————————
i, i can’t get these memories out of my mind
and some kind of madness has started to evolve.
When the majority of the modern world stood empty, it was easy to take for granted a roof over your head.
The clouds wept swollen raindrops that accelerated to the thirsty ground like bullets to relieve it its misery. Soaked to the bone and fuming at the forecast, Russell Hinder held his head low and accelerated faster through the mist.
Like a graveyard of ancient giants, the steel and concrete skeletons of vacant skyscrapers towered on either side of the deserted avenue. The growl of his engine resounded like thunder in the lonely urban canyon through which he navigated, singing a cacophonous duet with the storm raging above. The single beam of his headlight brought a sense of alienation rather than any brand of comfort; in the thick of the evening storm, Russell felt as though he could be the last remaining human in the dystopian confines of their world.
Through the fog that shrouded the tops of the dilapidated buildings, the soft pinkish glow of neon letters came in and out of focus as the low-lying moisture shifted rapidly in the wind. Russell peered through his helmet’s rain-streaked visor. From directly below, the word NEWARK was obscured nearly to the point of illegibility even without the weather’s interference. The blood red of its plastic-faced mark had long since faded to a less intimidating dusty rose, and several of the bulbs backlighting its display flickered on and off behind cracked exteriors.
Housed in the center of a once-thriving metropolis, the world headquarters of Newark Pharmaceuticals shared the only surviving downtown district with two other equally influential biomedical corporations. Alongside the red of Newark, the bright goldenrod of Faribault Group and the eerie glowing blue of ACESO comprised the skyline of what had come to be known colloquially as Pharma City. Their three separate buildings were the only illuminated towers in the entire length of the abandoned downtown’s silhouette. The rest—particularly in the thick of summer storms like these—was dark and gray with an utter absence of contemporary life, and at night the surrounding streets were black as pitch and empty but for the rats in the gutters.
The geographic proximity of Newark, Faribault, and ACESO was the result of necessity rather than any desire for partnership. The handful of blocks they occupied contained their three individual towers—converted from former office use to be closed-door, state-of-the-art research facilities with hundreds of floors for laboratories and operating rooms—and were surrounded by shorter buildings sectioned off for employee housing and hospital recuperation. ACESO owned the tallest, most well-equipped real estate of the trio; it was common knowledge that they were the frontrunners of the unspoken contest. With the best facilities, the most money, the best researchers, the biggest staff, and the most well-known experimental breakthroughs, ACESO was rapidly becoming the most influential organization not just in their city, but in the world.
Despite ACESO’s obvious lead, the three companies were fierce competitors, maintaining an adversarial relationship born of stubbornness, greed, and most potently of all, a quest for dominance over the others. The degree of enmity between them, however, resulted strangely in very little interaction, violent or otherwise; they kept to themselves almost entirely, upholding an unspoken vow of silence and secrecy that made them mysterious forces of governing business no outsiders could touch even if they wanted to—even if they weren’t already dependent upon their functions.
and i, i tried so hard to let you go
but some kind of madness is swallowing me whole
The handful of blocks they occupied was one of the few areas that had been upgraded from the old power grid when resources had become scarce nearly a century prior. City officials had promised a gradual conversion, completing a few blocks at a time to the superior system—a more efficient, more durable, and more cost effective method of delivering electricity, the breakthrough of the era—but unforeseen difficulties brought construction to a standstill. The mayor at the time (before the government crumbled beneath the hammer of the pharmaceutical companies) claimed a temporary cessation due to budget restrictions, as the installation of the upgrade was an expensive due to pay for what would be cheaper consumption in the long run, post-completion. Whether or not it was coincidental that the conversion stopped as soon as Newark Pharmaceuticals, the first of the three to establish itself as a player during the War, moved into its home and finished its facility upgrade was up for debate, but word on the street spoke of the fiasco with bitter, distrusting tongues.
Newark may have been the first to be established, but its leading reign lasted only a decade before a long-running internal civil war shattered the administration and divided the key researchers so absolutely that it became impossible to further their experimentation. Pitted against one another in a tidal wave of dissent, two of its former board members, sisters Belinda and Stella Faribault, broke away to uphold their own constitutions in a rival corporation bearing their surname. Lewis Andover, a founding Newark board member with yet another differing set of ideals, followed suit, making his own dramatic exit and forming what would soon be known as ACESO. Both were forced to remain in the area if they wanted the electrical hookups necessary to operate their ever-advancing equipment.
Despite the near-century that had passed since its inception, the roots of corruption that cracked Newark’s foundation ran so deep that it had never been able to rid itself of all the weeds. Their day in the spotlight had largely come and gone. What good they had contributed to society from those years—a handful of useful drugs, a few key treatments in childhood genetic syndromes—were now so commonplace in basic disease management that they were overlooked as everyday, origins forgotten. But what the public did not know was that a major portion of the company’s research had dealt with addiction and dependence, the experiments of which were initially overseen by Henry Newark himself and then continued after his death by his daughter and then his granddaughter, Veriska Lang. Their elaborate setup was intended to produce drugs that were ultimately beneficial, but that required repeated dosage for the length of a patient’s life in order to be effective. It was paramount job insurance, promising a future not only for the employees, but also for the company itself. A smart business move, if wholly unethical. Was addiction really so bad when there were no detrimental effects to the body?
As it turned out, the unscrupulous experiments did save Newark from financial collapse. When ACESO’s cancer-curing serum backfired with apocalyptic results, effectively killing a large chunk of Newark’s typical middle-aged clientele (and shortening the lifespans of their younger consumers), they discovered a portion of the dwindling population that they had never before considered a part of their demographic. Despite its history of unsatisfied staff and less-than-moral ideas regarding monetary growth, Newark had at least done its best to cure its ailing customers, first and foremost. Now, under new management brought about by the Youth Crisis, they began to look down rather than up to escape the threat of dwindling bank accounts and dying investors. With the knowledge that they could never gain the footing to compete against steady Faribault, let alone the explosive ACESO, they sought the trade-solace of the street-bound—the people their two competitors looked straight through and ignored.
Russell revved his engine with a twist of his wrist, rounding the dark corner of 58th and Travers that marked the border of “inside” and “outside.” The orange glimmer of street lights ahead was a welcome beacon of civilization after his ride through the deserted urban landscape surrounding the veritable island of Pharma City. And in this weather, even the sight of its cracked sidewalks, corporate banners, and uniform dormitories was a comfort.
A shrill chorus of car alarms sounded in his wake as he sped by the vehicles parked bumper to bumper on either side of the street. He grinned broadly behind his visor. A glance in his mirror revealed a fanfare of blinking lights to accompany the shrieks, announcing his arrival to anyone within ten stories of street level.
Only the wealthiest families could afford to own automobiles in this age, the majority of them being high-ranking scientists who worked for Pharma—none of whom were likely to be living in the stark utilitarian housing along which they parked. The big players made their homes in the various suburb villages several miles outside of the isolated district. Lab assistants, interns, office staff, security, and janitorial staff who were lucky enough to secure employment rarely had salaries that could provide more than the provided housing—and there was no public transportation to Pharma City. It made for deserted highways and a distinct lack of traffic law enforcement, the entire division of which was deemed entirely unnecessary given the skewed ratio of population to vehicles in operation. Besides, with a barely-functioning court system (where convicted criminals were shipped off to labs rather than prison cells) and attorneys who almost exclusively worked on Pharma’s dime, there was simply no point in persecution for comparatively harmless wrongdoings.
and i, i tried so hard to let you go
but some kind of madness is swallowing me whole
Let them know we’re here, he thought with a dark smirk, relinquishing his left grip to launch a middle-fingered greeting at the valet awning of Faribault’s HQ tower as he passed. It was nearly midnight, so there was no one at the door to witness his gesture. Fortunately, he was on his way to a much lower-key, much more effective, and a much bigger fuck you type of meeting at Newark. He would have to find his satisfaction there instead. He had no doubt he would.
The rain began to ease up as he pulled past Newark’s main entrance and instead descended down a steep concrete ramp leading below ground to the first floor of the building’s basement. It had once been a garage dedicated entirely to parking cars, but after the pharmaceutical corporation remodeled the structure, its ten subterranean levels had been converted to offices and maintenance access rooms with the exception of this first story, which remained a bright, fluorescent cave of smooth cement for the convenience of the ten board members’ chauffeurs. Only a very select few were granted access, and even fewer were given permission to enter the facility through its exclusive passages. Russell, as it turned out, was one of them.
The man punched in his fifteen-digit security passcode, then flipped up his visor for the retina scan. The machine detected and recognized the patterns in his blue-gray irises almost immediately, beeping its approval thrice—the first to let him know he had been accepted, the second to alert building security, and the third to alert his contact inside.
As soon as the armored garage door slid open to allow him passage, Russell slipped through and maneuvered his motorcycle to the west wall. His tires left wet marks in his wake as the rain slid from the bike’s titanium frame. The roar was deafening in the wide but short-ceilinged garage, and when he cut the engine he found himself engulfed in a sterile, unnerving silence.
“Hinder?”
Russell, recognizing the female voice, straddled his bike and took his time turning around. “Lang,” he greeted coolly, pulling off his helmet to reveal messy but dry brown hair and a handsome, youthful face.
“Lang? Oh, please,” Veriska Lang returned, her impossibly high heels a staccato announcement of her presence as she stepped leisurely towards the biker. “That makes me sound like my father.” Her disgust was evident in her tone, but her slender face shone with mirth as she regarded her familiar visitor.
Russell dismounted and placed his helmet on his seat. “Figured I’d be the first one here,” he said, unzipping his jacket and draping it over his handlebars to dry. Droplets rolled from its leather exterior to pool on the floor beneath his boots.
“As usual,” the woman agreed. Veriska was a demon in disguise—a terrifyingly intelligent woman who was as ruthless as she was ambitious, as cruel as she was strikingly beautiful. She was not only the president of Newark Pharmaceuticals, but also the head of her own laboratory…a laboratory that consisted of all eight available underground floors of the mammoth skyscraper. A laboratory that, for Russell and the organization to which he belonged, was as essential to their survival as the oxygen that filled his lungs.
but now i have finally seen the end
and i’m not expecting you to care
Russell stepped up to her, closing the short distance between them until they nearly touched. Veriska Lang was intoxicating; she was perhaps the only person in the world he feared, knowing she was as heartless a scientist as she was a businesswoman as she was anything else. She wouldn’t hesitate to slide her long, slender fingers around his neck to strangle the life from his body. Perhaps it was the danger that drew him to her—and she to him, given his own predisposition to violence—but either way, it was more than simple professional agreements that had kindled their mutual attraction. He liked her unpredictability, her mercilessness. It was poetic, in a way, that she was just as likely to murder him as he was to murder her.
As he leaned in to brush his lips against hers, the humid air thickened, growing hotter, more difficult to breathe, more difficult to keep himself in check. It was bad enough to make these exchanges in plain view of the security cameras (which were unavoidable); to display this kind of closeness with their ally in front of his club would be as good as tying his own noose. Neither side could afford this kind of compromise, yet there they were, treading the line between safety and chaos, as ever. Part of the rush. Part of the appeal.
They leapt apart as soon as the door jolted open once more, this time allowing passage for a group of six additional motorcyclists clad in similar black leather. Russell watched, unblinking, as the rest of his gang council parked their rides, a small stream of water trailing after them as they stripped their soaked gear and gathered, looking disheveled, in front of the woman.
Veriska looked strangely nervous as she stood, tapping her heel on the ground, arms folded tightly across her chest. She had never been intimidated by Russell’s gang, not even by Pryce himself, the president of the Catalysts, but here she seemed suddenly to shrink. Russell narrowed his eyes and joined his ranks, following when the young woman took off towards the security-protected stairwell and led them to her private meeting floor below.
“Right,” she announced, standing at the head of a long elliptical table while her rough-and-tumble audience shuffled in to take their seats. Russell, the last one inside, closed the door tightly and joined the ranks of his council. “Straight to business. Is everything in order?”
Pryce looked up, brows arched high. “Our team is in place,” he confirmed. “And this. Your payment.”
“This is only half,” she declared, without looking at the black canvas bag the man pushed towards her.
“Half now, half later,” he stated.
Veriska narrowed her eyes. Russell recognized a spark of predatory fire in their dark depths, and he held his breath silently, awaiting her response. She would never threaten the club leader when the rest of the council were in the same room. The woman may have been smarter then the entire Catalyst group combined, but she was plainly outnumbered. At last, she heaved a sigh and spoke. “That was not our agreement,” was all she mustered.
Pryce shrugged. “Deal’s off, then.”
“And you plan to go through with it without my help?”
“Damn straight we will.”
Veriska laughed. “You’ll go in blind, without a shred of intel? Give me a break. You’re a con, but I didn’t think you were stupid. Your threats are as empty as this whole damn city, and if you think you can pull the wool over my eyes after five years of solid partnership, maybe you deserve what you’ll get. They catch you, you’ll wind up right back inside ACESO—only on an operating table.”
Russell cleared his throat. The daggers in Veriska’s glare as she shifted her attention would have been physically painful for any other Catalyst at the table, including their infallible president. Russell, however, mustered a crooked and entirely fearless smile. “You think for one second we’re trusting you—and not just you, the rest of your crew too—to get us into ACESO without tipping off some bastard guard or worse?” He snorted, reaching for the bag of cash across the table and snagging it on his finger. “What’s to stop you from taking your prize and leaving the cons to rot? If that’s all we are to you, then fuck it all, you go right ahead and recruit another group to distribute your product. Good luck with that, by the way.”
The men collectively inhaled, holding their breath in anticipation. But Veriska’s hand, her long oval nails painted in fresh jewel-tone magenta, shot out to intercept the payment in a blur that was eerily reminiscent of a viper’s strike. Russell looked smug, relinquishing his grasp. So that was why she’d looked nervous. She had been about to play them, or at the very least turn a blind eye as someone under her command unraveled their delicate plan.
“Fine,” she said tightly, running a finger through her long black hair. “Fair enough.”
“It’s better this way,” Pryce piped in, apparently regaining his courage. He nodded to Russell—thanks, brother, he seemed to say—and rose to his feet. Everyone in the meeting room knew very well that Newark couldn’t afford to lose even half of the Catalysts’ final total payment; worse yet, they would fall into complete ruin should the distributors of their addictive synthetic substances suddenly repeal their longtime alliance. Newark’s survival was almost completely reliant upon their partnership with the Catalysts, who functioned as one of very few organized bridges between Pharma and their vast clientele of dependents. Now that they were working together in the quest so solve their competitor’s epic biomedical mistake, everything was truly on the line.
“Marsden will be in touch,” Pryce continued, referring to the club’s favorite techie—and lead infiltrator. “We move tomorrow night. The arrangements are the same as we discussed before. Equal parts in what we find.” He cleared his throat, and when his hand moved to the inside of his jacket to indicate the threat of his concealed weapon, so too did the other six Catalysts. Veriska maintained her composure, but Russell detected a wrinkle of concern in the corners of her almond eyes. He smirked.
“Let’s not forget the rest of our arrangements,” Russell added. “It’s business as usual outside of this room. Got it?” He looked from one solemn face to the next until his icy stare landed on the young woman. “The rest of the guys will be expecting a new drug shipment day after tomorrow. Alletrax, Hallastrin, Malphoren, the usual. Whatever happens, they can’t know any of us were involved. They can’t know what we were after, either.”
“And if your team goes down?” she asked.
Russell grinned, pulling out his silver pistol and holding it lazily to her bare temple. “You’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Won’t you?”
Veriska bristled, but her eyes had widened. “I’ll do what I can,” she promised coldly, regarding him with such disdain he had a hard time not kissing her then and there in front of the entire Catalyst council. The thought made him chuckle, and he put away his weapon as Pryce lead the group back outside. Veriska scanned her thumbprint and allowed them passage to the garage. As they geared up and collectively departed into the storm as a herd of growling industrial beasts, Russell could feel the scientist’s eyes on his back.
The fun was just about to begin.
————————
Marsden Banks was a technological genius, a man who, if Russell had not previously witnessed him bleeding with his own eyes, may as well have been constructed of electronic circuitry himself. Breaking into ACESO, according to Marsden, was not so much overcoming a barrier of difficulty as it was a matter of time and patience and careful coordination. It was like a theater performance, he’d said, or a ballet. Preparation, rehearsal. Repeat.
The company upon whose shoulders the performance rested had been hand-selected by the council—pending approval from Marsden—and consisted of five of the Catalysts’ best soldiers. The techie was the first; he would initiate the system break-in and reprogram the door security to include their false identification. The second posed as a patient in the building’s main lobby, incognito among the general populace. The final three functioned as a tag-team that would allow clearance one level deeper to the next; the first would grant access to the second and third together before standing guard, then the second would give final access to the last—who, as it turned out, was none other than Catalyst Vice President Russell Hinder.
He’d been selected because he was smart and he was ruthless; he was thorough and he was quick. It was perhaps a risky move to allow one’s vice president to be in the crosshairs of a dangerous mission, but in this case it would have been a greater hazard to send someone else in his place. Despite their prowess, despite their firepower and their influence, the majority of those bearing the Catalyst title were good for little more than muling drugs from Newark shipments to the dealers in the streets. They were necessary in the chain of command and productivity, sure, but that did not make them leadership material—they were members of the Outer Chapter, and they were not privy to internal affairs.
After passing through each obstacle with relative ease, Russell at last lowered himself into the tall-backed chair perched behind an immaculate desk. His gloved fingers raced across the computer keyboard, entering an impossibly lengthy code Marsden had insisted he memorize; it would, the man said, override the security in place that guarded not only the laboratory entrances, but also the extensive set of incubators, storage compartments, and medicinal cabinets just beyond the armored threshold.
Reciting the digits in his head, the young man—too near thirty for comfort, but that was a worry for another day—was so absorbed in his translation that he did not hear the soft shuffle of footsteps behind him, nor the gentle click of a carefully-opened door to his back.
The fun was about to begin indeed.
maybe i’m too headstrong
our love is madness
ACCESS DENIED.
A frown lined Nadia’s youthful face as she inspected her ID key card. A glitch, perhaps; the minutest scratch on this comparatively archaic technology could render it completely useless. It happened often enough to be believable. Making a show of blowing and gently scratching dirt from the QRC, she held it in front of the scanner, waited five seconds and, then lowered it with a quick jerk of her wrist.
Once again, the light flashed red.
ACCESS DENIED.
She waited; waited some more. Held up her card, rinsed, repeated. Well, this could get annoying, and very quickly…
“Having some trouble, Dr. Paisley?” Thomas, the department’s administrative assistant, finally leaned forward across the black counter, his nametag scraping on the polished wood, wide blue eyes wide and hungry for information. Whoever’s sexist judgement it had been that hiring a young male for the position would nullify the possibility of gossip spreading, they had been sorely mistaken. Thomas fed on gossip much like a vampire of ancient folklore fed on blood. If her opinion mattered, he shouldn’t have been allowed to go home every night without having his memory cleansed of what it carried from day to day at his job.
Unfortunately, it was becoming clearer to Dr. Nadia M. Paisley that her opinion didn’t matter to ACESO as much as it should have.
“This card again.” The scientist shrugged her shoulders and approached him in a few measured strides, sliding her identification pass across the desk. The iridescent sheen of ACESO’s watermark glimmered in the overhead light, as vibrant as the neon lights of the compound itself. “I don’t think it knows who I am, anymore.”
“Yeah? I don’t know why you don’t just use the retinal scanner like everyone else. They don’t forget who you are. ” The young man snorted, but took her card anyway, inspecting it front to back with far more scrutiny than she had. “Looks fine to me. Wait, didn’t I just reprint you a new card like, two weeks ago?”
Nadia simply shrugged again, and tucked a non-existent tress of hair behind her ear. She wasn’t about to give him any leads; once he was thrown a line, he’d run with it, the way a stupid dog ran with a Frisbee. “You did. Maybe it’s the mechanism in the lock. My name’s on the schedule; might as well just check it so you can clear me.”
“Or you could just use the retinal scanner.”
A tense beat of silence passed, just long enough for Thomas to realize (a little too late) that he’d spoken completely out of line, and to someone who’s displeasure always instilled spine-chilling uneasiness. Such was Nadia’s effect; perhaps it had to do with her unshakably calm demeanor, or the fact that she had helped make many names disappear mysteriously off of lists of patients and subjects, and even other employees. He liked his name where it was.
Thomas’ round, youthful face was tinted pink as he cleared his throat and set the scientist’s card aside, before turning back to his computer screen. “I’ll see if I can get someone to check the wiring on the door mechanism,” he amended, long fingers flying over the keyboard almost as quickly as a hummingbird beat its wings. “Though I’d like to know what you have against the retinal scanner. Not like it’s gonna blind you.”
“Let’s just call it personal choice, and leave it at that.”
“If you say so, Doc. But if you ask me, it sounds kind of sus—…” The young man’s voice trailed off, lines creasing his brow as he looked over the screen, scrolled up and down the page, and looked again. “Hey, um… it doesn’t actually say that you’re supposed to be here. Wait, you don’t even have A-level clearance, do you? So then what—”
He was out like a light before he could even finish.
Nadia lunged forward as quickly and efficiently as a wildcat on its unsuspecting prey, slid something long and cylindrical from the pocket of her coat, and jabbed it into the side of Thomas’ neck. Catching him around the shoulders before his unconscious form could fall forward and hit his head on the desk, the young researcher pushed him back into his chair, head and arms hanging limp, but alive. “Cliché, but you brought it on yourself.” She murmured, slipping the hypodermic syringe back into the inner pocket of her stark-white lab coat before stretching her upper body across the desk to access the computer. “Should’ve just opened the door for me…” The boy would really do well to become more attuned to nonverbal communication—that being that making direct eye contact with Dr. Nadia Paisley was nothing less of declaring a challenge.
Sometimes, breaking the rules was all too easy. All it took was bringing up the security program and entering the number-letter combination she’d memorized after glancing at some less-than-permissible files to let up the airtight lock on the door. Grabbing her identity card from the desk (which, incidentally, functioned perfectly well), she wasted no more time, and when she tried the door handle this time below the plaque labeled ‘CIS’ (ACESO’s designated sector for central information storage; also known as exceedingly limited clearance for the data it contained), there was nothing barring her way.
When biomedical corporations owned and ran the world, you wanted to make it your life goal for them to notice you; or, at least, in such a way that would maximize your usefulness, in their eyes. Following the war and with the apocalyptic emergence of the Youth Crisis, you were, after all, only one of two things: a player, a scientific soldier fighting the war against the human race’s frighteningly diminished life expectancy, or you were a potential lab rat, contributing (willingly or otherwise) your body and life to the battle against early death, without living to tell the tale.
Many factors contributed to the way the remainder of the human race was viewed: genetics, for one, played a large part in determining human value… which, inexorably, stemmed from an ever-present (yet more amplified than ever) dichotomy of social castes. After all, it was the wealthier families, those who could afford the competing corporations’ medical solutions and health care, that bore the healthier, more resilient offspring. Those at the mercy of the streets, and even those few lower middle-class working as janitors and cashiers who struggled to make ends meet and keep themselves afloat, could hardly afford the maintenance and care that went in to having children. And, for those who did, their sons and daughters often remained stuck in the same shoes as their parents: avoiding the hypodermic needles and operating tables of Newark, Faribault Group and ACESO only by way of facilitating and perpetuating the luxurious, privileged lives of the corporations’ employees.
Nadia Archer had been lucky from the very beginning. Born to privileged parents, both medical technicians for Newark, she had been pegged for VIP status in the medical community from the day she was born. Avoiding what was left of the useless dregs of free public schooling, both she and her older brother, Aidan Archer, were molded by the privatized instruction that Newark offered to many of the children of its employees. Sheltered from the darker parts of Pharma City, those districts without power or protection, the Archer children (like all of the upper class) were not only privileged with prime education, but to the dying parts of human culture that the rich grasped at with desperate fingers. Aidan pursued music in his leisure, and Nadia—who’s small, lithe body had practically been built for the art—engaged in the rigorous practice of ballet, becoming ambassadors of culture along with brilliant, developing minds.
Life did not change much for them when their parents—Nadia at age thirteen, and Aidan, fourteen—both succumbed to the anticipated rapid organ failure at the age of thirty. If you decided to have children, you decided fast, and you had them young, with the expectancy of about a decade and a half of upbringing. For the wealthy employees of the pharma corporations, this meant security for their children in their passing, and a promise that they would still have a chance to thrive; for the poor… well, it all depended on how resilient were their offspring, and/or how well they knew how to play the system.
Newark took good care of the Archer offspring, who—like everyone who recognized the new urgency and delicacy of the human condition—were too preoccupied with their studies to take any extensive amount of time to ponder their new status as orphans, and wards of the company. Their studies and leisurely activities continued, as did their studies, and by the ages of sixteen and seventeen, both were offered full access into Newark’s applied research field, with promising jobs and the prestige that accompanied it. Aidan, with his aptitude for psychology and his intuition into the human mind and behaviour, was quick to pursue a career in the field of psychiatry (and with the human life severed to a third, mental health issues were rampant). And Nadia, with a keen interest in virology, immunology and genetics, came very close to following suit.
Until ACESO—tipped off about her intelligence and aptitude for scientific brilliance that extended far beyond her years at the age of sixteen—offered her a far more attractive proposition. Newark’s most dangerous competitor offered her not only the deepest insights into their top-secret research, but a position among their most valuable ranks when her higher-level education. Ambitious as Nadia was (and relatively tired of Newark’s predictable methods that lacked that extra-creative component that she sought), her hesitation was not long. She bid her brother and Newark goodbye with no more than a smile over her shoulder.
Had she known what was really in store, she may have reconsidered. But all things aside, where Newark had stifled Nadia Archer’s talent and extraordinary scientific prowess, ACESO nurtured it in all the right ways. They provided her with the education and the promised prestige that accompanied it, and she wanted for nothing—but, then, there was really nothing she wanted. So focused was the young scientist on ACESO’s ground breaking research that she worked equally and obsessively between the virology and immunology, and genetics department. Despite the thousand (and counting) employees at ACESO’s disposal, with at least two thirds of them working in theoretical or applies research, last name Paisley (one that she’d assumed for undisclosed reasons) appeared first on at least one third of their findings and publications, which inspired some intra-company jealousy on the part of some of her colleagues.
But when the world was struggling to breathe its last breaths, paying heed to envy was superfluous and unnecessary. And like all else irrelevant to her ultimate goals, Nadia found no difficulty in ignoring it. Just as she found it frighteningly easy to ignore her brother’s Emails and messages on her cell phone, demanding to know why she had suddenly stopped returning his attempts to establish contact. Just because the biomedical research companies maintained some tenuous truce through silence and lack of disclosure did not mean that the same had to apply to families, and Nadia could have continued on with the amicable camaraderie that they had established at a young age. But she chose not to.
Because as she progressed in her studies, and learned more not only about the critical condition of the world and humankind, the genius young scientist couldn’t help but begin to notice the kinks and inconsistences of the very fibres of which all three rivals were made. By the age of twenty one, Nadia Marie Paisley Archer was an expert in virology, immunology and genetics, a medical doctor, and an extremely skilled surgeon. She was easily the most advanced and one of the most valuable contributors to ACESO’s research.
A lesser known fact was that she was also the company’s worst nightmare, and a dire threat to their future—perhaps, in fact, they anticipated it, hence their hesitance in allotting her full clearance of the entire compound and access to whatever informations she desired. Because with knowledge came power, and with the knowledge that Nadia already had (and that which she sought), her goals evolved to not only differ from, but contradict those of ACESO.
She was going to find a way to save the world. And then, she was going to make the world beg for it.
Isolating access to the full extent of its server to a single room was both the most annoying, and most tactful security measure that ACESO could take. The company was notorious for carefully selecting what it wanted certain department to know, barring access to information that it deemed irrelevant for their purpose and research. Even with Dr. Paisley’s patient skills of decryption, and the efforts she put forth to gather the information that she wanted from outside her departments, there was only one means of accessing ACESO’s server in its entirety. Fortunately, she was daring enough to load her pockets with hypodermic needles, take her life in her hands (and the lives of those unfortunate enough to serve as an obstacle) and go forth.
In a dying and unforgiving world, if you wanted something badly enough, you had to take it for yourself.
Nadia hurried, light-footed and stealthy down the stark white corridor, pupils constricting against the bright, concentrated lights that beamed from the ceiling and made her grow warm beneath the stiff collar of her lab coat. Many people would have attributed that to nerves, but Nadia Paisley did not get nervous; nervousness required a sense of uncertainty, and the young woman’s sense of confidence was at times both her best friend and worst enemy. Then again, it also made her borderline fearless, as well as a dangerous risk taker, so whether it was a virtue at all was entirely debatable.
“Doctor Paisley?” At the very end of the hallway, a security guard stood beside a door that read STOP: A-CLEARANCE ONLY. “Can I please see your ID? With all due respect, I didn’t think you were… How did you even get in? Is something wrong?”
“In that we have a problem? Yes.” Without slowing her pace, Nadia stalked up to the astonished security guard, whipped her hand from her pocket and jammed the point of a hypodermic needle into the side of his neck; with any luck, that would be the last one she would have to waste. “Problem solved.”
As the guard’s thick body slid down the ground in a heavy heap, Nadia punched in the code on the door’s number pad with nimble efficiency, trying the handle when the light flashed green.
And then she found herself face with her final obstacle between herself and the tenuous, albeit crucial goal that she sought. Sitting at the controls of the heart of ACESO’s security—they needed to make sure you wouldn’t access the CIS without passing it, first--was another young woman, not much older than herself (although, in this day and age, that was a given). The stupid fool was nodding off, just seconds before her colleague joined her, when her head snapped up and eyes grew wide.
“Nadia! Fuck, you scared me.” She swore, sitting up straight and adjusting her ponytail. “What are you doing here? No one’s scheduled to take over my shift for hours… And, no offense, whoever it is, no offense, but I’m betting it’s not you.” Wrinkling her nose, she held out her hand for Nadia’s ID. “Do you even have A-level clearance?”
“There is just something that I have to do, Sheila.”
“Right. And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Sheila wrinkled her upturned nose and made to rise from her seat. “On whose authority? You can’t just—”
She never made it to her feet. Before she could put the weight on her knees, Nadia’s fingers hooked into the girl’s frizzy bangs, and forced her head back against one of the LED security screens with an audible crack. A wet streak of red smeared the cracked black screen as Sheila’s (lifeless or otherwise) body seeped a mess onto the floor, the back of her mussed brown hair clotted and muddy with her own lifeblood.
Nadia didn’t so much as toss her a glance over her shoulder to see if she was still alive. The young scientist made for the glaring blue button at the end of the control panel, that instantly unlocked the only other door in the room with an audible buzz, and a glowing green light. The only thing between her and the master computer was the threshold of an open door.
And, apparently, one more person…
How he’d got in, Nadia would never know, unless he’d been clever enough to access it from the emergency exit; an area that was heavily guarded, but with the right tactics at your disposal, not an impossible means of entry (especially not when the person assigned to watching the screens was too busy dozing off; dumb luck, on his part). Walking from heel to toe, practiced as she was in the care she took to distribute her weight on her feet, her fingertips brushed against the reassuring glass of a loaded syringe as the scientist approached him. He appeared to know what he was doing, focused as he was on the keyboard beneath his hands and the screen in front of his eyes. One glance at the latter made her eyes widen: he was here for the same reason that she was. For a brief moment, she watched, stunned, as a progress bar showed up in glowing blue. He’d accessed it; he’d cracked the code, and he’d made it in. And… he’s sending it off… who is he sending it to?
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he had to be stopped.
Nadia only really had one shot. Chances were, he was armed, and if she didn’t move with just the right precision, she would miss, and he would have the upper hand, with a weight (and most likely, height) advantage. All she had was stealth, strategy, and a couple of injectables; all very useful, and effective… if you didn’t screw up.
Fortunately, Dr. Paisley wasn’t one to make mistakes. Not often.
One light step. One more, stretching her foot further, wrapping her practiced fingers around the cool glass cylinder of her syringe…
And then she was on him; pivoted to the far side of his seat, the tip of the needle at his neck, just barely piercing the flesh that protected his carotid artery. “First: hands off the keyboard.” Her voice, so calm and quiet, barely carrying throughout the otherwise hollow room. Nadia waited for him to comply (at least he was smart enough not to fuck with someone holding a needle to his throat) before she made her second command. “Good. No need for any further movement; I should give you fair warning that my trigger finger is a little too practiced.”
The needle was off his throat for only a second, long enough to spin the chair around so that he faced her, and then it was back at his neck. Just because she couldn’t see weapons didn’t mean they weren’t concealed, and her green eyes did not leave his blue ones as one quick frisk with her free hand found a silver pistol tucked into the inside of his black coat. It may not have been his only weapon, but now was hardly the opportunity for any thorough check: and anyway, she wouldn’t be giving him a moment to retaliate.
Tucking the pistol into the waistband of her own pants, Nadia’s liberated hand inserted a chip the size of a fingernail into the body of the computer. The process interrupted and terminated whatever transfer of information he had activated, and the download started anew, copying directly to the harddisk. “I should almost be thanking you,” the dangerous scientist drawled, resisting the nervous habit of digging her short nails into the ball of her hand as she watched the progress bar fill, pulsing increasingly bluer as it further completion. But she did not let Russell out of her peripheral vision. The corner of her mouth twitched into a rare grin, she shook her head once to make her dark-blonde ponytail fall obediently between her shoulder blades. “I don’t know how you managed to get this far, but you’ve made my job exponentially easier.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Marsden Banks stared unblinkingly at the wall of monitors before him, his pale skin painted an eerie blue by the glow of his screens. Where normally he was a nervous flurry of activity, fingers flying across any one of several keyboards strewn across his chrome desk, now he sat perfectly still, his gaze locked on the blinking text appearing steadily line-by-line in the center of his carefully-organized console.
