Shades of Grey by Pundit | Part Four : Hubris (Version 2)
<clx@pacific.net.sg>

I acknowledge that there are characters in this story which belong to either Sega or Archie Comics. The text of the story itself, however, is copyrighted to me, and while it may be distributed in any form, must not be altered under any circumstances. You may not derive any profit from this story. Should you wish to contact me please use the above email address. I welcome comment, criticism, or flames, if you've got any. Thank you for reading.
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There was this one writer I heard of some time ago; he lived a while back, before we tore ourselves free from Mobius. His name was Nietzsche, and he loved to write about what he called eternal recurrence. It was some idea that you couldn't-can't, I mean, escape your fate. How you might change individual things, but it's like you're born with the shape of your life laid out in front of you for you to live. And how the true, the final test of your life is if someone gave you the chance to live again, would you do everything the same way, not changing a thing? Would you wish for the same thing over and over again, snake eating its tail, world without end?

It seems like this is the best time to think about those things, right now, the wind in my face and the sound of the shovel in my ear. I wonder what Lien would have said to that. What she might have done differently last night. Did she feel, in those seconds, like things should have turned out differently? Did she go happy, lying there with her head in his arms? Did she regret going in to save him? I never asked her while she was alive, of course, and I guess I'll never know now. We'll never know.

Anyway. The sun's way low in the sky now and it's just the three of us out in the middle of nowhere, the forest. Though I should say four of us. It's not wrong to say four, because I keep expecting to hear her happy laugh, to see her to burst out from behind the trees and put her hands over my eyes, to hear her saying, "Did you miss me?" That's the kind of person she really is- I mean was, at least for the few of us that ever got the chance to peek behind the curtain. We used to spend so much time together, the four of us, though you wouldn't guess it now. Time was when we'd get into trouble together, messing around in the labs and armories and hangars like we owned the place, and we did own it in a way. It never took more than a glance from Lien or a snarl from Kragok to send trouble packing, and it was like the best feeling in the world, those little triumphs that we used to share.

I still remember the first time we met each other. Xenin and I, we were just quietly standing in the middle of the assembly hall, not daring to speak or to move, or even talk to each other. We weren't friends; I only just about knew that he existed at that point and that was that. We'd heard all about the Twins, of course, and we knew all about the kind of honor it is to be selected to become a shadow to a descendent of Dimitri's. But it's different, you know, when you're dragged out of your sleep at five in the morning and told to prepare yourself because it's you they've chosen, and right this morning they're going to meet you. And then the thought of simply becoming a member of the elite, an assistant, an aide to one of the great, it's pretty heady stuff for a little kid to experience. Those minutes we waited, just standing there, a million thoughts must have passed through both of our heads like little butterflies, not that Xenin ever shared his with me.

And we saw their shadows first, as they stepped into the hall, the echo of their footsteps an incredibly loud ringing off the metal walls, trailing a little knot of minders at their heels like anxious puppies. At the heart of all of this is a simple promise. A kind of oath really. Not of servitude, because that's not what this is about, but a promise to care, to help, to assist. To sacrifice. This oath is about as serious as it gets, and you can be sure that we were reciting it over and over in our heads, because it's just something you never screw up. Just like that, we were standing in front of each other, Kragok and Xenin, Lien and I. I still remember the half smile she had on her face as she waited for the door to close; she was beautiful then, and she's still beautiful now, ethereal I guess is the word for the expression on her face. Then the door slamming, the minders having left us alone, because it was going to be that kind of once in a lifetime moment. The kind of moment that echoes down the years and decades. Maybe it's a good thing that we were kids then, the way we had the kind of guts that it seems only kids have, how the whole thing was like play acting but not quite, a little game but not really.

