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I.
In the space of time between their orders to eliminate the Reds and Blues and their orders to wage war on Chorus, Locus has no orders at all, not with Agent Washington already apprehended and unconscious on the ground. In another universe, Locus hesitates too long. He spends precious seconds thinking and struggling and doing nothing with his hands, up until the point that Felix blows their cover and protocol to return to Control takes over.
In this universe, Locus still spends precious seconds thinking and struggling, but practice makes permanent, and he’s trained himself well. Like a machine running after its operators have departed. Murder becomes easy.
Locus’s hands raise his gun.
*
His first thought after the gunshot goes quiet is that he hopes Felix killed Tucker. He doesn’t want to be in this alone.
*
There are some days between Washington’s death and the interception of Tartarus, but Locus couldn’t recount them if asked. Time oozed between his fingers like thick, black oil, repugnant and messy, smudging and slipping. Numbers go by on the clock face.
“What’s gotten into you?” Felix demands, just before they head up to Tartarus.
Something is wrong with his ears, Locus says.
He’s hearing voices, he doesn’t say. Voices were never the crazy he was accused of, and he’s not inclined to add to the list.
(Mayday, this is Agent Washington. Is anybody out there? Can anybody hear me?)
Felix thinks it’s funny. “Audio input malfunction,” he snickers. “Guess even machines like you have a hard life.”
(It was a machine. It had no life to begin with.)
Locus avoids Felix for days. They’re supposed to be making plans to bring in new soldiers for Hargrove’s war, but—Felix is more than capable of doing that alone. He’s not worried that he’s going crazy. He’s not.
(You’re a coward.)
*
One day, when Locus is eavesdropping on the simtroopers through a cracked radio channel, Locus discovers that Lavernius Tucker hates him.
(You just stay away from me and my men.)
“Hell yes, sign me up to beat the snot out of that weasel Felix,” Lavernius Tucker says over the radio. “Seriously, I’d be all, ‘leave him for me!’ but if I don’t get the chance, I’d really just like anyone to put a knife in his gut. Ugh! And like, maybe take a picture or something of his face when he dies. Preferably doing something ridiculous. And humiliating. Send them to Kimball, too, she’d get a kick out of them.”
“Whichever team kills Felix, the other team gets to kill Locus,” says Sarge. “Unless Red Team kills Locus, in which case I think Red Team should also get to kill Felix!”
And there’s a sour silence as the joking falls flat, and then Tucker’s voice says, “Locus.”
“That’s his name,” comes Agent Carolina’s voice.
A snort.
A silence.
“Just fuck him up, Carolina.”
“Hm,” says Carolina’s voice, and the line goes quiet.
(Sounds like Tucker, alright.)
There’s different kinds of hate: angry, personal grudges, of course, the way that Lavernius Tucker hates Felix. Tucker hates Locus bitterly and despairingly, the way people hate forces of nature, knowing that doing so will not bring Washington back. He thinks that if Carolina kills Locus, then maybe at least one of them will find some peace.
The ghost in his head feels sick. If ghosts can feel sick.
--And if Locus had a ghost in his head, which he doesn’t , because that would make him crazy, which he’s not .
“Heading out,” says Carolina’s voice. “Don’t die while I’m gone.”
(Like I did.)
“Not planning on it,” replies Sarge’s voice.
Agent Carolina heading out for a perimeter scan leaves Captain Tucker, Captain Caboose, and Colonel Sarge (...?) alone at their Warthogs with a handful of other Chorusan soldiers, who Locus knows for a fact won’t be getting along very well due to their mixed bag of Feds and News. Locus flips from the simtrooper’s radio line to his own: “D squad, clear back to the West. Permission to use active camo. Stay out of her way.”
“You see ‘em? ” Felix asks on the other line.
“Not yet.” Locus creeps through the early beginnings of dusk, and comes to a rest on his belly overlooking a—not a clearing, but a Warthog rest stop of sorts. “Visual on target.”
“Think you can get two before they realize what’s going on? ”
Locus, for some reason, lets Felix’s barb get more under his skin than he should. “They’ll notice the first death and scatter,” he retorts. “They’re untrained, but still military.”
“Come on, you’ve gotten multiple people before. Man, it was awesome. These guys are dumbasses, you could probably get all three sims if you tried. Oh, but don’t, though, ‘cause I’ve got dibs on Tucker and all. ”
“This isn’t a game,” Locus grits out.
“Well, it sure is now that you said that. Hey—yeah, you, Montoya! You over there! How much you wanna bet Locus can snipe two simtroopers before they realize he’s killing them? ”
Locus doesn’t wait for whoever Montoya is. “Quiet. Let me focus.”
“Montoya bet just one, so I guess I’m betting two. We should get a third to bet on all three. Hey, Locus, you wanna take a gamble? ”
“I bet I miss them all and shoot no one,” Locus replies.
“Ha! He has a sense of humor, would you look at that! I thought that’d withered away half a decade ago. Nice try, but you’d never miss a shot. ”
“Let me focus,” Locus repeats, “or I start with Captain Tucker.”
Locus can almost hear Felix’s eyes narrowing. “ You wouldn’t. I called dibs already. ”
“I have the clearest shot for him,” Locus lies.
“Intergalactic dibs protocol! Back off! You already had fun with Wash! ”
Locus’s hands clench on the sniper rifle. Fun , Felix says. Fun with killing Washington.
“Clearing. The. Line. Will return after objective completed,” Locus snaps, and turns comms off altogether right in the middle of Felix’s squawk.
In the crosshairs, Captain Tucker turns his helmet towards Sarge, giving Locus a clear shot through the fragile visor. He waves away something Sarge said and his shoulders shake, then hunch—the careful happiness, then immediate guilt for laughing when Washington is dead and nothing is alright. Body language clear as day.
