Chapter Text
The celebration party for the reformation of the Nightrunners and Lawan’s swearing in carries on well into the night. Eventually Aiden taps out and passes on the offer of a bed in the Fish Eye in favour of an isolated shelter on top of a distant building. Despite his biomarker glowing green, he’s worried about the “episodes” he’s been having lately, and he’d prefer to keep his distance for now.
Aiden’s so tired from the craziness of the day that he crashes out before he even finishes lying down and only wakes up when Waltz sits down on the bed.
At first he thinks it’s a nightmare, but then Waltz tilts his head in that familiar way and says, “Hello, son.”
Adrenalin, fear and anger surge through his body and he barely has time to choke out, “I’m not your…” before his infection flares up and he loses himself.
When he comes back to awareness, it’s to a flashlight being shone in his eyes.
“Interesting,” Waltz says. “Have you been having this kind of reaction a lot lately?”
Aiden mutters something incoherent, rolls over and throws up, and then rolls back.
“Son…” he gasps. “Why do you… why do I…? What’s happening?”
“Hmmm… no signs of cranial injuries… the memory gaps could be trauma induced,” Waltz muses.
“Trauma… FUCK YOU!” Aiden shouts. “You EXPERIMENTED on us.” He tries to thrash to his feet but Waltz holds him down with one hand.
“Aiden,” Waltz says patiently. “I was trying to help you. And Mia. Please son, try to remember.”
“Stop calling me that! AAArrggghh, aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!” Aiden screams and convulses as involuntary memories flash through his mind. “Stop it, it hurts!”
“Aiden. Aiden. AIDEN! Focus. Listen to my voice.”
“Huuuuurrrtttsss…”
“I know it hurts, but you have to move past the pain,” Waltz is inexorable. “For yourself, and for Mia.”
“Mia…” Aiden moans. “What have you done to Mia?”
“I’ve kept her alive!” Waltz snaps angrily, shoving Aiden down harder. “What have you done for her? You were supposed to help me! You promised! All these years we thought you were dead! And then you come back, you steal from me, you attack me… without me Mia will DIE, Aiden.” He snarls and then visibly pulls himself back, panting.
Aiden just lies still, confused. What is Waltz talking about?
Waltz takes a deep breath. “If it weren’t for Mia I wouldn’t even have come out here, but she heard about our little reunion and now… now she won’t rest until she sees you, sees that it’s really you.”
This bit Aiden understands. “Mia’s alive? She’s alive?”
“Yes.” Waltz says. “And if you calm down and swear to behave yourself, I’ll take you to her.”
He releases his grip on Aiden and steps back. Aiden lies there, head pounding, heart racing. He can’t quite believe that this is really happening.
“This is… a trick,” he says uncertainly. “You just want the GRE key.”
“The GRE key that is in your left pocket?” Waltz asks with a raised eyebrow. “If that was all I wanted, I would have taken it and left half an hour ago.” He frowns. “You need help, Aiden. The course of your infection is not progressing as it should.”
“Yeah,” Aiden coughs. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He gets to his feet uncertainly. “Is that because of something you did?”
Waltz tilts his head. “Possibly. Your treatments may have made you sensitive to certain drugs designed to interact with the virus. Have you taken any inhibitors since you came to Villedor?”
Aiden hesitates. “… a couple.”
The look Waltz gives him makes him cringe. He’s never been much of a liar.
“Inhibitors are supposed to be used only when a patient is on the very brink of turning,” Waltz lectures. “While they do provide a boost to strength and stamina, they are very dangerous to use frequently or on a long-term basis. I would strongly suggest you avoid taking any more.”
Aiden considers this. Waltz could be lying but… it was true that he’d been having stronger seizures after taking inhibitors lately. He’d thought it was the effect of the inhibitors fighting his infection, but it was equally plausible that they were making things worse.
“I’ll… think about it,” he conceded.
Waltz shrugged. “Do as you please. If you’re determined to continue being one of my test subjects, I cannot stop you. Though I would like a blood sample to update my charts with.”
“Wait, wait, what?”
