Season 4 Episode 5: Jigglypuff

December 18, 2011


In the well-appointed foyer of their home, David is there waiting for Vivian as she comes through the front door. She so doesn't expect it that she nearly bumps into him. She startles when finally she does see him.


"Euripides?" David says.


"Yes!" Vivian says, eyes lighting up. "Eumenides?"


David squats, knees cracking, to bring himself to eye level with his little girl. "How was Vail?"


"It was wonderful. Uncle Vasily taught me how to ski."


Through the door now walks Vasily himself, toting Vivian's bags for her. As he passes David, he smirks at him, a gesture David responds to with a hate-filled glower. Behind Vasily is his sister, who stands at the threshold with her arms folded, watching the happy reunion of father and daughter.


"However, I am glad to be back in a warmer clime," Vivian continues. "The frigid and rarefied air of the Rockies does not agree with my Pacific constitution."


"And I am glad you are back in a warmer clime," David says. From his coat pocket he produces a cherry cordial, and hands it over to her. Her eyes light up a second time. Intently focused on the candy, she unwraps the foil covering. Her thin little fingers are slow and exacting in this, as everything.


David uses the moment of her distraction to pull her into an enormous hug. He holds her so tight that she can hardly breathe. He nuzzles the top of her head with his scruffy beard.


"Father..." She says into his chest.


He pulls back now, holding her by both shoulders and looking her over, head to toe, as if inspecting a precious heirloom for damage.


"You worry too much," Vivian says. "I am fine. That maniac did not actually run us off the road."


"I love you, Vivian," David says. His voice is somewhat desperate, and almost sorrowful, so utterly uncharacteristic of him.


Vivian is shocked. Her mouth hangs open for a moment or two. "F-Father -- I... yes. Yes. I love you, too."


She hugs him of her own volition this time, and this one lingers. Neither wants to let the other go.


But there is always something practical to attend to, that gets in the way of these moments. "Go and catch up on your studies, now," David finally bids her. "Your tutor is waiting."


"Yes father."


David stands, watching her go, as Mara fully enters the mansion and shuts the door behind her.


"You are a stupid ass--" Mara begins, but that's all she manages. David is on her. He suddenly looks like an escapee from the asylum: face flushed red, eyes bulging, sweat pearling on his brow. He hauls back and punches her in the teeth, a vicious, full-force blow that knocks her to the floor. He's never been a violent man, certainly no wifebeater, but for this, he makes an exception. Then he's straddling her, and his hands are wrapped around her, and he's trying either to strangle her or snap her neck bone, whichever happens first.


David's murderous rage only escalates the longer this goes on. Because rather than allow her face to be shadowed by mortal fear, Mara instead only grins evilly back up at him -- even as she turns a shade of blue to contrast with David's red.


And indeed the only thing that saves Mara's life is Vasily's return from Vivian's room. He pulls a pistol out and presses it to David's temple. David knows he has a gun on him now and still he doesn't stop. What does stay this act of uxorcide, though, is what Vasily says to him: "I will go into the next room and shoot Vivian, also."


Like a piece of industrial machinery with its emergency stop triggered, David relinquishes his unmerciful grip on his wife's throat. He straightens his posture, still straddling her. He glares from one to the other, physically capable of finishing the job, and yet powerless all the same.


"I will kill you both," David promises. "To involve Vivian in this -- to put her in harm's way --"


Vasily helps his sister to her feet. They stare down at him. Mara's neck is already badly bruised. "You will do no such thing," she sneers. "As long as Vivian lives, you will never be able to kill me. Because now you know what happens if you do."


David snarls. Literally, like a rabid dog.


"You have gotten too big for your britches, as the idiom goes," Vasily says. "You forget your place, David."


"I swear on my life--" David begins.


"Maybe instead of making idle threats, you should go and check on your mistress," Mara says.


David's heart palpitates in a convulsion of world-distorting terror. "You--!"


Mara laughs at him. "Oh, no need to worry, David. She is quite alive."


Vasily checks the time on his wristwatch. "As of this moment, she should currently be receiving kindly a visit from the police."


"Police?" David repeats.


"What an awful turn of events," Mara says with faux sadness in her voice. "Everyone always knew the whore you loved so much was envious of the wife you refused to leave... but to take it out on your only daughter -- to go so far as hiring a hitman to kill them? What an evil woman. She will spend the rest of her life in prison for that."


David, usually so cool, cannot hide his ragged breathing. He's having a panic attack.


"This is a cheap lesson," Vasily tells him. "You should honestly thank us. We could have done so much worse. We still might."


With twin smirks, they go, back towards Mara's room. David sits there in the foyer on his knees for a long time, shoulders slumped, head drooping, like a king who has returned from a long journey to find his kingdom burnt to ashes. That night he puts together his last will and testament.


---


Whitney anxiously checks the clock on the wall. It's 10 PM, which means that the caravan should be getting close to the halfway point. She hasn't heard anything from them, but that's by design; radio silence until the deed is done. Vivian, under the restaurant's table, squeezes her hand.


It's been a while since they ate at Baumé. Not since Cerise woke up. It was Qiangxiang's suggestion. She's treating the entire board to dinner -- the ones who are here, anyway -- as a way, she says, of smoothing over the difficulties of their first board meeting. They're assembled at a long table in the restaurant's private dining hall.


"And congratulations," Qiangxiang says to Gal, "on your wife's political aspirations. What an excellent cost-saving measure to simply install one of your company's own in the capital, rather than buying your legislators from a third party vendor."


Cerise gives her a feigned smile.


"I want to apologize for my behavior earlier," she tells the assembled guests.


"Don't mention it," Armstrong says, in a way that tells her she literally shouldn't.


"No, I insist," Qiangxiang says. "I am too stern and brash when I am stressed -- and of course, beginning a new job is stressful."


"Well, a free dinner helps," Whitney says, raising her champagne glass. "Cheers and salud and shit. As long as we all know where we all stand."


"Indeed," Vivian agrees, also toasting, and the rest of the room follows suit. All except Qiangxiang.


She stands. "In my culture, it is customary to use gifts as a way of apologizing for slights. I assume this is a fairly universal cultural practice."


"Sure," Whitney says.


"You have a competitor here in the valley, correct? The Lightflower Corporation?"


Whitney shakes her head. "Oh, man. That Muskfucker. Don't get me started."


Qiangxiang holds up a palm. "Never you worry. As my gift to you, Whitney Darkbloom, I have taken care of it."


"Yeah? How?"


Qiangxiang whistles. Into the private dining room storms a team of men: and they're carrying, hogtied, mouth duct-taped, that guy who Whitney said not to get her started on. His face is beet red and sheened with sweat, and he's wild-eyed, and though he can't speak, he's obviously pleading for help. He writhes around in his bondage, looking from face to face of the board members. He's bleeding a bit from a wound in his head already.


Whitney jumps back from the table. "What the fuck--"


Cerise's jaw is slack; Gal is cowering into her breast. Armstrong is standing too, and Nelson, sitting beside him, has a hand clasped to his mouth. Vivian is oddly passive, and makes eye contact with Qiangxiang; the only signal of what she's feeling right now is her frown of disapproval.


The men dump their hostage onto the long table, right atop their plates and glasses and silverware and food, among clatters and thuds.


"Mmmmf mfff mfff mmmmf--"


Qiangxiang pulls a knife from her purse, and crawls up onto the table, hands and knees. She rips the duct tape from the man's mouth, and the sound of it alone is cringe-inducing. She sits down on his chest, peers down at his face.


"Whitney!" The hostage pleads. "What on Earth have you done--"


"Look at me," Qiangxiang says.


"Please let me go!" He's begging Whitney. "Don't do this-- you can't--"


"Look at me or I will be forced to put this knife into your neck," Qiangxiang says, as placidly as she might tell a waiter to refill her water.


He looks at her.


"Hold this, please. Thank you." Qiangxiang puts the dagger into the man's mouth, blade pointed down. With his hands and feet bound, and with her sitting atop him, he has no choice but to bite it and hold the flat of the blade between his teeth. It's just long enough to trigger his gag reflect intermittently.


"What the fuck are you doing--" Whitney begins, beginning to hyperventilate. But Qiangxiang shushes her with an upheld palm.


"I understand that you are working on a platform to rival Sand Reckoner," she tells the man. "Is that so? Nod or shake your head, please."


The man nods his head.


"That is over as of tonight," she tells him. "There are two companies in the world who are permitted to work with Sand Reckoner. Darkbloom Analytics, and Broad Dynamics. Lightflower is through. Go back to digging holes or making bottle rockets or whatever hobbies you occupy yourself with."


The rage in his eyes is plain.


"Speaking on behalf of Darkbloom Analytics," Armstrong says hastily, "I want to make clear that our CTO is acting on her own right now. We absolutely do not endorse--"


"Are we understood?" Qiangxiang asks her hostage. "Nod or shake your head."


The hostage refuses to respond.


Qiangxiang, frowning, puts a dainty forefinger against the end of the dagger's handle, and presses down, ever so slightly. The hostage gags particularly badly, and the entire knife almost disappears down his gullet.


"Are we understood?"


The man nods. Qiangxiang takes the knife out of his mouth and holds it threateningly. It's coated in his drool.


"I spared you because you are an interesting person of the world," Qiangxiang tells him. "For that and nothing more. Please do not make me regret that decision. I am vengeful when I regret things."


"I will--" he begins.


"You will do nothing," Qiangxiang tells him. "You will go home and be thankful you still live. I could have scuttled your yacht in the middle of the ocean with you and your pop star girlfriend aboard. I could have had your entire family killed. I could have told the world that..." She leans in close, and whispers in his ear, so only he can hear. His eyes go wider, if that's possible.


"How do you know that?" He says.


"Lightflower is through. Go home and be a family man now, Mr. Musk."


She dismounts him, and the armed men whose help Whitney and the rest of the board refused earlier in the day take the battered, terrified man away.


The dining room is awash in silence, save for Whitney's shallow breaths, and Gal's whimpering. Qiangxiang takes her glass of water and sips it.


"You may thank me later," she tells them all. Then, looking at the mess of smeared food and tipped dishware and scattered utensils all along the table where the hostage got dumped, she murmurs: "Oh dear. I've ruined dinner."


---


EARLIER THAT DAY.


"You've been such a help, Rowan, really," Darkbloom says, shaking the hand of the gangly, bucktoothed, yellow-toothed man. They sit at a table at the back of the Rutabaga Cafe, eating paninis, sipping cokes, like this is all a typical working lunch. "Thank you for agreeing to step in as interim CEO."


"Oh, the pleasure is all mine," he says airily. "I think Mara will be quite pleased to have the opportunity of buying back Darkbloom Analytics IP at bargain basement prices."


"As long as we get our cut!" Armstrong roars, laughing.


"Of course, of course," Rowan says. "Everybody wins."


"What about Broad Dynamics?" Nelson asks, playing the worrywart. "They won't be happy."


"They can be unhappy!" Rowan says. "With Diogenes and Sand Reckoner under our control, they won't have a leg to stand on. They'll be out in the cold with no recourse."


"Yes. When Americans, Brits, and Russians work together, we can do great things," Darkbloom says.


"Here's to that," Rowan replies with a halitosis-y laugh. He checks the time, then: "Excuse me. I have a flight to catch."


Darkbloom exchanges uneasy glances with Nelson and Armstrong. "Flight?" He says. "But you were going on and on about how excited you were to see the American countryside by vehicle!"


Rowan shakes his head. "Shame, that. Mara is antsy to be through with this business as soon as possible. Apparently they have already made great strides on Diogenes since she resigned... the road trip will have to wait for another day."


"Of course," Darkbloom replies warmly. "What Mara wants, Mara gets..."


Rowan stands.


"You aren't flying out of SFO, are you?" Darkbloom says. "I can have my chauffeur take you if you are, but it's really such a dirty place. Even the first class lounges."


"Oh, no," Rowan says. "I would never dream of using such a horrible port of call. Worry not."


He doesn't elaborate any further -- just shakes their hands again and goes. They watch him exit through the front doors with a ding, step off the curb into his waiting black sedan with his driver, and depart.


"We are fucked," Armstrong shouts.


Darkbloom slowly taps his forehead with the flat of his fist, beyond frustrated, and scared. "If they are finishing Diogenes already..." he mutters. "Then... Renee..."


"This was our only shot," Nelson says, voicing what Darkbloom can't. "We can try to have them intercept him in Vail, but he could be flying out of any airport... and landing at any airport... and he'll definitely get there by air quicker than they could get there by car..."


"We are so monumentally, utterly fucked," Armstrong says. "Fuck!"


"Shut up, Steven," Darkbloom says, pulling out his walkie talkie. "I'm thinking."


"Oh! Thinking!" Armstrong says. "What are you gonna do, David? Gonna radio Alabaster Soliloquy? Gonna see if he can pull his wife's dick out of his ass long enough for a new plan to fall out?"