The Reds and Blues are grieving: in the way Caboose lets Tucker put a hand on Caboose’s shoulder, or Tucker haughtily refusing a tin of water from Sarge. The way Sarge keeps his visor trained on Caboose as opens a bag of chips and then stares at it like he doesn’t know what to do with it. Grief comes in heavy, mundane sludge, gunk in the gears, smeared over the eyes, waiting to pull you in during the moments of respite, and the only way to escape is to keep running and never rest at all.
(You’re a coward.)
Locus takes a breath.
All quiet. Felix silent. Just the clear shot, gun in his hands, the air resistance easy and lighting serviceable.
Grip firm. Body still. Mind blank. The trigger—
(He’s a good kid.)
The bullet whizzes past Tucker’s ear. All three simtroopers jump and Sarge’s helmet swings to face directly at Locus’s position. Locus flips on his comms. “Repositioning. D squad, fall back. Avoid Carolina at all costs.”
“Which one did you get? ” Felix’s voice asks. “ Actually, I don’t need to know—was it one or two? ”
Tucker’s laser sword burns bright in the evening air. “You’re not on this mission so clear the line ,” Locus growls, and packs up his gear to meet the survivors of D squad at the rendezvous—or whoever will survive Tucker and Carolina.
*
“You WHAT,” Felix says.
Locus walks past him and straight into their makeshift base.
“No—no, you giant fuck, come back here!” Felix glances over his shoulder and, seeing nobody there, continues his tirade: “We’ve got a whole parade of cutthroat criminal assholes, ready to backstab us at the first sign of weakness, and you fuck up the very first mission with them? When we’re supposed to be convincing them that we’re nobody to be fucked with and we’ve got the situation under control?”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t have used criminals to supplement our forces,” Locus says acidly.
“You know why we did that, and it was because of your precious fucking orders from Control to bulk up manpower. Honestly, Locus, if you wanna send free soldiers off to die in a war, what better option than the worst and most disposable trash of society?”
(And that makes it right?)
As if Locus wants to send people off to die? Locus is just following his orders. Locus doesn’t want to do anything.
(You hide behind the idea in your head, because you're too afraid to take responsibility…)
“Then you deal with them,” says Locus. “If you know them so well.” (Takes one to know one.)
“Yeah, I fucking will,” says Felix, “but I’m not doing this alone, partner . This isn’t a solo job. So you —” Felix jabs a finger at Locus’s chestpiece. “Get it together.”
(I used to be a real piece of shit. But at least I'm trying to do something about it.)
Felix stalks off. Locus clenches his teeth and says nothing.
*
When Locus had received Control’s files on Chorus’s new red-and-blue visitors, he’d found a fairy tale in Agent Washington’s profile.
Freelancer had been close-lipped about its proceedings, but ever since the UNSC had to publicly denounce Freelancer and charge Dr Church with his crimes posthumously, high-powered people (like Malcolm Hargrove) could dig the narrative back out of its hole. There were files if you knew where to look. Descriptions of events in mission debriefings. Entire psychological profiles of agents: Agent New York, Agent South Dakota, Agent Maine, Agent North Carolina. Most of them had edited or censored backgrounds as soldiers from rough history were snapped up by Freelancer, behavioral histories removed and remade into state names.
Agent Washington’s background was deleted altogether, as if he’d popped out of the ground like spring flowers.
Reportedly the most gullible, the most inclined towards teamwork, excellent empathy scores, difficulty taking initiative but always the first to defend Freelancer’s status quo. For a man so theoretically dupable, Washington mentions almost no other emotions besides “grateful” and “happy to be on the team” in any session with Freelancer’s psychiatrist (“Counselor”), slides around personal or emotional details with a dedication to spouting the verbal equivalent of nutritionless white bread, and shares no details of his teammates beyond the mundane (“York stubbed his toe” or “South’s hair dye looks nice”).
Predictably, other agents regarded him as harmless and enjoyable: “fun to be around,” “a good time,” “easy to work with.” As alliances emerged between agents, preferences formed between coworkers, and grudges pulled competitors apart, nobody picked Washington as their favorite friend, allowing him to be universally adored as everyone’s unproblematic and unthreatening second-best. Gradually, without much apparent effort to advance himself, Washington settled at a rank of sixth best active agent, comfortably below his most competitive peers and yet high enough to participate in the most interesting action.
Only Agent New York’s psychiatric transcripts had anything substantial to say: He’s got a long memory , the transcript reads. Told him I my favorite cookies was snickerdoodles, once, like a billion years ago? Then Carolina shows up yesterday with a bunch of them for Delta’s birthday, says Wash told her about it. Or another time, he overheard Wyoming say that South could suck a bag of dicks, and not in the fun way, and Wash and Wyoming are still, y’know, friends--friendly? But just… hm. Oh, never mind. Yeah, seriously, it’s whatever. And it’s the only sliver of steel any one of the testimonies provides.
Then Washington is used to commit some of the most egregious crimes against humanity the world has ever seen, implanted with an experimental AI, and gets thrown into rehab for being screaming crazy.
Delusions of reality , read the therapist file. Unstable sense of narrative or time. Intense paranoia and innate distrust of other people for nonexistent reasons. Requires immediate psychiatric assistance. Testimony should be discarded. Sense of truth and fiction should be considered unreliable.
Is that how therapy is supposed to go?
*
Locus had only been in a therapist’s office once in his life.