Come on, you bastard, he urged silently, gritting his teeth. Some ten miles away from where Marsden sat waiting, the Catalyst vice president was inputting a complex series of symbols and numerals into an ACESO supercomputer. The live feed of Russell’s entry was almost too suspenseful to watch. On one hand, accuracy was absolutely paramount—in a digital coding environment that did not allow backspacing, one wrong keystroke would trip the delicate security script Marsden and Veriska’s specialists had spent months disalarming. But time was also of the essence, meaning that the keying had to be rapid; the window of lowered security could exceed a duration of no more than five minutes without alerting the rest of the system to the breach. Should that be triggered, none of the infiltrating Catalysts would breathe the air outside of ACESO ever again.
So far, so good. Marsden gnawed at his lip until he tasted blood, clenching his hands into triumphant fists as the glowing azure code prompted yet another display to illuminate with bright green text. Russell was in, and the download had been initialized. Thank the fuckin’ lord, the techie thought, letting out a whoop. As long as the transfer continued uninterrupted, the Catalysts would be in possession of ACESO’s entire server library in less than three additional minutes. Decades worth of trial and error, drug formulas, lab results—all of it would be theirs, with Pharma City none the wiser.
But when the green of the swift download suddenly changed to red and came to an abrupt stall, Marsden Banks knew something had gone desperately wrong.
With his senses already heighted by the adrenaline of their heist, Russell Hinder felt all too keenly the sharp needlepoint that penetrated the surface of the skin at his neck. He froze, his fingers stalling mid-query, and slowly lowered his hands from the keyboard to his knees.
The chair swiveled slowly without his bidding, and he found himself face-to-face with a woman whose green eyes were as cold and piercing as the hypodermic syringe she wielded in her small fist. Had he been anywhere else, in any other circumstance, he might have laughed. But here, now, with a tube full of who-knows-what at his exposed throat, he thought better of expressing false amusement for the sake of a bluff.
He stiffened as her free hand frisked for weapons, his jaw clenching tightly as her fingers quickly discovered the pistol he’d tucked carefully away inside his jacket. His furious blue eyes were expressionless as he watched her tuck it into the waist of her trousers. Judging by the way she handled the weapon even for that small gesture, she was inexperienced with guns. Pity he hadn’t gotten to it himself first; if he was lucky, perhaps she would accidentally shoot herself and solve both their dilemmas.
“And just what might that be?” he asked at last, speaking for the first time since her initial threat. “Your job?”
He didn’t allow her the satisfaction of answering. In one swift movement, he brought his knee upward and unsheathed the knife he kept tucked in the sheath of his boot—the defense she had not detected with her haphazard search. Beneath the fluorescent lights that glared sterilely from the ceiling above the administrative desk, the silver of its slender blade glinted maliciously as he spun. Swiveling the chair to knock her off-balance, he caught her needle-wielding wrist in his free hand and leapt to his feet, shoving her against the gray metal cabinets with the momentum of his body weight. Pinning her there with his hand around her wrist, he held his knife blade to her jaw and pressed until it drew a single droplet of warm crimson.
“You were saying, about your job?” he demanded, his voice a smooth, predatory hiss in her ear.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
But the talented researcher didn’t have time to consider the implications and possibilities, and anyway, the majority of her attention was focused on the progress bar, heart racing as it neared completion. Nadia exhaled a deep sigh that she didn’t realize she’d been holding when the pulsing blue line filled in its entirety and turned green, confirming the process was complete, and her small fingers were quick to eject the small disk and tuck it into the front pocket of her fitted dress pants (her lab coat was too risky, in the even that she lost it).
But she wasn’t quick enough to anticipate the man’s movement, from his knee coming up to the flash of silver he pulled from his boot. By the time she realized what he was holding, he spun in his chair, seized her small wrist and body checked her into the stainless steel cabinets. The subtle sting near her jawline alerted her to the fact that, not only had she missed the knife in her quick frisk, but that the blade must have been newly sharpened to draw blood with minimal pressure.
“…a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Her voice hardly pitched in cadence, despite that she’d list her advantage, and to make a point, she willingly dropped the syringe from her fingers, the needle landing with a ping on the hard floor. “Incidentally, it is only a sedative. And my job,” she annunciated, half-lidded eyes meeting his without fear, “is my duty to myself.”
“Russ? The fuck you doin’ messing around?” Having taken more than the estimated time to retrieve the information they were after, the two men serving as backup for the Catalyst Vice President, entered through the room’s emergency exit to see what was taking so long. When their eyes fell on Nadia, one of them had the audacity to laugh. “You fuckin’ kidding me, bro? This little pixie got you shakin’ in your shorts? Stop fuckin’ around, man, we gotta split. There ain’t no time for you to be playin’ with little girls.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
“Dramatic?” Russell scoffed, tightening his grip on the young woman’s wrist. He didn’t have to see the needle fall to know that she’d relinquished her grip of the syringe. “Says the bitch jamming tranqs in people’s necks? Is that how you got in here?” He tightened his jaw, his blue eyes glimmering with enmity as he met her aggravatingly steady green gaze. She couldn’t have used the emergency stairwell; that was how he had gotten in, and none of his crew had encountered any evidence that another intruder had beaten them to the game.
But he didn’t have the luxury of an interrogation. Her dismissal of his question abruptly ended their unconventional conversation, frustrating him all the more. They were wasting time here, but he wasn’t entirely certain how he could manage to escape her without risking his own safety and the security of their entire operation. It was too late to retrieve the rest of the computerized data himself; Marsden had warned him there was a strict window, and that opportunity had come and gone with the prick of a hypodermic needle. His only chance of retrieval was to confiscate the young woman’s chip copy—and as she’d tucked it in her pants pocket rather than her lab coat, a stealthy maneuver was almost impossible.
The voice of one of his crew members did not surprise him; they were supposed to intervene should he take longer than the scheduled time to appear for departure. But what he had not anticipated (besides the needle-wielding bitch, of course) was the men’s ridicule, which was nearly as out of place as the trio themselves in the thick of ACESO. Russell bristled. “She’s got information,” he declared, eyes flashing fire.
“I know how we can get the bitch to talk,” one of the crew members, Oswald, suggested, his grin toothy and lewd. He cracked his massive knuckles and stepped closer, his partner in tow. “Get outta the way, Russy-boy. The fuck they make you V.P., huh? Scared of a little pixie? Nothing a good fucking can’t fix, huh?”
Oswald didn’t make it another step. Russell, releasing the other intruder from his grip, scooped up her discarded syringe from the floor and jammed it deep into the thug’s neck below the mandibular joint. He collapsed almost immediately, his head colliding with a sickening crack as it struck the edge of the desk. Russell watched as a pool of crimson leaked from the fallen Catalyst, spreading quickly to the feet of the other man.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
So in reply, she simply said, “Yes. There were no casualties.” Of course, she couldn’t speak for Sheila, but her years of expertise had taught her that it typically took more than a bad crack to the skull to invite death.
Their confrontation was cut relatively short by the entry of two other men, both who, Nadia was quick to find out, happened to be working with her current adversary. There was admonishment on their faces and in their words, and the term ‘pixie’ was thrown around a few times. Typically, the gross under-estimation was something she’d invite, considering how well it worked to her advantage. But the current predicament that left her without an ace up her sleeve already had the scientist frustrated and with short-circuited patience, particularly when one of the two men stalked towards her, cracking his knuckles and wearing his pride on his face. The almost imperceptible narrowing of her eyelids spoke of a challenge that she didn’t voice, inviting the hostility that he put forth. Come on, then, she egged him on silently. He might have had fists, but she had a few more syringes at her disposal; he might have had street smarts, but she had over a decade of ballet, that had granted her flexibility, smooth stealth, and unparalleled stamina (it was, after all, an art that required a greater degree of physical fitness than you’d imagine).
Imagine her surprise when her assailant turned his attention away for her, to pick up the needle she’d discarded, jamming the tip roughly into his comrade’s neck. There really was no accounting for loyalty, these days…
“What the fuck!” Maxim, the other man serving as Russell’s back-up, stared wide-eyed at his fallen comrade—and his other comrade (or the man who he’d thought was on his side), who’d just injected God only knew what into Oswald’s veins. Turning on Russell, he sneered. “You fuckin’ crazy, or something? We’ll see how long you stay Pryce’s number one favourite when he sees—whoa, hey, what the fuckin’ hell!”
Maxim’s words were cut short when he refocused on the woman that Russell had been apprehending. No longer subdued by a knife at her throat, she now held a pistol—hey, didn’t that belong to Russell?—in both hands; unpracticed, by the looks of it, but you never underestimate someone with a gun. “Whoa, sweetheart. No one here has to get shot. Just put the—”
“You’re wasting my time,” Nadia told him, her voice flat and dire, as she trained the gun above Maxim’s neck and fired. It was nothing person; simply that Russell was no longer the bigger threat. After all, he was the only one of the three who wasn’t immediately armed.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
But Maxim wasn’t having any of it, sedative or not. Russell had just taken out a close ally for the sake of some labcoat-wearing bitch that any of them should’ve been able to crush under one boot. After months of preparation, this mission had backfired in more ways than even algorithm-happy Marsden had been able to predict. Half an encrypted computer log, a fallen comrade, a girl with unknown allegiances apparently after the same data…what else, Russell thought with annoyance, could go wrong now?
Maxim’s outburst alerted him to what he should have seen coming. He swung around, wide-eyed, to be greeted with the image of the lithe young woman unsteadily aiming his pistol, declaring that her time was being wasted. “No!” the vice president shouted, his knife clattering to the floor as he leapt forward to intercept the gun. He grabbed her arms and angled them upwards with a swift jerk, but he’d already blown any element of surprise he could’ve used to his advantage. The girl was surprisingly strong for her size, and as Russell snaked one arm around her neck and the other around her forearm, the gun exploded in her grasp with a deafening blast that left his ears ringing painfully. The hot loaded round knocked their already precarious balance of tangled limbs over the edge, and Russell had to dislodge himself from her small body in order to catch his fall.
He recovered just in time watch his prized silver pistol crash to the hard tile floor. His supposed ally momentarily forgotten, he scrambled to recover the gun as Maxim staggered back, clutching his belly. She had overcompensated for the kick-back, and not knowing the heat of his loads, she’d had no way of accurately aiming it; regardless, it appeared she’d struck him in the gut, a hit that had not killed him outright but would likely be lethal in the deserted wing of the ACESO floor without proper attention. Shit.
“Okay, okay, enough of that,” Russell said hotly, jumping to his feet and training his weapon on the woman. He narrowed his eyes down the short barrel. “Now who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing here? I’ve got two corpses here already and believe me when I say I have no issue making it three. Answer me.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
At least it had achieved its desired effect. Nadia watched with impassive, clinical interest as the other man fell to the ground, clutching his abdomen as red blossomed from between his fingers. The young doctor’s silent, medical judgement did not give him long for this world, but she suddenly found herself staring at the hollow barrel of the pistol as it was trained on her, and didn’t have time to contemplate how long it would take the guy to bleed out.
With little other choice (her syringes were useless from this distance), Nadia raised her hands halfway, palms out, in tentative submission. “I hardly think my identity or purpose will be of much use to you,” she began, daringly meeting his gaze, “but if you’re determined to know: my name is Nadia Paisley. I am a scientific researcher, a medical doctor as well as an occasional surgeon here at ACESO.” Or perhaps she should have referred to her position in the past-tense; a nagging feeling in her gut told her that her ID would soon cease to grant her any clearance whatsoever (in or out of the grand ACESO compound). Even with security apprehended, the company always seemed to have a way of tracing its employees’ steps, knowing where they were at any given point in the day. “And, as of the past decade, I am responsible for at least a third of ACESO’s publications concerning genetics and immunology.” A tiny smile curled the corner of her mouth when she added, “I suppose you could say, I am simply taking back what is mine.”
He was bluffing, though; he wasn’t about to kill her. At least, he’d quickly reconsider, when she told him what she had to say. “You don’t have enough time to make a second attempt at the process that I interrupted,” Nadia drawled, looking almost bored at his empty threat. “It’s all on the chip, now, but it’s protected by the most secure encryption currently in existence. The most sophisticated hacking program could take up to fifty years to crack it; and, well. Who has that kind of time anymore?” Lifting her chin just a little, she flashed a patronizing smile. “If you want what you came for, then you need me alive.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Tonight he had experienced one of the downfalls of his arms of choice—the fact that it could be stolen and subsequently abused. Explosives weren’t likely to be taken from their place of deployment, even before they were detonated. It was too risky. But a pistol? He’d been careless to keep it so easily accessible on his person, too confident in their preparation for this mission. Guns weren’t so easily nabbed when you were speeding down the avenue on a motorcycle.
But he had the upper hand now, at least for the moment. He studied her as she spoke, narrowing his eyes to dark slits as she revealed her identity, her position. It didn’t add up. “So you’re a hotshot pharma whore and here you are, breaking and entering in your own facility?” he asked, his skepticism written plainly across his features. He adjusted his grasp of the gun, cupping his left palm around the base of his trigger hand. Neither of them had time for this kind of bullshit. If he kept her there, they would both get caught—and he wasn’t willing to go down for the sake of her persecution. He would have to ask questions later. She didn’t have to make an announcement for him to realize she’d called his bluff.
But it would have been easy to pull the trigger, to set her up for the murders of Maxim and Oswald and escape with the chip all to himself. Pryce wouldn’t have to find out about how Russell had made Oswald a point; hell, he wouldn’t have to find out about Nadia Paisley catching him by surprise at all. But she had a point he couldn’t refute, and that was that even with Marsden’s full attention and knowledge at his disposal, he didn’t have the time to wait for the latter half of the stolen data to be decrypted. None of them did. He wasn’t sure he’d even have Marsden as an ally anymore, not after this…
He sighed, annoyed at the prospect of keeping her alive and the implications it meant for him. “Come on,” he said finally, gesturing with the barrel of his gun towards the emergency exit in the back of the room. “We need to get out of here before we get caught in the hellfire your little showdown will attract. I might need you to get at these files, but you need me to get out of here.” Muffled voices sounded from the main hallway door, and Russell arched his brows with increased urgency. “Go. Go.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Or the clearance, as was Nadia’s case.
“I said I work for ACESO,” she replied calmly, the touch of smile fading from her pert mouth. “What you assume beyond that statement is up to you. But allow me to assure you that loyalty to employees, and vice versa, is not a given. Sometimes, when awarded with the right opportunity, you need to simply take what you deserve.” And leave the organization to shoulder what it deserved. And if Nadia was fortunate enough to have it her way, then ACESO, Faribault and even her primary sponsor, Newark, would all be on their knees when she discovered the very solutions that they (along with the rest of humankind) sought to save what was left of human existence.
Working within the confines, the rules and the regulations of these companies was stifling, in any case; and it was about time she allowed her creativity and ingenuity to breathe.
Nodding once at his insistence that they leave, Nadia lowered her hands and stepped over Maxim’s dying body (taking note that Russell showed no desire to try and help the man; not only was he not a bleeding heart, but he knew futility when he saw it) to make her way towards the door. “If you’d like an estimate, given how fast I’ve seen ACESO respond to threats in the past, I’m guessing we have less than three minutes to make it out of the compound. Once they sound the red alert, the building will go into an automatic lockdown. I suggest you move quickly.”
There was no point in looking over her shoulder to see if he followed, or for paranoia of being shot; she knew the fastest way out of the place, better than he did, and he’d already confirmed that it was not in his best interests to kill her. Their only peril was possibly running into fellow colleagues on their way out, but nobody made a habit of taking the emergency stairs, unless it was, of course, a full blown emergency.
Her familiarity with the compound mitigating the time consuming possibility of getting lost, the two of them made it out with about thirty seconds to spare. The damp, humid air of early summer felt like walking into a sodden blanket, and beyond the ACESO compound, Nadia was officially out of her element. “I’ll leave the rest up to you,” she told Russell in an almost conversational tone, turning to look at him again. It had crossed her mind to make a break for it, but even she couldn’t outrun a bullet.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
He didn’t need Nadia’s assessment of ACESO’s security forces to hasten his departure; he knew very well the imminence of a full-scale lockdown. His team had done its research; for all that had gone wrong beyond the scope of their predictions, they’d planned for just as many more likely shortcomings. Exit strategy was always a priority when it came to dangerous schemes like this, and Russell, who had meticulously studied every building plan he could get his hands on, would have had no trouble navigating the pharmaceutical labyrinth even without his captive leading the way. Still, their getaway was efficient, and before long they had broken free of the sterile confines of ACESO’s headquarters to greet a much fresher, if stickier, atmosphere.
“This way,” he instructed, inhaling the thick humid air with well-hidden relief. He kept his gun at his side now, guiding Nadia with a tight grip on her shoulder with his free hand. The cracked sidewalks were still damp from the previous day of torrential rain, and with the comforting glow of Pharma City street lamps behind them, they strode together several blocks into the surrounding darkness.
“Here,” he told her, pulling her roughly around an alley corner. The passage was dark, vacant; it was there, in the cover of nighttime shadow, that he and his crew had stashed their bikes, well out of sight and far enough away that it would be weeks before any law garrison, Pharma or otherwise, discovered the connection. He relinquished his grip on her arm and swung his leg over the familiar machine, sliding his key into the ignition and coaxing life back into the damp engine. The headlamp flooded the passage with light as the motorcycle emitted its familiar growl.
“Put this on and get on back,” he instructed, tucking his gun back inside his jacket and handing her his helmet. “Better protect that pretty noggin of yours, huh, if we want the data from that chip.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Despite her status as a medical doctor, she, personally, seldom to never touched with the intent to heal. And she doubted he did, either.
The only thing that kept her retaliation at bay was logistics; it was only a matter of time before ACESO security assessed what had happened, and the moment she’d stuck a needle into the department administrator’s neck, she’d prepared to become a fugitive. She hadn’t even planned to take her vehicle in her escape, as it was rumoured that ACESO at times kept tabs on their employees’ cars and vans. But there was no way that this guy would put himself at risk without thinking through a means of escape; she’d guessed as much by the beaten leather jacket on his back.
Gritting her teeth as he hauled her around the corner, the silhouette of a motorcycle against the sickly grey hue of the night sky did not inspire any feeling of surprise as he approached it and instructed her to climb on behind. It did, however, inspire a great deal of discomfort, and she hesitated before taking the heavy helmet in her hands. “You speak as though there’s some guarantee that you’ll get what you want,” she mused, casually wiping the slow trickle of blood from below her jaw with the back of her hand. “I suppose there is no harm and continuing to see things as playing in your favor.”
The helmet was too big for her when she slid it over her head and climbed behind him on the motorcycle, uneasy even before she realized the safest means of keeping from toppling off was by wrapping her arms around his waist. “Don’t get too reckless,” she cautioned, out of her own subdued anxiety as she quickly buttoned up her lab coat and slid her arms around his waist. Beneath her fingertips, she felt the solid barrel of his loaded gun, and her mind ran over the possibility of successfully relieving him of the weapon again while he was focused on the road ahead of them.
The thought was lost to her, however, as soon as he tore out from the alleyway, and her fingers dug into his leather coat, her breath catching in her throat and staying there as the world rushed past her at a hundred miles per hour.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Besides, he was skilled enough with its handling to know that should she try to escape, the gutter would be her final resting place regardless. It didn’t matter if the sights were trained between her shoulder blades or tipped downward toward the concrete—she would be as good as dead either way.
It was difficult to explain the feeling of freedom that came from speeding through the black city, accompanied by nothing and no one but the ellipse of your headlight and the unadulterated thunder of the engine at your command. It was a euphoria more powerful than the strongest of Newark’s pharmaceuticals—a rush of adrenaline so pure that it may well be considered a drug in itself. At a hundred, a hundred and ten, a hundred and twenty miles per hour, the wind and the ecstasy were all that mattered.
It was easy to get lost on those rides, a disorientation that had nothing to do with the labyrinthine layout of the empty streets. But this time his attention was rapt, unable to enjoy fully the experience of flying through the abandoned maze of crumbling concrete and rusting steel—he had a passenger. No, not just a passenger, a captive, perhaps the only someone in the world who had threatened his life and lived to tell the tale. As they exited the deserted freeway and approached the unmarked building of Catalyst HQ, Russell was beginning to wonder exactly why—and how—he had allowed that to happen.
The headquarters of the city’s most notorious motorcycle gang looked no different from the surrounding structures that made up the perimeter of the dark neighborhood. In the light of day, its Brutalist concrete walls loaned it the appearance of a weathered but impenetrable stronghold, its scant three upper stories supported by gargantuan stone pillars that allowed its ground floor to function as a street-level garage.
Russell didn’t know what its purpose had been prior to the Catalysts’ acquisition, but he was fairly certain it had not required the intensity of security it boasted now. The ground level, once completely open, had been sealed up with additional concrete walls. The only entrance was through an armored door barely wide enough for an automobile, guarded by keypads, voice recognition devices, and a retina scanner. Russell punched in his number, spoke his name—the first Nadia would have heard of it, given that he had failed to introduce himself after demanding her own information—and allowed the bright green light of the scanner to analyze the patterns in his widened eye. The door obediently granted him access, and he zoomed in quickly to a well-lit but vacant room clearly intended for the parking, storage, and repair of motorcycles.
“We can’t be here long,” he told Nadia as he dismounted, reaching back inside his jacket to retrieve his gun. “Keep quiet and come with me. We’re getting supplies, and then we need to get the fuck out before those bodies come back to me. Got it?” He punched his access code into the stairwell door, pausing before he entered. “And none of that tranq business, got it? Keep the needles to yourself. You might need them for someone worse than me.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Unable to share Russell’s love of the road and the wind, the young researcher was more than a little relieved when he pulled up to a non-descript building, protected by both voice recognition and retinal discrimination. Russell Hinder, she repeated silently to herself, tucking the information at the back of her mind so that it could be put to good use later. When the biker pulled in to what she assumed to be a garage, she removed his helmet, surprised to find her face damp with perspiration. The ride over had kicked up a more pronounced anxious response than she’d thought.
“Relax; if I wanted you unconscious, I just had about a thirty-second window of opportunity, from the minute you parked her bike.” Nadia followed him down the dark stairwell, to the belly of the bikers’ headquarters.
The hideaway was just what she’d expect, from a group of barbarians with the skill to break into ACESO unnoticed. Opening up to what appeared to be a large communal room at the bottom of the stairs, Nadia took quick note of the set-up; cluttered, but not lacking. Russell and his kin did not appear to be at any great deficit where it came to supplies or possessions, though while some were state of the art and brand new (such as the computers designated to their own little corner), other items appeared to be horribly dated (as far as some of the furniture went). She had never seen so much of the past and the future crammed into one room, and co-existing awkwardly.
“So where exactly do you plan to go, if you don’t mind my asking?” Nadia spoke evenly as Russell rushed around to gather what he deemed necessary. That he was hunting for supplies at all suggested that he planned to be away for an extended amount of time; meaning, therefore, so would she…
A thought suddenly occurred to her, and as she reached for the inside pocket of her lab coat, finding the small pill bottle, which she brought out to examine. The tiny yellow capsules of Nostacet were now reduced to barely a quarter; only enough for a couple of weeks, and that was under ideal condition, without any undue stress. She’d been counting on touching base at home once more, before her flight…
Turning back to Russell, she replaced the bottle before he could see. “Speaking of supplies; as soon as we’re out of here, we need to return to the downtown briefly. There are some items at my residence that it is imperative ACESO do not get their hands on; and others that it is equally imperative remain on my person.” Pressing her lips together, she let her eyes speak for the urgency when he turned to meet them. “If you want my extended cooperation, you will do this.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
What it lacked in height it made up for in square footage, with each floor specially designated for certain tasks and storage. The ground floor was the common area where, as Nadia was currently witnessing for herself, various generations of members had contributed to the mismatched décor to result in an eclectic collection of furniture and lighting. But what made it most remarkable was not the bizarrely charming living accommodations; rather, it was the clash of the old with the state-of-the-art and new. Paper-thin security monitors hung on the south and east walls in place of artwork; the west and north were papered in layers of maps and floor plans. It was as much a place for lounging and living as it was for plotting the gang’s next move—a juxtaposition that was perhaps the theme of the headquarters. Few frills existed without functionality to balance.
He led her across the commons to another internal staircase, and Russell took the stairs two at a time until he reached the top floor. It was the headquarters’ dormitory, sleeping quarters strategically located as far from the ground-level entrance as possible. Each of the six council members had his own room (although Pryce, Russell, and formerly Oswald were the only regular tenants); four additional guest rooms had been established for visiting members or business partners. He punched a different code into the dial and slipped into the darkened corridor, the light censors picking up on their movement and immediately flooding the hall with illumination.
Pointedly ignoring her question regarding their destination, Russell ushered Nadia into his room. It was spotless and stark, although he’d never had a guest; it was, in fact, so pristine in organization and cleanliness that it seemed unlikely anyone stayed there at all on a regular basis, let alone the leather-clad second-in-command of a notorious motorcycle club. Fortunately, it made getaway all the faster. He had an emergency getaway bag already packed, for one—not initially intended for treasonous flight from his own club, but it would do—and a spare pistol in his desk drawer. Glancing at the digital clock on the nightstand, he unzipped his jacket and slung it over the bed, quickly fastening a holster whose straps encircled his shoulder and his waist. The spare gun fit perfectly against his white t-shirt, too close against his body for anyone to easily wrestle away. Checking the magazine—full—he secured the nine-millimeter in its sheath and shrugged on his jacket again.
“Ammunition,” was all he offered as explanation for their next move. He grabbed his spare bag, slung it over his shoulder, and led Nadia by the arm back to the ground floor. When she spoke, he turned to the young woman and met her eyes fiercely.
“Going back there is suicide,” he said, frowning deeply. “Maybe you should have thought of that before we tore out of there, yeah? Or maybe you just should have let me kill you.” His jaw tightened. “What, exactly, is so important that you wouldn’t have brought it with you on your little mission? Isn’t all of your precious pharma research on that chip?”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
It was a simple request. She could make him comply.
“Maybe you should have given me a chance to mention it before tore off like a bat out of hell,” the young scientist countered calmly, closing the distance between them with a few silent, measured steps. Despite their difference in height, the piercing nature of her green eyes did not allow him to look down on her. “What I need to retrieve is my business alone. But you seem like a smart man, despite the company that you keep. Kill me, and this,” she shoved a hand in her pocket and retrieved the tiny but powerful chip, holding it between them like a tease, “becomes useless. Ten attempts to crack the code, in fact, and the chip will format itself, and all of the data will be gone. So,” shoving it back into her pocket, she casually broke away from his gaze, knowing the answer before she even put forth the rhetorical question comment: “the choice is yours, Russell Hinder.”
One corner of Nadia’s mouth tugged into a satisfied smirk, when she saw the surrender in his blue eyes. Before he could even confirm or deny, her lithe body brushed past him and began to retrace her steps back to the garage, a newfound sense of power driving her forward. Perhaps, in a way, she was still expendable; but if he’d truly thought that killing her would do more good than damage, he’d have done it already (because, not unlike her, Russell did not seem the type to hesitate when it came to the duration or cessation of people’s lives).
Fortunately, the other doors in the Catalysts’ hideaway did not require a retina scan or key code to exit, and she didn’t stop until she made it back to the garage, empty save for Hinder’s bike. “It’s probably safer than sticking around here,” she pointed out, as the biker finally caught up to her. “They won’t expect for us to be hiding in plain sight, or to be so foolish as to take refuge in my home. I’ll take what I need, and we can be out of there before the engine on your motorcycle cools.”
With a smirk, Nadia picked up his helmet, which looked comically huge in her small hands. “The corner of Dresden and Haven; there are shortcuts, to avoid the highway, if you’re overly worried. And given the nature of your driving, I have a feeling you take no issue cutting across peoples’ lawns.”
Her smile disappeared behind the dark visor of his helmet as she slipped it back over her head.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
He disliked the sound of his name on her tongue. But right now, it didn’t matter—being en route to Pharma City was a much safer place than the Catalyst garage, and she did have a point about hiding in plain sight. Besides the blood and the bodies left inside the ACESO tower, the authorities would not have had time to connect his face to the crime—Marsden still would have had control of the surveillance. And a rough-and-tumble gang of uneducated bikers would not be the target of their initial suspicions; the Catalysts were, as far as the upper class were concerned, low-lives who consumed as many drugs as they sold, wasting the duration of their short lives on pleasure and crime rather than contributing to the greater good of society. Nadia, too, would be an unlikely culprit in their eyes, if she were to be believed about the success of her publications.
“Dresden and Haven,” he repeated with a nod, zipping his leather jacket up to his chin and sliding on his riding gloves. The growl of the engine was deafening in the empty garage, and as soon as the young woman slid on to the passenger seat, he paused at the barrier and took off into the deserted street. A fine mist had begun to trickle from thickening clouds, and he frowned against the moisture, speeding on to the dark interstate until he reached the exit on the edge of downtown. He accelerated faster this time, wanting to put more distance between himself and his HQ, weaving around sharp black corners and through narrow alleys without an ounce of hesitation. Having a life deadline of thirty years tended to erase tentative maneuvers. Besides, Russell knew the streets surrounding Pharma City like the back of his own hand; she didn’t need to tell him the shortcuts.
He approached the designated corner from the south alley bordering the building, switching off his headlight as they slowed. “All right,” he said, utterly unenthused about what was to come, “how are we getting in?” He ran his fingers through his hair, which was damp and windblown from the wet, humid ride. “And how the hell is anyone going to think I belong in there?”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
And, if she could manage to get her hands on one of those pistols, and lose the bastard once she was inside, then it would be the last time she’d have to endure this discomfort.
The breath left her lungs in a drawn out sigh when he pulled up to the back of her building, among the uniform white and grey vehicles in their designated parking spots. Hopping off the bike before it even came to a full stop, she removed the helmet and tossed it in Russell’s direction, and made a beeline for the back door. “Nobody is going to think you belong here,” came her simple reply as she fumbled for her ID, to have it ready for when she needed it. “That’s what makes this dangerous. And how do you think we get in?”
Nadia was putting all of her hope in luck alone when she walked up to the retina scanner to right of the door and looked directly into its discriminating camera. How easy this feat proved to be was all contingent on whether ACESO (which, of course, owned the buildings that its’ employees inhabited) had already found her out, and as a result had restricted her access to even her own home. Plan B was simply to break in; not impossible, but tedious, and she wasn’t sure there would be enough time.
Her relief when the light flashed green and the door opened with a small beep was palpable. She didn’t bother waiting for Russell before she slipped inside and climbed the stairs on silent, light feet, but she knew he followed by the sound of heavy footfalls behind her. “Keep quiet,” was all she told him, as she made it all the way (almost ten flights of stairs later) to the eighth level, and—stopping in front of a door with the identifier 816—scanned her way inside with her ID.
The inside of Nadia’s apartment was precisely what one would expect of a pharma employee: all white and black and stainless steel. Sterile, post-modern, and efficient—and, in Nadia Paisley’s case, curiously Spartan. She didn’t allow Russell much clearance past the entryway, however, before she stopped him with a hand flat against his chest. “I need you here to alert me if you see anyone in the hall,” she announced, before heading directly to her small bedroom. It was, of course, an excuse; she simply didn’t want him following her. “I won’t be long.”
Similar to Russell, Nadia already had a getaway bag prepared, though one that was comparatively smaller than the biker’s. The size of a large purse, it contained a few changes of clothes, an anonymous cell phone, a trauma kit, syringes and injectables, a portable blood monitor, and substantial refills of the powerful SSRI, Nostacet, and the psychological band-aid, Epsoram, for those moments when her mental coping capacities could not hold up the weight of reality. To Nadia, that was all that was necessary for her survival.
That, and a gun, which she was about to get her hands on.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
But they still had half the data. They still had half of ACESO’s precious files and information, decrypted and safely stored on Catalyst drives. Killing Nadia wouldn’t change that. And despite the odds stacked against them, they still had five attempts to get the missing pieces off that damn chip. Failing that, they still came out ahead.
Russell drew his gun from his jacket and followed the young woman inside, racing up several flights of stairs. He frowned at her criticism of his footsteps and tightened the grip on his pistol at his side. The room to which she led him was stark and clinical and, he noticed with some surprise, not unlike his own. It was larger, of course, and better furnished, but the atmosphere was the same—white and chrome, minimal and immaculate, the picture of museum-quality laboratory living. Perhaps, had the circumstances of his birth been more fortunate, he would have found himself in just such a place, serving ACESO or Faribault with as many publications to his name as Nadia Paisley claimed to hers. The thought stirred simultaneous feelings of envy and disdain, leaving a bitter taste on his tongue.
Her instruction to stay put—she sure doled out a lot of orders, considering he was the one wielding the gun—fell on ears unwilling to listen to commands. Startled, he stepped away from her touch and propped the door open with his heel, peering left and right down the deserted corridor before allowing the barrier to close completely. “If you think I’m letting you out of my sight…” the biker began threateningly, but she was already gone, disappearing into what he assumed was her bedroom. To gather supplies, or to slip out via some kind of emergency exit that he was unaware of? Christ, he thought, anger coloring his cheeks rose. He’d studied the ACESO compound’s floor plans for more hours than he could recall; how was it that he’d missed this one? And more importantly, how was it that he, a man raised by the streets with a record of names who had suffered or died by his hand, had allowed this pharma-whore to call the shots?
Fortunately, she reappeared. Over her shoulder hung a modest bag that must have been her equivalent of his getaway pack (whose heavy bulk consisted mainly of ammunition). Rather than feel relieved that she had indeed emerged and not slipped away into the labyrinth of Pharma City and the surrounding territory, he was struck with a renewed sense of urgency coupled with a determination to keep her in line.
“Okay,” he said gruffly. “Let’s go.” When he gestured to the door with his pistol, lifting it habitually to indicate his desire to depart, he was caught completely off-guard by yet another unpleasant surprise from the captive-he-should-have-killed.
