Chapter Text
"Agent Washington! Age-- Excuse me-- Agent Washington?"
Wash taps Caboose to make sure he knows he's stopping, and turns to whoever's calling him. The mess hall is crowded with people just coming in, so he takes a moment to spot. A squirrelly blond guy in a yellow t-shirt bumps through the crowd. "Agent Washington!" he pants one more time.
Wash recognizes him from Grif's squad. Specifically because he's commonly the only member of Grif's squad to show up to training. Matthews, he's pretty sure. He hasn't seen Matthews out of armor too many times, so he's always surprised by how tall he actually is.
"Yes, soldier?"
Matthews lights up simply at being addressed officially. He sucks in a breath and speaks at eighty words per minute, as if afraid the moment is going to end. "I heard that you're participating in a scouting mission this afternoon, and I know you don't have an official squad yet -- because you spent most of your time with the Feds recovering from surgery, of course! I'm sure that in your top condition you would have whipped them into shape in no time, sir!"
"Thanks."
"Of course, sir! Anyway, I asked General Kimball and she said you were taking volunteers so I'm here to, uh... put my hat in the ring!"
"Sure."
Matthews' entire being freezes up. Wash lets him think for a few seconds, growing warrier as each one passes. Eventually, Matthews looks shocked. "Really?"
"Yeah, we got that assignment like, twenty minutes ago. I figured I'd go first come first serve. And you got here first. I've seen you in training, you can handle this." Wash accepts the pack of peanut butter Caboose slips into his hand, but keeps his focus on Matthews. If he gives Caboose his attention, he'll never give it back. "But I thought you were Captain Grif's, uh..." How to put 'errand boy and walking ego boost' delicately. "Number one fan?"
Matthews sighs dejectedly. "Life is short, sir. We have to move on."
Caboose says, "Preach," through a mouthful of synthetic jelly so it sounds something like, "Pwee--CHOO!"
Caboose is allergic to synthetic jellies, but apparently the taste is worth sneezing for seventeen minutes per spoonful.
---
Despite having spent about a decade in a suit of armor, a minimal amount of Washington's service history was spent on the front lines of the Great War. Not that he doesn't vividly remember his training or the missions and tours he went through, because he does. There's just always something fresh and viscerally unpleasant about heading out to do one thing, and ending up in a firefight instead. Sarge will insist otherwise, but it's not something a person just gets over.
So when the Captain (a Fed) of the mission drops in the first round of shots, Wash knows he's in for A Day.
Taking over is second nature. Once they've got cover, a quick inventory puts them at four privates, a lieutenant, and whatever weaponry they had on their person to fend off the wildlife. There were six privates when they'd left.
"We're still a klick out from the target!" Matthews calls over the racket. "What do we do?"
Something hits the ground between them and on unfiltered instinct Wash kicks it away immediately. It's barely inside a tree hollow when it detonates bright blue, chars the whole tree black and every one of its leaves goes up in smoke.
He tells Matthews, "We find better cover!"
Wash leads them away from the hail of bullets as best as he can, but the underbrush is a nightmare. Almost literally. One moment Wash is certain that something is a bush, the next moment the Fed lieutenant is shoving Matthews away from the enormous turtle head attached to it. He lets the lieutenant take the lead. By the time they're sheltered on the far side of the bush-turtle's shell, Wash counts a private (a New) missing. Wash didn't hear a shout, so if they're dead, it must have been efficient. Sniper.
Matthews is at his shoulder, shaking. Wash grabs his shoulder, he jumps, and suddenly the leaf hanging where his head just was has a hole in it the size of a grapefruit. Wash shoves him down, under the leaves.
He doesn't remember what happens after that.
---
It was not a simple recon mission.
There are certain restrictions to the Reds and Blues and Carolina's ability to go out on any-old mission. Every one of them is a hot target, useful as leverage or worse, not to mention the value of their armor. Carolina's armor in particular, with a functioning speed unit, and the fact that she's normally carrying Church. Mission assignments become a chess game of calculated guesses and blind luck. Maybe the pirates don't expect a freelancer to show up; maybe they expect her with Church for a decryption, but they get Tucker or Caboose instead. Kimball does everything she can to keep their movements without pattern, but there are only so many options, sometimes.
This time involved retrieving data misplaced by the News only a few years into the war. Maybe the pirates knew it was there, maybe they didn't. Maybe they'd be waiting for any chance to snag one of the freelancers, maybe they wouldn't.
Maybe they have a mole in the joint Chorusian army. Maybe they don't.
It really was a recon mission. Everyone on the squad knew where they were going, how long they expected to be gone, and what weapons and equipment were best to bring.
They didn't all know who Wash had in his pocket.
---
The first thing Wash hears when he wakes up is, "I'm curious. What did you think you were looking for, out there?"