He’d submitted a form to be redeployed within two weeks of escaping the battlefield. There’d been no reason why he couldn’t have been redeployed. He wasn’t not permanently damaged, he’d just looked in a bad way when he and Gates came in through the door. They’d been tired and thirsty and hungry and very, very dirty; easily remedied with rest, water, food, and a bath. The wound on his forehead had cauterized at the same time it’d been slit, so he’d rather not fuss over spilt milk. The twisted ankle, broken ribs, and bruises up and down the left side of his body should clear up by the time the form goes through.
There’d been nothing wrong with him. He’d just been restless and nervous and wound up. Getting back on the field again would have helped.
He’d limped into the psychiatrist’s office—however a psychiatrist might be different from a psychologist or a therapist, he hadn’t known. From the manicure on her nails, he’d suspected that a psych eval for a bunch of dirty soldiers was below her pay grade.
Dr Hamid had smiled. Seemed friendly. “Good afternoon. Are you ready?”
She didn’t waste time with bullshit. Ortez was relieved. “Yes, ma’am,” Ortez said.
They started with the basics: Name? Rank? Date of birth? Place of birth? “Reason for eval?” she’d asked, like she didn’t know.
“Briefly captured,” he’d said. “Stranded behind enemy lines with one other squadmate.”
“Just captured? Or was there interrogation involved?”
She meant torture. But nobody asked him questions while in captivity, so he’s not entirely sure what he’d call what happened in there. He has an ugly mark on his forehead and some bruises, but no broken bones—yes, really, they were only fractured—he has no missing limbs. There wasn’t blood, due to the cauterization of the laser blades. The Sangheili soldiers who’d caught him just wanted to play with their food before they ate it. Tenderize the meat, maybe.
“No,” Ortez had said.
She’d marked something down. Ortez was relieved that she didn’t ask about feelings, or… whatever it is psychologists do. He’s given a report on the facts before. He’d do it again.
“I’m going to ask you about some psychological symptoms. Yes or no if you have them.”
He nodded.
Her list was brief and vague. Nightmares? Sometimes, but even before the war, he’d had nightmares over forgetting his shoes. Did he have flashbacks? No. Did he avoid situations that remind him of combat? He didn’t tell her that he thinks the opposite of avoiding might settle the jangling in his gut. Did he avoid crowds? He did that before the war. Had he forgotten large periods of the battle or his capture? Also quite the opposite. Was he startled by loud noises? Of course. Does he have trouble concentrating? Depends on what. Did he sit with his back to the wall in large areas with other people? That’s only practically and tactically sound for dangerous and unknown territory.
“Voices or other auditory hallucinations?” she’d asked, like trauma will make him schizophrenic overnight.
He’d answered no.
“Paranoia of surveillance or delusions of threat in the vicinity?”
He’d answered no.
“Do you have a feeling or conviction that there’s a threat in the vicinity?”
Of course he felt that. There was a constant threat in the vicinity, not fifty miles away, called the front lines.
“Closer to home,” she’d said. “In the building.”
He was in a building full of scalpels and wound-up soldiers. Supply lines ran directly through this hospital, meaning entire crates of explosives. There was a constant threat in the vicinity.
She’d checked something off. “Guilt over combat or sympathy for your captors?”
Ortez had hesitated.
Dr Hamid reminded him of the rules of confidentiality.
He still hesitated, not because he didn’t know where to begin, but because he knew exactly where to begin and suspected where it’ll end.
Dr Hamid glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the wall.
He didn’t really want to. He’d wanted to frame it in objective facts: The Sangheili have culture; they have kin; they have bonds; I don’t know what they’re saying, but I suspect they have hopes and fears, too . But there was (is) no neutral way of putting saying something in a military constructed from the ground up to kill exactly those aliens.
“Sometimes,” he’d said, eventually, through gritted teeth, “I suspect that I have killed enemy soldiers in error.”
“Do you mean against orders?” she’d asked.
“Under orders,” Ortez had replied. “But still in error.”
She’d nodded. Then she snapped her pen shut and put her clipboard down. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll take it from here. The UNSC should have a decision on your redeployment in a few weeks.”
A few weeks ? Ortez would die in the meantime. “Can you guess?” he asked. “Am I allowed to know how I did?”
“Sounds like heavy delusions of nonexistent threats,” she said coolly. “And classic Stockholm syndrome, of course.”
He stared at her in uncomprehending horror. “Delusions? Stockholm syndrome?”
“Of course,” Dr Hamid said. “Surely you must realize. We’re deep in human territory, our planet is one of the most well-defended against threats of glassing, and nobody here is intending to harm you. This hospital is meant to help you heal. There’s no reason to suspect your doctors fellow soldiers of intending to harm you.”
“But there are threats,” he insisted. “We might be far from the front lines, but this planet is still at war. We can’t verify everyone’s loyalties, or account for all accidents…”
“The possibility of any human siding with the Covenant is nonexistent,” Dr Hamid said firmly. “That’s your delusion lying to you. I’m sorry to tell you that reality is not as you know it—that’s part and parcel of recovery.”
Ortez had never heard such a terrifying phrase as reality is not as you know it , and she’d said it like a statement of fact.
“I’m not crazy,” he’d said.
“Have you ever actually found proof of explosives or weapons inside this hospital?” she’d replied.
He’d said nothing.
“Have you ever found proof positive that the Sangheili are anything less than vicious monsters?” she’d asked.
He’d said nothing.
She’d smiled pityingly. “Don’t feel bad about it. Stockholm happens to many no matter how long they were held in captivity. It enables even the most rational men to suffer traumatic bonding, as if the Covenant is anything but hostile towards humankind.”
“Not the Covenant,” he insisted. “The people in the Covenant.”
Dr Hamid raised her eyebrows. “People?”
Ortez flushed darkly. “I... didn’t mean it literally. It’s a phrase. It’s supposed to make you understand.”
