Until The Guns Go Silent - Zeramite Lattice

Hey, guys. First story upload. This one's of my toon, Zeramite Lattice. Find her on Primus Database or CORP.

http://www.primusdatabase.com/index.php?title=Zeramite_Lattice

My life was coming to a brutal close. I knew that then and there as the hollow finality plunged into my chest like a knife.

I lay there broken and battered like some kind of cut marionette, my armor's servos whimpering, my limbs were useless. I didn't need my heads-up-display to know that my suit was in half the bad shape my body was; the coppery taste of blood in my mouth and a broken leg at the very least. I was laying on the broken remains of a shipping crate wall, looking up at my enemy. The crate was in better shape than I was.

"I don't leave my jobs half-finished," the armored figure spoke, "Your death will signal the start of the next phase."

The VIPER soldier was clad in a crimson patterned powered armor. He called himself 'System Krait,' and I could've sworn he was nicking my designs based on the materials of the breastplate and the shoulders; P-12 joints and actuators I know I designed.

I coughed lips sputtering as red smudged my pale green visor. The blurry vision of his red armor seemed to blend with the stains on my helmet. The violet and blue of the growing daylight reflected off of the skyscrapers to the distance.

Half a dozen armed warheads were aimed upward, set to launch in two minutes, shifting with the ebb and flow of the waters as we passed under Macarthur bridge. Millennium City's end was coming. And as I lay there, surrounded by System Krait, and VIPER's small army, I knew I paid the price for my recklessness, and I was going to die for it.

I remember how this all started, Julian shuffled papers from across the desk, looking at me like I had three heads. He had blonde, almost curly hair with these adorable glasses. He was a pencil pusher, but he was my pencil pusher. And I had to admit I had a soft spot for the guy.

Then he opened his mouth.

"I can't believe the damages Pentacorp is throwing at us," he said, "Do you seriously think you're just going to risk this company, your life, and our safety over your damned campaign?"

"Julian, don't start with this again," I said, "I asked you to keep a secret and you knew the risks when you started helping me. And tell me again how Pentacorp's going to explain the presence of VIPER personnel and weaponry? They're lucky their interns aren't pissing their pants in some holding cell right now."

"Jennifer, we're an Environmental Technology company, not a ******ned war factory or vigilante group."

I sipped my coffee, leaning over the Plexiglas table and nursed my growing headache futilely between my fingers. Julian slid the sheet of numbers towards me indignantly, the envelope it rested on matched his hair color. Bright blue skies illuminated the fourteenth floor office we sat in as I mulled over the eight figure number on the page with a grind of my teeth. Julian jabbed his finger toward me.

"You want to wage a war against VIPER? Great. I'm covering for your **** and privately shipping unlisted, multi-million dollar gear, grabbing leads for you while you're out there getting into skirmishes in warehouses! What the hell is wrong with you, Jennifer? Don't you care about your image?"

Julian could really be cute sometimes. This was not one of those times. I rose up with a hitch, my blood boiling hotter than the coffee in my mug.

"You can bail out anytime you like, Julian," I shouted, "I can handle this just fine on my own! Honestly, I'd like to see how you'd handle that raid turned hostage situation."

I wheeled around him as men and women in the soundproofed cubicles watched the show with doe eyes and vacant mouths.

Storming out of the room past a pair of interns, Julian joined me in the elevator equally fuming. He glanced at me. I glanced at him. No one pushed the button. Finally I made the decision for us. I inserted the key to take us to the basement that only we knew about, and we rode beneath the dull electric hum of the ventilation fan.

The doors slid open, leading into a set of narrow chambers. The first contained the three labors of love; my armored suits, set in holding pods, erect, strong and silent like diligent sentries. A selected set of blow torches, drills, even the desk, all made of enhanced metals, fibers and lights. The floor was a slab grey with cubed insets. Beyond that was my work bedroom as well as concept and testing area. The elevator shut and Julian followed with a weary heave of his chest. He looked disappointed.