Then just as the two of us opened our mouths to speak the first line, Lien gave out this little playful squeal and she ran away- I mean she just grabbed Kragok's hand and took off for the other side of the room, dragging him behind her. Even then he must have trusted her, the way he had his own smile on his face, like he had confidence that whatever game she was playing, it was going to be fine in the end. I still remember the way she shouted, "You'll have to catch us first!", and the way we both just stood there paralyzed like idiots for a few seconds. Xenin made that quiet growling sound in the back of his throat that now means that someone is going to buy it in a very big way, and then he was off too, trailing me behind him the way a shooting star gives off those little sparks. And when we finally caught the both of them we were both too scared of hurting them to apply any kind of serious force, just gingerly held down their wrists with our fingers as we kinda huffed those words out of our mouths, white puffy clouds condensing in the chilly air. Lien, she just turned her head and said, "I think they'll do," and Kragok, he gave one of his smiles, the one that's sarcastic with his teeth but serious with his eyes. Xenin was more communicative back then, and I remember he gave the most grateful nod i've ever seen anyone give. Me, I was just happy enough to collapse on the collapse on the cold floor, just enjoying the feeling as she ran the tips of her fingers over my scalp.

And now the wind whips and stings me, bringing me back to the real world. I taste the salty grit it's picked up from who knows where. The sound of the shovel - that's the one thing that hasn't changed a bit. It's a regular metronome, four/four on the floor like the sound of your mother's heartbeat in the womb. You've never seen a hall packed full of raving Legionnaires before. The sound of metal limbs pinging off each other in time to the beat, the hypnotic pulsing and twinkling of LEDs around you; it's like- no, it is another world. Funny enough, it's one of the few activities Xenin's ever admitted to enjoying. He's got the inputs on his sensorium turned up high enough that the touch of wind is like a hot wire flaying skin and normal conversation is a screaming, wailing orgy. That's the way he wants it, each sensation cutting deep into his nerves, carving canyons in his brain. These days, the man sleeps insides one of those sense-dep tanks. Going to one of these events must be like falling into hell for him, but the truth is he lives for it. I've never asked why. Maybe it's how he finds peace. Maybe that's what does it for him - the silence after the storm. Maybe.

The shovel stops, and the two of us, we just snap out of it in time to see Xenin leap over the side. Xenin doesn't jump, he leaps. He doesn't move, he surges. And he could probably beat most statues at standing still these days. Only now he just nods at Kragok, and when the rest of him is as still as a mountain, this kind of gesture just leaps into your eye like a laser. And Kragok is staring off into the distance, the peaceful warm light of the afternoon softening the lines and angles of his face, catching the corners and lighting the outlines of his outfit like a halo. The wind is gentle now, and I see him close his eyes like he's imagining something. Like it's Lien's hand on his cheek, and the funny thing is that it does feel like that for a moment.

Then I open my mouth and say his name, and it comes out weaker and wavier than I intended.

He opens his eyes and looks at me for a long moment, gives Xenin that quick glance of his eye that says, "It's time to go to work." We pick up the body now, gently. It's so light it could be a sack of foam pellets, but it's not. It's Lien's body. Lien. Master, leader, friend. My friend. I see Kragok hesitate at the edge of the hole now, chewing his lower lip, and then he gets in slowly, holds out his arms for her.

I'm thinking about the four of us again, trying to figure out when we lost whatever it was that we once had. That one moment when we knew, just knew, things were never going to be the same again. Kids, they know it when it happens, then they forget, because you don't grow up sane remembering these things. Truth is I already know. It was that night, that famous night so long ago. Xenin threw himself over Kragok as the bomb exploded that night. He lost something like eighty percent of his organic body in the process. The doctors told me that it was the operation from hell, ever after spoken of only in the most respectful terms. How there were so many ways they could have lost him to some complication or other, how he clawed his way back to the land of the living each and every time, how it seemed like he just wouldn't, couldn't, let himself just flat-line right there on the table. That night it was everything or nothing and his system just took everything the doctors threw at it. And when he finally came up from under the sedatives, I didn't recognize him anymore. Neither, in a way, did Kragok.

In my mind I can still hear the sound of a million metal bearings ripping through the both of them, the silvery shower pinging off the walls and then clattering red and black on the floor. The thing is that although Xenin's action wasn't enough to save Kragok's eye or arm, Kragok owes his life to Xenin and they both know it. The magnitude of the sacrifice, perhaps Kragok just couldn't deal with it then. Maybe he felt unworthy, in some odd way. Or it could have been that the four of us, we all left our childhood behind that night, our innocence lying wispy and shattered on the floor among the glittery shards of metal.