She’d said, “Hm.”
Two weeks later, when he got the notification that he’d been honorably discharged, Ortez marched right up to Dr Hamid’s office. “What is this?” he demanded. “The symptoms were mild . I’m still fit for service. There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Nobody said there’s anything wrong with you,” Dr Hamid said, quite bravely, considering that he was half a foot taller and seventy pounds heavier and visibly very unhappy . “The military values your service. We’re trying to serve you by allowing you to go home to sort through what is or isn’t real—”
“I’m not. Crazy ,” Ortez hisses.
Dr Hamid looked at him with pitying eyes, and he hears her voice in his head: Reality is not as you know it. Heavy delusions of nonexistent threats. That’s your delusion lying to you. Just follow your orders and you’ll be fine. Christ, Sam, you must be crazy.
“Ortez!” Gates snapped.
Ortez had whipped around, and there was Gates, still in his wheelchair, sneering as usual. “Lay off her,” he said, like he had any right to tell Ortez what to do. “It’s not like it’s anything personal.”
He’d looked back at Dr Hamid. He knew it looked like he meant to hit her, but he hadn’t, he promised, he wasn’t a violent person at heart—
Or was he? What did he know? Maybe the war made him that way, too.
And maybe it’d felt personal, like she in particular has ruined the one career he had going for him, the one career he really thought he could believe in to make a difference and serve humankind, but again--what did he know? There were no bombs in this building; aliens were monstrous and cruel even if he feels otherwise; reality was not as he knew it.
He couldn’t trust his own eyes. He couldn’t trust his own judgment. Isn’t that what his COs always said?
There were no good decisions when you’re crazy.
For the first time in Ortez’s life, Ortez had leaned on Gates’s judgment. He’d stepped away.
*
Locus had already known the end of Washington’s story when he’d read the file. Freelancer was charged with making AI fragments by torturing a full AI, and the Epsilon unit (according to Control’s files) contained records of most of Freelancer’s war crimes. The Project had used Washington’s brain like disposable tissue paper, called him crazy when the experiment went wrong, spat him back out into jail, and left him to scrabble his way back out with half of Freelancer’s war crimes rattling around in his so-called crazy brain, unable to trust his team, his head, his sense of reality itself.
Control has the benefit of additional paperwork on Agent Washington specifically, who’d spent a brief stint in jail and under Control’s thumb. That story, too, is desperate and isolating, and stark image of a man without any reality he could trust, fumbling in the dark as he made deals with Malcolm Hargrove himself.
What other choice did he have? None. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all, and nobody could blame Washington for doing what had to be done. Successful accomplishment of unpleasant necessities is what makes an admirable soldier.
(You can say that as many times as you want, but I know what you really are.)
The story was beautiful on paper. It even ends, in Locus’s secret opinion that he shares with no one, in a beautiful fashion: Washington is killed on an icy planet against the last of his fellow soldiers, fulfilling their last duties, blood in the snow as everyone did their part to wrest survival from each other. A common ending for soldiers, but no less wonderful for it.
On paper, Washington died in the most honorable way possible: holding on to his convictions and determined to survive.
And then Washington reincarnated as a full-time babysitter, got shot by a man he’d barely met while defending an assorted M&M pack of military washouts, and died alone on a foreign planet.
(And whose fault is that?)
*
He was just following orders.
*
(Is this supposed to be some sort of apology?)
II.
By the time they find out about the Purge Temple, Locus is crawling through every command Control has ever sent Felix and Locus, trying to find the moment where he’d been ordered to kill Agent Washington. Because he had, hadn’t he? Where was it? Surely he hadn’t done it on his own?
Surely someone, somewhere, had specified that Locus had to kill Agent Washington instead of merely apprehending him?
(No matter how hard you may want to be, you're not a machine, you're a—)
They’re supposed to take a scout out to the Purge Temple, but it’s useless without the key—whatever “key” that might be, their scientist-on-hand doesn’t know from the translations. They scour through the excavation sites they know of and can easily access.
Something about keys. For once, Felix is the more informed of the two of them, because Locus wasn’t really listening.
Locus wants to say that he remembers every aspect of the moment Washington died. It’s not his job to have a thought or opinion on the deaths he’s been involved with, but he wants to print that moment on a card, stare at it all day, put it in a microchip and embed it under his skin, tattoo it over his eyes. Maybe he just wants that moment to live forever. Maybe he just wants to be back there by the radio tower, in the moment before the orders came and before he’d pulled the trigger and before Washington woke up, the little space of time in which neither of them had to do anything. The last moment Washington was still alive. The last chance before it was too late for regrets.
He closes his eyes and tries to think, but he doesn’t remember much at all. He’d been thinking about what Washington had said and what his orders were and a woman he’d killed three years ago when, on automatic, a movement as unconscious as the beating of his own heart, he’d raised the gun.
A finely-tuned machine, running on autopilot. Like he hadn’t killed Washington at all—two decades worth of military training had.
(—you're not a machine, you're a—)
Locus is supposed to be heading the mission to find the key. They do discover that the key in Captain Tucker’s possession works for activating temples, but they are unable to find another copy. He comes back empty-handed. The mission is a failure.
Their new criminal sohorts are visibly unimpressed with Locus’s performance.
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, you complete your missions at all cost. You can say that as many times as you want…)
“Locus,” Felix hisses. “What the fuck did we talk about with getting your shit togeth—”
Locus walks past him again.
*
On Gates and Ortez’s second job as bounty hunters, the mark had shot his own secretary. The mark got away while Ortez and Gates tried to stem the blood flow. They’d lost the bounty.
