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| - The world swam into a dark, unsteady focus as Simon forced his eyes open. He could feel where they'd crusted over, a sign that he'd been out for some time. Blinking painfully, he twisted his head and grimaced as his neck snapped back in protest. Now the rest of his body sounded off in a chorus of aches and sores that left him paralyzed for several minutes. He slumped against the ground like a limp fish, an image that was helped by the fact that someone had manacled his arms and legs. A hard, cold surface had replaced Mamore's grimy earth, a dim overhead panel light replacing the cloudy night sky. He sucked in stale, recycled air and ran his tongue over sand-dry lips as his mind stumbled over itself to remember what was going on. His hands were cuffed behind his back, so he rolled onto his front to give them some air. The wave of pain that met him on the other side sent him spasming, gasping, back onto his side. Through the convulsions, he heard a voice speaking to him from somewhere nearby. "You're alive." Fighting through the pain, he turned his head to see Zoey sitting with her back to a smooth, dark wall a few feet away. Her hands had also been cuffed behind her, but her legs were free and aside from a black eye staring out from beneath her disheveled hair she seemed unhurt. "You," he grunted as everything came rushing back. Everything. Too bad for her. "Why are you here?" She shrugged. "They threw me in with you. It's not like they don't have a reason to hate me too." "Yeah. Good point." Panting from the aches that every move sent coursing through his body, Simon pushed himself upright enough to lean against the opposite wall. He glared at Zoey through bleary eyes. "So how long did you plan on running that little scam with me?" She looked down. "I don't know." The shame in her voice just pissed Simon off even more. "Planned to milk me for as long as you could, huh?" He laughed bitterly. The pain in his throat was one exertion he didn't mind at all. "Guess the joke's on you, you picked the wrong sucker this time around." She just kept staring at her lap. Simon turned away in disgust to look himself over. Venter had been surprisingly generous when he or his goons had stripped him for incarceration. His armor was gone, but the ragged jumpsuit he always wore underneath was still there. From the feel of things, they'd at least been careful to confiscate the assortment of knives and various other tools he kept hidden in the undergarment, but that was to be expected. Now that he thought about it, the fact that he had two arms meant they hadn't even taken his prosthetic. It wasn't hopeless. He could work his way out of this, just like he always did. There was always a way out. There was always a way to survive. But now, all Simon felt was tired. Venter had been there, his to kill, and he'd failed. Zoey had lied to him. There was no colossal payday waiting at the end of the tunnel, no magic bullet to let him escape forever. Even if he walked away from this mess, there would just be another one waiting around the corner like there always was. He closed his eyes again and wished he could just fall asleep again. Maybe there'd be a good dream waiting for him this time, a happy memory to relive. The Sangheili are coming, whispered a little voice in his head. They'll get you out, they owe you for the bomb. And Tuka's here, remember? With the prisoners? It even hurt to think. Why couldn't it all just go away? When would it all just end? "I bet you hate me now," Zoey said, her words cutting through his headache. He opened his eyes and glared at her as best he could. Just shut up, why don't you? "I didn't mean for this to happen," she carried on. "I just wanted to get off the frontier. I thought if I got to the Inner Colonies, I wouldn't have to be afraid all the time, and--" He couldn't take another second of this. "For fuck's sake," he snarled. "Shut up." She flinched, still unable to look at him. "You do hate me. They probably put us together to see if you'd kill me." "I'm considering it," he growled, but there was no fire behind the threat. He couldn't even summon enough energy to shift his legs, much less drag himself across the cell to choke the life out of her lying throat. Even if he did, how would he do it? His hands were shackled firmly behind his back. "I lied about everything. There isn't even a family back on Earth for you to take me to. The Brutes killed them when they attacked our colony. They took me and the other survivors back to Famul--" "One more word and I'm going to puke," he spat. "And then maybe I will kill you, just so I don't have to listen to any more of your garbage." Every word scraped painfully against his throat, but it still felt good to tear into someone. "I liked you better when you were playing me for the sucker I am. At least then you weren't such a whiner." She didn't reply and instead curled up into a fetal position. She'd probably done that a lot when the Brutes had her. Simon had spent enough time in their slave pits to know what it felt like to want nothing better than to fall asleep and leave everything behind. The thought of it tore all the satisfaction out of letting her have it. He might as well have kicked a puppy. A mangy, flea-bitten puppy, but a puppy nonetheless. He leaned back and closed his eyes. Maybe Tuka was here and maybe he wasn't. What difference did it make in the long run? He just wanted to sleep. A good dream, a happy memory, was that too much to ask for? He thought about the bunk on the shuttle, where he and Cassandra had been together that one time. That was happy, wasn't it? Just that one time.