"I'm not calling Alabaster," Darkbloom says. He looks conflicted, though, and pauses for a moment before continuing: "I need to confer with someone who actually has some damned brains."


"Who's that?" Nelson asks, just as pissy as Armstrong. "No one here has brains. We're surrounded by morons and incompetents."


"Amber," David says. "I'm calling Amber Catachresis."


---


When you get down to the car, Will is still honking his horn like an idiot.


"I heard you the first trillion times!" You howl. "Christ!"


Will, hands on the steering wheel, sticks the upper half of his body out of his rolled-down window and calls to you. "Yo! You've got a call!"


He nudges Spancer in the passenger-side seat. You approach the car as Spancer rolls the window down on his side, and hands you the walkie.


"What happened to opsec?" You grouse. "I thought we weren't gonna--"


"It is an urgent matter," Spancer tells you. "It requires your attention at once."


---


"I understand."


"And we have no time to--"


"Yes."


"No time to waste. We must find a way to keep eyes on him--"


"Yes. Yes."


"This will be our only opportunity to--"


"I -- fuck. Shut up already. I get it. Loud and clear."


You're on the walkie with David Darkbloom, a man physically incapable of shutting the fuck up. You roll your eyes at Will, and make a jacking-off motion in the air. He chuckles.


But you finally have the chance to get a word in edgewise. "Is Daddy still following this Rowan asshole?" You ask.


"...Whom?" Darkbloom responds, lost.


"I said is Ally still following Rowan."


"Alab-- yes. They're tailing him. As far as they know, the plan hasn't changed."


"Well Jesus, that's just peachy. He's following that prick right now? And doesn't even know the plan has changed? How about someone from the brain trust call him up, huh? Tell Daddy that he's on his way to the airport and not to Vail."


"...Tell whom?"


"Ally! God! Are you listening to me? And tell him to let me know what airport Rowan stops at. That's all I need."


"What is your plan of action?" Darkbloom asks.


>[x] Find a way to ground Rowan's plane at the last second and force him to drive.

[ ] Stow away on Rowan's flight.

[ ] Abduct Rowan and force him to bring you to Mara.

[ ] Write in?


You are Alabaster Soliloquy, sophisticated senpai and top of your class in the Navy SEALs.


"Where is this guy going?" Kay says, following several cars behind Rowan's on the highway. "He's headed in the complete opposite direction. This is bad."


Noelle, in the passenger seat, chews a mozzarella stick. Long strands of warm cheese dangle from her lips. "Could be lost. He looks like one of those boomers who doesn't know how to use GPS."


Kay glances at her. "How do you eat like that? Honestly. All those fried, over-processed foods... that stuff is bad for your health, you know."


"As bad as smoking is?" Noelle asks. "You smell like a chimney stack, Kay."


"Better than smelling like Alabaster's old jizz," she mutters.


"Yeah. You've got that going for you, too."


Next to you, in the back, Rose suspiciously eyes Lady who's curled up on the floor at her feet.


Noelle tries to crank the A/C, but Kay swats her hand away.


"What the hell!" Noelle says.


"I'm sorry you're going through menopause already, but the rest of us aren't having any hot flashes. Hands to yourself, all right?"


"Alabaster. Come in."


You startle at the sudden voice through the walkie talkie sitting beside you. Darkbloom.


Rose gives you a severe look. She likes this as little as you do, working with Darkbloom. You shrug at her, then pick the walkie up and press the button to speak. "I'm here. What is it?"


"Listen closely. The plan has changed."


"What?" You bark. "You motherfucker -- what the fuck did you--"


"I said to listen. Not to talk. Save your petulant whining for later."


---


You follow Rowan long enough to see him leave through an off-ramp whose reflective green sign directs drivers towards a regional airfield. Kay continues down the freeway, and hops off at the next exit, then doubles back, headed south -- on the route to Vail. "We can make good time to the second stop while they delay the plane," she says, glancing over her shoulder.


You radio back to Darkbloom with the details.


"Thank you, Alabaster. Continue on to changeover two."


"You don't need to micromanage us," you say. "We're already on our way."


"Good."


"How is Amber going to make sure the plane doesn't fly?" You demand.


"If I knew how that girl's mind worked, I would still have my own body right now. I trust her to get the job done." There's a long pause, and then Darkbloom adds: "Alabaster. When this is all said and done, I hope that--"


"Don't you fucking talk to me about what you hope," you say. You turn the walkie talkie off.


"Alabaster," Rose chides.


She's right. You turn the walkie talkie back on again. Darkbloom dropped whatever he was going to say to you anyway.


---


"Hey toots."


"h-hi."


"I know we said not to call and all that but I super need a favor."


Wearing a hoodie, standing at a payphone, you glance back to the waiting car. Will is eating handful after handful of mixed nuts. What the fuck.


"where are you calling me from anyway"


You turn back towards the phone, hand gripping the grimy aluminum edge on one side. "Payphone. Crazy, huh? That these things still exist in the year of our Lord two thousand and nineteen."


"mm"


"My memory of back then is, let's say, hazy at best. But I thought... now correct me if I'm wrong, Gal. Did you own an ISIS site?"


"yes... i took some over... replaced their homepages with hardcore gay pornography... it's how you first found me"


"That is hilarious. Do you still own them?"


"no but it's not hard to get in. bad opsec."


"Yeah. Those Muzzie terrorists are dumb, huh."


"uh"


"That was very racially insensitive of me. Listen. I need you to publish a list. If you get what I'm saying. Put a bunch of airports and seaports on your list, and make sure you include this one in particular."


"no"


"What?"


"no that is a terrible idea"


"Now I know my memory isn't the best but I sure as shit don't remember you back-talking me. Cut that out."


"no it's a terrible idea no im sorry no"


"We're gonna lose Rowan, Gal. If you ever want to see that Renee broad again, we need to act now."


"i gathered. give me the airport."


You tell her. "What are you gonna do?" You ask.


"I will make sure his plane has technical difficulties," she says, voice as clear as crystal.


You hang up, and return to the Golf where Will is still munching. You try to open the back door, but it's locked, and Will is too busy eating to notice. You tap on his window, gesticulating at him. He rolls it down, mouth full, staring stupidly at you.


"I'm sorry, am I interrupting snacktime?" You say.


He swallows. "It's my new diet."


"This ought to be good."


"Have you ever heard of GOMAD?" He asks.


You gawp at him. "What -- like going crazy?"


"Huh?"


"Like going mad?"


"GOMAD."


"Yeah, like going crazy?"


"You're not making any sense. It's called GOMAD."


"You're gonna drive ME mad if you don't--" you stop, massage your face. "Nevermind. Just tell me, then."


"It's a diet. It means 'gallon of milk a day.'"


"A gallon of milk?" You breathe. "Every day? You'd be shitting like a pissing racehorse. You especially."


"Well yeah. I can't do it because of my lacto intolerance."


"Lactose."


"Right, my lacto intolerance means I can't do it. So I invented something new. The GONAD diet."


"Sweet Jesus Christ in heaven, give me strength."


"You wanna know what's it stand for?" He doesn't wait before revealing it: "Gallon of nuts a day."


"Nuts are a solid, Will. You don't measure them by the gal-- oh my fucking GOD." You cut yourself short as Will produces from between his lap a gallon jug of what was formerly Arnold Palmer lemonade, but which is now filled with mixed nuts: peanuts, almonds, pistachios and cashews. Will unscrews the cap, upends the jug, and drinks them like water.


"Itff freally hardfff," he says through a mouthful of nuts, grimacing, and spewing crumbs everywhere. "Fffefe nutff maffe me firffty."


"You honestly amaze me. Not being sarcastic."


"Fankf"


"Unlock the fucking door, Will, before you choke to death. We need to get going."


---


Sitting on the hood of the car, you watch through binoculars. Spancer watches from beside you, standing guard or some shit, eyes as always shielded by sunglasses. Supposedly this guy was black ops in the military at some point, but you have your doubts. Your running theory is he's a secret government cyborg.


You have a clear view of Rowan's sedan parked at the edge of the tarmac near the private plane that sits ready and waiting. Rowan, figure tiny at this remove even when magnified 50x, is pacing back and forth, rubbing the back of his head, having an animated phone conversation with someone.


He turns and barks something at a pilot, who shrugs and says something back. They get into a quick back-and-forth. Bored, you fill in their conversation:


"No sir, sorry sir, but this bitch ain't gonna fly today."


"Oi! Ya yank bastard, you listen 'ere! The governess ain't gonna be 'avin no delays!"


"I'm sorry your highness, forgive my lowly American impudence, but we cannot fly."


"Cor blimey yer a bloody rotten bastard! I oughta 'ave yer 'ead!"


"What are you talking about?" Will asks.


You lower your binoculars. "I think my favorite lesbian hacker did her job."


"Who's your second favorite lesbian hacker?" Will asks.


"Is that--" you're not sure whether he's ribbing you or being sincere. You decide to drop it. You look back through the binoculars in time to see Rowan finishing his phone call, hanging up dejectedly, and stepping back into his sedan. The driver pulls the car through a 180 and exits the airfield. Looks like it's time for some over-the-road trucking.


---


Noelle may not have gotten her hands on the A/C but she has managed to seize control of the aux cable.


"Real human being~" she croons along with the music, "And a real hero~"


"I hate this fucking song," Kay grumbles.


"What?" Noelle says. "It's aesthetic."


"It's shit."


"I can put the Cowboy Bebop OST on again, if you'd rather. Bad Dog No Biscuits?"


Lady perks his head up.


"Not you," Noelle tells him. He settles back in again and sighs.


"Do you listen to anything other than anime and vaporwave?" Kay asks.


"This isn't vaporwave!" Noelle says. "Wow. And Cowboy Bebop isn't just any anime soundtrack, either. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, do you."


Noelle and Kay keep bickering, but it's the kind of gentle bickering that develops between fast friends.


"I can't believe you actually hired a fascist to be our bodyguard," Rose whispers to you.


"What? Noelle?"


"Yes."


"Rose... you can't just call everyone you don't like a fascist."


"She's literally a fascist--"


"Okay. I'm checking out of this conversation."


"She's--"


"No. I'm out. Goodbye."


Noelle glancing up in the rearview, smiles at you. "Your wife is such a dildo."


"Excuse me?" Rose sputters.


"You heard us talking, huh?" You ask Noelle.


"Of course. You two wouldn't be able to hide a conversation from Helen Keller."


"I guess you're used to spying on people," Rose sneers.


"Oh, and you aren't?" Kay chimes in. She grins at Noelle. "Did I ever tell you about the tracking app Rose bugged Alabaster with? Psychotic bitch."


Noelle laughs. "Oh shit. No. Tell me more."


"Pinned and pegged, 24/7," Kay laughs. "Stalked him right into my apartment one day..."


You gaze in frustration up at the ceiling. You definitely prefer their bickering over their teaming up.


When you make it to the stopover point to refuel and recharge the Volt, Noelle volunteers to go get some food at the McDonald's attached to the gas station. You and Rose both, at the same time, ask for a Filet O Fish. Abashed, you each glance away from the other.


"Yuch. Gonna be some makeout session," Noelle says. "Anything else, fishbreaths?"


"Medium fries," you both say. ...Goddamn it.


Noelle laughs. Then: "How about it, papergirl?"


"Nothing for me, pig, thanks," Kay tells her.


"Your funeral."


Kay furrows her brow. Then: "Hey, but since you're going -- take Lady for a walk too."


"No fucking w--" she begins, but seizing the opportunity to get even just a little for all the ribbing, you open the door. Lady -- having heard his name in conjunction with "walk" -- bounds out towards Noelle. She grimaces, stepping back and shielding herself, but can't fend the beast off. He nearly tackles her before she manages to get his leash in hand and lead him away.


Maybe it's Noelle who gets the last laugh, though -- on Kay. She tethers Lady to a pole outside the McDonald's rather than walking him. And Lady, shivering, looking anxious, squats -- then drops some watery turds right there on the sidewalk in full view of the disgusted patrons passing by.


Kay gets out and starts to fuel the car. Alone-ish with Rose for the moment, you nudge her.


"It's going to be okay," you tell her. But your tone has a lilt to it -- as if you're asking rather than telling.


"Yes," she says.


"Yes..." you agree.


You kiss her.


It would be a sweet moment, if not for the sudden growl Rose's tummy makes.


"Uh," she says.


"Nevermind."


[ ] Stay out here with Rose and Kay.

>[x] Go inside with Noelle.


>[X] Go inside with Noelle.


"I'll check on our food," you tell Rose.


As you pass by Lady tethered to the pole, he looks pitifully up at you, and whines. You pet him between his ears. "Yeah, I know. I'll save you some fries for your trouble."


The inside of the McDonald's is dingier, you suspect, than the national average. The smell of stale grease hangs heavy in the air, and grime coats the tile floor. Disinterested teens are manning the counters and the grilltops. Noelle waits beside the drink fountain, chewing ice.


