That didn't bother him, really. He'd spent most of the first few months at the Institute restrained and alone in the dark. Given the choice, alone was much better than in company.

He tested his bonds. Tough, but breakable. The Institute used nylette cuffs with twitchers to back them up. These little nylon ties were mostly cosmetic. He considered taking them off, but that would only earn him a tranquilizer dart and stiffer methods of restraint. He would wait.

Wick. He tried to summon his rage, the rage that had gotten him through Charybdis, but all he got was an image of her skin as it slowly burned away under the flame of the Petrol 5. He'd stolen it from the engineering depot at the Institute, a test vial from a new shipment that they'd left out long enough for him to lift.

He'd known from the moment he'd picked it up exactly what he would use it for. It was done now. He'd never thought about what would happen afterwards...or if he had, he'd assumed she would be too frightened - or simply unable - to implicate him. A tiny bit of his mind gave grudging respect. The rest of him rotated on darker thoughts.

They wouldn't be as careless here as they had at the BattleSchool. Not for a repeat offender with the training he'd taken. They'd drug him and send him back to Charybdis, to be executed quietly, or locked firmly away. Or as a test subject for whatever new horror the military had created lately.

His fate wouldn't have troubled him if he had kept his resolve to stay away from everyone. To stay away from Kat. They understood each other. Without him, she was going to be all alone up here. She'd fight and scratch her way through it, he was sure. But he should have known better than to offer something that wasn't his to give.

Glancing around stealthily, Dante slipped the card in, opening the door, making sure to hide the re-open tab securely in her pocket, so that she'd be able to escape. Nathan looked up as she entered, but she glared coldly at him, her eyes mercurial silver and poise straight, face hardened against him as she brushed the fiery curls from her forehead and advanced.

"What do you think you were doing, Nathan?" she hissed, her tone a furious whisper. "Or rather, Asmodeus, you fallen angel, you spirit of wrath... wasn't it enough to hurt me? Now you have to go and set Wick on fire, you cold-hearted bastard, they should send you back to that fucking Institute and keep you locked up forever, before you destroy everything and anything you've ever touched! Wasn't it enough... after me, now you go, now you're destroying other lives?!"

He didn't bother wondering how she got in. He didn't care. He let her talk until she got close to him. It was just luck that the door finally shut as she finished her tirade, shutting the light out completely once again.

Asmodeus could see in the dark. Most of the rooms at the Institute were dark most of the time. When they locked him away in an open cell with seven other people in various states of mental decay, it had become another survival trait. It had saved him more than once, and it was useful to him now.

With a quick snap he broke through the little Nylon binding that held him, catching Dante and pulling her to the ground. She didn't begin to struggle until he pinned her to the floor, but he was bigger, stronger, better trained and better equipped. Her faint outline was just visible to him as he held her down, her cheek against the cold metal floor, her hands pinned tightly behind her with one of his, her legs trapped beneath him, his knees on either side.

He ran his free hand over the back of her thigh, heard her outraged gasp as he slipped it up to the small of her back and then her shoulder before he leaned over and put his mouth to her ear. Her body was trembling beneath his, but he didn't care.

"Oh, they didn't break me, Anjelice. You did." He tightened his grip, and she whimpered. "It was so easy for you, to believe I would send that letter to you, so easy for you to strike me without letting me speak. For the first year I was in that hellhole I couldn't go to sleep without thinking of you, of what I'd done to you. And do you know what I discovered? I hadn't really thought about what you'd done to me..." His voice was rough as he said this last word, but he reined himself back to dangerous calm.

"I was yours, Anjel, entirely yours, and without a single word from me to confirm it you attacked me like an enemy for the letter they sent you." She made a short exhale of disbelief, but he could tell she was still intent, listening anyway. "That's right, my Anjel, Wick sent the letter, not me. They must have been watching us...and when I left that day to keep myself from hurting you, they turned you against me with one...little...letter..." He punctuated the last three words with painful squeezes of his fingers.

"You broke me, Anjelice. Not Wick, not Jor, not those bastards at the Institute. After Swede came in and knocked you out, I shoved her away and Jor and Wick came in to survey their handiwork. The little bitch sat on your bunk and watched Jor beat me bloody, and all I could think about before she finally knocked me out was what they were going to do to you when I was gone..."

Wick wrote the letter... She couldn't believe it, it couldn't be true... but the tone of angry sincerity in Nathan's voice convinced her unwillingly. He was right... oh, so right. She hadn't even given him a chance to defend himself, had struck him down, attacked him with all the rage of a broken heart without ever considering that maybe he hadn't written it. But I didn't know, couldn't possibly know he didn't write it, that Wick crafted the entire thing... Dante's muddled mind kept trying to reason, but to no avail.

Nathan was leaning against the wall, but in the dark gloom of the cell she could only make out the blur of his face, his white-blonde hair a dim beacon. Her soft violet eyes filled as she watched him, knowing that if he were sent back to the Institute, she'd never see him again. And despite having prepared herself all these years, knowing he was lost to her... having him here now broke all that.

Scrambling awkwardly to her feet, Dante didn't bother to push the fiery curls from her face as she stumbled toward the door, awkwardly unlocking the portal with clumsy fingers. Glancing back at Nathan, a tear running down her now-bruised cheek, she managed to choke out a few words, voice husky and hoarse.

"Scuse me, sir... but you just brought in a new prisoner, right? Nathan Terrence..." The man nodded, scowling angrily as he noticed the white Institute band encircling her arm. Kat ignored the glare and smiled more broadly, biting her lip before continuing. "Well see, sir, that's my boyfriend. I know you arrested him, but he... he was, uh, with me at the time that other soldier was attacked. He couldn't possibly have hurt her, he's just a sweetheart. Please believe me, we were together the entire time, can I at least see him?"