His gun, suddenly, was in her hands.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
And neither did her cooperation.
It was a precarious action to take; one that could get her hurt or killed, if she did not take care to pivot at just the right time or reach at just the right angle. It as well required some intuition in the way the biker would react, the direction that he would turn; a difficult guess, considering she did not know the man well enough to gauge his reactions. He seemed the reckless sort… which, in and of itself was dangerous. But she couldn’t remain his tentative captive forever. Her own agenda did not support that.
That gesture with the pistol was all she needed. Invading his personal space with a fluid, balletic pivot, she apprehended the weapon and was quick to train it on his startled face, before he even registered what was happening. She might not have been as skilled with firearms as she was with syringes, but the damage she could deal was still severe; even he had witnessed it.
“Don’t move; reach for your gun, and I shoot.” Nadia cautioned him, her careful tone hardly fluctuating with any intonation. Taking a slow step back, she didn’t even caution a look over her shoulder as her feet took her into the empty corridor. One step, one more…
Finally, she turned, and she ran.
There was nothing labyrinthine about the housing that ACESO provided for its employees, unlike the research complex itself, with architecture purposely designed to encourage disorientation and loss of direction (in case of intruders, of course, although it hadn’t seemed to matter for the biker and his gang). The levels comprised nothing but stairs and squares, like the Escher art of old, if the physics in the paintings were actually feasible and made sense in reality, and as such it was rather difficult to lose and pursuer in the straight and narrow halls. This was where Nadia had to rely on her agility and stealth alone, casting frequent glances over her shoulder as she sprinted down the corridor, and turned the corner facing the stairwell. Eight flights of stairs was not what she wanted to face, knowing full well that Russell had an extra gun that he would not hesitate to use, but there was no time to stop and wait for an elevator.
Nadia was far from stupid, and she’d known, from the moment she’d turned the biker’s own gun on him, that her chances of escaping entirely unscathed were slim. Fortunately, the young doctor was all about taking risks; playing it safe, she’d never have made it this far. In this day in age, those who played by the rules ran the lowest chances of survival.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Russell was a soldier of a far different breed, a fighter in a more traditional sense. He had the strength and the cunning to outsmart his foes; he could problem-solve under extreme pressure; he could aim his weapon with impeccable accuracy and pull the trigger without a flinch. The lower-class scene in which he’d grown up had toughened him, wizened him; it taught him that survival was life’s only endgame, and to waste his energy on anything that did not provide an immediate benefit was a waste of highly precious time.
In this case, as he stared down the barrel of his own pistol in the tiny hands of a snide rogue researcher, the reward of eliminating this ex-pharma nuisance would be instantaneous and very, very sweet.
In hindsight, he would be surprised that she had not simply shot him to get him out of her hair completely, but there was no time to consider that now. He sprang into action the moment she rounded the corner to take off down the hall. She may have been lithe and quick, but Russell, longer-legged and more experienced in this type of dangerous pursuit, was not far behind. Fueled by rage as potent as the gasoline in his motorcycle engine, he fished his spare pistol from its holster against his body and sprinted down the corridor.
He caught the stairwell closed in the nick of time before it latched, and he launched himself down the first several flights with his boots hardly touching the sterile tile. As they spiraled downwards, Russell caught glimpses of her as she rounded each landing. If she managed to get to the ground level before he could see which way she’d gone, there was a good (and unacceptable) chance that he could lose her. Panting more with fury than with exertion, he paused at the fifth floor and aimed his gun carefully through the gap in the diagonal inner railings. She was nearly two floors ahead of him after his pause, but it was worth the temporary lead—she was precisely where he anticipated at precisely the right moment, her right side facing him clearly in the narrow space between flights. This would have to be it.
Without one ounce of hesitation, he squeezed the trigger and fired.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Why hadn’t she killed him?
The only excuse that Nadia’s brilliant yet frantic mind could devise was simply her keen focus on survival, limiting the cognitive economy of her working memory in a moment where it was fight or flight. She hadn’t hesitated to fire at his comrade just hours before, inflicting such a fatal wound that the man had surely bled out by now, but her goal at that moment in time had been to mitigate the threat—ergo, the fewer people pointing guns at her, the better.
Russell’s life, evidently, mattered so little to the ACESO scientist that she hadn’t even mustered the contemplative capacity to consider ending it in that moment. It was perhaps one of the most foolish attempts on a life that she’d never made, but what was done was done (or, in this case, was not done), and it was imperative that she focus on the here and now—the ‘here’ being danger, and the ‘now’ being the source of that danger; a biker with a temper as fiery as the tiny explosions that ran his bike’s engine. There was no time to reconsider, and there was no time to look back.
There was also no time to stop running. Nadia’s small feet took the steps two at a time, quick but not reckless in her flight, the gun held tightly in her already sweaty palm. Two more floors… just two more floors. She heard Russell the moment he’d made chase, the soles of his boots hitting the floor with fierce velocity as he hurried after her, his pace slower but his strides wider to compensate. They were closer, by the time he’d reached the stairwell, and her heart was in her throat up until the moment she heart him pause. He’s giving up… He’s really giving up?
The pain that exploded in the front of her right shoulder, enticing rich red to blossom on the sterile white of her lab coat, gave her pause to immediately re-evaluate that consideration.
Nadia faltered. Her feet stumbled, and she caught herself on the railing before she could fall, but she did not stop. Adrenaline dulled the sharp throb in her injured arm as she leapt from the last half of the final staircase, landing on practiced, bent knees before pushing out the back door, from which they’d entered. The cool, night air chilled the perspiration on her skin as she dashed past Russell’s haphazardly parked motorbike and the more carefully parked ACESO-endorsed cars, and toward the dark alleyways that twisted in between the residential downtown complexes.
If she could get ahead, if she could lose him in the darkness, in those corners where the eerie blue glow of the streetlights did not touch, then she could lose him. That is, if her accelerated heartbeat didn’t force too much blood from the open wound on her shoulder, before the biker fell behind.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
He knew he’d hit her before he saw the blaze of scarlet on the white tiles, and he could tell by the splattered droplets of blood in her path that it had been more than a simple graze. He was gaining on her, closing the distance between them faster than she could make it up, and he burst outside before the door could even fully re-latch from her exit moments prior. The night was too humid for its cool breath to feel welcome on his damp, perspiration-coated face, but he was nevertheless glad to be outdoors—this was his territory now. The alleys were his domain, not closed-in corridors and white windowless rooms.
As well as he knew the labyrinthine pathways that snaked unpredictably between dark, unused buildings surrounding Pharma City, there were plenty of places for small young women to hide. He couldn’t afford to lose her on foot, so he leapt onto his bike, fired up its engine, and roared after the former ACESO employee as the alert sirens began their insistent chimes in their wake. She had gained distance in the time it had taken him to board the motorcycle, but that would only work in their favor when he ultimately caught her—they would be further away from the residential compound, further away from the officials’ prying eyes and ears.
He caught sight of her in the glow of his headlight as he rounded a narrow corner, his heart slamming against his ribs as he once again palmed his spare pistol and sped up to her staggering form. In the spotlight of the headlamp, the bright red splotch of blood soaking through her lab coat looked particularly ominous. His tires ground to a halt on the old wet gravel, and he extended his arms above his handlebars to center the sights of his weapon in the center of her skull. With the close proximity of the narrow alley, there was no question that his bullet would accurately find its target.
“Give it up,” Russell called over the grumble of the idling engine, his voice as icy as the steely glint in his otherwise emotionless eyes. “There’s nowhere else for you to go. Put the gun on the ground and step away slowly, palms where I can see them.” He visibly tightened his grip on his own weapon, reinforcing the seriousness of his command. With his thumb, he pulled back the hammer in preparation to fire. There would be no mistakes this time, no leniency, no compromises. “I’ve got you here, and the cops are already storming your compound. I’ll give you a choice—I can shoot you here, now, and happily leave your dead corpse to the rats, or I can take you to the authorities for them to do with you what they will. I’m sure ACESO would love to have you back in their custody…” His eyes narrowed poisonously. “What’ll it be?”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
And that Dr. Paisley, for once, apparently was not so sure of herself. It wasn’t that she could not navigate the labyrinth of alleyways within the ACESO compound. It wasn’t even that her shoulder throbbed with every light footfall, and the palm pressed against the seeping wound did little to mitigate the slow leak of blood from between her thin fingers. Nadia’s disadvantage was her obvious lack of a vehicle; or, at least, one with the sort of frame that would fit between buildings.
And now, she found herself cornered, met with a brick wall, a bleeding shoulder and a dead end. All because of a fucking motorcycle.
The young researcher turned slowly on her heel at the demanding sound of Russell’s irritated voice, squinting her green eyes against the glare of his headlights, trained on her as accusingly as a spotlight during interrogation. She saw the gun in his hand, and it reminded her of the one she held, but there would be no time to raise her arm, pull back the hammer and squeeze the trigger. Nadia knew first hand that the guy was an accurate shot with admirable reflexes; he’d see it in her eyes before she even consciously made the decision to fight back, and then she’d be dead. And dead was not ideal—not yet, not now. Not before she got what she wanted.
Heaving a heavy sigh through her nose, the young doctor slowly lowered herself to a crouch to place her loaded weapon on the ground, not once taking her eyes off of Russell, his gun, or the beast of a machine that hummed its victory. As soon as her hands were free, she raised them in front of her and straightened to stand. Her right palm glowed crimson with her own lifeblood in the flood of the roaring vehicle’s headlights.
“I believe you’ll shoot me; but I don’t believe you’ll kill me.” On soundless, light feet, Nadia approached the vehicle, unarmed save for the syringes in her pockets, and the “survival kit” slung around her good shoulder and hanging at her left hip. “But maybe you don’t understand why, so allow me to explain. You don’t just need me in order to provide the password to the chip so that it doesn’t format itself. Even if you were, by some miracle, to access the information… how do you expect to interpret it? You think ACESO didn’t take care to code its formulas, in the event that someone outside the company got their hands on it? And,” a smile decorated Nadia’s pale face, her footfalls coming to a halt when she was a neutral five-feet away from her adversary, “say you were to crack the codes. How the hell do you expect to interpret that information? Are you hiding an advanced Ph.D. somewhere in that crass, useless skull?” A pause. “I didn’t think so. Allow me, then, to present to you option number three.”
Her smile fell for the sole reason that it require more energy than it was worth to maintain. She wanted so badly to dig her dull fingernails into the back of her neck to distract from the piercing throb of her bleeding shoulder, but didn’t dare, lest he misinterpret the gesture as hostile. “We can let bygones be bygones, and stick with plan A: you need an interpreter for the information that you want—though I have no idea what the hell someone like you would do with it, unless you’re a piece of hired street-scum working for Faribault or Newark—and I need a way out of here, before the cops catch up.” And a safer, more sterile environment to tend to the damage done to her shoulder, before the wound went septic.
Nadia watched his face carefully, through half-lidded eyes. Beyond her placid, confident demeanor, her heart was hammering against her ribcage as she turned his own question back on him. “So what’s your decision, Hinder?”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Hurting her again would only hinder their escape, and since there was no point (besides his own internal satisfaction) in making their getaway more difficult under the pressure of searching authorities, that gesture would be no more than a waste of the ammunition in his magazine. It was even getting too late to kill her outright. The patrols had already increased in the area, and it was only a matter of time before they got close enough to hear another gunshot. He could probably get away safely, but he wouldn’t have enough time to recapture the chip from her corpse—they were pushing it already anyway—and to be taken into custody as a veritable street-rat would be as good as putting a bullet through his own brain here and now. And in spite of that risk given his position, he was showing her mercy and saving both their skins.
In return he got a slew of insults that dripped from her tongue as easily (and unintentionally, it seemed, because even the offended party could not fully deny her proclamations) as the threats to come from his.
“The syringes,” he ordered, the words a hiss through angrily gritted teeth. “All of them. In my hand. Now.” He relinquished one grip on his firearm and extended his hand, palm-up. As she slowly dug her supply from her pockets, he readied himself for a trick—but none came. “All of them,” he prompted, voice darkening. “I know you have them.” He didn’t actually know, of course; how could he? But if he was smart enough to keep extra weapons concealed on his person, then surely this self-proclaimed ACESO genius had them tucked in every fold of fabric too—and that was a chance he did not want to take, even if she was injured. Especially if she was injured, considering it was he who had inflicted the wound.
Without removing his gaze or his gun from the young woman still standing in his headlight, he reached back to his secured bag above the rear wheel of his bike and inserted the needles in a zipped pocket on its side. Their soundtrack of shouts and sirens was growing louder with each passing second. “Get on,” he instructed, thankful, at least, that he did not need to explain to her the urgency of the situation—her ass was on the line too. “No, not on the back. Here.” Dismounting, he swung down the kickstand and gestured with his gun for her to climb aboard the freestanding machine. When she was within reach, he pressed the cold barrel to the back of her skull, a silent warning to behave. The engine grumbled its eager idle as she mounted. Russell was quick to get on behind her, his leather-covered chest pressed to her back. He slid his gun into the holster at his hip before reaching around her to grasp the handlebars. This way, at least, he could keep an eye on her, and there would be no risk of her falling to the pavement should her wound prove too serious.
As soon as his boot returned the stand to its upright position, they were tearing down the alleyway, speeding away from the dead-end path with clouds of gravel-dust billowing in their wake. If the cops heard anything of their departure, Russell could not detect the yells over the growl of the two-wheeled vehicle beneath them. Within seconds, they were out of the labyrinth of alleyways and side streets, tearing down a deserted avenue and deep into the abandoned blackness of the vacant surroundings of Pharma City. Russell pushed his bike quicker than he’d ever dared outside of the clear, straight freeways, and when at last his tires found the smooth asphalt of what had once been a busy urban interstate, he opened the throttle to its full, terrifying capacity.
The exit he took was one he had not driven in a very long time, and he slowed somewhat for the cloverleaf turnaround. The bike pitched a steep angle as he leaned around the banked curve, and he took a sharp left into an empty neighborhood of cracked streets and boarded windows. Where other members of the Catalyst council had chosen safe houses more active communities with advanced security already established, Russell had made his in a part of town few, if any, ever visited. He reached around Nadia to flick off his headlight, and he drove several more blocks before he pulled into the battered driveway of a decrepit-looking ranch house. Russell punched in an elaborate string of numerals into the dated plastic keypad tucked in to the indentation where siding gave way to garage door. Shrieking its disused protest, the door creaked upward just far enough to allow them passage inside.
The door closed behind them, automatically triggering a dim, frosted light mounted to the lifting mechanism above. The garage’s interior was as unremarkable as its exterior. Russell killed the engine and retrieved his gun from its holster, hopping lithely from the back of the bike before Nadia could dismount. The silence was deafening, but welcome.
“How is your shoulder?” he asked, running his spare hand through his wind-tousled locks. His gun was still trained on her, and there was no sympathy in his inquiry.
Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 12:06 am
That said, it would be wiser for her to save her uncooperativeness and insolence for a safer location. With a sneer and a glare, Nadia shoved her hands into the pockets of her lab coat and gathered the thin cylinders of glass into fists, then stepped forward and deposited what had to be at least ten medical grade syringes into his upturned palm.
And then, he had the gall to demand them all. The son of a bitch would get what he expected—but not more than what might be obvious.
Clenching her jaw, the young doctor winced as she twisted her body to access the survival bag hanging at her hip, unzipping the front pocket and removing another five or six needles. No one could say the woman didn’t travel prepared. “You’re a real piece of work,” she hissed, purposely fisting them in her bloody palm as she handed her favourite weapons over to Russell.
On the other hand, it might’ve been wise to count her blessings: her situation wasn’t ideal, but if his cooperation got her off of the streets, out of reach of the patrols, and somewhere clean and safe to treat her shoulder, then it was about as much to her advantage as she could hope for.
Her mouth turned downward in a frown, however, when he dismounted before telling her to get on the bike. “You want me at the front?” She muttered, and her throat constricted with fury when she felt the cold nozzle of the gun against her skull. “How do you plan to drive this thing with me in the way?”
As it turned out, he didn’t have much trouble doing so; but that came as no comfort to someone who loathed proximity almost as much as she loathed loss of control. While it might have been decidedly less painful than pressing her injured shoulder to his back, that she couldn’t seethe biker, and couldn’t follow or anticipate his movements unsettled the young scientist. She clenched her jaw the entire way, beneath the encasement of Russell’s helmet, placated only by the possibility that there was still time to wedge this man—and this state of affairs in general—under her thumb. She never lost control for long.
So long as she successfully dealt with the crisis at hand.
Nadia had to give the man credit; he hadn’t chosen a neighbourhood that the authorities would frequent, nor a particular location that was easy to find after dark. The dilapidated (and all together dated) exterior of the quaint, country-style edifice assaulted the obsessive-compulsive underpinnings of the young scientist’s very genetic makeup, and she inwardly grimaced at the thought of tending to her shoulder anywhere but a sterile clinic.
How she would survive the filthy streets as a fugitive was a notion that she had yet to reconcile…
Russell needn’t inquire about her shoulder to solicit her opinion—he’d have gotten it regardless. As soon as she slipped unsteadily from the bike and followed him into his garage, her cold green eyes bore into his with all the authority and condescension that she showed the young interns unfortunate enough to find themselves under her ‘guidance’. “To hell with the gun already; I’ve got nowhere to run, no weapons, and you need me.” Her voice was a flat plane of judgement; like he should know better, and was no more than a gun-wielding brute. “You’re going to listen to me, now, and do what I ask, because I need to deal with this shoulder before it goes septic, or before I lose too much blood. And I’m not going to be of any use to you, infected or unconscious. So,”
Nadia took one sweeping survey of the garage and grimaced. It was not happening here. “Take me somewhere clean—and I mean clean—with ample lighting, a mirror, and somewhere to sit. I’ve got everything else I need in my kit.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
To Russell, who was fortunate enough to have the freedom of transportation to know, it looked no different than any other neighborhood left behind by time—and he had seen a great many. His safe house was sound of foundation, but little else about the place could boast of much. What little of the broad mauve siding remained covered ragged, weathered boards that had turned dark with moss and mold. One shutter on the front window still clung to its frame, but the rest had long ago fallen victim to the elements and lay half-rotted in the shaggy grass. The windows themselves remained intact, and those that weren’t had been covered haphazardly with slabs of spare lumber—the only means to fix them when the war had sapped proper supplies—but that was where its upkeep had stopped. Shortly thereafter, from what Russell could tell, the residents died off, leaving everything abruptly behind like they had just slipped out to run an errand.
He had cleared the garage of its previous inhabitants’ belongings almost completely, systematically throwing everything that was not useful into a pile down the block to burn on a foggy night. The rest he had brought in himself, including parts for the generators, tools and spare parts for working on his bike, and, covered by a black tarp in the corner, a wealth of ammunition reloading supplies—bullets, casings, powder, primers—to which even HQ’s collection paled.
“I’ll give up the gun when you give up the syringes you’ve conveniently forgotten to hand over,” Russell said irritably, keeping the pistol against his palm but lowering it to his side. His eyes strayed to the red stain on her right shoulder, which had spread considerably since their departure from Pharma City. She looked appropriately pale for someone who had been shot with a hollow-point bullet and run a half mile from her point of wounding, but apparently blood loss was not going to make her any more complacent. “You’ll deal with your shoulder where I say you can deal with your shoulder,” he spat, instinctively tightening his grip on the gun. But she was right—the garage was no place for tending to wounds, and all his trouble would have been for nothing if she succumbed to sepsis on a technicality.
The security to enter the house was more advanced than the rickety old system that powered the garage door. He’d installed it himself with Marsden’s instructions, putting up an iris-scanner and a keypad to get through to the house and a thumbprint scanner—carefully disguised as a period-appropriate ADT home alarm pad—to enter the real stronghold, the basement.
He opened the door without incident, grabbing a rudimentary LED flashlight from the hook beneath the scanner. The rest of the house was dark—the neighborhood, of course, had been abandoned long before the grid upgrade, and there was no point in wasting generator power to illuminate what a flashlight could take care of. Waving Nadia inside, he closed the door behind them and ushered her through the house.
The rooms existed all on the same even story, and each of the two bedrooms, the bathroom, the kitchen, and the living room were all fully furnished. In the latter through which they walked now, an ancient television sat broken atop a rickety entertainment stand in the corner, its eerie shattered eye staring eternally at two dust-covered La-Z-Boys and a sagging floral sofa. A chipped mug sat untouched on the coffee table next to century-old magazines with warped paper covers. Dried mouse and bat droppings covered carpet already filthy with dust and grime. Russell moved through the squalid tableau stiffly, his boots soundless on the carpet as he led Nadia to a door in the far kitchen corner. If she wasn't more horrified by the interior of the house than the interior of the garage, he thought, then perhaps she had lost too much blood.
Since Russell had last visited, part of the ceiling had collapsed over the sink and stove, and the gaping hole above was a black void that seemed to watch them as they passed beneath. Like the TV, the biker thought sourly, narrowing his eyes at the pile of debris barring their entry to the basement. The cabinets and their contents—plates, cups—sat shattered amid clumps of cracked drywall. Grunting, he pressed his thumb to the masked detector, entered yet another different numerical code, and tugged the door free as soon as the latch released. He kicked away enough rubble to open the door just wide enough for the two of them to squeeze through, his fingers reaching around the corner to fumble for a master switch along the inner wall.
One flick was all it took to power up the true portion of his well-concealed safe space. The switch triggered the first of three long-acting generators that provided the energy not only for the lights but for his technology—an impressive array of stolen computer monitors and an equally-impressive stack of thieved hard drives in the southeast corner, as well as a modem for network connection that allowed him long-distance, encrypted access to the provided city internet. As they descended the reinforced metal stairs, the full setup came into illuminated view. It was a single open room with immaculate ivory carpet over the original concrete floors. In the center was a black sofa trimmed in blond wood. Along the south wall was a cot for sleeping, and the west wall sported a minimalist kitchenette fully stocked with non-perishable food.
“The door locks from the inside too, so don’t bother trying to make a break for it,” Russell informed her, scanning the familiar space with narrow eyes. He tossed his pack down on the couch and, finally, holstered his weapon. “The bathroom is behind the stairs. If it’s not clean enough for you, disinfect it your goddamn self.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
She’d thought she had seen the worst of it in the garage, but Nadia was unpleasantly surprised as the biker led her through the grimy rooms of this sad, clearly unsafe house, with foul odours born of bacteria and other microorganisms that she couldn’t even discern. They probably weren’t even known to the scientific community.
“Quaint,” came her sardonic comment to him as she swallowed bile in her throat. The street was looking better and better in terms of an environment to perform minor but necessary surgery. Her hopes only lifted when he approached another keypad, typing in a keycode that she couldn’t decipher and memorize for the speed of his fingers. The latch on a door released, and the next thing she knew, he was leading her down a staircase that was decidedly sturdier than the rest of this piece-of-shit edifice.
Ivory carpet, computer equipment that was almost as up to date as what would be found at the ACESO compound, clean furniture… The sick feeling at the pit of the young scientist’s stomach dissipated, just a bit. This wasn’t quite the contaminated, rural hell that the house had led her to believe, at face value…
Gripping the railing the entire way down, Nadia threw a glance over her shoulder in the direction where he’d indicated the bathroom, and mentally flipped the biker off at his snide comment. If it wasn’t clean enough, she had neither the time, nor the energy, nor the proper range of motion in both arms to clean it herself.
At least he hadn’t shot her dominant arm…
“It’ll have to suffice,” she murmured, moving quickly to do a quick appraisal of what was, in about five minutes, going to be her ‘clinic’. At least it was moderately sized, with a bathtub that doubled as a shower, a glass sink whose plumbing must have been hidden behind the wall, and a toilet next to it. Not exactly an optimal set-up, but it was all she had to work with: and he would just have to deal with the changes she made to accommodate her predicament.
The cabinet, high above the toilet, was separate from the mirror itself, which was little more than a rectangular pane of reflective glass—perfect for her purposes, considered it wasn’t positioned where she wanted it.
Gritting her teeth, the young woman gripped the pane with her good arm, she lifted it off of the brackets that adhered it to the wall and set it atop the toilet seat, leaning it against the edge of the sink securing it in place with a hand towel to provide a less slippery surface upon which to sit. Taking a seat at the edge of the tub, she angled her body to face the mirror, frowning at the angle. This—all of this—was so far from ideal that she inwardly deemed it downright unsafe.
It would have to make due.
Breathing slowly through her nose, Nadia pressed her lips together and carefully shed her lab coat, letting it fall backwards into the dip of the bathtub. But there was no way her tank top, fitted to her small body, would be coming up without painful reaching and stretching. Without giving it a second thought, she plunged a hand into her satchel (which she’d balanced between her hip and the wall) and withdrew a small pair of surgical scissors. The pre-sharpened blades sliced effortlessly through the cotton-spandex blend, and the black garment lay in a useless heap at her feet.
Clad only in her dress pants and a gruesomely stained athletic bra (the young doctor had clearly risen that morning, prepared to run at some point in the scheme of her master plan), Nadia grabbed another towel to dab the blood off of the front of her body and withdrew her last hidden syringe from between the very front of her garment and the skin, setting it carefully next to the mirror so as not to forget it later. Like hell she’d be confined to this place, and to the presence of that street scum, completely unarmed…
“Don’t go too far,” she called, sucking in a breath as she slipped the strap off of her right shoulder to reveal the wound. “I might require assistance, depending how bad…”
She trailed off at the sight of the wound, red and angry and bleeding too freely. Typically, removing a bullet was ill advised; it could be thing mitigating the damage of broken blood vessels. Except in the case where it appeared to be causing the bleeding…
It wasn’t internal: there was no swelling, she wasn’t vomiting, or incapacitated, meaning that it wasn’t life or death, unless she bled out. And if the bullet was the cause of the bleeding, it had to go.
Local anaesthesia wasn’t part of the young scientist’s survival kit, and even if it was something she carried on her, she wouldn’t use it on herself. The pain, however searing, was what would not only alert her were she doing something wrong, but also remind her that the tissue and the limb were still alive. A good procedure was always worth the pain.
Nadia steadied herself with a slow exhale. Her instruments—a scalpel, a pair of long tweezers, a needle and thread for sutures—were set upon a towel across her lap, already sterilized and ready for use. By the looks of the wound, the bullet was a hollow point; not embedded too deep, but more difficult to extract without causing further damage, due to the blossoming of the tip embedded in her muscle tissue… There wasn’t ample room in the open wound for a clean extraction.
The young doctor’s fingers were surprisingly steady when she picked up the scalpel, relaxed her shoulders, concentrated, and breathed out as she made the first small incision just above the wound. Then one below, and to each of the sides… It wasn’t until the last cut was, bleeding freely, that a quiet, strangled sound of pain resonated in her throat. Step one… okay. It’s done. All right…
Placing the scalpel on the towel, she picked up the tweezers. She could see the darkness of the bullet in the mirror; it wasn’t embedded much further than a half an inch from the surface of her skin, and with the wound she’d opened wider with the four incisions, extraction shouldn’t be too much of an ordeal.
Except, there was the pain, and the light-headedness that accompanied bloodloss. Though fatigued, her hand remained steady as she inserted the two pointed tips directly into the wound, her shoulder twitching and flinching involuntarily as she felt the prongs close around the foreign body. They gripped, and then slipped, and she pressed her lips together to stifle a gasp that turned into a low groan. “Damnit…”
She tried again. They gripped. Blood trickled from the wound, down her chest, all the way to her taut abdomen. Slowly… slowly… Nadia concentrated on her shaky breaths as she felt the bullet move. Her jaw was clenched so tightly that her teeth ached, and resisting the urge to squeeze her eyes shut was beyond difficult. The mushroomed tip of the bullet scraped the already traumatized tissue, but there was no helping the pain; at least it reminded her she was still alive…
Another centimeter… millimeter… Out! Expelling a shaky sigh of relief, the young woman dropped the bullet and the tweezers onto her lap… but she was far from out of the woods. Nadia’s breath caught in her throat when her green eyes locked on the white-turned-red towel on her lap, already soaked through with her blood. She blinked the spots from her eyes, and attempted to focus on the now gaping (and heavily bleeding) shoulder wound. But it wasn’t the blood that drew her attention, but rather, the lackthereof in her face. Nadia was beyond the sort of pale that caused the stirrings of her worry; her face was ashen, her lips void of their typical pink, and she couldn’t focus… Couldn’t focus on her face, or on the wound, and she couldn’t thread the needle for sutures because her hands were beginning to tingle…
Fuck.
“Hinder—I’m going into shock.” she hissed, weakly but audibly, dropping the tools from her lap as she leaned forward, head between her legs to coax blood back into her head, while pressing her hand to the gaping wound to keep the blood in. “Front pocket of the satchel… there’s a spring-loaded dose of epinephrine. Jab it into my thigh and hold it for five seconds… doesn’t require technique, any idiot can do it…” And she had to count on this idiot, it seemed, for her own survival.
|O.o.C: I AM SO SORRY I GOT CARRIED AWAY|
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
As Nadia took up surgical residence in his bathroom, Russell slipped off his riding gloves and massaged the tension from his scalp with his bare fingers. For all the two of them covertly shared, Veriska’s concern with the Catalyst group started with cash and stopped with Russell. Furious, he unzipped his leather jacket and flung it over the back of the expensive sofa, running his tongue over his teeth in silent frustration. Everything at the safe house was in place, but her tyranny as a product supplier was beside the point now—she would be furious not only with the embarrassing ACESO failure, but with the role he played in it and his apparent, if false, betrayal of their cause. He knew better than anyone that Veriska would spare no expense when it came to hiring assassins for her revenge.
“Fuck,” he whispered, throwing himself down next to his pack on the sofa. He drummed his fingers on the weatherproofed canvas. No one would find him here, he knew; not even Marsden had record of the council’s individual safe houses, and that was precisely the point. What Russell had designed to thwart high-power Catalyst enemies was now functioning as defense against his own brood, and he was thankful he’d taken the time and effort to ensure its quality. He never did anything less than a hundred and ten percent; Pryce used to tease him with those precise words. See how you feel about that now, Russell thought bitterly.
It was no time for a self-pity session, he knew, so he indulged in feeling sorry for himself only a few moments longer before he stood abruptly and powered up his computers. He could almost (almost) forget about his female charge in the bathroom, letting the momentary task of logging in to the complicated system occupy him. But true to form, as soon as the notion crossed his mind, a muffled call of his surname sliced through the cool quiet of the basement fortress. He gritted his teeth and balled his fists, his fingernails biting like fangs into the tender flesh of his palm. Of course.
“What the fuck did you do to my mirr—oh. Jesus,” he breathed, his features twisting into an expression that was more irritation and disgust than actual concern. Whatever suspicions he might have held about her declaration of shock being a cheap trick were dashed the moment he burst through the door and saw her face look up at him. She was white as a sheet, white as the immaculate tile that shone polished beneath their feet. She didn’t catch the glare he shot her as she returned her head to its position between her knees, but he swiftly followed her instructions and retrieved the syringe from its pocket. He’d seen this kind of thing before. Maybe not in a sterile laboratory setting, but you didn’t need fluorescent lights and stainless steel to suffer from shock—or recover from it, incidentally.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he pursed his lips and slammed the needle straight into the muscle of her thigh—more forceful than necessary, but that was a calculated decision rather than an error born of idiocy, as she might claim. One, two, three, four, five, and out it slid; he gripped the empty tube in his fist.
“Move your hand,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the sight of fresh blood oozing from beneath her fingers and trickling down the length of her arm. “For fuck’s sake, let me see it. Jesus Christ. Here.” Noting the discarded suture kit on the floor, he handed her a fresh towel, prying the blood-soaked one away from her lap and tossing it aside. “I’ll be right back.”
When he returned, he knelt at her side once more with a small propane torch and a butter knife from the kitchenette. He was not a trained doctor, but he knew how to treat wounds on the fly, at least well enough to keep the person alive until they stabilized. For people like him, DIY medical treatment was often the only way to survive the imminent violence in their world. And for all the flak he was about to catch from the ornery ACESO know-it-all, he wasn’t about to let her die after all this work—and sutures just weren’t going to cut it.
“We need to burn it,” he told her matter-of-factly, as if it were something she didn’t already know. “And if you can’t do it, and you don’t want me to do it, then I guess you’re just shit outta luck. What'll it be, Paisley?"
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
“How well do you know your anatomy?” She drawled in a quiet, sluggish voice as he removed the plastic cap on the tube. “Inner or outer thigh, to avoid contact with bo—” The young doctor sucked in air through her teeth as the biker inserted the syringe through the fabric of her pants with unnecessary force and held it there. Fortunately, he’d had the sense (or, at least, the dumb luck) to avoid hitting a bone.
The rush was almost instantaneous. A dull ache spread throughout the muscle tissue of her thigh, and her spotted, clouded vision began to clear as the epinephrine accelerated her pulse as well as her breathing. Blood had yet to return colour to the young woman’s face (she was losing too much of it for her body to spare a flush), but alertness returned to her green irises, enough for her to glare when he demanded to see her shoulder.
“…where are you going?” Nadia demanded right back, pressing the towel firmly to the wound as her eyes followed him with keen suspicion. Part of her was tempted to follow, but she felt dizzy at the very thought of trying to stand. The epinephrine might have returned her to a state that was a few shades away from complete and utter uselessness, to herself or to anyone else, but it was only a temporary band-aid until the source of blood loss was dealt with.
The renegade ACESO veteran had never suffered such an extensive wound, because she had never been caught; and as such, the prognosis was difficult for her to anticipate.
Her heart both accelerated and sank on the ruffian’s return, noting the torch and the knife. “You’re kidding me.” But her anxiety wasn’t so much born of the desperate measure of cautery, so much as it was the dire possibility that he was right.