"If you knew how dirty the insides of those things really are, you would never use an ice machine again," you tell her.


"Shouldn't you be out there with your loving wife?" Noelle says. She tosses an ice chip at you. Her aim is impeccable: it slides down the front of your shirt and makes you jolt with the sudden contact of cold against your flesh.


"She's hungry. Wants to know where her food is."


"And so you're her errand boy," Noelle laughs.


"No. I'm hungry, too."


"Okay. And do you think you're going to make the food come faster by being here?" Pointing at you, and calling to a kid whose nametag is visible, she says: "Hey, Cody! Yeah you. This guy's hungry. Can you tell everyone back there to hurry it up so that this guy and his dominatrix can eat sooner?"


The boy is more confused than anything. "Uh sorry. It's gonna be a while."


"Aw man. He's gonna get whipped for sure, then."


He just awkwardly kind of shrugs at her.


"Let's get one thing clear," you say. "I don't know what Kay told you, but Rose is NOT my 'dominatrix'. If anything, I'm HER dominatr-- uh, HER dom."


"Hey, it's fine," Noelle says. "I don't judge. Really I don't. I hear she likes to cut loose on the other girls in your harem, too."


You narrow your eyes. You aren't sure what she's playing at by broaching the topic, but honesty is the best policy. "Sure. Yeah. She can be pretty rough."


"Now THAT I wouldn't mind seeing," Noelle says.


"Are you 100% certain you aren't a lesbian?" You say.


Noelle folds her arms. "I like getting cummed in too much to be a lesbian," she says. "I'm not into girls... I'm just into girls who are into girls. Especially cute ones."


"You think Rose is cute?"


"For a lardass SJW, yeah."


The gears in your head rotate backwards a bit: "Hold on. What was that you said about getting cummed in?"


"It's super tanoshii," she says flatly, unfolding her arms, putting her hands on her hips. "Getting dicked down in general, really. I'm a fan."


"This is kinda lewd. Even for you."


"You made me lewd," she says. "Are you gonna take responsibility?"


"Noelle?" One of the wage slaves behind the counter says, order in hand. She winks at you, turns, and takes the grease-sodden paper bag of food.


She starts for the door, but you grab her arm, staying her. "I'll take responsibility," you tell her.


She glances towards the bathrooms. "Food's gonna get cold, though," she warns you.


"I'm not going to fuck you in a bathroom. Dirty bitch. We've got places to be, anyway."


"Then where?" She asks.


---


When you get back to the car, you load Lady into the front seat alongside his master, and take Noelle with you into the backseat. Kay wordlessly pets Lady and watches with interest through the rearview. She puts the car into gear and pulls out of the parking lot, back onto the road.


"What the hell is she doing back here?" Rose wants to know.


"I'm gonna fuck her," you say.


"What." Rose's voice is flat.


"She wants to get cummed inside. So I'm gonna cum inside her."


Noelle is already taking off her pants and panties, right there in the back of what was formerly Rose's car. Her bare ass rests against the faux leather.


"You're joking," Rose says. "Even for you, this is..."


But you're not joking. Your pants are coming off, too. You rest on your knees in front of Noelle's seat.


"Get me hard," you command Rose.


"Go fuck yourself," Rose says.


You grab a fistful of her hair and force her face towards your crotch. "That wasn't a request," you tell her. "Get me hard."


Noelle, hand to her lips, giggles at Rose's predicament. She spreads her legs wide for you as she watches you manhandle your wife. Idly, she plays with her pretty, dark pink pussy.


Rose has no option but to service you. She opens her mouth and swallows your member. Rose, for as haughty and bitchy as she can be, is an excellent cocksucker. Her warm, wet mouth gets your dick nice and hard almost immediately. The sight of Noelle masturbating to Rose's degradation helps, too. And Kay, driving, watching on approvingly as well, is another a turn-on. This is becoming sort of a tradition, it seems, raping Rose for Kay's amusement during road trips.


Even though you're fully hard already, you take a few moments to enjoy the pleasure of the inside of Rose's throat tickling your cock. She hardly has a gag reflex anymore. As you pump in and out of her mouth, using her hair for a handle, you throw your head back and sigh in contentment. On her own initiative, she reaches between your legs and strokes your balls for you, too. She knows it's something you love... she's going to bring you off at this rate. And that's probably her plan, to get you to cum down her throat, rather than inside Noelle. Greedy fucking cunt.


Anxiousness makes you horny, and you know you'll be able to go more than once today, especially on such a long trip. Rose can have the cum she wants so much. For a moment, anyway.


"I'm gonna cum in your mouth," you tell Rose through the sloppy wet noises of your irrumatio.


"Aww," Noelle says, still tickling her clit. "What a gyp. I thought you were going to fuck me."


"I am," you promise her. "There's enough to go around." Then, to your wife: "Don't you dare fucking swallow my cum. I know you want to. But don't. I'll beat the shit out of you if you swallow it."


You live for the anger you see in Rose's eyes as you hump her fuckhole of a throat. That look alone, the simmer in her light brown irises, is enough all on its own to make you empty your nuts. You pull most of the way out, so only the bulbous head of your prick is trapped between her lips. Fisting your cock to help your nut along, you pump a thick load against her tongue and the ridges at the top of her palate. She stays obediently in place, lips wrapped around your pulsing prickhead, and accepts your seed. She doesn't swallow.


When at last you're done cumming, you pull back, and command her to open her mouth for you. She follows the order, despite the anger still shadowing her face. Your milky white semen jiggles in the bowl made by her tongue.


"Put it in Noelle for her," you tell Rose.


"W-what?" Noelle stammers.


Rose is already on hands and knees, and her head is moving towards Noelle's naked lap.


"Hold on," Noelle says, trying to close her legs. But it's Rose who forces them open. She's not going to let Noelle's resistance stop her from following orders; she doesn't want you to beat her, and she knows you will if she fails.


From point blank, Rose peers at Noelle's messy cunt. "Ugh," she says through her mouthful of your jizz. "There's already cum in here."


"Yeah. I blew a load in her earlier today."


"Gross... so gross..." Rose groans.


But then despite her disgust, she's pressing her lips to Noelle's pussy hole. Noelle hisses, and her eyes go wide. "What the fuck-- this wasn't the deal!" She complains. Then -- she shivers. You can guess what's happening: Rose is using her tongue to push your cum directly into Noelle's cunt.


"I..." Noelle sighs. "Fuck.... I TOLD you... I'm not a lesbian--"


"Don't think of it as being with a girl," you tell her. "Think of it as getting cummed inside. Just in a different way."


Noelle can't hide the obvious pleasure she's feeling from Rose's experienced mouth. She flexes and unflexes her thighs and strokes Rose's hair despite herself. "Oh my God... it's really warm..." Noelle sighs. She's giving in even quicker than you expected. Throwing her head back, closing her eyes, she basks in the sensation of it. "Warm... and wet... and sticky..."


When you glance towards the front again, you see that Kay has one hand down the waistband of her pants -- playing with herself even as she drives.


"Oh--" Noelle says, voice catching. "Ohh-- shit, I'm gonna cum like this--"


You nod at her, and that's all the permission she really needs to cum on your wife's face. She lovingly pets Rose as she squirts on her. "Yeahhh," she hisses at Rose, "yeah, put it all in me... get it deep..."


She rubs her cunt against Rose's face and smears some of your jizz all over her. When she's finally done orgasming, Rose pulls away, grimacing, disgusted.


"You're all a bunch of fucking PIGS," she grunts.


"Yeah..." Noelle says dreamily.


"Want some more?" You ask her.


"Uh huh."


"Straight from the source, this time?"


"Oh, yes."


You scooch forward and mount her. As you sink your cock into the already cum-coated interior of her pussy, you grin in delight. You really can't get enough of raw-fucking pretty pussies like hers. But when you begin to thrust, she stops you.


"Hold on..." she says.


"What?"


"Can you lie on top of me?"


You climb up into the backseat with her, and get her turned around so she's on her back with her head propped up against the door. You sink down on top of her and press her with all your weight. She likes it -- she gazes back up at you with that same dreamy expression.


When you begin to pump in and out, she stops you a second time.


"No, wait... let's take our time... let's enjoy it."


"You don't want me to fuck you?"


"Just stay inside me for now... kiss me..."


You settle down with your cock balls-deep up the tight crevice of her pussy, and make out with her sweetly. Her mouth tastes like honey. This must be something like a fetish for her, the sensation of a man's weight bearing down on her, the sensation of having her little vagina stuffed totally full with a cock that stays mated to her as deeply as possible, pulsating and throbbing. It's still a novelty for you, who's usually too impatient to do anything other than slam-fuck a bitch as hard and fast as you possibly can. This more languid style of sex has its own perverted fun to it, too, though.


You break the kiss just long enough to glance back towards Rose. She's wiping your cum from her face and licking it off her fingers despite her protests of how gross it all is. "Lick my asshole," you tell her.


She purrs in contempt, but doesn't bother trying to dispute you. As you turn back to Noelle and resume the kiss, you moan into her mouth at the sudden invasion of Rose's tiny pink tongue into the pucker of your asshole. It really doesn't matter whether she's using it on a dick, a cunt, or an anus; Rose's mouth was purpose-made for sexually servicing people.


For what feels like hours, you lie in the backseat of the car on top of Noelle, enjoying the silky feeling of her wet pussy clenching you tightly, while Rose rims you out. Just this, without even thrusting, is enough to make you lose a couple loads deep inside Noelle. You don't warn her when you cum, you just keep kissing her, and let your cock go off. Her staccato moaning into your mouth is all the signal you need that she doesn't mind being treated this way. Rose, ever the diligent slave, is again tickling your balls; helping you breed this "fascist" again and again. This lazy style of fucking, if it can even be called fucking, is how you all occupy yourselves for the hundreds of miles between the gas station and your next stop. Rose's tongue inside your asshole and your cock spurting inside a cute girl's warm wet orifice... is there any sweeter feeling?


Noelle was right, though. By the time you reach your next stop, the food is cold.


---


The only illumination on the lonely desert road comes from the hi-beams of Will's Golf. Save for the few dozen yards or so of asphalt these lights reveal, the rest of the landscape is nothing but a shadowy inkblot whirring by.


Will himself snores softly in the back. Beside him, awake and alert as a hawk, sits Darkbloom -- who met up with you back in Barstow as promised. He's gazing at the Milky Way, lost in contemplation.


You sit up front beside Spancer.


"Why do you fuck?" Spancer asks you.


"...Huh?"


"Why do you fuck?"


You goggle at him. "Why do I... what? What the fuck kind of question is that?" You prop your cheek on one fist and gaze out the window at the nothing to your south. "God do you creep me out. Big time."


Darkbloom tears his eyes away from the sky. "Have I missed something?" He asks.


Spancer drops the line of questioning.


But, hell, maybe it's a good question after all. Why do you fuck? Well, you suppose, the obvious answer: because it feels good. And why do you go on a dangerous mission across state lines, to rescue people you hardly know, from an evil Russian bitch who wants to rule the world or some shit?


Well, you suppose, the obvious answer... it feels good.


Up ahead, dimly, you see the outline of Rowan's sedan. It pulls off the road towards a rest stop; Spancer, humanly incapable of fatigue, continues on.


At a gas station much further along the route, you steal someone's license plates and swap them with the already fake ones you had put on Will's in advance of this trip. If Rowan or his driver see a car with California plates behind them the whole way, it might flag his suspicions. Darkbloom makes some disapproving comments at this act of petty theft and fraud, but you give him the finger. Then, all together, you get back on the highway.


Darkbloom radios to the other group Rowan's whereabouts. Daddy and his fuckmobile will bring up the rear, and resume following Rowan whenever his car sets out on the next leg of the journey. But yours will be the one behind him when at last you cross the finish line.


Vail awaits.


---


"Alabaster. Come in."


"Boy, everyone wants you to come in today, huh?" Kay says.


You frown at her. Picking up the walkie talkie, you respond to Darkbloom: "I'm here."


"And so are we," Darkbloom replies. "Rowan has arrived. We have the coordinates of Mara's compound." He tells them to you, and Noelle diligently writes them down.


"What do you see?" You ask him.


"From the outside it appears to be a server farm. It's gated off, though, and well-manned. Rowan turned down a private access road, so we couldn't follow him without alerting him... but Amber scouted it out on foot. She says the compound is quite impenetrable."


You hear Amber in the background. "That's not what I said. I said it's closed off tighter than Mara's cunt."


"She doesn't think we can sneak in," Darkbloom says.


"Tell him that. Tell him that thing I said," Amber pipes up in the background.


"Will you be quiet?" You hear Darkbloom hiss at her.


"Tell him, though--"


"We need to make a decision," Darkbloom says. "We can try to brute force our way in or prod for an opening."


"What kind of opening are we prodding for?" You say. "If it's as impregnable as you say--"


"Impenetrable. I said impenetrable--"


"That's not what I said," comes Amber's voice.