Her pleading tone had the expected affect, and the man leaned back in his chair, feet propped on the desktop as he watched her carefully. "He was with you, huh? This is a probational soldier, miss, just like you obviously are. We must take the upmost precautions, as I'm sure you understand. Why should I believe you? What were you doing?"

Kat blushed furiously, looking away with an innocently guilty expression as the man blushed too. She had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing wickedly as he dropped his feet to the floor, standing and grabbing his keyring. She looked up at him then with wide eyes, forcing her left eye partly open under its bruise, and turned even more red. Stupid merdana... Kat smirked inside. Men will believe just about anything...

"Come with me, Miss. He will still be under surveilance, but if you can vouch for his presence, then we can't keep him. It was a circumstantial thing, I'm sorry to have put you in this situation, but we didn't know..."

She blinked shyly at him and followed obediently down the corridor, sauntering beside the guard until they reached Mode's cell. Kat turned then to face the guard, catching her breath and standing on tiptoe to kiss the man on the cheek. "Thank you so much, sir, I can't believe they thought he might do it, thank you so much for understanding, you're just a wonderful man, thank you..."

The guard gulped and unlocked the door for her, motioning that she could go inside. "Go ahead, miss, take him back to his barracks. Sorry for the inconvenience, thank you for understanding... if you need anything I'll be at the main desk, just call... uh, have a good day." He saluted to her and marched down the corridor, and with a grin, Kat peeked her head inside and smirked at Mode, her good eye slitting as she ran her gaze over him.

She'd been so close, close enough for him to breath her scent the way he had when he was fourteen and innocent. The taste of her skin was still on his lips, but his tears were gone.

I still love you...

He tried to scrub the words from his mind and couldn't, eventually stopped trying. She could feel however she wanted to. He had forgotten how to love her or anyone else the day he'd found the Petrol 5, and his map of revenge came clear. Nothing she stirred in him now would ever touch the purity it had held before. Anything else was unworthy.

His shoulders gradually stilled, and he was silent and cold once again. Dante could feel what she wanted to, but he knew what he was. Angel had worshipped her with quiet reverence. Asmodeus preferred Kat.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the door opened. He winced against the sudden light, but recovered enough to see a slender female silhouette in the doorway, head tilted slightly to the side.

"You're not gettin' away from me that easy, darlin'... c'mon, let's get you outta this hole and back to my bed..."

He leaned casually against the wall, his eyes diamond bits drilling into her, the same knowing smile fixed on his lips. She was looking around wide-eyed as the effects of the stun baton wore off. Still disoriented and confused, he noticed - excellent.

Time to play with fire.

The lights went out.

Darkness as black as his uniform invaded the room, and he approached the space where he knew the desk to be. Johan reveled in it; the darkness was an extension of his will, of him, and he could feel it permeate the room. He traveled in a world of endless shadows; his mind was a black, empty eternity from which it was impossible to escape. And Wick now stood at its borders.

Still von Starnburg said nothing. Instead, he walked around the table, and behind the chair where Wick was sitting. He allowed his boots to click softly as he walked, to let her know he was still with her. Once behind her, he stopped, drinking in her fear and confusion. Reaching out from behind to run his fingers down her bruised cheekbone, he almost chuckled as he heard her intake of breath and felt her flinch away. He strolled back to the other side of the table.

"Moira," and by the tone of his voice, one could imagine horrible dark figures slithering out of his mouth and assuming a life of their own, "you have been a very naughty girl, and your superiors do not appreciate it." Smile, no reply.

From inside his jacket, he pulled out a small flask of Jamaican over-distilled rum, his single weakness since he gave up smoking. It was no less than 150 proof, and burned very, very slowly.

Johan poured it out in a line, from one end of the table to the other. Then, returning the flask to its pocket, he removed his lighter and flicked it on, touched it to the alcohol, and flicked it off in one smooth motion.

The fire raced down the table, bathing them in a harsh and demonic light. Deliberately, von Starnburg raked his hands through the flames, holding the fire in his bare hands. He leaned forward, palms outward, the light making his face into flickering visage from the depths of hell.

The man who'd cuffed her was leaning against one wall of the cell as the rest of the MPs filed out. Her eyes flew to the silver Internal Alliance crest and then back to his face, absorbing the tiny smirk on his lips, the scars on his cheeks, the shadow behind his glittering eyes. She knew what those scars were from. Her mother's father had them. Swords. Dueling scars.

Nobility meant nothing to the military, but it meant something to Wick. In this age of world government where royalty and nobility were rapidly becoming extinct, it took a special breed of person to cling to the brutal tradition of the past. Wick's mother had been such a person, accepting an arranged marriage to benefit the House. Other people might classify that as weakness, but Wick had always known better. Icy strength and iron control hung like an aura about this man as they had about her mother, and this man's devotion wasn't to an unhappy marriage. His focus was his job...and it was obvious he liked his work.

Fear blossomed, and Wick clenched her teeth to keep from shivering as he smirked at her.

The lights went out, and her considerable unease multiplied ten-fold. What would the IA want her for? She racked her brain for any infraction she'd committed since she arrived and came up with nothing. This had to have something to do with Nathan, but what? Had the doctor turned her in after all? Impossible. If they had, she would have been arrested by normal MPs, not taken in the middle of the night by this IA official with the lupine gleam in his eyes.

She heard his boots on the metal floor, slow and steady. Her breathing quickened silently. His hand brushed her cheek and she pulled away with a shocked intake of breath. The footsteps retreated. "Moira," he said, his voice dark and smooth, poisonous black silk, "you have been a very naughty girl, and your superiors do not appreciate it." There was a hint of an accent there, but not enough to place it.

