiss and he steps away, "What?" I snap, my defences easing into confusion when he inclines his head at the bed, so I follow his gaze. Atop the mattress sits a pristine army uniform, weapons belt, and a phone. A glim-screen blinks into my view, but without being paired all the AI retrievers can discern is, UNKOWN.

"You remember the security key for Private Vanner?" Barra asks, his tone urgent. "I don' got time to explain, get changed." Barra quickly averts his eyes, giving me a shred of privacy by turning away again. He don' got to explain. Scor's been briefing me on this for weeks.

Already shaking with nerves, I rush to the bed, prying my hoodie off with my back turned to him, "You say Vanner? He wanted me to use a different ID." Vanner was the soldier I saw get mauled by Zero's. I stole her gear before her Commanding Officer could discover she was dead... Scor helped me transfer security clearance, but her account has been inactive for the last three months. He's changed the plan. "But we used her account on a job." There's no way a filtering net wouldn't catch me if I randomly scanned her name through the army system. "And she's been inactive for too long." I splutter.

"They puffed her profile out. Get dressed."

"Have you met Scorpius?" 

"Look. Part of this shit is they don' tell me names... but, I did meet scorpion." He admits, "He your man? Blonde manic kid, with the vintage Hillux," I nearly break into relieved laughter. "He's working with my man, to get you and your dickhead friends out. Which ain't gon' work if you're gon' stand here bickering with me."

He's got a Lake Darling accent.

"Friends?" I croak, launching forward to pull his shoulder around so I can find Barra's eyes desperately. Scorpius said their names were taken out.

"Yeah. It's in the hit. The other three are waiting with a friend of mine. You and I are going in to get Myers." He turns to the door, gesturing behind him at the bed stiffly. "Hurry. The triber gon' trigger the security glitch soon as you turn that phone on and put Vanner's pass in. I need to leave the room, so the cameras get me on tape leaving you locked in here, then you're gon' scan out." 

"But Vanner." I grate.

"No, it's part of the glitch, it scrambles everything and jams the server with an overload of feeds."

"Operation Mayday." I sigh, instantly recognising Scorpius's mad hatter scheme. 

"The device Jewel gave you has autonomous clearance." I stop dead in my tracks. Jewel. What does he have to do with this? Is Barra working for him? Hito said Jewel had a fire-wall around my army file... he seemed to think I knew why. But I suspected my father had something to do with this whole thing... am I disappointed?

I rip my pants down, shaking the camo army gear out urgently before I wrench them on. "Who's ANON? Who listed the hit?" I pull the white tank top on, buttoning my overcoat feverishly as I inspect the embroidered breast. Second Lieutenant Vanner. 

Private Vanner got a raise since she died. How the fuck did Scorpius pull that off?

"Hurry, Violet." He says as I stomp my feet into the black combat boots, knotting and buckling them. 

I don't reply, strapping the weapons belt to my hips before I wrap the thigh bolster around my leg and click it together. The knife rests against my thigh stiffly, but there's nothing more comforting than the feeling of weapons. 

"Ok I'm decent. I'm dressed," I repeat, switching the phone on. It instantly blinks into the army portal, but just as I begin entering her details, Barra adds, "Wait. You need to put Reflex drops in."

I glance up and he tosses them, but with such little warning I barely catch the little vial. "Okay I'll do it while you go. I'm in."

"Follow me in ten seconds." Barra grunts, swinging the door wide before he marches out. 

The terror that grips me is riveting, making my limbs so livid that I struggle to move, but then I slap myself into action. I wrangle my hair into the closest semblance of neatness that I can, before I wrench the black-camo baseball cap on, my chest heaving. This is surreal.  

...  

We jog down a hallway, Barra guiding me at every turn. My adrenaline subdues everything around me until all I can hear is the thud of my pulse.

The suspense is a strange comfort. Part of me relishes the anticipation of walking into conflict like when Scor and I robbed Crippy's tent; I was a nervous mix of jitters and excitement, just waiting to thumb my nose at Crip. 