That night, it was a different Xenin that clawed his way back to the land of the living. He began to volunteer for some seriously wet operations, the wetter the better, almost as if he didn't care about coming back, and he just lost himself in his shell. Kragok didn't seem to mind - he let Xenin run free. By that time anyway, Kragok was all wrapped up with the burden of growing up to be the next Grandmaster, Lien had her own little plots to deal with, and we all just drifted apart. The only remaining sign that anything had ever existed between the four of us were the quick sidelong glances we'd shoot each other with as we passed each other by in the corridors, if the other person was watching and we felt like being friendly.

But Lien and I, we still had each other. We'd pull these amazing all-nighters working out the details of her various schemes, and afterwards it would be up to me to put together the people and the goodies to make whatever was supposed to happen happen on time and in exactly the right way. We enjoyed it, at least I think she did, and I must have made myself pretty close to indispensable. I know all the ins and outs of the system, the right people, the right words to use in the right places. Two nights ago, although it feels like last century now, I started gathering the people for that raid on the EST headquarters at her request. She'd refused to let me argue her out of it, and in the end I sent a message to Xenin asking him to come along for old time's sake. He didn't turn me down like I half suspected he would, but I wonder if he regrets it now.

I kneel at the edge of the hole, and i've got her by the shoulders. How she feels is cold and stiff, but she's lighter that I think. I can feel the tips of her spines gently trailing along my arm, and that touch sends sparks up my spine. The look on her face, the sheer peace in it, in its own way it humbles me. Then I lose my focus, and my vision starts to mist. I look down so Kragok doesn't see it. I see him clench his jaw hard as he takes her into his arms, and I smell the subtle perfume that she wore on her neck, flowers and woods in my nose like a dream. He lowers her to the ground, places her hands together on her belly. I see his hand linger on top of hers, and then he is totally still, as if he's joined to her for an instant. He runs his hand over her face for the last time, like he's trying to memorize the feeling.

"Goodbye, sis," he whispers, and the sound pierces the silence.

He climbs out and gives her one last lingering look. I see so many things in that look of Kragok's that make me wonder, did I ever know this person. Lien's spines splay out around her head in a red halo, and I see her in my mind's eye not lying in the ground like a dead body, but raised up like a white angel. The vision is intoxicating. Then I watch as Kragok turns his back on the scene, listening as Xenin picks up the shovel again and starts to pile dirt onto the body. I see him give a sharp, bitter shake of his head.

Dirt on a corpse in an unmarked grave. The sound is now a relentless drumming, a cascade, a heavy shower. The truth is that it should be me lying in there. She was my responsibility, my reason for existence. I gave her my time, my energy, my dedication. I became one of the foremost hardasses in the Legion for her. But I couldn't offer her my life. I should have died last night, not her. It should have been me with the punctured lung and sucking chest wound. Last night she wanted nothing more than to save her brother, and it was up to me to make it happen. The truth is i've failed, and each piece of dirt that falls on her body is a reminder that thunders and screams and echoes in my ear.

I try to comfort Kragok and myself. I tell him that we won't forget her. It hangs hollow in the air, and he doesn't bother to reply. He is locked up in his own soul with his own demons, and it must hurt him at least as much as it hurts me to be here right now. The quiet rational voice in my head says nobody could have done anything to save her, and I don't want to hear it. I drown it into silence.

The shower of dirt ends abruptly, silence echoing loud in the forest. We've just witnessed the end of something. Kragok begins to stride back in the general direction of the advance post. We follow on his heels like loyal pets, the short summer sun at our backs, long shadows at our feet.

My name is Rykor. I never told Lien that I loved her. I wonder if she sensed it. I wonder if she felt the same way about me. We'll never know now.