There was a metallic scraping sound, as of something being unscrewed, and Wick caught the faint but definite scent of alcohol. Another breath identified it. Rum. Her father's liquor cabinet had been the first place she'd gotten her fuel. The man was drinking? That seemed...out of character somehow.

The scent intensified. He wasn't drinking. He was pouring it on something. Wick stiffened, but there was nothing to do but wait.

Then came a click that she would have known had she been deaf. A silver lighter with a steel and flint mechanism sparked a flame that threw crazed shadows on the dark room, shadows that danced across the walls and the floor and the man before her in devilish patterns, but Wick hardly noticed.

She had eyes only for the flame.

The man holding the little fire brought it down to the table, and Wick sighed as the alcohol caught, the twisting colors of red and yellow run through with brilliant blue making her tremble. It had been so long. She was too enrapt watching the beautiful creature on the table to notice the man until he leaned down and put his hands into it. Her eyes widened, but she made no noise, too caught up in the display.

He held his cupped hands out to her, the fire in them as if he were offering it, and Wick felt like she was in a dream. She tried to move her hand, to take the fire from him, and the feel of the restraints brought her a little closer to reality, but she still couldn't look away.

"Tell me about Terrence," asked the man almost reasonably.

That got her attention, and she wrenched her eyes away from the lovely beast that was beginning to die in his hands as the rum was burned away, looked up into his eyes with a mixture of fear and wonder. He was using her love to get to her, and she hated him for it...but he understood, and she didn't know what to make of that.

"I will be asking the questions here," he told her, deadpan. "Do not forget it." Pause. Then, holding his flame-engulfed hand in front of her face, loving the pain and the way it sharpened every one of his senses, feeling truly alive, "Is this how it felt when he burned you?"

He touched the fire on his hand to that on her face, and in that instant, the fire reflecting in her eyes, he saw her desire for, and fear of, the flame, and knew she was and always would be its servant. His mastery of the flame, the smell of his burning flesh, and his indifference to the pain - these combined to ensure her respect and fear, and, most importantly, her subservience.

She closed her eyes.

He leaned in closer. She could smell the faint scent of aftershave. She wondered crazily if he was going to kiss her. A breath touched her cheek, and the heat disappeared as he blew the last remnant of the fire out. She choked back a sob, but a single tear of loss rolled down her cheek anyway, fell onto his hand as the fire died there as well, its fuel exhausted.

Realization hit her as the warm drop of saline left her skin and hit his. This bastard had forced tears from her within five minutes of their meeting, had taunted her with the promise and threat of her greatest love, and struck her. Twice. Fury began to build as her own fire warmed her from within, and she met his gaze with the eyes of an animal that went into the trap of its own free will and then changed its mind.

A beam of light, artificial and harsh, pierced the veil of darkness in the room. It hit Wick full in the face, casting a distorted shadow on the back wall, and caused her to flinch away. Von Starnburg himself stood outside the beam, a slightly lighter patch in a canvass of darkness. Wick squirmed in her chair, but the bonds were tight, and she could not escape the lamp's penetrating beam. It bored relentlessly in on her, bathing her face in a cold and revealing light, none of her features left in shadow.

"Now," Johan said, focusing down the beam, "no more of these little games." He walked around the table again, and, standing behind her, traced patterns on the arm Mode had burned. Without warning, his fingers closed in a vice-like grip around her shoulder, his fingers probing and digging, until he actually clenched her muscle. Then he wrenched it away from her - so hard, in fact, that had the chair not been bolted down, it most definitely would have fallen over. Wick's head was tossed back, as much in shock as from the force of his pull. Without relinquishing his grip, he stared down into her face, his entire face in darkness, his eyes reflecting the lamplight in twin diamond pinpricks.

Her breath became silently ragged as the pain increased, but she could hear him easily when he asked his question.

"Why did Nathan burn you, Wick?"

She grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes at the demon in the dark above her.

Why? Because I ruined his life. I used his love against him, made him destroy it with his own hands, and then sent him to hell for a two year vacation so he could learn how better to kill me when he came back. He burned me because he wanted to destroy me the same way I destroyed him...with love.

But she couldn't tell him what had happened, wouldn't...Jor's face slipped into her mind and brought her internal flame a little higher. If she told this man what he wanted to know, Jor would suffer. She couldn't allow that. She had to fight.

Johan removed his lighter again from his jacket pocket, and commenced to twirl it around in his fingers. Flicking it expertly, he ignited the flame in a single motion, and once again, her eyes snapped to its flickering brilliance. He allowed himself to admire it as well, for a moment or two, before deliberately smothering it by pressing his finger down on the flame.

"Really?" He feigned surprise. "You don't know? Pity." Von Starnburg stood up. He turned to the view-panel. She wasn't the only one who could play at lying.

The fire was dragging at its leash, but she forced it down, made herself focus. She had to keep Jor out of this. She had to keep talking, or the man's attention would shift to her match, and that couldn't be allowed. She couldn't tell him what he wanted to know, but she had to keep him mad. Too mad and he'd just knock her out and drag Jor in anyway, though. Tight line. He had to think he was closing in on her, that she was giving up, that he was winning.

Wasn't he?

Johan turned back to her, his eyes shining with malicious light. He gently cupped her chin with his left hand, turning her head to face him. With his right, he backhanded her, his arm rising and falling in precise, efficient movements.

"Foolish girl." Slap. "Did I not warn you against questions?" Slap. "Now. Either answer my question, or stop wasting my time." Slap. Blood flecked his hand, and still he did not stop. Now the backhands punctuated every word. "Tell. Me. Why. Nathan. Burned. You. Now." With that, he released her, and his next blow rammed the back of her skull against the headrest with a sickening thud.

