Ariana nodded. “I see.”
Stair looked slightly sheepish for a moment. “That’s right… you weren’t there.” She swallowed. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she assured the girl.
“I’m off to tell Colonel Morant.” A smile spread across her face. The enthusiasm for whatever they were planning was palpable. “We’re going to teach that son of a bitch Arbiter not to fuck with villains!” Her face grew slightly panicked as she checked over her shoulder, then back again, giggling nervously. “Sorry. Pa wouldn’t like it if he knew I was swearing so much lately.” She huffed contemplatively. “Don’t… really know why it matters, come to think of it.” They stood in awkward silence before Stair walked past Ariana with the briefest of waves. “See you later, Ari.”
Ariana muttered a half-hearted, “Sure,” as she moved toward the room where Arthur was sequestered. The sound of his voice could be made out even above the sound-dampening walls erected around the place. It didn’t fill her with joy to hear his argumentative tone, but it made pinpointing his location easier, especially when the vague muffles took greater definition.
“… Not going to let something go wrong again, Mol.” There was a pause, presumably where Mollie interjected something into the conversation. “We won’t be able to plan for all possibilities, but no matter what happens, the death ray needs to be stopped.” Another pause as Ariana was closing in on the door. “Mollie, is there a chance it would work?”
Ariana reached the doorway and leaned on the frame as Arthur turned away from his laptop to sift through some electronic detritus on another table. The blue iris dimmed on the partially visible screen, eliciting the same reaction a human sigh would give an eavesdropper. “Ten-thousand-to-one, and that is being generous.” A pause. “There are at least twenty reliable satellites to pull coordinates from, coupled with the six-hundred millisecond time frame required to scramble the data in a way to fool Overseer.”
Arthur turned around, taking a multi-pronged spike with him. “If anyone can do it, you can, Mol.”
The iris swirled in what Ariana believed to be annoyance. “Flattery will not help statistics.”
“Wildfire,” Arthur growled firmly. “No arguments, understood?” he snapped. The iris dimmed at the sound. “Mollie?”
After a moment, she responded with an “Of course.”
“Thank you,” he said with a nod, looking up at Mollie before noticing Ariana out of the corner of his eye. Looking sheepish, he set the spike down and gave an unconvincing cough. “Hey.”
“Arguing with your computer again?” Ariana asked.
“He is being difficult,” Mollie chirped.
Arthur rolled his eyes and returned to the table with the equipment scattered on its surface. “Is there something I can help you with?” he grunted as he leaned over the gear. “I’m trying to see if there’s something your father left behind that I can use tonight.”
Ariana pushed herself off the door frame and walked over to Mollie. Gingerly, she put her hand on the top of the laptop. “Mollie, could I have a moment alone with Arthur?”
“You are not going to kill him, are you?” she asked. “Although understandable, that is frowned upon in human relationships.”
Ariana couldn’t help but smile at the comment as she shook her head gently and mouthed the word ‘no’. The screen went black, and she shut the laptop. She turned toward Arthur and leaned against the table. “Find anything useful?” she asked after an awkward moment.
Arthur did not turn to face her. “Your dad was prototyping a couple of things. The one he got the closest to working was this thing.” He pointed to the spike on the table. It had a handle with a set of lights along the shaft. The prongs were connected to the handle by hinges, a second set of which were located halfway along the individual shafts. It looked, vaguely, like a claw. “From what I can tell by the design, it takes the design for the Gauntlets of Zealot and makes it more… I don’t know… stabity, I guess.”
She nervously jiggled in place. “So, it’s an electro-dagger-thing?”
He laughed. “Sure.”
Ariana could only feign interest so hard. “Does it work?”
“Not really. The Gauntlets used bio-feedback to function.” He finally turned to Ariana. “It may be good for a second or two, but the battery drains almost instantly.” Arthur huffed unhappily. “I have schematics for a suit that looked pretty hardcore… in a budget-model kind of way.”
Ariana shook her head and laughed, airy and insincere. “Dad always had a knack for improvising.”