***

I sit in a comfortable chair, eyes focused on a massively thick and musty book cradled in my lap. It is in rather poor condition, with the spine fractured in two places, and the cover splattered with rainwater. An antiquarian, no doubt, would blush and use the words "slightly foxed," but I know that it is a wonder this old tome has survived this long. Some pages threaten to fall apart in my hands, the creases sharp and spidery. Other pages contain long passages half-obliterated by water. It is a challenging read, overall, and I finally admit to myself that I don't currently have the concentration required to handle it.

With a sigh, I close the book and try to think.

First principles first - the trouble really started with Dimitri. It's not that he was wrong, but he was the catalyst who had forced society to confront its latent hypocrisy regarding technology. Ultimately, the events had all swung around him, the way the maniac had ended up spooking the senate so badly that they'd banned all technology in all of its forms, rooting it out of the homes of the people, unilaterally declaring it and the pursuit of all scientific achievement off limits to the public. It was stupid of Dimitri, really, to have tried to push so hard and so fast for the use of the Syphon, but typical!

That decision of the senate created an enormous chasm in society, dividing it into those who saw the injustice for what it was, and those who were glad to outlaw any prospect of change. Some people dared to act on their convictions; others didn't have the guts to speak out. The ones that dared were eventually manipulated into an organization whose stated ideology was to overturn the horrific injustice perpetrated against Dimitri and the scientific hunger for advancement that he embodied, but whose leadership slowly seemed to develop a taste for power for its own sake. How else could one possibly justify the pervasive view within the leadership of the Legion that the ordinary citizens of Echidnaopolis were somehow beneath them, that they were sheep to be exploited or blown up as appropriate? One necessarily arrives at the conclusion that Dimitri lives to further his own complicated agenda, using the Dark Legion as a tool.

What is the solution? How can I, we, separate the truly evil and power hungry from those who fight to efface the disgrace that was perpetrated four hundred years ago?

I may have a method in mind, but... no! It runs contrary to everything I was brought up to believe, and what I brought up my son to believe. Contrary to four hundred years of calcified tradition. It flies in the face of what almost all of my ancestors have believed and practiced. If I dare to voice it, I knows that I myself will be branded an insane heretic and hounded out into the wilderness, Guardian status notwithstanding. There are so many bastions of opposition, from sources like the EST to the "conservatives" running the state; even from the brainwashed person in the street to whom change is to be feared. I know that all too well.

But along with these four hundred years of tradition come four hundred years of bloodshed, sacrifice, and pain. I can sit passively by and observe the endless conflict, let the wheel turn and turn. Or I can risk just about everything to break the cycle. What a choice, eh?

The tome makes a dry thud as I place it gently on the table beside the short pile of loose pages that have worked their way free from the binding. One of them flies free, propelled by the sheer volume of air that the tome displaces. It lands at my feet like an invitation.

So I pick it up and read, "Mene mene tekel upharsin," the words thin and indistinct against the light. It's an ancient riddle in a dead language, but the scholars more or less agree on what it's supposed to mean. A judgement, is what it is. A judgement of the actions of a king, counted and counted again, weighed and found wanting. Then the division of the kingdom. How apt. This is what keeps me awake at night, wondering if I will ever be held up by History in the same way.

And as I think this, the fragile page crumbles into a shower of fibres, the sharp scent of musty wood and old preservative spreading like a cloud around me.

The words have strengthened my resolve though. I must come to a decision. I must talk to him.

I get up, stretching reflexively. The inevitable yawn brings tears to my eyes, as I fiddle with my rumpled white robe. From my pocket, I pull out a silver terminal the size of my palm that i've lately taken to carrying around.

"Identity Locke. Passphrase Blake's inferno."

Blake's my favorite poet. Maybe you know of him.

"User identified. Command?"

"Scan status, process ID 4CB2F."

"Narrowband electromagnetic scan 32.2% complete. No alerts."

And I nod, as if it makes sense to acknowledge the machine, but I can't help it anyway. The door flies open with its comforting hiss, and already i'm leaving the ancient smell of the archives behind. There's something I must attend to now.

***

The speaker on his desk crackles questioningly.

"Remington?"

"Yes, Teri?"

