Marquese glared at Dan. "So that's it, is it? They waltz in here, spout a pretty story and you're willing to hand them the city on a plate? To see them round up every adult and march them out to fight? On the promise of a fucking cave interior? I thought you were better than this, Tuite." He turned to Rowlands. "I thought you were all better than this." He swung in with a vicious blow, only for Apollo to step in to intercept the hit, though he was knocked off balance. Rowlands turned away and walked to a large console. "I'm sorry Marquese." he said. "There is no other way."
"Hand them the city on a plate? What is it that they are capable of doing right here and now that destroys us? Why do we need to fight? Is it that?" Dan said, gesturing at the console. He drew his old taser, unused for a long time, and fired at the console, the end latching on to it. "On your word I fry the console. I also helped design the firewalls here, I can edit the files remotely if you'd rather in milliseconds. WHAT EXACTLY REQUIRES THE LOSS OF MORE LIVES?" Dan shouted the final sentence. Rowlands turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. "If you honestly think that you can stop me, you're welcome to try. Otherwise, I can only recommend you stay out of this. For your own sake." In the background, Marquese and Apollo exchanged blows, Marquese coming off the worse for wear as Apollo weathered his own hit.
You can stop me. The phrase reverberated in Dan's head. There was something sinister about that sentence. And 'for your own sake'? It was clear to Dan now that Rowlands was lying about helping humans. "That's not something the great crusader for humanity would say, is it Rowlands? It seems everyone I let myself get attached to at all in that bloody room is a traitor. My own good died with Elin, I'm not adding any more to my list of mistakes." Dan switched the taser to his weaker hand, drew his gun and fired at Rowlands. The bullet struck home, blood flying from Rowlands as he looked down in shock at the hole that had appeared in his torso. Then he looked up, face serious. "I thought you might have known better, Dan. What do I honestly stand to gain from all of this? If this was a powergrab, I needn't have announced it to the city. After all, nobody was informed when the original Director passed away and his son took over. The threat is real. The need to sally out is real." The strength to his voice and the vitality of his movements contrasted heavily with the hole on his chest, still leaking blood. "This is the time to choose again, a second chance. Do not waste it." Behind Dan, Marquese took a heavy blow, Apollo swaying aside from the counterpunch.
"Yeah, you pretended to die before, Rowlands, I'm not falling for the same trick twice. Though the fact you can bypass my firewall to such levels is extremely impressive, so I doubt I have much of a chance of winning this fight. Just in case you're actually dying, I'll ask INA to come back. Still, I wonder who the new director is." Dan said, then sent an urgent level message to INA. "Have you spent enough time staring at a cavern? Get back here, now. I believe the guys here are lying and are going to somehow take over the city, I can't explain right now, but if I'm wrong then Rowlands is about to die, so either way, get here. Now."
With the message sent, Dan headed over to the console warily. As he reached it he began to continually form EMP grenades, tossing them behind him just out of range to defend his back, and interfaced with the console. The moment he interfaced, a high pitched whine kicked in. His aural circuits overloaded, Dan could only watch deafly as the world around him slowed. He watched, a prisoner in his own body, as his hands reached out and began to type at blistering speeds, commands that he knew nothing of spilling from his fingers. Even as he typed maniacally, he could see a crow fly in, perching on the top of the console before it let out a disappointed sigh. "I did warn you. I honestly didn't want you involved in this, but you're clearly too stubborn to listen. I set a failsafe on that console, just like I did with Godetzka. This one was a bit more trigger happy though - anybody who wasn't me that accessed the console would complete the work I needed to do. Couldn't risk being caught by a stray bullet - I can change people's vision, not become invulnerable. And so, Daniel Tuite, as it was at the start, so it shall be again. Just like when you hacked the drones, once more you find yourself manipulated to play the role of traitor. I hope this is a learning experience."
A quick system scan was sufficient to confirm the truth of the words, his firewall had been utterly swamped by the attack code, and most of his systems were now externally controlled. The only hope was to purge the code from his system as quickly as he could.
Dan sent an emergency message to Marquese. "If I do not stop typing immediately, break my arms. Rowlands is not dead, he's hacked my systems. Whatever he's making me type could be devastating." With the message sent, Dan began purging the code from his system. Though it seemed to take forever to clear the code, in reality it was probably only a second or two until Dan regained full control of his body. Turning, Rowlands was nowhere to be seen. The conflict between Marquese and Apollo continued, both men injured, but Marquese looking definitely the worse for wear. Even as Dan turned, Marquese took another blow to the head, rolling to minimise the force of the punch before retaliating with an uppercut that sailed through the air as Apollo stepped back. The sheer force of the uppercut unbalanced Marquese, leaving him staggering. For the first time since Dan could remember, Marquese looked vulnerable. He looked as if a stiff breeze would knock him over.