The secretary had a name tag that read “Mui Lee” and he’d died within five minutes. Gut shot, so frankly, Ortez had known it was hopeless from the start. No ambulances responded to the call anyway, not when Gates told the dispatcher they’re near the abandoned mall district.
Mason Wu had just sighed, and told Ortez that the street sweepers would pick up the body.
“ Fuck !” Gates raged, and kicked a tire on his own car, and stormed away. “The nerve of that guy! The nerve ! What kind of shitty, cowardly, yellow-bellied—”
“Gates,” Ortez warned, because it was one in the morning and they didn’t need to be broadcasting their location.
“He could have just shot us !” Gates exclaimed. “But noooo, the fuck just looked at us and could tell: ah, yes, these guys are new bounty hunters, haven’t seen them around the block before, I guess I’ll take a gamble that they’re a bag of—” Gates kicked the car tire again and yelled at the sky: “A bag of dupable, gullible BLEEDING HEARTS !”
“Gates!” Ortez snapped.
“Calm down,” Mason said.
“We were fucking swindled,” Gates seethed. “By some two-bit trash who knows how to tug a heartstring. And we fell for it.”
Ortez had had enough of the temper tantrum. He opened the trunk. Dumped his tranquilizer gun, his live-ammo gun, and the handcuffs into the car. “Pack it up,” he ordered. “It’s too late for regrets.”
“He’ll show up again sooner or later,” Wu told Gates.
“He better,” Gates snapped. “I’ve got rent to pay.”
And a bruised ego to nurse, Ortez thought, but said nothing.
They didn’t get the mark from the second job. Instead, on their third job as mercenaries, Ortez killed a human being for the first time.
They were pinned down with aggressive fire, and everything was the same as the war except it wasn’t: people barking orders in his ears, gunfire over his head, weapons in his hands, mission objective clear in his head. They were in a warehouse just past downtown, not some foreign planet, and the people firing have human faces. Child traffickers, but technically people, with human faces under the handkerchiefs.
How long was Ortez going to spend being useless? Debating doubts and other truths? He found more and more than his COs were right: nobody needed doubt on a battlefield or a soldier who questioned his purpose. Especially, Ortez thinks, especially not Wu, who had no line of morality but a clearer border: either he goes home to his wife, or he doesn’t.
This wasn’t a solo job. This is a job for partners, and Ortez’s job as a partner was to have his partner’s backs.
It was too late for regrets, he’d thought. If he couldn’t even do bounty work, then what was he good for? Was he just going to sit in his apartment watching the walls? Hate his job as a construction worker? Live in fear of invisible threats? Wonder what was real and what was delusions and Stockholm syndrome ?
He’d dove for better cover. Took a deep breath. Inched out to sight a man too engrossed in firing at Wu to notice him.
Ortez raised his gun—
And after that, when they’d piled into Gates’s apartment to crash for the night with pizza and beer, Ortez refused to talk to either Gates or Wu.
Wu took a shower first because Wu wasn’t an animal who was going to sleep half-covered in sweat, blood, and dirt, at which point Gates took a look at Ortez’s untouched dinner and said, “Don’t tell me you’re fucked up over that guy you shot.”
Ortez couldn’t do this. He put the paper plate down and moved to stands up.
“What, you’re heading out now? You’re not bailing on us, are you?”
“The job is over,” Ortez said.
“It’s three in the morning!”
“I have to go,” Ortez insisted.
“No, you don’t. Why, you got a date with a therapist this late at night?”
Ortez glared. He’d sort of wished he had a therapy appointment, but he didn’t, didn’t see any therapist regularly, and he didn’t appreciate the jab, either. “Therapists are trying to help us.”
Gates wheezed. Gates started honest-to-god laughing , actually, mocking and shrill, and laid back on the couch. “You idiot,” said Gates. “You believe that. Oh, I bet you were even honest with that one—whatsername—the one from that hospital, back when we were discharged.”
Ortez glared at him, because what else was he supposed to do? Lie? “Lying to her wouldn’t have helped. We had orders. We followed them. I was trying to help her understand.”
“Obviously, she didn’t,” Gates said shortly. “And nobody will. They weren’t there. So don’t bet on those therapists, Ortez.”
Now Ortez was pissed, in the low, smoldering, uncomfortable way that Gates tended to invite, especially so nowadays that Gates seemed sharper, more cynical, even more calcified than he was before. Ortez wasn’t sure if he was disgusted or envious. “Therapists might not have been there, but they could understand. If you tried . If you talked .”
Gates’s head whipped around. “ You think I didn’t try? ” he hissed.
Ortez stares. Slowly, his eyes narrowed.
Gates looked away. In less than a second, Gates had evidently decided to cover the moment with more talking: “They won’t understand, because they want to say they’d never follow ugly orders, and they want to say they’d rather die than do something shameful.” Gates rolled over and buried one half of his face into the sofa. “That one from the hospital? She only responded to money. Money was her orders. A nice, fat paycheck. Unfortunately for you, she got her paycheck no matter where we wound up.”
“You say that like she doesn’t need money to live,” Ortez had said.
Gates’s one eye above the pillow flicked open. “She fucking swindled you, because you were a dupe enough to hope for the best. Pulled the wool over your head and robbed you in broad daylight.”
“She was doing her job.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Gates had muttered into the pillow. “Everyone’s just trying to survive. Some of us are just better at the survival game than others.”
*
Locus takes the missions that aren’t important, now. This is a first in his entire career—as a soldier of the Federal Army, as a mercenary, as a UNSC grunt, he’s always been tasked with the most important jobs.
Felix stares at him in disgust when Locus tells him he’s going to do recon on Armonia for the next eight hours. “Who are you?” he says, in a scathing tone of voice that covers the genuine question.