*
* Venter had taken every precaution when he'd set up the holo-terminal in the command center. A self-sustaining generator was providing the station power, and none of the electronics were linked to networks of any sort. Even then, he'd also had one of the techs rig a few firewalls around the contained terminal just in case. He had to work for a moment to link the data chip his men had found in Mordred's--no, Stray's--belongings in to the terminal. It was bulkier than most of its kind. Stray seemed to have padded it with a layer of added protection. but it still managed to secure a connection after Venter wedged it firmly into the port. The terminal flickered. A slow connection--that was a good sign. Venter was pretty sure it meant the firewalls were doing their work. As he waited, he rubbed ruefully at his shoulder. Stray's attack had left him sore in quite a few places. He'd need to remember how much that armor hurt in case the Reaper ever turned out to be more trouble than he was worth. He still couldn't wrap his mind around it. Stray being alive was weird enough, but going merc? The kid had been head over heals for the revolution, if memory served. Venter had always pegged him as the kind who would go down with the ship rather than turn free agent. There was also the matter of his age. Stray had been dead to him for over a decade, yet now here he was looking only a few years older than he had the day he'd been left behind during that UNSC raid. This job just keeps getting stranger and stranger, Venter thought bitterly. The money was good, and the split-faces had turned out to be excellent target practice for his troops, but now the Syndicate had dropped contact and long-dead child soldiers were coming back from the grave to kill him. It was probably about time to pick up sticks and get off Sanghelios while the going was still good. A shower of particles darted up from the terminal's surface. They flickered for a few moments, then convalesced into the form of a blue-tinged teenager. The cameras installed in the terminal's base swiveled to focus on him as the holographic girl smoothed her skirt and smiled up at him. "Boss," Diana said warmly, as if they'd never parted. "Good to see you again." "Diana." Venter shook his head. "Why am I not surprised?" "Aw, you knew it would take more than a few government stooges to take me out." "I guess you and Stray are tougher than I took you for. Still, I figured even you weren't tough enough to outlive that time limit of yours." Venter could barely recall the haltering warnings of the scientist he'd used to program Diana. Maybe it had been a mistake to shoot the poor guy. He could at least have told them what he'd done to make his creation such an arrogant little bitch. "You should have failed ten years ago. What's your secret?" "Can't you just accept that I'm smart enough to duck that little hurdle and move on?" she asked coyly. "I guess I'll have to," Venter sighed. "I wouldn't understand you even if you did explain." Diana looked around her, as if inspecting her new pedestal home. "You know, boss, this is a pretty boring setup you got here for me. All you gave me is a few cameras to play with over here." "Well, there's the little issue of your pal Stray trying to kill me a few hours ago. Makes me wonder if you had anything to do with it." She rolled her eyes. "He went ahead with that, did he? I told him not to, but he wouldn't listen. Why do you think I wasn't connected when you found me?" Venter laughed in spite of himself. "Well, there's one reason to trust you, I guess." She frowned. "Sorry, boss, I don't follow you there." He smiled down at her. "If you really were on Stray's side, your first question would have been to ask if he's still alive." Diana just shrugged. "Oh, I know he's alive." "Really?" Venter glanced at the firewall tech, who shrugged. Was she tapping their systems even after all the precautions. "How'd you figure that one out?" "If the dumbass really had gotten himself killed, you wouldn't be so worried about me messing