"If it's so impregnable, then what are we going to do?" You demand.


"There are some cabins just up the highway from here. There's nothing else for miles around, so I think perhaps they belong to the people in Mara's employ. We could rendezvous there and try to find a weak link."


"Pros and cons?" Noelle asks.


"Hello Agent Keki," Darkbloom says wryly. "Pros and cons... well, if successful, we can potentially reach Mara's inner sanctum before she knows it. If unsuccessful... we can potentially end up on the outside of a locked-down facility that's as impenetrable as a medieval fortress... with armed men coming after us all."


"Okay, and the other option?" Noelle continues.


"Violence. We get in touch with the security firm I recommended -- mercenaries, you know. Wait an hour or two for their helicopters to show up... from there it becomes all-out assault. Follow behind them and hope no one we love gets caught in the crossfire..."


[ ] Guns a-blazin'. Kill All Russians.

>[x] Stealth. Find a way in all sneaky like.


Finally, the two groups are one; your Volt and that weirdo Will's Golf are parked together atop a hill overlooking a small cluster of cabins in the woods. The autumnal foliage gives it all a quaint sort of picturesque quality -- it would be perfect scenery for a cheap oil painting in a doctor's office.


"Daddy~" Amber says, hugging you.


You try push her away, but weakly, and she clings on with a hungry tenacity. "I told you to cut it out with that shit," you say.


"Yeah, sorry, but I'm just super jazzed that we all made it here in one piece."


Rose laughs. She nudges you. "This is rich. You're the big bad Camelia's daddy now?" She casts a glance in Amber's direction. Still laughing, she adds: "I guess that makes me your Mommy now, too? Haha."


"Yeah, I guess so," Amber replies, still hugging you, one side of her face pressed to your chest.


Rose blinks rapidly, confused and taken aback by Amber's unquestioning acceptance of that jokey premise.


"I don't get it," Will says, "he's like barely a few years older than you. How can you see him as, like--"


"Shut it," Amber barks. She's still hugging you.


Spancer points. "Target sighted."


Darkbloom, thankful it seems to have an excuse to stop listening in on this lurid conversation, raises binoculars to his eyes. He huffs. "Of course," he mutters.


"What is it?" Kay asks.


"Lev Kerimov," Darkbloom says. "He's a programmer who used to work for me before I fired him. He's of some relation to Mara... second cousin, I think."


Kay, gazing upward and thinking for a moment, finally replies: "No... second cousin, twice removed, to be precise."


Darkbloom looks askance at her. "Really? You can recall her family tree that precisely?"


"Sure. I've only been elbow deep in your dirty business for the better part of two years, David. I've got a pretty good mental map of it all."


He seems sincerely impressed. He turns and resumes his lookout. "Lev is surely working closely with Mara on this project. He's competent in technical matters, but an utter buffoon besides... he could be our pathway in."


"All right," you say. "What do we do next?"


"Let's go knock on his door."


---


Darkbloom literally knocks on his door. You, Rose, Noelle, and Amber huddle just out of view; Kay, Spancer and Will are back by the cars, waiting, should anything go wrong.


From inside the cabin you can discern the shuffling of heavy feet, then the unlatching of deadbolts and sturdy locks.


"Dalton?" Lev says when at last the door is open. "I did not know that Mara had sent for you so soon."


"She didn't tell you?" Darkbloom says, feigning surprise. "Well, that's disappointing. You should have already been apprised -- there is a lot to discuss. We've hit a snag with the activation of Sand Reckoner. Your assistance is required to fix it."


"Of course." He steps back and lets Darkbloom inside.


The door shuts. You can hear only faintly then their voices, nothing intelligible -- but whatever smooth diversions Darkbloom works on the man, it's enough to get him to forget to relatch all the locks.


You, Rose, and Amber sneak in. Noelle remains outside, to scope for threats.


You scurry through the foyer with your girls, past the doorway facing the living room, where Lev and Darkbloom sit on recliners before a cozy fireplace. He doesn't notice you passing by, but you sure do notice him. Lev is unbelievably obese, and clad in only a tanktop and sweatpants, and his hairy chest and arms look more like they belong to an ape than a man.


It stinks like wet feet in this cabin, and the kitchen you find yourself in is piled high with old cartons of takeout and moldy dinner plates. Flies buzz all around. Amber and her new Mommy both plug their noses in disgust.


Darkbloom is prattling on, keeping Lev rooted in place with technobabble. You hear them through the thin walls.


"What level of access do you have to Darkbloom Analytics internal systems?"


"None at all!" Lev says. "You should know that, Dalton. This is why we are booting Whitney Darkbloom from the board, to then sell back the things we need to Mara."


"I'm just so concerned," Darkbloom presses. "This awful woman Whitney hired to be CIO... she has the entire Sand Reckoner platform on lock. Encrypted and fragmented... I fear that even once we get our hands on it again, it will be useless for our purposes."


"Anna Soliloquy!" Lev laughs. You wince to even hear her name in that piggish asshole's mouth. "Is it true that she is the Galatea who set this entire crazy last couple years into motion?"


"Yes she is."


"Haha! I saw her on television, you know. This is no problem. She would be easy enough to break. I would happily take a rubber hose to her myself, for the encryption keys... and maybe a hose of a different kind... if you know what I am saying."


You're headed for the doorway to the living room before you realize it. It's Rose who, grabbing your shoulder, stays you. She silently shakes her head at you.


Amber points at a staircase leading from the dining room up to the second floor. You and Rose follow her, treading lightly.


Lev's room is small but densely packed -- with soiled laundry scattered all around, nerd paraphernalia like Star Trek figurines and unopened Funko Pops littering the desktops and dresser drawer-tops; and a giant waterbed taking up most of the floorspace.


Rose roots through the drawers of his nightstand. Finding nothing useful, she moves on to the dresser, while Amber scouts out his closet. You're not sure what you're all looking for, honestly; but if you find something worthwhile, you'll all know it.


While they scour the room, you notice, sitting in the corner, a camcorder mounted on a tripod. Curious, you go over to it and turn it on, and begin to scan through its memory.


"There we go," Rose says, pulling a lanyard from a pegboard on the wall. "This looks like a security badge. They must have doors you can scan into."


But you're hardly paying attention. Instead you're watching the video on the camcorder's tiny screen. Sick revulsion courses through you, a dark and murderous rage you've only rarely felt, as you witness what the video shows you. Why does he... why does he look so happy...?


"Alabaster...?" Rose says. "Alabaster? What's wrong?"


You're thudding down the stairs like an elephant, gun in hand, while Rose and Amber impotently follow in an attempt to stop you. Then you're through the kitchen, straight into the living room, and Lev and Darkbloom alike are staring up in surprise at you.


You point your gun at Lev. He holds both his hands up, petrified. "Wh-- M-Mr. Soliloquy--?"


"Alabaster!" Rose shouts, stomping her foot, almost crying in frustration. "Goddamn it! Goddamn it, Alabaster! What are you doing!"


"Where are they?" You demand.


"I do not know--" Lev begins to lie.


"Where are Alex and Renee!" You roar. You point at him, repeatedly, wildly, with your gun. "Where are they! Tell me right now, motherfucker!"


Darkbloom is rubbing his forehead with the heel of his palm, utterly at a loss for words, but clearly angered.


"Th-they are working at the moment... debugging the final pieces of Diogenes. Please -- please do not shoot --"


You shoot him. Right in one of his fat, crusty feet. Blood and bone fragments spray everywhere. He bowls over, falling to the floor with a thud, clutching his wound, howling in agony. The pistol's report rings in your ears. Noelle, hearing it, rushes into the cabin with her own gun drawn. "Oh my god," she says, when she sees what she's walking into.


"Jesus Christ!" Darkbloom shouts. "You stupid, irrational, rash, unaccountable--"


"Owww-- owww--!" Lev repeats over and again, then a string of Russian obscenity, as he rocks back and forth like a giant infant. Darkbloom is on his feet, pacing back and forth, so mad he can't produce enough synonyms and insults to lob at you.


You squat and look Lev square in his beady eyes. You get your gun up under his chin. "We'll get you patched up. Lev. Lev. Lev!" You hit him with the butt of your pistol to put a lid on his melodramatic wailing. He gets the message. "We're going to patch up that bullet wound. And then after that, you're going to take Dalton here into your little server farm. You'll get Alex and Renee from where they're working, and bring them back here for me. And after that, you'll help Dalton kill Mara."


"I... I..." Lev snivels.


"If you fail to do any of this," you sneer, "I will slowly -- oh so fucking slowly peel the flesh off your bones. If you want even a 1% chance of living out the rest of your life in an un-degloved state, you'll do exactly what I fucking tell you to do. Are you listening to me?"


"Y-yes," he says, cowering from your gun.


"Do you have a first aid kit?"


"The bathroom," he says.


You nod at Noelle, and she goes to get it.


You stand tall again and peer down at this fat, pathetic fucking turd whose hopes you've pinned everything onto. Darkbloom begins to say something to you, but stops, finally and ultimately speechless at what you've done to the plan.


"Can I just say?" Amber asks, sidling up to you. "I'm really fucking wet right now."


---


Noelle finishes dressing Lev's wound. She can't hide the disgust on her face at handling this man's bunions, even with gloved hands, and Lev's babylike weeping and moaning isn't helping matters. Alabaster keeps his gun on Lev just in case the fat fuck gets any funny ideas. Lev, lips all aquiver, asks Darkbloom: "did you know about this?"


What a stupid twat, seriously. What kind of subbasement-level IQ does it take to witness this string of events and not think "Dalton" is a conspirator too?


Darkbloom is quick on the uptake, and plays innocent: "No, I didn't... they must have followed Rowan and me here. We had better do what they say... these are violent people."


Lev nods.


"You have half an hour," Alabaster tells Lev. "Bring Renee and Alex back to us safe, and you two might get out of here alive."


"Yes... yes," Lev says.


"Where is Mara?" Rose demands.


"I do not know... in all honesty I don't. She may be at the server farm or she may be somewhere else entirely... she doesn't keep me informed."


"She's here," you say. "That Rowan fucker came to meet her." You look at Lev. "Is there anything like a head office or something in there?"


"Sure, yes."


"There's your best bet," you say.


---


You lie with Noelle on the floorboard of Lev's beamer. Up front, good old David Darkbloom rides shotgun alongside the fat ugly bastard himself. Trojan horsing your way inside was your idea naturally, and Noelle volunteered to be your meat shield. What a nice girl. Really working overtime to change your opinion on cops.


Space back here is limited, which is real fucked up given how pricey a BMW is. The least they could do is give people legroom. You have to lie curled up with Noelle, limbs intertwined. You're pretty used to getting too close for comfort with other girls by now, but Noelle is a bit gun shy. She has a look on her face like someone who just got a Fabergé egg hurled at them -- a doe in headlights -- she's unsure what to do or how to move. Her whole body is tense and her breath is catching.


"Are you nervous?" You whisper.


"How could I not be?" Noelle whispers back. "We're on a suicide mission--"


"Not that," you say. "I mean about holding a pretty girl in your arms."


"That's awfully vain," Noelle says. "Anyway, redheads aren't my type."


"You have a type?"


"I -- will you stop it already?"


"If this really is a suicide mission, don't you think you ought to come out of the closet before you die?"


"Just because I like cute girls doesn't mean I'm gay," Noelle hisses.


"That is literally the dictionary definition of gay."


"I'm moesexual. There's a difference."


"Oh, and I'm not moe? That really hurts my feelings. I'm gonna tell my older sister on you for that."


"Tell her. What the hell is that pink haired weeb gonna do about it?"


You shrug. "I'unno. March up to you and yell something like, 'anta baka!'"


"Ugh. Don't do that."


"Anta baka! Anta baka!"


"I can't believe this is the last conversation I had before I died."


"You're not gonna die," you tell her. "But... just in case, here's one for the road."


You give Noelle a kiss. Just a peck on the lips, but it's enough to steal her breath. She turns a vibrant red, about the right shade to blend in with that hair of yours she claims not to like. She chokes on her own surprise and trepidation. Her brown eyes, usually so steely, are big and bashful.


"You wanna try that again?" You ask.


"...O-okay."


You kiss Noelle a second time. This one lasts. Your lips drift apart, your tongue slips into her mouth. She exhales hard through her nose and stops resisting -- lets you do it to her. Squirming against your body, she begins to loosen up until she's like putty in your grasp. It isn't long before she's kissing you back. You and Noelle make out together without shame. She's an excellent kisser despite a purported lack of experience. Either she's a dirty liar, or years of yuri anime taught her a thing or two.


She pulls away from your kiss long enough to say, "this is wrong... you're too young."


"I'm legal in the state of Colorado," you tell her. "It's fine."


"You're not really involved with the others back at the Nail House too, are you? That's just a front you're putting on, right?"


"Do you wanna know?"


