Alley Cat and Mouse

[Kella]

November was on the hunt. The cold, calculated look in her eye was the same that had killed many men. Her mind was like a sniper’s rifle, and she honed her shot to exact perfection, compensating for every variable to inevitably make the kill.

The Huntress struck.

“Fourteen,” she said.

“Fifteen, and not a penny less!”

“Deal.”

“Deal!”

The credit chips rolled from hand to hand, and November slyly claimed her catch.

It was two in the afternoon. November had been doing this all day. She factored some subtle hesitation into her stride, and varied her course, to make sure it looked as if she was wandering, when in reality, her target could not have been clearer.

She had been sent to shop (as theft drew too much attention). Or, moreover, Delta had expressed the need for more supplies, which November had echoed, and then she had volunteered.

November had never shopped before. She couldn’t say this so surely because of her not having remembered shopping -- she couldn’t remember having killed anyone up until two weeks ago, but she knew to the core of her muscle memory that she’d killed plenty of people before. This experience, for once, was actually completely foreign, and at once refreshing and stimulating.

She approached a table with all sorts of glass baubles. Picked one up, set it down. Picked up another, examined the color, set it down. This was the pattern of the browsers and the buyers, and this was the pattern she would have to imitate if she wanted to blend in.

This market place was intriguing. The hovering cars and carts wizzed overhead, so here the streets were dominated by pedestrians and livestock. The buildings were short enough for the midday sun to illuminate the whole square. The intersection of two streets formed the center of the market, and it stretched out its arms in all four directions, each one loosely organized into some sort of category.

November moved on from the glass baubles, closer to her target.

She’d approached this shopping trip very simply. As a mission. And once she was thinking about it as a mission, everything fell clearly into place. She’d prepared a list of things needed, and organized it by priority. When she’d begun to case the market, she’d been quite dissatisfied by the fact that at the asked prices, she’d hardly be able to fetch half the things on her list.

Then she noticed haggling. Haggling was a glorious back-and-forth of algebraic percentages. Once she’d identified the practice, and its merit, November had begun gather information on the patterns. At first, she was dissatisfied to find that her formulas weren’t adding up. There must have been an emotional element, the only thing that could so easily foil her mathematics. However, November persisted and soon found that even this element could be predicted. Each merchant was different -- some looked for a sweet smile, others at a woman’s physical attractiveness, and still others appreciated boldness -- but without arrogance. So she would wander around a merchant, read into their pattern, and then strike. This was like assassinations, but... it used another part of her brain. And every time she got a deal satisfied her so! It was a rush! A high! She was addicted to it.

She’d soon discovered that in this sort of challenge, one had to chose to pursue either efficiency in time, or efficiency of credits, as the two had an inverse relationship. As time was of flexible supply, and credits quite fixed,

Only three things remained on her list, and she still had credits in her pocket. She was quite skilled at this. And then two things. And then one thing. And then the list disappeared into the bag now slung over her shoulder. The bag had actually been her first catch of the day -- it had no less than sixty eight pockets and compartments -- she’d counted while the merchant tried to convince her that the color matched her eyes. She might have played his emotions, but November didn’t have emotions to play, and that quite satisfied her.

Mission completed, all that remained was to return to base. November kept up the guise of wandering browser, as too many merchants were all to happy to call out ‘thief!’ if someone seemed to be in too much of a hurry. She’d observed exactly that at 10:23.

Of course, now that the objective was almost overly simple to obtain, November’s curiosity, previously satiated, began to grumble again. What was this thing over here? What was the purpose of that metal contraption? Who in their right mind would ever wear that? Such questions had not been permitted in the fulfillment of the previous objective, but now November found herself with markedly more freedom.

Her hands and eyes moved from piece to piece, trinket to trinket, and she took a closer look at whatever caught her eye. She then noticed something. A small holovid box, which she’d previously dismissed, was not playing what she would expect it to play. It seemed like it could be surveillance footage... but not in a place that one would record interactions, and they were spliced together in some sort of narrative. November watched it for some time, before the merchant noted her.

“Is there anything I can help you with, miss?” she asked.

“What is this?” November asked, conjuring a puzzled expression.

“Dreams of the Old Origin. Got eighty-nine percent on The Critics’ Review. It’s a fine drama.”

“A drama?”

The woman eyed November oddly. “You one of those small-town types?” She didn’t give November a chance to answer. “A drama, you know, a holo-drama. People act the story, they record the story, you watch the story. A drama.”

November nodded, feigning understanding. She decided that she would most definitely have to investigate this further. After some discussion, she learned that some came as disks to put in other players, and some came as small cartridges, that projected their own sound and flat pane of image.

“What do you recommend?” November asked.

“This one, most definitely,” the merchant said. She extracted a cartridge. “Cold Steel and Blue Moons. It’s an oldy but a goody. Ten credits.”

“I’ll give you six.” November said it in a way that meant, ‘that’s all I’m going to pay you, and this is the one I want.’ She’d been working on that tone all day.

“It’s yours,” the woman said, and bundled it up and handed it over.

As November walked away, she heard the woman mutter, “Worst deal of the day, but force knows that girl needed some culture...”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

November, having decided it was time to return purposefully to base, walked briskly past the last stalls of the market. There were still people here, some coming, some going, and enough activity that the paranoid woman felt some degree of security. There was a ninety-nine-point nine percent change (repeating of course) that any scuffle would be spotted by no less than two witnesses.

Something caused November to pause. It wasn’t the noise that caused her to pause, the half-bark, half-yowl imposed over an interesting sounding crash. It was her curiosity, plucked by the sound, that caused her to pause. And then to take a step toward the alley. And then another. It as a relatively narrow affair, and looked to be approximately ten feet in width. A rusted fire-escape climbed precariously up the left building, and the wood and metal that comprised the walls were covered in dirt, which appeared to be more of a symptom of time-between-cleanings than any sort of unsavory residence. A few trash receptacles were arranged neatly against far wall, which hemmed the alley to a dead-end.

Among other things, she also noticed a humming boxed machine, no doubt something to do with climate control and attached somewhat hap-hazardly to a system of pipes that ran in and out of the wall. A few bits of paper trembled in the breeze that streamed from a large rectangular grate in the ground, adjacent to the wall across from the fire hydrant.

But no source to the noise. What sort of animal would make that noise? Was it even an animal?

She continued into the alley with slow, soft steps, so as to not spook whatever it was she hoped to find...

[Twysper]

He had been tracking his target for a couple weeks now, and the hunt had spanned the galaxy already, from the Outer Rim to the Expansion Region.

Yankee had been playing catch up during that time, operating on the smallest scent left from a chilling trail. She was far wilier than a fox, but he was a better tracker than a bloodhound.

And now he had found her.

Yankee deftly spun a noise suppressor onto the heavy blaster's threaded barrel before checking the power cartridge with another smooth movement. Another quick motion ratcheted the blaster down to stun.

November.

In short, the woman was a genius assassin with a specialization in chemical agents. He had been briefed extensively on her by the Whitecoats at the facility before being sent out. Yankee knew that she had lethal aerosol compounds with her when she left, knew she had her specialized dart gun. He had already felt the effects of her knockout gas once as she made her initial escape.

Yet, despite her intelligence, she had led him to not just one, but to two of his runaway brethren; Delta and Echo.

It was sloppy work.

Yankee surmised that the defect with November that had made her run away from Green Meadows in the first place was probably the same catalyst for this behavior. A number of the other twenty-six had disappeared around the same time too; this connection had been noted and processed, but a conclusion had not been reached yet.

Glinting hazel eyes flicked over the gear he was wearing, and leather-gloved hands did a last check that everything on his person was secure.

A number of button cameras affixed outside tracked his mark’s progress down the street, and streamed live video back to him.

Eight seconds now.

He had been spared no expense in terms of equipment or information, and his mission parameters were broad.

Bring November back.

Yankee held no delusion of simplicity for his task, even outfitted as he was. November was as highly trained as himself. It was why he was currently wearing flexible mesh armor underneath his clothes, stained dark black; why he had a compact gas mask hanging off his belt.