"INA you piece of shit! Get here now, do you want Marquese to die?" Dan sent to Ina. He proceeded to rush towards Apollo and stab down with his knife, but the blade glanced off his armour.
Meanwhile, above everything they'd ever known, Ina slowly moved her laser around the perimeter of the sealed door, as it sparked on the door like a welding torch. At the first incoming message, she shut her robotic eyes for a moment, dismissing it. This was more important than anything, right? The truth of the world. But then again, this door would take ages to cut open fully, and she knew it. Any sort of threat to life, down there, would fully claim the kill by the time she could return from the other side of this doorway. She made a sighing motion, though no air actually expelled. "Later..." Ina promised herself to the door, racing back the way she'd come. The second message arrived moments before she'd made it back to the door, killing any doubts she had about going in. After all, she'd partially betrayed the two of them; but really, it didn't matter so much. Wandering in, the scene was an absolute mess, with blood dotting the otherwise grey, concrete floor.
"I guess you weren't lying," she responded to Dan's message out loud, remarking at the sorry state of the two combatants. "I'm here to make sure no one dies, but until I know the truth, that's all I can promise." She stepped aside into an empty corner of the room and watched the battle unfold, cold and silent. "You want the truth? Ha! Don't we all. They're sure as hell not telling it though, what savior of humanity says this?" Dan sent silently to INA, and also sent her his memory of the last few minutes, and his reasoning for why Rowlands was lying. After a few moments of looking over what'd happened, sped up quite a bit for the sake of time, Ina answered Dan out loud. "My goal from the beginning has always been to reach some sort of peace and discern for myself what's real. As far as I'm concerned, I'm with EXODUS. Their story, true or false, has the greatest chance of unifying this city." "Do you have any idea of the power this gives Rowlands?" Dan replied. "He can alter what we see - what we believe. To him, we will simply be ants to control. They claim the meteor strikes were a lie. Perhaps. But who knows what we'll all be believing once he is in control? INA, you're an android. He can, and likely would, completely wipe your personality from you. He could kill you, INA without having to even lift a finger. And you want to trust him with power over the city despite what he could do with that? Once I really considered that, the Partition even would be better in control."
Dan’s words had a visible impact on Ina, and her plastic face grew disturbed at the concept of altering perception or memory. Eventually, she spoke with some anger, “And what would you have me do about that? Shoot the console? Rowlands is already gone, and it looks like they’ve already completed their goal here. So beyond keeping you two alive, there’s nothing I can do for you.” As if to challenge her resolve, Marquese landed heavily on the floor at her feet. Battered, beaten and bloodied, he struggled to stand, even as the imposing figure of Apollo stalked ever closer. "Do it then!" Dan shouted. "And Rowlands isn't dead!" He stood between Marquese and Apollo, and shot at Apollo as he advanced. Try as she might, Ina was unable to look away from her commander’s broken face. Several thoughts swirled in her mind, faster than she could handle, but they all converged on one train of thought: at this rate, Marquese was likely to keep going until he was beyond any help she could give.
”Stop!” She shouted at Apollo, raising her arm towards him as the panel popped up to reveal the barrel of her laser. Even so, she was frozen in indecision, “You have what you want, right?! So there’s no need for this then?!” Her eyes, which ordinarily displayed a sapphire blue, now glowed a menacing red. Apollo's head snapped sideways, the bullet catching the sun mask. The force sent the mask spinning from his face. Underneath was revealed a young, fair haired youth with intense emerald eyes. He would have been quite striking were it not for the fact that his skin was rough and bumpy, grooves clearly showing in a manner that seemed almost...scalelike. One hand came up to rub his cheek where the bullet had hit the mask, before he turned his gaze on them. "This isn't about what we want, it's about what we need. What we all need." Minus the gravelly threat of the voice changer, his voice seemed mellow, calm even. "We need to be united, and we need to form a vast army. Martial law and conscription are the only ways to guarantee that. People are selfish. Who would not hide their child to spare them the horror of war even if the whole world were at stake? Marquese is much the same, except rather than save a child, he would save this whole city that fate. He is a good man. A noble man. But ultimately a man who would damn the entirety of humanity to save those close to him. As such, he must either yield and abandon his dream, or he must be ended." He gestured towards Marquese, who had staggered to his feet and assumed a fighting stance, or something close to it anyway. "As things stand, he does not seem co-operative. Either change his mind or move aside. If you stand in my way I will consider you to be part of his revolt."