She's unsure.


"You worry too much," you finally tell her. You tickle her cheek with your nose. "Let's just enjoy each other's mouths, huh?"


She shivers as you press yourself to her and force another series of deep, loving kisses on her.


Lev parks the car in a gravel lot just outside the facility. He and Darkbloom step out. Poking your head up like a prairie dog from between the console, you peer out the windshield and scan your eyes around. There are several dozen cars parked out here. At the other side of the lot, standing against the facility's long, white concrete wall, are a couple armed men. They guard a singular, normal-sized steel door, which is white like the walls -- looks like a back entrance.


Bummer about the heat. It'll be tough to get in without those mooks seeing you. Darkbloom also realizes this, because before he leaves, he tells you through the corner of his mouth: "stay here for now."


"You're not my real dad," you tell him with a middle finger.


He shakes his head and closes the door. He motions for Lev to lead the way. They go, and exchange some pleasantries with the guards -- who let them inside without incident. So far, so good.


"Guess we're stuck here, huh," Noelle says. "Joy."


"Naaah," you say, lying back down with her. "There's tons of cars. All we have to do is skulk around until we find one with a burglar alarm. Set it off as a distraction... sneak in while Rosencratz and Guildenstern investigate."


"Risky," Noelle says.


"Riskier than trusting the Incredible Blob to free the hostages? Besides, it's not like we're safe just because we're hiding out in this car. Anyone could walk by and see us lezzing out back here."


"Lezzing-- ghh-- you are absolutely--"


"Forget it. Your lily hasn't fully bloomed yet, it's fine."


"What are you talking about?"


"Oh, you know." You nod at her with raised eyebrows, but she doesn't take the bait. "Well, what do you think, then? Stay put or skediddle?"


"You're the brains of this operation. Apparently. I'm the muscle. It's your call."


>[x] Stay put with Noelle.

[ ] Sneak in.


You wait anxiously on the hood of Will's car, binoculars trained on the cabins below. And further along the road, you can see, just barely through the treetops, the server farm's south side. Rose, perhaps a bit uncharacteristically, rubs your shoulders for you. You wonder whether she's trying to sooth your anxiety or her own.


"Wanna know what's it stand for?" Will is saying to Kay, somewhere behind you. He doesn't wait before revealing it: "Gallon of nuts a day."


"Oh, I see you and Alabaster have the same diet," Kay replies.


"You do GONAD?" Will asks you.


"Shut up," you bark. You can hardly stand to breathe right now -- literally, given the altitude -- nevermind deal with this moron.


Spancer suddenly announces: "Alabaster. Vehicles at 3 O'Clock."


You swivel your head around and look where Spancer directed you, but you don't see anything.


"That is 9 O'Clock," Spancer says.


Fuck. You look the other way. There they are: a small caravan, and at their head a car you recognize -- Tyrus Kang's. The cars park just to the side of the access road leading towards the server farm. Confirmation, then: out hops the man himself, along with a whole cadre of equally vicious looking men, all of them toting rifles. They're not here to make peace, that much is certain. And strapped across Tyrus's back, something else you recognize: a baseball bat. Not just any baseball bat.


"What is he doing here?" Rose breathes.


"You know what he's doing here," Kay says.


"Why now..." Rose says. "Why now, of all times... goddamn it. God fucking damn it."


Any hope of a stealthy extraction just got blown to pieces.


>Who, if anyone, will go down there? (Alabaster, Rose, Spancer)

>Will you try to scramble the PMC Darkbloom recommended? (Yes)


There's a second walkie-talkie in Will's Golf which Darkbloom says can be used to get in touch with his contact at the PMC. It's a man you know -- he was Darkbloom's personal driver, but he wasn't just a driver after all. You know him as Damon. He quite resembles another Damon you've known. And given everything you've seen in the past year or so...


No time to think about that now.


"Come in," you say into the radio.


There's a long, agonizing silence on the other end. Finally, then: "Aye. This Alabaster?"


"Yes."


"Dalton and Whitney and 'em said you might be getting in touch. Need a helping hand, then?"


"How soon can you get everything you've got to Vail, Colorado?"


"Ehhh..." he says, thinking on it. "For a million dollars a head, two hours. That's ten heads we're sending by the by. For double the price, one hour."


You hear the whir of helicopter rotors overhead and feel the wind rushing all around you. Your shirt and your hair billow.


Looking up, shielding his eyes from the sun, Will says: "Now that's what I call freaky fast."


But it isn't Damon's PMC. More like PRC. The copter has a Chinese flag painted on its tail. Sitting at the open door is a man in an armored vest, and he has those ghostly blue, cataract eyes. He looks blindly down at you as the copter passes not even 50 feet overhead. It's flying towards the facility.


"You get here as fast as humanly possible and I'll pay whatever price you name," you tell Damon.


"Aye."


---


Lev leads Darkbloom to a small series of workstations arrayed in front of the nearly infinitely vast rows of server towers. The setup is reminiscent of Mercury transiting the sun.


The programmers here all seem to be packing up, ready to head home for the day, although it's not even lunchtime. Renee and Alex are nowhere to be seen, although Darkbloom can clearly see where they used to be -- at the workstations with handcuffs dangling from them.


Lev says something in Russian to one of his only slightly less rotund colleagues, then relays the bad news to Darkbloom: "We've missed them."


"I can tell that, you--" Darkbloom begins, then stays his tongue. He can barely hide his fear and anger. He presses for information. "Are they back in their holding cell?"


"Erm..." Lev says. "I think the plan for after Rowan's arrival was..." He draws a forefinger across his throat in the universal signal for execution.


Darkbloom balls his fists. The fear and anger have morphed into panic and rage.


"We should find Mara and tell her we have been compromised," Lev says. "This is the intelligent move."


"Yes... yes," Darkbloom agrees. "Let's do that."


From bad to worse -- into the area now comes Rowan himself, and he's obviously surprised. "Dalton? What are you doing here?"


Even in the grip of animal panic, Darkbloom can thread the needle of deception gracefully. His answer is suitable for both Lev and Rowan, preying on their lack of coordinated information. "I just finished meeting with Lev. Something terrible has happened -- I came at once. We need to discuss it in private."


"Of course," Rowan says, "but how did you find--"


Darkbloom leads him by the shoulder towards the server towers. Confidentially, to Rowan: "Mara told me to speak with you. This is urgent." Then, over his shoulder, to Lev: "Please go and check on Alex and Renee in their cells. See whether you might intercept them. Come back with them if you do."


Lev is confused, but compliant.


"Why are you concerned over those two?" Rowan demands, walking back with Darkbloom into the forest of servers. "Their work is finished. And -- honestly." He stops in place. "What are you doing here? This is highly unusual. You weren't supposed to know this site's location."


Darkbloom glances back, to make sure they're out of view of the little hive of worker bees at the front. They are.


"Dalton?"


Darkbloom pulls a knife from his pocket and sticks it into Rowan's side. He gasps in pain, and Darkbloom covers his mouth with a palm to muffle the cries. Squatting, he follows Dalton as Dalton slumps against one of the servers and slides down onto his butt.


"Shh. Shh. Be quiet. If you make a sound, I will kill you."


Rowan nods his understanding. Darkbloom uncovers his mouth.


"Tell me where Renee and Alex are," Darkbloom says.


"I... I don't know..." Rowan wheezes. "They're finished... probably dead by now... what does it... ahh--" He groans in pain, unable to stop it, and Darkbloom covers his mouth again.


"Your life hinges on this, Rowan. Where are they?"


When he lets go of Rowan's mouth, again: "I don't know -- this is the honest truth--"


"Where is Mara?"


"Upstairs... she has a room there... but it's well guarded... Dalton -- why--"


Darkbloom covers his mouth again, and this time the knife goes into Rowan's heart. He keeps Rowan muffled until he's sure the last of his life is gone from him.


In the silence that settles, as Darkbloom stands, he notices a strange whir in the air. He's never been a hardware specialist, but he does know a thing or two about how a server farm should sound. This isn't it.


He puts his ear up against one of the towers -- and almost singes it. The metal cases are blazing hot. He tests a few more of them down the line, this time with his fingers -- all the same. There is something dreadfully wrong here... these server towers are beyond overclocked. Their processors are burning up, and there's nowhere for the heat to go. With stomach sinking, Darkbloom realizes he's standing in the middle of a funeral pyre.


---


"Okay, we'll stay put." You nuzzle Noelle and kiss her again. But when your hand drifts south, she swats it away.


"No," she says.


"Don't be so stuck-up."


"We can't get carried away in the middle of what could very well become a warzone any second. The last thing we need is to get literally caught with our pants down."


"I'm noticing here that you aren't refusing my advances on the basis of my being a girl."


"Shut the fuck up. Just shut up," she repeats, between searching kisses.


"Do you think girls can love girls, Noelle?"


"Shut up."


"You're right..." you finally agree. Her breath is minty and hot against you. "It's not the time for--"


"Shut up. Shut the fuck up."


"Calm down, Keki. Now is not the time for fucking. That comes later."


Whatever Noelle was about to retort, gets cut off by the whine of a helicopter overhead... followed almost immediately by the rapid pings of automatic gunfire from the ground level.


When you peek your head up, you see a whole squad of strapped-down black dudes straight up murdering the fuck out of the handful of guards at the back exit. Their brains paint the white walls red. More of Mara's forces are responding, though, streaming out from the building, and the parking lot is fast turning into the warzone Noelle warned you of. Meanwhile, the helicopter is setting down on the rooftop. Chinese. They're headed for the vents.


You settle back in with Noelle. "I wish I was naked right now. I think I just shit my pants."


---


"Drive us down to the access road," you tell Kay. "Down by where Tyrus and his guys parked. Slash their tires, then come back up here and wait. Will, you too."


"For sure, for sure," Will says. He salutes you.


"We'll go on ahead," you finish, indicating Rose and Spancer. "On foot from that point."


"This is a monumentally stupid fucking idea," Kay says. "What is it you think that you, Mrs. Third Wave and Sapncer-bot are going to do against not one but three armies?"


"Save the people we love," Rose says, toting her shotgun.


"We'll be closer to the extraction point anyway," you say. "Everything's going to shit, so we need to be able to get out of here as soon as we have everyone back."


"I know a thing or two about warzones," Kay says. "When it goes tits up like this, you don't get everyone back."


"Yeah, well you should know that no one gets left behind either," you spit.


Kay shakes her head in exasperation. But she knows she won't win.


---


At the mouth of the access road, Kay watches the trio depart.


She and Will set to dutifully slashing the cars' tires, to head off any high-speed chases.


"We're gonna fucking die," she mutters under her breath as they work.


"Nah," Will says. "Amber's got this."


"Amber is a teenage girl who thinks terrorists are cool. That's it. If she didn't idolize Emma Goldman, she would have latched on to one of the boys in One Direction instead. That's who we're relying on? We're gonna fucking die."


"Why are you smiling?" Will asks, confused.


What Kay says to him cannot be repeated. He meekly returns to the Volt. A few moments later, Kay finishes popping tires and rejoins him, and they drive back up to the hilltop to wait.


A few minutes after Kay returns to the top of the hill, with the firefight in full swing down below, she hears a harsh voice from behind her: "Yo! Who the fuck are you!"


She twirls -- sliding down off the hood of the Volt at the same time as she spins 180 degrees, so that she's squatting, behind the cover of the car, facing towards the interloper.


"You slash our fuckin tires, bitch? Who are you?!"


From the gap between the car's chassis and the ground, can see his feet approaching. Will is ducked down in the driver's seat of his Golf, trying not to be seen. Will is not so confident all of a sudden, it seems.


Kay pulls her gun, stands quickly, and fires half-blindly. But in her fright, she only manages to nail him in the stomach -- not a fatal shot. Howling, the man dives behind the cover of the Golf, and Kay can hear him on his radio: "Yo, we've been made... some bitch slashed our tires... I tracked her back -- we're on a hill--"


Kay whistles, and Lady comes bounding, slobbering, slathering. Kay points her animal towards the target -- "sick!" she says -- and he obeys. The man's report of their location becomes a bloody, wailing gurgle as Lady jumps on top of him and tears into his esophagus.


Kay beckons Lady back to her. The tawny fur around his mouth is stained crimson. "Fuck, that was close," she says to him. She squats down. "Good boy. That's a good boy. Let's clean that off, huh?" She takes a handkerchief from her purse and wipes his mouth. He keeps trying to push it back with his snout, to lick her face. He's proud of himself, and happy that his master is safe. She laughs and pushes him back. "Come on. Stop it. Yuck."


She finishes cleaning him off, then ruffles the fur around his neck. "Good job. You stay here with mommy, okay? Be a good boy, Lady."


Lady bobs his head in agreement, smiling in his doggy way, still loving on his master. He pushes his cold nose past her upheld palms and insists on licking her face. His stubby tail wags like mad.


"Good boy. Who's a good boy?" She repeats, petting him.