Contingencies had been taken care of.

He had the element of surprise.

All the odds were in his favor.

The viewscreen attached to his forearm showed Yankee a picture of November walking closer, and it was almost time to show his hand. His eyes noticeably brightened in the dark room. The half-smile he had worked so hard to imitate at Green Meadows now came naturally, suddenly creeping around his face like a wraith.

He sent the command to the device he had planted in the alleyway earlier, merely a simple distraction, something for the other assassin to focus her attention on for a moment. Getting the recording of the domestic pet screeching was a story in and of itself.

It worked far better than Yankee had expected, actually drawing November off the streets and into the alleyway.

Suddenly, he understood the need for her to be returned to Green Meadows. Her behavior was even more irrational than he had expected.

The twenty-fifth assassin stalked outside quickly, every movement controlled and efficient. He turned the corner to walk into the alleyway, and the suppressed blaster was instantly trained on November’s torso. He saw her turning, changing her profile and target area. Yankee fired twice in quick succession, and watched the blue bolts slam into the other assassin’s side, knocking her roughly onto the corroding metal grate embedded in the floor.

Simple.

The lithe assassin briskly trotted over to his downed quarry, retrieving a pair of durable metal handcuffs from his belt with one hand. He reached down to grab her wrist, brown hair suddenly ruffled by a slight breeze, fastened the cuff, and found she was holding something foreign in her hand.

Something that looked like an activated aerosol grenade.

[Kella]

As November stepped further into the alley, her mind became aware of something. The patterns did not match. It was as if a Trojan program had inched its way into her perception -- the noise had given all the guise of something of interest, and yet, there was a vital part missing. The sound was utterly lacking in any substance, any interaction with the environment. Nothing was out of place. This was how the patterns did not match.

This could mean several things -- that is, there were several different purposes the Trojan could have. But by far the most probable was that this was a trap. Traps needed to be avoided at all costs, unless one was allowing oneself to be caught in another's trap for the purpose of trapping that other, but that was only if one knew one was about to be trapped -- not if one had barely a hair's-width of warning.

All this November calculated in the same length of time a desktop calculator takes to figure the square root of one-thousand-twenty-four. Like lightning.

Her fingers flashed to the bag at her hip, where she'd stowed the things that had made her prepared for such an instance. At the very least, her equipment had been more ready than her mind. She grasped the grenade, the pressure of her hand pushing the two halves together. She felt them twist past one another as the catch unlocked.

Even as she did this, her body was whipping around, pointing her eyes -- her perfect, enhanced, bright-green eyes -- around to face whatever phantom lurked in the unknown, surely ready to--

Flash of blue, black.

Black, the void without memory...


The blue light spread across November's chest like a claw, pulling her mind away. The energy hardly had to touch her -- she was submissive as a feather, falling to the ground. Her right shoulder hit the grate first, and her back fell level to the grate, head at an angle. The breeze rushed past her, ruffling the strands of hair that had strayed from her braid; they licked her face like snakes.

Above the quiet whoosh of air, one could not quite hear the quiet hiss. Her fingers had held the catch closed, while she was conscious. Now, the tasteless, odorless, invisible, gas trickled from between November's fingers, grip softened by unconsciousness. It was caught in the air that flowed around her, ruffling the edges of her shirt in the flow. The poison worked quickly, but was not terribly potent. It simply lulled it's victims off to sleep, the sudden, soft sort.


November's blackness whispered to her.

Rockabye Baby,
On the tree top.
When the world shakes,
the cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks,
the cradle will fall.

And down will come reason, numbers and all...

[Twysper]

Time slowed down as chilling adrenaline shot through Yankee’s system. November was holding one of her gas canisters, and he could see that it was already active. He had already inhaled, going for the mask now was useless, and it was just a matter of time before he lost consciousness now. His mind had already resolved that it wasn’t lethal. She had no apparent way to protect herself from breathing it in herself, all of his information indicated she wasn’t suicidal, and therefore killing her now ran contrary to the mission Green Meadows had given him. Now he had to make sure he didn’t give her an advantage when he regained consciousness.

Economy of motion was now crucial.

His hand holding the other cuff swiped out at the nearest secure thing that looked promising, pulling November’s limp arm with it to try and make the stretch to the fire escape. Milliseconds passed as he felt his limb travel the distance, and Yankee coolly noted his vision darkening even as the first subtle click of the cuff ratcheting itself tighter around the metal rung entered the air. The sound was in and of itself defiant.

Yankee’s eyes studied November’s lightly tanned face for a last, long half-second. She was irrational, and flawed, but she had beaten him right now. He wondered what had been going on behind those eyes.

“It does not make sense!” his brain protested loudly.

Then he blacked out, and slumped loosely from his kneeling position to land on November.

[Kella]

The white-coats had given the objective.

The room was a rectangular prism. Spartan. Clinical.

The platform was thirty feet in length. An eight-foot wall, a six-foot gap, an area of net, ten feet across a wire.

Three seconds.

November could run the course. She could run it perfectly. In ten seconds.

They wanted three.

So she would run. She would drive herself harder than ever before.

At three seconds, the platform lurched, dumping November into the water below. If she hung on, they ran the thing with live electricity, at which point involuntary motor functions knocked her into the water.

The water was simply water, maintained at exactly thirty-two degrees. When it contacted the skin it absorbed a remarkable amount of energy every second, and by the body’s sensor feedback systems, caused an incredible amount of pain. With her Relic tuned back for the purpose of this exercise, November felt it all.

Again. And again. And again.

Seven point two seconds.

Again.

Six point four seconds.

Again.

Four point three seconds.

Again.

Four point four seconds. Again. Pushed back in the water for regressing.

Three point nine seconds.

Again.

Three point five seconds.

Again.

Then two point nine-eight. No cheers. No sense of victory. No satisfaction.

Just knowledge of mastery. Advancement.

November felt like she was back in that water. The pain throbbed and burned and ached in and out of her whole body. It was something like being prodded with needles everywhere, all at once. However, it was not quite like that, as November could say from experience.

Nor was this quite like the water, as specific stimuli sifted through the pain. The pressure points of the sharp grid bit into her hips, her shoulders, her head. Her ribcage burned as stressed muscles moved... Something was on top of her restricting her... A grog clung to her mind...

Suddenly, her heart raced, her body flared. November’s eyes snapped open as her chest lurched, drawing a sudden gulping breath. Epinephrine. Adrenaline. Rushing like a tidal wave through her body. Too much, too fast, her pounding heart--

As suddenly as it had come, the adrenaline faded. November blinked, regulated her breathing. The Relic had been set with certain reactions; she remembered that under certain circumstances, it would increase adrenaline production to force the body to remain in or regain consciousness. Her memory lacked many situations, but she could not remember anything being so intense--

Again! Her breath gasped, her heart thudded and fluttered like a hummingbird. Fight or flight, fight or--

And the thudding silenced. November’s mind was clear again. The air she felt on her neck meant she had fallen on the grate. The heavy thing that restricted her lower half was... a body. November raised a hand (now noting that the other was hand-cuffed to a strut of the fire escape) and checked the body for a pulse. Still quite alive. And facedown, it must have fallen on top of her... November used her free hand to haul its shoulder over--

Yankee. She knew that face just as well as she knew all the faces of the white-coats. By definition, he was a sort of sibling of hers. Raised by the same facility, same as Delta and Echo. Logically she’d recognize him easily.

November quickly worked backwards, fitting all the events and evidences in sequence. Yankee, most likely operating under Green Meadows’ command, had come to capture November -- hence the stun-set blaster she spied on his person. His intent had not been to kill -- yet. He had drawn her into the alley with the sound. She had turned at the last moment, hit by the stun-bolts just as she’d activated the grenade, at which--

November gasped, her hands trembled, her heart pounded through her skull! On again off again! The RELIC was malfunctioning -- at every turn new bugs were manifesting in the programming. Wait and be still, that was all she could do is wait and--

Be still. Still again. November continued her thought. The air from the outtake grate had given both Yankee and November a dosage of the grenade’s contents -- in this case, a simple knock-out gas. Yankee had handcuffed her to the fire escape before passing out, his last standing position bringing him to fall on top of her.

