Work Text:
“I don’t believe you” Root seethed around clenched teeth. The fire in her eyes threatening to burn a whole through her quarry. Her petite frame shook with the effort of keeping herself together, holding in the rage pulsing through her begging for release.
“I killed her myself” Martine jeered.
Martine was enjoying their standoff. Hurling purposely taunting and teasing insults at Root since their encounter began, aiming to unbalance and unhinge.
Even staring down the barrel of Root’s gun, unable to reach her secondary weapon, Martine delighted in the knowledge she possessed allowing her to keep Root at bay.
She would complete her mission to terminate the analogue interface of their enemy, but that didn’t mean she could not enjoy herself in the process. Martine never felt quite as alive as when she got to face off against Root. “In fact, I can take you to her body. You’re going to die anyway, might as well let you die together.” Martine continued before dropping her voice to a tone bordering seductive. “I do keep my promises after all.”
With a confident smirk Martine turned on her heel, her back to Root, as she walked away with added swagger, daring Root to either shoot her or follow her down the darkened corridor.
A tempest swirled through Root’s mind, emotions warring against logic and the incessant chatter of the Machine; the need to know for sure Sameen’s fate her paramount desire, yet the probability of being lead into a trap ever present. For a brief moment she slipped as she thought about Shaw, her anger receded and her grief bubbled to the surface; endangering what little composure she had left. Root wanted to break, yet knew she couldn’t. All of these thoughts swirled in crescendos and falls, playing out across her features.
The indecision lasted only a moment before the sound of her feet hitting concrete added to the echo of Martine’s. Root simply had to know and nothing would keep her from that truth.
After following what seemed like an endless maze of tunnels underneath the Samaritan facility, Martine led her to a door and stepped inside.
The harsh lightening caught Root by surprise. Blinking rapidly, her eye’s adjusted to reveal a morgue like atmosphere, the results of Samaritan’s failed biotech experiments were scattered on tables throughout. And there in a cold corner, discarded and forgotten, lay an all too familiar body. Hair once soft, and shining, the color of espresso now lay matted and grimy, parts caked in blood, pooling out from under a sheet covering the body. The right arm was uncovered, outstretched on the floor palm to the ceiling.
As Root gingerly crept forward, she could just make out the faded lettering: USMC.
Root screamed in fury as she brought her gun level with Martine who was standing in between her and the body on the floor. Martine radiated triumph, victory danced in her eyes.
“Pull back the sheet” Root ordered, finger barely off the trigger. “Let me see her face. I need to see her face.”
Martine smiled and obliged, bending down to pull the sheet away “one of our torture sessions got a little shocking and I guess she simply couldn’t take it as well as she said she could.” Martine spoke as slowly peeled the sheet away from the head. “Pity really, we had been having such fun. I’ve never met someone quite like her.”
Finally revealing the face it belonged too. Martine heard the resulting gasp and a loud clatter as the gun hit the floor. She spun on her heels in her crouched position and grabbed the gun as it slid her way across the cold concrete. Standing as Root crashed to her knees.
“Shaw?” Root choked out in a breathless whisper, shock and anguish radiated off her in waves. “Please no, she can’t be here, she can’t be dead. I came here to save her. It was my turn to save her.” Root looked up at Martine practically pleading with her to reverse the outcome, to tell her this was a trap only designed to lure her here. That Shaw was still alive even if she was being tortured somewhere up above.
Lightly chuckling at the destruction playing out in front of her, Martine raised the weapon to aim at Root’s head. She had waited far too long for this. “I guess she had no more lives left to give.” She replied, as a cheshire grin pulled at her mouth.
Root’s gaze turned defiant as she silently dared Martine to pull the trigger, to put an end to her misery. She wasn’t sure if she could live with herself having failed Shaw in the end. “Well what are you waiting for? Gloating is unbecoming of an operative such as yourself. End this.”
Please Root thought to herself.
A pull of a trigger, a reverberating bang, a scream and a body hitting the floor all happened in quick succession.
Root blinked staring at the empty space where Martine had been just seconds before. Comprehension failing to take hold.
“Only…6…lives…left”
A harsh croak sounded from the corner where there should be none.
An arm that should not be moving with the faded ink of USMC, slightly raised off the floor, held a small gun, smoke still emanating from the barrel.
So many emotions collided in that moment that Root could feel none of them. She was numb; frozen by a mixture of fear, hope and disbelief. Only her eyes moved without prompting, tracking down the length of the gun to the hand holding it and up the arm to a familiar face; barely alive but very much not dead. Moving further to lock on those beautiful rebellious eyes she believed lost to her forever.
“Don’t suppose you brought me a sandwich?” Shaw rasped, voice robbed by the conditions she had been kept in. Her resuscitation and injuries taking their toll as she succumbed to unconsciousness once again, arm falling back to the floor.
The sound of the gun hitting the floor snapped Root violently out of her stupor.
She raced forward, checking for and finding a faint pulse as she cradled Shaw’s head in her lap. Heaving Shaw up from the floor, one gun in hand, Root breathed a long held sigh of relief as the Machine rattled off escape routes and Root smiled like she hadn’t in years.