Arthur pushed one of the plans on the table for lack of anything else to do. “For what it’s worth, it’s amazing stuff. He even got a rudimentary feedback system going for… whatever reason.” He looked at Ariana. “If he’s taking the fight to Arbiter, he intends it to be the last fight either of them have.” Immediately, he looked away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Arthur looked back at her, surprised that she was still watching him closely. Their eyes remained locked for a moment longer. With sudden urgency, she looked away, the dirty floor drawing her attention from the situation at hand.
“Arthur…”
“Why are you here?”
She felt the wind taken out of her. Ariana looked up at Arthur, who had taken to folding his arms. She swallowed, then took a breath, holding it for what felt like an eternity. “I think… I mean…” Her chin quivered, and she stopped.
Arthur turned away. “I don’t have time for this.”
“For fuck’s sake, Arthur.” The words were harsh, forcing him to stop what he was doing and turn back to her. “I… loved Tim. And nothing will ever change the fact that he was the one.”
“What do…”
“Shut up.” Arthur’s demeanor softened immediately. Ariana’s mouth tried to form words, but worked silently. Finally, she continued, eyes firmly on the floor, “For all the… things we’ve been through… all the arguments and tension… you’ve always been there.” Her eyes darted up toward his. “Not just for Tim.”
Arthur shifted uncomfortably. He looked away, then returned his gaze to hers. “Ari, you hate me,” he said softly.
“I need you, Arthur,” she responded. Her hand went up to her face to brush away a tear which had escaped her eye. “As angry as you make me, as fucked up as we are…” her voice faltered as she heaved a trembling breath. She brought her hand to her mouth. “You’re the only thing left I truly care about.”
Their eyes moved away from each other. Arthur kicked at nothing in particular. “What do you want me to do?”
Ariana pushed herself off the table and approached him. “We can get out of here.” She brought up the papers. “These people can fight and die, but we… we can go on.” Her voice trembled. “It’ll be like we never existed.”
Arthur’s eyes shifted as he took a breath and held it. For a moment, it looked like he was considering it. “It’s not what you want…”
“Fuck you!” she shouted, hitting him in the chest. “Don’t you tell me what I want, Arthur Lovelass!” She shoved him again. “What I want is dead. Who I am is dead. All I have is your stupid ass, and I am not losing you to anything!”
He took an angry step toward her. “You can’t turn your back on this!” He jammed a thumb at himself. “I can’t turn my back on this!” Ariana’s eyes squinted further in anger. “You always said I needed to be responsible, so here I am!”
“So, finally, after fucking up everything else, this is what you want to stick around to fix?” Tears started welling up in her eyes. “After your shiftlessness, after you let Tim fuck your sister, after you fucked me…”
“It was a mistake!” Arthur shouted, interrupting her. “And you treated it like it never happened!”
“I hate you, you miserable shit!” She pointed at him, throwing the papers on the floor. “You ruined everything!” The two stared at each other. Rage seethed beneath their eyes, their muscles poised should one lunge at the other.
Ariana felt her nails bite into the palms of her hands, working their way into her flesh. She wanted him to swing at her, to lunge, just so she could break his face, feel it yield to her.
There was a change, slight but noticeable. The enmity between them didn’t die, but altered. She saw Arthur twitch, and the adrenaline in her system responded in kind. The two closed what distance remained…
… And their arms were around each other, their lips pressed against the other’s. His grip wasn’t nearly as tight as Tim’s, nor his body as heavy. He fell backward as she pushed him aggressively, nearly snapping him in two against the table. Arthur pushed himself back up, their lips still relentlessly locking and unlocking as harsh breathing competed with her own heartbeat in her ears. Her hands worked their way up to his hair and grabbed a fistful and pulled. Arthur hissed in pain, but she didn’t care. Couldn’t care. She shoved his head downward again and kissed him on the lips, harder.