So November had come-to earlier, most likely a combination of her acquired resistance to that particular agent, and the malfunctioning RELIC. However, there was no way to know exactly how much of an advantage she’d have. First matters first -- make that advantage exact. There was--

The adrenaline! Again! November’s hands shook as she curved them into fists; her mind sharpened, but with only that obsessive goal of fight or flight. This imperfection, this malfunction was so frustrating!

November waited the spell out again, and returned to her wits. She dug her free hand into her bag, which had fallen next to her. Tucked within it was the pouch she’d brought with her, from which she’d extracted the grenade, and from which she now extracted...

A contraption. Approximately the size of a pen-stylus, it contained a spring-loaded injection mechanism. They were widely available, loaded with epinephrine for treatment of anaphalactic shock. Of course, with a bit of modification, they could hold any liquid poison or hormone. November had three with her, one of epinephrine, which she certainly was not lacking at the moment, one with a heavy sedative, and the last a deadly concoction. She selected the second, and stamped the end into Yankee’s leg. The needle punched through his leg and into the muscle tissue, where the poison would be metabolized. Even compensating for the RELIC’s stimulating and purifying properties, and for Yankee’s no-doubt exceptional health, November would have a solid ninety minutes.

So then for the second matter. The handcuff.

When addressing such a problem, November knew to find the weakest link. In this case, that would not be the handcuff itself, as it was designed to be secure, and no Green Meadows operative would settle for substandard equipment. So then, the portion of the fire escape that it was attached to would be the weakest link. Such constructs were built to the very lowest limits of acceptability in the first place, and age had worn this one quite a bit. There was a high likelihood that if she braced herself properly...

And pulled on the strut to which the handcuffs were attached...

That it would slip from its bearing, and let the handcuff simply slide off, loose as its circumference was.

But, as probability and physics would of course dictate, not on the first attempt. November had expected this.

Nor the second. Nor the third. Also to be expected.

As was the fifth failure. And the sixth. She was making some progress. Wasn’t she?

Frustration began to rise slowly into November’s mind, and born of that seed, a bit of sarcasm.

Now, when an unnatural dosage of adrenaline would be advantageous, the RELIC’s programming functions as intended. How typically statistical.

Finally, as the fire escape gave a tremendous screech and shudder, the strut came free of its mooring, the excess energy suddenly sending November rolling on the ground.

Therefore, only one matter remained. What to do with Yankee. She certainly couldn’t leave him to wake up, nor did killing him provide much advantage. So, then, she would detain him at the ship. It was likely he already knew the identity of the ship -- that would be no compromising caveat. She was strong enough to carry him -- Green Meadows had made sure of that.

So it was a matter of procuring some disguise. A limp body in a populated area would draw too much attention. Her bag was already stuffed, but she had acquired a few waterproof general storage bags. He would certainly fit.


A few minutes later, November emerged from the alleyway, bag over one shoulder, sack slung over the other; certainly laden, but able to manage.

The handcuff jingling quietly on her wrist drew only a couple of raised eyebrows.

And so she continued, on down the street.

[Twysper]

1, 2, 3, 4.

Yankee awoke. The shift from unconscious to conscious was immediate.

Yet, it was not apparent.

His breathing pattern remained the same, his eyes remained close, and his position unmoving.

Yankee’s last memories were of the guilty thrill of a mission gone right, then the whole kit and caboodle blowing up in his face in a few adrenaline-laced moments. Had his concentration slipped? No. The target was prepared in a way she shouldn’t have rationally been.

As his nerves relayed information to his brain, the assassin’s mental picture of his situation was colored in. He was rigidly tied in a sitting position to a hard backed chair, probably bolted to the ground, hands palm-outward behind his back, and his feet secured tightly to the legs of said chair.

This was not done by an amateur.

The only bit of tactical gear Yankee could confirm he was still wearing was the close-fitting mesh armor and mostly black clothing he had donned earlier.

Most likely, this indicated that he hadn’t been unconscious for that long, as any advantage given to him wouldn’t be purposeful on the part of his captors.

Now to obtain further data…

Yankee focused on what he could hear around him.

Most prominently, someone was rummaging nearby, the jingling clashes of metal implements apparent. Footsteps were heard on plastic floor tiling immediately afterwards; the light, efficient steps of an assassin.

They were not made with the sheer power of Delta behind them, and so that narrowed the most likely possibilities down to November or Echo.

Under that, there was the low-key humming of an engine, sending slight vibrations through the flooring under his feet. So he was aboard their ship.

The unknown figure was moving away.

Gambling his advantage, Yankee blinked his eyes into focus, and saw November just walking out of the brightly lit room with a box under her arm.

He was alone, for a few seconds anyways, and therein free to observe his surroundings without being watched himself.

Hazel eyes scanned the room with a deadpan gaze, taking in the various apparatus related to cooking on the plain metal countertops making up the south and east walls of the small, almost square room. The stove burners were of definite interest… but Yankee held no delusion that November would have missed such an obvious thing in her precautionary measures. He could appreciate that, from one assassin to another.

Barely.

Yankee craned his neck, about the only part of his body he could still move right now, and observed that he was positioned in the center of the room, and that his chair was indeed fastened solidly to the floor via the bolts meant to hold it down in the event of a crash. A further glance revealed that he was specifically tied down with tape, with a few bands of cargo-restraints for good measure.

His keen hearing told him that November was walking back into the room.

Feigning sleep would no longer be advantageous, and so the mud-brown haired assassin focused his eyes evenly on the woman, keeping silent. Neither interrogation nor torture was out of the question in this situation, and Yankee expected them both. And then, eventually, if there was no escape, death after that.

But what was after death?

One mind suddenly wanted to know.

[Kella]

‘Silence’ was a word that, like all words, represented an idea. However, the idea of silence was somewhat like the concept of absolute zero, in that to achieve true silence (without the use of neurologically disrupting techniques) was impossible.

There was always some noise to be heard. It could be little more than the movement of air in the ear canal, or the pulse of blood, but there were always vibrations.

November had known true silence, for Green Meadows had access to those neurologically disrupting techniques. She remembered the isolation tank. The water was exactly 98.6 degrees. It felt like nothing. With the plugs in her nose, she smelled nothing, tasted nothing. The tank was immersed in complete darkness, so she saw nothing. And finally, there had been the disrupting current run through her brain, making her scientifically deaf, even to the flow of the water if she thrashed her head.

She was effectively separated from space and time. There was nothing. Nothing but November’s mind. And somewhere, in that nothing, she herself had become truly nothing. Computations, calculations, these things could be put on hold. A computer could hibernate -- so could she.

Silence.

That had been silence.

This was not silence. There was always something to process, always something her mind could find. Perhaps that was the greatest lesson of true isolation. That was nothing. Whatever this was, this was something.

At the particular present moment in time, what was this? This was the kitchen. This was Yankee.

November had finished securing Yankee exactly thirty seven minutes ago, and ever since, she had been turning the kitchen into her own sort of containment chamber. Anything that the assassin could use was removed. The knives, the scissors, the cutting floss, the fruit-core-er, the refrigerator magnets, etc, etc. Most of the cabinets were equipped with locks to keep them secure during take-off and landing, and November locked all of these, activating their override, so that they could only be unlocked with the ship’s encryption key. This was merely an extra precaution, as she did not underestimate her fellow assassin’s creativity. Anything immediately threatening -- such as spoons, for instance -- she physically removed. She had stepped out to stow the potential weapons, and when she had returned, she found Yankee had revealed his consciousness.

That had been twelve minutes ago. For the expanse of those twelve minutes, November had been leaning back against the kitchen’s low counter, watching. Just.... watching.

It wasn’t really silence. There were no voices, but it wasn’t silence. The hum of the engines, the movement of air, the subtle shifting of metal as the ship settled -- not silent at all.

Yankee was not silent either. November set the computer of her mind to idle as the time ticked by, but there were processes that ran at such a time, and she lent them her resources. Her eyes were cyberkinetically enhanced, and with them, she could see so much more than the silence.