Pulling the towel away from her shoulder, Dr. Paisley assessed the wound once again for the possibility of closing it with sutures. The four tiny incisions might not have been much of an issue to close with needle and thread, but the bullet wound itself was too jagged, too gaping and too deep.
“…heat up the knife and hand it to me.” If this was going to happen, then it would be by her hand and her agency; not his.
The trouble with epinephrine, however, was that while it dragged you out of shock, it didn’t lead your mind or body to a place where it could calmly continue its vital functioning. As Russell heated the knife, she watched as the trembling in her fingers increased, how she could feel the racing of her heart in her throat, and how her lungs resisted the urge to take a slow, deep breath. “…just… give me a minute.” When you were bleeding out, however, a minute was a very long time; a minute that could be spent mitigating the damage and, potentially, saving a life.
Pale and tired and barely stabilized by the crutch of an adrenaline rush, Nadia’s mind wasn’t in the right place to consider this.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
The council was different. Apart from itself, the group of riders it oversaw was hand-selected from the other chapters by reputation and record, and only those particular initiates were eligible to run for a place on the council when an opening was presented. The council dealt with all matters of negotiation and supply directly with Newark and Veriska; the chosen group beneath the council acted as middlemen for the distribution of pharma goods to the outer chapters; and then finally the outer chapter lackeys sold the goods to the eager consumers on the streets. Theywere the brutes, the trigger-happy bullies who wanted to fit in to something bigger. The pharmaceutical companies weren’t an option with which to associate; to be a Catalyst was their only option, and frankly, they took them because they needed people for the grunt work.
Russell, of course, was perhaps just as brutish, trigger-happy, and aggressive as the lowest of those men. The difference between them was that Russell knew how to control those traits; it was his self-awareness, not his loyalty, that had aided him in his ascent to the near-top. Exploiting himself was not high on his priority list; he was far too smart for shameless, immature exhibitionism. He didn’t want to survive for the power; he wanted the power in order to survive.
Nadia, of course, had no way of knowing any of this. To her, he was just a gang-banger, programmed for nothing but violence and greed and the very exploitation he loathed. The thought actually made him chuckle. He fired up the propane torch with a crackle and a steady whir of blue flame. As he placed the lit metal cylinder on the floor, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror Nadia had propped on the toilet seat—he looked windblown and tired, and with the lopsided smirk lingering on his face he appeared positively maniacal. Maybe he had to be, to do something like this, to someone like this.
Having snatched his leather riding gloves from where he’d discarded them, he slid one on to his right hand to protect from any residual heat and gripped the knife securely. The metal utensil, suspended in the center of the hissing azure flame, soon glowed orange. “Here,” he said skeptically, tossing her the left glove—convenient that they possessed opposite dominant hands. He was prepared for a protest that it would be too big for her and impair her range and accuracy of motion, but they both knew it was a better option than scalded fingers. As he studied her hands, he noticed their trembling, the way she weakly moved them. “Oh, fuck no,” he breathed, shaking his head. “One minute, ten minutes, you’re not touching this knife. You can’t even put the damn glove on. It’d be more useful for you to bite down on it.”
Taking several deep breaths to prepare himself for what he was about to do (he had a strong stomach, but he was no surgeon), he returned the knife to the flame for one last blast of heat before lifting it to the gaping wound in her exposed shoulder. Without a verbal warning, he angled the torch away and brought the blade up, pressing the flat, glowing surface straight to the wall of the wound. He breathed through his mouth to avoid the pungent odor of cooking flesh. One, two, three, four, five, he counted to himself—just like the epinephrine—and then he lifted it, resting the opposite plane of the tool on the other half of the wound. It sizzled as the pooled blood boiled at its touch, but if it bothered the biker, he made no indication.
“Thank god you already debrided,” he said, his voice surprisingly calm through his clenched teeth. Unsure if Nadia heard him, he reheated the knife once again, this time towards its narrower tip. Cauterizing the rest of the wound, including her smaller incisions, was far easier, requiring less surface area of the knife. The bleeding halted almost instantaneously, and there were no leaks, indicating he had successfully addressed all of the problematic tissue.
The clatter of the bloodied knife to the floor announced the end of the session, and Russell rose to his feet in relief. “Let’s get you to the cot, unless you’re going to be sick,” he said emotionlessly, throwing another clean towel over his shoulder. “And yeah, you’re welcome, by the way.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
He was serious. Green eyes widening with incredulity and fury, the young doctor hadn’t even realized he’d tossed the useful piece of leather in her direction, and by the time the glove registered in her sluggish mind, she was brought very much awake by the sharp, searing scald of heated metal against damaged tissue.
When she cried out in pain—for the first time that evening (and probably the first time that she could remember)—it sounded faraway, detached, too distant to have torn from her own throat. But Russell wasn’t saying a word, and only one of them had a reason to scream.
With few other means by which to react, short of pulling back or pushing the biker away (neither of which would be conducive to much good for either of them, considering that small part of her mind that maintained a grip on reality recognized the necessity in this measure), Nadia had little other choice but to let her body, wracked with pain, fall forward. Her left hand came into contact with the firm muscle of Russel’s bicep and squeezed, not with the intention to inflict pain (although she’d have liked to) but to prevent falling to the cold tiles of the bathroom floor completely.
She remembered to breathe, when he took the knife away, thinking it quick and over… until he pressed it to the other side of the wound, and the excruciating shock of pain wracked her chemically energized system all over again.
There was a curse on her tongue—many, in fact—that she found herself utterly unable to articulate, through her gasps and strangled cries, and the salt water pushing from her tear ducts in response to the unbearable pain. He was talking to her, now; she picked up on the world “debrided”, understood the context, but the syntax was completely lost through the pounding of blood in her ears, and her harsh, strangled breaths.
The knife lifted again, but she knew better than to get her hopes up this time, anticipating its return to the surface of her flesh as Russell used the tip to close the four incisions she’d made around the gaping wound.
When he dropped the knife and stood, there was nothing left for her body to do but sag forward, head bent and elbows weakly on her knees. The tight ponytail keeping her dark blonde hair off of her face had come loose in the wind, the elastic barely synching the straight tresses halfway down their length as they fell over her good shoulder. Was she going to be sick…? Nausea and panic were indiscernible, doing battle at the pit of her gut, and for a moment she was convinced she might expel whatever contents her stomach contained.
But the feeling passed, usurped by overwhelming fatigue, in spite of the adrenaline rushing through her veins. The kind of exhaustion that was so potent it bordered on the need to faint, and for that reason, Dr. Paisley refused to so much as blink her eyes.
Her voice was hoarse from her cries of pain when she spoke. “…when I say give me a minute,” she began, forcing half-lidded green eyes to fix on his mildly out of focus face, “you fucking give me a minute.” It was a close to any thanks that he would get from someone so obviously superior.
Raising her good arm to wipe perspiration from her face with her fingertips, Nadia braced herself against the wall in an attempt to stand. If she took nothing else from this wretched experience, at least she could now gauge her limits in similar future scenarios.
Although the next person to embed a bullet in her flesh and subject her to cautery would not live to talk about it.
“Help me up…” The request came quietly and not without hesitancy, but her knees shook as violently as her hands, and her meager weight felt like too much to carry on her own.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Still, she looked terrible. Burning stench aside, her appearance alone was almost enough to make him queasy; her ghastly pale face looked so stricken and sallow that he wondered for a moment if they’d been too late. But the worst of the episode passed quickly, and Russell bent down to assist her to the bed.
Reluctant to make direct, purposeful contact with her skin, he gnawed at the inside of his lip and snaked his arm around her upper back. Even if she hadn’t been weakened by blood loss, he imagined it would have been easy to hoist her to her feet; she was certainly not frail, but she was lean and lithe, a fraction of his size. Russell had learned from experience that the consequences of underestimating her were dire, however, and though he may have been physically stronger, she made up for the difference in speed and cleverness. Now, in the aftermath of her injury, she was in no state to close that gap—in fact, she was relying on his strength just to get to the threshold of the bathroom.
“This isn’t working. You’re not working,” he stated, looking down as her feet struggled to cooperate and her legs began to buckle. Hoping she wouldn’t catch the way he rolled his eyes at what he was about to do, he bent suddenly down and swept his opposite arm at the bend in her knees, lifting her completely off the ground. “One word, and I’m dropping you,” he said venomously, and he meant it. Maneuvering around the staircase and past the door that led to the ammunition room, he placed her carefully on top of the cot with her injured shoulder facing up.
“If you’re going to barf, do it in here,” he instructed, pulling a dated plastic trash bin from beneath the computer desk and placing it conveniently near the head of the cot. “You should probably swallow some ’tics, too, just in case,” Russell advised, using the street slang for antibiotics. “I’ve got some stashed away somewhere. I’ll let you pick your poison.” She would know better which drug would be most appropriate for the circumstances, but he refused to put it into words spoken aloud. His pharmaceutical expertise did not venture much further than knowing she should take something, whatever that something might have been. “But not until you’re clear of the nausea stage of…recovery. Whatever you want to call this.” He waved his hand, gesturing the length of her body. “Do you need water or anything? Because if not, I’m going to go clean up your fucking mess in the bathroom.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Had she been more awake, more capable and thus able to afford the gall, she’d have told him to drop her.
Against her greater desire (and for the searing pain that lingered in her shoulder, worse than a sunburn subjected to hot water), Nadia managed to keep her lips pressed firmly shut. She stifled a low groan deep in her throat when he deposited upon the cot, the thin mattress barely sinking beneath her weight. At least, lying down, the vertigo was not nearly as intense; instead of spinning like a top, the world slowed to a circular crawl, until she closed her eyes.
“You can get me some water, but I’m not swallowing anything from your cupboards.” Once again, gratitude was not part of the young woman’s repertoire in a situation such as this. There was no room for it when mistrust blossomed over all other sentiment, a dark umbrella of caution. “Bring me my bag; there’s an injectable antibiotic that will take care of anything I didn’t manage to catch in debriding. I can’t be bothered with a week’s regime of oral medication that might not even work.”
Ideally, a scenario such as this warranted a slow drop of antibiotics and fluids via intravenous for at least a day, for optimal results. Unfortunately, that was not a luxury that she foresaw in her near future.
Carefully propping herself up on her good elbow, Nadia took a few small sips of the water, hating that she had to trust he hadn’t spiked it with anything suspicious. She hated that she had to “trust” him at all, probably more than he hated having to tend to her the way he had. At least the feeling was mutual.
“…you might as well tell me, since you’re going to have a hell of a time keeping it a secret,” she called weakly as he went about cleaning the bathroom, raising her voice to the extent that it could push without breaking or growing hoarse. It was easier to focus on talking, and to keep her mind off of the lingering pain while her eyes were closed. “What do you want with ACESO’s data? It’s getting more and more difficult to pin you as some biker grunt without refined skills… Typical street scum wouldn’t know their way around that supercomputer back at the research compound, let alone the little technology lab you have for yourself, here.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Whether or not she caught his joke, he chuckled to himself and selected a beer, cracking it open with a bottle opener mounted to the underside of the cabinet. He decided against an immediate cleansing of the stained bathroom and instead collapsed on the sofa, heaving a sigh. His white t-shirt was painted thoroughly crimson, loaning the dark tattoos that snaked their way around his arms a menacing quality next to the drying blood. The beer was well-deserved, as far as he was concerned. He took another long swig, staring straight ahead and avoiding Nadia’s gaze. It was no skin off his nose if she refused his antibiotics; she had no way of knowing just how extensive a pharmacy he kept for emergencies in his ammunition room. She also had no way of knowing how closely he worked with Newark.
Suddenly, it was too much to be in the same room as her; he made his way to the bathroom without a word and his beverage in hand, tossing the sullied towels into a plastic bag to discard later. He retrieved the sponge-mop from the closet and doused the white tile with disinfectant so strong it practically stole the breathable oxygen from the air. Irritated, with exhaustion beginning to creep in, he paused to down the rest of his beer.
Nadia’s voice, weak but audible, cut through the rhythmic cadence of his scrubbing. What do you want with ACESO’s data? He rolled his eyes to himself and continued his motion, pausing only when she completed her thought. Typical street scum wouldn’t know their way around that supercomputer back at the research compound, let alone the little technology lab you have for yourself, here. Though she couldn’t see him, his expression was thoughtful. He never would have assumed she was imperceptive, but he also figured she’d pigeonholed him from the beginning and wouldn’t waste the mental energy to gather evidence to change her mind. And the thing was she was right.
A smirk crawled across his features, and he emerged from the bathroom with narrowed eyes. “You caught me,” he said sarcastically, spreading his hands, one of which was stained pink with residual blood. Whatever private self-satisfaction he’d gained from her remarks quickly faded to bitter resentment, and the transition became immediately obvious in his tone. “I assure you, I’m exactly the idiot you think I am.” The words conjured a strange ache in his chest that he pushed down as soon as it rose, and he folded his arms across his chest as though to guard against it. Shaking his head, he disappeared back into the bathroom.
“We want the cure. The cure,” he informed her, and there was no question about what he meant. Slowly the red faded to foam until the floor was once again pure white. “And from the look of it,” he went on, indicating her age, “having it in your possession wouldn’t do you any harm either.” He tossed the dirty sponge from the mop into the same bag as the bloodied towels, then emerged again to sit on the couch. “ACESO’s the closest of any of them to finding a solution to this thing. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. The progress data is what we need to gain, and ACESO needs to lose.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
In fact, she chose to largely ignore the man all together, concentrating on rehydrating herself with slow sips of the bottle water until he re-emerged from the bathroom. Perhaps it was the blood loss, the shock or the pain that made moving her right arm unbearable, but a wave of nausea assaulted her when she opened her eyes to focus on his tall form. Breathing through the feeling, she couldn’t help but wonder if it also had to with the amount of blood—her blood—that he wore on his clothes and his skin.
What would she have done, and how much longer would she have had, had he not been swift with that epinephrine, and the closing of her gruesome wound?
“Of course you’re an idiot,” the young doctor murmured without missing a beat. “I’m just not inclined to believe you’re the kind of idiot that you want me to think you are… How did you get into the ACESO compound? Someone helping you from the inside?” That certainly wouldn’t come as any surprise: Nadia Paisley hadn’t considered even for a second that she was the only pharma employee with personal designs on research, and all-encompassing ulterior motives. ACESO did, however, tend to have a good knack for knocking off the suspicious ones… It took minds and skills as sharp and refined as hers to fly under the radar, and yet continue to succeed.
Hinder’s reply to her inquiry was so generic that she was almost tempted to call bullshit and assume he was attempting to appease her curiosity with a lie. It occurred to her tired mind a moment later, however, that he might not have been lying, so much as he was simply be vague—clever. “How unoriginal.” Nadia drawled, clenching her jaw at just how cold she suddenly realized she was. The young scientist was more inclined to risk getting to her feet and snatching the throw draped across the back of the couch, than to ask him for it, though; pride could be diamond-clad. “Everyone wants the cure, because no one really wants to die. I can’t deny that that is something the two of us have in common. Of course, there are also…many differences between us, to say the least, but do you want to take a guess as to what is the greatest?”
Pausing for dramatic effect, and wondering if he could guess at what she was hinting, a slow smile crawled over Nadia’s pale lips. “Only one of us is this close—” she held up her thumb and forefinger and pinched until they almost touched, “—to discovering the cure. Here’s a hint: it isn’t you, or whoever you’re working for. Because there are some crucial pieces of information that you won’t find on that microdisc… What? You think I let ACESO own all of my findings? I gave them what I was required to give them; but I kept the ‘extra mile’ for myself.”
And what else was to be expected from the person who was responsible for 30% of ACESO’s research publications? It was a fair bet that, without her, the company would suffer and fall into the shadow of Faribault; they’d have more to worry about than a break in, bodies, and theft of information.
Gingerly shifting her injured shoulder, Nadia leaned the majority of her weight on her opposite elbow to crop herself up on the cot. “My bag, if you please—wherever you put it. I want to get those antibiotics into me before I’m too exhausted to remember…” A pause: “And throw me that blanket, while you’re at it.” Since he clearly wasn’t familiar with First Aid 101: one of the first things you do for a person in shock was ascertain they were warm.
The only reason she was inclined to forgive that oversight was the pesky fact that what he’d done could be considered ‘saving her life’.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
It was far more than that, especially for his side of the bargain with Newark, but there was no way he was allowing her access to that information. He would have to come clean eventually, he knew, but Nadia had yet to prove her actual usefulness aside from making his life difficult, pulling his mirror from the bathroom wall, and bleeding all over the floor. It was her turn to offer something; until then, he was not going to budge. She didn’t need to know because she was not likely to care, besides. Especially because he was now dependent on that cure twofold—to extend his lifespan, and to redeem himself in the eyes of Catalyst, Veriska, and by extension, Newark.
He knew exactly what Nadia was going to say when she took her melodramatic pause, an embellishment so ridiculous that he was surprised his eyes did not roll straight from his sockets and out the door. The look he gave her in return was icy—a silent challenge to what he was beginning to see as her default expression of condescension—and he drew a long breath to speak. “So what you’re saying is that I now have both the lock,” he drawled, gesturing generically towards the computers to his back, “and the key? Well, good thing I didn’t shoot you then. Oh, wait.” He shook his head. “You think you’re some kind of genius, and maybe you are, but for all your talk it’s all just a bluff, isn’t it?” His brows arched high onto his forehead. “Neither of us would be here right now if your extra mile stretched far enough to reach the cure. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Russell sat forward to rest his elbows on his knees, staring at her. “Where, exactly, were you going to go after you copied the data, had we not intervened? Do you have your own state-of-the-art lab of your own somewhere to finish the research? Or were you going to double-cross ACESO, ransom-style?” The biker’s voice was calm, conversational. “Look at you now. You’re half-dead in a basement in the middle of fucking nowhere. Even if you do have undocumented knowledge in that oversized brain of yours, what good is it going to do you now, without your billion-dollar resources and buckets of sanitizer?” The question was not accusatory, but rather curious—for the first time, Russell wondered if perhaps they could come to a better agreement than captive and prison guard.
He pulled the throw from the back of the couch and tossed it to her, then retrieved her pack from the bathroom closet. Depositing it with a little too much force at the foot of the cot, he looked strangely solemn, almost sad. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t see how much good making threats will do you if you have nothing to back them up,” he told her. “Maybe I could help with that.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
To say that Dr. Nadia Paisley had a high opinion of herself was a gross understatement, but she had not secured such high standing in ACESO’s employ by being unrealistic. Her research was thorough, and it was promising, but she was no messiah… yet. It simply stood that unlike her former colleagues, she was the only one with the means of becoming such. “I’m not stupid; I can see you weighing your options. You have been for hours—trying to decide whether it’s easier to simply do away with me and risk having the disc format or to keep me alive to allow you access to and interpretation of the data that you’re after. I can do both, but so could anyone of similar standing from ACESO… well, at least, they could interpret. Though I’m willing to bet the disc would still format for them as well.
“So if you’re really looking for a reason to keep me alive and safe, then it’s this:” Nadia turned her attention from the clever but otherwise insignificant (or may not…) ruffian to tuck the blanket around her legs and torso, up to her ribcage before she sought a small vial of clear fluid and an empty hypodermic needle from her satchel. Her hands, though cold, had stopped shaking enough to draw the antibiotic into the syringe. “It isn’t as though I am one crucial piece of information away from saving the world, but rather that I am the only person who is on the right track to finding myself so close… Like I already told you, I am responsible for thirty percent of ACESO’s research. But what is important isn’t what I’ve had published; it's what I’ve left out. ACESO might be in the lead in terms of working progress, but if I had to guess, I would say that it is still three steps behind me. I’ve made sure of it.”
It was dishonest, illegal, and punishable by means that would make your heart stop with fear to falsify results in publications; and, with seniority such as Nadia Paisley’s in ACESO’s research community, withholding findings could result in consequences just as dire. But what the pharmaceutical company did not know would not hurt her—in fact, she was counting on the knowing so little, precisely for her own gain. The young scientist’s search for the cure had little to do with her desire to save humanity, and everything to do with ransom, as Russell predicted.
Positioning the tip of the needle over the vein in the crook of her elbow, Nadia expertly injected the antibiotic, as natural as if she were tying her shoes. The hollow cylinder of steel slid out just as easily, and she capped the empty syringe before replacing it in her bag. “And to that,” she went on, following his question as to where she had planned to go, had her mission been a fully successful one, “all I can say is, ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’.” She leveled Russell with a bored but pointed look, quirking a brow as her good arm strained beneath her weight on the cot. “You’re not the only one with connections, and rest assured I need you far less than you need me. But if you really find me so non-threatening, and think that you have something to offer, then by all means, entertain me.”
Lowering her body carefully onto the cot again, the ACESO traitor closed her eyes; not because she was truly bored, but because her lashes felt as heavy as lead. “I’m not much of a team player. But if you’re inclined to negotiate a symbiotic truce, I might be interested.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
With a sigh that expressed an undeniable fuck it, the biker tugged open the refrigerator and retrieved another beer. For a man of his height and build, two bottles of the fizzy alcoholic concoction was nowhere near enough to impair his judgment, but if anything short of pharmaceuticals was going to be enough to soothe his frayed nerves, it was this. He took a small sip and resettled into the sofa, propping one ankle on the opposite knee.
“Fine,” he conceded, considering her words as she finished speaking. “So your threats aren’t so much empty as they are…what, temporarily empty?” Again, his question was calm, neutral. Like him, she had kept her explanations vague, but Russell was perceptive and business-savvy enough to read between the lines to confirm what she selectively omitted. She had intended to ransom the data. Not just what she’d stolen from the drives, either, but the information stored only in her own mind. The biker might have been impressed if their paths had not resulted in a vicious crash upon their intersection; their common enemy might have—and maybe still could—render them allies.
He pursed his lips and took another drink, focusing on the bubbles that tickled his throat as he swallowed. “I could say the same of you,” he drawled, not quite bored, but distant. “You might be smarter than me, but perhaps you’re not as bright as you think you are if you don’t consider me a threat. I can assure you that I am, if shooting you wasn’t strong enough evidence of that. Tables turned, I also know that if you were truly not dangerous, I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger in the first place.” A pause. “What I mean is—you don’t trust me, I don’t trust you, and the reason my gun is still on my belt is because yes, of course you are a threat, whether or not I stuck a red-hot butter knife on your gaping wound and, you know, saved your life.”
He watched her for a moment. It was as good a time as any to reveal a few more details of his situation; a symbiotic truce was likely as peaceful as things would ever get between them, and frankly, they had more important things to worry about than their personal safety around one another. Besides, he thought amusedly, I can always kill her later if it comes to that.
“What I still want to know,” Russell went on, “is what’s your endgame? Money? Notoriety?” He quirked a brow. “The satisfaction of watching everyone die while you alone possess the qualities to save them? Ransoming the data is all well and good, but there has to be more to it than that. And I wonder if that’s where my resources could come in.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
“If that’s how you want to put it,” she drawled. Temporary or not, she was still a threat; at least he had the sense to acknowledge it; and she wasn’t foolish enough to think herself invincible.
“I’m not the one with the gun,” she reminded him after a beat, taking a moment to breathe and collect herself. If he had any idea the mental and physical energy it required to come across as so nonchalant, like she wasn’t a mere shade of herself with no colour to her face and a third degree burn below her right collar bone, then he might have discarded her as a threat not only now, but for the next handful of days—if they actually remained in one another’s company for that long. “If I didn’t think you were a threat by mere virtue of the fact you shot me, then I’d question the results of my own intelligence quotient. So how about we mutually agree not to fuck with one another, and take it from there, shall we? I think we can both agree that while we might be mutual threats, we’re not one another’s greatest threats. What are your bikers friends going to think when they find the body?”
ACESO would have it out for her, as soon as they put two and two together—and that wouldn’t take them long. Nor, she imagined, would it be long before Hinder’s cronies wondered at his whereabouts, and his connection to the deaths back at the research compound. The two of them were at once enemies, and yet perhaps one another’s strongest allies.
It was a difficult notion for the young doctor to swallow; trust, after all, was a toxic disease.
"Really, I'd like to know what 'resources' you have that I might not have. But I'm curious, so I'll humor you and let you explain." Pressing a hand to her forehead. “Like I said; I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. But if it’ll shut you up, then sure; call it a ransom.” There was, of course, a much longer story at the heart of Nadia Paisley’s endeavour. One that was, perhaps, not entirely unknown within the walls of close-knit ACESO, but not one that she would be willing to share, for the sake of a truce or otherwise. “Let’s just say I have given a lot to ACESO—more than they deserve, and they owe me more than they are willing to give. In fact, they can never repay me enough.”
But she left it at that, because the moment her thoughts veered down that toxic path, there was no going back without chemical aid.
And speaking of…
“…I need my lab coat.” She didn’t, of course. What she needed was for him to leave long enough to surreptitiously slide a pill down her throat. This dependency was not one to which he need be privy.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Where her condescension had thus far kindled a flame of anger in his chest each time she spoke, this particular conversation had a different effect. In addition to his exhaustion and his annoyance, Russell was second guessing himself. They could agree that they were a threat to one another, sure, but he was acutely aware that there was little he could do to convince her that his resources (far from clean labs and petri dishes, of course) were worth much of anything. Either he would have to show her—which was simply not an option, considering her current bodily state and both their statuses as sought-after criminals—or he would have to tell her. And telling her, unfortunately, would involve a hell of a lot of backstory.
He gritted his teeth. He had resigned to revealing a portion of the tale simply out of necessity of communication, but holding anything back now was more likely to be detrimental than safe. Perhaps, if he was lucky enough, her drowsy state of mind would be enough to erase the details from her memory.
“Right. Well.” The biker cleared his throat. “The Catalysts have had a covert business relationship with Newark Pharmaceuticals for decades,” he began. “It’s not exactly surprising for anyone to learn this if they didn’t already know; Newark isn’t quite the shining star it used to be, and their reputation has suffered so long it just seems like that’s the way it’s always been. My group plays a big part in keeping the corporation afloat—we supply its products to the street-level clientele, the people Faribault and ACESO don’t bother with, maybe for obvious reasons, maybe not.” Russell shrugged. “Really, I don’t give a shit. We make a lot of under-the-table cash, which keeps us in business, and that’s been the driving force of everything for years.
“After the last leadership turnover, things got more intense. Veriska Lang gained a lot of power at Newark, and she inherited the position as liaison between us and the company. She’s a distant descendent of the guy who founded the corporation, and she’s always had this idea that she’s going to redeem it and take down ACESO in the process. The Catalysts, too, had just had a massive changeover in the council, and when we got word of Veriska’s ambitions, it seemed like a natural alliance to make. Aligning with the lower-class hasn’t been done before, and she seemed to think that was a big missing piece to the puzzle. If nothing else, I guess, they funded her efforts.”
Russell met Nadia’s green gaze steadily. “For all she wants to fix Newark’s reputation, Veriska really has no qualms about lying, cheating, and stealing her way inside. We negotiated a payment to ensure she wouldn’t double-cross us, which was cash her laboratory desperately needed to meet the demand from our buyers.” He snorted. They had basically negotiated with a load of cash she’d given to them as payment previously, so the Catalyst price for secrecy-insurance was negligible. They hadn’t let her think that. Her advanced dealings, heavy promises, and too-fast business expansion had already begun to bite her in the ass when her labs couldn’t deliver, and it was the very group at which she looked down her nose that was bailing her out.
“She knows the only way to really heal anything is to find the cure. It’s common knowledge that ACESO’s always the closest, in part because they kicked the whole thing off in the first place, so getting ahead meant getting her hands on that research. She’s a lot like you. Overeducated, dangerous, and way too accomplished, but she doesn’t have the resources she needs at Newark, not like ACESO. I think she’s got a good chance of advancing the whole thing—that is, if she ever actually gets the data we stole. Which is looking increasingly unlikely.
“So according to the agreement we struck, if Newark were to succeed in finding the cure, the Catalysts would share in the profits—because Veriska thinks ACESO’s free-for-all mentality is just more propaganda bullshit to win the favor of the wealthy, and those who can afford to pay should pay. We would also be in charge of distributing the doses to the underprivileged, since our network within the city is so extensive, and we know our customers so well. Newark would therefore win the support of the lower class, and the Catalysts would gain a more respectable place in the reformed society.” Russell shook his head to himself, taking another swallow of his beer. “The pieces all fit on paper. In practice, well…” He gestured to Nadia, and then more generally, indicating the safe house. They both knew how it ended.
“Thanks to our little showdown back at ACESO, and the fact that only half the data was transmitted back to my people, I’ll be in more than a little hot water.” He drained the contents of his bottle, his face twisting into a grimace as the carbonation seared his throat. “They’ll have watched the surveillance footage by now. The truth is, I’m as good as dead if any of them find me.” He spoke the last words with a lilt that seemed almost cheerful, like it didn’t bother him. It sounded ridiculous to admit it to himself out loud, but it was the truth, and this truth was dire; to be seen as a traitor to the group, particularly as the vice president, was the worst possible crime a Catalyst could commit. The punishment was execution on sight.
“So our situations aren’t that different,” the blue-eyed rider continued. “We turned against the groups we came from, and neither of us can go back—unless we use the data, including the shit you’ve kept to yourself, as leverage.” He lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant half-shrug. “And to make things more interesting, your people probably want me in their custody, if only for punishment. Mine will want you for your knowledge, and I can assure you it’s you who is in the most danger.”
He leaned down to place his empty bottle on the floor at his feet. “I can offer you protection from them. I was…” He hesitated. “I was their vice president. I know their patrols, their habits, their weapons. And I know how they’ll handle what they see as my betrayal because I know their priorities—and frankly, it’ll be you over me.” A shrug lifted and dropped his shoulders. “The higher-ups will keep this disturbance from the lackeys on the outskirts of the group. They didn’t know any of this was happening in the first place. So if it comes down to it, it’s within my power to offer you their protection as well.
“In return,” he went on, “your knowledge. I can help you in whatever way might further your research, if, in fact, that’s what you intend to do.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
The lab coat was simply symbolic of that… But, rationally, it was not as though it couldn’t be replaced. That was the only thing that managed to temper her anger, and let the blatant insult to her superiority slide.
In the long run, it was a minor detail, and the second that Hinder mentioned Newark, a rush of natural adrenaline mitigated her drowsy state just a bit. “So you’re dogs for Newark.” For only a second, a flash of recognition lit up Nadia’s green eyes. Realistically, it hadn’t been long ago that she and her brother had lived comfortably under the wing of the once thriving pharma company. That was before ACESO had taken a stand and bought her out with money, luxury, status and a prime, individualized education plan, but the name Veriska Lang rang familiar in the medical researcher’s ears. “Well, I have to admit, this is certainly news to me. It never escaped my consideration that Newark was turning to other measures to keep in the game… I was simply never certain as to just what it was.”
His comment that paralleled her to Lang almost incited the urge to point out every obvious error in his master plan, if not to break his spirits then to put a dent in his pride, as exposed as the skin the covered his bones. But Nadia was tired, and wanted him to cut to the chase, so she kept it general. “I don’t think you need me to point out the reasons why your happily ever after is not only infeasible, but bullshit.” A tiny grin tugged at the corner of her mouth, but the muscles were too fatigued to maintain it for more than a second. “Do you really think that if Lang wanted to deceive you, she couldn’t find a way? I will tell you this much: I know ACESO. And I knew Newark better than what I imagine you assumed… and they are all the same. The cure is both the answer, and the key to the demise of the three corporations that keep this city running. They want to find the cure because they don’t want anyone else find it first. And when they do find it…”
The talk of phama companies and their pharmaceuticals drew the young doctor’s attention back to her satchel. He could think what he wanted from where he sat, she decided, as she reached in, popped the cap of a pill bottle, and swallowed a capsule of Nostacet before continuing. “…when they do find it, they are going to fashion it as they do every other drug. After all, since when did pharmaceutical companies stay afloat by curing anything? They treat symptoms, to maintain their clientele… even if that symptom is death.
“But I’m sure you’re not one to delude yourself with visions of utopia,” she sighed, turning her gaze away from his face to stare at the ceiling. “And neither am I. ACESO will want its hands on me as much as you… and since you took my syringes from me, my means of self-defence are rather limited.” And even with her sharp objects and injectable drugs in her possession, they were only useful at close range. Nadia survived by running and hiding; fighting was very much an aside. “I’ll accept your terms. It isn’t as though you have much of a chance of comprehending ACESO’s unique lingo or code without my assistance, anyway.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
It was yet another way that he and Nadia weren’t so different. Neither of them were exactly disposable, but there would be others to fill their vacant shoes nevertheless—and whether the offended parties would admit it or not, they would never be better off for their sudden departures. The thought gave him pause, and he considered what she said next with a gleam of mirth in his cobalt gaze. “Dogs for Newark?” he repeated, an unexpected laugh escaping his throat. “I won’t deny that.” He shook his head as if to rid himself of the amusement. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand what lower class life is like, but trust me…slaves as we might be, we’re still the kings in pharma’s shadow. Better a dog than a rat, anyway.”
He absently watched as she swallowed a capsule he couldn’t identify, his thoughts focused not on the pill (a painkiller, no doubt; he supposed she deserved it) but rather a review of their plan. It was flawed; he could see the judgment written all over Nadia’s pale face. But it wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen it for what it was from the very beginning—he may have willingly participated, but it was never quite for the same reasons Veriska and the council declared. Russell was especially aware of how easy it was to manipulate Pryce and the others; he knew Veriska Lang better than any of the other bikers, and one of the stipulations of his attraction to the dangerous researcher was her ability to hide in plain sight via smart, manipulative camouflage. Russell had witnessed it himself.
He’d also done nothing to stop it, in part because it helped him to learn what to avoid.