"Just to let you know, Security tells me they've updated the software for the security systems. Should prevent a repeat of last night's fiasco. There'll be a reset in fifteen minutes."

Her voice is high and chipper, and he envies that about her. So perky and optimistic, so unburdened.

"Okay."

He hears his own exhausted voice, and squeezes his temples with his eyes closed. Tries not to look at the clock mounted on the wall that says six thirty. The report lies open on his desk, displaying the file picture that they have of the now dead and buried Lien-Da aka Komissar, of the Dark Legion. Bunch of psychos, he thinks with an unconscious and derisory smirk. Foolish in their devotion to their cause.

Here he stands, the last and final line of defense against these and other threats to society. The bulwark, the protector of the island's population from heretic outcasts like the cursed line of Dimitri, the preserver of what he has come to see as a lasting triumph over hubris, over arrogance and vanity.

And the people he serves - sometimes even he must roll his eyes at their outrageous displays of paranoia, but he understands their fears. He understands why the Legion is such an intolerable organization, how its presence is a nakedly overt reminder of the strife that ruled four hundred years ago. How by creating this wonderful society, they must also accept the creation of the other, the techno-fetishists that are both the bane of his existence and the reason for it. On that topic he still wonders about Julie-Su and her motivations, and pities her for the quiet distrust that society still feels for her, although the hard-nosed cynic in him perfectly understands why.

She, he tells himself, will probably go down in history as one of the very few Dark Legionnaires who have ever gone over to the other side. Perhaps, he muses, the Guardian does appeal to her enough for her to overcome those heavy chains of belief, the years of conditioning. Even so though, he has a few lingering doubts about her fealty that refuse to die. At least in any case he's sure of one thing - there will be no saving the rest. They are too far gone, and he isn't going to rest until the entire lot of them are in prison camps, or six feet underground. Hey, whatever's faster and easier.

Nor does he fear reprisals for Komissar's death. Quite the opposite - he welcomes the potential conflict. Indeed, he would prefer to get it over and done with as expeditiously as possible, which, unfortunately, will continue be a moot point until the council authorizes an offensive strike into the forest. If they do get round to it in the first place; they've been rather indecisive lately.

Remington closes the folder and dumps it in a scuffed wire basket. He hates politics.

***

It's a tentative, almost uncertain Locke that gingerly opens the door to the medical facility. He first peers through the gap, and then enters rather gingerly, as if walking on ground glass.

To his left is a bed absolutely stuffed with medical equipment, haphazard jumbles of wires, conduits, and other things strung up around it like decorations on and around a christmas tree, an almost organic mess that tangles like vines in a jungle. The soft, regular hiss of a respirator hangs around the immediate area like a stench, as do the quiet beepings of the various devices around it. The occupant is currently unconscious, but the readings taken off the clouds of electrodes around his skull are reassuring enough, and it is a sea of peaceful green lights and phosphor traces that surrounds him.

Ancestor, he thinks, grimacing a little. Two hundred years of history embodied in such a frail shell, frail as the crumbling pages of that old tome from earlier. As desperately as he might try to remember the cheerful face of the forefather he knew in his youth, this image of the now is the only one that he has in his brain, quietly and disturbingly present. Small wonder that his gaze doesn't linger long.

But to his right there is another bed, whose occupant projects a markedly different air. This occupant is currently awake - sitting up with his arms crossed, in fact. He looks bored, having long ago exhausted the possibilities of the faux window in the wall with its beautiful procedurally generated birds and fractal landscapes. Scattered around him on the bed and the floor are quite a lot of formerly white bandages, each one stained and crusty like an old scab, trailing wires tiny like the feelers of insects. Locke notes, with interest and not a little pride, that the majority of the cuts and burns have more or less healed. It seems that just about the only thing keeping the occupant from jumping out of the bed and bouncing around the room is this huge white bundle that wraps around his ribs and trails a colorful ribbon cable into a hole in the wall.

Locke cracks a small smile. His son is possibly the only thing in this whole building that remains untouched by the weight of tradition. It makes him think of that rarest of emotions - hope.

"Hey Dad."