Somewhere beyond her scope of vision, the interrogator was waiting, expecting an answer, but her mind couldn't make sense of the jumble of images and sounds that had accompanied him striking her. The only thing she could remember clearly was the painful methodical impact of his hand on her face. She'd led him, like she led Jor...but she had misjudged the level of his ire as she had with Jor before, and now she was paying the price.

Her windpipe clogged, and she gagged and coughed and spit blood weakly, obscurely grateful that she couldn't lift her head. The blood from her nose and her lip dripped onto the floor instead of down her throat, and she was no longer in danger of choking to death, but the blackness was drawing in at the edges of her skewed vision anyway. She fought it, but she could feel her muscles beginning to relax despite her struggle.

NO!, her mind screamed at her, FIGHT, you weak bitch, that JOR he's about to take apart, and you're giving up!? She tried to roll her head to the side to lift it, but the muscles in her neck only bunched and her head stayed where it was as her body betrayed her.

"M..match..."

I'm sorry, matchman...

Johan allowed her to remain in this state for perhaps a minute, perhaps two, before he decided to wake her up. He opened the door, then slammed it - loud. Wick's head snapped up, and she looked around desperately, before remembering where she was, at which point she slumped back hopelessly. He walked back to her, fixing a smug grin on his face, preparing his final push, knowing that one more little shove would break her.

"So you are finally awake? Excellent," he said briskly, "After the first ten minutes, they were worried you would not wake at all, but I reassured them that though you may flicker, it takes more than a few friendly taps to smother your flame." Mirthless smile. "Besides, your little nap gave me just the chance I needed to have a little… chat with young Jordan." The effect of his words was instantaneous. She snapped awake, paying attention to his every word, searching for his face in the darkness, trying to read the truth of his statement.

"Oh yes," he said, deadpan, "at first, well, he didn't quite understand the seriousness of the situation, he was surprisingly resistant to persuasion. As it is, well, the doctors tell me that they can salvage the use of his left hand, though the right shall have to be replaced with a prosthetic." Joan shrugged, Wick slumped, and he could see that she was almost there, just one more push… "From what he tells me, you two rather liked to break the rules back in Battle School. He told me the entire sordid tale, and I must say, I'm impressed with your resourcefulness, getting Terrence iced like that.

"Oh don't worry," he said, holding up a hand at her intake of breath, "you don't need to tell me the whole story any more, I have almost all of it, thanks to our mutual friend." Wick slumped even further in her chair, the fight gone out of her eyes at this "betrayal" by her match.

He had her. She was broken.

Wick tried to imagine what state Jordan would have forced the interrogator to reduce him to for him to give that information, but her mind shied away. His...hands? Wick thought of those hands, long, muscular, deft, the gentleness and strength, the power those hands had never hesitated to exert over her. She thought of Jor breaking enough to tell this man what he'd learned, and anger didn't even begin to flare.

She just shivered and relaxed against her bonds as her fire was blown out.

What did it matter now? What did anything matter? Jor wasn't Jor any longer. She had betrayed him, letting herself slip into unconsciousness, and her matchman had paid the price. She had no wish to see him, to see the end product of her failure. She only wanted this man to kill her...but she couldn't summon enough spirit together to lift her head and spit a retort at him. Her shoulders rose and fell once with a single aching sob, but it was dry, no tears in it at all.

Her fingers rubbed against each other, and the palefire ring around her finger was burning her skin, but she didn't care. She wanted pain, more pain than this man could give her without getting himself into trouble. Maybe if she told him what he wanted to know they would let her go. She could find Katera. The girl had killer's eyes. One more wouldn't be much trouble for her, surely, not after she knew who'd sent Mode out of her reach forever.

The first man was already well into the room when he stopped short and quickly brought up his hand, causing his companion to halt as well. As von Starnburg watched, the first man - he was no more than a boy, really (Starnburg didn’t recognize Rabin from Wick’s cell) - tested the air, head turning this way and that, like a dog seeing with its nose, and slowly his head turned in Johan’s direction. Enough of these games, he thought, time to find out who our friends are. With that he raised his pistol and placed it squarely in the back of the second intruder’s head, the barrel resting lovingly against the boy’s skull.

My spark...

She was half-turned away from them, but the blood on her face and down her uniform was starkly evident. Jor froze, not from fear of this man who held a gun to his head, but from complete shock and anger at what had happened to Wick. It took a very long moment of staring calmly at her before his eyes shifted to shaded emerald, narrowing as a growl rumbled deep in his chest, and with an oddly un perturbed grin he tossed the fletchette pistol to Rabin, who caught it deftly and stood his ground, staring at the man behind Jor.

"I'm unarmed. You can't claim self-defense. I just want Wick." Jor slowly raised both his hands into the air, fingers spread to show that he held no weapons. Wick started, and his smile faded as her shoulders shook and she raised her head wearily, as if almost unable to find the energy to do so. Her head tilted to the side, and their eyes connected, his flaming serpentine rage and love against her own blank pale ice. Even the pain as the gun barrel was pressed harder into the back of his skull did not detract from his attention on Wick, and when he finally spoke, his voice was tired.

Long ago, she'd tried to imagine death. She and Jor had found an empty classroom in the BattleSchool that still had old maps on the walls, old troop positions still posted on them, all of them long dead, most in the service of the IF during the last Bugger war. She'd looked over that map with a strange feeling of bitterness. No one ever told the map they were gone. She'd tried to imagine what it would be like, the sudden extinguishing of her little flame in the vastness of space for the human race, for her mother, for Jor, for something intangible like duty, but failed.