I grew up on this feeling: when you're not sure if your heart is in your throat or your stomach, or if your fingers are frozen stiff or quivering like grass in a storm. I feel normal for the first time since mum died.

"Your friends are ahead," Barra points, and I goose-neck to get a look down the hall. "I've got someone baby-sitting them, but I need to cut my man loose before he gets caught with fugitives so you gon' need to stick your face in, let them see that they're not bein' sold to whatever fuckin' Zero sex slave ring you told them was out there." Barra shakes his head like he's got half a mind to laugh as he opens a fire door and nudges me through, "then I'm gon' take you through the hospital into the solitary confinement cells." 

I can barely focus on what he's saying as the door opens, revealing Elias, "Vi!" He hisses, shocked and relieved.

"Yeah, it's me," I tug my hat back, revealing my face more clearly, but then I look to the soldier holding a handgun at Elias's head, my jaw falling agape.

"See I fuckin' told you, man. This isn't no, abduction into slave shi-." The soldier tries to tell Elias but then Barra clears his throat. His man shrugs incredulously, gesturing like Elias was such a handful that he didn't have a choice but to put a gun to his head. 

Thai stands huddled against the alley, and I cast a glance down the way at the compound walls. Teacup launches to hug me, Thai meeting my eyes with narrow suspicion, like she don' know what to make of anything.
"Bro you said Thursday." She snaps.

Barra doesn't dwell, "Satisfied?" He asks Elias, gesturing at my face, "I can't have him here in case this shit goes bad." Barra points at his soldier, "So, now that you've seen her, can you wait here for fifteen minutes without kickin' no fuckin' stink?"

E raises his hands instantly, nodding, "Yeah, man, yea-."

"Shudd'up," The soldier who was guarding them snarks. 

"Good." Barra's hostility to Elias is almost comical, "Second Lieutenant Vanner and I are gon' collect your guy, Myers, and then we's gon' bring him back here. Then you," He jams his finger at Elias's chest like he's battling the urge to kick E in the ass for being such a pain before I arrived, "and Vanner here are gon' carry your man down, that," he gestures at the alley despite it being the only path out, "alley, then you're gon' take a left and run for the supply gate."

Supply gate... that's the gate Elias swore would be the best route for escape.

The soldier looks at Elias, "Now I know you know what the supply gate is. So don' go beggin' no more fuckin' questions."

Elias nods gravely, but then his sobriety gives out, "Man you know I was the best guy on Logistics, why you gotta bust my balls-."

"You tried to fuckin' write the gate passcode down! Nearly got me and him fired!" The soldier hisses, then he looks to Barra again, exasperated. 

Thai snorts a laugh, each of us putting the pieces together when we realise they worked in the same logistics department that Elias was kicked out of last week. 

He wrote the passcode, which changes every day, on his hand.  

"My man here gon' give you a weapon each. Then he's leaving, so stay quiet and wait for us." Barra grabs my wrist, gesturing at the fire door across the alley. I kiss Teacup's head, taking Elias's hand as I pass with a quick squeeze. 

Barra jogs up the accessibility ramp, but I catch Thai's bubbling expression, understanding her silent question. Who is getting us out? "My Manic," I murmur as I pass, before I hop the handrail around the accessibility ramp and follow him inside. "I still don' know who ANON is."

We enter blinding white walls, and I assume a cold expression. We move in silence for a long time, weaving through corridors and past laboratories, "Your new partner is in cell 14B if you wan' get him out too." Barra offers, and I realise he's watching me like he's concerned. 

New Partner. I scoff, denying his offer, "Trent can die all I care." 

He grins slightly, "Noted. Myers is cell 17B. This place was too small to build a prison, so they put up some temporary holding cells inside the hospital." Cell 17B. I cement it to my memory. "You remember where they took you on your first night?"

When Reid and I were first partnered? "Yeah, it's, like two halls over." 

"Yeah, that's the same wing. You know how to get there from here?" He asks.