"Hello, Knuckles. We should be able to remove the scaffold in another four hours," Locke says, affectionately patting Knuckles on the head. Knuckles has long since learnt not to respond with too much visible discomfort, so he only squirms mildly.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I'm just bored."

But Locke cannot hide the real reason that he's here. It shows in his expression, and in the almost forced cheerfulness of his greeting. They both fall uncomfortably silent, and Locke begins to fidget with the cuffs on his robe. Knuckles' eyes widen a little in sympathy, following Locke with a hint of unease as he steps to the window and gazes out across the digitally generated landscape.

"What is it?"

"I've... I think i've had enough of this," Locke says, and this contrast with his usual self-assured manner sets off a faint ringing of alarm bells in Knuckles' head. Locke clasps his hands together on the faux-window ledge, and seems unable to meet his son's gaze. The expectant silence blossoms in the room. In that moment Knuckles sees his father bathed in the clean white light that the window casts, light that effaces the lines of worry that have begun to etch themselves into Locke's visage, that seems to glow from within his features. How he looks, Knuckles thinks, is hopeful.

Then Locke turns away from the window and begins to pace up and down. He adopts his arid lecturer's voice that others might view as condescension, but which Knuckles knows to interpret as a kind of striving for precision.

"So i've been thinking about something. Four hundred years ago my- our ancestors outlawed what they called the abuse of technology, and more importantly, the pursuit of technological advancement. That ruling is the primary reason for our conflict with the Dark Legion ever since. You know this. Many have given their lives for this conflict - Edmund was the first. Was but the first."

He stops at the foot of the bed and grabs the rail.

"We found you about six hours after you lost consciousness, after Julie alerted us to your absence. A lesser echidna would probably have choked on its vomit right there and then or died of heart failure."

Knuckles sees his fathers hands squeeze the rail at the foot of the bed, tighter and tighter.

"You survived, and it makes me glad. But I realize now that it's one thing to sacrifice yourself in course of your duty, and quite another to die for a stupid and ancient argument that's insignificant scheme of things. I can't accept this state of continuous civil war. Not anymore. I don't want to lose you for something as pointless as this."

The lecturer's voice is long gone.

"Technology is not, absolutely not, evil. It's the users of the technology that are responsible for the outcome, not technology itself. Look at us!"

He grabs his palmtop and smashes it on the floor with considerable force. The screen shatters, and the casing splits down the side, a grotesque revelation of the electronic innards. The whole thing begins to ooze a murky fluid.

"Do you see that electronic thing? I'm a hypocrite! I use more technology than anyone else in society every day of the year and I raised you without as much as a wristwatch! This whole cursed building is a monument to technology but no one realizes it because they're too caught up in their own hubris! What is true hubris, dreaming of making tomorrow better or thinking that hubris can be outlawed? It is us, on the side of "right", who are the hypocrites."

And now his voice drops to more of a growl.

"No one has dared to address the issue directly. We've always thought in terms of eliminating the other side, as if we could just simply do away with the problem with enough time, enough people, enough LIVES. Most of the people who joined the Dark Legion in the beginning simply wished to put things right. Do you know what you looked like lying in a pool of your own blood on the forest floor with your organs fried? Do you realize just how much of this is unnecessary? We're making it worse! By branding them outsiders we're giving them the licence to do what they do!"

Knuckles' mouth hangs slightly open in surprise. For the moment, he can't think of anything to say.

"And though we must stop Dimitri," Locke says evenly, bringing himself under control with effort, "I will not see this childish feud pursued any longer. I want to separate the blinded from the madmen. Dimitri can do nothing without his followers. Reconciliation is possible. I've had enough of pointless sacrifice."

Locke falls silent once more. There are little comets of fluid from the now shattered palmtop spattered on the front of his robe.

"Do you understand what i'm saying? Are you with me?"

And it occurs to Knuckles that there is a quiet plea in the question. Slowly, but perceptibly, he nods his head.

"I am."

***

"Estimated time of arrival at Central Three is in twenty minutes, at two zero three six hours," says the tinny voice from the console.