“Utopia is as false as the god people pray to to bring it. Veriska is a damn fool for thinking she can start that kind of reform, cure or not,” the rider drawled. Slouching, he clasped his hands across his abdomen and looked down at his shirt, having forgotten he still sported the cotton-tee-turned-color-field painting. The bright crimson had dried to a deep, gruesome red-brown. Feeling suddenly constrained and dirty, he sat up and tugged the stained garment over his head, wadding it into a ball and throwing it towards the stairwell. “I look forward to your translation of the ACESO code, then, Dr. Paisley,” he said, sitting back once more. In absence of sleeves and cloth shrouding his torso, the additional tattoos on his shoulder, side, and back stood out in stark contrast to his skin. “Just be sure to dumb it down enough for me. In the meantime, can we agree not to kill each other? Or wound each other. In any way,” he amended, casting her a sharp look. “Including drugs and tranqs.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Her almost relaxed face tightened again in a look of annoyance. The significant loss of lifeblood must finally have caught up not only to her ability to reason, but her aptitude at deciphering sarcasm.
“Speaking of my syringes…” She was out of ways to demean his worth and intelligence (at least until she managed a few hours of dreamless, unconscious activity to recharge her repertoire of condescension), and thereby chose to ignore his comment. Not that she had any intention of ‘dumbing down’ the code; he either got it, or he didn’t, and what spanned beyond his comprehension was not her problem. “I will be wanting those back. Not tonight, and maybe not anytime soon, but if we are working towards related goals, then my ability to defend myself would work in your favour for the fact that I would be one more step removed from dying.”
Any promises to put forth the effort not to injure or endanger him, however, hung unspoken (and therefore, unconfirmed) in the air. With the blanket tucked up to her chest, leaving her shoulders exposed for obvious reasons, Nadia left him to wonder at that last agreement as her face gradually relaxed and her breathing slowed. Not two minutes after her final utterances, she reached that sought-after unconsciousness that her injured body craved.
Exhaustion had been an understatement: anyone even vaguely acquainted with Dr. Nadia Paisley would never have guessed the woman would so much as blink in the same room as someone who she did not fully trust, let alone fall asleep, surrendering to a most vulnerable position possible, if she could help it. The thought didn’t even occur to her until she opened her eyes early (very early) the next morning, and suffering a thirty second bout of confusion, disorientation and panic that only subsided when she leaned the wrong way and was reacquainted with the pain in her shoulder.
And that’s all it took to bring her back to the events of the previous night—none upon which she dwelled, because her body ached, she felt filthy, and blood pounded in her temples. No thought would be given to any further action until these basic needs were met.
Nadia was nothing if not efficient. In under a half hour, she’d managed to wash the dried blood from her body, as well as the sweat from her hair, apply a salve to her burned shoulder and protect it with a bandage, dress in a clean pair of black slacks and a simple long-sleeved T-shirt, and then navigate Russell’s kitchenette for some form of caffeinated beverage. Instant coffee, on a normal was, was about the most repulsive concept she could imagine; this morning, feeling nothing short of hung over, it was a blessing.
She already had a mug of the hot drink in her hand by the time Russell rose from slumber. “Have a penchant for sleeping in?” The young doctor cocked an eyebrow, leaning her hip into the counter near the fridge. For someone who had, for all intents and purposes, flirted with death not even eight hours ago, she seemed to have bounced back in a remarkably quickly. Colour had returned to her face and neck, evident by her dark blonde hair (still damp) that was moved aside and pulled over her uninjured shoulder, and her posture did not hold like someone who had suffered blood loss and shock. For lack of a better word—and bearing in mind that in all likelihood, she looked better than she felt—it was uncanny.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
To look at him now, in a technologically advanced safe house he had designed himself, with a computer system almost as advanced as those belonging to the corporate giants, top-notch self-installed security, and nary an addiction to his name, the evidence that he had been fucked over by pharma was simply not there.
It was also not true.
The soft evenness of Nadia’s breathing alerted him that she’d fallen asleep, and Russell stood up quickly. At last his exhaustion showed; his expression fell and his shoulders slumped forward, and he crept past the slumbering young woman to take refuge in the freshly-disinfected bathroom. He desperately craved a shower and a shave—and he didn’t trust Nadia to be unsupervised while she was fully conscious. She couldn’t escape without his thumbprint and his exit code, but he was willing to bet there was quite a bit of damage she could do from the comfort of the desk chair in front of the computer…
He leaned over the sink, supporting himself with both arms on its polished edge, and stared unblinkingly into the hard blue-gray eyes looking back at him in the mirror. Spending only a moment studying the chiseled face in the reflection, he quickly slathered his cheeks with white foam and began the meditative, systematic removal of the rough stubble that grew there. Then, without waiting for the stream of water to warm, he stepped beneath the icy droplets of the shower. He held his breath as the torrent transitioned from cold to scalding, letting it pummel the thoughts from his mind until the steam was so thick he could no longer see the door.
He dried his limbs and toweled his hair, dressing in a new set of clothing he’d retrieved from the closet beneath the stairs, minus a shirt that he kept draped over one shoulder. It was best to be prepared to flee at any moment; he did not doubt his safe house—it was undetectable from the outside and a very long distance from populated civilization—but nevertheless he could not predict the extent to which they would be sought, or how urgently it would be required of them to leave on Nadia’s command. Still, he deposited his boots near the foot of the stairs, flipped off the main lights, and settled on the sofa with his pack as a stiff pillow. Nadia, he was pleased to find, was still sleeping.
Halfway through a debate as to whether or not it was safe for him to be sleeping in her presence yet, his brain made the choice for him. He plunged into a deep, dreamless slumber that, when he awoke a handful of hours later, left him feeling groggy and unsettled.
He flew to a sitting position at the sight and sound of someone else in the basement—but memories flooded him in a rush all at once, and he reset his expression to one of curious skepticism. “You’re awful…peppy,” he said, “for one who had the shit seared out of her shoulder just, what, six hours ago? Jesus Christ.”
The mid-morning basement air was chilly on his bare chest, and as he stood he drew the fresh black t-shirt over his head. The suspicion did not leave his eyes, which remained focused on her as he stepped over to the kitchenette and prepared his own mug of instant coffee. He would have agreed with her—it was pretty bad, after all—but it kept remarkably well for long-term storage, and he was thankful for the boost of caffeine that didn’t involve swallowing a pill.
“Now tell me,” he drawled, returning to the couch with his mug cradled in his large hands, “what the hell was in that pill you took last night? It had to have been some kind of fucking magic, because you really shouldn’t be this…well, this good. It's creepy.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
When you woke up with a countenance akin to a deer in the headlights, you practically begged condescension.
“Satisfactory first aid and self-care can do wonders in a crisis,” she told him, with a tone that suggested he should already know. “The epinephrine mitigated the shock, the cautery stopped the bleeding, and the antibiotics side-stepped infection. Otherwise, hydration and rest lets the human body do what it is naturally meant to: heal itself.” A feat that the organic systems of human beings were losing over time, with pharmaceutical crutches that favoured the medical model’s treatment of symptoms after illness struck as opposed to slow but satisfactory prevention. Even Nadia, at the very center of her marrow, knew that unaccounted-for luck had also played a part in her exceptionally speedy recovery.
Bringing her mug to her lips, with her other arm draped casually across her waist to lightly clutch her opposite hip, the young doctor ventured over to the sofa without sitting down. Instead she remained standing, looming over the biker in a way that her small stature would never otherwise allow: yet another habit integrated in the very schema of her social interactions. Nadia didn’t have to stand past six feet tall to assert her dominance and superiority over underlings, but it was just another nail in the wood that separated society’s VIPs, and its waste of space. “And, contrary to popular belief, there is no need for adult human beings to acquire this coveted eight hours of slumber per night. Many, in fact, function far better with five or six hours under their belt. There’s no big secret to recovery—nor is there some ‘magic pill’, contrary to your belief.”
So he remembered the pill she’d surreptitiously swallowed before being lost to the world for a handful of hours… It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. And, luckily, she wasn’t without a practiced excuse that she’d tucked away in the back of her mind, should the subject be breached. “And if you’re referring to the anti-inflammatory painkillers that I took last night… well, if those performed the kind of miracles that you are thinking, humanity might not be in this self-destructive mess.” If he didn’t believe her, the pill bottle, stripped of any and all labels, would tell him nothing. And unless this dump housed its own little laboratory, and he was a secretly adept chemist, there was no way for him to call her on her lie.
Not that she was worried; he wasn’t keeping her here, and keeping his gun (not to mention ACESO and the authorities) off of her, to talk chemistry and pharmaceuticals. “So,” Nadia rolled her good shoulder back and turned her body towards the corner full of computer monitors, “are you interested in finding out what you want to know? You’ll have to fire up your Frankenstein computer—no, incidentally, I didn’t bother to try, myself. You’ve got the rest of this place almost as secure as my own office at the ACESO compound; I figured it wouldn’t make sense that you wouldn’t have a password for the damned thing.” Between two fingers that were not grasping the coffee mug shone the matte silver of the disc that he so sought. “Unless you’d like a deeper explanation—chemical breakdown included—of the reasons why painkillers have no effect on biochemistry in such a way that they alone are the sole reason I am alert and standing right now.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Nadia’s explanation for her remarkable recovery was likely the closest thing he would receive to an expression of gratitude, even if actually thanking him was the furthest thing from her mind. In truth, he was glad she was (apparently) incapable of such sentiment; Russell’s easy tolerance of blood and gore, contrary to Pryce’s suspicions, was the result of repeated exposure rather than perverse enjoyment. Those were the parts of his past that he would prefer to leave behind, but he also knew that complete suppression of the memories meant he would be a completely different person—meant he would be, for lack of a more accurate comparison, more like Pryce. And that was not necessarily a good thing to be.
Russell took a sip of his coffee and looked up, bored, at the young scientist who suddenly loomed—or was trying to loom; he doubted it was actually possible given her tiny stature—in a standing position in front of him. “You really think…Jesus Christ.” He shook his head to himself, and instead of taking offense, he laughed. “I was joking about the ‘magic pill.’ I’m not that stupid. It’s just…weird, that’s all. But good for you.” He had no reason to suspect she was lying about the contents of her tucked-away pill bottle; frankly, he didn’t care what kind of drugs she was loading into her system. If it kept her alive and useful, then he wasn’t going to jeopardize their delicate truce with unwarranted controversy.
“Please spare me the chemistry,” he said, his tone sarcastically pleading. He rose to his feet, making a point to look down at her, and made his way to the computer. The biker was more interested in this perk of their treaty than he let on; he patiently logged in to the system, typing in several lines of thick code from memory just to conjure the sign-in prompt. When he was in, he stood, gesturing for her to take a seat while he stood behind. Marsden had trained him well, but there was no way he could do what Nadia claimed she could with the data on her chip. He made a mental note to memorize every stroke she made, every file she opened. If nothing else, he was good at memorization—uncannily good, as it turned out, which was one of the reasons Marsden had trusted him with the code to break ACESO’s supercomputer.
“It’s all yours,” he announced. “Impress me.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Nadia was in no way in denial about that, either.
Nostacet, an exceptionally strong selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitor, had been discontinued o the pharmaceutical market over a decade ago for its side-effects, its risk of dependency, the difficulty in titrating and the dangers of its withdrawal. On the other hand, to this day it was still the most successful drug the market had ever seen in terms of balancing neurochemicals. The thoughts that haunted you, kept you awake, kept you afraid and depressed and anxious? They were gone in a matter of weeks, restoring that emotional roller coaster to a tolerable plateau. And for those moments where you didn’t have the time to wait weeks, its sister medication, Epsoram—a hydroxy benzodiazepine drug dulled the adrenaline fuelling panic attacks—worked wonders in conjunction. It also served as a staple in Nadia’s survival kit, but it was not one that she was in any hurry to take in Russell’s presence; for its potency and the speed at which it took effect, and his rudimentary knowledge on the very drugs that he distributed to the lower class, it wasn’t likely he’d need to analyze a chemical breakdown of the pharmaceutical to guess at what it was, and why she took it.
The Nostacet was a necessity; once or twice or day, to avoid the effects of withdrawal; but, luckily, she hadn’t had a need to dissolve a dose of Epsoram under her tongue for several months, now. The young doctor was tough under pressure and in the face of adversity, after all. If her speedy recovery didn’t speak for that, then nothing else could.
Ignoring the way the biker looked down at her (or his comment regarding the sarcasm behind the idea of a “magic pill”—facetiousness, admittedly, was not a feature that was immediately discernable for the young doctor), Nadia played a hand out of his own deck and hovered as he logged onto his highly secure system. Photographic memory was only one of the many aspects of her documented ‘genius’; it wasn’t necessarily about the numbers and letters, but about the keystrokes, the movements of his hands, and the innate knowledge of what fingers hit what keys.
Recognizing that he would be just as apt and eager to do the same, it was for that reason that when the young woman inserted the microdisc into its correct slot, she purposely crossed hands and fingers and hit keys with her opposite thumbs and pinkies that would typically be struck by index, middle or ring fingers. It would not entirely prevent her unlikely ally from memorizing keystrokes, but the unpredictability and inconsistency would throw him off at least a little.
When at last the disc was live, ACESO’s pale blue logo danced across a white background, surrounded by generic round keys with no obvious identifiers. Satisfied, Nadia sat her hands in her lap, green eyes catching the interest in Russell’s azure gaze as she glanced at him over her good shoulder. “Tell me where you want to start; because I immediately advise against the information overload you would surely otherwise suffer.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Nevertheless, she typed so rapidly and so bizarrely that it made his job more difficult than simply tracking the usual motions; he had to pay careful heed to each symbol instead. Cumbersome, but not impossible. He chewed on his lower lip in concentration and, when she slowed to a halt, looked up at the array of glowing widescreen monitors. Whether or not he’d been successful could only be proven by replication, and there was unlikely to be an opportunity to quiz himself with Nadia now bound to him by truce. There was no real need, besides.
Meeting the young scientist’s fearless green eyes with his steely blues, Russell folded his arms across his chest and considered her offer. On one hand, cutting straight to the chase would be the most time efficient route to take—to plunge head first into ACESO’s digital sea of cure-related test results and laboratory logs. But that, he quickly realized, was also a surefire way to keep himself in the dark regarding the rest of the information. How, then, would he know if she had actually gotten it all? Or, perhaps more pointedly, how would she know, apart from the reassurances of her own ego?
His eyes narrowed in a mild characteristic scowl. “Let’s make sure everything’s here,” he said, shifting his gaze to the shiny blue ACESO logo flashing across the screen. “For both our sakes, yeah? Can we pull up some summaries, maybe? Administrative filings, patient records, research collections…samples from each of the major sectors.” He looked back to her skeptically. “Can you do that?”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
With passkeys largely irrelevant at this point (if he were able to access the microdisc at all, then it was easier to find a way to bypass anything else that required unique combinations of letters and numbers to access), the young doctor resumed the form and posture of a practiced touch-typist. It probably wasn’t much help to his keen skills of memorization that her fingers flew over all of the correct keys in almost a blur after she used the cursor to click on one of the featureless buttons.
“Here.” Nadia leaned back in his seat as the screen flooded with buttons that were now labeled, all file folders for every single detail of ACESO that anyone might ever want to know: from payrolls to statistics on how often every lab was cleaned and by whom, to employees and interns (alive and deceased), to—what Russell expected to see—the nitty-gritty on the company’s patients (legal and illegal) as well as projects, both well-known and top secret. It would take days to skim it all and years to absorb all that this database had to offer, so she picked and chose what she clicked, opening files that detailed laboratories, the numerical observations of petty experiments and logs for patient health… None of which would make very much sense to him, given the unique way that the leading pharma company recorded and coded its data.
Yet another layer of precaution that resulted in Russell needing her; even if he cracked the disc’s passkey, and every other passkey that showed up in the ghosted database, he would have no idea what the hell he was looking at.
Nadia made sure to bring up the details on one of ACESO’s more sinister projects—one that illegally involved unwilling human “participants”—to drive that point home.
“This shouldn’t come as any surprise to you, but the more confidential the project, the more difficult its records are to understand.” She scrolled through notes of observations and data, tables with acronyms and numbers that made zero sense out of context, and of which the context could not be gleaned for the code. It was altogether a laborious effort, but one well worth it, for security purposes. “This particular experiment is fifteen years old and obsolete; I replicated it and disproved the theory myself, in fact. So if you think this is difficult to comprehend, then you have no hope of making sense of anything directly pertaining to work conducted towards the cure.”
Closing out of the files she’d brought up, the empty ACESO home screen returned, and she set her hands in her lap. “I’m not going to teach you all of the code; not only is it far from in my best interests to do so, but neither of us has the time. If there’s something you want to find, I’ll bring it up and translate it for you. So,” spinning the chair around, she looked up at him with a dark-blonde eyebrow arched. “are you satisfied that I’m not stringing you along on a bluff?”
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 7:15 pm
Should the information prove to be incomplete, inconclusive, or corrupt in any way…well, their efforts—his efforts—had been utterly wasted, and they were back to square one. Even if the key to the cure was not hidden amidst these ones and zeroes, tucked in the dark, encrypted recesses of files and folders and every piece of data in between, this stolen data was at least their leverage. They would be hard pressed to find anything better to save their skins from the voracious predators tracking them down.
Nadia had a better chance of re-acceptance into her former ACESO community; she was a valuable asset, a genius, one of the pharmaceutical company’s former secret weapons that (if she was to be believed) was unrivaled by any researcher, new or old. Hell, even if ACESO wouldn’t take her back, the biker was certain Newark, at the very least, would offer her a position. Even Faribault would be fools not to consider forgiveness in favor of advancement. But Russell, on the other hand, had probably already been replaced. The qualities that set him apart from the pack—a good memory and a knack for computers, for example—were not necessarily valuable under normal circumstances, and as such, he was expendable. Painfully expendable.
Pryce didn’t need Russell’s expertise as long as Marsden, his younger, brighter technology prodigy, was under his thumb. Frankly, Russell had always found it puzzling that Pryce had appointed him V.P. in the first place. The Catalyst president was sharp, but he was paranoid; since his election he had rallied for council members who possessed more brawn than brains, people who were easily malleable to his whims and could not possibly pose a threat by plotting a takeover. Russell, conversely, was perfectly capable of organizing a mutiny; he was smarter than Pryce, with ambitions that had little to do with the progression of the gang and everything to do with furthering his own benefits. Maybe now the man would see just what he’d gotten himself into.
The thought was enough to coax a smirk from his previous frown, and he nodded to Nadia’s turned back. He watched her flying fingers with hawk-like precision, but even still, he could make no sense of what she spelled; memorizing an impossible string of code was one thing, but deciphering it was another entirely.
“I am slightly less unsatisfied that you’re stringing me along,” he admitted, leaning over her shoulder to scan the file contents she pulled up. “But until I can make sense of this stuff myself, how do I know you’re not still playing me? Coded data looks impressive, yeah, and it would be easy just to say I believe you, but…” He stopped, expression suddenly thoughtful. “I want to learn. Can’t you just explain as you go, while you translate? I don’t want a chem lesson, I just want the language, or at least parts of it. Or are you more in the dark than you say you are?” Straightening his posture, he arched his brows in traditional stubborn fashion. “Why don’t you pull up…say, something with synthetic grafting. You know, getting lab-grown stuff to be accepted by the body.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Nadia swallowed, and it tasted bitter. This especially skilled street-walker would not be telling her what to do, and the sooner he learned that, the more smoothly this relationship would flow. But in this instance alone, it was necessary to take the bait.
“I know what synthetic grafting is.” The plateau of her disinterested voice couldn’t have any more effectively conveyed an eye-roll, though it only occurred to her in hindsight that he had thought to clarify in order to irk her. She decided to let it drop, and stood from his office chair, stepping to the side. “Have a seat. I prefer to stand, anyway, and we could be here for a while.” She did not fancy herself much of an instructor, for her complete and utter lack of patience with people and their slow learning curbs—and if she’d found the petty, young ACESO interns insufferable, teaching the barebones of the company’s code who hadn’t been academically prepped all of its complexities could be an ordeal.
Although, the more she learned of Russell hinder, his role in his gang and the tidbits of knowledge that offered a glimpse into his cognitive capacities, the more she realized she could not let her guard down. The man, for all of her patronizing and condescension in light of his social status, was not stupid.
Nadia’s fingers flew over the keys as he took a seat, standing off to the side in spite of the awkward reach while maintaining that she could see the screen. Still, the young doctor preferred not to be the one in the seat; for one, it put her above him physically, as opposed to suffering his height looming over her shoulder. But more importantly, perhaps, was that it freed her up to run. That split second in between sitting and standing might not look like much, but could serve as the difference between getting away injured, or not getting away at all, should the tables turn against her favour.
Quietly relieved that his model of computer was new enough to have incorporated a touch pad as opposed to an archaic mouse (which were, as a rule, far less user-friendly for the left-handed), Nadia brought up a more recently published ACESO article on synthetic angiogenesis, and the human body’s acceptance of non-organic replacement blood vessels. Unsurprisingly, her name was the first to appear below the article’s title. “Listen carefully, because I will warn you right now, I don’t have the patience to backtrack if you don’t understand something.”
And so began her translation, one acronym-filled phrase at a time, of the research she’d led just the other year on the subject. As this particular study had not involved legal ethics (nor willing participants, for that matter), and as such the findings hadn’t been made available to the public. There were no layman terms, and she didn’t bother to ‘dumb anything down’ for the biker; whatever remained unclear, she had a feeling he could glean through the context alone.
Two long hours later, she’d verbally translated the entire thing, and her throat felt dry from incessant talking. “Well?” Straightening her spine, which had remained curved for far too long, bent as she’d been over the keyboard, Nadia turned to him, absently rubbing at her injured shoulder which had begun to ache for all the typing and scrolling she’d done with that arm. “Are you satisfied? I may be creative, but not enough to falsify each and every detail I just told you.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
There was also the young scientist herself to consider. If they had to work together, he wanted to be of more use than blind muscle; even though he could not measure up to her level of intelligence or education, he needed proof that the contents of that chip were valid and whole. There was, he quickly realized, more danger in his own failure to understand than not trying in the first place. The truce between the unlikely pair would do no good in guaranteeing Nadia’s cooperation if he couldn’t uphold his end of the bargain or demonstrate his usefulness in some other equal way. Serving as her bodyguard could only cover so much ground, after all. And as much as he hated to admit it, he did need her expertise…both now and down the road.
Reluctantly, he slid into the office chair before the wall of monitors—hyperaware of her presence behind him, where he couldn’t keep an eye on her. “Just to remind you,” he drawled, not without a hint of tension in his voice, “to get out of here you need my access code. Two bad attempts and the system shuts down. You also need my thumbprint, but my guess is you’d just cut it off so there’s no point in mentioning that part.” Despite himself, one corner of his mouth curled upwards in a smirk. “Now. Let’s do this.”
What he didn’t realize was that this, the words spilling from Nadia’s mouth and the code unfolding from beneath her fingertips, was far more difficult than he could have imagined. It was only logical, of course, that the world’s great pharmaceutical superpower would protect its data on every imaginable level. But never having experienced data logging like this before (he doubted Marsden had, either, which made him feel at least a little better), he’d had no way of knowing just how extensive and complicated and downright infuriating this lesson would become. Part of it was its presentation; Nadia moved quickly without leaving time for confusion, and even with her disclaimer prior to commencement he wanted to strangle her for moving too fast. But slowly, gradually, he was catching on.
“Huh,” was all he muttered at first when she concluded the translation. With a furrowed brow and a lower lip battered and raw from contemplative nibbling, he straightened his posture and swiveled the chair to face her. “I think you’re perfectly capable of falsifying every speck of that report,” he admitted, his tone light. “But unless you made up the language too…” He paused, turning his head to glance over the last line in an elaborate table on the screen to the left. “Unless it’s all your little conspiracy, the context is right from what I can tell.”
It was a bluff, in part; Russell had done his best to scramble after her hasty explanations, and he was confident that he’d managed to decipher accurately at least two thirds of the report. But he was obviously missing the comprehension only a PhD (and probably an MD) could possess, and that was something he would have to accept. At least he’d gotten what he wanted—confirmation of the chip’s contents, and a step closer to having the capability of independent analysis of what it contained.
“Anyway,” he went on, “yeah, I’m convinced.” Rising to his feet, he kept the program open and gestured for the young woman to take the seat once more. “What do we have on the cure? Don’t look at me like that, I don’t want the details.” He rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. “I just want to know what kind of power we have over them—the Catalysts, the ACESO pigs, everyone. Because that,” he said, arching his brows above blue eyes that flashed a dangerous malice, “will determine our next move.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
At least, that was as close to trust as she was willing to venture. She expected Russell felt very much the same.
“If I were going to invest time and energy into developing a conspiracy,” the young woman muttered, raking a hand through her damp locks of dark blonde, “then it would be for a greater purpose than this. Take from it what you will, and let’s move on; I don’t think I need to remind just how much time is of the essence.”
Fortunately, the biker appeared eager to do just that, although his demand for information on the cure earned him a rather dark look from the young scientist. “A little forward, don’t you think?” Obviously, their trust had not extended quite so far as for her to offer him details into the cure; her tight shoulders only relaxed slightly when he clarified that details were not what he sought at this point in the game.
Nadia plainly ignored his gesture for her to sit, and pushed the chair out of the way to make a point. “We’ve got two sets of complimentary leverage,” she said, leaning her hip into the side of his desk as she folded her arms across her chest. Taking a quick moment of silent satisfaction at his brief look of disdain as she stalled in pursuing the ACESO database any further, the former Pharma employee went on. “On this database, we’ve got the research that’s already been done. Every failure and success and speculation into both, the theories that have been tested and debunked, and some that continue to show promise.” Pivoting on her heel, she turned back to the screen and clicked to access a niche of the database that would give him a taste of what ACESO had compiled on the cure: list and lists of studies, dating back as far as 50 years (anything older was archived and stored on a different part of the database; by then, it would be considered obsolete, anyway).
“This, however, is only what’s on record. But I can tell you this much—and however much you choose to believe is entirely up to you.” Without fully turning away from the screen, Nadia looked sidelong at the biker. “The blanks that need to be filled, the missing links and the untested theories are all within my realm of knowledge. Most of my research on the cure has been conducted off site, behind the scenes; there are details to which even ACESO, let alone Newark or your little gang of drug dealers, are not privy. That is the other half of the leverage in our possession.”
Nadia was proud; there was no doubt about the weight she placed on her own self-importance. But the impassive set of her face, for once void of that patronizing glint in her green eyes, hinted that this wasn’t a matter of stroking her own ego. Whether or not he bought into the sincerity was beyond her control, but if he truly intended to pan and discredit what she had to say and offer, then she didn’t expect he’d have asked in the first place.
Now, however, she felt she’d earned the right to ask her own questions.
“So I take it your little tribe of ruffians don’t practice mercy when one of their own goes a little renegade?” The young scientist arched an eyebrow. Without realizing it, her dull fingernails bit into the faintly callused balls of her hands, an unconscious effort not to scratch at the healing tissues beneath the bandage on her burned shoulder. “Here is where we differ: ACESO is likely furious with me. But for a lot of reasons, they need me alive, and they need me back. You, on the other hand… you’re nothing to ACESO. So what are you to your gang? What do you have to offer them, at this point, aside from me and that microdisc?” Pressing her lips together, turned back to the screen, closed out of the database, and withdrew the microchip before turning and making her way back to the couch; as it turned out, for feeling mildly light-headed, she did need to sit down. “I suggest you think long and hard on that detail before we decide on any course of action.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
But if she hadn’t threatened him with that syringe back in the ACESO office, interrupting the Catalyst data transfer and forcing Russell’s turned hand, well…he wouldn’t have had access to what he was seeing now. Graphs with illegible legends and tables with impossibly dense cells opened one after another as Nadia’s fingers flew across the keyboard; pages upon pages of reports and summaries flashed in fast layers as the files gradually accumulated to cover each of the four networked displays. Despite himself, he arched a brow high onto his forehead in a distinct expression of awe. He’d anticipated an immense volume of data, but imagining it and actually seeing it unfold on a screen were two very different things. And now that Nadia had taught him a portion of the language that would allow him to decipher it, the contents of ACESO’s databases seemed that much bigger.
“All right,” he muttered, his lower lip caught behind his top teeth as he pored over the myriad windows splayed across the computers. “At this point, I’m going to say I believe you.” It wasn’t entirely true—he wasn’t sure he could trust anything the young woman claimed, regardless—but it was as close as he was going to get short of seeing actual results from her action in a laboratory. She also had no real reason to lie; to exaggerate, maybe, but in their current predicament, overplaying or falsifying their leverage would only be detrimental in the negotiations to come. And then, of course, there was her obvious pride, the arrogance she wore on her face like another set of features. He almost laughed.
“Your research has been conducted off-site,” the biker repeated, at last turning to face her. “Where, exactly? Or is ‘off-site’ some new-age code for ‘in your head,’ which in turn is code for ‘useless and imaginary’?” This time, when he raised his eyebrow, it was with skepticism. “Whatever. I get it, and like I said, I’m choosing to believe you, for now.”
He nudged the discarded office chair with the sole of his foot, his gaze cast momentarily downward as he considered her questions. He supposed she had earned the right for this brand of inquiry, but that didn’t make him any happier to respond to her interrogations. “The Catalysts are not known for their mercy, you would be correct there.” Again, he almost laughed; instead, a smirk curled the corners of his lips. “The entire group is founded on a strict set of rules, and all of those rules are based on one fundamental concept: loyalty to the gang. And I’m not talking pride here, I’m talking all-out, no-exceptions, absolute loyalty. It would actually be pretty annoying if it didn’t work so damn well to keep the members in line, but that’s beside the point.”
His shoulders rose and fell in a shrug that, along with his tone, betrayed his indifference to the Catalysts’ die-hard manifestos of allegiance. “I am—was—their vice president. I know everything, from the solid deals we’ve done to future plans to the general tendencies of the other leaders on the council. A man named Pryce Kensett is the president, and I was especially close with him. You could say I am to the Catalysts as you are to ACESO—I know a lot, probably more than I should, and they’re going to want me to keep my mouth shut when it comes to sharing inner details with outside sources.”
He leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. “Details involving Newark, specifically Veriska Lang, are sensitive, and I know them all. My people won’t hesitate to shoot me for my silence, since they’ve all got the kill-first-ask-questions-later kind of mentality. But Veriska Lang needs me for information against Pryce whether she wants to admit it or not—and the Catalysts need me for information on her too. Without that exchange for business, both sides stagnate. And in light of the whole fiasco yesterday, keeping up appearances is important.” He shook his head. “And they need me if they want to know what went down there, too. What went wrong.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
But what she left unsaid was that it went both ways: he had taken her primary form of defence, and even if she had her syringes at her disposal, she was still injured. At once, they were one another’s biggest threat, and yet, most prominent means of protection.
Nadia leaned forward to pick a bottle of water up from beside the cot; the one that Hinder had given her the night before, when she’d suffered from shock. Assuming (against her better judgement) that the drink was still free of drugs or other chemicals, she straightened up and took a long sip. She didn’t realize just how dehydrated and spent her body was until the room-temperature liquid hit her tongue.
The young doctor nearly choked back a laugh at her company’s next ridiculous comment.
Quirking an eyebrow, she gave him a look that she typically reserved for the young and stupid ACESO interns when they royally fucked up. “Are you aiming for merit points, for your shoddy attempt at symbolic deduction?” Nadia gave her head a single shake, accompanied by a world-weary, patronizing type of sigh. “Off-site means off-site. If I decide you need to know the details, then I’ll tell you; for now, you’ll have to take my word for it.”
But if he was willing to divulge the details and circumstances of his own convoluted world, then she was more than happy to listen. It came as no surprise that the biker gang revolved around some twisted notion of ‘loyalty’; or ‘gang mentality’, as she decided was a bit more fitting. So he’d infringed on the sacred laws among his kin, and was not likely to pay for it, if he approached them the wrong way.
Except that it appeared he had his own contingency plan; and her name was Veriska Lang.
This time, Nadia nearly did choke on the water that slid down her throat. “Well then.” The young woman cleared the water from her throat and capped the water bottle, shooting the complicated biker a curious look. “The thing about being in bed with powerful people,” she began in a drawl that suggested he should know better, “is that you’re investing in a double-edged blade. Miss Lang will only keep you alive for as long as she decides she needs you… and let me tell you that Newark is at no great loss for sources of information." She had, after all, spent enough time within the company's infrastructure be confident in their determination. "I do hope for your sake that your little gang can forgive your dire infringement; you think you are playing it smart by playing asset both sides. But you may soon find that, as a result, both sides may begin to view you as a liability.”
Whether he cared to admit it or not, she alone may be the leverage that he needed to dodge Pryce’s bullet or resist Veriska’s venom. Without her knowledge to access that microchip, or to interpret ACESO’s complicated code, the Catalysts and Newark would arrive at a stalemate, with neither any further ahead, and with the added fury of ACESO.
These were considerations over which the two of them had to mull, before they made their next move.
“Here is my suggestion:” Nadia straightened her spine and rolled her shoulders back, wincing almost imperceptibly as residual ache spread from her cauterized bullet wound. “you arrange a rendez-vous with your little gang of drug dealers before you go crawling back to Newark. Because you’re going to want to reclaim their trust and affection before you face Lang again. Newark, like ACESO, has eyes and ears in places you wouldn’t imagine; and there is a good chance that word of the disaster at the ACESO compound has already reached them. If she thinks you’ve already failed, do you really think she’s going to allow you the time to sweet-talk her back beneath the sheets with promise of redemption?” It had been years since she laid eyes on the woman in person, but Lang’s reputation wasn’t as covert as she probably hoped.