around in your systems. You know I'm not petty enough to screw you over out of spite." Petty was actually a word Venter had always associated with Diana, but he had to admit she had a point. "I guess I have to give you that round. We tossed him and that other little shit into a holding cell. Maybe he'll do us a favor and rip her head off." Diana laughed. "Oh, he found out she was lying to him, did he?" That one stopped Venter in his tracks. "Wait," he said, certain he'd heard wrong. "You knew?" The AI waved her hand dismissively. "Of course I knew. You don't go having all the cash she said she had without it being traceable. I was running a search on the 'net while she was still weaving the dumbass that stupid yarn about how rich her family was. Even the Syndicate didn't have any data on her. Why do you want her dead?" "She pulled the same scam on us back on Famul." Now that he had someone to lay the little brat's scheme out in front of him, he and his crew didn't come off so well for falling for it . It was a pretty stupid act when you got right down to it. "If you knew, then why the hell didn't you say something to him?" She shrugged. "I just wanted to see how far he'd go to get all that fake money she was promising him. And then I wanted to see what he'd do when he figured it out. It's a shame you and the HLF had to show up when you did. You got him all pissed off before he could do anything interesting." "Yeah." Venter rubbed his shoulder again. "I noticed. What's up with him?" "Oh, he's just hated your guts ever since you ditched us back in that asteroid field." "Huh," Venter muttered. That made a little sense, he supposed. The kid always had been a bit high-strung. "That's it, really?" "Well, there was that time you had him shoot Emily..." "Emily? Who the hell is Emily?" Diana threw up her hands. She'd always had that air of theatrics to her, Venter remembered now. "Another thing he never shuts up about. Don't you remember that one time on Mamore he recommended a friend of his for a messenger job? And then she turned out to be a government mole and got a few of your guys killed?" Venter frowned, trying to remember. "Not ringing any bells." "You said he needed to prove his loyalty or something. So you had him shoot her." "Huh." Venter was pretty sure he'd had Stray execute a few people for him, but he couldn't recall any individual cases. "Well, if it was so bad why didn't he say something back then?" "You could ask him. Or don't. All he'll say is that you brainwashed him or something. Kind of a cop-out if you ask me, but he never listens to what I say. If he did, he wouldn't have done anything as stupid as this." "Well, before he tried to kill me I thought I'd be nice and not hand him over to the highest bidder, but now I've gotta take the gloves off. Mordred just happens to be worth quite a lot on the market right now." Venter paused, a thought occurring to him. "Where the hell did he come up with that name, anyway? That was your idea, wasn't it?" "Oh, the name? He wanted something to go by, so I came up with something for him." He'd heard the name before, but now he couldn't remember if it had just been a rumor about one of Stray's jobs. "Why'd you go with that one?" "Well, I thought the name of a traitor knight worked well for a traitor Spartan. But mostly I just thought it was funny to have him running around with a pretentious name." Yes, it was all coming back to Venter now. It would be good to have Diana back on the team. There was something to her brutal honesty that he'd always missed from his usual cronies. But there was no rush. He'd need to keep her on a short leash for a while, just to make sure she didn't pull a fast one on him. "Once this business with Stray is settled, we'll get you up and running," he promised. "I think you'll like what we're doing around here. It's got you written all over it." He didn't wait for her response; it would probably be something mildly insulting anyway. Instead, he glanced over at the tech. "Hey, any idea where Peter's gotten off to?"