"Look, I'm sorry. I know how much taking down VIPER means to you."

"You ever lose your husband, your wife, or your family before? It's not something you just get over and walk away from." I stepped up to the main terminal of my computer, cursing my sudden lack of coffee, and thought of the lonely mug sitting abandoned upstairs. David sat on the black sofa couch nearby, rubbing his eyes. He had something on his mind.

"The lab was broken into this morning. Security protocol was broken," he said grimly

"Three containers of Zeramite have gone missing. They tampered with the tracking chips."

"How did they get past our security? Three layers of armed guards? Why the hell didn't you mention this sooner?"

"We think they had inside help, and I'd like to know who," He said, "Eventually cameras caught the responsible party on camera. It was VIPER."

I picked up my diagnostic pad and approached one of my armor suits, poking the inside of my cheek with my tongue. Julian had a habit of trying to keep information from me. He thought I had a tendency to fly off the handle.

"You didn't say anything because you wanted to drive home that point about the raid, right?"

"Mainly, Jennifer. Honestly I don't like that they've got a direct hold on your tech or that they just happened to break past our security so easily. If we keep a destructive public face, people are going to start blaming us. We've been trying to stabilize this substance for years, end the energy race. This isn't the first time we've talked about this being too dangerous to be worth it, just like nuclear power. In the wrong hands, y'know?"

That was all I needed to hear. Going over to the armor pods I input the start-up sequence on my primary Mark I armor. Zeramite would have been a gold mine for sustainability. After coming back to the States, I played with various chemical compounds and rare substances donated from the Millennium government. Zeramite was corrosive, it was destructive but it could've ended every single energy need on the Earth. VIPER hadn't seen it that way, unfortunately; they'd taken it for a weapon.

I stepped back, watching my reflection in the green visor of my armor. Machinery unscrewed and unlatched the various folds and access points, allowing me to step in. I stripped off my clothes. Julian hadn't flinched. He'd seen me do this one too many times.

"You're going after them." He said, "Even with that whole speech about being a hothead?"

I stepped into the armor, the inhibitor on my glove deactivating. Zeramite crystals dormant in my bloodstream came to life, erupting one by one across my skin. It was a second layer of skin I could control with a thought; as if by reflex, I formed cone shaped crystalline structures on either side of my thighs and biceps. As the armor sealed around me, the grooves I installed in the armor collapsed over them, absorbing a perpetual amount of power from the Zeramite on my body.

"If the tracing protocols were broken on the containers, the seals were designed to leak light amounts of Zeramite. it shouldn't be too hard to track from above," I said, my voice dulled and synthesized through the vocalizer on my suit, "You know it's too potent to not leave a trace unless it's perfectly air-tight, especially if you know what you're looking for. I want to know what VIPER has in mind with three cases of Zeramite."

My metal footsteps were dull hammers on the steel floor. Entering the code sequence on a nearby panel, a tunnel into the sewers opened for me, eventually leading down several hundred yards to a launch tube. Julian cursed under his breath, tossing the newspaper aside behind me.

"Whatever you're planning, you'd better keep in touch! If anything too big to handle comes up?" Julian said.

"I know," I said "I'll play it careful this time. I promise."

"You're full of ****." He frowned.

"You're right, Julian," I chuckled, "But if there's someone giving tips to the enemy, I think the best way we're going to get the answer is finding the goods."

Julian frowned and sealed the entrance behind me. The tunnel was dark as always, the running brown slick of sewage flowed down my right. Amusingly, and by my design, the heads-up-display displayed the contents of the slick by substance, methane, carbon, and so on. I was simply grateful not to smell it. With a flick of the wrist, the jets at the base of my feet activated, hand thrusters guiding around bends and corners. I could feel the suppressed g-forces, the turns pulled slightly like the tug of a rope at my waist. Flying was always a thrill.