She had power, after all; and the power of pharma, in this day and age, almost guaranteed the underhanded disappearance of unwanted people.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
The consummation of opposing forces was perhaps the only power holding their precarious situation in balance, a delicate magnetism that united as strongly as it repelled. Russell cradled his chin between his thumb and index finger, massaging the clean-shaven skin thoughtfully. The eager, almost hungry expression she wore gave him pause enough to question whether or not it was wise to divulge so much so quickly. A flicker of a frown passed through his blue-gray eyes as he considered it, but his hesitation dissipated as swiftly as it came—this was no time to play the game of withholding information. Stubborn and demanding as he could be, he had little to lose and potentially everything to gain by spilling what he knew.
But in spite of her amusement and immediate (completely expected, at this point) condescension at the mention of Veriska Lang, Nadia did not realize just how careful Russell had been in covering his tracks and bases alike. He knew perhaps as much about how pharma operated firsthand as the former ACESO employee—from an entirely different perspective. Both members of the mismatched pair had grown up in those strict, corrupt corporate clutches, but just because Russell had come of age on the wrong side of the tracks did not mean he couldn’t exploit the very forces used to control them all. The biker could be reckless, surely, but he didn’t believe himself to be careless. The institution itself had been the one to teach him that no stone could be left unturned when you had the resources, and it was no secret that the big pharmaceutical trio was in heavy supply.
“A double-edged blade on either side of the equation,” he piped in, his brows knit together in a partial scowl. “I know Newark isn’t dependent on me for information. If they throw me out, they’ll find someone new and make do with their other spies in the meantime. Yeah, yeah. But I am valuable, and even if it’s small, I have a blade of my own. Lang might think I’m dumb enough to believe all her whispers in this ‘bed’ of ours”—he smirked—“but that’s sort of the point.” A shrug lifted his shoulders. “She forgets that I’m keeping her alive too. It’s part of the appeal, actually.”
He narrowed his eyes as she spoke, weighing her proposition with sudden seriousness as all thoughts of his venomous affair with Veriska Lang fell away to matters of more urgency. Striking up a meeting with the Catalyst higher-ups sounded like a death sentence (was that Nadia’s goal?), but then again, word of their failure—and what would be seen as his betrayal—may not yet have reached Pryce. Marsden would be the first to witness the security footage after the system patch expired. Russell quickly calculated that the gang’s favorite tech enthusiast would have seen it by now. The question was whether or not he’d relayed the actual happenings to Pryce. The Catalyst president would have already known of the mission’s failure after no one returned from the break-in; knowing him, he would assume that they, including Russell, were either dead or in pharma captivity. What he might not know was…well, everything else.
It was a gamble they were going to have to take. He still had Nadia and her chip as leverage, after all.
“If I can arrange a meeting,” he began, “meaning if the council doesn’t know exactly what went down in ACESO…” He gritted his teeth and hesitated, at last shifting his gaze to meet Nadia’s. “They’ll know the whole thing was a disaster, that much is obvious to anyone. Since no one came back, Pryce will assume we’ve been taken into custody. Or that we’re dead. He’d probably be pretty stoked to find out I made it out of there. I could use that face time to explain what actually happened, since it’s not a question of if he’ll see the security footage, but when…” The biker sighed, thinking aloud. “Winning Pryce over ensures the backup of the rest of the gang. But it’s a big gamble. They might like him, but the members’ loyalty is not attached to Pryce himself, it’s to the chain of command. If I could inherit Pryce’s rank…” He pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. “Fuck explanations. I could just get rid of him, couldn’t I?”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Although, ideally, she would be spared the worst of the repercussions, and the weight of consequences would be his burden to bear—not the sole reason for the plan of action she’d suggested, but most definitely a welcome perk. In the end, it remained the soundest and safest bet to ensure survival for the both of them…
And, to her surprise, the biker was not as quick to protest as she’d expected.
“You could,” she shrugged; Pryce was nothing but a name to her, and if he was as big an obstacle as Russell suggested, then it would only make sense to do away with him before problems escalated. Why he hadn’t suggested it sooner in the discussion (or why she hadn’t thought it) struck her as odd. “If establishing yourself as alpha male among your dogs will give you the leverage and protection that we need, I don’t see why you wouldn’t do away with the man. I do not, however, advise you approach him with such transparency.”
Nadia eased herself from the couch, more to stretch her legs than for any good reason. She hoped he didn’t catch the way her arm shot towards the back of the ratty piece of furniture to steady herself, withdrawing just as quickly. In a dog-eat-dog world, everyone was a prey animal, and as prey animals, displaying weakness (or even the potential for it) was as good as signing your own death certificate.
“You say you’re important yet expendable to your dog pack? Well, forget the expendable for a moment and play up this so-called importance. Tell them you escaped by the skin of your teeth with as much information you could gather before the procedure was interrupted. Anything to establish a rendez-vous. Even if it turns out they’ve seen the footage, and only want to see your face so that they can kill you themselves…” She shrugged her good shoulder again, tossing a small smile over it in his direction. “Well, then you’ll just have to make sure you shoot first. Get your trigger finger ready, because I’m not going to be able to help you. Wouldn’t want to steal the show and interfere with garnering respect from your future followers.”
Wandering to the door of what she was dead certain had to be his weapons room (one that she knew would not open without his command), Nadia dragged her fingertips over the failsafe keypad, likely used in the event that the thumbprint and retinal scanners broke. A decidedly idle gesture, to the naked eye, but the weight and texture of the keys told her that the technology was comparatively old to what she was used to working with at ACESO. Old technology wasn’t difficult to override, with just the right techniques. “So. What are you waiting for?” Nadia raised her eyebrows impatiently at her unlikely comrade. “The sooner we act, the less likely we will both be to risk Pryce learning too much, and us getting shot on sight.”
Assuming an authoritarian stance, with a straight spine and arms folded at her chest, she directed him the same way she had the poor, unfortunate interns who had been unlucky enough to fall under her strict ‘guidance’. “Contact your goons, keep the message short, sweet, and keep them curious. From there, we can only arm ourselves and play it by ear… wipe that childish look off your face.” The corner of her lips quirked into a grin, green eyes meeting his pale blue irises. “You know I’m right. But I’ll save the bragging for when your man is dead, and we’ve emerged from this alive.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Russell crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back into the sofa, watching absently as Nadia steadied herself on the furniture. The biker’s murderous ideations were not born of any particular desire to facilitate Pryce’s inevitable end; the president’s doom was rather a product of indifference on Russell’s part. Sentimentality played no role in any aspect of his life, and when it came to the council, he felt no particular sense of camaraderie with any member who sat in those esteemed seats. He was there for his own personal gain, his own protection, his own insurance of supplies and shelter and transportation in a world keen on denying the less fortunate.
“I don’t want Pryce’s position,” he clarified, resurfacing from his thoughts and shooting a glare in Nadia’s direction. He watched as her fingers trailed over the keypad posted outside his weapons room, pursing his lips as if supervising a child on the brink of misbehavior. “Let me make one thing clear. If I had any desire to be president, I would be president. I am where I am for a reason, make no mistake.” He cleared his throat, but it wasn’t enough to mask the expression of disgust on his face at the prospect of future followers. “But taking over means I can realign the club’s priorities to support me, which in turn means they will be forced to support you. You’ll have their protection as well as mine. Whether you want to align yourself with street thugs or not, full Catalyst support would be extremely beneficial. The gang’s reach is second only to pharma.”
She was right, of course, about emphasizing his value—Russell, like Nadia, was not interested in displaying weakness amongst hoards of predators all salivating for the taste of a fatal blow. He knew how to manipulate his people, particularly those recruited by Pryce (whose selections were strategically unmotivated). Establishing contact would be relatively easy.
Cellular telephones were rare amongst those unaffiliated with pharma; old towers had fallen to disrepair in the aftermath of the war, and the new technology that eventually replaced them was available only to those with the connections to afford it. Fortunately, the Catalysts’ relationship with Newark granted them the privilege of accessing their network. Russell used his device rarely, in part because it was never guaranteed that there would be a place to recharge a depleted battery, but in times like this it was an invaluable tool for communication. He fished in his pack for the black neoprene case that enclosed the phone, glancing at the light-haired scientist as he powered it on. The bright touchscreen flashed to life. Pryce Kensett’s twelve-digit contact number glowed beneath his fingers, and with bated breath he pressed send.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
It meant, Nadia suspected, that he was committed to their truce. Or, alternatively, that he was afraid of her. A balanced combination of the both would have been ideal.
“I’m not so proud as to suggest I don’t need protection,” she explained, an amused smile playing on her lips. “But I don’t care whether or not you want to usurp your gang president. The result of such is all that matters to me, particularly if it ensures security for the both of us. I’ll leave you to your own devices to decide how it is you plan to execute this endeavour.”
Nadia waited until she saw the cellular phone refocus his attention to refocus her own on the keypad to the locked room behind her. For all of her talents and skills, even she could not accurately decipher a passcode from looking at the buttons before her. Some of the numbers were decidedly smoother than others, indicating those which were more and less likely to be part of the magic combination, but there was no trick to guessing at the combination itself, not without a special program or device that she did not have at her fingertips. It was nothing short of a matter of trial and error, and although it was not pertinent that she gain access to this unexplored room, getting acquainted with her surroundings would be beneficial, especially if this was a place to which she would be returning.
While Russell complied with their plan and arranged a meeting with his gang and their president, the scientist took a shot in the dark and punched in a random combination of some of the more frequently pressed (by the looks of them) keys. It was a six digit code; she came to learn this very quickly when, after six numbers’ worth of an incorrect combination, a sudden high-pitched alarm had her practically jump away from the sealed door.
It appeared as though she wasn’t giving the biker enough credit for the precautions he took. The only other person who she could think would arm rooms without their own carefully protected homes with alarms was herself.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
“Hinder?”
There was shock in the familiar voice on the other end of the line, and Russell stiffened. “Pryce,” he said flatly. He always made it a point to use the man’s first name simply because the informality was irksome.
“Where the fuck are you?” the Catalyst president demanded. His voice was low, suggesting he was not alone, but the anger lacing each syllable was undeniable. What Russell couldn’t decipher was whether or not it was fury born of knowledge or irritation from lack of answers. Pryce was arrogant but he was far from stupid; being left in the dark was maddening when so much had gone so wrong so quickly.
“Shut up and listen, Pryce.” Russell’s voice was perfectly calm, but there was venom in the tranquility that the president would recognize immediately. “I’ve got something for us.”
“What the fuck is going on, Hinder?” Pryce breathed a sigh across the phone’s microphone, sending a burst of loud static ringing across the line. “How are you even on the phone right now? Where are—”
“I said shut up,” interjected Russell. “There were complications. You know that already. We’re on Newark’s line, Pryce, and pharma could be listening. It’s too risky.” It was a bluff—while certainly possible, it was highly unlikely ACESO was searching the air for encrypted cellular signals when flesh-and-blood perpetrators like Nadia had the potential to be closely at large. But Pryce would be paranoid enough to quell his interrogation anyway, and Russell was counting on that perpetual unease to ensure his face-to-face meeting if all else failed.
“Hinder…”
“Oldtown,” Russell said. “One o’clock. I’ll meet you. But come alone, because this is big. The authorities are all over the city, and we don’t want excess attention.”
“Done.” Pryce sounded strangled, but not hostile. There was curiosity in just that single word—yet another sign that Russell had hooked the Catalyst president—and the line went silent without a goodbye.
The sound of the alarm from inside the safehouse basement, however, was nearly enough to make Russell jump free of his tattooed skin, and he didn’t have time to celebrate his successful arrangement before leaping to his feet to investigate. Pharma whore, he cursed to himself. He rounded the blind spot formed by the stairs to find Nadia standing as predicted before the sealed, protected entry of his weapons storeroom. Without thinking, and with blatant disregard for her recent injury, he grabbed her forcefully by the shoulders and pushed her firmly away from the door. He silenced the shrill alarm with a scan of his thumb.
“Okay, seriously?” he exclaimed, rounding angrily back to face his companion. “Can I ask what the hell you were planning on doing if you got through there?”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Of course, she wasn’t about to tell Russell any of that. As valuable an ally as the man might be, his ignorance in many an area was just as valuable, not to mention pertinent to staying one step ahead of him.
Unable to bite back a hiss and groan at the pressure of his hand on her injured shoulder, the young doctor winced and her spine stooped as pain shot down her arm. “Do you mind?” She muttered with blatant disregard for his outrage, forcibly moving his rough fingers away from the wound before gingerly protecting the area with her own small hand. Her calculating green eyes met his with a bored look of disapproval, followed by a lie flooded with sarcasm. “I have no interest in your little locked room of secrets; I leaned on the keypad by accident. Please accept my most humble apology.
“Now, if you are over yourself, we need to get down to business.” Palming his sternum with her good hand to push him away (and giving a shove that seemed far too strong for someone of her slight stature), Nadia moved toward the cot where her bad of supplies sat at the foot of it. Ignoring the sight of her own blood staining the surface of the folding bed (along with the compulsive urge to lift the particles and sterilize the area), Nadia found her own phone in one of the side pockets. The model was far newer than that of Russell’s, with advanced capabilities as a result. As a precautionary step, she’d already cleared all of her personal data and contact, resetting the device to factory settings, along with reprogramming it into thinking it was 20 miles away from any given location on the GPS. Not foolproof, but it would at least make her more difficult for ACESO to track down.
“We’ve only got a few hours before we meet with your renowned leader,” the doctor reminded him, and brought up a map of the city on her screen. “Load your gun and decide what you need to take, and we need to plan a route in an out. The quickest means are too obvious and would put us wide open to the possibility of falling under pharma’s spotlights. Also…” She spared him a glance over her shoulder. “You might want to return to me my syringes. Your weaponry is more practical, but I think we can both agree that if the plan starts to go south, you’re going to need backup. And you already know how fast I can act under pressure.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
“Of course you want to know what’s in my locked room. That’s why you tried a combination, isn’t it?” He turned back towards the door, watching the intermittent glow of its tiny green LED that indicated the system was armed. “What, did you try to see which numbers were more worn down? Yeah?” He shook his head. “That keypad didn’t always belong to me. Sorry if that threw you.” The pressure of her hand on his sternum caused him to step backward. His blue eyes rolled to look at the ceiling, and he sighed his frustration in a hiss through gritted teeth.
Russell wasn’t about to take orders on preparation from someone who had never before dealt with his kind of people, but she was right—it was time to get down to business. As she prattled on, he largely ignored her words; instead, he unholstered his pistol from his hip and ejected the partially empty magazine. He doubted she would be surprised to learn that behind the locked door she’d attempted to breach was a caged arsenal of additional firearms and a wealth of ammunition reloading supplies. Thankfully, he had plenty left and wouldn’t need to bother with the time-consuming process.
“Oldtown is about thirty miles from here, well south of Pharma City. It’s a district that used to surround a park, but the park was turned into a paved square when water resources dwindled after the war.” Russell settled further into the sofa, magazine still in hand. “Pryce will met us in the square. I told him to come alone, and he agreed. That probably means he’ll come with two other men.” He glanced up to Nadia, who was busy studying her own device. Russell didn’t need a map to know the best route to Oldtown; it was one of several locations throughout the city that the Catalysts used for covert rendezvous. Aside from the occasional strung-out straggler, the nearest permanent residential area was fifteen miles to the west. Open and isolated—perfect for their purposes, but also dangerous for them.
“You’ll get your syringes back when we get there. Which will be early, at least a half an hour. Pryce isn’t necessarily punctual, but I’m betting he’ll be too eager to be late.” Russell sat up a little straighter. “His men will be armed, and their aim is good, but they’re slow. If all else fails, we can use that to our advantage. Even you could take one of them down with your needles, and they’re twice as big as I am. Provided you can get through their leather, which they’ll also be wearing.” The biker met the scientist’s eyes. “Here, here, and here are your best bets if you’re not using a bullet,” he instructed, touching his ankles, lower back, and neck, places where overlapping fabric had a tendency to shift. “If it comes to that, be ready. Otherwise, be ready to act like a freaked out little prisoner and they won’t predict you’re a threat. Think you can manage that?”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Funny, how you were sometimes only safest in the presence of your very own dire threat.
The location that the biker described only showed up as ‘unmarked’ on her phone, and as she listened to him explain, she realized why. “Only two other men?” Nadia arched an eyebrow and glanced at him from where she sat on the cot. “Huh. The man must be awfully secure in himself not to secure more back-up; clearly I don’t know him beyond what you’ve described, but anyone with a couple of neurons will have a hunch that you won’t be coming alone, either. If you want my advice, prepare yourself for more than a trio. You may end up needing each and every bullet in that gun of yours.”
The practicality of her own weapons was another issue, however. The potency of the contents of her syringes were arguably more dangerous and more debilitating than the metal in Russell’s firearms. You could take out a bullet (although, she had discovered first-hand, there was no safe or convenient way to do so), but once you had a chemical concoction in your veins, the best that you could do was freeze to slow the circulation, which in the end only slowed the reaction and result. The trouble was… well, Hinder had pretty much hit the nail on the head with the struggle in relying on hypodermic needles as a primary method of defense. You needed to be accurate, you needed to be fast, and if the clothing was too thick, there was a good chance the syringe wouldn’t penetrate.
All of the places the biker pointed out on his own body were obvious deductions that the young doctor would have made. But it still got the gears in her head turning as she pondered scenario and technique, weighing her advantages against her disadvantages.
“Ankles are out of the question, unless I’m slicing the heel to take a man down,” she mused aloud, folding her hands under her chin while her sharp green eyes took in the biker’s form, using the physique before her to help her determine the best course of action. “The neck would be ideal, but it was a stretch to reach yours, and if these men are taller, the feat would be useless and impractical, unless I’m presented with an opportunity where they’re kneeling. Muscles in the lower back are firm and thick, and chances are any serum would have a delayed effect for the time that it takes to circulate… So not ideal, but not infeasible or useless. What about wrists? Do your cronies wear gloves, and if so, how tight are they?”
Her skills were perhaps only being considered for back-up, but Nadia Paisley never played anything by ear. She needed to visualize, conceptualize, and know exactly what she was doing before the plan was executed. Her advantage here was that she and Russell had already faced off; if the movements of the other bikers were at all similar to his, then she had a vague idea as to what she was up against. That generalization was all she’d have to go on, but it would be enough.
His final comment carved a sour look into her otherwise youthful features. “The goons we left dead in the ACESO compound did not perceive me as a threat, even after you told them I was one,” she reminded him, dropping her bag back on the cot as she rose to her feet. “I’ll keep my mouth shut, but I’d advise you not to breathe a word about my shoulder. It won’t do either of us any favours for them to know I am compromised, particularly if I’m going to have your back.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
The biker gritted his teeth and pursed his lips. “Ammunition won’t be a problem,” he said with certainty, keeping his end of their shared doubts to himself. “As for gloves, yeah, they’re pretty standard. Here, I’ll show you mine. They’re more or less typical of what they’d wear too.” His pack teetered on the edge of the couch cushion as he reached in to pull out his favorite pair. They slid on to his large hands as though they’d been tailor-made for his grip, lined in soft breathable felt beneath the black leather surface. During summer months, these were his gloves of choice; insulation from cold was not needed, meaning they were thick enough to protect skin from pavement but thin enough for maneuverability. He stretched out his fingers and offered his left hand to Nadia for closer inspection. “They’re tight, and most of them go about this high on the wrist,” he said, gesturing to a place several inches up his forearm from his wrist bone. “But they won’t be any thicker than this. It slows you down otherwise.”
When she finished studying his hand, he slipped the gloves off and tossed them on to the sofa, standing up straight to stretch his spine. He shot her an incredulous look at her instruction not to reveal her injury—why she thought he would jeopardize their operation so foolishly was beyond him—and headed to the locked ammunition room. A quick scan of his thumb and iris was all it took to gain entry, and as he pushed through the threshold he was not surprised to find the green-eyed woman behind him.
On the surface, the room was plain. The basement’s original stone floor took the place of clean carpet, and the warm, homey lighting gave way to the sterile blue of overhead fluorescents. One corner was caged off with tight steel grating that barely allowed a glimpse at the contents inside; one wall was stacked halfway to the ceiling in small, unmarked plastic boxes containing pre-loaded bullets; and against the last wall was a tall table upon which rested his reloading equipment, blanketed in dust-covered navy sheets.
“See?” he said, hoisting one of the plastic ammo boxes off the monumental stack with a grunt. “Not all that interesting. Think you can load some magazines?”
He dropped the box on to the loading table without uncovering the equipment, the container’s heavy contents rattling at the sudden shift. “Here,” he prompted, reaching to the shelf above to pull down a box of spare 9mm magazines. “Each one holds fifteen bullets. The springs are tough, so the fuller they get, the harder it is to squeeze the rest in. Think a hundred and fifty rounds will be enough?” He chuckled, popping open the plastic box and digging out a handful of shiny brass. “They go in this way. Now, the faster we get this done, the faster we can leave. Pryce will be early, which means we need to be earlier. I know Oldtown pretty well, but I’ve never faced it on…well, on this side of a confrontation, let’s say.” He shook his head. “Keep loading these. And don’t even think about breaking into the arsenal”—he gestured toward the makeshift steel closet—“because it’s as secure as this room was. I’m going to get ready.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Taking his large hand in both of her smaller ones, the young researcher pressed on the glove’s leathery material, feeling for its strengths and weaknesses against foreign objects. The felt would not be a problem, and her needles could penetrate the leather, but he was correct in thinking that they would slow her down.
“Hn. You bikers must think yourselves knights, with the amount of armor on your bodies.” It was as much a vague statement as it was admiration of the precautions he and his comrades took, though the latter was not evident in the monotone of her voice. Curious about one more possibility, Nadia slid three of her slender fingers past the glove and up the sleeve of Russell’s jacket. Halfway to her third knuckle, her fingertips, cool in comparison to his warm flesh, felt the rhythmic pulse of a crucial (and very useful) vein. Her lips curled into the hint of a smile: at the right angle, she could slide the tip of the long syringe expertly into that vein. “Tricky, but you’re not invincible—and neither are your cronies. I think I can do this.”
Not about to pass up the chance to glimpse at the room she’d experimentally attempted to access just moments ago, the young doctor followed her unlikely comrade as he opened the door. Of course, it wasn’t that interesting; nothing more or less than what she would expect, and no weaponry came even close to comparing to what ACESO or its competitors had up their sleeves—at least, from what she could tell. Who know what he could pack into the secret steel closer that whetted her appetite for curiosity.
“I think I can load them if you show me,” Nadia raised an eyebrow. “I don’t deal in firearms, but I’m a fast learner.” And, maybe, it was time she did deal in them. Syringes were perfect for discreet, but they were inconvenient in terms of requiring dangerously close proximity to the victim. And, times like these, discretion didn’t matter so much.
Observing his technique carefully, she snatched the magazine from his hand seconds later, when the demonstration became too redundant for her liking. “I think I’ve got it,” she said pointedly, and began perfectly mimicking the task that had been his only seconds before. “You go do what you need to do, I’ll have this ready in moments.” Then, with a snide grin, she added, “Relax; I’ll save my snooping for a more convenient time. Though it might save us both a lot of trouble if you just tell me what you’re hiding in that shiny steel case.”
True to her word, Nadia had the hundred-and-fifty rounds loaded like any expert dealer in arms, and dragged the magazines from his secret and secured room to yet another door that would not open without his access. “Hinder,” she called, voice laden with impatience. “If you’re putting your make-up on, it isn’t going to matter if we show up late and you get shot in the face. We’re running out of time, here.”
She, on the other hand, had nothing to prepare. With only her boots, dress pants and long-sleeved casual blouse (and her lab coat ruined and disposed of), she'd be going into this relatively vulnerable. At the very least, it would distort the bikers' appraisal of how dangerous she was, looking like she'd just stepped out of an office as opposed to have taken a ride on a motorbike.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
He left the ammunition room without another word as soon as Nadia declared herself proficient at loading the magazines, his expression one of snide mischief. In actuality, the contents of the steel safe were entirely within the realm of what one would expect of an arsenal. Various knives and switchblades, several more firearm options (including a semiautomatic rifle that was too large for their current needs), as well as the much-needed small pistol primers and gunpowder cases for reloading sessions lay beyond its blinds. But she didn’t need to know that; he wasn’t about to share anything more powerful with her than her own syringes of poison.
While she finished loading his magazines, he donned his riding gear—black leather boots, a thick pair of dark denim jeans over which he strapped black leather chaps, and a fresh white t-shirt beneath his thick riding jacket. He gathered his two pistols and loaded them with full magazines, then strapped them to his person. One returned to its usual place at his waist; the other went into a concealed pocket for easy access from his jacket. He tucked two spare magazines up each of his sleeves. The remainder would go in his pack when Nadia finished her task.
His getaway bag was already prepped and ready; to it, he added one more change of clothes and a bottle of water from the refrigerator. When the researcher called, he appeared from around the stairs with a look of impatience to rival her own. “You’re going to need this,” he told her, thrusting a worn leather jacket several sizes too large into her arms. “And don’t whine about it, either. You can take it off when we get there, but for now we should probably give you a little more protection than…that.” He gestured to her ACESO outfit as he loaded the refilled magazines into his pack. “Are you ready now?”
Without waiting for her answer, he swung his bag over his shoulder and ascended the basement stairs to the deserted house’s first floor. They picked their way through the desolate rubble to the garage.
“You can use your same helmet,” he instructed, picking up another that hung on the wall hooks near the door and sliding it over his head. He strapping in his pack, he swung his leg over and brought the eager engine to life. Before he could let himself doubt their plan of attack, he took off down the empty street toward Oldtown—and an outcome neither of them could predict.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
The young doctor slipped her arms through the sleeves, rolling them up at the cuff and wrinkling her nose. It smelled of sweat and street-smog and strong winds, and fell past her waist in length, but protection was protection, and she couldn’t very well show up sporting her ACESO-issued attire (she might as well draw a target on her chest, were that the case). Furthermore, it was reassurance as to Hinder’s dedication to their truce: he had to have her well-being in mind, if she was to be of any use at all.
Grabbing her own travel bag and arranging it across her shoulders and torso, she hurried to Russell before the door could close behind him, and grabbed his wrist in a vice grip. “My syringes,” she reminded him in a low, acerbic tone, her small but nimble legs taking two steps at a time to keep up with him ascending the staircase. “You’d better have them on you, and I hope you plan on giving them to me soon. I can hide a couple in these sleeves, but it will be a useless endeavour if your gang leader sees you slip them to me on our arrival.”
Reaching the garage where his bike was parked, Hinder didn’t have to tell her twice to grab the helmet that had adorned her head several times before. Using the elastic band around her wrist to secure her dark blonde hair in its typical, neat ponytail to keep it from blowing about on their ride, she climbed upon the loud vehicle with its monstrous engine, gripping Russell’s waist tightly as they pulled out and sped down the dark, unmaintained street at—according to his speedometer—over a hundred miles per hour.
Oldtown was nothing like what she was used to. Detritus along the bump, pot-holed roles caused them to take some sharp turns more often than not, and the further they went, the less recognizable the environment in the dead of night. Dilapidated houses, rubble and carnage… She only hoped the biker knew where he was going, and where they needed to stop.
At last, they came to an abrupt halt that jerked Nadia’s small body against the driver’s. The two of them seemed to be on the same page when they stopped to listen before either of them dismounted the motorcycle. No sound of breathing or any indication that there were human beings in the area other than them; it appeared as though they were the first to arrive, after all.
“Hinder,” she began, when they finally dismounted, but before she could finish her demand, she felt him press a small handful of slender cylinders into her eager palm. With a small grin of satisfaction revealed only by filtered moonlight through polluted clouds, she slid the loaded syringes into her sleeve. “Thank you,” came her quiet yet sincere gratitude, before her keen green eyes began to search the night’s obscurity for any sign of where Russell’s cronies might come from.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
The familiar roar of his bike engine soon drowned out her voice and his thoughts alike. Despite its threatening growl, the synthetic thunder soothed him as they tore down the streets and the highways, navigating a black labyrinth illuminated solely by his single headlight. For a moment he could blissfully forget the passenger gripping his waist; for a moment he could pretend that they were headed someplace other than a vacant open square and very real mortal danger.
He powered off the engine and flipped off the bright lamp several blocks before their actual destination, coasting in silent darkness until he jammed the brakes in a sudden, abrupt stop. As much as Nadia Paisley annoyed him, the rough and tumble biker could at least be thankful that she had a brain in her skull and the common sense to prove it; without informing her of his intention to do so, they remained perfectly still and silent, serenaded only by the soft breath of the wind and the querulous chime of summer cicadas. After several convincing minutes, Russell dismounted.
Conjuring the small plastic syringes from his pack, he pressed them into her eagerly waiting palm at the prompt of her voice, then slid several backup magazines into the side pockets of his jacket. He said nothing in response to her quiet thank-you. The meeting time was nearly upon them, and Russell had no desire to waste his breath on something as silly as a verbal acknowledgment that might be overheard.
The gangbangers were early, as Russell had predicted. He crouched behind a rusted dumpster in the alley, pulling his unlikely companion down next to him to peer out the other side nearest the crumbling brick wall. The grumble of the approaching motorcycles was unmistakable, droning like a swarm of metal hornets as the three silhouetted men pulled into Oldtown Square. The first to dismount was the figure in the center, whose long, lean form was unmistakably Pryce’s even in layers of protective leather. The other two were considerably taller and larger; not even their considerable distance could disguise their tremendous bulk. The musclemen killed their engines, flooding the square with deafening silence.
Russell drew a breath and locked eyes with Nadia. “Ready?” he whispered needlessly. Neither of them had a choice in the matter now, but if he could nevertheless answer the question with a yes, it loaned him the courage for that first initial contact. Slowly, he stood, then stepped out into the open as though his stroll from the alley had never been interrupted. He wrapped one gloved hand around Nadia’s collar (the look he cast her was almost apologetic) and pointed his favorite 9mm at her temple with the other. It was all about keeping up appearances.
“Pryce,” he called, his voice absolutely smooth, even taunting. “Over here.”
The Catalyst president folded his arms across his chest expectantly, baring his teeth in a haughty, animalistic grin. “Russell Fuckin’ Hinder.”
Russell kept his gaze trained on Pryce. Nadia would have to be the one to covertly survey their surroundings; appearing paranoid would ruin his angle. He was certain she would be analyzing everything regardless of instruction, so that, at least, was one less thing to worry about. “Good to see you too,” he drawled, pressing the barrel of his gun tightly against the young woman’s temple to reinforce his position of power.
“We all fuckin’ thought you were dead.”
Russell’s throat tightened imperceptibly. The Catalyst leader’s tone had shifted, but what were the implications? “I fuckin’ thought I was dead,” he retorted as though it were business as usual, pulling a face.
“So this is what you have to show for yourself? The thing you couldn’t tell me over the phone? A pharma whore who, what, wouldn’t fuck you?” Pryce laughed viciously, one of his cronies covering up his amusement with an unconvincing cough. Russell arched a brow at the man he didn’t recognize, then shifted his attention back to Pryce.
“She begged me to fuck her,” Russell shot back, playing into the man’s sense of humor. “But you think she would’ve been able to ride all the way here after I got done? Wasn’t fuckin’ practical.”
Despite Russell’s steely tone, Pryce erupted into raucous laughter. “Point taken, man. So what’s with the science bitch, then?”
The biker continued with caution, choosing to operate under the assumption that Pryce was still in the dark about Nadia’s true role—and Russell’s—in the botched charade. “Marsden’s file copy protocols were interrupted mid-transfer, so the information we have on Catalyst servers is incomplete.” He paused. “I retrieved a chip from ACESO”—he jerked Nadia’s collar, indicating his prisoner—“with a complete data set. The pharma whore here is the key to unlocking the whole fuckin’ thing. She’s an insider. Knows the system, speaks the language, Newark has no idea…” He smiled a disturbingly convincing smile, one that Pryce soon mirrored as the implications sunk through his thick skull.
But Russell was not prepared for optimism just yet. Pryce was a brilliant con man and an even better liar, and though Russell was familiar with most of the man’s tells, that didn’t mean he’d been privy to every clue along the way—and these were exceptional circumstances.
“Excellent work, Hinder,” Pryce drawled, taking a leisurely step towards Nadia, his eyes running over the length of her figure. “And what’s your name, pretty lady?”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
That, and the bastard hadn't given her a gun, so they were all she had to rely on.
The only trouble was, perhaps, that--just as they had expected--the two of them were outnumbered. Only by one, it appeared, but Nadia was not convinced that there couldn't be more of his untrustworthy band of scoundrels hiding in the shadows. In fact, she was more willing to bet that they were only seeing a fraction of what they might be up against; Russell wasn't the only one living on the edge. Just because she didn't crawl the streets like these cowboys on wheels didn't mean the young doctor couldn't previse danger or simply didn't know what to expect.
Except, if this was going to be at all believable and effective, then she had to pretend as though the latter two clauses were not true.
Quelling the urge to react with deadly grace when Russell seized her collar and pressed the barrel of the gun to her temple, Nadia slipped the syringes carefully up her sleeve and drew on the atmosphere of the lie that she and the biker were spinning, and put her own theatrics into effect. Quickening her intake of breath, the ACESO genius emulated fear and panic, as much as any of her less capable colleagues might exhibit, were they to find themselves in a similar situation: arrogant and proud, yet meek in the face of danger. Given her stature, it was not a feat that should be difficult to achieve.
The banter between Russell and this other man--Pryce, he'd called him?--appropriately boiled Nadia's blood, drawing colour into her face out of anger of being objectified. Careful. Hinder... She mentally warned, knowing that, on some level, the biker was enjoying the humiliation at her expense, even if it was simply to keep according to plan; to pull a fast one on Pryce, before he pulled a fast one on either of them.
But that was when Nadia realized how oddly casual this entire encounter was: Pryce, with only one goon on either side of him, all ears and willing to indulge Russell's explanation for the reason he had a prisoner. She didn't know the Catalyst leader, personally, but she knew his type. And a man like that would never drop his guard so easily in a situation such as this, without an ulterior motive in mind.
A strong hunch urged her that she and Russell were not the only one with a plan. The jig was up practically before it started.