*
* Simon didn't know how long they left him in the cell, alone in the dim light with only the silent Zoey and his gnawing injuries for company. He drifted in and out focus, slipping off into dreams about dead children and corpse-strewn battlefields. Each time he drifted off he would find himself snapping back into focus with no way of telling how long he'd been out and feeling no more rested than he had to begin with. The cell door remained shut; no one came in to bring either of them food or water. It was as if Venter and his troops had just locked them up and promptly forgot about them. They had been trained for this sort of thing, of course. The DI's back on Onyx had drilled their young charges to handle any combination of desperate contingencies, cooking up as many interrogation resistance exercises as their torturously inventive imaginations could come up with. Food and water deprivation were so basic that Simon shrugged it off almost unconsciously. His wounds and sores, which had begun to stink and leave dark stains through his jumpsuit, were harder to ignore. He put a wall between his body and his mind, clinging to whatever distractions his aching thoughts conjured up. He thought about Cassandra, throwing away the boundaries he'd built up around her over all their years of painful friendship. He pictured her face: the sharp chin and small nose, the pensive brown eyes and wavy hair. Then her body, with its willowy frame and supple limbs, the nimble fingers and . When he began imagining her naked, he didn't pull away as he'd always done in the past. There was no shame for him here, no fear of trespassing or going to far. It kept his mind off the pain, and that was all that mattered. At some point the images of Cassandra started to give way to thoughts about Emily. Her face was joined by the rest of Rat Pack, a dozen grimy, smiling faces that faded almost as quickly as they had come. Emily remained a little longer, but then she gave him a sad smile and slipped away as well. "Dumbass," Diana said, crouching beside him. "You always need me to save your ass, don't you?" He looked up at her and shrugged as best he could with his hands cuffed behind him. "These things just happen I guess." "And what'll you do when I'm not around to help you?" He shrugged again. "That's a tough one." "Sure is," she agreed, fading away into thin air. Some time after that he was barely aware of the pain anymore. His head felt fuzzy and the rest of his body was just a numb lump, a sack of thick flesh that hardly belonged to him at all. He sighed. This was so much easier than fighting back. It would be nice to just drift away into sweet oblivion. So much simpler that way. He looked over at Zoey through bleary eyes. She was still curled up on the floor, unmoving. When he found the energy to blink and clear his vision, he wasn't even sure if she was still breathing. "Hey," he grunted. "You dead yet?" It was several minutes before she shifted, raising her head to look back at him. "No," she rasped weakly. "Do you want me to be?" What was the point in holding grudges now? At this stage in the game, anger was just a waste of energy. He lolled his head from side to side, the bones in his neck cracking in protest. "If you die, you'll stink this place up even worse," he told her. "I'm sorry," she said. "You trusted me." He just jerked his head at her in exasperation. "I trusted your cash, moron. If I hadn't gotten greedy, I wouldn't have believed your bullshit for a minute." "I didn't like doing it," she said eventually. "But I wound up lying to everyone. I lied and stole from everyone, too. I never thought--" "You did what you had to do. Stop apologizing for it." She rested her head back down on the floor. "You were so angry before. Now you're scaring me." "I can cuss you out some more if you'd like." "At least then I thought you had a plan to get yourself out. That's what Mordred does, right? You've always got a way out." "Looking for a way out is what got me here in the first place. If I'm going to die..." He stopped there, because he had actually said it. He'd acknowledged that he was going to die, and he really didn't plan on doing anything about it. Is this really it? All this time, all the horrible things I've done to survive, and it all ends here? "Mordred? What's wrong?" What had seemed simple a few moments ago now struck him as incredibly stupid. If he died here in this filthy cell, Venter would win. The Spartans would win. The UNSC would win. Everyone who'd ever helped make his life the living hell it had turned out to be would win. The thought of it was worse than any kind of pain his body had to deal with. "Screw this," he said aloud. "Mordred's getting through this, and I'm gonna help him." "What are you saying now?" She sounded more tired than confused. That was a bad sign. "Oh no you don't," he said, baring his parched teeth in a wicked grin. "You don't get to die here. You owe me way to much for that." "Mordred?" "To hell with costumes and code names." He twitched his legs experimentally, working them slowly to get his circulation flowing again. "Call me Simon. That's my real name." "Simon, huh?" said a new voice. "How many names do you have?" Simon spun to see that the cell door had slid open. There, framed in the doorway and grinning broadly, was the kid with his face. The one who'd messed up his shot at Venter. The one with his face. Still smiling, the young man stepped into the cell. Two armed guards followed him in. One paused to shut the door behind them. "Glad to see you two are still awake," the