*
Locus lies on his stomach with only two other space pirates, watching the gates of Armonia, trying to think: an alien tower able to wipe out the entire city all at once. The entire planet . Put an key in. Instantly become the only man left standing.
Efficient.
(I say we blow its brains out.)
The quickest and easiest method of accomplishing the job, and Locus was never one to waste time with indulgences or drawing out the cat-and-mouse game like Felix. Death, Locus has learned over the years, is clean and final.
(That’s your answer to everything.)
Locus nearly slams his gun down, and narrowly avoids it for fear of upsetting his two companions. Instead he clenches his jaw hard and thinks: If he’d had to get Washington’s pesky voice installed in his head, by ghost or insanity, couldn’t the damn thing say something useful ? Wasn’t Washington supposed to agree—people pushed to desperate measures, people silenced under psychiatric labels—wasn’t he supposed to understand why Felix and Locus were here and running this operation?
Dr Hamid, saying delusions and Stockholm syndrome, like she’s never heard of such a thing as sympathy for the enemy.
Mason Wu, shouting through their apartment door about how they could have done this, this is murder, this isn’t bounty hunting at all if you’re just working for the worst mafias in the city, and Locus thinking of Felix snapping at Mason over a pair of chicken sandwiches: As if you could understand what we’ve done.
Once, Felix and Locus had been hired to assassinate a couple. Very rich, very angry ex-wife. The new woman was streaked in her boyfriend’s blood and screaming: How could you?! I loved him, he’d done nothing—
But of course they didn’t understand, Locus had thought. If anyone had gone through what he’d gone through, what Felix had gone through, the conclusions are inevitable: culpability is a matter of the system you live under, and what you want has nothing to do with what the system will give you. Orders are orders. We all have them.
The woman had reached for her boyfriend’s rifle—
Locus had raised his gun—
And you’d think that if anyone could understand why, it’d be Washington, who’d been through his own circles of hell; you’d think he’d have the decency to agree with Locus. Shouldn’t he have bothered to even try ? Did Washington’s incessant voice have to sound like Ortez corralling Gates away from shooting every alien in sight—
Locus freezes.
“Sir?” says a pirate. “Are they making a move with the temple keys?”
“No,” Locus says quickly. “No, I—no.” And then just as quickly: “Nothing to see here. Report back. Follow protocol.”
(That’s your answer to everything.)
*
With the key in the hands of the Feds and News, Felix and Locus board up in a Pelican to head off Captain Tucker at the Communications Tower, taking a small squad of nine or so other pirates. They’re playing full defense in this war now, but their advantage is that the simtroopers don’t yet know about the Comm Tower, and there’s no other tower that they’d be interested in. Felix and Locus know where the simtroopers have to go eventually before the simtroopers know it themselves, and, according to Felix, all they have to do is wait for Tucker to bring the key to them.
Felix has a knack for twisting any situation into an opportunity. Locus still wonders at what point Felix will just leave him as a liability, considering his recently-poor track record. But when he tells Felix that he should be left to guard what little stronghold they have on the ground, Felix looks at him like he’s—well, like he’s crazy.
“Are you going lazy on me?” Felix asks. “No way you’re making me do all the work. You’re coming with. Partners. Neither of us without the other.”
But about twenty minutes in, a pirate—Locus doesn’t recognize him, doesn’t care—one of them speaks up: “Hey, Felix, sir , I got a question.”
“We don’t pay you enough to ask questions,” Felix responds immediately.
The pirate’s got a shotgun in one hand, seven other men and women at his back, and they’re crowded around the back of the cargo hold like a bunch of homeless squatters. “It’s a good question. I don’t understand why he can fuck up getting the sword in the first place,” says a pirate, pointing at Locus, “but he’s still getting higher pay than me.”
Locus doesn’t move. “He’s not as fucking annoying as you, for one,” Felix snaps back.
The man points at Felix with a finger, which is much better than pointing at Felix with his gun. “That’s just favoritism! Just because he was on the original team doesn’t mean he gets a free paycheck when he stops doing his job!”
Locus isn't dealing with this right now. Locus turns away.
“Hey! Come back here!” the pirate says loudly. “Crazy bastard, I’m talkin’ to you!”
Locus stops.
“Mmmmmmm,” says Felix.
Locus turns back around.
"Maybe not a great move," Felix says.
“What,” says the pirate, “don’t like being called cra—”
Locus’s hands are on the pirate’s chest plate and the pirate yelps and flails his dangling legs as Locus pulls him off the ground. The other pirates scramble away.
“Stop it,” Locus rasps.
"Oh Jesus why are you this strong please put me down—"
“I’m not crazy.”
“Yes! Okay! You’re not crazy you're very very sane oh god please don’t kill—”
Eight pirates huddled in a corner, looking at Locus like he’s a monster.
(Where’s your orders now?)
“You can let go of him now, Locus,” says Felix.
His hands are shaking like leaves. His whole body is hot and cold and he just wants—he wants—
(No matter how much you want to—)
“Locus?” Felix asks.
All the pirates in the back have guns in their hands and held at the ready.
“Okay, yeah, I guess you could just fucking kill him, just strangle him out here,” says Felix— (That’s your answer to everything) —
“I’m not,” Locus’s voice says. (Where’s your orders now?)
One of the female pirates says something in a terrified voice.
Felix shrugs. “You totally are gonna kill him without orders and it’s totally chill, but listen, straight-up murder is a pretty heavy-handed method of dealing with insubordination—”
“It’s not murder,” Locus rasps.
Felix laughs. “Please, Locus! Keep telling yourself that.”
That tears it.