For awhile she watched his pulse flutter through the veins of his neck. His resting rate -- like that of all Green Meadows operatives -- was below the human average, closer to that of professional athletes and marathon runners -- a sign of a heart and body in exceptional health. Then there was the blinking of his eyes. Seemingly random, but following a definite pattern, a complex equation with a dozen variables. And so on and so forth, she read the subliminal silence.

She’d considered her approach, mulled it over and over and over. Processed all the variables. Yankee still followed Green Meadows without question. Any argument, any logic she presented would mean nothing to him, because her information conflicted with Green Meadows’ information, and their information was paramount.

She knew, because she had been what he was not very long ago. If she was going to make any impact, she had to address the very foundation, the very basis of everything.

And now it was time.

“Why do you do all they tell you to do? Why do you follow their orders without question? Because they made you? Because they own you?”

Her tone wasn’t direct, or accusing. It wasn’t challenging. It was as if she were asking herself those questions, as much as she was asking him.

And then she was quiet. But she wasn’t silent.

November was far, far from silent.

[Twysper]

Yankee was no common criminal, to suddenly experience a mental breakdown or be disturbed by the silent treatment, of all things. He took his time blatantly examining the room further, even as November watched him, never letting his eyes rest on an object for too long. That was the easiest way to get November to remove a potential asset.

The assassin had endured under all imaginable forms of torture. The employees at Green Meadows had brought him back from the dead a number of times, as they tested the RELIC chip’s capabilities, and Yankee’s own brainwashed state of mind.

What they found was clearly exciting to them.

Yankee’s eyes flicked back around to November as his peripheral vision noted her facial muscles minutely contract in preparation for speech. She had his attention now.

“Why do you do all they tell you to do? Why do you follow their orders without question? Because they made you? Because they own you?”

Yankee’s mind could give him precisely 3,198 original instances of why listening to Green Meadows was always the right thing to do. They represented the various training exercises where he had not done well enough to warrant a passing score immediately. Negative reinforcement was applied copiously during all of these, until he was able to meet the Whitecoats’ demands to the letter.

Sometimes, it was a long time.

However, each and every one of these same memories was topped with success in the end. The scientist’s demands were always met. The quiet, curious feeling inside of Yankee that should not be drew its strength from his successes.

In the process of training a super-assassin, they had given Yankee the mindset of a whipped puppy via their thorough conditioning. It was infinitely useful in controlling him, for he was always desiring to please his handlers, to obey to the best of his ability, so as to avoid punishment.

As far as Yankee was concerned, listening to Green Meadows was the way to survive.

Answering November’s questions was not required in the least. Her words were simply stored in his long-term memory for now, perhaps for thought at a later date.

Yankee did have a question of his own though; something that had been eluding his mind’s grasp continuously. He had tried not to think on it before this, for that would distract him from his mission to recapture November, but now it looked as if he’d have a lot of time to think it over.

The query was short and simple, and asked with childlike naivety.

“Why did you run away?”

[Kella]

“Why did you run away?” he asked.

He hadn’t answered her question -- rather, he’d asked one of her. November considered the rules of simple exchange, and logically, she was under no obligation to answer his question, as hers had been presented first and remained unsatisfied. November continued to analyze the situation, and came to the conclusion that this was not a simple exchange. Her goal here was to learn more about Green Meadows, and its current goals and situations. Answering his question might cause him to ask other, more revealing questions, or might establish a system of exchange by which November’s original question was answered. This was beneficial.

However, if she refused to answer, it was likely that Yankee would remain in perpetual silence. The most serious negative consequence of answering the question was giving the assassin information that he might use to overpower her, or pass along to green meadows in the future. Taking careful and necessary measures to keep Yankee contained decreased the statistical significance of this negative consequence enough to make it null. So she would answer the question.

Another small, yet unexpected, moment of hesitation followed, as November double-checked her logic. Was this doubt? It had been logical before, it was logical now. However, with the sort of fallacies those around her were showing, November calculated that double-checking was most likely to lead to ultimate success, and prevent a foolish mistake, on the level of those that Delta and Echo had made.

“I was curious,” she said, as if it made all the sense in the world. Even so, she decided to extrapolate, as in effective communication, it was important to factor in different peoples’ particular biases in processing information.

“There were holes in my memory. Days or weeks that were recorded and passed on the calendar, but were not accounted for in my memory. I had no memory of ever leaving Green Meadows, aside from the mission on Dxun, but I remembered... concepts that I couldn’t have learned from within the labratories. For instance, I came to understand that my purpose as an asset of Green Meadows was to assassinate marks. I could not remember having ever killed a person, but when I would look at the white coats around me, I knew what pressure-points would bring them down, and what seemingly minor injuries could be fatal. I would go through my collection of poisons, and know that a person dying of systemic hemmhorage bled from the eyes, but that information was not recorded in any of the data-bases I had read or learned from.

“So, I knew that Green Meadows was withholding something from me. I knew there was something that they did not want me to know. And I was curious. Whatever it was, I had to know. Green Meadows had a directive for me, as their asset. I reasoned then that it was more beneficial to me to know all that there was to know, as I was confident in my mind’s ability to process and handle any information, and concluded that Green Meadows was not protecting me by withholding information -- they were protecting themselves. I wanted to leave, to see the galaxy that I must have been in, but could not remember.

“It is odd,” she said, and her voice gained a shade of hesitation, “To know that the shade of Naboo’s sky is brighter than can possibly be represented on any computer screen, and yet, not be able to remember having ever been to Naboo at all.

“So I left. If Green Meadows was not going to serve my directive, to satiate my curiosity, then I was going to do so independently. I knew I could leave, and it was something I had known for quite some time. So then, it became a simple matter of just completing the objective I had laid out for myself.

“I inferred that tor the same reason that Green Meadows had kept knowledge from me, they would come to find me if I escaped. I was, of course, correct in that matter, as evidenced by you being here. And, it would seem that Green Meadows was wrong in predicting that you alone could capture me and return me to the facility. I was correct, and they were not. Logic would present the possibility that this same pattern will be repeated in the future, so you must consider whose reasoning is really the more sound.

“In summary, I was curious, and Green Meadows could not satiate that curiosity, therefore I left.” November used a very human gesture -- the shrugging of her shoulders -- to indicate that she felt no further explanation was needed. It was more like a period than a paragraph break, however, as it left the questioner open to asking more questions, while signalling that the speaker was finished expressing matters of the main topic, and had elected not to move on to information more tangentially related.

“Do any further questions arise or are you satisfied?”

The word slipped out subconsciously, reference to an emotion. It was one that November had become so accustomed to, so addicted to, that it was part of her vocabulary now. But she had justified it, had she not? For was satisfaction really anything more than the body’s feedback mechanism to a successful operation? If the sensation of satisfaction helped to train the subconscious mind to seek success, was that not a benefit to the conscious mind? Surely it had to be, and so the emotion, which was really more of a system of feedback, had just as much of a place in achieving the objective as did logic.

That is what she told herself, anyway. November had been telling herself a lot of things, lately, and with each passing instance, with each sequence in the pattern, the suspicion, though still slight, grew and grew, that none of what she told herself -- none of it at all -- was really quite true.

[Twysper]

“Why did you run away?”


“I was curious,”

Initial flaw of subject November. Noted.

Synapses fired, and Yankee’s memory promptly brought up the information related to the adjective.

Curiosity: desire to know:
a : inquisitive interest in others' concerns : nosy
b : interest leading to inquiry <intellectual curiosity>

The other notes proved to be irrelevant in this context.

November was unnatural, to be feeling these things. In retrospect, it was likely what allowed her to be drawn into the alleyway so easily. Curiosity would get one terminated.

The assassin’s thoughts alighted briefly for a moment, replaying everything that had happened a few hours earlier. Had he made a strategic error in setting the ambush?

No.

Everything had been set up and executed as well as could be expected from a GM operative. Except for that one, all important unforeseen contingency provided by Murphy’s Law.

Why was November holding an aerosol grenade?