Eventually I found my way into the murky night skies over the city. I thought of Julian, tried to keep out of my mind the guilt of making the lives of the people who helped me more difficult. I soared overhead, the cars below like a bright pulse in the veins of Millennium city. Floating above that bustle, that pulse of life, I soared like a vengeful bird of prey towards my target at the outskirts of the city.

The trail led me to an abandoned military compound in the rural outskirts of Chicago. The armor shook with the sudden impact as I landed outside the walls surrounding a bunker. The fort was probably holdover from the days of Destroyer's invasion. My internal map revealed it to be Fort Mckenna, about four miles out of the city, but not far enough to hide the bright lights of the metropolis.

Scanners in my HUD followed the trail, magnifying the Zeramite vapors and their disappearance behind a dilapidated garage gate as I walked. Winds crested the low grass around me as the trees and owls watched like silent wardens of the night. The concrete was incredibly thick, pitted and scratched from combat action of wars five years gone. For the moment there was nothing but the echoes of nature, silence, and distant city lights. I knew that whoever were responsible were probably lurking within the fort somewhere. I called up a floor-by-floor schematic, using it as a reference guide.

I took a cue from Julian and decided to play this one a little more subtle. I didn't need to risk another incident and though I could probably take a good bulk of their forces head on, there was no telling who or what was inside for sure. Besides, if I was going to start something loud and violent, I'd rather it be on the inside where I could wreak the most havoc and have the most fun. And it'd give me a lay of where the Zeramite might be.
Four warm bodies marked the main entrance, their equipment and uniform signifying them as VIPER agents, not to my surprise.

I decided to pry my way through the back, using the soft grass to mask my piston-like footfalls. Power was on in the facility, fully lit and I'd be obvious. I picked an isolated part of the base, and having read no sentries nearby, I placed my hands on the concrete wall, laying a crystalline layer of Zeramite on the wall. Smoldering, green smoke wafted as the section of wall crumbled and melted away. That was my ticket in. From there, heat scans indicated a mass of troops hunkered down in a single bunker. The rear entrance had a two part magnetic lock with slides for keycards, and a keypad for numerical code entry. My suit simulated the magnetic swipes and ascertained the fingerprints and indentation on the lock's digits. I was golden and inside in under a minute. This was where it would get tricky.

Fort Mckenna had been abandoned a long time ago but there were still a lot of stacked crates to hide behind. Most of them had U.S. military logos and camouflage paintjobs, probably containing guns that never sang, and bullets that never got a chance to fire. I turned off infrared, and hid behind a crate. You see, I never built my suit for clandestine operations. For all intents and purposes it was a bi-pedal weapons platform. There were sounds of running machinery and I could make out chatter, but the air traces of Zeramite indicated on my readouts were floating off towards the elevator, somewhere in the four sublevels below.

I waited, hidden behind an eight foot tall wooden box that read 'fragile,' feeling the exact opposite inside my thick, titanium shell. Sadly, that feeling soon faded as my suit's display informed me of a tripped silent alarm; someone must have seen that big gaping hole in the wall. Not the smartest effort on my part. Either that, or someone had scanned my armor, despite software cloaking.

As I jetted out of the way of incoming plasma rounds, my suits thrusters soaring me towards the ceiling, I picked up a reading among the four VIPER armored suits powering up below. One of the unit's schematics and data was ambiguous, its shape suggesting a new bi-pedal armored frame getting ready to haul out and say hello. I jetted downwards, outstretched like an Olympic diver, my fists balled as green plasma laced over Zeramite shards took out three soldiers in a shower of corrosive crystals. They laid on the floor writhing. Zeramite corroded into their limbs, through their vests. They were crippled, but they'd live.

I cleared the rest of the room in a few moments, the stragglers running for dear life until their bigger guns showed up. The freight elevator was on the move. Scanning past the exterior walls, I saw the highlights of three men and women inside the wireframe renderings of VIPER Mk. 9 powered armor.