Locus wheels the pirate around; one of the pirates begins yelling and there’s the sound of gunfire; the pirate in Locus’s hands jerks and wails; the pilot slumps over the dashboard and Felix kicks the pirate who shot the pilot out of the Pelican altogether; Locus throws the dead pirate he’s holding at Felix’s face—Felix swears and snarls like a feral animal—
(CRAZY BASTARD)
—Felix shoves the dead man off him, rips the man’s shotgun off his magstrip and, holding it like a baseball bat, clocks Locus in the face.
*
For a dizzy minute, Locus thinks that he’s Ortez again, and he’s back on the dirty floor of a Sangheili prison, bruised all up one side of his body, ribs fractured, the X fresh on his face. The worst battle of the Great War is echoing outside, but it’s mostly over, by now: his squadmates are dead and he’d only lived because some Sangheili soldier wanted to get even with the human sniper who’d killed so many of its kin.
There’s ten miles between himself and the nearest human base. Even if he walked outside this empty base, he’d never survive.
He’s exhausted. He’s lying against the wall in a puddle of red and blue blood, surrounded by his ex-jailers, and he’s tired. He doesn’t want to die, but at the very least—dying a free man is a sight better than...
Ortez, comes a little voice, spiteful and small. Ortez!
He knew this was coming, because he’s not Ortez and he’s Locus and this was over a decade ago, but he’s surprised anyway.
Don’t you fucking die on me now. Not when I risked my entire ass just to get you. Get up. Get up!
And he turns his head and there’s Felix—or Gates? A man in Scout armor is limping down the corridor, dragging a DMR in one hand, covered in dirt and gristle and mud. Locus sits up. Felix? he asks.
No, dipshit, it’s Gates. Felix staggers, gasps, but doesn’t quite fall. He slumps against the wall hard with one shoulder. Come on. Let’s go.
Where’s the rest of our squad? Locus asks, already knowing what the answer is.
Dead. You were there, genius. Are you concussed? Whatever, doesn’t matter, let’s move.
Locus doesn’t move.
Ortez, I swear to fuck, this is not the time for you to play your shitty morality and civil disobedience games.
There’s no use, Locus says. They’ll see us if we move from this base.
I don’t fucking care, Felix replies. I’m not dying in this alligator hole. I’m not—mgh— dying. I won’t. And if I do die, I’m sure as shit not gonna die without trying.
But there’s no point, Locus says. The battle is over. Our squad is dead.
Yeah? I’m not doing this for any battle. I’m not doing this for any squad, Felix hisses. I’m doing this for me .
Pain between his teeth, eyes unfocused and feverish.
Now get up, Ortez. Up! Neither of us are surviving this without the other, so get up!
Locus opens his eyes.
“They can’t have gone far!” a voice calls. The forest is dark, and the wreckage of the Pelican glows soft behind the silhouettes of trees. With effort, Locus tilts his head right, left—there’s Felix, a jagged mess of spikes and armor lying face down in the metal shards.
“Spread out! Spread out!” a voice shouts. Locus glimpses Federal Army armor. “Don’t let them get away!”
Locus drags himself to his elbows. Bruises and creaks in his bones. He pulls Felix to him, who comes limply, a rag doll scraped through the dirt. Active camo sputters and crawls over his skin.
Slowly, slowly, he drags both of them into the underbrush.
The dark swallows them whole.
*
The next time Locus wakes up, he feels like death. There is no light. The inside of his armor feels absolutely disgusting, and he thinks he’s on the dirt ground. He’s a little more convinced that he’s just dead, altogether.
(Is this supposed to be some sort of apology?)
No, he wheezes. His whole head hurts. There’s a body in the dark with him, and it feels familiar, but he can’t quite remember from where. He doesn’t mean to apologize. He can’t.
The body comes closer.
The orders weren’t to kill Washington. Orders were to apprehend, back at the radio tower. Assumption of lethal force, of course, but not necessarily required , and Locus could have… he could… he doesn’t know why he didn’t just wait, he’d had Washington unconscious, why he’d had to… Even for the clearest orders, the spaces between the lines are endless chasms, personal responsibility waiting like sharks—
“What the fuck are you talking about,” Felix’s voice asks.
Locus nearly bolts upright before he tells himself to calm down. He still can’t make his breathing work quite right. He peels himself off the floor and pulls his helmet off; the front cameras are nearly broken, and without it, he can actually see the accent lights of Felix’s armor in the dark of the cave they’ve wound up in. Taking the helmet off doesn’t make him feel any less entirely naked than he already does.
“You sad son of a bitch,” says Felix. “Really? You’re messed up over the radio tower thing? That’s what’s been fucking you over?”
Locus looks around and feels most of gravity spin, and before he can make a dive for the opening of the cave, Felix grabs him by the arm and pulls him back. “Not with that concussion,” says Felix. “Just lie down. I’ve already called our guys for another Pelican.”
Pelican?
“Yeah, because you fucking blew our last one up, and nine perfectly good douchebags we could have used for cannon fodder, just because some dick used the C word,” says Felix. “Man, we are lucky that the simtroopers aren’t anywhere near the Comm Tower, yet.”
Why does this feel like a nightmare? Washington in the dark, Felix’s face, Locus’s helmetless and exposed? Felix isn’t calm. Felix is never calm. Why is Felix calm after Locus crashed a Pelican over an insult?
“Because now I know you’re being fucking stupid, not that you’ve forgotten how to shoot a gun. Seriously, lie down. We’re going to need you working if we’re going to lift that key from Tucker’s dead body.”
This is—true—but what were the orders? What are they supposed to be doing? What had Control said, exactly ?
“Full license to exterminate this fucking planet like a house full of termites. God, I’m looking forward to it. I want a bath. And my paycheck.”
Key. Tower. Instantly become the last man standing.
“That’s the one.”