"Conscription? Ah, so that's what Rowlands is for. A united army. A hive mind. That's what you want to create. So you wish to completely destroy the free will of everyone living here, in order to regain the surface? People are selfish? You're the one that's selfish. Why don't you implant a chip in your brain and become a mindless soldier too? Oh, wait, no, you don't want to do that do you? Who cares about the surface? I'd rather not sacrifice an entire city for it - I can live here, so can everyone, and I'd rather die than let their lives be taken away from them." Dan snarled as he finished, and leaped at the man, stabbing at his eyes. Apollo sidestepped, grabbing Dan and throwing him across the room. Dan hit a wheeled chair and rolled the rest of the way, coming to a halt unhurt. "Hive mind? If we were reprogramming the entirety of the city, why would I be so concerned about changing Marquese's mind? Why would we be bringing in forces to supervise conscription? Why would we even have bothered with our earlier announcement? If people could be so easily controlled, why am I allowing you to continue with this farce? And speaking of farces, free will? What freedom exists in this hole is a pitiful mockery of the real thing. People from the Upper Levels have the freedom to do as they will, whilst the people from the Undercity have no choice but to carry the strain or be put down as anarchists. Perhaps your upbringing clouds you to that."
Meanwhile, outside the room, the groups led by Natalya and Ravyn arrived almost simultaneously. The people within were disturbed by the arrival of the five and the momentary confusion that five armed people bursting into a room can cause. Apollo was amongst the first to recover, staring at Dan and INA even as Marquese ran at him. "It's time to make your choice. He just has." Ducking under Marquese's slow, wide swing, he delivered a crisp jab to Marquese's throat. A cracking sound could be heard, followed by tortured gurgling that replaced the heavy breathing that had been coming from Marquese.
Recovering from the confusion quickly due to his perception of time, Dan attempted to prevent another five enemies entering the fray. "INA, make sure Marquese is OK! To everyone that just entered," He paused, as emotion temporarily clouded his judgement, but as it cleared he realised what his system was telling him. Ravyn. "Rowlands has been at work for a long time huh?" Dan muttered. "Yes, to EVERYONE that has just entered, even Godetzka, don't trust this guy. He says he just wants to put in forced conscription on this city, but he refuses to explain what Rowlands, the person who can break even my systems so much he seems dead when he is not, is using the computer that has access to everyone in the city's brains for. If you value your life or identity at all, don't fight for him."
Not waiting for a signal, Leo quickly moved to Marquese's position. He didn't know whether anyone else in the room was friend or foe at this minute, but he knew that he couldn't leave the Director alone to face this assault. Narrowing his eyes at Ina, Leo nevertheless stepped in front of her and Marquese to block the unknown attacker from striking again. "Natalya! What's going on!?"
Sy listened to everything, eyes taking in every detail of the room. Marquese's injury was... less satisfying than he'd expected. After all the man had done, to him and to the undercity, seeing him choke and suffer like that wasn't even gratifying. He might have expected some sort of sadistic glee, yet all he felt now was pity, even if he was glad the man was finally to be put down. Still, Ina could well heal him still, and Leo had decided to stand between Apollo and the dying man. Sy drew his revolver and began to speak. "This is EXODUS, Leo. I told you there was something bigger before, now you've seen some of the ultimate plan. I don't know what this Institute fuckhead's been hearing, but since he very recently tried to kill our team, I'm not very inclined to listen to the shit he's been spewing." There was a clear line between Sy and Marquese's crouched, spasming form, unblocked by Leo. "If we don't clear out the bastards that have kept over half the city down for so long, then we can't progress. This is just as worthy as we thought the Partition was, except not lead by a power-hungry psychopath this time. Speaking of..." Raising his revolver, Sy aimed it in the direction of Ina and the brown-haired man.
"Don't either of you dare try anything. You won't be able to save Marquese without the two of you dying in the process, and you won't be able to take us out either. Both of you just stand right there and wait."
Dan sighed. "God, Velos, you're more stupid than I thought, did dying that one time leave you with brain damage? I have never 'tried to kill your team' as you put it, unless you count self-defence or defending allies. You're the one always on the offensive. And you think Marquese will be capable of fighting after what INA can do? She specifically designed her ability to leave the receiver in agony to prevent further fighting. She can also, disturbingly, control emotions." Sy gave Ina a dirty look. He'd never heard of Ina's ability to do that before, and it served to fuel his hatred of the droid further. Ina gave herself a dirty look. She'd never heard of Ina's ability to do that before either. "Unless your entire drive is based on some kind of revenge, there's no point. The director is dead. His replacement probably is too. You won. So now you're putting all your faith in people you know nothing about? You'd trust them with control over your brain? Even from you, I'd expect greater intelligence. I don't hate you. We want the same thing, you chose to fight for a different power hungry maniac, I tried to influence the power hungry maniac in charge. We will never be friends, but we can at least work together to avoid a repeat of what happened before."