The doors spread apart with an ominous whirr of gears, trumped by Vulcan cannons and rocket fire. I soared sideways past a missle that set spare fuel and ammo crates ablaze. Collateral-be-damned, I guessed. I shot back with my hand cannons while my shoulder braces spread, launching plasma laced Zeramite shards in an archer's hail. The shards targeted joints, sensor arrays and visual equipment and pulverized the hell out of the armors in general. Two hit the deck, the third suit soaring towards me, fists poised to strike with 700 pounds of force. I didn't need to see his face to guess how pissed he was.
The blow sent my proportionally lighter frame sprawling. I staggered with the force, with a dislocated shoulder and a dead right arm for my trouble. Three shots from my left hand finally put him down. Radar was showing movement outside, trucks on the move with support from armor from the air, including the unknown unit. The fighting had kept me busy long enough.

The stolen Zeramite was moving again, but I wasn't sure exactly where. As I jetted into the night sky, chasing down the convoy, systems showed no crates aboard. Instead there was a set of half a dozen warheads primed with the substance I'd created. Down one arm and with the bigger battle ahead, things were not looking up-and-up.

It was the early parts of the morning when I arrived to the sight of a tanker leaving dock. My attempted landing was met with an aggressive 100-gun salute. I kicked in the afterburners, streaking past anti-aircraft and plasma bolts that grazed my armor.

Macarthur bridge reflected the rising orange slips of sunlight and hot flashes of weapons fire. Fighting this one alone would be suicide, and seeing as warheads were shipped down here, I could only surmise that things were about to escalate pretty damned quickly.
Julian's words coursed through my mind. I sent out a distress signal to the nearest police and superpowered response groups, only to find the signal was jammed. Damn it. I had waited too long.

On the plus side of things, the injection of morphine was running through my system by then. It was a warm, fuzzy feeling with just a dull sting to remind me of the mangled mass of torn muscle, and likely, shattered bones in my arm. You take the good with the bad, I guess.

The welcoming committee greeted me as I landed -- a mass of yellow and green armored soldiers with snake motif helmets, armored suits and hover tanks. I'd had enough of chasing and decided to strike back. I slammed down to the ground with the full speed of my armor, weaving an emerald tapestry of death amongst their ranks with my blasters. My shoulder screamed as I shot and aimed with both my hands; pain be damned, I had to keep shooting.

By the midpoint of the battle I had ended up surrounded. There were more of them pouring in than I could kill. Chaos was all around me, my HUD painting target locks in green and red. It looked like a fiery, blood-filled Christmas through my visor; all smoke, bodies and flashes of light. An incoming round from the aforementioned tank roared. Spreading my arms in front of me, my suit constructed a pseudo blast shield of Zeramite. The tank round hit, sending shockwaves of force down my entire frame. My body hurt like hell, but the shield did its job.

Strangely, the tank peeled off from the conflict. That was when the unmarked armor showed up; the head that I'd been chasing at the elusive serpent of a convoy.

The situation wasn't good. Energy was never a problem with my armor, but it was a medium chassis by any measure, despite its full body sealing. The frame in front of me stood a foot taller, obviously fit to its pilot, thick and strong. Altering shades of crimson and dull red plates overlapped obsidian black, flexible plates on the joints and limbs beneath the main chassis. The helmet resembled an adder vaguely, the visor a single green slit with an ominous LCD glow. Weapons weren't readable, but something made my breath hitch in my throat. The entire suit was powered by a knockoff Zeramite; a sub-strain VIPER had tried to copy before getting their hands on the real deal today. Even some of the joints had been improved and ripped from my current suit design.

As if reading my discovery, the bracers and ankle joints shimmered, producing a ruby-like lattice, over the weapons systems, providing extra shielding and energy. I felt like my stomach just sank into a lake of ice. Then the armored figure spoke.

"Jennifer," A familiar, Ugandan voice said, "It's been a few years. I hope you haven't forgotten me." I couldn't place the voice. Why? Why couldn't I? My good arm balled into a hateful fist, my Z-Launcher aimed at what I ventured was a chink in the joints.

