Pardon?

  Underwood and Leech have to spend 4 hours in the Bio-Purge chamber to remove the kinetic-jell from their lungs. Bucket bound with zip-ties and Tales wrapped like a grey mummy in duct tape, wait for them.

  “I'm just following orders,” Leech says, glancing at Bucket. Bucket's glares at Leech, squinting, brow furled, his brilliant blue penetrating eyes emanating a death stare. Some would consider the intensity of the glare an assault.

  Bucket’s partner has her own target for a visual assault; Tales is wrapped head to toe like a grey mummy in duct tape, lying there, glaring at Commander Underwood. Only he seems to take pleasure in tormenting them.

  “When the Princess hears of this, you're finished. Illegally detaining a Baroness is a serious matter.” Tales snaps. She tries to struggle but can barely move, bound in a few rolls of duct tape, her arms pinned to her side, her legs bound tight.

  “Ha, I'm here on the King's authority, and besides, you're just a Baroness, paper royalty isn't real royalty. We'll sort it all when we get to the mainland. With Bucket being court-martialed, Leech here will be finishing his report.”

  Bucket spits blood, eyes still fixed on Leech. “Bucket needs medical attention,” Leech says, looking on with concern. They've been in Bio-Purge for almost 4 hours now, Buckets been coughing up blood for most of it. Underwood drew his firearm on the medic who wanted to look at Bucket before the Bio-Purge.

  “You need to piss off, damn rat...” Bucket spits.

  “You had two weeks to put your report in Bucket; you could have avoided all this by being more efficient and focusing on the task at hand. Oh, that reminds me, I owe you a medal.”

  “Want to know where you can stick your medal Commander?”

  Underwood smiles. “Ok, be ready, Leech, in case they try to pull something. We've had some radio interference, but we have 4 Nightfall agents waiting on the other side of this door to escort us. The Colonel is pretty cunning, but even she won't use forces to interfere with my business.”

  The door opens, two men with full gear and ARs wearing balaclavas breach the room, brandishing their weapons at Underwood and Leech.

  “Hands behind your head! On your knees!” One of the men orders. Leech complies and drops to the ground with his hands above his head. Underwood stands his ground.

  “You two are making a huge mistake. When I find out who you are, your career is over.”

  “Down on the ground, NOW!” The man yells, pointing his rifle in Underwood's face. Bucket smiles, he would recognize Motormouth's voice anywhere. The Colonel enters the room.

  “You bitch, what is this?” Underwood says.

  “Comply.” She says.

  “You're out of line, Forester, Bucket is going with me back to the mainland.”

  “Why would that be? Officially, he works for the Specter unit; you transferred him to my unit, correct? He is staying here until my direct superior gives me orders saying otherwise. Considering I have worked under General Adams for close to 14 years, that I'm in a position he himself put me in because he trusts my judgment in all matters in regards to the island here I don't think you'll have an easy time convincing him to over ride my orders. You do remember why I got promoted? To clean up a King's liaisons mess, right? I don't care what rank they gave you, you're still a ratty little royal bootlicker.”

  “I'll need your soldiers' names.” He threatens.

  “I'll have to kindly decline that request. Take these two and the other Nightfall members to the dock. The Captain is waiting; they will be on that boat heading back to the mainland.”

  “Just who do you think you are? Did you forget what I know? What I'm capable of? The secrets I hold?” He glances over at Tales, then looks back to the Colonel with a grin.

  She turns to one of the soldiers, “Give me your sidearm.” Motormouth hesitates, but follows orders. She then points it at his Underwood.

  Underwood laughs, “Cute show, Forester, I...”

  Two shots ring out as the Colonel fires in front of Underwood's feet, one of the rounds ricochets and glances Underwood's shin, “You're fucking insane! You can't...” She presses the tip of the barrel to his forehead, like any sane person in this situation he stops talking.

  Her eye is twitching, her hand shaking, “Go on, speak more, after 16 years of keeping all this shit to myself, 16 years of knowing one little misspoken word could ruin so many lives, give me an excuse, do it, speak you mother fucker! Talk, go on, speak! Say one more word, give me a reason to pull the trigger!” She continues to shove his head around with the pistol, muttering the word speak.