Relaxing her shoulders, Nadia met Pryce's eyes. The man easily cleared her by a foot, and she was willing to bet he doubled her weight. But that didn't make her afraid of him; maybe it should have. "Dr. Nadia Paisley of ACESO's biomedical research brance," came her monotonous reply to his question. "And for future reference: psychological studies has revealed the tendency to joke about, boast of or imply fictional intercourse with women typically suggests a lack of such in one's lifestyle. And, often times, that lack is directly correlated to insecurity in the size of one's penis, inciting behaviour that can actually drive away potential sexual partners." Her lips curled ever so slightly, as she added, "Fortunately for you, if your anatomy really is the cause, then this shouldn't hurt too much."
Without warning, Nadia brought up her foot, aiming the rounded toe for Pryce's lower half, directly for the one place anyone physically male would not want to find the toe of a boot. And just like that, the spell was broken.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Under any other circumstance, he would have laughed aloud at Dr. Paisley’s swift, eloquent speech, his amusement serving as nonverbal approval. But here and now, with their immediate audience of three and undoubtedly several more hiding in the perimeter, Russell was careful to control every aspect of his body language and expression. Pryce, on the other hand, was being lax—and that, Russell realized with a lump lodging in his throat, meant that something was awry.
Pryce knew.
It dawned on him at the precise moment Nadia’s knee connected with the Catalyst president’s groin. No amount of protective leather and denim could cushion such a sharp, deliberate blow. Pryce doubled over immediately, and when he did, Russell swung his gun upward and struck the man’s face with the hard barrel of the pistol. The president’s two massive cronies sprang forward.
“Nadia, now,” he instructed through clenched teeth as the metal connected with flesh. Pryce swore loudly, his lower face covered in blood streaming from the nostrils of an obviously broken nose, and resurfaced with his own pistol drawn. Momentarily blinded by watering eyes, Russell dodged the man’s initial approach and fired his weapon at one of the henchmen. The bullet lodged itself in his shoulder, but it did not stop his advances on Nadia. Another shot sent him to his knees on the broken cobblestones.
The shots were likely what summoned the other gang members from the shadows. Black-clad men sprinted from the surrounding pathways feeding the square, pulling handguns from their coats. Russell knew they wouldn’t shoot when their targets—himself and Nadia—remained so close to Pryce, especially considering their accuracy would be severely diminished while in motion. He had precious few seconds to carry out the rest of the act.
Russell wrapped one gloved hand around Pryce’s shooting arm and shoved it upward, using his gun once again to strike the man in the face. Pryce tripped backward, and Hinder aimed straight between the man’s brows at point-blank range, the tip of the barrel practically touching skin as he forced him backward. But as his finger twitched to pull the trigger and end it all, he felt the ground rushing towards him—the Catalyst president falling right alongside him as Russell forced him down. Russell’s bullet discharged once, twice, grazing Pryce’s arm. Fuck.
He didn’t recognize the man who had tackled him, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Russell scrambled to his feet and buried two swift bullets in the other biker’s back.
Thankfully, he did not need to signal Nadia Paisley—for apparently they had come to the same conclusion simultaneously. It was time to flee. He sprinted back towards the alley whence they’d come, weaving a serpentine path across the open distance. He reached back as he ran, firing yet another round toward Pryce’s wounded form—but the explosive sound that should have resulted had not originated from his own firearm. It had been Pryce’s, and it had found its mark deep in Russell’s retreating back…
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
The others appeared to be up to her. At least for the moment.
A man inches larger than Pryce began to head for her, as if she were the single most dire threat that faced them. Good--let him think that. Perhaps he was, after all, not entirely wrong.
To the biker's obvious surprise, Nadia lunged for him as he made for her, striding headlong into danger. Until, that is, she nullified the danger completely, with the mere prick of a needle. Small as she was, in his attempt to bend to apprehend her, he put himself at just the ideal height for her to plunge the sharp tip into his neck, just beneath the collar of his leather jacket.
And she watched with satisfaction as his eyes widened, and then his body slumped to the cold ground.
Gunshots sailed in her direction when it became apparent to the goons crawling out of the shadows what had happened, and it was only for her agility and careful kinestheic maneuvering that she got by relatively unscathed, seeking refuge behind Russell's bike.
And, speaking of her unlikely companion, she managed to turn her head just as she witnessed the bullet embed itself in the biker's back.
No. No, no, this couldn't happen. Hinder was her only way out of here and only real source of protection; if he fell, then without a weapon, so would she.
The young doctor's keen eyes caught the sight Russell's pistol tumbling from his hand at the shock, and she took the opportunity to seize it; it was the only option left, short of death, if they didn't want to be pursued.
"Get on your bike," she barked at her unlikely companion, before pointing the weapon directly at Pryce and firing. It must have hit, because the man cried out and winced; and thus was born their one and only opportunity to get away, unscathed, as the man's minions decided to forego taking them down in favour of springing to his aid. "Now, Hinder," she hissed, shoving his helmet at him. "We need to get out of here now!"
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
He didn’t get that chance.
He felt himself falling before he felt the sting of the bullet in his back. In fact, as he released his pistol to catch himself with his forearms on the brick, the thought crossed his mind that he’d been clumsy enough to trip, and that damn, he better not break a wrist…
But as soon as his torso met the ground, he felt it—the unmistakable explosion of pain that could only mean one of Pryce’s bullets had found their mark. His vision went white as he struggled to get to his feet, his ears ringing with the sound of—Nadia’s? How did she get her hands on a gun?—nearby shot. He realized quickly that his weapon was no longer cradled in his gloved palm, and that she must have taken it when he fell.
Pain radiated from his back into his neck and head as he fumbled to put on the helmet—he’d already been shot, what was the point of wearing it, anyway? Oh, fuck it—and in turn down each of his arms as he swung his leg over his bike and revved the engine. Though the thick leather of his riding jacket likely shielded his passenger from the majority of the blood leaking from his wound, he could feel the hot liquid spreading against his skin, which ached against the pressure of the young woman’s body against him. His tires screeched as he accelerated, and they tore unsteadily down the street until they were well out of gunfire range.
It was imperative that they not be followed, but even in his increasing haze of blood loss and pain Russell Hinder knew he had to weigh the chance of being tailed with the very real possibility of bleeding out. Taking an indirect route might spare them a pursuer, but it also meant taking a greater medical risk to his own life, and also that of his charge. Gritting his teeth, he powered up on to the deserted interstate with a sudden veer to the left. He would compromise, taking a more visible but less direct path, and simply hope for the best.
By the time they reached the dilapidated exterior guise of his safe house, he could barely hold his bike upright as it came to a stop. Muscle memory allowed him to quickly gain entry to the garage and the house and the lower level, but the rest was more of a struggle. As they descended the stairs to the stronghold basement, he draped a firm hand on Nadia’s shoulder, this time for his own benefit rather than an attempt to keep her from fleeing.
“I need a drink,” the biker choked out, throwing his gloves on the floor before unzipping his jacket and leaning unsteadily against the stair rail. Now under proper illumination, his ghastly pale complexion was obvious. A grimace distorted his blanched features as a new wave of pain breached his body’s shore. “Fuck this shit,” he swore, head spinning. He closed his eyes against the rotation and pursed his lips. “This isn’t good.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
And it was not leaking and spilling onto the ground from one source, not onto one pair of shoes. The young doctor realized this as immediately as she took her seat behind the biker, and caught the aroma from the collar of his leather jacket.
Hinder was injured, a predicted recipient of his ruthless leader's wrath, and a victim of the man's deadly weapon. Evidently not enough that he couldn't operate his motorcycle, but not twenty-four hours ago, she had experienced the rate a which shock set in following excessive blood loss when the heart was racing and the situation was heated. As to how much time before the man collapsed (or, more frighteningly, fell off his motorcycle and compromised her life as well as his), there was no way of knowing. The young doctor could only hold her breath and cross her fingers until he brought the bike to a stop.
The hand on her shoulder told Nadia more about her unlikely accomplice's condition than his weakening pulse, or the pallor beneath his tanned skin. Russell hated her; the man wouldn't touch her if he didn't need to. He despised her very being, valuing the knowledge in her brain to which he could not gain access without her working mouth to convey and translate the information into terms that would make sense to him. He only kept her alive for that reason--and, similarly, she required his lungs to continue to draw breath. The wound could not--it would not--go untended.
Grabbing the hand on her shoulder, she all but hauled Hinder's heavier body back inside, and grimaced at the soaked article of clothing beneath his leather coat. "Forget it." Came Nadia's hiss in response to his desire for alcohol as she guided him down the stairs, all the way to the cot where she'd previously spent the night. "This isn't the stone age, Hinder; it's a blood thinner, which, as a doctor, I do not advise. Anyway, I have something better."
She wasted no time, because there was no time to waste. Before the biker could protest, eerie Dr. Paisley took out his knees, catching his shoulders with a little effort and maneuvered him face-down onto the shoddy cot which faintly smelled of her own blood. Without a word, she dug her fingernails into the soft weave of his T-shirt, ripping it down the middle a the back to expose the problem area. "You don't even realize how lucky you are." Shaking her head, Nadia's fingers tore the shirt the rest of the way: no other injuries. At least he'd only taken on bullet. "The bullet seems to have avoided any major organs and arteries, not to mention your spinal cord, but if it remains embedded, you are likely to bleed out. Do you understand me, Hinder? It needs to come out."
The syringe was out of her bag and in her hand before he had a moment to process what remained unspoken: she was going to take it out. Fair recompense for the cauterization that would scar her shoulder for the rest of her life. "This is a sedative and an analgesic; it should continue to work for an hour, but for a man of your size, I'd safely assume no more than forty-five minutes." With a skilled hand, she stuck a vein in his neck, pushing slowly on the plunger until the syringe was empty. "If you relax and cooperate, then it shouldn't take me that long."
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
But despite acting as his own surgeon, neither of those times compared to this. The pain alternated between ferocious stinging and terrible burning, consuming him. It filled his chest and stomach and wrapped like a boa constrictor around his spine, pressing the air from his lungs as he struggled to keep his breathing calm. The less he panicked, the slower it would take him to bleed out, but it was tremendously difficult not to give in to the fear.
Until Dr. Nadia Paisley declared his vital organs safe, he’d had no real idea if he was going to survive. He’d seen his comrades bleed out from similar wounds, and he could feel just how much of the vital crimson liquid was escaping the confines of his flesh. Blood dripped to the floor when he slipped off his jacket, and his cotton shirt beneath was so completely saturated that the traveling stain had already dyed red the back waistband of his jeans.
Nadia ripped the fabric free from his back easily as he lay face-down on the cot. Beneath the coating of blood, she would find all manner of scars on his skin—but this was by far his most life-threatening injury to date. Face contorted, he held his breath as the stoic doctor began her analysis; he could no longer tell if the aroma of blood was his own or leftovers from the young woman’s previous bloody night. Either way, his favor to her was being repaid now, blood mixing with blood.
The Catalyst vice president felt too weak and dazed to speak properly, but he emitted an undeniable “Fuck,” under his breath as she pierced his neck with one of her needles. Thankfully, the effect of the injection was nearly instantaneous. The pain, though not eliminated completely, dulled to a more tolerable level; his muscles, too, began to relax around the afflicted area. It was difficult to determine whether the haze in which he found his thoughts was the result of exsanguination or the drugs, but either way he took comfort in the disorientation.
Though the past twenty-four hours had ensured that their fates were inseparably entwined, Russell Hinder’s life was at the mercy of Nadia Paisley’s capable but merciless hands. And as he slipped in and out of consciousness, he hoped the terms of their agreement would hold strong enough in her mind to spare him.
Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 11:13 pm
But, fortunately enough for the biker, for all the doctor's apathy and--though it was arguable as of yet--cruelty, at the end of the day, it remained that Nadia Paisley was one of the most skilled and innovative surgeons in Pharma City. Even the dull ache of her shoulder didn't throw a wrench in her careful maneuvering with the scalpel as she cut an X shape around the bullet hole; perfect incisions which, should he take the time to properly heal (unlikely, it seemed) would hardly scar up his body any more than it already was. Research was Nadia's practice; this, however, was her art.
The biggest obstacle in the impromptu surgery wasn't inadequate supplies, an environment that was a far throw from sterile, or even an ill-prepared patient, but the lighting in the room was the biggest contributor to the challenge. A eighth of a centimeter could mean the difference between a clean incision that would allow for careful maneuvering, and a cut that would only leak more blood that Hinder couldn't afford to use. As a result, the process was slower, and dangerously so. Twenty minutes was spent cutting and assessing the exact location of the bullet in his body, and only when she was confident as to the angle at which she should extract it did she go digging with a pair of long tweezers.
He wasn't feeling a thing, at least nothing more than pressure; that much Nadia could be assured of, as she periodically assessed the biker's breathing and pulse. His eyelids would flutter periodically, fighting the sedative and striving for consciousness, but always failed and would close once again. She thought she saw him flinch ever so slightly, when the tweezers gripping the bullet embedded in muscle tissue, but it was likely just a reaction to nerves aggravated from the intrusion; and as soon as the piece of metal was out and dropped to the floor, half the danger was over.
The other half had to do with the fact Nadia was already coated in Russell's blood, and with the bullet gone, it would only flow more freely. But the biker was fortunate in that no crucial veins or arteries had been nicked, and with the careful extraction of the bullet, stitching the wound closed wouldn't be impossible. She was even quicker with a needle and wire, and despite the time it took occasionally dabbing blood away from the surface, the final touches were complete at the end of thirty five minutes, once the wound had been disinfected and the skin pulled as tightly closed as was possible, given its asymmetry.
And just in time, it would seem. The soft sound of a groan and the acceleration of breath indicated that Hinder was coming too, just as she was prepping another syringe full of a cloudy substance. "Don't move; I only finished moments ago." The young doctor instructed firmly, and took his arm for another injection without bothering with consent. "And you can relax, this is only an antibiotic. But I will warn you, I will sedate you again if you don't keep still on that cot. Can you tell me how you're feeling? Any nausea or trouble breathing?"
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Yet those long-ago scenes were precisely the ones his hazy mind chose to replay as the anesthetic took hold of his system. He was an observer this time, watching from a distance as a team of medical technicians in black scrubs and masks snapped gloves to their wrists and stepped up to the operating table. The patient’s identity was hidden behind the wall of their shoulders, and judging by the small, hurried motions of their elbows, their actions were quick—although out of habit or by necessity, Russell could not say.
He was unaware of the major surgeries held in his past, however. The tiny, nearly imperceptible scars just beneath his sternum were the result of procedures completed at four and sixth months of age. They were small enough that Russell barely perceived them as scars at all, and he’d always considered them to be more like birthmarks, or simply minor imperfections in the pigment of his skin. The serpentine lines that marred his back and torso, however, were most definitely scars, his flesh a veritable canvas of raggedly healed skin from wounds past. He wore them as proudly as he wore his tattoos. They were marks of triumph, of victory, but most of all they were marks of survival.
The biker rarely spoke of the memories he possessed from the first few years of his life under the guardianship of Pharma. To this day he did not know who his parents had been; he knew only that the corridors of Faribault had been his home from birth to his release at seven years old. The facility they’d sent him to was home to far too many abandoned children, all of whom were from poor families whose mothers and fathers were probably dead. As soon as the chance arose, he left the filthy, overcrowded orphanage behind and ventured into the equally rough—but infinitely more exciting—world.
Even as a boy, facing the trails of kinless street life, he recognized how fortunate he’d been not to perish within the hospital walls. He was an interesting case, they’d told him; he was to be studied, poked, prodded, cut into, stabbed. He supposed they released him as soon as he ceased to intrigue them, but he never learned just what within him had instigated the change.
A groan of protest rumbled from deep in his throat, rising unbidden as he broke through to consciousness. Pain immediately wrapped its fist around his spine and squeezed with merciless strength, and he began to writhe with the discomfort until a familiar voice ordered him to remain still.
“Shit,” he breathed, clenching his eyes closed. The muscles in his jaw tightened. “What did you do?” he demanded, but the question was ridiculous—he knew exactly what she had done, and she knew he knew that. She’d saved his life, removed the bullet, and likely stitched him back up while managing to keep his blood loss to a minimum and breath in his lungs. Nevertheless, a wave of nausea hit as the shock of the realization settled in. He’d come close. Too close.
Anger and bile rose simultaneously, and his whole body tensed in response. Fucking Pryce; everything had gone to hell except the man he’d fully intended to sendn there. “Feeling a little sick, yeah,” he choked out, looking up towards her from his prostrate position on the bloodstained cot. “Anything you can do about that?”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
It didn't take much beyond what could be taken at face value to determine he was far from a prime specimen. The young doctor knew this much from the fact that she, herself, was--or, rather, had been--frequently involved in experimentation involving human subjects, willing and otherwise. He would not have been her first choice, and given that the only scarring brought to her attention were the healed lacerations that decorated his back (none of which displayed the careful precision and symmetry of medical procedures), it was far beyond her imagining that he'd ever been of importance to the medical research community.
That said, even if she'd known, it would not have changed her mind to extract the bullet without his consent. Nor would it have changed her demeanor towards him, even slightly.
Just because he might not have any research value didn't mean he was more useful as a dead man.
"I told you to remain still," came her repeated demand, voice packing a little more authority this time around. So as to illustrate it was not up for debate, she pressed her hand into the middle of his back, below the bullet wound, but nor far enough from it to spare him pain. "I think you'll learn fast not to call me on a bluff. I've got plenty of sedative left; I won't have all the effort I put into treating that wound put to waste. Give me another moment."
Swabbing the site of trauma with antiseptic once more, for precaution, Nadia pressed a square of gauze to the area with deft fingers, securing it on all four sides with medical tape. It would only serve to keep it clean and provide the stitching with a barrier to promote healing, and--if he cooperated--would hopefully get him on his feet faster.
Because they couldn't stay here. Little though she might have known and understood about the Catalysts, their hierarchy and their leader, if the man who Hinder had sought to kill was still alive, then they were not safe here. They would be found.
"The bullet is gone," she explained with an eye-roll; shouldn't it have been obvious? Picking up a rag, she wiped her hands clean, but with the biker's blood staining her grey ACESO blouse, it was not difficult to imagine she had come from the scene of a bloody murder, as opposed to one in which she had saved a life. "The blood that you see on me is what you lost, but aside from trauma to the muscle beneath your shoulder blade, I expect you'll manage to maintain full use of that arm. I won't make the recommendation to take it easy, because it isn't an option. Here,"
Reaching into a pouch on her emergency travel bag, she withdrew a small bottle of pills, popping the top to and dropping a tiny blue sphere into a glass of water she'd set aside. The little circle dissolved into the liquid almost instantaneously. "I'm going to help you sit up; you can hate me later, but right now, you're going to let me." Moving to his side, Nadia pushed up on his good shoulder with one hand, and wrapped an arm around his back to straighten his torso into a sitting position. It all had very little to do with kindness, however, and everything to do with the fact she didn't trust the moron not to tear his stitches. "Sip this. It'll settle your stomach," she instructed, handing him the glass when she was reassured he was stable sitting on his own. "And if you're lucid enough to answer questions, I have an important one: how long before your gang leader finds us here?"
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Though his heart condition—which was not his disease but rather another’s, as Russell’s perfectly healthy organ was stolen from his infant chest to implant into his dying half-brother’s—condemned him to a childhood of hospital walls, needle pokes, and advanced electroencephalograms, it also saved him from a worse fate. Had Dr. Hassan not been appointed head of experimental research, he may not have received a replacement heart at all, and therefore would have died on the operating table having essentially been an incubator for his brother’s spare parts. Nadia would likely be surprised to learn that Russell’s synthetically grown, genetically-injected heart had earned him quite the starring role in medical literature of its time—but only as Patient 0754–201, never by name.
“Hate you later?” he groaned, his jaw clenched. “I hate you now.” The biker gritted his teeth against the shocking pain as his position shifted, and he closed his eyes against a sudden spell of dizziness. Involuntarily, he wrapped one strong hand around her forearm and squeezed tightly as though to steady the rotating world, leaning his weight against her side until the movement of the room slowed. He swallowed back a surge of bile that had risen in the back of his throat. When the wave passed, he relinquished his grasp and steadied himself on the edge of the cot, accepting the proffered glass of water only when he could afford to give up the support of his right hand.
Relief came quickly with each subsequent sip, and before long he had downed the glass completely. The last thing he wanted to contemplate during this temporary window of relief was Pryce and the man’s vengeful Catalyst followers, but there wasn’t time for anything else—she had a point. They could not hide forever, especially not here—if only because he did not have sufficient supplies for an extended two-person stay.
“They’re pissed. They’ll send every force they’ve got out searching for me. For us.” Russell bit back a moan, choosing instead to glare angrily at the ceiling to avoid Nadia’s critical gaze. “They’ll know I’ve gone to my safe house, but they have no idea where it is. I’d say we’ve got three days, tops, before they come knocking in this neighborhood. Fuck.” The addition of the expletive was the result of another beat of pain in his shoulder, and he winced despite himself. “Pryce probably won’t come himself. Not after that. He’s too much of a coward-ass chicken-shit to show his face now, especially against me. No, he’ll wait until he thinks he’s got the complete upper hand. Which is surprisingly not hard to do, with his supreme arrogance and all.”
The biker bit his lip, his face draining suddenly of color. “How much longer ’til I can move without bleeding to death?” he asked, his voice weak but decidedly annoyed. He reached out to Nadia (for lack of any more suitable, less irritating assistance), bracing the weight of his torso against her arm as he lowered himself back to his stomach. “If we can get out of here before they track us down, at least the location will stay undiscovered. We may need this place later. Or the supplies, anyway.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Three days would suffice. That said, she wasn't fool enough to dawdle and wait around quite that long.
Taking the empty glass from him, Nadia braced her arm against the biker's weight (for someone as tiny as she was, the limb hardly trembled under the stress of supporting a grown man's torso) as he lowered himself stomach-down onto the cot. "Part of me wants to request a numerical estimate as to just how many goons comprises your little motorcycle club," she mused, frowning as she pulled her arm out from beneath him as soon as he was settled. "but to be honest, it doesn't matter. Additionally, I don't know if you had the cognitive capacity to realize it through pain at the time, but Pryce did not walk away unscathed. I don't know where I nicked him, but he retreated quickly enough, and I'm assuming that, unlike you, he is not fortunate enough to have a trained medical professional tend to his injuries. If we do see him again, anytime soon, I'll be very surprised."
Rolling up her bloodstained sleeves, Nadia inspected the inflamed skin around the site of Russel's room, where pink peeked out from the edges of the bandage. "Give it until morning for the skin to close around the sutures, and I'd say you're out of the woods in terms of fatal exsanguination," came her seemingly disinterested reply to his question. "Frankly, I'm more concerned for potential nerve damage. Tell me if you feel pain, tinglyness or numbness referring to any place where I apply pressure--in this case, pain is what you'll want. It lets you know your nerves are still alive, and if they're not, more dire injuries in the future might be overlooked due to lack of sensation."
With practiced fingers and extensive knowledge of the human body inside and out, Nadia applied generous pressure to telling areas from the small of his back all the way up to his neck, hardly batting an eyelash at the biker's wincing and uttered profanities. Where there was pain, there was feeling and mobility, and she wasn't about to hop back on a motorcycle with someone whose range of motion and reaction time was impaired due to the cease-firing of nerve synapses. "Squeeze my hand as hard as you can," she instructed at the conclusion of the examination, mildly regretting the request at the pain that shot through her hand at giving him the opportunity to all but crush it. At least his strength and muscular response appeared unaffected.
"Provided no infection sets in, I'm confident you'll heal nicely." As soon as he relinquished her hand, Nadia shook out her sore fingers and rose to her feet. Were there time for envy, she might have allowed herself bitterness towards how lucky the son of a bitch was; just below her own bullet wound, a small patch of skin beneath her collarbone wouldn't even register pressure. If feeling to the afflicted area ever did return, it would, in theory, take years.
Years that the twenty-nine year old didn't have.
Rolling her sore shoulder backward, the former ACESO employee retreated from where her patient lay, making for the bathroom to clean the blood out from under her nails. "I'm going to leave you to rest for tonight, and ascertain we're ready to up and run if we have to. Don't be an idiot and try to get up; yell if there is something you need."
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
He was educated enough to possess a basic understanding of neurological pathways, and the young doctor’s reasoning for stimulating the damaged tissue seemed sound enough for his logical approval, but the reality of the situation was pain—and damn, it hurt like a son of a bitch. Despite his best efforts to clamp his mouth closed, a strangled, telltale cry of, “Fuck!” took flight from his tongue before he could clip the curse’s wings. He imagined his unlikely companion’s face contorting behind his back into a smug, sadistic sneer, which only made him more resentful—and all the more thankful when she stopped.
He shifted positions slightly as the worst of the stinging abated, clasping his hands together beneath the pillow that cradled his head. The cloth beneath his cheek was no longer the pristine white it had been upon their arrival; faint streaks of pink-red now dyed its woven fibers, the bright pigment having originated from a stray scrape beneath his hairline. The nonthreatening wound had escaped his notice for very obvious reasons, but now he frowned at the visual remnants of its existence on the fabric. When Nadia disappeared into the bathroom, he maneuvered his arm with a cringe to dab at the blemish with his fingertips.
Unreasonably irritated by the trivial lesion, he buried his face in the pillow and emitted a low growl of annoyance from deep within his throat. The Catalyst vice president had been stabbed in the back (literally, for all intents and purposes, only with a bullet rather than a blade) by the cowardly Pryce Kensett, who never otherwise would have stood a chance against Russell. While it was not Pryce’s fault that Nadia had intervened at ACESO, the biker president had certainly played a role in the botched events immediately preceding and following the infiltration. An ugly burning hatred—something deeper than his previous steadfast indifference—blossomed alongside the physical pain in Russell’s chest, and suddenly he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“Hey,” Russell called, turning his head and wrinkling his nose against the effort it took to draw breath to project his voice. “Paisley—could you—water?” The last syllable emerged with a crack. If he’d had the capacity to roll his eyes at how desperate and pathetic he sounded, he would have. Considering not long ago (he’d lost track of time) he had been close to bleeding out on his own bike, he was lucky to be conscious at all—but that was a fact that he refused to acknowledge.
Seeing things in perspective was not something he was interested in right now. Not even as his breaths grew more ragged, and his exhales began to carry an increasing rasp.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Finding a clean glass next to a medium sized mini-fridge, she ventured to the bathroom to fill it with water for the biker, seizing the opportunity to swallow her pills whole as she filled the glass with icy water. The sound of strained breaths, gasping and hyperventilating, however, suddenly spurred her to hasten her task and returning to the cot where she'd left Hinder. The sight, at first, struck her as odd and incomprehensible. She'd surgically removed a bullet from muscle tissue; her ministrations hadn't taken place anywhere near his respiratory system. But she knew better than to let any possibility unaccounted for.
Setting the glass of water aside, she gently but forcefully helped Russell into a sitting position and pressed an ear to his chest. Certainly, his breathing was irregular, and his heart beat in a curiously irregular pattern, but there were no other signs of disruption. Physiological and terrifying though it must have been for the biker, the only conclusion she could draw was that it was all manifest in one, untouchable place: his head.
"Hinder. Hey--look at me." Nadia's commanding voice cut through the fog in his vision, her fingers digging into his shoulders as she applied pressure with her palms. "I said look at me, not the floor. Hinder, listen to my words: you are all right. Whatever you're feeling, it isn't real. You're having a panic attack." Were it not for rousing suspicion, she might have fished one of her Epsoram out of her bag and forced it under his tongue until it was absorbed into his blood, slowing his heart and breathing. But something about his irregular heartbeat gave her pause to consider that, even if not for suspicion, she'd be hesitant to administer that particular drug; even when it had still circulated through pharmacies, before it was proven too potent, it had never been recommended to patients with heart conditions.
Nadia sad patiently as the biker's panic began to subside. As soon as he took full, deep breaths again, she pressed the glass of water into his hand. "You just experienced trauma; it isn't uncommon for patients to experience panic on waking from sedation." She explained, green eyes trained on what looked to be a faint scar down the middle of his clavicle. "How old were you when you had heart surgery?" It was a fair question; how was she to know it wasn't a topic he'd wish to breach? "Your rhythm is irregular under stress. Not something that should go unaddressed, if you ask me."
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Except that it was different—and his utter refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of his injuries, as well as his adamant self-denial that anything else could be wrong, was only serving to exacerbate the problem. Russell was not one to defer blame, nor was he one to wallow in despair. But with his broken body barely recovered, and his mind fresh off of Nadia’s anesthesia, he felt simultaneously everything and nothing, with his actively firing nerves sending signals of pain in the hazy background. There was too much to consider and too little time in which to contemplate it. Their safety had an expiration date, as did their very lives.
The searing hurt from the doctor’s tight sutures brought him back to reality. He felt Nadia suddenly at his side, having not quite registered her voice; he flinched away from her touch as she hauled him upright, giving in only when the anguish from the wound became as overwhelming as his thoughts. The lean biker crumpled against the petite doctor, his breathing only quickening as she brought her ear to his bare chest. Instinctively, he reached up to push her away, but his palm stopped against her scalp as her diagnosis finally struck him.
He emitted a small gasp, then furrowed his brow. “I’m fine,” he asserted angrily, his tongue thick in his mouth. “I just need…I just need some water…” But even as he spoke the words, he knew there was falsehood in the sentiment; Nadia was right. The panic he had been numb to just seconds ago struck him full force in the chest, amplifying tenfold the pain from his bullet wound as his muscles contracted with adrenaline. When he looked down, his hand had found the young woman’s, and his knuckles were white with the effort it took to grip the only thread of reality within his reach.
It was several moments before he could control himself enough to relinquish his hold, and when he did, he snapped his arm back across his lap and swallowed away the lump in his throat. The water she thrust at him was precisely what he needed, and he downed it without interruption. “That’s never happened before,” he heard himself say. His own voice sounded distance, tremulous. He cleared his throat, turning to face his unlikely companion only to find her gaze examining his skin. Of all the scars that painted the landscape of his body, her eyes had instantly located the one that was surgical rather than accidental—and a glimmer of familiar annoyance let him know he was on the mend.
“My heart is fine,” he said quickly, without looking down to acknowledge the small, straight, silvery line. “It hasn’t stopped yet. My guess is it can hold me over until…” He shrugged with one shoulder, wordlessly acknowledging his impending demise. “Besides, how should I know what’s wrong with it? Or what was wrong with it? I'm just me, after all.” Wincing, he paused, his face draining suddenly of color. “Can I lay back down now?” he asked feebly, nausea swelling in his gut. The ghost of his anxiety was too fresh. Coupled with his churning stomach and the spinning room, he wasn't sure it was wise to be upright.
"But don't..." he croaked, hating himself for saying it, "don't leave. Wait for this to pass, can you?"
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Then again, the fact that he was, in fact, a street rat, spoke masses for the possibilities. And it wasn't so strange that he couldn't remember.
It's just me, after all. Just another person at the bottom of the food chain that was Pharma City. Which implied that his surgery might not have been necessary, and that the chances he'd even consented to it were slim. The skin was thin and pale, not pink and ragged like those he'd acquired as an adult. From that, she deduced that it must have occurred when he was a child. By the sound of his heartbeat, he should almost consider himself lucky that he would only live until thirty. But that was something of which he was probably already aware, and given his state of panic, did not need to hear right now.
"Slowly; lie on your side," she advised, checking his back to ascertain that he hadn't torn her perfect sutures in his temporary spasm. Sweat had beaded on his pale forehead, and she didn't think twice to dab it away with the remnants of his shirt. His core temperature would probably drop in the aftermath of the attack, and she didn't want to risk having him catch a chill. When he was settled and seemed relatively stable, Nadia snatched a blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over his shivering form. It bothered her how pathetic he looked, pale and so afraid that he actually preferred her company to solitude.
"I'd give you something to calm you down, but I think we need to spare that 'fine' heart of yours any more potential interferences," she mentioned, sitting with her back against the couch and pulling her knees to her chest. "Panic is an adaptive mechanism. All that's happening is your body thinks it is under threat, so it's over-supplying adrenaline and making all of your neurons fire in preparation for fight or flight. Try abdominal breathing--you know what that is, don't you?" Of course, she assumed he didn't know. "It's how we breathe when we're infants; the proper way. But then life takes its toll, and we unlearn it, in favour of less adaptive habits... here. let me see your hand."
Reaching across the cot, the young doctor took his hand and pressed it to the taut surface of his abdomen. "Breathe in on five, and breathe out on five. If you don't feel your abdomen move, then you aren't doing it right. But if you get the hang of it, it will shut down the panic response." Pressing her lips together in a thin line, Nadia sat back again and closed her eyes. She was more annoyed with the biker's state than worried for his well-being. "Just concentrate on getting some rest. We don't have a lot of time to sit around and recuperate; I'd say we need to be out of here no later than tomorrow, bullet wounds or not."
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
It had reduced him to a man he did not recognize. In a world where human lives were limited to a scant three decades, it was beneficial to no one to act the child longer than was necessary during formative years. Offspring of young parents grew up incredibly quickly, the fortunate ones leaping into advanced education systems to leave with doctorates when they’d barely exited puberty. The biker was practically ancient by comparison. Yet childish was precisely how Russell Hinder felt, clinging to the presence of a haughty young woman who he neither particularly liked nor particularly trusted. The sting of vulnerability settled temporarily in place of his typical bravado.
Nevertheless, Nadia’s matter-of-fact explanation comforted him. If panic were a natural response to trauma and therefore beyond his control, then he had no business wallowing in self-loathing. Whether or not his heart could take another similar spell was apparently a different story. “I know you don’t have a whole lot of reason to believe me,” he said, his voice a little less strained now that he was prostrate once more, “but I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about what they did to my heart. I remember the hospital, I remember a lot of doctors. But I was too young to hold on to the jargon.” He would have shrugged, had his torso not ached so potently.