Now he was forcing her backward, toward the other table. She stopped him long enough to get herself out of her outer shirt, stripping down to the dirty white tank top beneath it. Ariana hopped up onto the table and spread her legs, hooking them around Arthur’s waist and pulling him closer, feeling his body against hers as he struggled to take his shirt off. Freed from half of his clothing, he pulled her close and kissed her, sharp intakes of breath thrilling her as she raked her fingernails across his back.
“Arthur,” Stair’s voice intruded, making Ariana shove Arthur away, “Colonel Morant is ready…” The younger girl’s voice trailed off just as Ariana’s feet hit the floor. Trying her best to concentrate on the ground, she walked by Stair, not so much seeing the shock and pain on her face as feeling it radiate off the girl. Ariana didn’t stop, instead picking up the pace until she was able to round a corner.
Out of sight, she collapsed against the wall, feeling like she was going to vomit. She brought her hand to her forehead, only now noticing the coolness on her face that the streams of tears left in their wake. She inhaled, trembling, before breaking down in deep, shuddering breaths and sobs.
How could she? How could she have betrayed Tim like that? It was unconscionable. She should just lie down, right there, and die for lying to Tim, for living with him and Arthur at the same time with what she had done. She loved him, and yet she kept that mistake, the only mistake, a secret. Would he have still loved her if he had known?
She realized that she’d never know.
And despite the fact that not knowing killed her on the inside, she did know that he had loved her. He had loved her so completely that he had given up his life for her. His devotion to her trumped all the faults he knew and even those he didn’t. Instead of keeping her life on hold, wallowing in what could have been and what she had done, she could make his life… and death… mean something more than it already did.
She became dimly aware of someone standing over her. She looked up at Agent Mast, the woman cocking her head at Ariana. “You alright?”
Ariana wiped her face dry and stood up. She nodded as she looked into Mast’s golden eyes. “What can I do to help?”
Stair’s stunned face went from following Ariana back to Arthur. The second her eyes met his, he looked down at the table. Shirtless and red faced, there was no talking his way out of it, no easy way to explain what happened to an emotional, dependent teenager. He heard her leave, the footsteps quickly muffled by the soundproofed walls. She was angry, there was no doubt about that, and maybe that would make the next step easier.
As he knelt down to retrieve his shirt, his eyes drifted to the papers that Ariana had dropped. His mind reeled at what those sheets meant for their holder, the possibility of freedom from what appeared to be an inevitable cataclysm.
CHAPTER FORTY
THE FOOL
Less Than Five Hours Until Midnight
ARTHUR ENTERED THE CENTRAL ROOM as he adjusted the strap on his backpack. He tapped his hand against his front pocket, double-checking the Home Drive’s position. He slowed to a stop as Stair came into view, the girl sitting by the door to the lift. Colonel Morant, who was halfway between the elevator and Arthur, made eye contact and nodded. Arthur shifted his backpack, the stun baton Mast had given him and the electro-dagger scratching against his laptop. He made his way toward the Enforcer. Stair shifted uncomfortably and brought her hands to her face, the sight of which made Arthur focus on Morant.
“Both Zombress and Agent Mast have headsets,” Arthur said.
“And the others?” the colonel asked as Arthur reached him. He spun on his heel and marched in step with the younger man. “Were you able to procure any more?”
“Just one between Allison and Steven,” Arthur answered. “Morgan and Ari will have to use any you provide. I have mine from the original attack on the Fortress.” The two reached the door. Arthur yanked it open and held it for the colonel and Stair, the girl trying desperately to hide her face from him. Her hand caught the light as she walked past him; it was wet with tears.
Arthur followed the others and went to the lift. Stepping on board, he set his backpack on the platform before moving to the control panel. The button sounded the klaxon before the guardrails rose from below the edges of the elevator and snapped into place. With a squeak, the trio started their ascent. Somehow, the noises of the old machine were not preferable to silence; each errant pop sounded like it could be the beginning of a round of shouting.