  Bucket approaches and calmly speaks, “Jodie, this isn't the way. You can't execute a General like this. Give me the gun.” Not taking her eyes off Underwood, she hands Bucket the gun.

  “So you two...” Underwood starts to say, Bucket cracks Underwood on the nose with the pistol, knocking him out cold. She takes a deep breath, centering herself, the look of calm control back in her eyes.

  “Bandage Underwood so we don't have to waste time wiping any more of his blood off the floor. You two Ok?” She asks, looking at Bucket with concern. She looks at his right shoulder, “We need a medic to look at Bucket. Get this trash out of here. Someone cut that tape off Tales.” They take Underwood and Leech away, a medic as well as a few more masked soldiers enter, bringing uniforms for Bucket and Tales. Bucket recognizes some of them, one of them is definitely Glitch.

  “Nice of you to make the party, Motormouth.” Bucket says.

  “How do you know it was me?” He replies.

  “I've worked with you before, you never shut the hell up, how could I not know that voice?”

  Motormouth removes the balaclava and laughs, “Yeah, and you're still kind of a dick, like usual.” Bucket coughs up some blood, “You've seen better days, eh?”

  The medic looks over Bucket, his upper chest to shoulder, all kinds of shades of purple. He puts a jell patch and bandage around his chest and shoulder.

  “His right lung is punctured, broken ribs. Stims, a gel pack, and bed rest for 48 hours.” He says.

  “Thank you, Ned. Can you leave us a moment?”

  “Sure.”

  “You as well, Motormouth. Thank you for the help on short notice, but we have some confidential business.”

  “Understandable.” Motormouth salutes and leaves.

  “So, with Glitch's help, we figured out what's going on with Nadine.”

  “Oh?” Bucket says.

  “Basically, she infected Glitch, Wizbang and you with some sort of nano-bio mecha virus. It's against an agreement we have with...” She looks at the four of them, “Now this is confidential, but I need to bring trusted people into this. An agreement we have with the Net Lords.”

  “'An agreement we have with the Net Lords?'” Tales questions.

  “Yes. The Net Lords, the Royals and a third party, who I can not name at this time, have an agreement regarding bio-mech warfare. It was agreed corrupting the minds of humans is bad for everyone overall. This virus was coded to have the victim, well, have unwavering love, attraction too a single person, in this case, Nadine. It's not 100% effective, Bucket seems to have just a strong attraction, Glitch, well, you wanted to move in with her. Wizbang talked of marriage.” She looks at Bucket and sighs, “Anyways, anyone got a smoke?”

  “No, that asshole Underwood took mine.” Bucket says. He pauses, looking at her, he speaks, “I'm sorry.”

  “It's Ok, we'll get cigs back at HQ.”

  “No. I'm sorry.” He gazes at her, making it clear the apology has nothing to do with cigarettes. She taps her hand nervously on her legs. For the first time, she sees a look of deep empathy in his eyes.

  Her left eye twitches again, “You two, out.” Glitch and Tales leave the room.

  “Bloody hell Blake, so you pick now as the time for this? Fine. First off, you fucked up royally using my name like that in front of Underwood. I told you to use our rank and last name or code names in public; you've called me by my first name a few times in front of people.”

  “His echo-suits code blocked my credentials; I couldn't force a field purge on him, so I had to enter your credentials. I assume you got an alert when I entered your code for a Generals field purge?”

  She nods.

  “And that gave you more time to prep for us while we waited here. He already knew the second I put your code in. I had to get you to snap out of what was going through your head when you were about to spray his brains all over the bio-purge room. As for the others, well, it's a pretty terrible kept secret around the Cavern at this point.”

  She takes a deep breath, tapping her hand on her leg, “So you're sorry? Sorry for what? For sleeping with me to get my codes? For Nadine? Now, granted, you were drugged, so you get a pass on that. So are you sorry for being an asshole trying to push me away? Sorry for being the most frustrating man I've ever known? What pisses me off is I know you're not an asshole, even if you don't see it yourself. ” She puts her hands on his shoulders, a look of pain in her eyes, “The pushing things too far to piss each other off, that needs to stop. It was cute at first, but I don't like the feeling I get from it; the feeling of you not giving a shit about me. I can't deal with that kind of uncertainty in my life right now.”