And it all happens so quickly: a bang, a yelp, Lady's paws collapsing out from under him. Kay falls back to one hand, shielding her face with the other arm. The man Lady killed was not alone. And now his vengeful partner has a shotgun leveled at Kay's face.


Kay's life literally flashes before her eyes -- she sees her entire life from her earliest memory up to today, and she regrets it all.


This isn't the day she dies. Lady is on this man, too. A blur of black and tan flies through the air like a targeted missile, and tackles him, and viciously tears into his face. Lady mauls the the man beyond recognition.


Kay scrambles forward over the dusty ground, hands and knees. Lady is done -- the last of his strength sapped, used up in defense of his master. Kay pulls the bloody animal off the dead man. Human and canine blood intermingle -- Lady's fur is darkly matted all over with it. Horrified, Kay runs her hands along Lady's stomach, and finds the enormous wound there. Lady yelps again, pitifully, when she touches it. When she jerks her hand away, there's so much gore coating it that the blood drips black instead of red. His intestines aren't fully on his inside anymore.


She shakes her head, tears streaming down her face, and locks eyes with her dying pet.


"Lady... Lady, no--"


He tries to rise to his feet again, to lick her -- to love on her -- but he can't. His chin hits the dirt. Kay gets down on her stomach in front of him. She's weeping. "Lady--"


He whines at her. She pets him. The glimmer in his beady eyes is uncomprehending, and full of pain, but there's love there too -- and Kay returns it. Then he's gone.


On wobbly legs, Kay stands. Her entire front is covered with blood now, too -- jeans, shirt, and peacoat. Her face, though tear-streaked, has gone completely blank. She stares down for a moment or two at the grisly sight before her.


The she turns, gets into the Volt, and fires it up.


Will is out of his car, shouting. "Yo! Hold on! We're supposed to wait! Where are you -- Kay! Kay!"


But Kay is already burning rubber, peeling out, down the hill, and back towards the server farm.


---


Spancer leads the phalanx, such as it is -- you and Rose finding some measure of cover behind his wall of muscle. You depart with him down the long, winding access road, which is lumpy, and not well paved. The walk takes longer than you expected. Five, ten minutes pass, and as you draw closer, the sound of gunfire and shouting fills the air. Tyrus and his men have drawn first blood.


"Watch your six," Spancer warns you.


You at least are capable of telling where your 6 O'clock is, thankfully.


A couple minutes later, down the road, running the opposite way, come a few enemy noncombatants -- men in polos and khakis who are lumpier than the road. They freeze when they see the three of you marching forward with guns at the ready. These must be some of Mara's little helper-elves. Spancer, keeping his shotgun on them, asks you over his shoulder: "Should I shoot them?"


"Please..." they beg. "Please... we are not armed..."


You think about it for a moment or two. You and Rose confer wordlessly, making eye contact, considering pros and cons.


Finally: "Let them go--" you begin, but stop when you hear the whine of an engine behind you, its Doppler-warped sound fast approaching.


You, Rose, and Spancer only barely manage to jump out of the way. Your Volt comes barreling down the road, kicking up plumes of dust in its wake. The men you just tried to spare aren't so lucky. The car mows them down. It only slows a tiny bit as it plows through them. You glimpse Kay behind the wheel, bloody, and wild-eyed. Then the car is gone, and you're coughing as the plumes of dust surround you like a whirlwind. When the dust settles again, you see that the men Kay hit are alive, but suffering some pretty serious injuries. Broken bones, a cracked head... they're groaning and bleeding, and need a hospital.


"What the fuck," Rose shouts. She kicks at nothing like an NFL punter.


"Come on," you tell her and Spancer. "Let's just keep going." You step gingerly past the men who are begging for help with outstretched arms.


---


You watch from inside Lev's beamer. Tyrus Kang and his men have prevailed, at least in this skirmish -- Mara's people aren't contesting the perimeter of the facility anymore. Probably they're too busy with the sneaky Chinese inside.


Tyrus, walking in wide lazy circles, pulls his baseball bat from his back. "Mara! I know you're listening in there, cunt bitch! I ain't here for you! Send Alex Best out and we'll get going! That little cocksucker belongs to me! You give him up and I'll be finished with you! You hear!"


The door opens, and men inside fire out at them. Tyrus's men fire back, and force the defenders back in.


"Don't make this shit harder than it's got to be!" Tyrus yells. "You're a smart lady, Mara! Gimme what I want!"


In the midst of the distraction -- a car comes screaming through the lot. Tyrus and his men scatter, but not soon enough. They're shooting wildly at the sudden intruder.


It's Kay, in Daddy's Volt, and she runs two of the gangsters fatally down. Then, stepping forth from the car, a boomstick in hand, she dispatches three more with a Terminator-esque efficiency that Spancer fucking Jardan only wishes he could have.


Tyrus, jogging in reverse, whistles through thumb and forefinger. He and his men retreat, into the facility, guns a-blazing. These dozen or so armed men have decided to chance it with whoever is in there rather than stay and fight a single woman.


Maybe Tyrus's tactical decision was informed by what's in his head. His eyes are blue.


And Kay, unbe-fucking-lievably, follows them into the building. No hesitation.


"Jesus! What the hell did I just see?" Noelle yells.


"You just saw Pulitzer prize winner Kay Vera, covered in blood, going on a murder spree."


>[x] Go help her.

[ ] Stay here.


Into the bluishly lit interior of the facility, fingers on your triggers -- you and Noelle are ready to ice any motherfucker who comes at you.


Kay is only a few yards ahead, and she's already busy with the icing. A litter of dead Russians are scattered around the floor, the blue tile streaked red with blood.


In fairness, some of these dead men -- a mix of programmers and soldiers, it looks like -- are probably kills belonging to Tyrus's goons. But Kay is definitely a gleeful participant in the slaughter. As you enter, you see her getting the barrel of a shotgun under one scruffy man's chin and blowing out the top of his skull.


You guess these people probably deserve it for working for Mara, but fuck, that guy wasn't armed, and he definitely wasn't a threat.


"Kay!" Noelle calls. "Jesus tittyfucking Christ, what are you doing!"


"Leave me alone!" Kay yells.


Noelle, then, spins -- there's a man charging you at you 3 O'Clock, one of Tyrus's. Noelle shoots him in the head before he can fire. He collapses the ground, momentum unarrested by his death -- his body skids with a cringe-inducing squeaking noise, across the floor, chin-first, to settle at your feet.


The ozone-tainted stench of singed electronics fills the air. You guess that all these ruined PC workstations, riddled with bullets, are the reason... but the smell is pretty strong. Somehow it seems like there's something else, something more than a few blown-apart computers causing it. And god is it hot in here. You're sweating like a hog.


"They killed Lady!" Kay shrieks. "Those fucking nigger bastards killed him--"


"Okay, whoa--" you say.


Kay, with a savage grunt, raises her shotgun and fires -- up -- at the mezzanine overlooking the bloody floor, where black and Russian gangsters shoot it out. Kay wants in on it. She's running towards the stairs, forward towards the carnage -- so you and Noelle, with no other option, follow.


On the second story, you run after Kay, into a hallway that adjoins some offices and meeting-rooms. The fighting continues unabated in these cramped quarters.


You're quick enough to grab Kay by the shoulders before she gets too far down the hall, and together with Noelle you haul her back. She kicks and screams but you manage to force her into one of the rooms. Right now, the only people up here are all trying to murder each other, so you and Noelle both implicitly understand that the best thing is to hunker down, get Kay calm again, and regroup.


It's a conference room with glass windows, so maybe not the best cover; but then again, it lets you keep eyes peeled on what's happening outside. You hide beneath the long table with Noelle and Kay, watching. A few men, Russians, walk backwards past the windows, firing at unseen assailants; the illumination of muzzle flashes lighting their faces up, before they're hit, and fall in lifeless heaps. One of the Russians escapes death, though -- comes sliding into the room with you like a baseball player stealing second. When he sees he isn't alone in here, his eyes bulge. You fire at him, and miss. Noelle's aim is much better. She's notching kills almost as ruthlessly as Kay.


Across the hall, you can see into another meeting room that's identical to this one, save for the lights being out. There's a person in there hiding under the table just like you, though, you can tell -- and in the murk it's hard to make out, but you're pretty sure it's Dr. Renee Carte, MD, PhD. She seems to notice you at the same time as you notice her. She crawls forward, just far enough for you to see -- yep it's her. No sign of Alex Best, though.


You smile and wave. She gawks back at you and the other two, awestruck for a moment. And then she mouths something -- "get out"? You think that's what she's saying. You mouth back, "what?" to confirm -- but suddenly she shrinks back, fear on her face. You only realize why a split second later. Striding down the hall, cool as a cucumber despite the gunfire all around her, comes Mara Darkbloom herself. She passes by the conference rooms and out of view without taking heed of you cowering there, headed for Christ only knows where.


[ ] Chase her.

>[x] Let her go.


Noelle is trying to stand and go after her already, but it's Kay who drags her back.


"Let me go!" Noelle shouts. "What are you doing? I thought you were all murder-lust, huh? We kill Mara, and this is over! That's the mission!"


"It's not fucking over!" Kay yells. "And that isn't the mission! Listen -- we've got heat on us from all sides -- I don't want to see anyone else I care about fucking die today!"


You hear the mechanical chatter of servo-modulated legs. Down the hall, following Mara like a pack of obedient hunting dogs after their master: a whole horde of SMATTERS robots. Some of Tyrus's men who are foolish enough to contest them get jumped, and receive icepick-like legs through their skulls amid horrible shrieks of agony.


"Jesus," you breathe. Kay glances at Noelle -- that glance is wordless "told ya so" enough.


When the robots clear out, the coast is relatively clear for the moment, so the three of you hurry across the hall to where Renee is. You duck into the dark room with her.


"Heard you needed some help," you say.


"You need to get out of here," she hisses. "This whole place is about to go up in flames."


"Where's Alex?" Noelle asks.


"I don't know. We were getting taken out of our cell when this asshole Lev came by... he's got this thing for Alex, said he needed to see him about something... took him away. Then all this shit went down. Look, there isn't time -- you need to go. I'll find Alex, I'll be right out."


"No. No, no, no," Noelle says. "You don't have any combat training. I'll find him -- do you have any clue at all where he might be?"


"I -- why are you even here?" Renee asks Noelle. "Is this an FBI raid? I thought you got shitcanned, though--"


"It's a long story," you say. "Nevermind that."


"Is there anyone else with you?" Renee asks.


"Yes," Noelle says. "Alabaster and Rose. And--"


"Fuck," Renee grunts. "Where are they? We need to get them out, too."


"No idea," you say. "We all got split up..."


"What's this about the whole place going up in flames?" Kay says.


"Fuck, fuck, goddamn it" Renee repeats. "We need to get Rose and Alabaster out too. Bake sale -- Alex set it up -- earlier this morning. I don't know how. But we don't have a lot of time before--"


The whole building shakes, and you hear the whoomf of explosions down below. The shockwave ripples up through the second floor and shatters the glass walls of the conference rooms. The pressure differential nearly deafens you, literally. And then, below your feet, you feel the intense heat of the incipient fire.


"You weren't shitting about the not a lot of time thing," you say.


---


Right as you get to the gravel parking lot, running past the corpses littering the ground, past the still-idling Volt that is, itself, sitting on top of two dead men -- you get blown back by the shockwave of a massive explosion inside the facility. Rose and Spancer get knocked over too.


Dazed, you roll onto your stomach, clamber to your hands and knees, and look back up at the building. Through the blown-out steel door which now lies several yards away, you can see that the interior of the server farm is totally engulfed in flame.


Amber, and Kay, and Noelle, and Renee, and Alex -- are all inside that building. And it's burning.


You find your gun again where you dropped it, and stand, and start towards that doorway into hell.


"Alabaster!" Rose says, chasing after you.


"Wait here," you tell her sternly.


"No! No, I won't! I'm not letting you go in there on your own!"


You stop, turn, and grab her. "I think I'm going to lose some people today," you tell her. Your voice is catching. "I can't let you be one of them. Stay here."


"I'm not staying. I'm not staying."


"Rose--"


"No matter what happens, Alabaster -- no matter what! We stick together!"


She's crying. You kiss her.


"Together," you say.


"I love you, Alabaster."


"I love you too, Rose."


Spancer, gun in hand, passes you by. He leads the way. You and your wife follow him into the smoke and fire.


---


When Renee tries to stand, she wobbles, and has to brace herself against the conference room's table with a wince.


"What's the matter?" You ask.


"My ankle. They broke it when they kidnapped me... it's still in a lot of pain."


You bend over and pull up her pantleg to look at it. Her ankle is horrifically swollen, stippled black and blue, striated by burst veins. Broken, shit. More like shattered. It's a wonder she isn't screaming in agony right now.