Waltz smirked. “You didn’t know? The inhibitors, Aiden, are a slightly stronger version of the formula I was testing on you and the other children fifteen years ago. That is why I said you might be more sensitive to them than others. You were always my most responsive subject.”
Aiden stares at him and mentally swears to never, ever, touch another inhibitor again. “You son of a…”
“I’m not interested in your insults,” Waltz cuts in. “Do you want to see Mia or not?”
Aiden controls himself, barely. “Yes, I want to see her.”
“Then I will take you to her. But you’ll have to leave your weapons here.”
“No. Fucking. Way.”
“Leave your weapons, or I leave you here,” Waltz repeated, folding his arms over his chest. “If you want to see Mia this is your only option, Aiden.” He smiles slightly. “Well, maybe not. I suppose I could simply beat you unconscious and drag your carcass to Mia, but that might upset her a little.”
Aiden hesitated, torn between the opportunity to see Mia and the desire to fight Waltz. But despite the sleep he’d had he still felt like shit and he couldn’t trust himself not to pass out again. If he could just see Mia… she was the one who always wanted to escape. She’d been the planner. Maybe she might be able to give him a sign, some help, an idea…
“Time’s running out, Aiden,” Waltz began to turn.
“Wait, wait!”
He turned back.
“I’ll come, and I’ll leave my weapons, but I’m leaving the key too,” Aiden straightened. “Give me ten…” he paused and looked around, trying to figure out where the hell he was. “Fifteen minutes to put it somewhere, and then I’ll come with you. No weapons, no tricks. You can even take a damn blood sample if it means so much to you.”
Waltz considers this. “Very well. But I’m not waiting around. I’ve wasted enough time on you already this morning. Meet me by the abandoned car factory. You remember it, I’m sure. If you’re not there in an hour, with no weapons, and no radio, the deal is off. Understood?”
“You didn’t say anything about the radio,” Aiden begins to object, then cuts off as Waltz starts to leave. “Okay, okay! One hour, no weapons or radio, I’ll be there.”
Waltz waved a hand over his shoulder to indicate he’d heard.
“And if I’m not allowed to bring weapons, you’d better tell those fucking renegades to let me pass!” Aiden shouted after him.
**
One hour later.
**
“You’re just barely on time,” Waltz sniffed. “And you’re carrying a weapon.”
“You didn’t tell the renegades to let me through,” Aiden snarled. His fists ached and his nose was bleeding. “This weapon belongs to one of them. I’m just borrowing it.”
Waltz’s mouth twitched. “And now you’ll return it.”
Aiden barely controlled himself from lashing out at the man and instead settled for hurling the weapon (a nasty looking and poorly balanced club with spikes) past Waltz’s head. Bastard didn’t even blink.
“Juvenile, but I’ll overlook it. Follow me.”
Waltz strode off and Aiden fell into step behind him.
“Who did you leave the key with?” Waltz asked. “Hakon or his young lady? Or was it your bartender friend?”
“None of your business,” Aiden snapped. He’d actually left it with Margaret the healer. She’d seemed a relatively decent person and at least she wouldn’t rat him out to Lawan. Aiden was not looking forward to telling her about any of this, and if she’d known where he was going and what he’d planned she’d probably have shot him to prevent it. He changed the subject quickly. “How did you know where I was, anyway?”
“It wasn’t hard,” Waltz replied. “Apparently some of your ‘friends’ were offended by your ‘sneaking away when you should be partying’ last night and attempted to track you down to return to the festivities. They broadcast their searches and where they saw you last over the radio as they tried to find you.”
Aiden groaned and covered his eyes with his hand. Waltz smirked and handed him a scrap of cloth.
“Here, for your nose. It’s still bleeding.”
“Oh, like you care,” Aiden muttered. But he used it anyway.
“Not really,” Waltz agreed. “But you promised me a blood sample and it seems a shame to waste a needle to collect it when you’re dripping all over the place for free. Put the cloth in this container when you’re done.”
Aiden glared sullenly at him but obeyed.