  “You're right. I'm sorry. I don't know what the hell this is or where it came from. But I don't want to loose it. And I... generally, don't apologize.” He says, taking her hand.

  They look at each other, she sighs, as they wrap their arms around each other and hug.

  “What are we doing with Wizbang?” Bucket asks.

  “We’re going to let him do his job, watch him like a hawk. I want to see what she has him do. She targeted a Field Specter and two Net-Stitches; she’s up to something.”

  “Sounds like a plan. So, it's just the two of us here. Why aren't you telling Tales her father is alive?”

  Her eye twitches again, she has a look of confusion, but he doesn’t buy it for a second. “Dammit... Why couldn't you be just some dumb soldier?”

  “How many people in the world do you think have distinctive yellow eyes like Tales and your son? Are you her mother?”

  “Hell no, how old do you think I am? I'm not 40 yet...”

  “Oh, I thought you were in your early 20's...” He says with an exaggerated look of shock on his face.

  She grins, shaking her head, “I know you're full of shit, but it's still nice to hear you say that. I can say with certainty I'm not Tales' mother.”

  “So her father. It's simple math, Peter is 5 years old, Tales is 21 years old, and she witnessed her father and mother get murdered 11 years ago when she was 10. So if the father is the same for both of them, there is a 4-year overlap of when he was supposed to have died. I'm getting to know Tales. She hides her grief, but it's a very heavy weight for her to carry.”

  “Don't you think I know that? Watching her grow up, I did my best to be there for her, listening to her tell me her most personal thoughts about her parents, seeing how she pushes herself because she carries survivor's guilt, knowing all this because I have the clinical training to extrapolate it all. She loves both her parents, but she adored her father; everything she does is aligned with trying to live up to his expectations. At least her father has an excuse; her mother is still...” She looks at him and trails off.

  “Her mother is what?”

  “She was a friend of mine, as well as Jens' father. She made choices, and didn't inform him until it was too late. She put him in an impossible situation with mere hours to decide his future with his daughter. Anyways, I can’t discuss this now. Her mother is committed to another duty, but she's, shit, I can only say so much. To put it one way, I could contact her if I wanted.”

  “I don't understand. Why does Tales remember seeing them die?”

  “There are a lot of forces at play here. Her mind was altered; she was fed the memories of her parents' death by a man that was seeking to make her parents suffer. Letting Jen know the truth now would break her mind. It was controlled; she was supposed to be given happy childhood memories of growing up with a Royal.”

  “But why?”

  “I can't tell you. But her parents were not supposed to exist. Their existence led to the 2214 treaty we signed with the Net Lords. She's just now getting to the point where we may be able to reintroduce them, but she's not ready. I see it in her eyes, her far-off look, shutting down if she thinks of them too much. She's getting better, but not quite there.”

  “We can discuss it more later, we need to get moving on preparing for whatever bull shit will happen next after Underwood hits the mainland. Did you round up Laser?”

  “No.”

  “Shit, he's still MIA.”

  Rattling along in the trolley cart heading back to the Cavern wasn't fun—but it wasn't all bad. The Colonel made a halfassed case for her to ride in the cart with him due to his injuries, Tales just rolled her eyes, no one questioned it. The trolley carts are old mining carts pulled by an electric engine through the maze of tunnels back to the Cavern. It's a lot of rattling and jostling when you have broken ribs. Physically, he feels like hell, but cozied up in the cart with her makes him wish the ride would never end. There are a lot of gates and surveillance in the tunnels, just in case the Net Lords decided to make their way down someday.

  Laser being MIA is at the forefront of Bucket's mind. He knows firsthand how wily Nightfall agents can be; he could be anywhere. Also, Underwood; they haven't heard the last of him.

  The trolley brakes scream like a boiling tea kettle; they see the lights of the Cavern ahead. Motormouth is there to greet them, with a couple of other Specters, guns drawn. Motormouth looks on edge.

  “What is it?” The Colonel asks.

  Motormouth speaks, “I'm sorry Colonel, direct orders from General Adams. You're to be placed on temporary leave following a psych eval. Please, cooperate.”