Now she would find out...but it was empty, as empty as everything else was. This wasn't for duty or anything else. She was simply going to fade out. The weak manner her will submitted to these thoughts should have galled her, but it did not. Her flame was gone, and Wick was already cold. Katera would only be the one to scatter the ash.

The interrogator's voice said something about gentlemen and playing soldier, but she wasn't really listening. It all seemed distant, until a voice made her shoulders shake as she dragged her head up to meet the scene before her.

"I'm unarmed. You can't claim self-defense. I just want Wick."

She didn't want to look, didn't want her eyes to betray her, but she did anyway.

It was dark, and her head was still ringing.

She said nothing. She only stared at the shade in front of her as it looked back at her. "Heya, spark."

...Jor?

He held the gun out at arm's length, his elbow straight and his wrist locked. Rabin was very comfortable with guns.

He'd grown up in Israel, after all.

Instead, Starnburg looked the other boy straight in the eyes, shrugged, and savagely pistol-whipped his captive across the side of his head. The boy never even saw it coming. He sagged to his knees, and von Starnburg contemptuously tossed his gun into the darkness and turned to face the other. His smile could have lit up the room.

“Please,” he said, his voice perfectly smooth, “Shoot me. Put me out of my misery. End your career within the International Fleet, and your life outside it. Kill an unarmed official investigator. If you think this is bad,” he moved towards Wick, “it is nothing compared to what they will do to you back on Earth.”

At this, Starnburg paused, to let his words sink in, as well as to ponder his options. There was more to Muraida’s little quest then he had first imagined, and, upon consideration, Johan thought he would rather like to meet this “Mode” character, that so many people wanted ruined. A boy after my own heart, he thought wryly.

He rested his hand on Wick’s shoulder, and spoke again to the boy with the gun, still aimed at his head, “If I were you, I would collect my little friends and leave here at your earliest possible convenience. The rest of the guards will be here shortly, and I dare say they will not be pleased.” With that, his fingers dug into Wick, grabbing her nerve and pinching hard. She gave a little gasp of pain and blackness consumed her world yet again. Von Starnburg reached down and picked up his gun, holstered it, and, still covered by the gun in the older boy’s hand, walked to the door, stopping briefly to place a well-aimed foot in the other youth’s groin, as he feebly tried - from his half-sitting position on the floor - to halt him from leaving. In the doorway Johan paused and turned back to them.

Later. When he stopped seeing red and black at the edges of his vision.

More talking, and the man did something to Wick, causing her to slump unconscious in her chair. Jor grabbed for the IA's leg as he stalked by, rewarded only by a sharp kick to the groin that made his breath leave him in a sharp hiss, and he sank onto all fours, hissing angrily as now half his body thrummed with pain. A long moment as Rabin stared at him calmly, and then Jor managed to get his feet under him, standing sorely and shaking out his legs as he glared toward the other man.

"Thanks, Arab. Next time I'll just ask him to shoot you."

Rabin seemed annoyingly unconcerned with any of this, and with another growl Jor stumbled over toward Wick. Her head lolled on her shoulders as he placed a hand beneath her chin, tilting her face up to look over her injuries. He didn't want to do anything but stare at her, watch her breathe and wait for her to awake, but the distant ringing of alarm bells, and the unwelcome sound of shouting broke him from his reverie.

His hand dug into the pocket of the riot gear, and with the knife he proceeded to saw through the nylon ties that bound Wick. She slumped further as her restraints were removed, and tossing the blade carelessly to the ground, Jor braced himself and picked her up gently, laying her over his shoulder before standing upright, the grimace on his face and pain in his eyes all to evident. He might have asked Rabin to carry her, under any other circumstances, but after what had just happened, he didn't want the man anywhere near his spark.

There was a light overhead, but it was a weak one, serving more to accent the darkness in different levels of shadow than actually illuminate. Bryant let out a low groan as he rolled onto his belly and planted his hands against the ground. He pushed himself up, and climbed to his feet slowly. He wasn't as young as he'd once been, but it still took more than that to put him down.

He didn't inspect his cell at all. He knew it well already. He knew every inch of this school, top to bottom. There wasn't any way to escape. Not without equipment, not from inside. His resources had been taken from him -- the small dagger he kept strapped to his his forearm beneath his coat, the microcomp that gave him access to the systems of the entire station, the master keycard that would permit him entry to any part of the base. They'd taken it all.

There was a shelf jutting out from the wall, a slightly-less-black rectangle in the darkness. A bunk. Bryant seated himself on it, and let out a sigh.

There were silhouettes in the doorway; one was the hulking form of an MP, and the other two smaller, thinner. Students, his mind supplied. A male and a female. The male was already man-height, with a lean, athletic frame. Not terribly muscular, but seemingly built more for motion than power. The female was shorter, but built similarly; her body seemed to have been trained to attack swiftly and efficiently.

The students entered the room, and a light fixture set into the ceiling that Bryant had found by touch yesterday flickered on. Bryant had felt it out, just to see if there was any way he could possibly use it to his advantage, but had known there was none. It was built too strong to be broken.

With the light on, he recognized the students immediately. The male had visited him three or four days ago. Hunter Gabriel. Son of Simon Reiner and Alicia Gabriel. Bryant made sure the solemn regret he felt inside upon looking at this boy's face did not show on his own. The boy looked so very much like his father once had. And more than that, there was something in the mannarisms, in the subtlties of his eyes, that reminded Bryant of times long past.

Simon, I truly, dearly hope that something horrible happened to make you what you became. Because if nothing did, I worry for this boy. I hope, for his sake, that you did not become what you are of your own volition. That would mean that there is danger that your son might someday too.