"I've forgotten a lot in the last years," I replied, teeth grit, "It was necessary. Therapeutic, even, given the **** I've gone through."

"We all cope in our own ways." He circled with deliberate, slow steps, each accentuated by the hiss of rising and falling pneumatics on the tanker's deck. "I choose to share my feelings, personally. Make them known."

"And I'm eternally grateful to play your therapist. So can we skip the pretense? You seem to know me well enough to put me on a first-name basis."

"Arngrim Tsani," He said, "Zambia, nine years ago. Does that jog your buried memories?"

The last sight I had of Arngrim was back six years ago, standing over his body with my husband. David had put three Kalashnikov rounds in his torso. I'd put one handgun round in him. I remember the wounds, like erupted ruby, shimmering bands of blood rolling down his chest, a dead warlord at our feet.

The whole conflict had started as simple foreign aid work, a volunteer program in my college days. Then I met my husband, a radical who saw the citizens being stolen from. He rallied people and I followed, helping gun down Arngrim and his group in the name of freedom. I saw in the armored ghost of Arngrim Tsani the adage of No good deed going unpunished. My armored hand threatened to crush itself as I balled it tensely.

"Yeah, that brings it up to speed," I said, swallowing hard, "The question is why?"

"Why can you not let your own vengeance go unsated," Arngrim said. "You have many enemies, Jennifer, for all your altruism. They were happy to part with your secrets. What you see in front of you is the result of their betrayal; The System Krait armor."

Like a coiled serpent poised to strike his right arm rose. From his fist a laced charge of energy shot forth. I don't know if it was the shock of seeing red Zeramite erupt forth, or just the audacity of VIPER reverse engineering my own weapons platform. Either way I didn't react in time. The blast knocked me back on my ****, and halfway through a shipping crate. My armor showed penetration in my lower abdomen. I coughed blood into my visor. Arngrim's armor was fast, faster than mine. It propelled him next to me in what was a blur of motion, his form looming over me as he came to a stop.

My life was coming to a brutal close. I knew that then and there as the hollow finality plunged into my chest like a knife.

"Zeramite was your gift to the world, Jennifer," Arngrim said, his accent syrup-thick and taunting in the electronic vocalization of his armor, "In your hubris, your people came to my country to do what? Set things straight by your western values?"

"We were saving those who couldn't save themselves," I spat back, the servos in my armored joints crying out in anguish as I tried to stand, "You just roll in and steal from families-- marauders with no concept of life."

Arngrim's foot crushed into my chest. My hands clawed metal from the ship's deck. I screamed.

"And in your ignorance you thought you could wipe away the conflict just like that? You came in fighting for the Tanim tribes, thinking that we were oppressing them, stealing from them, yet they did the same to us. They rose up a dictator and we fought back first with votes, then with protests, and then with guns.

'My wife?" Arngrim's green visor was inches from my face. "My wife pleaded with me every night to come back with just enough to feed our children. Was that the sad story the Tanim told you? Did their children beg as ours did? It doesn't matter. I did not need to return to the news of my family's death. In the wake of your 'victory' she was beaten, violated, my children slaughtered in my home."

Arngrim's words cut to the bone, his armored face inches from mine. I wondered if he had been right, if I hadn't been blinded by my husband's views I might've thought more objectively. There were atrocities on both sides, but because there was support from my university, from my country and David, especially for the Tanim, I covered my eyes and ears.


"VIPER was a clear opportunity," Arngrim said, "They took me in, promising the return of holy Nama and order to this world. Nama, the ancient authority from Atlantis and a god who would dispense equal punishment. More importantly, they promised me a way to strike back at you, and your husband."

He turned to face the open deck. Turning to me I could just make out the hate in his eyes beneath his visor.