Locus doesn’t want to lie down. A hand pushes his shoulder until he’s flat. The hand doesn’t leave. Was activating the Purge Tower their orders? Or is this an interpretation of one of Control’s orders? What does this mean? He won’t fall for this again. He overstepped the exact words of the order, last time, with Washington—
“You’re still thinking about that? Leave it to you and your broken fucking brain.”
—Washington took care of the simtroopers. He’d been through hell, and found a new team, and settled down to something like a home—
“And it was really gross, honestly, really fucking infuriating. Like, you weren’t there when Tucker was doing his pseudo-training nonsense; I’d rather shoot my own leg than call those losers anything like a home. There’s no such thing as getting better —not after the kind of shit Washington went through. He was kidding himself. Getting better’s a lie. A scam. A baited hook, for your bleeding heart to choke on.”
He hadn’t murdered Washington. “Stopping Washington with lethal force” been his orders, hadn’t it? Hadn’t it? There was a difference, wasn't there?
“Locus, honestly,” Felix sighs. “It’s charming, in your awful, broken way, but you gotta just give up this whole soldier… machine… order bullshit, because it’s really wearing on my nerves.”
The hand on Locus’s shoulder is firm in the dark.
“When will you fucking realize? No higher power up on the mountaintop is gonna come down and tell you what’s right from wrong. It’s just systems and systems and bad fucking luck.”
Locus can’t breathe.
“You crashed a Pelican over this dumb shit in your head and it’s fucking you up. Time for you to get it together, Locus. Nothing matters.”
That’s not true. He’d—the moment between orders, when Locus had raised the gun—
“No, shut up, let me talk, for once, you're hardly ever wrecked enough to let me do it. You think you had a choice back there? You think you made a choice to kill Washington? Please. Assflash, newshole, nobody has any choices. If it’s not the military giving orders, it’s money, or family, or genetics, or shit fucking luck. Government. Bureaucracy. Military. Systems and systems of shit designed to fuck you over. Something’s always got you by the balls.”
(Justification. Excuses. I used to be a real piece of shit, but at least I’m trying to do something about it.)
Felix leans down. Locus realizes for the first time that Felix isn’t wearing his helmet, either. “Everything in the world is fucked. Best bet is to scam everyone else before they can scam you. Give it up, Locs.”
(Nothing is ever Felix’s fault. Felix is a dirty, frightened man, terrified of death, jealous of power he doesn’t have—)
“There’s no reason to shed a few tears over Washington—”
(—scared of hoping for better things. Better to believe in swindlers and traitors and self-centered liars—)
“—’cause, let’s be real, Control had it out for him, one way or another—”
(—in money and greed and power fantasies, because those, at least, are predictable, and have clever levers and switches Felix can press and still control, no matter how small—)
“—they would have made you kill him eventually. Face it, Locus—”
(—no matter how useless, no matter how pointless, Felix wants to be king of something—)
“—in no universe does Washington survive this planet.”
(—even if that something is you.)
“You’re overthinking it. It’s nothing to do with orders. It’s just you and me against literally everything out to kill us.”
I’m not overthinking, says Locus on reflex, and immediately begins to doubt: maybe he is. What does he know? Isn’t he hearing voices? Doesn’t he have a concussion? Hasn’t he gone crazy? Delusions. Stockholm syndrome. Reality is not as he knows it.
“No, really, it’s very simple,” says Felix. “Screw everyone who isn’t you or yours. That’s just surviving.”
The voice is howling. It sounds like Locus’s.
Is that true? Locus asks. I didn’t kill Washington?
“Of course not,” says Felix.
And Locus must be really, really concussed, because he doesn’t question it, anymore.
He just closes his eyes.
III.
The Pelican whirs in the sky, coming down gently. Locus doesn’t move. Neither does Felix.
“I'm gonna buy a whole fucking moon,” Felix goes on. He’s got one hand tapping on Locus’s chestpiece, a thigh up against Locus's arm, resting his chin on his own knee. “Maybe one of the nice ones around Chorus. Retire there. Except fuck retirement, I’m gonna make it my secret evil lair, like a comic book villain, and then I’ll keep nothing there because I’m not fucking stupid and I know someone could just come and bomb the place to hell if I kept all my junk there. But like, I still wanna have the place.”
Locus nods.
“Oh, hell, actually, I don’t have to go anywhere, do I? If everyone’s dead, I could set up my secret evil lair on Chorus . Man! That’d be nice. Set up camp right over all the bases Kimball never managed to take over, just as a giant fuck you to all those training missions she made me do for those snotty teenagers. This planet is like, objectively disgusting, but it’ll be pretty nice when there’s nobody on it.”
Locus nods.
“Me and you and our giant planet full of corpses,” says Felix. “Oh-ho, won’t that be a hell of a secret lair.”
Locus nods.
“That’s the way the world should be, anyway. Me and you and a bunch of folks who’re either dead or going to be. Fuck ‘em.”
The Pelican touches down on the ground. The pilot beckons. Felix looks down at Locus. Gingerly, with care for the concussion he must still have, Locus sits up.
Felix picks up his Scout helmet and slides it over his head, and his wide, unfriendly grin disappears. “I even take back what I said about Tucker,” says Felix through the delicate helmet speaker. “Just shoot that aqua loser when you see him. Hear me out: I’ll head them off at the front of the Comm Tower, you snipe him from three-hundred out, I snag the sword while everyone’s having a pity party, then we book it for the Purge Tower."
Locus nods. Head quiet, ears silent, thoughts gone. He slides his helmet over his head. Picks up his sniper rifle.
"And if Control throws a hissy fit," Felix adds, the bared-teeth smile still in his voice, "then fuck them, too.”
Locus nods.
This time, he won’t miss.