The girl he recognized also, though he had never met her face to face. Bryant had been watching them for some time now; Battle School, holocammed as it was, made checking up on Gabriel quite easy. This girl had been with him almost every waking moment. Every time Bryant had watched Gabriel walk the halls, watched him wolf down his food in the mess, watched him hone his body and his mind in the gym, learning to think with his nerves, with his reflexes; through it all, this girl had been right there, at his side. Remarkable.

Rebecca Solenis. He wondered if Gabriel knew how lucky he was.

The guard instructed them that they were being holocammed, and that they had fifteen minutes. He then left, and the doors slid closed.

"So good of you to visit me, Hunter," Bryant said, and noted the way Gabriel stiffened at the mention of his name. "Concerned, or is this a business visit?"

At his words, Solenis stiffened also. "His name is Gabriel," she said. Her voice was soft, but it had an intensity to it that didn't seem to realize that there was any possibility it would not be obeyed.

Bryant saw Gabe touch Sol's hand, gently. At first he thought it was a stilling gesture; I can take care of this myself, thanks. But the two shared a brief glance, and Bryant saw that this was not so. Their eyes met, and he saw some sort of resolve pass between them. It seemed to be a confirmation, of some sort. Like they were about to pass some point of no return, and this was one final You sure?

Apparently Gabriel saw whatever answer it was he was searching for in the girl's eyes, because he squeezed her hand gently and then stepped closer to Bryant.

"I've come for answers," Gabriel said, his voice level. "And given your current situation, I wanted to make sure I got them before anything too final happened to you."

Bryant rested his elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands. A grin found its way onto his face. "By all means," he said.

Gabriel paused then. Bryant would certainly have called him stoic already, but nevertheless the boy's features hardened even further.

"I want to understand myself," the boy said. "And to do that, I need to understand what made me. I need to know everything you know about that crash."

Bryant regarded Gabriel for some time. It seemed like ages before he spoke. "I think, perhaps, that's a longer story than we can fit into fifteen minutes. But I'll tell you all I can."

Gabriel nodded, singularly.

"Then I'm going to tell you a story, Gabriel. It's my story. It's your father's story. It's your mother's story. And I hope that maybe it will help you understand your own story just a little better."

Gabe just stared. Bryant decided to tell the story without waiting for reactions from this boy.

"As I told you before, I knew your father. The two of us served together with the SOTF. That's the IF's special forces. We were the best of friends, your father and I. Like brothers. We saved each others' lives more times than . . ." His voice trailed off, momentarily. "I trusted him like no one else in the world.

"About nineteen years ago now," he said, his eyes dropping to the floor, "he and I went on Earthside leave, and we were in this bar that served the local college students. There was this girl there, studying off in the corner, and your dad looked at her and said, 'I'm going to marry her.' Of course, I told him he was crazy, and bet him fifty dollars he didn't even get her name. He got her name. Alicia. She was a geology major there at the university. And nine days later they were married.

"I was your father's best man. I'd never seen him so happy. Like he could die, right then, and not care because he knew that it wasn't going to get any better than-"

Gabe cut him off. "Why are you telling me this?" he demanded. "I want to know about-"

"You said you wanted to know about yourself," Bryant said, raising his voice slightly. "Well, in order to do that you've got to know the history behind you also. You didn't just appear full-grown from the head of Zeus, Gabriel. Even though you know how this story ends, you weren't even born yet when it began. And you've got no hope of understanding what happened if you don't know the whole story."

Gabriel was silent then.

"His first son was born healthy, eight pounds and three ounces. I had to sit with the man out in the hall outside the delivery room as he went between states of exhausted sleep and frantic pacing. And when they brought his little boy out for him to see . . . let me tell you, Gabriel, I'd never seen that man cry before. Never. But he cried like a baby when that doctor put the bundle in his arms. And then he disappeared into the delivery room and I found my own way out.

"Two years later they had a little girl. They named her Hannah, after her father's dead mother. And that's about the last happy thing you're going to hear in this story, because from here on it gets ugly. So if that's all you want to hear, just say so. Maybe you'll be happier never knowing."

The room was absolutely silent for a long time. Finally Gabe said, "Go on."

Bryant nodded, gravely. "Around that time, it was beginning to show that you were developing a lot quicker than the other children. You could speak way too early, your vocabulary grew way too fast, you would pick up a skill that took normal kids months in a matter of hours. You were a really bright kid. Really bright. And I mentioned to your father one day that maybe you might be suited to the Battle School program.

"He told me that that wasn't going to happen. But your mother heard too, and she started thinking about that. I was her friend too, Hunter, and I was the one she called when she and your father got in a fight over it. And it was a bad fight. He hit her. The next day I told him that that could never happen again, and he was ashamed of himself for having done it, and so we never spoke of it again, and it never happened again. But it still bothered me. Cause he was my best friend and I thought I'd known him better than that.

"And then came the court martial. A bunch of men in our unit were given dishonorable discharges, and some were even criminally prosecuted, for espionage. Information was leaking. They didn't have enough evidence on your dad to drum him out, but they could reassign him somewhere low-security. When they told him that, he just resigned. I couldn't believe it. I mean, your father wasn't one to give in like that. But he did. He resigned. Like he really was guilty, and wanted to take his benefits with him while he could.

"And then I get this call from your mother. She was hysterical. Apparently, she'd known things all along about your dad, incriminating things, except she'd never thought they were strange until this whole court martial thing came up. She wouldn't testify against him, she couldn't do that, but she served him with divorce papers and moved herself and you and your little sister, only six months old, to Alaska. I guess she figured that was about as far as she could get from your dad and still be in the States."

"What did she know?" Gabe asked. How could this boy's voice possibly sound so cold?