Then comes the ache in his shoulders. Something's biting into his wrists. As he pushes himself up to his knees, he notices his armor is gone. He's got the body suit, at least.
"Did Caboose manage to find and lose a dog already? Or whatever demented excuse this planet has for dogs. I've seen a lot of shit, Wash, and I'm still sure there's some beast out there still ready to haunt my nightmares."
He's just filling dead air,Wash realizes, so he tunes him out.
Wash is in a dimly lit room made of metal. Some kind of cell, he realizes. Three solid walls, no windows, and the fourth wall is made of bars. Felix stands inside the cell, leaning casually against the closed door. As he talks -- on, and on -- he uses a knife to pick the dirt out of the grooves in his armor. He's not wearing his helmet. Two guards stand outside the bars with BRs in hand. They don't look too tough.
The things on his wrists are thin, metal cuffs. They're not chained to anything, but the gloves on his suit are gone, and the sleeves have been rolled up, so they rub directly against his skin. Other than that, Wash isn't chained down or restricted by anything. Wash knows he's improved as a fighter since PFL, but he's not confident in his odds of fighting past Felix, armor vs bodysuit.
Wash doesn't know what they used to knock him out, but he feels dizzy, like if he stood up too fast he'd regret it. He remembers shoving Matthews down. He doesn't remember blacking out.
He cuts into whatever Felix is saying. "Where are my men?" he asks, and he hates how croaky his voice sounds.
Felix doesn't seem to mind the interruption on this particular occasion. "Dead, mostly," he says.
Wash lets his head drop. Just for a few moments. Chorus had already lost so many lives. He tries to remember the name of every private on the squad, and he's not sure he can.
"Oh, don't cry over it now, Wash," Felix chides. "Save some tears for the good parts."
Wash doesn't look up. He needs time to level out the nausea if he wants to stand a chance here. He needs to find out where he is, he needs information, he needs time. "What parts are that?"
"I don't wanna give too many spoilers, but I'm hoping for some screaming, maybe a good sob, maybe some convulsions. Heck, I don't have to clean up around here, feel free to blow chunks."
Wash knows to take everything Felix says with a handful of salt, so he's not too worried. Mostly he's disappointed. Where are they? Wash has been on a lot of ships before, so he recognizes the wavering pull of artificial gravity, and the taste of stale air; this feels like a ship. What did they do with his armor? How long has he been out?
His armor. Oh God, where's--
A large hand suddenly clamps around the back of Wash's neck and yanks. His stomach flips, and the floor seems to tilt, but he keeps his eyes open. Felix is still in front of him, which means--
"Enough preamble," Locus growls. "He wants this started, already. We have other things to do."
Felix's face sours, but he says, "Yeah, alright." Felix holsters the knife to pull out something else. Some small piece of tech. Wash thinks he's seen something similar used to move data between two incompatible drives. Sure enough, there are two different drives sticking out of either end. Wash can't see one, but the other is terribly familiar.
Felix taps the latter. "Got this out of your pockets," Felix brags when he sees Wash's eyes widen. "Already forced it onto this one." He unplugs the opposite drive. The circular face of it is only the housing for a much smaller chip.
Recognition sends a full-body shudder through Wash. He yanks out of Locus's grip only to get grabbed from behind. Locus wraps his arms under Wash's and clamps his hands around the back of Wash's head, forcing it down. Wash kicks and yanks at Locus's bracers, but the metal plates only dig into his suit. Wash is sure he's only going to bruise himself if he keeps trying.
He tries to calm down, to not waste energy, but then Felix's boots come into view. "What'sa matter, Wash? Not looking forward to the reunion?"
Wash has no answer to that. Honestly he's never even considered it. He'd had a ghost of the thought when he carried Alpha for about twenty minutes, but he'd never planned on living with that. Maybe he just never wanted to think about it, maybe he really didn't care.
Right here, though, right now, his heart is pounding. He wants to yell. He wants to fight, to escape, to get out of this. For a crazed moment, he's on the MoI again, in the implantation lab. He's mildly nervous as the zero-g kicks in.
Wherever he is now, they have gravity. He focuses on that. He can't move -- but that's okay. He doesn't need to right now. Even if he could, he has no escape options. Take a deep breath.
A man who very angrily beat the shit out of him has got his head forced down -- he doesn't need to see the room, anyway. Other than Locus melting out of the corner like the dramatic sociopath he is, Wash already knows the layout. He has ears, he can hear, he can track what's happening. Take a deep breath .
There is no reason (other than precedent) that this could end in his horrific death. He was trained for this. He's already lived the worst (second worst) possible outcome. He's survived this. Take a deep breath.
Wash can't see Felix's hand. Are him and Locus making faces at each other, because the seconds seem to be dragging on. Wash forces himself to relax ("Additional stress will only trouble the integration process, Agent.") but his hands are clenched and he feels his arms shaking. He's tired of watching for every movement in Felix's boots. He clamps his eyes shut.