Pure paranoia?

A possibility, but not one that Yankee favored. No.

November was flawed, yes, but he had witnessed firsthand her distinct intelligence. She had a natural advantage going into any situation. The briefing he had been given misjudged this. That explanation satiated Yankee’s query temporarily.

Best to keep things concise, lest one become ‘curious...’

“There were holes in my memory. Days or weeks that were recorded and passed on the calendar, but were not accounted for in my memory. I had no memory of ever leaving Green Meadows, aside from the mission on Dxun, but I remembered... concepts that I couldn’t have learned from within the laboratories. For instance, I came to understand that my purpose as an asset of Green Meadows was to assassinate marks. I could not remember having ever killed a person, but when I would look at the white coats around me, I knew what pressure-points would bring them down, and what seemingly minor injuries could be fatal. I would go through my collection of poisons, and know that a person dying of systemic hemmhorage bled from the eyes, but that information was not recorded in any of the data-bases I had read or learned from.”

As November continued, Yankee saw nothing but confirmation of her damaged condition. She couldn’t remember where she had obtained information from, acted like the extensive CQC training all of the twenty-six had never happened… Never mind that the mismatching dates had nagged at him before, but it was a little matter, easily disregarded, for it had nothing to do with the mission.

For instance, he could vividly recall himself swiftly killing a Mandalorian scout on Dxun with nothing more then a knife. He had done it, because he knew how to do it, and this knowledge, combined with his current mission parameters, had already allowed him to infer that he was an assassin.

So much for a sudden epiphany.

“So, I knew that Green Meadows was withholding something from me. I knew there was something that they did not want me to know. And I was curious. Whatever it was, I had to know. Green Meadows had a directive for me, as their asset. I reasoned then that it was more beneficial to me to know all that there was to know, as I was confident in my mind’s ability to process and handle any information, and concluded that Green Meadows was not protecting me by withholding information -- they were protecting themselves. I wanted to leave, to see the galaxy that I must have been in, but could not remember.”

That word. A second time. Curious.

All creatures instinctively seek to protect themselves. So it was with the beast called Green Meadows. It was only natural. Yankee, being a tracker, studied and understood this behavior on a near instinctive level.

November had reached a convoluted line of logic, with her curiosity, effectively mistaking loam in a forest for something out of place.

“So I left. If Green Meadows was not going to serve my directive, to satiate my curiosity, then I was going to do so independently. I knew I could leave, and it was something I had known for quite some time. So then, it became a simple matter of just completing the objective I had laid out for myself.”

“I inferred that for the same reason that Green Meadows had kept knowledge from me, they would come to find me if I escaped. I was, of course, correct in that matter, as evidenced by you being here. And, it would seem that Green Meadows was wrong in predicting that you alone could capture me and return me to the facility. I was correct, and they were not. Logic would present the possibility that this same pattern will be repeated in the future, so you must consider whose reasoning is really the more sound.”

That constrained feeling Yankee had experienced in his chest when he heard that Foxtrot was to be in charge of tracking down the others returned, but with a different tinge.

This wasn’t his fault.

The intel he had received was flawed, leading to a failed recovery, and his current situation. Some whitecoat in a lab had screwed up.

“In summary, I was curious, and Green Meadows could not satiate that curiosity, therefore I left.”

“Do any further questions arise or are you satisfied?”

With that, Yankee resumed staring evenly at November, quiet again. He surmised that no other useful information would be forthcoming, and saw no reason beneficial to him to continue the conversation.

She was arrogant and curious and flawed, that much he had gathered. She would expect an answer, according to the unspoken rules of a conversation, and wasn’t going to get one. He didn’t have to play by the rules.

Slowly, slightly, the corners of Yankee’s mouth curved upwards in an expression unfamiliar to him.

The emotionless assassin was now smug.

[Kella]

November had been waiting for a binary response to her question. Unknown to her was the fact that, while humans liked to entertain the notion that they expected 'Yes-or-No' answers, they were really expecting any sort of nuance-heavy response, and either 'Yes' or 'No' could be unsatisfactory if not coupled with the right paralanuage.

As it were, there were no more possible answers to November than there were numbers in binary code. Yankee's silence and expression communicated his 'No', and November was quite satisfied.

She selected another file from her subconscious, opening it and stowing the former away. Yankee was contained, and with no more readily available information, she was ready to experiment with her new device. There was something that would not resist her attempts to satiate her curiosity.

So, she turned from her captive and extracted the device from where she'd tucked it. The cartridge was small, about the size of her palm, with five buttons and three dials. The buttons were labeled with a bisected triangle, a circle, a half-circle, a left-facing arrow, and a right facing arrow respectively. The knobs were labeled 'size', 'contrast', and 'volume'.

November decided the bisected triangle was the best place to start, and she pressed it with her thumb. The lens on top of the cartridge suddenly flashed to life, casting a bright holographic rectangle in front of November. Her muscles tensed in response to the sudden light, but she quickly relaxed, setting the cartridge on the counter.

A red symbol hovered in the middle of the holographic rectangle. November concluded that the knobs must have to do with the picture... she twisted the 'size' knob, and sure enough, the rectangle grew and shrunk. The 'contrast' knob made the red either starker or duller against the black. As of yet, volume did nothing, but it was related to sound, not picture.

She pressed both triangles, but neither yielded any change. When she pressed the circle, however, the rectangle changed. Music began to play, different from the sort she'd listened to earlier, but still pleasant. Then, just like the display, images of things and people appeared. A few more tweaks to the contrast and volume knobs, and November was satisfied with her success at emulating the display.

She stepped back to observe, as the dialogue caught her attention. One of her consciousness's two tracks was devoted to monitoring Yankee, but the other half was quite enthralled by observation of this new phenomenon...

[Twysper]

Yankee's eyes followed November's figure until she moved beyond his field of vision. He heard something smooth brushing against fabric behind him, and then his sole companion in the room was setting a small light-emitting device down on the counter, back in his line of vision.

A form of interrogation?

Not one that the assassin was aware of…

He passively watched November poke at the small cartridge again, and surmised that she wasn't sure of what she was doing. This information served to alert his RELIC chip to refrain from releasing any of his bodies’ natural painkillers quite yet. Even so, just a few moments later, she seemed to have gotten the results she desired, and Yankee’s ever cold gaze shifted quietly to the projected screen.

Music started to play, and it was not long before the figures of people entered into a dusty setting, all armed, while two large blue moons, both luminous and full, hung over the scene.

Battle lines seemed to be drawn among the people on the screen, and then, with measured strides, two men separated from the groups to meet in the middle.

“This ain’t your town. Take your boys and go before there’s blood.”

“I’ll take what I like; that includes women, money, and the gorram ownership of this town if I do so happen to fancy it, Sheriff. You’d best be getting used to the concept in that itty bitty mind of yours.”

“Alright, alright; down boy. But there’s fifteen other men over there you’re going to have a hard time convincing.” The sheriff half-turned to face the members of his posse, and his hand tapped the grip of his revolver musingly as he called over his shoulder. “Ain’t that right?!”

The sheriff threw himself backwards on the ground, his gun already retrieved from its holster and barking death. But before the outlaw opposite him could even finish crumpling to the ground from his fatal bullet wounds, a louder chorus of gunfire had broken out.

A twangy style of music started up underneath the sounds of fighting, and the view panned upwards to take in the twin blue moons again...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still quiet, Yankee took all of this in, while starting isometric exercises normally used by snipers that needed to remain outwardly motionless and maintain the limberness of their muscles over long periods of time.

Eventually, November left the room, leaving him alone with the holovid projector. Yankee immediately started attempting to free himself again, while keeping an ear out for her return…

[Kella]

November observed the hologram for a few minutes, contemplating several different possibilities for the specific mechanisms of its inner workings.

Another part of her mind was putting together how she would present the recent events and circumstantial changes to her counterparts, Echo and Delta. Once this explanation was sufficiently clean and polished, she shifted her weight onto her feet, leaving hologram and prisoner behind.