In truth, his nonchalance was an act—with his above-the-average-street-rat intelligence and a memory like the proverbial steel trap, he burned with a vehement curiosity whenever the thought crossed his mind. Which was not often, given his active lifestyle and the fact that, until now, the organ pumping in his chest had never given him cause for concern. With Veriska’s assistance, he likely could have tracked down his medical records, but there was never time or privacy enough to ask. He didn’t know what he’d do with the knowledge, anyway; it wasn’t as though he had any family to speak of, or any other relation that might have benefited from a lack of ignorance. But he wouldn’t be Russell Hinder if he didn’t ask questions until the answers got him in trouble.
“I’d say no later than tomorrow afternoon,” he concurred, stretching his neck to rest at a different angle on the pillow. Looking upward and to the side, he could just meet her eyes if he strained. “I can ride through the pain. There’s always drugs for that. The problem is knowing where exactly to go, and how to get there in daylight without one of Pryce’s fuckwads catching sight of us.” He bit back a yawn. As his thoughts calmed, exhaustion crept forth, and he was in no mind to be formulating life-or-death plans. “I’m open to suggestions. Maybe you oughta ruminate on that while I sleep, what with your supreme intelligence and all.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Contrary to what Russell had likely come to think about her, Nadia wasn't making a dig, nor attempting to come across as intentionally cold. It was merely a fact of Pharma City's classism and social structure. You were rich or you were poor, privileged or not, with no in-between. And when life-expectancy of approximately only thirty years, many parents (particularly those who had experienced unplanned or unexpected pregnancies) were not opposed to handing their healthy, young children over to medical science if it meant more money in their pockets to eat decent meals for a few months. Life, during the Youth Crisis, was measured in moments and seconds, and carpe diem was everyone's motto.
"Optimistically, however, I would assume that whatever they did to your heart was for your benefit," the young doctor added a moment later, almost as if to amend for how cold she might have come across. Except Nadia Paisley did not care for how she made others feel, so any perceived tone of regret was likely a coincidence. "Whether or not that was their intent, neither of us can say. But if you're almost thirty and still alive now, well, then that is enough to convince me that the procedure was a success. Any abnormal functioning at this point can just as easily be attributed to the fact you're approaching the peak of life expectancy."
Russell had a point about traveling in daylight, and that was most certainly something that the ACESO traitor was forced to contemplate as she watched him drift off to sleep. It was a no-win situation; if they did not flee by tomorrow afternoon, Pryce and his band of goons were sure to encroach on them. Yet their only alternative left them wide open to ambush in the middle of the day.
Fortunately, Dr. Nadia Paisley was a risk taker. And, fortunately, so was Russell Hinder.
With no more than three hours of sleep under her belt, the dangerous doctor was up with the sun the next morning to make preparations. She scoured the biker's medicine cabinets for pain killers and other useful pharmaceuticals, restocking her own case of meager supplies. With any luck, she wouldn't be performing any more surgeries anytime soon; what little anaesthetic she kept on her person, she'd used on Russell the night before. If they made it to the destination that she had in mind, there might be potential to replenish that supply, among other things, but there was no guarantee.
"Hinder--come on. We have to get moving." Allowing him the small mercy of sleeping until almost noon, Nadia eventually lost patience and gingerly shook him awake. "We need to get moving. Just focus on getting yourself lucid; there's coffee in the carafe, if you think it will help."
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
That thought wasn’t what upset him. He was too thick-skinned for that; very few were afforded the privilege of a family given the Youth Crisis, particularly those perched at the bottom rung of the social ladder. Hell, he might have done the very same thing. What bothered him was the fact that he simply didn’t know. He could have answered her questions in more detail even if he’d wanted to, and rattling off his medical history, even one lacking in detail, would have been impossible without complete fabrication that she would see straight through.
“I never knew my parents,” Hinder admitted, voice hoarse. “So yeah, them selling off their kid wouldn’t surprise me. Happens all the time, right?” He pursed his lips. “I’m just not so sure everything they do to those…specimens…” The word, however appropriate, tasted bitter on his tongue. “…I’m just not sure it’s all to their benefit. Unless you count benefit to mankind as a whole, but I call bullshit on that. Guess I’m one of the lucky ones.” The ironic grin he tried to flash fell short and turned quickly to a painful grimace. “Whatever. I’ll be dead soon either way.”
It was a macabre but apropos thought upon which to conclude their conversation and send Russell Hinder to sleep. He gave in to the lingering effects of the anesthesia without further protest, and fell headfirst into a void of darkness that temporarily banished the throbbing in his back. Nadia’s hand on his shoulder startled him back to consciousness. “Fuck,” he breathed, groggy. If it weren’t for the disorienting effect of drug-induced slumber, he might have reacted physically against the unfamiliar touch. Instead, he hauled himself upright with a groan and did his best to ignore the ache from his wounds.
The hazy memories of their discussed plan returned to him quickly, and he was soon stricken once more by the sense of urgency that had powered him until the previous night. Still shirtless, with patches of his skin tinted brownish red with residual dried blood streaks, he helped himself to a mug of terrible instant coffee and downed it in just two breaths. Adrenaline had always been a helpful natural drug; coupled with the stimulant of caffeine, he hoped it would help him power through their getaway in one piece.
He dressed quickly, gathering what remained of his supplies and restocking his pack with both ammunition and pharmaceuticals. “You do know you’re going to have to tell me where we’re going,” he said at last, blinking the last of the sleep from his eyes as they headed toward the garage. “Assuming you want to get there.” He cleared his throat. “I’m also assuming you wouldn’t have bothered saving my life if you were just going to fuck me over today.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Dr. Paisley didn't bother to explain why, particularly not in regards to her concern about what might be done with the dried patches of her spilled blood on her newly ruined ACESO blouse. But whatever the reason, it was important enough for her to strike a match, then another, and then another, until climbing flames began to ravenously consume every fiber of cloth in the tub. Cracking the small window above the sink to allow the smoke an outlet, she returned to the living room and drained the remainder of java in her mug. The shadows beneath her eyelids suggested she'd gotten far less sleep the previous night than her drugged, impromptu patient.
"How's your shoulder?" She asked him, more out of curiosity and the need to asses than out of concern. "Cross your fingers that this is the last of your gunshot wounds; you got lucky it only embedded in muscle tissue. And it's not often that I carry anaesthesia."
Rinsing out her mug so as to purge it of whatever cells were left behind at the touch of her lips, she set it on the coffee table and gathered her travel bag. "I assume you're familiar with the Newark district? About forty-five minutes northwest of here, in the residential area for Newark employees, specifically. I have a contact there who might able to help us... Or, at the very least, let us hide out while we figure out what the hell we're doing."
If he wasn't already reassured, the we implied that 'fucking him over' was not the first thing on Nadia's mind (although there was nothing to say it wasn't the last thing, either--but that was beside the point). Whatever her next move, she needed Russell, at least as a means to an end. And she wouldn't have wasted her only dose of anaesthesia on the ruffian if she hadn't invested some sort of value in their fragile and tentative truce. "Here's the thing: I need to get out of here and so do you, or your neanderthal biker friends will kill us both. The only way to safety is a motorcycle... and let em assure you, you are far more adept at driving it than I would be. Do you understand, then?"
Adjusting her bag on her good shoulder, Paisley's green eyes assessed his face for understanding, or any trace of deceit that he, on his part, might have intended. "You get me from point A to point B, safely, and I can guarantee you a modicum of security when we reach our destination. Believe me when I say this contact is not one who will turn us down." Reaching next to the door for the keys to his motorcycle, she tossed them his way. "Now let's get going. My patience has already run out."
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
He was understandably attached to his safe house; he’d spent a lot of time and resources building and protecting it, and it had served them faithfully in their time of need. That didn’t necessarily mean he’d be opposed to destroying it for the sake of erasing any trace of their presence; Russell was hardly a sentimentalist, and pragmatism was one trait that had consistently kept him from peril throughout his life. But he also knew that someday they might have use for the space again, assuming it remained undiscovered—which was seeming more and more unlikely, now that the crazed researcher was sending a smoke signal directly to their location.
“I appreciate that,” he said weakly, hovering in the bathroom doorway for support, “but you do realize you’re also putting up a beacon that might as well be a GPS, not just for us, but for this whole fucking place, right?” His words lacked their usual fire, so to speak, and he watched with a combination of horror and irritation when she simply strode out of the room with her mug and continued getting ready. The biker stood close by, waiting for the remainder of the fabric to smolder out before he switched on the shower to extinguish the flames.
“Trust me, I’m not opposed to having that be my last experience with a bullet in my body, muscle tissue or no.” Though the man had gotten much more sleep than his companion, he did not look much better for wear. Not even Nadia’s mention of Newark was enough to make him jump; he simply nodded his acquiescence and lifted his pack over his shoulder. “Yeah, I get it. I can keep us upright. Which is more than I could say for you, probably.” He glanced down at her, a flicker of amusement momentarily illuminating his tired blue eyes. “Would your feet even hit the pavement sitting on that thing?”
He didn’t need her declaration of impatience to move quickly. He caught the keys she tossed in his direction and punched the code to exit the stronghold, leading her back through the ruins of the old house. For Russell, the sight of his mechanical steed perched ready in the center of the garage was enough to get his blood pumping a little more efficiently through his veins, pushing away the grogginess that lingered after the morning’s abrupt awakening. He attached his pack to the back of the bike, pulled his helmet over his skull, and swung his leg over the seat.
The sound of the engine roaring to life was the drug he needed to kickstart (so to speak) a newfound exuberance. As soon as he felt Nadia take her place behind him and wrap her arms about his waist, he took off for Newark, tearing down the vacant street beneath a glaring afternoon sun.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Glancing in the direction of the bathroom, which now smelled terribly of scorched blood and fabric, she lifted her good shoulder in a shrug. "They know where we are likely to be, anyway, if I understand correctly," she commented, with regards to his mention of 'smoke signals'. "So it doesn't matter, because we will not be around anyway. Now let's get moving."
Following the ruffian back up the stairs, the young doctor didn't hesitate to climb on the back of the bike, securing her balance with her arms around Russell's waist. She was mindful of his own injured shoulder, and when the motorbike took off, roaring down the old asphalt, made a point only to hold on as tight as necessary. The anaesthetic had long since worn off, and the wrong movement could send a jolt of pain through the man's body, enough to cause him to lose control of the vehicle.
The both of them were bound to die in the next year or two; and the thought of ending up as casualties, with their blood all over the pavement, an earlier and more gruesome death, did not appeal to Nadia.
"Keep straight until you hit the highway," she yelled over the wind, and hopefully through the muffled exterior of his helmet. "As soon as we hit Newark territory, you'll need to take the side roads. The main drags are too frequently patrolled, and I don't want to be recognized if seen. It will easily add another twenty minutes to the trip... but it's worth it for the security of not being caught."
This was, of course, all contingent on the fact that her contact had not moved in the past decade. As a valuable Newark employee, he could have easily upsized to a different condo in a different building, rendering her safe point useless and invalid. But they'd never know until they arrived.
With the biker exceeding the speed limit, the warm afternoon air wasn't quite so warm in the rush. It stung Nadia's face and caused her eyes to water, such that she was driven to pressing her forehead gently against Russell's mid back--still mindful of his wound, of course, but it wasn't long before she realized the true beauty and utmost necessity of requiring a helmet. Keeping her hair tied back had been a useless endeavour, as the elastic band had slid clean of the slick, blonde locks in the wild breeze. This as neither her preferred means of travel, nor her preferred company, but she was not in a position to complain. Anything and anyone who brought her far from ACESO was worth the tolerance--at least, temporarily.
"Turn right," she instructed, when over a half-hour of silence passed, and they approached the Newark district of the city. "Keep going until we approach the downtown, and then take any of the alleys you choose. We'll take it slow on the back roads, but I can get us to where we're going." After a pause, the former ACESO employee added, "How are you holding up? I've got anti-inflammatory analgesics in my bag, if you think you can swallow a few. They're mild enough that they shouldn't impair your driving, though they'll at least take the edge off the pain." Of course, this offer was only with concern for her safety, given her driver's questionable condition.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
So his outlet came with the Catalysts, where street smarts were more than knowing which corner to score some pills. For all the fighting he’d done to keep up appearances, he had found a place that rewarded his skills. He was, all things considered, proud of the life he’d built for himself; the fact that he’d survived to this advanced age at all was a testament to the proverbial middle finger he’d thrown to the default bleak outlook of his kind. So Nadia Paisley’s throwaway comment regarding his sense of humor…well, it was just another reminder of where he used to be, where he would never be again, and just how ironic it was that the two of them had been thrown together.
The crumbling concrete beneath the speeding tires was all that remained of a once-vast system of interstate highways and thoroughfares. In the wake of the Youth Crisis, they were now completely abandoned, covered in gravel and debris and the creeping weeds and vines of nature eager to reclaim its territory. Russell sped through them, keeping his head held low against the wind, maneuvering around bumps and cracks in the pavement with a grace that suggested ease. Internally, however, the pain was overwhelming. The pressure of his passenger’s arms around his waist was enough to trigger a deep ache in the skin surrounding the wound, which was itself throbbing with the effort of piloting the bike.
But rather than serving as a distraction, the physical hurt kept him sharp. He focused on the rushing surface of the road ahead, with the sting in his back allowing him to forego futile worry about being discovered in broad daylight in favor of concentration on driving. There was nothing either of them could do to change their exposure, after all, which meant that they were best served to arrive at their destination quickly—a calculated risk, and one that had no business being made worse by reckless steering in favor of Russell’s personal comfort.
He knew the way to Pharma City perhaps better than anyone. All the routes, all the main roads, all the back-alley ways to approach the ominous medical towers and barracks-like dormitories that made up its perimeter. The empty city surrounding it was a veritable maze of dilapidated storefronts and cracked streets. Somehow, despite providing opportunities for their enemies to hide, it provided a level of comfort for Russell—as though the crumbling, lifeless facades were a protective wall, a barrier.
He slowed as they approached the outer limits of Pharma City, with the familiar glow of Newark’s red lights shining eerily even in the bright light of day. He steered down an empty alley and stopped, putting his boots on the ground. Without the rush of wind and the growl of the engine at high speed, he spoke at last to his passenger. He turned his head to the side and flipped up his visor, revealing a ghostly, sweat-soaked complexion around determined eyes. It seemed pushing through the pain was starting to take its toll.
“I’m not dead yet,” he told her, voice strained. And neither are you, he thought, implying it with his words. “But I’d appreciate some of those pills to help keep me that way. Keep us that way. Especially if things get messy close to home up here.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Wordlessly, the young doctor rooted through her bag and spilled a few pills from a nondescript blue bottle into her palm. Reaching over Russell's shoulder, she folded his fingers around the small, white capsules. "Swallow these. They'll bring down the pain and inflammation; I'll check your incision when we get to where we're going."
But she wasn't through with the haggard biker quite yet. The capsules required a minimum of fifteen minutes to take effect, and Russell might not have fifteen minutes left in his reservoir of energy. Without a word of permission or consent, Dr. Paisley reached back into her bag, before slipping off the bike and facing Russell's side. A familiar orange tube peeked out from the edge of her small fist.
"I need you alert, and the painkillers won't guarantee that. Just relax for a moment." With her free hand, Nadia smoothed the fabric of Russell's pant leg, before taking the orange tube and jabbing it's sharp, spring-loaded tip into the hard muscle of his thigh. In her head, she counted to five, allowing the tube of epinephrine to empty into his blood stream. As soon as the pen felt empty, she slid the needle out, and tossed the empty tube aside.
"Just keep breathing normally," she advised, hopping back on the back of the motorcycle. "You're going to feel a bit of a head rush, but that should pass in a few seconds. It'll keep you going until it's safe to stop for a while."
As soon as the biker felt ready and capable to continue driving, she directed him down an ally and then a back road, before urging him to a halt several meters before a tall, white building. "Leave the bike here," she advised, hopping off the motorcycle and heading towards the tall condominium complex. "If it gets stolen, then that's a chance we have to take. Come on."
Nadia led him to the doors at the foyer, where she typed a series of three numbers on an adjacent keypad. After a moment of fear-filled waiting, with no response, she tried again. For the love of everything, if he wasn't home...
"Yes?" A male voice spoke clear and confused over the intercom. There was a pause. "Who is... Who is this?"
Nadia deliberately looked into the camera above the keypad. "I think you know. And I need your help."
"Oh my god." There was a gasp on the other end. "Nadia? Are--"
"Just let us in, Aidan. Now. I'll explain when it's safe."
There was a click, and the lock on the door released. Grabbing the handle, Nadia opened it, and beckoned Russell to follow her inside.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
It was difficult to wrangle the sensation, to categorize the extreme bodily reaction as anything other than fear. Then again, fear was as good a motivator as any, and the unlikely pair had plenty of legitimate reasons to feel uneasy on the border of Newark’s expansive district. Without a word of thanks, the biker flipped his reflective visor back over his eyes and once again took to the streets, weaving down alleys so unpredictably that any outsider would have claimed he was lost. It was all a pattern of strategic backtracking and advancement that made their path nearly impossible to follow.
With his pulse slamming in his ears as loudly as the engine beneath him, he took Nadia’s directions without argument. The blanched white of the condominium tower in the afternoon sun was blinding even through the polarized field of his visor. He felt dwarfed in its shadow as he pulled the bike off the street, killing the engine several feet before the turn-off and silently coasting to a halt.
“Of all the chances we have to take, risking a stolen bike isn’t the least of all evils,” he grumbled hoarsely, glancing over the motorcycle’s angular black frame with concern. He removed his helmet with a small gasp, his unruly hair soaked with sweat. “It gets jacked, we’re sitting ducks.” He grimaced against the pain in his shoulder and, as soon as his companion dismounted, grasped the vehicle by its handlebars and rolled it further back from the curb. “At least,” he panted, face pale, “it’ll be out of sight.”
His unease only heightened as they approached the glassy foyer. The epinephrine had made him jumpier than usual, ready to spring into action at the slightest threat despite the trauma his body had recently endured, and he found himself resting his hand on the gun inside his leather jacket. “What the fuck, Paisley…” he muttered when her first attempt at the keypad went unanswered. “We’re too exposed here…”
But the man’s voice over the intercom interrupted him before he could protest further. The click of the door’s lock mechanism sent a jolt through his chest, and with gritted teeth, he followed the former ACESO employee inside.
As though he’d flipped some kind of switch, the biker’s demeanor completely changed as they strode into the open, sterile lobby. Their brisk pace might have given them away as suspicious, but nothing about Russell’s posture or expression (apart from the sickly complexion, which he could not help) indicated that he and Nadia didn’t have every right to be striding through that foyer. Looking and acting like you belonged, both to the cameras and the people present, was half the battle—and Russell knew that from both sides of the societal coin.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
It felt like eons since she had last seen the inside of that white-and-stainless-steel apartment complex, one that was not so different from her own in terms of layout, if her memory served her well. But she knew her way to the elevator (the stairs would take too long, and she wasn't convinced her exhausted ally could handle them), she knew the floor, and she knew the turns--left, right, right. If the intercom code had worked, then he mustn't have changed apartments in the past decade. Typical; of course he would want to stick with what was familiar. She'd never known him to be a risk taker, or anyone who responded well to great change, for that matter.
Nadia held her breath in the confines of the steel box that carried the two of them up five floors. Any idle onlookers might have easily assumed her claustrophobic, the way she stared intently at her feet, shoulders tense as she gripped her elbows tightly. Perhaps that was Russell's thought--and if so, then she'd be happier for him to make that assumption. It was better than disclosing the fact that she was only approximately half certain that her contact might decide to be of help, when he learned all that they would tell him (which would, of course, be a significantly abridged version of events; and even then, security would not be a given).
No sooner had the elevator stopped at the fifth floor that Dr. Paisley pushed through the automatic doors and rounded a corner so quickly that the biker might have lost sight of her, were it not for the adrenaline that fueled his senses. Their luck was not flawless; the building was huge, housing hundreds of people, and their trek was not without the occasional passerby. While none of them seemed to pay small, relatively non-descript Nadia much heed, many a curious eye fell upon Russell and his tall, rough demeanor. No questions were asked simply because the two of them established such a quick pace that they allowed for no interaction to take place. It was dangerous enough to be seen, but inevitable.
If the two of them had any chance at all, then this, right here, was it.
The young doctor came to a halt before a door numbered 559, where she rang the buzzer next to it repeatedly, until the sound of latches lifting indicated that their presence was acknowledged. "Don't go off half-cocked," she told Russel under her breath. "And let me do the talking." Not that she doubted the ruffian in his belief for discretion and revealing only what needed to be known moment to moment. What concerned her was that they might not be on the same page as to which details could be divulged, and which must be omitted. And there was no time left to commiserate over those details, between the two of them.
"Oh my god." The door opened to reveal a tall young man, blonde and with pale eyes, who couldn't have been much older than Nadia. His mouth formed an astonishingly familiar curve to hers in its frown, as well. "It really is you. What have you... Nadia, what is going on? And who is this?"
"Do you have carry your conversations to the hallway?" The young doctor arched an eyebrow, far from amused. "Let us inside, and I'll tell you everything you need to know. I wouldn't be treading on Newark grounds if this wasn't serious; imagine what ACESO and your employer would do to the both of us if they found rivals cavorting with the enemy."
That was all it took to have the young man step aside, ushering the both of them into the stark-white and spacious two-bedroom apartment. When the satisfying click of a closed door reached her ears, Nadia averted her attention to Russell. "This is Aidan. Aidan, meet Russell Hinder."
"Nice to meet you... but you look like hell," Aidan commented, his eyes on Russell revealing little else but suspicion. He didn't take them off the towering biker when he addressed Dr. Paisley. "Nadia. I want you to explain. Now."
"Fine." The young doctor collapsed in a chic, half-loon shaped chair, its dark maroon one of the only hints of colour in the living room. "Let's just say, I'm done with ACESO. And I don't think they're going to take it well." Registering the shock on Aidan's face, she added, "Sit down and just listen. Leave your questions for the end, because I've only got so much energy at my disposal. If I have to repeat myself, I'm going to get very cranky."
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
The glances of curious eyes pressed a physical weight against his flesh as they passed residents of the complex in the narrow halls. Thankfully, the small doctor set an impressive pace for her slight stature. What time they might otherwise have risked on interaction was obliterated by the swiftness of her footfalls—and, though she might not have credited him with it, his own rough appearance.
His fingertips might still have carried the trembles of the epinephrine, but they gripped the pistol inside his riding jacket with every confidence of a man ready to fight for his life. Russell would heed Nadia’s warning; he was not so stupid as to act rashly in an environment where he was surrounded by potential (and indeed, guaranteed) enemies. The Catalysts might have had a mutually beneficial relationship with Newark, but that didn’t mean the pharmaceutical giant would tolerate such a brash infraction of their unspoken code. Nor did it mean they would welcome a man who the gang now deemed a traitor—and he was quite certain Veriska herself would take pleasure in pulling the trigger in his assassination.
All that aside, however, the more immediate concern was the rivalry between Newark and ACESO. Dr. Paisley was not exactly a little-known name in the community (she’d made that perfectly clear), and Russell would bet more than a few had seen her photograph in those award-winning publications. Casual residents of this particular dormitory were far more likely to recognize Nadia than they were to pick out a faceless member of a street-based motorcycle club.
He followed his companion inside, daring to exhale only as the door clicked safely closed behind them. A stark, sparsely-furnished interior greeted them inside.
Nadia’s hasty introduction spurned only narrowed eyes from Russell, who regarded the blond-haired man with thinly-veiled mistrust. The biker’s first inclination was to assess this Aidan as a threat despite Dr. Paisley’s assurances otherwise. Although the two men were nearly equal in height, it was clear from the stranger’s build that Russell was physically stronger…and far more intimidating. The doctor might have been more educated, but degrees and accolades held little weight when it came to bodily blows—even in Russell’s current condition.
“Yeah, well, I feel like hell, too,” he replied, exhaling slowly as he lowered himself carefully to the sofa. “I have a feeling you’ll be finding yourself in a hell of your own in just a few minutes.”
Russell’s secondary analysis of the blond doctor was somewhat more alarming. As Nadia positioned herself in the deep red chair and began her explanation, the biker noted an undeniable resemblance between Aidan and his female ally. Siblings? It was the only explanation, given their ages and the current world life expectancy. Nevertheless, the revelation raised more questions than it answered—queries that would have to wait longer than any of them had at this particular moment.
“Mind if I use your bathroom?” Russell interjected, looking rather ashen. Ignoring Nadia's look of annoyance, he rose to his feet, unsuccessfully attempting to mask a wince. The question was an unnecessary courtesy—it was either be granted access to the rest room or expel the contents of his stomach all over the living room carpet.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
There was an old saying, to be careful what one wished for, though the young psychiatrist had never given much thought to the euphemism--until just then.
"You're... please. Nadia, please, tell me you're joking." Aidan was white by the time his sister, stone-faced, finished her summary of the events of the past few days, revealing to her brother what he needed to know while keeping other, smaller, albeit important details under wraps. This was precisely the reason why Nadia had removed herself from his life in the first place; he was just too soft, too sensitive. The right words could shatter him in just the right places, and frankly, she hadn't the time nor the inclination to censor herself for his benefit. "So all of that news surrounding ACESO and its untrustworthy employees... that was all you? But why? You're not this reckless... and I thought you valued your position, there."
"Don't be so absurd. You really think I am the only one that ACESO has to worry about? The only person with their own, private agenda? Because I'm not," the young scientist scoffed, fingers absently tucking her blonde hair behind her ear. "I just happen to have been the only one smart enough to get away with it. Although, I do find it interesting that this is only now becoming news to you..." Green eyes narrowing to pensive slits, Dr. Paisley leaned forward in her seat and folded her hands beneath her chin, ignoring the searing ache in her shoulder. "They know it was me; they must by now. And yet, they did not see fit to release my identity to the public... Perhaps, then, I am sitting here in your reluctant company, worrying over nothing."
That was, of course, a lie. Even if the authorities were not hot on her trail for theft of intellectual property, bodily harm to colleagues, and much, much more, Nadia was not so naive as to believe she was safe. Not only were the biker's former gang still a concern in her frame of reference, but it struck her as even more unsettling that ACESO was not disclosing the name and face of their prime suspect. Because that could only mean that they did not want the authorities involved... and instead preferred to deal with the matter by their own means, legal or otherwise.
Fortunately, that her name and face had not been released to public news stations and daily papers meant that if she continued to be careful, she would not turn heads or catch anyone's eye, walking down the street. While Dr. Nadia Paisley's work had been published time and again, she had never been the face of conferences and exhibitions; it was not her style, and now, when it finally mattered, she was glad to have remained only a name in the header of a paper. Fame was enticing, perhaps, but anonymity was invaluable.
Aidan was about to open his mouth with a retort or some other harsh and displeased remark when the rough-looking stranger returned from the bathroom. He wasn't nearly as intimidating as the young man had thought; not when his face had been drained of colour. "And what makes you think you can trust this... ruffian? I didn't think trust was up your alley, Nadia. Not anymore."
"It isn't. But unfortunately, this ruffian has the information that I want; and I have the means of decrypting it that he needs." She lifted her shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, and immediately regretted it with a wince. "We're trying to coexist peacefully. And right now, we need to hide. Just a few days, at most, enough to get our bearings and figure out what subsequent steps need to be taken..."
"Why don't I suggest your first step be seek medical attention? You're both injured; your postures and your faces say it all." The psychiatrist frowned. "It's bad enough that you've officially involved me in some illegal scheme. Don't make me responsible for disposing of two dead bodies in my apartment. Look, I can help. I know some people who--"
"We are fine. I think I can be he judge of that." Nadia cut him off with a snap. "We... I can't speak for the biker, but I need rest. You want to help, Aidan?" Raising an eyebrow, she shouldered her small, travel bag on her good arm. "Don't bother me for at least eight hours. If Russell wants your medical expertise, that's his decision."
With nothing left to say, Dr. Paisley made a beeline for the more sparsely decorated bedroom of the two across from one another--one with a bed that hardly looked as though it had ever been slept upon, suggesting it was, in fact, a spare--and closed the door behind her, walking away from the mayhem of her life for the first time since she had made herself the new bane of ACESO's existence.
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Had he been able to bring the image into better focus, he would have also seen that his eyes were glassy—and that, despite his traditional youth, he looked…old. Weary. Exhausted. The biker drew in a rattling breath and held the air tight in his lungs, bowing his head over the sink with his eyes clenched closed. Even still, with his fingers wrapped around the edge of the countertop and his forearms bracing the weight of his torso, the room seemed to spin around him. It’s better if I don’t move, he thought. Maybe it will pass if I stay still…
But even that was wishful thinking. When his knees began to quake, he broke his stance and closed the toilet lid, positioning himself on the edge of the seat and placing his head in his hands. A dry heave shook his frame, sending a violent wave of pain from his wound—which only served to make him feel sicker, inviting yet another convulsion. He bit his lip and exhaled loudly through his nose. The last thing he wanted to do was summon Nadia…but with his stamina fading and his nausea intensifying, his options were dwindling fast.
What the biker needed was an antiemetic…and he happened to be in the bathroom of a well-connected medical professional. It took a fair amount of will-power to garner the strength to stand, and yet more to raise his arm to the metal cabinet above the toilet. The contents were organized so neatly that Russell might have delighted in disrupting the order, but he was in no state of mind to find humor in his actions. Clumsily, he removed several amber prescription bottles and squinted at the labels. Omeprazole, useless. Andelisone Sodium, worthless. Hydrocodone. Well, that was better…
The bottle of ondansetron was what he sought, and when at last the pills were in his palm, he swallowed them without so much as a sip of water. Thankfully, they acted quickly—likely aided by the adrenaline still coursing in his veins—and it wasn’t long before he could sit up without wanting to empty the scant contents of his stomach.
As the painkillers began to take the edge off his discomfort, his vision cleared, and his sweating ceased. He cupped his hands beneath the faucet and splashed cool water over his face. It didn’t faze him at first when he reached for a towel and caught sight of a lacy piece of lingerie hanging from the back of the door; Aidan was handsome and intelligent and held a high position within Newark, so it made sense that he would have women to his apartment. But what didn’t make sense was that the bra looked familiar…that Russell had seen that very garment before, complete with the asymmetric rip in the lace on the front bodice…
A rip that his own aggressive fingers had torn in the delicate fabric while removing it from none other than Veriska Lang.
An unhealthy blend of confusion and rage bubbled up within him, and he had to force himself to relax the muscles in his neck and shoulders. Aidan and Veriska? Of all pairings in the world?
Russell cleared his throat and emerged from the restroom, the color in his cheeks far improved—if only because of barely-concealed irritation. Nadia brushed past him without so much as a glance of acknowledgment (unsurprisingly). The biker folded his arms across his chest and paused in the living room doorway, giving Aidan a hard look.
“I helped myself to some of your well-curated pharmaceuticals,” he announced flatly. “Frankly, I don’t care if you mind. But if you don’t want blood on your couch or your carpet or wherever you might designate for me to sleep, it might be in your best interest to help change my bandages.”
Re: some kind of madness is swallowing me whole [rsv.]
Despite the passage of time, it was still a difficult pill to swallow that the Nadia her remembered was not the Nadia that now walked the planes of this dying earth.
He let the bedroom door slam inches from his face, expelling his pent-up ire in a measured sigh. But he didn't welcome the return of cool, practiced composure before slamming his palm against the door. "We are not done talking. Do you understand? Don't walk in here expecting my help, and continue to leave me completely in the dark!" And what if she did not open up? Would he throw her and her unruly companion out for the authorities to find, pay not a care for what became of his only surviving relative? She's not the same person; not the same Nadia. It shouldn't matter... I shouldn't care.
And yet, she was still his sister. And it was impossible for Aidan Archer to deny that he had sought desperately to reconnect with her from the day she forsook Newark for ACESO's gilded promise of brilliance and recognition.
For all the past tugged at his heartstrings, however, the young psychiatrist knew well enough that he was only capable of dealing with the present. And his present currently consisted of a man who towered over him by almost a foot, and with perhaps twice the muscle mass. Even injured, he was not fool enough to pick a fight with Nadia's unlikely companion, even if his moral standards would allow it. "Of course you did. Because it would make too much sense to ask the medical professional just a few feet away what you should take, and what dosage." Raking a hand through his dark blonde locks, Aidan pulled a chair away from the chic, post-modern dining set situated near a window next to the living room. "Whatever. Your blood toxicity isn't my concern. Sit down."
As Russell peeled away the shirt from his healing back, the valued Newark employee retrieved his own extensive first aid kit from a cupboard, then returned to assess the bandages. They were well-wrapped but stained, suggesting the ruffian had suffered a recent injury. He couldn't help but wonder whether Nadia had more to do with the damage than the care taken afterwards...
If the biker saw fit to talk, then he would do so. In spite of what his sister had said about 'peacefully coexisting', Aidan hadn't missed the uneasy vibes that they gave off around one another. Nadia did not have friends; perhaps this was a close as she got. "How exactly did you end up running from ACESO--and the law, at that--with my sister?" There was no point in beating around the bush or leaving the elephant in the room unmentioned, he decided, as he unwrapped Russell's bandages with careful hands. "Nadia's not one who happens to be particularly inclined to travel in company... whatever you have that she wants, it must be valuable to her." With the incision on Russell's back exposed, he knew within mere seconds of examining the sutures that it was the work of his sister. She had the expertise to practically stitch wounds in her sleep. "Valuable enough to keep you alive and well, by the looks of it... Care to tell me exactly what happened to the both of you to wind up in a shape like this?" Without preamble, he applied stinging antiseptic to a swab to clean the site before venturing to replace the bandages, but even then his ministrations were more cautious than his sister's. It was evident which sibling had inherited the potential for bedside manner.