A thumb pulls back the neck of Wash's suit, and then there's a click .
---
Church tries to pull back. He doesn't want to do this -- to Wash, to himself -- but he doesn't have a much choice. There's an aggressive virus on the drive they forced him onto that's already scrambled some of his stored files. Nothing important, but if it got that far, he could start falling apart.
But Wash--
He's still in the chip, backing into it desperately -- even as it burns his code and his dormant implantation subroutines kick on -- but he's been forced close enough already to catch the ghost of Wash's senses. Felix's voice breaks through like a dark echo. "Come on, you stupid clump of numbers, just move. What do you think you're gonna do in there other than die?"
Honestly? Nothing. He hasn't figured out if it's worth it yet.
<We have fifteen seconds before essential systems start to take damage,> Delta informs him, in his trademark Delta Deadpan. Which means Delta, at least, doesn't have a death wish.
<Live to tear their throats out,> Omega suggests, clearly on the same page as Delta, but way less convincing about it.
<Wash would never trust us again,> Theta cries.
<I'd rather be un-trusted than dead!> Eta practically shrieks. <Oh... oh, no, maybe not...>
It's the faintest voice, shoved in the furthest corner of his code, that Church hears the loudest.
<If we allow them to leave this drive connected to Agent Washington,> Sigma says, <the virus may continue to spread, even after we have perished.>
Even if he's just a fragment, Church is a fucking smart AI. He can make a counter-code for a virus like this, but the chip is far too small. He can't create a counter-code if he has no room to write. The human mind, on the other hand? That's virtually endless space. If Church can
(I can't -- I have to)
If Church can borrow some space in Wash's head, just for five seconds, he can write the counter-code, delete the virus, and hop back into the chip. Barely any time at all. They can forget this ever happened.
We'll be okay, Epsilon believes. We'll be okay.
He jumps into Wash's head and he turns around immediately. He's already pulling the counter-code together, ready to javlin that shit and shatter the virus into a worthless stack of 1s and 0s--
The chip gets pulled.
<That wasn't even a second!>
Church can't avoid knowing where he his, but he tries. This is temporary. It'll be over soon. Nothing more than a blip of a bad memory. Still, he feels Wash's mind -- and his body -- shudder at their contact. Church wants to pull away, but Wash isn't wearing a suit and even a corner of Wash's mind is still Wash's mind. He could jump into one of the mercs' suits (gross)--
Something else clicks into the back of Wash's neck. Church reaches for it, but it's data storage is completely full; and even if it wasn't it's far too small. Church won't fit on it. Whatever, he can still just ghost out. Church gathers himself to jump and--
he can't.
Jumping between hardware isn't really something he's ever been able to describe other than just something he can do, but now he can't. It's like a door has been shut in his face. Like he's been chained by the ankles. Like every time he tries to write the script for it, something else inter-cuts his writing to make it useless. It's coming from the new chip.
Church has been in Wash's mind for less than three seconds when Locus lets go. Church feels Wash's mind.Fearbeats with the pounding and spinning already in his skull -- <He's showing symptoms concurrent with direct exposure to a blackout grenade.> -- and his arms still tremor as they hold him off the ground. Church recognizes the rapid pumps of oxygen that are Wash's heavy breathing.
Neural implants are hardware. They're a playground of wires and circuits, just like every other computer Epsilon has ever inhabited; but they're also a walkway. They're a guide and a path through something much, much more. A computer is a room, a defined space, an encapsulable thing.
The human mind is a decorated void. It's an abstract space with defined patterns, yet unknowable limits and slimly defined patterns of function. It's a whole bunch of other words that Simmons knows for no reason other than to impress people. Church has blue-toothed into a handful of minds through armor and basic implants before, but that meeting in the middle just isn't the same as this. Direct implantation doesn't confine him to an avatar or press him into a certain space.
The human mind is a void, and Epsilon feels like he's made of gas, gas that wants to expand; to stretch out, to fill the space. But he can't. He's seen this void before -- knows his way around -- and he can't.
Church holds himself back as best he can, but (as poetically masterful as it sounds) this isn't actually empty space. Everything here is Wash; his feelings, his thoughts, his body. Church pulls himself as much as he can into only Wash's mind. He doesn't dare trying to connect to Wash's eyes, but he can’t stop the echoes from Wash’s ears.
Felix coos, "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" Then he sighs. "Honestly? Disappointing."
There's a rumble that probably came from human vocal chords followed by a silence Wash recognizes as condescending.
"What?” Felix whines. “C'mon, I let you have your fun!"
"This isn't a game," Locus growls.
Their voices fade out after that. Wash isn't listening to them. Church feels the faintest pressure of Wash's attention on him. He feels Wash breathe, try to relax, but as soon as he starts overlapping with Church, he flinches back.