"You've seen the actions of Wodan for, what... a few hours? But of course, you know for certain he's evil, he's going to control us all and send us all to our deaths outside the city. I know the vision of EXODUS, and it is better than any vision that the Institute or the Partition could have provided. One where we don't live in this shithole, and we've regained the surface for ourselves. I trust Wodan, Apollo and the others over the alternative - people like you, content that they're making such a wonderful difference for the undercity when they're the hundredth one, and never see that by helping the Institute at all you're making it only worse. Trust me when I say I've seen every side, and the Institute is damn ugly when you truly understand what they do. Now shut the fuck up, and wait for us to free the city from the shackles you help keep on them."
Wincing, Ina watched as Marquese crumpled down from the fatal jab. Instinctively, she began to step forward, but paused for a moment when the old Partition group suddenly burst in. She returned Leo's glare, rushing to get to Marquese's soon-to-be corpse, but once again was forced to stop as Sy's revolver pointed towards her. "I guess at this point, it'd be like stabilizing a man as he burned alive," she droned with a cold tone, reluctantly stepping back as the remainder of the man's life drained away. "It'd be almost more cruel than leaving him to die." It was, as always, hard to tell what Ina was thinking emotionally. If she had to guess herself, she'd probably say it was more regret than sadness or anger. The inability to do what she felt was right, or perhaps the uncertainty, it was all so hard to tell. "Sorry, Dan. It seems you're very much alone here in your paranoia," she finally spoke with some accusation. "Or maybe it's valid worry, I don't know. All I know is that I'm going to find out once and for all." With this said, Ina calmly wandered closer to Sy, seemingly unconcerned with the barrel pointed towards her. "Try not to kill him if you can help it. I'm going to the surface." Having said all she had to say, Ina once again abused her robotic frame to run off at an inordinate pace to the armory, grabbing a few packs of C4 before making her way back to the door. "Then I'll do it myself." Dan snarled, entering INA's system unhindered and swiftly rushing towards Marquese to administer the nanobots. Before he could get to him however, Sy took at shot with his pistol, lightning-fast, aimed at the man's chest. The bullet dug in deep, sending blood flying. However Dan managed to continue his rush towards Marquese. He stepped down to him, and administered the healing nanobots, and raised a middle finger up to Sy behind him.
Apollo sighed heavily as Marquese began to breath normally again. "You've bought yourself a few more minutes, that's all. You're even more outmatched than you were when you walked in, and nobody else is coming. I don't know what you hoped to accomplish by choosing defiance now. When we last met, you understood the wisdom in backing down when facing insurmountable odds. The you of today is lesser than the you I met before, and you will for that foolishness with your life." He signalled to the rest. "Open fire. Let's close the door on this chapter of failed governance." Apollo punctuated his sentence with a hard left to the jaw of Marquese. The force spun Marquese's head, sending him reeling. As he regained his balance, a shot rang out, knocking him backwards. Hitting the ground heavily, he did not rise, a crimson pool forming around his head. "Sorry, I guess your trump card wasn't all that you hoped it would be." Ravyn said, facing Dan. "Seems like it's curtain call time." Leo closed his eyes for a millisecond. The Director had been merciful to him, but ultimately Leo felt that he was also misdirected. And so, despite Dan's action of trying to save Marquese, Leo whipped his gun into action, firing a precision round. The bullet hit Dan in the shoulder, spinning him.
Despite all of the vitriol and argument Sy had spewed in Dan's direction, now all that he felt towards the man was pity. There were six of them, now, against one man. In all reality he had been made angrier by the presence of Marquese, a man he greatly hated, but that monster was dead and bleeding out, now. The anger had slowed to a quiet simmer. "You can't win, you know? You won't even be able to take a single one of us out now. Just give up, and you might just live to see how wrong you were." He said to the man. His aggressive tone belied how much he genuinely didn't want the man to die anymore. The anger was giving way to tiredness, and he could feel his very heart rate slowing. This would be over soon, one way or another. "It's too late for that now. He made his choice, just like you did." Natalya's voice carried a hint of the same tiredness Sy felt, though it was undercut with what might be determination, or what might be resignation. Either way, the blood that still flowed freely from her wounds and pooled around her feet launched forwards. "No!" Sy shouted, leaping forwards to stop the spears of blood. He was too late, and it bashed the pistol from his hand. It continued on to skewer Dan across his torso, arms and legs. "I seem to recall advising you to know your own limits once." she said, addressing Dan. "Guess you're as shit at listening as you were at teaching me a lesson."