-~-~-~-

Link to post in Tight Rope

-~-~-~-

The metal at her palms and knees was cold while November's face burned. Liquid fire rolled down her neck and chest.

Finally, she caught the breath that had fled from her, and her ribcage spasmed. This wasn't right, this wasn't how it was supposed to be.

Her mind should not have reacted so strongly, but this was not the fear that thundered in her skull. Her body was reacting vehemently to her mind! No!

November shuddered.

Why did Delta pick Echo? November was newer but she was better. She was smarter. She was more logical.

Was. Was, was, was, why not now? Now, now she couldn't even think.

Why, why, why, why? pounded the thoughts in her head. Back and forth, shattering everything else.

Why, why, why?

"Stop it!" she yelled. The metal shuddered under the force of her fists.

This was wrong, so wrong. Speaking didn't fix the questions in her head!

Why?

I don't know.

Why?

"I don't know!" Her voice was choked and scratched as she shoved herself to her feet. The bolts of pain through her shoulder caught her as she swayed toward the wall.

Her body wasn't hers anymore, it was under the control of someone, something else as her heart raced and her skin glistened and her breathing tightened.

A horrible, horrible noise sliced through her head, like a jackhammer whining right through her skull. She slammed her palms against her ears, wanting it to go away, go, just go away! Checkerboards and starts popped and shimmered through her vision, and she was vaguely aware of the world turning upside down.

Then the noise was gone. November was on the floor again, head in her hands. There was something wet on her cheeks. She touched her fingertips to the wet then looked at them. Something wet and clear. She tried to breath, but a tight knot had lodged itself in her throat, like a thick, muscled snake. She could breath only a thin strand.

November moaned, and looking up at the ceiling. Her throat produced a wet cough-gasp sound, and more saline water overflowed from her eyes.

She stood again, slowly this time.

The source eluded her, but November knew the significance of what Delta and Echo had done. Somehow. They should have been happy she'd come! What made Delta think Echo was so much better? Just because he'd escaped with Echo? That didn't mean anything! They'd all been equals, all been perfect, perfect, so perfect.

And November had been most perfect of all. She still was!

Wasn't she?

She knew the answer to this question and it made her head spin and her thoughts haze.

Her hands found a steady anchor on the washbasin, and November met herself in the mirror. Delta was illogical, maybe he didn't like something about the way she looked! She was just as fit as Echo. Same color skin, same neatly proportioned features. Did he not like her eyes? Her bright green eyes? Or her hair? November had braids, Echo did not. Did he hate her braids?

The question made November hate them, and she yanked the rubber tie out, ripping her fingers through her hair and shredding the braids. She whimpered, desperate and frustrated under the snake that crushed her throat. A different girl stared back at her, one with layers of waved hair pushing out from her head, red vessels bright in the whites of her eyes, and blotchy cheeks.

She was imperfect. From her mind to her face to her hair to her body nothing was right! Nothing!

The snake tightened, and November reacted with a frustrated scream, throwing the outside of her fist at the mirror. The glass shattered, a broken web of shards with a streak of red.

November twisted the faucet and let cold water pour over the gash in her hand. She let the faucet run until the red water flowed clear again, all the while shaken by the choking gasp-coughs.

She bandaged the cut with trembling hands, looking for something, anything to make her body right again. To make her mind right again.

But all she could think was that he had chosen her, that she was better, he thought she was perfect, but he was wrong, Wrong! How could he be so wrong, so wrong when they'd made him to be perfect! But she wanted him to see that he was wrong, he had to! Things were supposed to be orderly, and pattered, and...

All those thoughts just tightened the weight in her chest, and she moaned in frustration.

If her body wasn't going to calm down by itself, she was going to make it calm down.

She reached her kit of chemicals and extracted a particular vial, filling a needle and syringe with a dose of the yellowish liquid. Her hands were shaking, but she managed to slip the needle into a vein in her wrist, and empty the syringe.

She didn't bother to reassemble the kit but instead threw herself across her cot, bunching up the blankets around her head. Her heart raced, her palms were wet, her breaths shuddered.

Slowly, all these symptoms faded as the drug kicked in. November freed her head from the blankets and stared at the ceiling, giving herself a few more minutes to calm down fully. Her mind was a bit fuzzy, but that was an acceptable side-effect. The sedative had brought her body back under control, and her mind, to an extent. It was easier to make herself forget the questions. The questions that were a significant obstacle in completing her objective.

November sat slowly, carefully. The blood slowly trickled out of her head. She had no particular motivation to fix her hair, other than to pull it into a tie at the back of her head to keep it out of her face.

Surely there was some explanation for her extreme reaction. A virus. There, that made perfect sense. Even the greatest computers were susceptible to viruses. They disrupted the coding and therefore made computers behave contrary to their logic. That was exactly what had happened -- it made perfect sense. There was a virus, a bug in her programming. As long as she avoided triggering it, she'd be her perfect self the rest of the time.

Somewhat comforted, she surveyed her room. Her kit was still open. She stepped over to it and put everything back in its proper place, and tucked it in her bag. But instead of pushing the bag under her cot, she slung it over her shoulder, and exited her room through the unremarkable door.

--

She reentered the kitchen to find her captive in approximately the same state she'd left him. The holovid was still playing, and she glanced at it, assessing the progress of the plot. She slipped her bag off her shoulder and set it on the counter.

First things first, she made a circle around Yankee, checking all his bonds thoroughly to make sure they were still secure. What inevitable progress he had made was soundly regressed.

Wordlessly, as words -- or communication of any kind -- were quite unnecessary, she returned to her kit. Metal slid against metal with he quietest of hisses, revealing dozens of vials. Most held liquids, others powders or shavings or what appeared to be shriveled insect carcasses.

She proffered another syringe, along with a green-glass vial. As she had before, she filled the syringe with the proper dosage.

November faced Yankee, turning the syringe upside down and flicking it several times, while gently depressing the syringe. This, and the bead of whitish liquid that formed at the tip of the needle ensured that no air remained in the needle.

She set the syringe down and went to prepping his left upper arm, using a surgical-grade knife to cut his sleeve, and a cottonball of alcohol to sanitize the area.

Then she recovered the syringe, hovering over the bare skin of his arm with the needletip. She examined the tissue, recalling her lessons on anatomy. Usually, she wasn't provided this level of control and accuracy in her administration.

"The more you move, the more times I'll have to do this," she said, and that was all the explanation she gave.

And then she stuck him with the needle and drained the syringe.

Returning to her kit, she put everything away, then turned back to survey her prisoner.

She'd just given him a very high dosage of a powerful stimulant -- barely below the lethal level. His physiology would be able to handle the full effects. That is, if he experienced them. This particular stimulant drastically increased levels of dopamine in the brain, under normal circumstances. It did so by preventing the re-uptake of the neurotransmitter, increasing the availability.

The purpose for this particular experiment related directly to the RELIC. She wanted some clue as to how it interacted with the physiology of the brain, and Yankee's response -- both physically and mentally -- would provide her with these clues.

Of course, she had positioned herself so that she could observe both her captive and the holovid.

Two queries satisfied during the same observational period. Excellent.

It was enough to make her previous anxieties melt away. All too temporarily.

[Twysper]

Dark hazel eyes scanned November before languidly coming to rest on the needle she was holding. Throughout his lifetime, Yankee had been given hundreds of shots. He could remember them all with obsessive clarity, as they were some of the only memories he had been left with.

The hundreds of little pinpricks, drawing a drop of blood each time they broke his flesh. Tiny insects that drained a little bit with each bite. He always submitted to them willingly, because he was to be his best, and the Whitecoats knew what was best.

November did not want him to be his best.

There was the familiar flicker of pain in his arm, allowed by the RELIC to register only just long enough for his brain to comprehend the pain. Then it was gone, like a half-heard whisper.

For six and a half seconds, Yankee waited, breathing calmly, keeping track of the time, waiting for the venomous snakes of effects to rear their heads so he could try and deduce what she had just given him. He saw November, standing in such a way as to have her gaze encompass him and the holovid at the same time.

Yankee's pupils suddenly dilated to black circles, causing the hazel shades to flee to the edges of the iris.