They walked the rest of the way to the facility in silence. Once inside, Waltz led Aiden to a large hospital room. There were several pieces of medical equipment set up in one half of the room, in the other half was a small hospital bed. On it, a young woman lay sleeping.
“Mi…”
Waltz grabbed Aiden in a headlock and clamped a hand over his mouth. “No,” he hissed into Aiden’s ear. “She needs her rest. You will sit down on that chair over there and WAIT for her to wake up on her own. I swear Aiden, if you do anything to hurt Mia or cause her distress, I will snap your neck and tell her the infected got you, do you understand?”
Aiden flailed briefly but Waltz was unmoveable and finally he stopped. Waltz eased up on him enough for him to nod acceptance of these conditions before he was released. Waltz pointed at the chair next to the bed and glared at Aiden until he slid, quiet as a Pilgrim, over to it and sat down.
Equally quietly, Waltz moved over to the mini lab and began to examine the cloth with Aiden’s blood on it.
Mia slept on for another hour before waking up.
She blinked sleepily at Aiden. “Aiden?”
“Mia,” Aiden leaned forward, intently. “Is it really you?”
“Aiden! Aidy, Aidy, Aidy babaidy!” Mia pushed herself upright and grabbed for his hands. “Of course it’s me!”
Aiden started crying. “Mia, Mia! After all this time, I can hardly believe it.”
Mia was crying too. “Aiden, we were so worried. Where did you go, where have you been? Why didn’t you come home sooner?”
“I came as fast as I could, it took a long time to get here. Years,” Aiden said brokenly. “The freeways collapsed and there are no straight paths. The infected are everywhere. You have to go slow and quiet to be safe.”
“But… where were you?”
“Cresswell River.”
“Where is that?”
“About two thousand miles from here. South-east.”
“Oh Aiden,” Mia mourned. “You were so far away. How did you get there?”
“I don’t know,” Aiden confessed. “I don’t remember very much Mia, and I think some of what I remember might be wrong. I remember us being here, but it’s like there are two versions, one where we’re being hurt and we’re trying to run away, and there’s a fire… and then there’s another version where Waltz is actually nice and trying to be helpful.”
He wiped away tears with his sleeve and stared at Mia, a little desperately. “For years, the only thing I’ve been able to remember for certain is that you’re my sister and I have to find you. Was that right? Mia, are you my sister?”
Mia sobbed and swatted him on the shoulder. “Stupid Aidy, of course I’m your sister.”
Aiden put his head down on the blankets. “Oh thank God, thank God.” He cried a bit more, this time in relief, before finally looking up. “What about Waltz? Was he holding us here or is there something else? Has he been hurting you?”
“Oh Aiden,” Mia sighed. “What happened to you? Dad would never hurt me. He was trying to cure me.”
Aiden just stared at her. “… Dad???”
Mia nodded.
Aiden felt like he was going to pass out in sheer horror. “Waltz is your father?”
Another nod.
“But… but…”
“Relax,” Waltz’s voice floated across to him from the other side of the lab. “You’re adopted.”
“Dad!” Mia’s voice was reproachful.
“And we were never able to officially file the paperwork due to the breakdown of services, so technically…”
“Dad, stop it!” Mia was angry now. “Paperwork or not Aiden is my brother and YOUR SON, so stop being so mean to him! I bet you haven’t even given him a hug yet!”
“It would have been difficult to, as he’s tried to kill me every time he’s seen me,” Waltz walked over to regard the duo thoughtfully. “You really don’t remember any of this, do you, Aiden?”
Aiden just shook his head. “I only remember Mia, and the experiments, and the pain.”
“What about the other kids?” Mia asked. “There was Alex, and Jayden, and, um, Anjana. We’d play with them sometimes.”
Aiden shook his head again. “I met someone else who was in here, but I don’t think we ever met her. Lawan.”
Mia thought about it. “I don’t think I remember her.”
Waltz muttered something under his breath. It didn’t sound complimentary.
“She wasn’t here long,” Aiden said. “She… escaped. I don’t understand. None of this makes any sense. If you weren’t being hurt, why were we trying to run away?”