kid continued. "Some of the other guys bet you'd died in here, but I knew different. You gave me my genes, so I knew you wouldn't die that easy." Simon blinked. "What are you?" he demanded hoarsely, the newfound bravado draining out of him. The kid laughed. "I'm you," he said cheerfully. "The boss said he took some DNA from a hardcore kid he picked up on Mamore and used it to make me. Crazy, huh?" A clone. That unbelievable son of a bitch. Simon couldn't help but feel utterly violated as he stared up at a slightly younger, more cheerful version of himself. This wasn't right. It was just wrong on too many levels to count. "By the way," the clone continued. "You winged me pretty good back in the holding area." He tapped a bandage around his shoulder. "That hurt a lot." Without warning, he brought his leg up and drove the heel of his boot into Simon's chest. Simon choked and wheezed as the air rushed out of him, writhing and gasping desperately on the cell floor. The wall he'd put up came crashing down and the pain washed over him once again. He whimpered, tears of pain leaking out of his eyes. The clone just laughed. "That looked like it really hurt," he observed. Then he kicked Simon in the small of his back, smiling and nodding as his progenitor jerked and twisted beneath him. "Whoa," he laughed. "Hang on. That looked like it hurt a lot more." He scratched his hair, a cleaner, tidier mop than Simon's unkempt mane. "So let's try to clear this up, okay?" The boot came up again. "Which hurts more..." It came back down onto Simon's chest. "A?" Now it came shooting forward into the back. "Or B?" Another kick to the chest. "Front?" Now another in the back. "Or back?" The blows continued, raining down mercilessly. Simon curled into a ball, desperately trying to get the pain back under control. But it was no use. He'd already lost and there was nothing he could do but suffer. And all the while he couldn't get that smile out of his head, the smile plastered all over his tormenter's face. Over his face. The face swam into focus, coming nearer and nearer as a bony hand seized him by the hair and dragged his head off the ground. "You haven't answered my question," the clone said pleasantly. "Should we look at some other places? Expand our portfolio?" "Stop... stop it!" Tormentor and tormented alike looked up, staring over at Zoey with two very different pairs of identical eyes. Simon tried to shake his head, to warn her off, but he couldn't find the strength. The clone smiled, then slammed Simon's head into the ground. Everything went immediately, mercifully numb. From somewhere far away, he heard the clone laugh. "Hey, you're still awake! Great!" Simon opened his eyes in time to see one of the guards shift uncomfortably. "Peter, I'm not sure if the boss--" "Venter just wanted to see if Mordred here would pull her head off," the clone named Peter cut him off. "She's not worth anything, so let's make the most of her being alive." He gestured to the other rebel. "Hold her down." This isn't happening, Simon thought dimly as both men grabbed the girl by either shoulder. He watched himself smile broadly and begin to loosen his combat belt. This isn't real... It was another hallucination. The beating had knocked him out, and this was his own perverse fantasy. It had to be. There was no way this could be happening. Zoey was yelling, kicking, pleading her eyes wide with terror as Peter drew nearer. He laughed and continued to unfasten the belt. "Damn gear," he said. "So hard to get off in a tight spot." Laughter from the guards. Simon turned his head away. This scene wouldn't join his collection of nightmares. He wouldn't let it. All he needed to do now was cover his ears and ignore it all. But his hands were still cuffed and Zoey wouldn't stop screaming... He never knew how exactly he got up, or how his legs could still work enough to give him the one, agonizing step forward that had him tripping over himself and crashing head-first into Peter. The clone yelped, then howled as he toppled over onto his injured shoulder. The rebels threw Zoey back down and trained their sidearms on the prone Simon as the young clone staggered to his feet. "Son of a bitch," he spat. A trickle of blood slipped down his face from where he'd hit his head on the floor. "Haven't you had enough yet?" He glowered, caught between two desires: Zoey and Simon. He swayed for a moment, turning towards one and then the other and then back again. Finally, he rounded on Simon once more. "Fine," he growled. "You first." I guess he is my clone after all, Simon thought distantly. Fear and pain fought for space in his head as one of the rebels knelt to pin him in place. Can't resist a shot at revenge. Peter crouched low, burying his knee in Simon's chest. He grinned as his victim's eyes bulged. Simon writhed beneath him, bracing himself for whatever was coming next. "This time," Peter mused. "Let's leave a bit more of a mark." He made a fist with one hand, then extended the thumb and pointed downwards. The clenched hand drifted lazily over Simon's face before coming to a stop above his left eye. "No." Simon had always told himself that no matter what indignities he might be subjected to, no matter how close he came to death, he would never beg. That was the last scrap of dignity he'd been determined to cling to until the bitter end, but now, as he realized what was about to happen, he broke that last barrier and began to plead. "Don't... please..." The last thing his left eye ever saw was Peter's savage grin as the thumb blotted out its light forever.