Interestingly enough, there was another moment of calm before the storm. Yankee had the briefest fluttering of actual bliss, he felt alive, for the first time ever in his life.

What had November done to him?

It was wonderful.

Then his world exploded.

The ecstasy was gone, replaced with rolling dark clouds of agony and jarring waves of pain. The assassin jerked against his bindings with all the strength he could muster, lurching back and forth as his heart pounded out a possessed rhythm. He screamed his frustration even as his brain dumped serotonin into his system, and he suddenly felt that he could understand November completely.

In the midst of his personal storm, his trained mind left odd footnotes: that he could not feel his feet or hands, that his straining convulsions were managing to shift the bonds, and that he felt that he was internally burning in fire.

His focus sharpened and blurred, and crystal memories were brought back to light, only to be warped beyond comprehension as the excessive neurotransmitters in his brain raged with the RELIC chip for control of Yankee's mind.

This continued for half an hour, though it felt like an eternity of torture for the assassin. He was left with his chest heaving, sweating profusely, and a headache of such intensity that it defied what his mind thought should even be capable of existing. Yankee's lithe, muscular frame shuddered and trembled again as he relived the effects of the drug.

This was not supposed to happen. This was never supposed to happen. Not to him.

He was his best!

Then, the RELIC, seemingly recovered from its personal war against the induced rush of transmitters, restarted its careful regulation. Yankee's emotions were tucked back down again quietly, and the resumption of his normal behavior became apparent.

His dark brown hair had been plastered to his forehead with sweat from his episode, and he felt his eyes respond slowly as they eventually settled on the holovid again. Then they were closing, and Yankee passed into the realm of the unconscious, with one last rebellious thought.

He wanted to experience the bliss again.

[Kella]

For the first few moments, her subject remained unchanged. This was to be expected. It took time for the body to distribute drugs, time for them to take their effect, time for them to be metabolized and flushed away.

The first visible effect was the dilation of his pupils, a slight quickening in his breathing, and an accelerated heartbeat, which she could observe in one of the veins of his neck. All signs of arousal.

The sudden, violent reaction that then overtook Yankee was not expected.

Skeletal muscle spasms, facial contortions, perspiration, vocal expression of distress. All these symptoms made sense, of course, as November traced their biological causes. But it seemed that the influence of the RELIC chip was accentuating the effects of the stimulant, not suppressing them.

November felt her heart flutter and her muscles tense. While she had been employed, unexpected events had not had this effect on her. But now they did. It made sense, didn't it? Her mind was becoming less discriminant with adrenaline than her RELIC had been. This was inefficient, this was wrong, this was-- no, wait. Logic intervened. When she was employed by Green Meadows, there were far fewer unexpected events. She was, in many ways, sheltered by the organization. But now, she was having to fend for herself, with constant, close threat of being discovered and disciplined by Green Meadows. So it was beneficial that her sympathetic nervous system be on high alert.

One of the potential drawbacks of being able to think about anything she wanted was that sometimes she became distracted, but she would learn discretion.

Besides, the labored breathing of the man was bound to catch her attention again quickly. She observed him closely, her reaction to the unexpected event calmed. The stimulant did not seem to have impaired cognition -- rather, it forced and enhanced it. She wondered what Yankee was currently perceiving, but the limits of human sensation would forever prevent her from collecting that data. She would have to observe behavior.

If Yankee was highly sensitive to stimulants, and to their dopamine and serotonin enhancing qualities, then that indicated that his brain was most likely adapted to low levels of dopamine and serotonin, perhaps hinting at one of the RELIC's management methods.

She realized, as the man finally began to still, that twenty eight minutes had passed. She hadn't even glanced at the holovid in fifteen, so engrossed she had become in noting the minute details of her experiment. His bonds had been progressively loosening, but she'd been watching them and him closely, and he did not seem lucid enough to take advantage of this fact.

Though is breathing was still heavy and accelerated, the stimulant's effects seemed to be fading. Even despite the unexpected vigor of his reaction, the stimulants should have had a lingering effect for no less than an hour, so the only thing left to conclude was that the RELIC had regained control.

He looked up at the holovid, and November followed his gaze. A man, riding an equine mammal into a setting sun. Her brow furrowed, then she glanced back at Yankee.

Steadied breathing, limp posture, closed eyes. He seemed unconscious. She waited a minute. Two minutes. The only change was increasingly rhythmic breathing. He was unconscious. Exhausted, she hypothesized, by the effects of the stimulant.

Sweat had soaked his hair and clothes, and his skin was flushed, hands still vaguely trembling.

November suddenly felt her mind rent by two powerful and conflicting compulsions.

The first was to take this man in his pitiful, weak state, lash his bonds far tighter than was necessary, kick him awake and hiss in his hear how much better than him she was, how incompetent he was, and what a horrible mistake he'd made.

The second was to cut the bonds, and rub blood back into his extremities, then carefully lay him on a cot and towel the sweat off his face.

November drew a sharp breath. What foolish compulsions! It logically followed that she re-tighten his bonds, record her observations to thwart the inconsistencies in her memory, and wait patiently until he awoke and she could collect more data.

Yes, that is what she would do.

And that is what she did. Methodically, logically, every action justified.

But she could not say that every thought was justified. Something still caused dissonance within her mind -- a fluctuation between satisfaction and... distress? But it was distress at past deeds and behaviors, rather than circumstances.

She sighed. Something about stretching the ribcage and abdominal wall helped her shift the topic of her thought, and focus on the real and present.

November glanced at Yankee, curious as to whether or not he was dreaming.

The question could not be answered, though, so she turned to satiate another curiosity instead. She restarted the holovid, and this time, she actually paid attention.

[Twysper]

Yankee stepped heavily on a creaking piece of black wood. Ash swirled around him slowly, as he looked forward into darkness. He’d been wandering here for days.

Another step, and then another, and the dark volcanic earth no longer was supporting the wooden structure. Black water lapped at the sides of the dead wood hungrily, and the man stepped forward in this pitched night again.

Faintly, red light flickered, beckoning him on.

Another step, another other-worldly groan of timber, and then the lifeless shore disappeared. Still, Yankee drew closer to the flame, like a moth, and in response, it flared a little brighter.

Finally, the hooded silhouette of another being appeared, standing at the end of the dock, his boat moored to a post made of ancient wood, and the light came from an ethereal flame suspended in the fore of the boat.

“Hello,” said Yankee, face scrunching in thought. “I know you.”

“You and me, we’re old friends.” A hissing laugh emitted from somewhere within the shrouded boat-keeper. “You keep me in business.”

“I want to cross.” The assassin stated firmly.

“No room, friend, no room.” The figure swept a cloaked limb towards his boat, and four statuesque figures became apparent in the darkness, their eyes blankly fixed straight ahead. Yankee caught a glimpse of bleached white where the long cloak didn’t quite cover the boatman’s digits. “Another time, friend, I promisssssse...”

The boatman stepped off the dock, and into his boat, with its four strange passengers. Yankee watched him as he started to pole away into the black, the prow making an eerie rasping sound as it moved through the river waters.

Eventually, the only source of light in the wasteland disappeared, and the man sat down in utter darkness, resolute; he would wait.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yankee faded back to consciousness, blinked his eyes twice, and was suddenly hit with the memory of his drugged ordeal. On reflex, he drew a sharp breath, before methodically stretching as best he could. While the RELIC dulled pain, he was still aware of the little notes his brain left him. He had fallen asleep slumped to the side, held in place only by the restraints November had bound him with. It made for less than perfect posture.

Yankee didn’t know precisely how long he had been unconscious, but he knew from the way his vision was shifting, and the excessive stiffness in his joints that he was dehydrated.

“Water?” He rasped, licking at dry lips with a sandpaper tongue. His neck felt leaden, but he could hear the soft measured sounds of November’s breathing slightly behind him. She was in perfect shape, like the rest of their twenty-six brethren. She had the means to keep him alive, or kill him- of dehydration for instance, if she so chose.