“Oh Aiden, that was a game we played,” Mia said. “I always wanted to run away, to get outside and see the world, but I was always too sick. I could never leave.” She leans forward, her eyes bright. “But you… you’ve been outside these walls, outside the walls of Villedor even. Tell me Aiden, tell me what it’s like in the outside world!”
Aiden swallows, any number of bitter or snarky responses running through his head. It’s a fucked-up world full of fucked-up people. There’s nothing left, just fewer and fewer settlements hanging on every year. Renegades, raiders and bandits prey on the weak and the few who stand up to them don’t last long.
Instead he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “Outside Villedor, most of the world has gone back to nature. There are trees, and plants, and insects… so many insects. There aren’t a lot of larger animals, but a few species are still hanging in there. Opossums, cats, rats of course, you’ll never get rid of those.”
He talks for an hour and Mia falls asleep while he’s describing an immense apple tree he’d found one day.
“Just the biggest apples you’ve ever seen… and ripe too! I ate so many I nearly got sick and then picked more for supplies and trade goods. I still have some of the seeds…” Aiden trailed off as Waltz put a hand on his shoulder, and together they watched Mia breathe. After a few minutes, Waltz indicated that they should leave.
Aiden follows him blindly outside. “It’s all true, isn’t it?” He asks numbly. “What Mia said, you were trying to help us.”
“I was trying to help Mia,” Waltz corrects. “Helping the rest of humanity was merely a bonus, in my opinion. It is also true that I was doing so by experimenting on children, orphans like yourself.”
Aiden catches his breath. He’d kind of figured that that was the case but it was surprisingly hard to have it confirmed out loud like that. “Do you know what happened to them? My parents, I mean.”
“They died, that’s all I know,” Waltz shrugged. “You were picked up and put in a GRE orphanage, and from there you were handed over to me. I didn’t usually bother looking into the backgrounds of my test subjects.”
That hurts. “How can you be like this?” Aiden demands. “How can you say and do such terrible things and yet I can see how much you love Mia?”
Waltz just looks at him, “You’ve been out in the world Aiden. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of people do bad things for the people they love.”
And the damnable thing of it is that Aiden has. Fucking hell he’s seen it even in his brief stint in Villedor: the man who tricked him into a deadly trap in order to save his brother, the kids who hunted their friend’s pet to feed their mother on her birthday, Hakon breaking Lawan’s heart in order to keep her safe from Waltz. People would do anything to protect the ones they loved.
Even the unthinkable.
“Why do you need the GRE key?” Aiden asks finally. “Tell me what you want it for. The truth. Explain it to me. If it’s a good reason… I’ll give it to you.”
Waltz regarded him evenly. “I need it to save Mia.”
“Save her how exactly? I need more than that.”
“The GRE key will open X13, my old laboratory,” Waltz explained. “In it are all the medicines and supplies I need to stabilise her condition and continue to work towards her cure.”
“That’s it? That’s all?” Aiden is incredulous. “There’s gotta be more to it than that.”
Waltz sighed. “X13 is also a bomb shelter and we will need it to survive the missiles.”
“What missiles?!!”
“Using the GRE key in X10 a few days ago restarted the power to Villedor, but it also restarted the computers. They had been stopped 11 years ago by Williams in an effort to avert the missile launches that were to destroy the city and wipe out the infection.”
“But Williams used chemical weapons to destroy the city!” Aiden protested.
“Those were an attempt to burn out the infection,” Waltz explained. “The missiles were to be used when the infection was no longer containable.”
“Containable… they were going to wipe out the city?!!”
“Yes, just as they wiped out all the other plague cities,” Waltz smiled sardonically. “As the saying goes, ‘to save the village they had to burn it down’. Fools.”
Aiden gaped at him in horror. “So… when you turned the power back on… the missiles turned back on too? The… the countdown started again?”
“Yes.”
“Motherfucker WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT SOONER?!” Aiden turns and begins to run back to Villedor, but Waltz tackles him to the ground. “Fucking… get off me!”