*
* Mordred or Stray or Simon or whatever his name was screamed, a pure animal howl that reverberated about the cell. Zoey wouldn't let herself close her eyes or look away, no matter how much she wanted to simply crawl in a corner and shut everything out. She couldn't have lived with herself if she had. The scream petered out into a piteous whimper as Peter wiped his hand on his uniform. His body blocked out Mordred's face, but the mercenary's thrashing body would haunt Zoey's nightmares for the rest of her life. Maybe he was nothing but a killer, just like he'd told her back in the city. Maybe his own reckless desire to kill the rebel leader had led them both to this misery and Mordred was now getting what he'd had coming anyway. Zoey couldn't have cared less. The miserable, wretched mercenary who now struggled feebly on the cell floor, had saved her. The only person who had ever cared enough to stood between her and harm was paying for it now with suffering beyond even anything she'd seen in the Brute slave pits. At least those monsters hadn't had a recognizable face to show how much they enjoyed the misery they doled out. "Well," the clone said after letting Mordred struggle for a little longer. "I guess we figured out what hurts more." He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at Zoey. "Don't worry. We'll get back down to business once I'm done with this piece of shit." It was so wrong, so utterly wrong for this fiend to have the same face as her savior. Now Zoey did close her eyes so she wouldn't have to see that hideous smile. "Now for the other one," Peter's voice said. At least that didn't sound like Mordred in the slightest. "I don't think the Syndicate will mind if we hand him over minus the eyes." "No," said a new, deeper voice. "But I might." Zoey opened her eyes and turned to see an armored figure standing in the cell door. It was the helmeted rebel who'd convinced Mordred to come to this hell in the first place. His faceless visor surveyed the savage display before him. "Reaper," Peter snapped. "What are you doing here?" The helmeted man shrugged. "I could ask you the same thing." He turned to the guards. "Weren't you assigned to watch the door?" The one who wasn't holding Mordred down stepped forward and raised his gun warningly. "Hey, pal, you aren't in charge--" The man's arm made a sickening crack as the Reaper caught it and twisted upwards. Before his victim could even cry out, the Reaper then slammed his head into the door frame. The limp guard sank to the floor. "You have a problem with me too?" the Reaper asked the remaining guard mildly. The man hesitated, then released Mordred and slipped meekly out into the hallway. Peter wasn't to be cowed so easily. He rose and kicked Mordred's quivering body out of the way. A knife appeared in his hand as he faced down the impassive Reaper. Kill him, Zoey prayed. Let the Reaper kill him, please... "You're brave, when you have Venter to protect you," the Reaper said coldly. "I suggest you leave, before I have to hurt you. Our boss might dock my pay." Peter just glowered. "Or maybe I'll kill you here, and the boss won't have to pay you at all." The Reaper shrugged. "Go ahead and try. I'll use whatever's left of you for my next few experiments." "You freak." "Takes one to know one." The Reaper gestured to the hallway. "Get out." Another moment of hesitation. Then Peter sheathed his knife and stalked out. He took one last leer at Zoey before the door cut his awful face from view. The Reaper crossed the cell and knelt down beside Mordred. "He's passed out," he said to no one in particular. "It's a wonder he didn't go sooner." Zoey leaned against the wall, utterly drained. She looked at this strange, armored man and didn't know whether to love him or be as afraid of him as she'd been of Peter. He was with the same people who'd thrown them in here without food or water, and while he and Peter clearly weren't on the same page that didn't change the fact that they were still on the same side. As if sensing her thoughts, the Reaper turned his visor towards her. She pressed herself against the wall, tensing up as she waited for whatever was coming next. "Get over here," he ordered. "The eye's completely gone, but if I can clean and bandage it he might be able to get a clone transplant. Not that he'll access to that sort of tech where he's going to end up." Without waiting for a response, he turned back to Mordred and shook his head. "Number G294, huh? How far you've fallen." "What?" Zoey squeaked. "What did you call him?" "G294," the Reaper replied, intent on his work. "His operating number. Gamma 294."
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