"Let's get your weight off it, yeah?" Kay says. She gets the back of her neck under the crook of Renee's arm and steadies her, helping her to limp from the room. Renee struggles even in spite of the help. It's a hell of a sight. Kay looks like she just got off her shift at a slaughterhouse and Renee looks like a reject form Charles Dickens, face all grimy from days upon days of no access to a shower, stinking from having to wear the same clothes all this time.


"Just because you're helping me, doesn't change the fact that you're a two-bit MSM hack," Renee says.


"Yeah, yeah. Save your breath, old woman. You'll need it."


The hall beyond is empty of all save the dead. The firefight has shifted, to the stairwell at the hall's opposite side. You can see, past its entryway, a few steps up, the jackboots of some of the Chinese mercenaries who landed on the rooftop. Whatever goal they have is in there, and they're pursuing it ruthlessly, against the return fire of two factions of gangsters. Best to leave them to it.


You and Noelle keep eyes on Renee from both front and back as Kay leads her out of the hall, across the mezz, and down the stairs to the lower level. The blazing inferno grows by the second, but the stairs are still navigable thank god, and through the billowing smoke you can see your way clear to the exit.


"I knew you were here. Camelia."


You do an about-face -- there before you, emerging from the smoke, stands Mara Darkbloom. She's surrounded by her little army of battlebots. Skittery, four-legged steel nightmares like decapitated rabbit skeletons. A hundred or more. She snaps her fingers, and they lunge as a single coordinated entity, all towards you. Wildly, you foxtrot backwards a step or two and fire your gun, but you hit nothing. They floor you. Their metal bodies, scorchingly hot, burn your skin all over. They're so much heavier than they look, their feet are so much sharper.


One of them, reared back to its haunches on your chest, rights itself again and looks at you -- with no head, no face, and no eyes, but you can tell it's looking, all the same. It raises one of its forelegs, and the drillbit of its foot is pointed at your eyeball.


You scream.


But even as you cry out, suddenly the SMATTERS unit disappears with the tink and the spark of a bullet hitting the side of its body. Noelle shot the thing off you.


The other five or six of them that are still holding you down, plus the dozens of others, now have their ire set on her. As one, their bodies swivel and set their sightless sights on her. They fly at her. She's a quickdraw and a crackshot; levels her pistol and and hits three or four in the miliseconds before they have her on the ground. There's just too many, though. "Go!" She shrieks as they drag her down. "Run!"


Kay, with Renee in tow, follows the order, and they limp madly for the exit. You don't. You make a break for Noelle where she lies on the floor, and pry one of the SMATTERS from her face. It takes all the strength you knew you had and some you didn't, as it digs into Noelle's flesh and clings tenaciously, like a cat with its claws out. She howls with the pain of it, but finally you wrench the thing free.


You spin with it in your hands, all 20 or 30 pounds of it, and dropkick it into the fire. Two or three more are marching up Noelle's torso, and one of them, bladed foot whirring, stabs her right in the tummy. Noelle's neck tendons go taut and looking at the gushing wound she yells out: "NOOOOOO!" -- in despair more than pain.


You kick it away, but it's a hopeless situation, and now you're getting swarmed again too. Mara is already retreating.


More gunfire, again. But this is the friendly type. Mommy and Daddy are back, and they're pissed. They're firing into the sea of chittering robots surrounding you, point blank. Daddy even manages to march through them, even as they bite at his ankles, and he kicks a couple more of these metal abominations off Noelle with savage grunts. Rose2 meanwhile turns her fire onto Mara herself -- but misses. She pumps, and fires again, misses.


Mara doesn't even turn to look back at her, just keeps walking.


"How... how..." Rose2 repeats. She fires again. Misses.


Just before Mara's form fully disappears beyond the curtain of smoke, she finally does turn her head, and regards you all from her peripheral vision. "I'm only going where the bullets aren't."


Rose2 fires again. And misses again. Then she goes down, too, tackled by drones as well.


---


You only had a brief moment with Dr. Carte. Just the time it took for you to pass each other; you on your way in, her on her way out with Kay. She told you not to come in here, but you didn't listen.


Now Rose is going to die for it, and you won't save Amber or Noelle either. You've wasted the lives of the people you love.


You fire your gun at this mass of metal that moves with hivemind efficiency, and may as well be trying to finish off a hornet's nest with a slingshot. All you're doing is pissing them off. Noelle is already passed out from the blood loss, and Amber, kicking and screaming, tries to pull one of them off her as it hugs her face and shrieks at her. Rose twists around on the floor, trying to roll herself free, but can hardly move. You fire and fire again, hitting a couple, but every one you fell gets replaced by three more. It's over.


You yowl, then -- as one of the bots stabs you in the calf. You fall, too. You're covered with them, too. There's no one left to fight. This is it, Alabaster Soliloquy. This was your life.


tt -t- -t --- t-- -t --- t-- t-- tttt -t-- -t-- --- tt- tt-t tt- -t-t -t-


Spancer is marching backwards, towards the burning servers, clattering his shotgun against the tile in a strange syncopated rhythm. The robot that was so recently staring you in the face now is staring up at him, as if hypnotized.


You have no idea what it is, or why it works, but it does. It works on all of them; all these horrible robots turn their attention on him and follow like rats after the pied piper. They leave you, and Amber, and Noelle. As they stream towards him, he occasionally pauses to lift his shotgun, and blast some of them away, never breaking his reverse stride. The ones he doesn't hit just step right over their dead comrades, docile and transfixed.


"Spancer--" you begin.


He just nods at you.


Finally the robots seem to realize the deception. They stop; Spancer stops. Then they let loose an unholy screech in unison, and charge -- Spancer, arms wide open, lets them latch onto his body, his limbs, his face -- and carries them backwards at a sprint straight into the flaming wreck of the servers.


He's on fire; he's burning alive with the SMATTERS units, and the last you see of this strange man you hardly really knew, is his gloved hand, giving you a thumbs up.


"Noelle -- Noelle!"


You try to nudge her awake, but she's out. She's still breathing, but she needs medical attention right away or she won't stay breathing much longer.


"Amber... can you carry her out?" You ask. "I need to--"


"Fuck no I can't," Amber cries, standing. You can see red welts all over her where the SMATTERS units gave her some first degree burns. "Let's go, Daddy, please --"


"No... no, Alex is still in--"


Tyrus comes running down the stairs with the last couple of his lieutenants still standing. He's gunning for Mara, but when he sees you, he decides you'll do. "Motherfucker!" He shouts.


Rose is quicker on the trigger. Falling to her knees, she fells one of his two remaining cronies. The man totters forward, dead before he hits the ground. His top-heavy corpse tips over the stair's railing and into the fire below. The other of his mooks dives for cover as Tyrus himself, fearless, charges you like a bull.


Amber is quick on her feet too. She punches him. This 90-something pound little girl punches Tyrus Kang in the jaw. It sends him reeling. Not from the force of the punch, but the force of recognition. "Period blood..." he breathes. "No... no, you're -- you were Cripple -- not Period Blood -- how the f--"


Rose gets her shotgun against Tyrus's back. Tyrus, with agility you didn't think was possible, spins and shoves the gun from Rose's hands. It flies like a frisbee into the bullet-riddled PC workstations to her left. Weaponless, Rose goes wide-eyed in fright. But his back is to you now instead, and you do shoot him.


The bullet passes cleanly through him, from back to chest. He stumbles to one side, knocked off balance by the force of the gunshot, trying to stay upright. When you try to finish him off with a second bullet, he breaks into a stride, and disappears among the burning servers.


You step past Rose to give chase, but she takes your hand and stays you. "Don't -- just don't -- let's get Noelle out of here first."


Through the smoke now, another figure. Darkbloom. He's been shot, at least twice, once through the leg, and once through the shoulder, but it doesn't seem mortal -- just enough to make him pallid and uncoordinated.


"Renee," he gulps at you, tone of begging in his voice, stumbling to a stop before you. "Tell me... tell me you have seen her..." his face is streaked with tears.


"Help me get Noelle out of here," you tell him.


"Renee--"


"She's outside! Help me with Noelle!"


Darkbloom helps you unquestioningly at that. You carry Noelle by the arms and he carries her by the feet, out of the building.


Dr. Carte, waiting outside in the Volt with Kay, is aghast to see the man she assumes is Dalton Cantor working with you. You dump Noelle into the car, where her gushing blood quickly stains the backseat red.


"Oh god," Kay gasps.


Dr. Carte, immediately falling into surgeon mode, takes her coat off, wads it up, and applies pressure with it, to stanch the blood loss.


"Take Noelle back to Lev's cabin," you instruct Kay. "Do what you can for her and wait for Damon's team. I'll meet back up with you."


"Renee..." Darkbloom breathes, mind on one track. "You're safe..."


Face sweaty, hands bloody, she looks up in confusion at him. "No thanks to you, you worthless fucking--"


That's when she must notice it. Darkbloom didn't bother to wear contacts today since he isn't with Dalton's family; his eyes are a brilliant blue. He nods at her.


She looks back down at Noelle and keeps the pressure on her.


You run straight back into the burning building with your wife and wannabe daughter.


"Stop following me," you tell her. "Go back with the others--"


"No way. No fuckin' way. I'm in it to win it."


"You stupid goddamn zoomer... why do you always -- tch... fuck..."


Where would Alex be? If he even still is alive, that is. You have no idea the actual contours or layout of this facility, you've seen so little of it, and now half of it is burnt down. You wipe the soot and sweat from your brow and press onward.


Somehow, up seems like a good bet.


You pass over the half-collapsed staircase, Rose and Amber close behind -- down the body-strewn hallway on the second story -- into the bloody stairwell to the third story.


There are men still alive inside the stairwell. Chinese. They're finishing off the last of the Russians, and doing so methodically, marching from one to another of the gasping, wounded men and stabbing them through with combat knives.


The three of you level your guns on these Chinese mercs as soon as you see them. But they have hardly any reaction. They pause just a moment, straightening their spines, looking at you quizzically -- then return to their ghastly work.


You hold up your palm to stop your girls from shooting. They're going to let you pass. You walk by the carnage. The squelching of blades thrust through skin, the death rattles of wounded men, and ruffling of the mercenaries' kevlar vests as they slowly move around, are the only sounds.


Up you go, up two flights of stairs, ending at the double doors of an executive suite. You try to open them, but they won't budge. They're blocked from the other side.


Someone is barricaded in there.


You, Rose, and Amber push against the door, heaving, trying to get in. No use.


"Bāngzhù tā," one of the mercs shouts. Two of them come tromping up. They get on either side of you and your girls, pushing the door as well. With their strength, the doors drift easily open, as the table propped against it from the other side topples.


As soon as the doors are open, the mercs step off, and return to their slaughter.


You step inside. Alex is in here. He's cowering, and he's being bodily shielded by Lev. And Lev has a gun. And Lev fires the gun.


Rose startles, fires back, basically simultaneously with Lev's shot. It's over in an instant; she nails him in the gut, he falls to the side with a thud and a wheeze. Yellow-flecked gore seeps from his belly. Alex shrieks.


You hear a weird sort of gurgling noise to your left. You glance sidewise at Amber, source of that sound. Her upper body is swaying in a woozy sort of circle like a spinning pendulum. She looks up at you. One of her eyes is gone -- the skull and bloody orbit is visible in its absence. Her other eye locks with yours.


"Daddy?" She says. And then she falls over.


"She's alive!" Rose yells over and again. "She's still alive! Alabaster -- come on -- let's get her out of here -- Alabaster!"


The mercenaries are back. They march in, grab Amber by either arm. They drag her unconscious body out into the stairwell.


Rose is pitiless. She kills one of the kidnappers. You yourself are so beyond shock that you've passed to numbness and you cannot comprehend what you're seeing. Another mercenary just replaces the one who died, and they continue carrying Amber away. The others are in the room now, guns on you, to make clear that they won't tolerate another death.


"We take her now," one of them tells you. "No worry."


Rose follows them out, shotgun still raised. And you numbly follow her.


"Put her down! Give her back! I'll kill every last one of you!"


But her threats are empty. She can't shoot without signing your death warrants.


The mercenaries carry Amber up a final landing, then out a steel door to the rooftop where their heli is parked.


Approaching now is another helicopter. Damon's men. Moments too late to save Amber from being maimed, but maybe soon enough to save her life. The two Chinese mercenaries toting Amber get domed -- first one, then the other, with an efficient zip-zip of sniper fire from the moving copter overhead.


The remaining force of the Chinese merc squad, 7 or 8 of them, raise their guns at the circling craft. But their leader calls to them: "Chètuì." And with that, they just drop Amber to the ground, climb into their own helicopter, and fire it up. A tactical retreat. And Damon's group makes the tactical decision to let them go without a dogfight.


Rose, craning her neck up, shouts at Damon and his people. "This girl is injured! We need to get her to someone who can help her! We have a doctor with us--" She points at the cabins on the distance.