“You can’t stop them Aiden,” Waltz says calmly, pinning him down easily. “The only thing you can do now is save Mia. I know you don’t remember much, but you seem to have at least hung on to how important she is. Give me the key, and you can come with us to X13. We will all be safe there, and I will be able to continue my search for a cure.”
Aiden struggles frantically. “But the city… my friends… everyone will be killed!”
“There is nothing you can do to stop that.”
“I have to warn them… I have to try! God damn it LET ME GO!”
“You’ve only known the people of this city a few days, they’re practically strangers to you! Mia is your sister. Don’t you want to save your sister?” Waltz is starting to lose patience. “You made a promise to me Aiden. We can save Mia, as long as we stick together. Get the key, help me save Mia, forget about the city.”
“Dad, NO!”
The cry from behind startles them both.
Waltz turns and then stands to approach Mia. “Mia, you need to go back to your bed.”
“Why? So you can destroy the entire city in peace?” Tears are running down Mia’s face. “How can you do such a thing? You’re a DOCTOR for God’s sake. You’re supposed to HELP people! Not wipe them out!”
“There was nothing else I could do! Your condition is worsening, I NEED the resources in X13 to save you!” Waltz is pleading now. “Just go and lie down and we can talk about it later.”
“LATER? You mean after you’ve destroyed everything?!” Mia begins to cough and Waltz lunges towards her, but she steps aside quickly… moving quite close to edge of a deep pit in the ground. “Stay away from me!”
Waltz freezes. “Mia, please… you have to be careful.”
“Or what? I’ll die?” Mia demands bitterly. “Why won’t you understand? I don’t want to live at the cost of everything else!” She breaks down into more coughing, and then takes another step towards the edge. “You have to stop this Dad.”
Waltz looks terrified. “I can’t, Mia. Even if I wanted to, there’s nothing I can do. Please, I did it all for you.”
“You did it all for yourself! Because you were too afraid to live on your own!” Mia shouted. “You’ve kept me tied to this world… all the tests… all the treatments… I’m sick of it all! Just let me die!”
“No!” This time it’s both Aiden and Waltz crying out.
“Mia…” Waltz pleads. “I can save you!”
“Mia… I can fix this!” Aiden scrambles to his feet. “You don’t have to die! Nobody has to die. Just… just wait a minute. Wait a bit. I need to think. I need to…” He trails off and stares at his hands.
“What can you do?” Waltz demands. “The launch process has already begun! You can’t stop the missiles by jumping on them and hitting them with clubs! You have to help me take Mia to safety!”
“I can do it… no… we can do it…” Aiden is counting fingers off. “Him, and him… and… I need… I need…” He stares at his remaining fingers and then looks up. “I need a radio. Right now. Hurry!”
“Give him one Dad, please,” Mia says, as she steps away from the edge. “Help him!”
Waltz reaches into a pocket and hands Aiden a radio. Aiden snatches it. “What frequency did you use to contact Hakon on?”
“It’s the third preset.”
“Got it. Hakon! Hakon, it’s Aiden! Come in please!”
“Aiden? What’s going on? Why are you calling me on this frequency?”
“It’s a long story and I don’t have time to get into it right now. I need you to call all the Nightrunners and meet me at the Fish Eye! Right now! It’s urgent.”
“Okay kid, keep calm. I’ll round everyone up. Over.”
“Make sure Frank and Cillian are there! And Lawan! I’ll be there as fast as I can. Over.” Aiden cuts the transmission and hands the radio back to Waltz. “Call off ALL of your renegades,” he instructs. “Do it right now. This is going to be hard enough without them underfoot. Send them all back to wherever it is they came from and pack up your gear.”
Waltz bridles, “I will do no such…”
“Dad,” Mia says quietly. “Please.”
Waltz stands still for a long minute before unbending. “Very well. But I am holding you responsible for Mia’s safety, Aiden.”
“Fair enough,” Aiden replies. “Now, where is X13 exactly?”
“Underground. It’s accessed through the GRE tunnels in the city centre. In the Garrison District off the central loop. Aiden, what are you going to do?”
“Get some help!” Aiden turns and begins to run towards Villedor again. “I’ll meet you at X13 in a couple of hours!”