I answer, "Yeah. It's through the back then around the intake. What if Wilkes is interrogating him?" 

"They're pulling this bullshit termination under the nose of the guy who runs this place, so they're under as much pressure as us to pull it off. Mean's Wilkes has to respond to calls," He talks low, but upon sighting three soldiers ahead we straighten up, and he raises his voice, "and there's a major security disaster happening. Something is cramming the system with alerts of Zero tribes attacking the borders on the other side of the compound. Hope that get's you up to date, sorry you were called to duty on your night off but we're trying to keep this under wraps." He nods at one of the passing soldiers, like he recognises the man. What're they doing up at 2AM? Maybe they've been managing the 'glitch' together.

"Understood, Sergeant. Who else have you informed?" I respond, looking to Barra as we turn the hall, but after a few moments, we fall silent again. 

He charges onward, "Take a right, then next it's a left," Barra instructs discreetly, however, when we turn the hall, I catch a particular angle of his face that sparks a memory. His black lashes contrast his blue eyes... I inspect his brutish features, and the gnarled scar across his face.

My dad had a soldier nicknamed after a fish but everyone called him, "Mundi...?" I gulp. He enlisted years ago.

Sergeant Barra snaps his head straight, shocked that I managed to put the pieces together. "Fuck." He snaps, like my recognition of him has complicated our situation beyond measure. 

What? 

Reid said my father was behind his termination order... but if Barra is helping me get him out, and he's my father's man, then who is the brains behind the termination?

The Yakuza? Why would they wait until tonight?

"You work for my father?" I direct my suspicions at him, my nose flaring in dislike, but he grimaces like the damage is already done. I thought he worked for Jewel. 

He seems to fight for a decision as we march, remaining steely quiet. "Yeah. And his boss." He mutters.

My father has a boss? That goes against his every fibre. "Who is he working for?" I balk, and Barra glances at me as we turn another hall.  

"Your daddy only ever worked for three people in his life." Barra frowns at me like I should be able to figure it out. 

Unable to determine the answer to that riddle, I shake my head, "You used to play noughts and crosses with me while I waited for dad to get back from watch." I hiss which earns a glimmer of fondness. 

"That was the only thing that'd get you to calm down when Tokyo and you were kids... He was a cocky little shīt, still is, but you were terrified of me." He admits.

"So, Tokyo is alive," I breathe, liking Barra even more. I had my suspicions, but he's the first person in here to answer me straight.  

"Sergeant Major Warrendale is alive and well. Managed to hop himself a damn rank or two since I saw him though," He bounces his brows but I can't read his moment of sarcasm because when I prepare to turn left as he instructed, he grabs my arm, "Alright. Change of plans. Come here," he snaps, charging onward. "You're gon' fix something for me because I had to get proof to Myers but Wilkes just made him drink a vial of inactive R.V.I. He's not gon' go Manic but he's gon' be fucked out of his mind for a while." Inactive R.V.I is the medically accurate term for the poisonous waste that comes from the infectious radioactive pathogen that gives people M.A.D. 

When ingested the body enters a systemic withdrawal to reject it. Scorpius calls it the infection. "Oh god." I groan, remembering what I was like when I got a Manic's brain matter in my mouth. The hallucinations are hell. 

"Poor bloke. But if he survives the beating, he'll be fine—Here, here," Barra gestures at a door ahead, covered in Hazard warnings, "Give me your phone. It has clearance." Barra gestures, and in a quick move he scans it, bolstering the door open for me.

"What do you mean proof? Reid said he had to get something to you-." I ask but Barra looks at me sharply, putting me on the defence.

He searches my face, "Myers told you?"

I gulp, looking through the halfway ajar door. Thousands of glim-screens present in my eye, but each holographic image is reported as an unknown device. 

Barra pulls me through, closing the door swiftly but I halt, "This whole wing is bugged with D.2.8's; they're these," he bumps into my back.

"I know what a D.2.8 is," Scor practically gets a stiffy whenever one is listed for sale on CITE.K.