His gut started to gnaw dangerously at his resolve. For their own good… for their own good… for their own good…
Thankfully, Colonel Morant broke the silence. “It shouldn’t be too much of a problem to get through the checkpoint with you two. Neither of you are registered villains; I should be able to talk our way through.” He craned his neck to the side, trying to relieve some tension. “I’ll take you to the library as I try to recruit others.”
Arthur nodded. “Zombress and Agent Mast will organize their own arrival to the Guild. The others will need an escort.”
“We’ll have Allison and Steven rendezvous with you in another location before we commence.” The colonel looked over at Stair, then back at Arthur. “However you decide to get in, make it quick.”
Arthur’s eyes fell upon Stair, her attempts to control her crying making him feel worse than he already did. He hated himself for everything he had done to her, both directly and by proxy. He moved toward the nearest safety rail and put his hands on the cold, flaking metal. One way or the other, it would be over this time tomorrow.
One way, or the other.
“You could have done this on your own,” Stair said matter-of-factly as she typed on the keyboard. It was the first she’d spoken to him in the ninety minutes or so since she interrupted his and Ariana’s ‘conversation’. Arthur shifted uncomfortably in the chair next to her. The library wasn’t as packed as it could have been, but there were enough people in the computer area, with its rows and rows of aging desktops, to make him worried about being heard. She looked over at him, eyes still red, before she went back to her work. “And why did we have to come here to do it?”
Arthur wondered if there was any way this conversation could go without ending with a black eye or worse. “We needed a stable network. Mollie said the system in the Bunker was prone to blackouts.”
“No I did not,” Mollie chirruped in his ear. Arthur ignored this.
“I suppose if something went wrong,” Stair began, squinting at something Arthur couldn’t see, “they couldn’t track the IP address back there.” She prodded something on the screen with a finger while her free hand flitted over the keyboard, rapidly tapping in strings of data. “Although I doubt they’d be able to figure out where to start looking if the place is getting blown up.”
Arthur nodded. She was doing a very good job at convincing herself of the validity of this plan. He was familiar with the defense mechanism – he had done it many times himself. His stomach clenched momentarily, then released. “I didn’t even think of that,” he said.
She looked at him, a small, bemused grin pursing her lips. “I doubt that,” Stair muttered to herself.
The girl lapsed back into the silence of concentration. Arthur relaxed a bit at the sounds of whispered conversation that weren’t aimed at him. “Arthur, why are you lying to her?” Mollie asked. Arthur ignored her again, reminding himself that his behavior wasn’t frustrating because Mollie couldn’t feel frustration. In response, Mollie sighed, “Apparently my volume is too low.” Half a moment passed before she shouted in her monotone way, “Is this better?”
Arthur winced and grabbed the earpiece out of his head, provoking a sideways glance from more than just Stair. As others turned back to their work, Stair let out a quiet, airy laugh. “You okay there, hotshot?”
He looked up at her, suddenly and acutely appreciative of the softening of her expressions. With a swallow, he held the earpiece in his hand, Mollie’s protests going unnoticed. “Yeah.” He pointed at the computer. “How’s that coming along?”
She turned back toward the monitor and tapped at a few more keys. “I have the e-mail address set up. I just need to make an itinerary and set up Morgan’s flight.” Stair stretched her arms, fingers interlocked to crack her knuckles. After failing to pop her joints, she lifted her hands over her head and arched her back before half-collapsing in the chair. She leaned to one side as she rested her elbow on the arm rest, fingers delicately holding up her head by way of the temple. “I swear if I come out of this with bedbugs I’m going to kill you.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “You won’t get bedbugs.”
“Says you,” Stair mumbled, turning the chair to look at him. “Bastards are everywhere now.” She regarded the screen again. “You want to take over?”
Arthur lifted himself out of the seat and exchanged locations with Stair. He pulled himself toward the desk and scanned the screen. Once he found where she had left off, he began to work on getting Morgan on a flight out of the country. “Where should we send our heroic friend?” he asked. He cast a glance at Stair. The girl had her back to him, apparently preferring to look off in the distance. Turning back to the screen, he muttered to himself, “Probably some place without extradition to the US…”
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