I'm sorry.
Don't be.
They can't separate. They can't back away, not completely. They're not sure who just said what.
Suddenly everything shakes. Wash's face stings.
"Hel-lo!" Church hears Felix call. "You in there?"
Church wants to get up and slap back (not that he has hands) but Wash is still having trouble just balancing on his knees.
<Residual damage from the blackout grenade is still affecting him.>
<So are we.>
"Are you," Wash manages to say, "just trying to make the strongest case for Carolina to kill you slowly?"
Church really does think Wash is more of a badass than he gives himself credit for-- and he hates that Wash is probably going to find out that Church thinks that. That's really not optimal.
What's less optimal, is that when Felix chuckles, Wash lifts his head and opens his eyes and Church can see. He can see what Wash sees: Felix shaking his head with a shitty smirk on his face, and Locus, helmet on, paying more attention to his datapad than to them. Church isn't trying to do this -- he's trying not to -- but he barely has control of himself in here.
Locus says something to Felix that Wash can't make out and which Felix waves dismissively to. Locus steps out of the cell with a prolonged backward glance and then it's just Felix crouching confidently in front of them.
"I don't think you fully grasp this situation, Wash," Felix chides. "Let me spell it out for you: as far as anyone that matters is concerned, you and the lightning bug are both property from the UNSC Oversight Subcommittee."
<We are not owned.>
"Property which was deemed technically useless and awarded to the big boss Hargrove when he retired."
<Sounds fake, but okay.>
"People aren't property," Wash reminds him.
"Living people, no," Felix agrees. "But a dead body? See, Agent Washington died. On Sidewinder. More than a year ago."
<An interesting loophole.>
<Irreverent to the spirit of the rule.>
"All we have here is an old scrap from an AI sparking around in a corpse; sitting silently in its spot until the living people on the ship decide to move it around."
Felix leans in close to Wash's face, and Wash is hit with a wild urge to snap at his nose. Epsilon had forgotten how often Wash got the urge to do weird shit without even a hint of the idea passing his face.
<What did we do that he hates us so much?>
<Nothing we could change now.>
"In the mean time," Felix taps Wash's cuffs, "we've got it hooked up to a taser. You know, just in case any of those death spasms get any ideas."
Church gets a pretty vivid idea about what Felix can do with is kni--
Wash's entire brain -- and therefore all of Epsilon's processing space -- goes red. Church can't feel pain in the sense that humans do, even if he gets sympathetic responses when connected to their mind. Even when directly implanted, if their host gets stabbed or shot or gutted, the most an AI can feel is overwhelmed by medical alerts.
Electricity is another monster.
With nowhere else to go, no suit to hide in, Church feels his numbers scramble. It takes every bit of his concentration to throw them all back into place again before they can get lost. By the time it's over -- <Only 3.527 seconds> -- Church doesn't remember what he'd been thinking about.
<Are we okay?>
<Repetition of such stimuli would not be optimal.>
<Guy's we're fine, shut up.>
Wash, what's Wash doing?
Breathing, heart beating, 78% coherent -- good enough. Epsilon reorients back to Wash's senses and Felix is laughing. Wash's breathing doesn't sound great either, but he's getting it under control. Epsilon wants to help him -- <Washington will regain full control 36.8% faster if he increases the length of his inhales by a single beat> -- he even reaches out on horrible impulse, but he hits something. There's a hard wall between Epsilon and Wash's body. Epsilon is trapped on the surface of Wash's mind. Anything Epsilon could do is sealed away behind a barrier of ice. Epsilon can see it, but he can't reach it. Can't interfere.
Shouldn't want to.
Back outside, Felix says, "That little plug in the back of your head isn't just an accessory. You even think about getting out of here? Zap. You get all blood thirsty? Zap. You try to take it out? Zap. You look at my guys funny?" He gestures to the guards with loaded battle rifles. "I let them decide which foot to shoot."
Epsilon's attention turns to the device in Wash's ports.
<That shouldn't work.>
<Do they really have mind reading tech?>
<I know I'm literally sci-fi bullshit, but this is sci-fi bullshit.>
<It is possible, with the advances made by Freelancer and other projects, that certain neural patterns have been identified to signal-->
Suddenly, Wash's voice echoes in Church's corner of the void. Would you shut up for like, two seconds?
Church hadn't even realized Wash could hear him.
Felix is back in Wash's space again. "Capiche?"
Something dark and angry lights up in Wash's chest -- under the ice, behind the barrier, Epsilon can't get there, no part of him can--
Wash exhales. It fades.
Wash looks up at Felix. Wash spits in his face.
Felix hits a button, and Church spends the next 6.731 seconds trying not to fall apart. When Wash comes to, 1.39 seconds after that, Felix is gone.
We'll be okay, Epsilon reminds himself. We'll be okay.