D.2.8's document a 3D rendition of everything occurring in their range, allowing them to record, access and report on any technological, physical or audio disturbance. In other words, they've already identified my face, my device, an' quite likely if I took a photo of this place, they'd send a direct security alert to the owner...

They're also worth fortunes. 

I disguise my shock, blinking rapidly to dispel the glim-screens. "Course you know what a D.2.8 is." Barra ushers me forward, scanning my keycard to open a glass wall, before he enters a tiny lab room. 

At first I don' even know what I'm looking at. Some kind of medical, wing? But finally, I glimpse glass laboratory cells and my heart drops. 

Barra leans over a computer, tapping the screen briskly before the lights flick. "I couldn't get in here without official clearance. My phone is tapped an' I can't get another one until they approve my request to get off this god forsaken compound. There's heat on me right now so no guarantees I'm gon' live to escape. Was gon' do what Jewel wants, but, then... your little manic shit out that brainchild of a security hit, and now, these D.2.8's are reporting irretrievable data in a sea of alerts." He hits a button and the black glass behind the computer hisses like a vehicle decompressing, blinking into transparency—but what the glass reveals makes me grab the office chair. 

A woman sits huddled in the corner, but she flinches awake from the disturbance. She looks up, and I instantly recognise the raised purple veins tracking from her mouth and eyes. A Zero.  

"What's wrong with her?" I hiss, dismayed by the black blood leaking from every feature of her face, and she swivels her head around blindly... I've never seen something so gruesome. 

"She can't see us, don' worry." He mutters, grasping my phone urgently and opening the camera, preparing to record, "Fuck. Jewel will have it tapped." He cusses, and I flinch. 

It's bugged.

He launches at a computer and pulling out a little black, thing, from his pocket.

"Fuck is that?"

"It's a USB... ol' tech as fuck, I know, but these lil suckers are the only thing that don' flag security. Sorry, kid, but we got to go hard copy." He plugs it into some contraption that he then fits into the computer, "Okay. Pass this onto Reid when he comes 'round. You ready?" Barra doesn't wait. "Dr Fitzgerald was assassinated in 2066. Tell him I have evidence that Jewel has had the cure since February of 2067, but they're still experimenting on them which means they're still developing Wep-Tech and given this lab is covered in D.2.8's they're getting close." My eyes widen as I scramble to catch up, "I found out that there's an operative mission to extract a Manic from the Voyteks because of his brain profile... Tell, him, that it has to do with the Doctor who installed the tech in Trick's eye. The only thing I have on the manic they want is his name. Dagger." 

I cling to his every word, working to cement it to my memory, but my head spins as I try to make sense of it all. 

"Trick?" He's the king of the Voytek's, "The cure for what?" I blanch. 

"M.A.D. Jewel and Craig have a preliminary agreement because Jewel claims that he wants to initiate the cure to cleanse the Manics and drive efforts to repopulate. But he's been lying. They have the cure. They're stalling because they're about to get some dangerous technology, which will completely fuck Duncans out of house."

Duncans... as in Michigan Duncans? 

"Your daddy been playing every side to see where the penny is pointing, so he can hopefully twist it away from the wrong outcome before the Perth Militia attacks." 

The blood drains from my face when the Zero hobbles to her feet, "What is the wrong outcome?" 

Barra swallows stiffly when she starts twitching, sniffing the air, but then she snaps her head around to stare at us... "You said she can't see us," I mutter, disturbed. Her bloody eyes fixate on mine from behind the glass, and goosebumps prickle my skin.  Black blood oozes from her eyes, but her sclera is stained a piss yellow colour.

"She can't." 

The spindly, malnourished creature throws herself at the glass, snapping her jaws. I flinch. She's screaming but, on this side, all I can hear is the dull thunk of her head.   

She uses her temple as a hammer, spit flinging. Thunk! Thud! Thwack! Blood mixes with the spit stains. It runs down her chin, but it's inhumanly dark.