Bryant shook his head. "I don't know, Gabriel. I'm an officer of the International Fleet, and if she'd told me I'd have had no choice but to report it and testify. So I told her she had better not tell me in the first place. Not if she didn't want your father buried. And no matter what he'd done, she still loved him. She couldn't do that.

"So you and your mother and sister went to live in Kodiak. I visited from time to time. Your dad and I didn't really speak anymore after the divorce. It was like I didn't know him anymore. Like the man I'd known wasn't even real. And everything was fine. Until the IF came knocking at your door. They wanted to test you, to see if you were worth the expense of a monitor. Your mom agreed.

"You have to understand, Gabriel, your mother didn't want to give you up. She loved you and your sister more than life itself. But she knew that the world needed bright young minds like yours, knew that you were special, that you might just be somebody that would amke a difference in this war. So she couldn't just refuse. She was going to let them test you.

"About a week before the test, I got a message, slipped under my door. At the time I was stationed on Earth, as an instructor for the Jaydes program. The message said that I wasn't to allow you to take that test. I don't have any proof that your dad had anything to do with it. It was just a feeling I had. I just knew that it was from him.

"So I took a week's leave, and went to Oregon, to my ranch, and invited you and your mom and your sister down for a few days. I made sure the place was secure. I'd left behind friends in the SOTF, and they know how to button up a site. While you were there, we gave you the test, and then the three of you stayed just a while. I remember how you used to watch the horses. Like they were the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen.

"So anyway, you and your mom and sister went back to Alaska with a military escort. Then I arranged for a chopper to pick you up en route to your home in Kodiak and take you to Juneau, where you would then fly to a secure location. I'd hoped that the misdirection would trip them up."

Gabe's eyes were ice. "You were wrong," he said, with his voice holding just above absolute zero.

But Bryant didn't look away, didn't wither. "Yes," he said. "I was wrong."

"I know the rest," Gabe said. "They waited out in the snow with a gauss turret. Waited for us to come by and then they riddled our chopper with eighty millimeter armor-piercing anti-tank shells. They shot us down."

Bryant nodded, gravely. "That's right, Hunter. But they didn't kill you. Call it luck. Call it fate. Hell, call it God. You survived. And not only the crash. You walked half the distance between the crash site and Juneau alone. You. A five year old boy. We studied the crash, afterward. We knew you'd survived. We also knew that whoever had shot you down had known that you were alive, and had tracked you. But apparently you were found first, and taken to a hospital. From the records, you weren't there any longer than a few days. Your father was contacted, but he refused custody. And there was someone pulling strings in social services, because you were in an orphanage very quickly. I pulled rank and took command of the search. But by the time we found where you'd been taken, you were already gone. You'd already moved on to a new orphanage, farther south. We counted you gone. Possibly dead."

Gabe's eyes didn't soften in the slightest. "I was," he said.

"Why just a helicopter? If you knew the ex-SOTF were after them, why just a helicopter? Why not more than that? You had to know they were after them, if you bothered to send them in a roundabout path. What made you think they would be safe with a single military vehicle? Why didn't you send more? Why didn't you go yourself? Why didn't you protect them, Major?"

Gabe's hand touched hers, but she didn't notice. The information was too fresh and too painful for her to set it aside as Gabe had learned to do, and here was a target, a culpable target, and she wanted an explanation...or she wanted to see him look ashamed.

Bryant cut himself off, and looked away from them both. He shut his eyes, and concentrated on breathing.

"I have a final question," Gabe said.

Bryant nodded, gravely, as if he already knew what the question was. Nevertheless, he waited for Gabe to ask it.

"What happened to him?" Gabe asked. "Why did he . . . what made him change?"

Bryant took a long time to answer. And when he did, Gabe wondered if it was just his imagination, or if Bryant seemed to be . . . holding back.

"I don't know, Gabriel," he said, softly. "He was a great man once. One of the greatest I've ever known. But . . . something got inside him and tore him up. I don't know how or why, and I doubt I ever will." He met Gabe's eyes then. "Maybe someday you ought to ask him yourself."

Gabe nodded once, noncommitally, and touched Sol's wrist before turning and leaving. At the door, he paused, without turning. "Thank you for the information, Major."

Behind him, Bryant's voice sounded very tired. "You are welcome, Gabriel."

His dreams were scattered and scrambled. Memories of the past, speculations of pasts that might have been, and of futures that never would be all drifted through his brain like clouds across a silver moon, creating shapes and forming pictures but never quite coherent.

He saw many things. Basic training, running the Gauntlet with Simon over and over, day after day, finding some new surprise every day. Their first mission, in Zürich, being shot at by so-called freedom fighters hiding behind hostages. That bar where Bryant had first laid eyes on Alicia, and had fallen quietly in love with her. Sitting with Simon outside the delivery room as the man paced the tiled floor so many times that Bryant was sure there would be a groove worn in. The first time he kissed Alicia, and the guilt they went through the next few days, hardly able to look each other in the eye. The first time they'd finally given in to the inevitable. The phone call Bryant had gotten from a hysterical Alicia, telling him that she and Simon had been fighting and that Simon had hit her. The phone call he'd gotten when Alicia had realized that the charges against her husband were true.

It was the last portion that was the most coherent. Bryant was leaning against the wooden fence of the east paddock, watching the black mare silhouetted against the sunset. Beside him, atop the fence, sat a five year old Hunter Gabriel, staring at the animal, completely transfixed.

"You're looking at the most noble animal alive, Hunter," he said. "A horse is the most loyal and trustworthy animal that ever lived. Humans included."

The boy looked at him. ". . . it's beautiful . . . ," he said, his voice hushed with awe.

Bryant smiled. "Yes she is." He glanced at the boy. "When you're a little older, I'll teach you to ride."