Kragok finds himself crammed into the back of the craft. Crammed by unconscious decision, not necessity. He forces himself to stretch, the limbs loosening, and admires the colors of the scenery. It is such a massive change from the metallic world the Dark Legion chooses to confine itself in. It is also, he realizes, possibly the first time he's appreciated this.

They are together again, he realizes. The four of them, even if his sister is only present in spirit. How long has it been, he wonders, since they shared anything like this? And he begins to lose himself in the flow of the reminiscence. Not in any one particular event or memory, but a general tide of feeling that overwhelms his mind and his senses. Absently he fingers the trinket she placed in his hand in her final moments, and thinks that somehow, in some sense, he feels more right and more real right now than he has ever felt in the past decade.

Turning his head, he takes a long look at the other two. Stalwart and monster, builder and destroyer. What a pair. Polar opposites, if there ever was such a thing, but surprisingly similar in appearance. Metal - the keyword is metal, metal limbs, metal skin, metal plugs and sockets, metal screwheads. He has the numbers in his head, the parameters and the statistics. He knows as much about their capabilities as they do, perhaps even more. It's his duty to know, as a leader, a commander, how long Rykor's augmented circulatory system will last at its full rated load, or the range of the spectrum that Xenin's bespoke eye implants are capable of viewing. And yet, and yet... they are not machines or automata to him, but associates, friends even. Over the years, he has gone from mere acceptance to friendliness to a kind of grim, weighty respect that he learnt on a certain night, when they were all much much younger.

He lost something that night, he thinks vaguely. They all did, the four of them, and the thought makes him weary. Right now the thought of returning to Central, to the embrace of the Legion in the heart of the island, should be massively uplifting, but it really fills him with a kind of dread. And despite himself, he finds himself wondering whether he'll ever someday manage to escape this burden. It is the most sincere question that he has asked himself in a while.

He is unaware that, right now, one of his avowed enemies is asking the same question. And coming to the same conclusion.

***

"Alert... *bzzzt* aleeeeeert...," goes the half-destroyed palmtop on the floor, synthesized voice modulating wildly. Locke raises an eyebrow, mildly amused at his failure to completely obliterate the device. Those fire ants certainly know a thing or two about engineering.

"Pro-proce-process hexhexhex four... *pop* cee beebeebeebee tw-two-twotwo ef has raised *spark spark* a red flaaaaaagg *beeeeeep*"

His eyes widen in surprise. This is totally unexpected - an unequivocal electromagnetic signature? He wears a quiet grin of triumph as he scoops the remains of the machine off the floor, shutting it off with a gentle tap. Knuckles gives him a questioning look.

"It's a scan we were running for electromagnetic emissions. Red flag means a bullseye, unless of course it's a glitch. Stay here a minute; I have to check on this."

Running fast, he leaves the room, heading for the main console, his mental turmoil temporarily forgotten. It takes him less than a minute to get there, and his robe billows out behind him as he strides theatrically through the doors.

"Spectre? I need the console for a few minutes."

The figure in the chair gets up and whirls around. Spectre could probably teach Locke a thing or two about theatrical, and is currently dressed in rather severe black robes that are reminiscent of the Legion's unofficial dress code. The robes throw the metal cowl on his head in sharp relief, and the glow of the screen forms a white halo around him. Locke sees the two red eyes flick sharply in his direction.

"The search I ran with our new EM scanners just threw up a red flag."

Spectre simply nods and moves around to the rear of the chair. Locke eases behind the console, typing quickly. A large scale, finely detailed map of the island dominates the primary screen that, in turn, dwarfs everything else in the room. Locke overlays a grid onto the map, along with the heading 'Process x4CB2F Results'.

'Okay...', he mutters. 'Isofarads are up...'

Several contour lines appear on the map, meandering lazily across the span of the screen. Somewhere deep in the forest, quite a distance from the location of Haven, the lines form concentric rings around a particular spot, disturbing the even flow of lines across the map. The system helpfully highlights the spot with a very large X. It's a bullseye - an unequivocal signature of lots and lots of technology concentrated in a single location.

'Gotcha,' he breathes.