But more importantly, November had the needle. The needle that caused such agony for a bare fragrance of pleasure, and yet was an emotion more powerful than anything he had previously experienced. It went beyond the mild satisfaction he had started to feel while at Green Meadows, when he was his best. It was a rush.

It was a rush he direly wanted.

A picture of a sleek craft, jet-black and all angles; His ship, laden with highly specialized equipment worth a fortune several times over, he could use it to try and get more of the drug from November. The thought of it consumed him again as his brain drooled over the memory of an extreme abundance of dopamine.

November granting his request for water would be a good indication of whether or not he was going to be kept around, and for how much longer. Attempting to fulfill Green Meadows’ directive would not help him survive, and using simple reasoning, he could obviously never complete it if he was dead. Yankee needed to stay alive, to make November see him as an asset.

And that was how his brain rationalized the matter.

[Kella]

Yankee was stirring.

He'd been unconscious approximately fifteen hours; it was now late morning. Echo had been gone for a quarter of an hour, but November's mind had moved on, once more to her subject.

She'd noticed the way his eyes flitted beneath the lids, observable because of the slight bulge of the cornea. Rapid Eye Movement. A dream. So she was not the only one having them.

But his eyes had stilled, his breathing slowed, and November surmised he was drifting backup through the third, second, and first stages.

Suddenly, he gasped, and she saw his muscles tense. He was aware. From the way he was struggling to stretch, November could see he was uncomfortable. She would need to allow him to move more fully, soon, if she wanted to keep him alive.

Which she did. Too much sedation could lead to clots, which could in turn lead to pulmonary embolism, which caused death.

"Water?" he asked.

Dehydration could also lead to death.

November did not want to kill Yankee. There would be some advantages to killing him -- namely, it would increase the team's chance of success and survival in the near future. But November had not been trained to consider only the near future. Being a Green Meadows assassin, Yankee had unique traits and skills, and something significant in common. The pros of having Yankee as an ally far outweighed the cons of having him as a living, contained enemy.

So he would drink.

November stepped around Yankee and fetched a glass from a cabinet, then filled it from the faucet. For the second time that day, the sight filled her with satisfaction. She let her hand slip under the stream, and the cool water flowed over her skin.

Something strange and soft lit up in her mind, and it startled her enough that she suddenly withdrew her hand. This was not the time or place for frivolous curiosities.

Though, the sight and sound of water brought to the forefront of her mind her own thirst. So she leaned against the counter, turned back towards Yankee, and drank. It was the natural thing to do -- after all, self-preservation was the top priority for any person. Yankee would understand that. It made her wonder why his brow muscles were tensing...

She refilled the glass, and approached Yankee. Warily. Her eyes focused intently on his, alert for any change.

With precise movements, she lifted the cup to his lips, and tilted it, just slightly.

As she did so, a word bubbled to the top of her mind. She'd heard it when they were teaching her how to drive a car, or stir a volatile concoction.

Gentle. She was being gentle.

[Twysper]

While Yankee still couldn't see November behind him, he could hear her light, measured steps on the floor behind him. Economy of motion. His mind was still moving groggily, and was reminded she was just as much of a predator as himself, perhaps more so, given their current positions.

No, no, his mind reasserted firmly, the intelligence received on her was imperfect, which logically resulted in an error of planning. There would yet be another chance to complete the directive.

But the drug.

Thoughts flitted in a burst of activity, like flushed birds, and a particularly salient one alighted long enough to register. He could capture her, and not bring her back to Green Meadows. He could make her administer the injection as much as he wanted, somewhere the whitecoats wouldn't find them.

But could's were not would's, and the notion was gone almost as quickly as it had come, shooed away by the RELIC's careful regulation.

Yankee watched her step around him to pull a glass from the cabinet, and then again as she flowed smoothly over to the water tap.

The sound of the opaque liquid pouring into the cup caused him to lick his dry lips again, brain anticipating one of its lately ignored base needs satisfied, while Yankee's hazel eyes watched November steadily.

But perhaps it was not to be, because November was the one slaking her thirst.

Questions raced again.

Did she mean to taunt him?

Was she so arrogant that she was simply flaunting the current situation?

Was he actually going to get a drink?

Did she mean to kill him of dehydration?


But among other torture methods, Yankee had been water-boarded repeatedly to test for his breaking point. Green Meadows hadn't found one. They had tried oh so hard to find one.

A little bit of taunting would not sway him, and if that was her intention, maybe she wasn't as smart as Green Meadows thought she was. Yankee's facial expression remained passive as he watched her drink.

And then he watched her refill the cup a second time, and robbed of any other motion, his eyes continued to follow her as she moved towards him with the glass.

November put the glass up to his lips, but the usual sharp edge of efficiency underlying all of the assassins' motions was blunted almost imperceptibly. Life-giving water trickled down his throat as Yankee drank from the glass slowly. He felt its cool pathway sooth his body and took a slow breath when he had finished drinking.

So it seemed she meant to keep him alive for now.

"More." Yankee said, before tagging on another query. "What do you want from me?"

[Kella]

"More," he said. It was a simple, straightforward request. November had been given few of those lately, and she would easily comply. She'd taken a step towards the sink when he chased her with another, far more intellectually demanding question.

"What do you want from me?"

November paused. She'd always found that justifying her actions required significant mental power. Operations were far more efficient when people simply trusted her ability to make the intelligent decision, and let her do as she would.

Explaining things in terms that facilitated inter-personal communication always caused delays. And, she wouldn't admit it, but understanding her own choices had been... less efficient than usual.

"If you are dead," she prefaced, "Then there is zero probability that you will go back to Green Meadows. However, if you are alive, there is a significant chance that I may learn something valuable. And a significant chance that you might choose to join us. A shift from three team members to four team members would greatly benefit this team, and increase its change of survival in both the near and distant future. The probability of learning or of gaining a team member outweighs the probability of your escape, especially considering my analytical abilities."

November, seeming satisfied with her answer, finished the two more steps that brought her to the sink, and upon refilling the glass, returned it to Yankee's lips. As she did so, she said, "It might be relevant, to you, as we were both taught in bargaining techniques -- should we ever be captured, I infer -- not that I know whether I ever was -- That if you were to give me what I want -- that is, something valuable to mine, Echo, and Delta's current situation, that I could not acquire myself -- Then I would give to you something that you want, at my discretion. But, you could trust that I would hold to an equivalent reciprocal, as it would be much more in my interest to do so, than to not."

November lowered the empty cup, and paused, looking at Yankee's eyes. She'd learned that this was a nonverbal way of indicating that one was expecting something. She hoped that she might gain some insight into Yankee's motivations, as she could not keep him secured to the chair indefinitely. That was bound to leave her a mess to clean up, at the very least, and was not very productive either. Progress was, at this point, the best succession.

[Twysper]

His query hung in the air for a long moment, and his keen hearing noted the absence of movement from the other assassin. She had frozen.

While Yankee had made a straightforward request, it seemed his counterpart was in no mood to do so. November answered his question in such a roundabout way that he had to infer what she wanted from her words.

It was not efficient.

His brain rattled off pros and cons of joining November and company, possible outcomes, and the consequences of not cooperating.

Yankee knew what he wanted from her; another taste of mental freedom, the injection of drugs into his system. His hands shook slightly in their restraints as he merely thought about it. He concentrated, and they settled again.

There were no guarantees that she wasn't lying to gain information before dumping his body somewhere. What she said may have made logical sense, but he knew from observation that she didn't always act in a completely logical manner. It was why she needed to be brought back to Green Meadows.

But there were other issues. A group of four assassins was also more likely to attract attention, and paint a bigger target on all of their backs. Yankee also knew that November had only recently joined Delta and Echo, and that she might not even have a say in matters once she informed them he was here.

He only had one card left, and it was only valid to play as long as they were still on the planet. Given that he had already found the group, they would be heading out soon in case their location had been further compromised.

Yankee made his decision as November moved the emptied cup away from his lips. Perhaps the last one he could control.

"My ship," He started slowly, meeting her gaze with his own. "is nearby. It is equipped with most supplies up to Green Meadows standards. Only one condition; I'll take you there myself."