Gabe went back to staring. ". . . can I touch her . . . ?"

Bryant shook his head. "She'd be dangerous to pet, Hunter. She's beautiful, but she's dangerous too. That's how beauty is some times. You can look, but you'd best not touch."

The boy's face tightened in concentration. "Because I'm not beautiful like her," he said, after some thought. "If I was beautiful too I could touch."

Bryant laughed, and considered this. He shrugged. "Could be. You know of any way of making yourself a horse?"

Then the boy said something very strange. "I just have to concentrate harder."

They waved him through, and he approached the cell door with a quicker step. The doorguard keyed him in and he stepped inside just as the Major sat up, blinking like an old man at the light. He hadn't been asleep, but the little cell was inadequately lit, and his face hardened as he saw Bryant wince. He'd known Bryant for years. It was his example that made him choose the teaching career he had. It made him furious to see such a man in these surroundings.

His hand was pressed against the doorframe of the cell, and he realized he was staring into the cell with a little too much disgust. He took a few more steps into the cell and the door closed. He paid no attention to the man's rumpled uniform, just nodded greeting and looked him over carefully for signs of abuse. Nothing. The guards were still professional. All the better for them; after he delivered his news, anyone who'd been anything less than professional had about twenty hours to find a way off this rock before they suffered the consequences.

Cam Spencer had been a pupil of Bryant's once, before Graff had duped him into taking the helm of Command School. Bryant had heard it said before that there could be no greater accomplishment than for a teacher to inspire a student to want to teach as well. It had been some time since they'd last seen each other, but Spencer was still a young man, and still looked more or less the same as he had when Bryant had last seen him, a few years before. The man was travel-worn, but seemed to have the light step and kinetic energy commonly found in those that work closely with young children.

Bryant himself had never been good with children. He told himself that it was the wiser course for him to have never had any of his own. He'd have been a poor father; he was always away, and in any case could not relate to children well enough. But he envied Spencer. To be good with children was to be one yourself, forever.

So many roads not taken. So many roads suddenly cut off.

"Someone's dropping the hatchett on Command School," he said, gravely. "We weren't scheduled for IA evaluation for another eight months." He saw the flicker in Spencer's expression. "Yes, I know those things are supposed to be secret, but traditionally 'surprise' inspections aren't kept a secret from the commanding officer of any base or vessel unless said officer is under suspicion of something. And in any case, I have a few old friends in IA that generally keep me up on these things. Either this von Starnburg was sent personally by someone higher up the food chain than any of my contacts -- and quietly, too -- or else he's here weilding rogue authority. Either way, the man certainly wasn't the usual IA type we get here." He studied Spencer a moment. "As you might imagine, there are certain . . . difficulties . . . in running a school like this with teenagers. We train them to be aggressive and ambitious and then expect them to behave like proper little soldiers outside the Sims. And on top of that, IF Command ruled that creating fully separate facilities for male and female students wasn't cost effective. In the first few years we bunked them by sex, but it didn't really make any difference." He laughed. "These are damn smart kids, Lieutenant. We can keep them from fighting and keep them from intoxication, but that just means that their rebellious energies get channelled elsewhere, and if there's something they really want, they're going to find a way. We tried everything, believe me. They're too smart for us. Damn, Lieutenant, we had to start putting contraceptive chemicals in the food after the first year because eleven of our female students got pregnant." He waved a hand. "Anyway, my point was that the difficulties involved in running a school like this are recognized by the IA, and their usual inspectors are briefed beforehand about what is and is not to be placed in their reports. Someday the war's going to be over and all our materials are going to be handed over to some damn civilian oversight committee to decide if our means of saving the world were acceptable, and I for one don't want to be remembered as the headmaster of a damn playground for teenage hormones."

Bryant looked up toward the holocam in the corner of the ceiling, and stared at it as he continued. "This IA piece of shit they sent wasn't here to run an evaluation, even a surprise one. He wasn't here more than a few hours before he had a student dragged from her bed and violently interrogated. And then, when he tried to flex his muscles in my office and I refused to play along, he had me arrested."

He knew that Command School was considerably different from BattleSchool. He had always preferred working with younger children to dealing with teenagers. When they passed twelve, people tended to stop making sense until they were well into their twenties. He could understand how the Major felt, and did not envy him his position...but the people in power above him doubtless understood it as well. There was no reason for an IA official to be here, according to the Major, and the Major should know.

He had a very bad feeling about this.

"Sir, if he's not here to evaluate..." The thought of a rogue ranking officer within the IA was...disturbing.

"Of course," he said after only a slightly pause, and stood up slowly as the MP opened the cell door. "I've been told I can't visit again for another six hours, sir. Until then." He nodded, and grinned a little at the Major's impassive manner. Nothing like a few hours in a little detention cell was going to put a dent in that man's countenance.

Cam followed cheerfully, fighting the urge to whistle.

The C-Squad had dealt with Von Starnburg as quickly and efficiently as he had hoped, and from the IA officer's departure to the official order of release for Major Bryant to arrive took only thirty-two minutes. Not wanting to wait for it to filter through the system, Cam had gleefully accepted the duty of carrying the papers to the Detention Center himself, and so less than an hour after the orders had arrived, Cam found himself standing in front of Bryant's cell door with an extremely formal guard opening it for him.

Bryant was asleep, but he woke when the door slid aside, sitting up slowly, and Cam approached him. "Good morning, sir." He glanced at his watch. "4:51AM, to be precise. If it's alright with you, the administration humbly requests that you resume your office with all dispatch...if you can bear to part with your current position." His grin was almost too wide for his face, and he held the orders out to Bryant with as little of a flourish as he could.