"Aye," Damon says. "Let's get her in, then." He has the pilot bring the heli down so it hovers just a foot or two above the gravel rooftop. A couple armored soldiers hop out and take Amber and load her in.


You turn back towards the door.


"Alabaster -- stop!!"


"You two coming?" Damon asks.


"We still have someone in there!" Rose tells him. "Keep a couple of your men here and help us!"


"We're not leaving our bird. Bad recipe for getting stranded. Either the wounded girl and the heli stay, or we go with it. Your pick."


"Take Rose too," you tell Damon.


"What?" Rose snaps.


"Get them both safe. Wait for me at the cabins north of here."


Some of the mercenaries hop out and grab Rose too, and force her in. She fights uselessly against them.


"Alabaster, don't do this -- Alabaster -- goddamn it--"


You're headed into the building again as the helicopter begins to ascend.


---


Kay races on foot to the hilltop to retrieve Will.


"You're alive," he says. "Holy."


"Holy is right," Kay says. "Let's go back down to the cabins. And be ready for anything."


He salutes her.


Kay looks around. "Where's Lady?"


"You wanna pay last respects and shit, right? I put him in the trunk for now... hope that's okay."


Kay blinks. "I... yes. Thank you... thank you, Will."


They set off together.


---


"Oh my god... oh my god..." Renee says as Damon's men drag Amber, half-moribund, into the cabin. They get Noelle off the hastily disinfected dining room table and put Amber on it: surgery patient #2 in less than half an hour.


Darkbloom looks down at her, as Renee wipes the gore and bits of blown-apart eyeball away, and tries to cauterize the bleeds. She comes hazily to, then--


---


There's that asshole. David Fucking Darkbloom. You're dying, and this fucker is going to be the last image you see. Not if you can help it.


You try to speak, but your throat is so goddamn dry. Your voice is barely a croak.


"Put it in me," you manage.


Darkbloom narrows his eyes at you.


"You know what," you tell him. You feel the warm blanket of sleepiness tugging at you again.


---


"No..." Renee says. "No. I will not. Not again."


"You must," Darkbloom says. He tries to hand her the grain, but she refuses it.


"Stop it! I won't do it!"


"Our situation requires that we do this."


"Fuck you! You bastard!" She's swatting his chest with balled up fists.


He presses the grain into her palm. "Think of where Mara might be headed next. We must intercept her."


Renee, crying, circles the table, and takes the grain's wire, and threads it into the socket, and begins to work.


Amber jerks, spasms -- begins to flop around. "MY EYE!" She wails. "MY EYYYYEEEE!"


Darkbloom holds her down.


---


Alex is on his hands and knees, crawling away from the morbidly obese man who's shitting himself as he dies.


You tug Lev by the collar of his shirt, get him onto his back. He looks uncomprehendingly up at you.


"I'm sorry," Lev says. "Don't wanna die... Please no..."


You get your gun under his chin and fire it. Again, and again, and again. You shoot him in the head until there's nothing left of it but mush and you're coated in a fine mist of blood.


When you turn around, Alex is gawking at you.


"Ally..." he says. "Are you..."


"You," you growl. "YOU." The rage and revulsion and bitterness and betrayal bubble up, biliously, and you're trembling with the seething anger of it. "You hid here up all this time, behind this, this, this..." You breathe raggedly, at a loss, then start again: "What you did with him-- and because of you--" you're standing. You haul him to his feet, too. "Because of you-- Because of you! Everything! All of this! You did this, didn't you!"


"A- A--" He doesn't move a millimeter.


"Go die for all I care! Worthless little shitstreak!"


The emotion drains from Alex's face. The fear and sadness return to nothing.


"Okay," he says softly.


You shake your head, almost shivering from the adrenaline of the moment, but confused by that response. You let go of him. "...What?"


"Okay Ally. I'll go die."


He steps past, slowly, and disappears down the stairwell.


You set after him, but the last of Tyrus's men lies in ambush. He tackles you at the first landing, and starts to beat you. You tussle with him, rolling around, trying to fight back, but you're a mess, and no fighter anyway.


It's only by luck that you find a knife on the ground, left behind by one of the Chinese mercs... you blindly swing it around in an arc and stab him in his temple. He collapses atop you, dead. You heave him off.


When you stand, Alex is gone.


The floor beneath you is hot to the touch, and you know the whole building below is fully engulfed. If Alex went downstairs, he's as good as dead already.


>[x] Follow him.

[ ] Leave him.


You're choking on the particles of thick black smoke, and your eyes burn, and you're coated in grime and sweat, as you traverse this collapsing building.


You're not alone down here in the second floor hallway. Alex is just ahead, you can see the outline of his form trudging sadly forward. You try to call out, but you choke again, and cough, and he doesn't acknowledge the sound, if he even does hear it.


"Got you!"


A wild-eyed, bloody, raging Tyrus pounces from one of the darkened rooms and smacks you with his bat. You fall to the ground amid a pile of glass shards from the broken windows of a conference room. You feel the abrasions and lacerations all over your hands and face.


You find your gun in your waistband and raise it on him and shoot him again. This one nails him in the belly. He roars, and falls back. "How the fuck do you--" he sputters. "How come I can't--"


Clutching at his side, he turns and tries to run, dragging his bat along the ground with him, but you have the advantage now. He's a limping, lumbering, wounded animal.


But he's still a threat. With the last surge of his strength he barrels into Alex up ahead like a charging linebacker, and falls with him to the floor. He straddles Alex and begins to choke him. Alex doesn't try to fight. Just gazes placidly back up at him. Welcoming it.


He must not be strong enough to do it with that bat anymore. Tyrus Kang is on his way out the door, and wants to make sure Alex goes with him. You won't let it happen. You pick the bat up: "Huh. This is what we used to kill your husband, isn't it?"


Tyrus looks your way. He grits his teeth. Lets go of Alex. Lunges for you.


You make contact with his skull and knock him back. A clean hit. Then another. You beat him unconscious, and then you beat him dead, and then you beat him past dead. And when you're done, you find that grain-sized implant in the mess there, and you make sure to grind it to dust with the bat, too.


Flames are licking the walls up ahead as Alex rises to his butt and stares up at you.


"Are you real?" He asks you. "I can't tell anymore... are you real, Ally? Are you really here?"


You get down on your knees and pull him towards you. You hug him. You kiss him on the top of his head. "I'm real," you tell him. "I'm real... I'm really here, and I love you."


His tears come, then. Your shoulder becomes wet with them as he grips your shirt and hugs you back. "I'm sorry..." he sobs. "I'm so sorry... I'm sorry..."


"Later. We need to go. Right now."


---


Renee affixes a piece of gauze over the ruins of your eye and the glowing grain of circuitry there.


You sit up. You swing your legs over the table. You stand.


You're weak. But you're standing.


"Don't--" Renee says. "Save your strength--"


You ignore her. You turn and look at Darkbloom.


"Camelia," he intones.


"No," you tell him, firmly. "Amber. I'm just Amber."


You glance towards the couch in the living where somehow despite not seeing her from where you stand, you know Noelle is lying. "Is she okay?"


"Is she okay?" Rose2 breathes. "Are YOU okay?"


"No."


"Mara--" Darkbloom says questioningly. "Do you have any idea where Mara--"


"Yes," you say. "She's weak... alone... on the road."


Damon, ankle on knee, nods happily. "We'll find her if you can give us a bead on--"


"No," you say. "Needs to be me. You wouldn't be able to do anything against her."


"Can you get to her?" Darkbloom asks.


"I don't know," you admit truthfully.


"This may be our last chance," he says.


>[x] Go after her.

[ ] Regroup.


"Hrrrng, Colonel." Will smiles at you. "Hrrrng... Colonel. Say it."


"Go to hell."


"Come on. It's cool."


You fiddle with the makeshift gauze patch over what was once your eye. You're still woozy with the loss of blood and the trauma and whatnot, it's true... but this thing in your head is like a jolt of energy straight into your endocrine system.


There's also this, to help keep you up and at 'em: Will is racing down a treacherous mountain road, pulling about 80 or so, navigating the jackknife turns with ease. Up ahead is Mara's sedan, and Will's Golf is gaining fast.


"I just need one good look at her," you tell Darkbloom, who's riding bitch.


Darkbloom looks half seasick, and keeps casting worried glances out the window to the sheer drops below, that have only rickety guardrails to protect you.


Mara's car veers left and right, heading off Will's every attempt to pull alongside. The madwoman herself is driving -- the only person remaining of everyone who died back at her server facility. She's excellent at maneuvering the vehicle, aided no doubt by her implant, but her servers are up in smoke and with that, her grip on power is flagging. She needs the juice, and she's got nowhere left to slurp it from. Cut off from her homebrew, cut off from DBA. On an island. Stranded. You just need one good opening... just one... to finish her off.


"Redline it," you say.


"You got it, Snake."


He redlines it.


His front bumper hits Mara's rear fender and causes her to fishtail. Around a wide curve with yellow signs warning of falling boulders, Will tries to force her off -- but she regains control.


Unfortunately for her, this curve has an emergency pull-off for semis with failed brakes; and Will uses this to get even with her. Mara makes the mistake of a lifetime, then: she glances through the passenger side window of Will's Golf. You look back, peel away the gauze, and smirk. The pain grips you -- leaves you dizzy and breathless. It has the same effect on Mara. She loses control, this time for good. The car skids out, smashes into the guardrail, and then down, down, down -- tumbling end over end into the valley below.


---


Darkbloom helps you, taking you by the hand and guiding you over the rocky terrain, winding your way down the slopes wherever they're gentlest, until at last you come to the flaming wreckage.


Mara is trying to crawl free of it, but her leg is pinned, and she lies helplessly on her back. A little mountain stream trickles past her head, crystal clear water turning crimson from the blood seeping into it. Mara uselessly tugs and pulls at the bloody mess of her femur to wrench it free.


Darkbloom approaches her. His form shadows hers, and she notices him. Flabbergasted, she says: "...Dalton? What on Earth -- I had no idea you were here -- I --" She shakes her head. Then: "Forget it. Just help me! Help me out of here! That horrible red bitch came after me, and, and--"


Darkbloom kneels down beside his wife. He looks her dead in the eyes. They both wince in pain at the feedback.


When Darkbloom regains himself, he's smiling.


"Euripides?" He says.


Mara's breath catches and her face goes slack. "Dav--"


The knife is already in her heart. She gasps, and dies.


Darkbloom cuts his dead wife's dead eyeball out of her dead head, pulls out the still glowing implant, puts it on top of a rock, and bashes it to bits with another rock. He bashes it until there's nothing left but dust and then he sweeps it into the stream and watches it all wash away.


And when he's done, he just sits there on the ground on his knees, watching the pristine Colorado waters flowing by amid the dying brown crunchy autumn grass.


You step up behind him, and draw your pistol, and put it to his head.


"You can do it," Darkbloom tells you without looking back.


"I didn't need your permission to do it the first time. I don't need it the second."


"Do you love Vivian?"


"Yes."


"Keep her well, Amber."


[ ] Do it.

>[x] Spare him.


"It's done."


Whitney's voice crackles back over the radio. "Are you coming home, Ally?"


"Right now. We're all safe."


"Mom?"


"Hi," Renee says into the radio.


"Alex?"


"Hi," he says gently, head still in your lap.


"Did we lose anyone?"


"Spancer," you tell her.


"Lady," Kay says from up front, at the wheel.


"And Mara?" Whitney asks.


"Dead," you report. "Tyrus Kang, too. Just as a bonus."


"Get here soon," Whitney says. "I need you home."


And that's it, over and out.


---


You watch the tail lights of the Golf driving just ahead, where Will, and Amber, and Rose are... and David Darkbloom, too.


You alternate between petting Alex and Noelle. Noelle is snoring against your shoulder, drifting in and out of consciousness; Alex is awake, but enervated.


"What I told you..." Noelle says.


"Huh?"


"I... forget it." She falls asleep again.


"How did you do it?" Renee asks Alex. "The bake sale."


"Obfuscation," he says. "The code I needed was contained as substrings within the architecture of the Diogenes platform. Once I had it all in place, I just needed add a couple lines of code at the moment of activation... to scan back through and automatically delete the garbage, then execute the real code to overclock the servers..."


"Huh?" Kay says.


He looks at her in the rearview mirror, head still in your lap. He fiddles with your trousers idly. "Say I want to pass on a message that says Aloha. But I want to hide it... so instead of just Aloha, I write: 'Ally, oh Ally'... then later on I erase the letters that aren't part of the word Aloha. That's the basic idea..."


"You wrote two functional programs simultaneously?" Renee marvels. "With one contained in the other like a matryoshka doll?"


"Yeah."


"That's... how?"


"I dunno. I'm good at that kind of stuff... coding. It's just my passion, I guess."


Kay's headlights illuminate the sign that welcomes you back to California, the Golden State.


END OF EPISODE 5.

Server IP: 10.70.0.122

Request IP: 18.226.159.94