He finishes what he was doing on the computer, unplugging the little black slug, before he presents it to me like he's never been so relieved to have performed a task. I take it from him gingerly, running my thumb over the silver plug at the end. "Akimitsu poisons Newcastle, or worse, the Army weaponizes the Manics and we enter a military state-." A footstep sounds out behind us and we swivel to loo-. Bang! 

I scream when blood splatters the glass, and Barra collapses against the computer with a Ghoulish exit wound blinking at me. Wilkes starts laughing and I wrench my gun free, diving to get away from him before I fire at his chest and knee. Pop! Pop! He bellows out a scream.  

Blood glugs down Barra's battered face but I use his body as a shield when Wilkes starts popping off bullets sporadically, spraying shrapnel into the glass and ceiling—except then a splitting noise sounds out behind me. I freeze, craning my neck around when the cell turns into a web of crystalline shards. The Zero grows more frenzied with every noise of the crunching wall. 

"Lookie, lookie," Wilkes gloats when he realises his frenzy has turned the tables entirely in his favour. The Zero punches her arm through the industrialized glass, shredding her bicep to ribbons of meat. 

Instantly sirens burst out screaming, red panic lights blaring. "Breach. Breach. Breach." 

Scorpius's hack was smart enough to entirely disarm millions of dollars' worth of D.2.8's, but a Structural Breach on a medical lab window? The Zero launches at me, taking the computer with her as she dives over the table, but I grab the poor bitch by her hair and fling her at Wilkes. Taken aback, he catches her a moment too late and she sinks her teeth into his forearm. Enraged, Wilkes grabs her callously and rams his gun to her temple. Bang! 

I try to get a round off but he smacks my weapon and wrestles me against another laboratory. I cry out. He rams my face into the glass, shoving me so my tits are planted on the black cell.  

There could be another Zero staring right at me.  

Wilkes smacks his hips into mine, grinding his cock into my ass. The blood from his bullet wound stains my pants. "I'm gonna fück you, then you're gonna see how your mama's liking hell." He rasps, and a terrible feeling rolls down my back when I realise how strong he is. But his words pinch me. They remind me of that reckless sense of doom that overcame me. 

"Rot in fückin' hell-." He grabs the back of my neck, but I use the moment to thwack my fist against the bullet in his thigh, and he buckles, but I pry my knife from my thigh belt before I twist in his grip. I slash his stomach, then I sink the blade into his throat.   

He makes a choked noise, gasping so wide that I can see the squiggling veins in his off-yellow eyeballs.  

I stare into the Sergeant's soul, letting him see my hate, my cruel satisfaction. With all of my might, I wrench the blade up through his meaty neck until a river of blood gushes down my arm. "Fückin' grot cünt." I snarl in a voice so inhuman and cruel it's unrecognisable.

"I-." Wilkes gurgles on a mouthful of blood before I wrench the blade free, triggering a rivulet of blood to spurt from the wound. I kick his corpse to the floor, slotting my knife back. Urgently, I retrieve the USB thing from the minefield of glass on the ground, preparing to flee, but just as I'm about to step over Wilkes, I halt.

"Asshole," I swear, bending down to steal his phone from his utility belt, flinging it at the ground, before taking his gun and a clip of ammo. I shoot his phone, but then my eyes rise to his corpse, and for good measure, I dispense a round into the base of his neck. Pop! Pop!

So wired on adrenaline I fling myself in the direction of the door, collecting my own weapon, before I barrel out into the open. 

The alarm blares down the sleeping hospital wing, but I tear down the halls, using the last of Barra's instructions to find the confinement cells. 

I look at the phone, and my heart starts thumping as panic squeals in my ear like a drill bit. I have twenty-three minutes. I skid to a stop, trying to breathe, trying to think. In a burst I rip the stupid army hat off with an aggravated noise... but then I land eyes on a plaque. 

14B.

"Fuck, fuck." 

...

[AUTHORS NOTE: alexa, play "haunted-Laura les"]

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