Dan coughed blood into his hand and smiled. "Huh, luck can only get you so far it seems. Death caught up to me this time. You didn't need to kill Marquese, you know. He was helpless. Even tactically, that was a stupid decision. You all helped kill a helpless person. I hope that damages at least one of your moral compasses. I always was aware of my limits, Godetzka, but unlike you I realise that risking death is always the correct choice if you would otherwise lose the only remaining reason to live. What do you live for? I don't care, actually. If you really were all telling the truth, I wish you luck. If not, at least let INA keep her personality. I guess we were something like friends once. Anyway, my system is going to go into overdrive now and use the last of my power to give me a few hours before I die. In case you were telling the truth, you'll find my computer unlocked with schematics for my replication system and data on how to copy most people here in their abilities and many more people too. Use it how you please, I don't really care." Dan laughed as he finished his monologue. "I thought I would care more when my time came. Oh well. Wyatt, find out about your past, OK? It may matter more than you think. Ah. Time's up. Goodbye." Dan's eyes closed, and for everyone around, within seconds, he was dead.
"Fuck, Natalya. If we'd let him live, he could've helped us. We could've shown him the truth first hand. Now he's fucking dead, stinking like shit on the floor." That wasn't something a sniper normally smelt, not from afar. The cloying scent of death, assaulting the nostrils like some strange form of karma.Sy turned to look at Marquese, approaching him with an angry pace. He walked right up to where the body lay, raising one boot above the skull. He stomped, hard, and felt a crunch. He did it again, then a third time, and a fourth time, and several more until the head was a bloody pulp, his boot caked in blood, bone fragments and pink goo. "It doesn't feel any better. Why doesn't it feel any fucking better?" He asked to no one in particular. He looked at Natalya, at how tired she seemed. The usual stream of curses that came from her mouth had been gone since she'd finished off Spider. She looked and sounded tired now, and for once he thought he understood her. With a sigh, he sat, legs in front of him, facing Marquese. He stared at the wrecked body, and waited.
The AI once again wanted Wyatt to stay out of it but rather than manipulating Wyatt to hold off it decided to instead force it upon him. It fully realized that after doing this Wyatt would surely try to get rid of it but if it worked that became a none issue. Additionally, it also understood that Wyatt had become wary of it and thus the AI knew that manipulation would become impossible. It quickly setup everything it needed and ran a quick test to see if it indeed could control Wyatt's actions in the way it wanted. With the test a success Wyatt quickly found himself frozen in place, every system unresponsive. He quickly started to panic while he quickly tried to find reasons for his problems, reasons that did not involve the AI as he desperately wished the AI would not be the cause. However, he was quickly faced with the reality that it was indeed caused by the AI and he gave up trying to solve it. He understood that if the AI was able to freeze everything he would be at the mercy of it. "Stay normal and do what I say. Then this won't be needed in the future." The AI said to Wyatt after it became clear that Wyatt gave up. After both Dan and Marquese where dead and Wyatt finally was able to move again he walked to Syderis "Sy" he said but the rest of the sentence getting blocked and quickly changed by the AI. "Staring at a dead guy helps no one." Wyatt now said as he reached out his hand. Meanwhile, Wyatt was internally screaming of anger but the AI made sure that this wouldn't be visible from the outside. "Shut the fuck up, Wyatt," Sy growled, his voice weak. He didn't even look to the man as he spoke, but continued staring at Marquese's corpse.
Leo turned away as Sy approached the Director's body. He winced as he heard the crunch that came afterward, and kept his eyes shut for a little while, not really responsive to anyone else's actions. Everything he'd known so far was now... completely and utterly pointless. There was one path remaining now that seemed obvious, but would it lead to redemption? For himself, or for anyone else here in this damned cavern city? Dan was dead. Marquese was dead. Everything here, Leo had helped make possible. So why didn't he feel as wretched as he thought he ought? Instead, there was only a dull sensation of dread, palling over him inside and out. What lied ahead, no one could make him believe in for sure. But it was happening, and it was happening soon. There was little time to prepare, still less to grieve. Could he even grieve? Was there even a reason to? This was war, after all. War against humanity, against anyone who dared spring up against any of the pillars of power that had once loomed powerful over this city.
Leo waited, and did nothing, keeping his eyes shut. The only escape now was the surface, or death. Maybe both.