"The day I broke into your lab and scarred you for life was gratifying," he said, "I savored putting David Mordin down like the hypocritical scum he was, and watching you scream in torment as the Zeramite coated your skin. It was a shame he did not survive to beg. I would have loved to hear his weakness rather than just witnessed it."

A raging scream reverberated in my helmet. My good hand found his throat but I was too weak to do any real damage. My anger, my sheer hatred of this man for taking my husband, empowered my mangled form. I was impotent flesh breaking out of an iron prison; a steel will shattering its chains.

I fired a set of blasts, two of which struck Arngrim in the shoulder and torso. I knew the joints and where their weak points were. I designed them. He sprawled, using his maneuvering thrusters to quickly roll onto his feet and could see that the burns on his flesh where the armor broke. I dove in with a punch that could crumble Everest, the deep green of my own thrusters plowing me into his chest. He slammed onto his back.
Then the real fight started.

Volleys were exchanged as blast after blast came from the surrounding VIPER forces. IO activated Multi-layer targeting, picking out twelve soldiers and Viper's main hover tank. My armored shoulder blades separated along with the neck joint as I armed my latest weapon of mass destruction; the Orpheus cannon. The square missle housing with beehive like launchers fully extended from my armor as the shoulder joints locked into place. I punched and kicked in a whirlwind of fury amongst their forces. I ducked a tank shell as all targets were locked in. Then the show started.

Thirty smart targeted Zeramite missiles erupted from the Orpheus cannon. Each soared into the sky, green emerald coating reflecting the rising sunlight of the morning on every round. Several of the VIPER grunts looked up in awe, suddenly breaking ranks as the missiles came down like a hammer of God, striking and sending the soldiers barreling through the air in a mass of entrails and parts. The tank erupted in a grand explosion of titanium shrapnel and fire, filling the air with soot and smoke.

Arngrim was on me again. His System Krait armor re-calibrated to my own software, screwing with my targeting. The morphine was wearing off along with the adrenaline. I was going to pass out from injury or exhaustion. I couldn't fight him head on any longer. I need to act now.

Reading the flickering readouts of my HUD past the blood and spittle on the displays, my suit's AI prompted me on the warheads. Six of the long, tube shaped missiles were tipped with red Zeramite. When it hit the ground, it'd vaporize from the heat and force, becoming an atmospheric death sentence. If breathed in an individual would be usually be dead in minutes, myself excluded. The countdown had started.

"You're gonna blanket all of Millennium City with Zeramite?" I said.

"The people of Millennium will know suffering, the desperation of hunger and the fear in their children's eyes. Only then they will understand a fraction of reality. And you will have been the one who caused it, you and your husband who gave us this boundless resource."

"You'd go this far to make some sort of point of irony and revenge, you sick ****?"

"You were the ones who fired the first volley in this war, Jennifer. Blame yourselves if you wish to blame anyone."

Arngrim fired again. I dashed to the side, firing my thrusters, skidding upright along the deck as though I were skating over ice, leaving scorched flooring in my wake. The blast glanced my flank, missing by three centimeters. I returned fire, and placed my hand on one of the warheads, attempting to hack into their launch sequence algorithms. I had to keep him busy for two more minutes. So I did, even if my body didn't want to. Each time I got close to a missle, I'd lay my fingers on the computer readouts and inputs for just a split second, leaving my little virus to do its dirty work. Arngrim couldn't see. Not that the speed I was going and the amount of chaos we were shooting at one another.

I finished the last input code when another blast found me. It came as I tried to find purchase soaring above Arngrim. I crashed like a comet, slamming three decks below. Arngrim looked into the opening I'd left. The countdown had concluded. The missiles had launched. I saw their cloud-like trails petering into the dawn sky, past Macarthur Bridge.

"Goodbye, Jennifer," Arngrim said, hovering down to a deck above me, "rest well knowing that by trying to give the world boundless energy, you merely helped bring it down further."

My scrambled display showed the path of the missiles, turning into a freefall descent back towards the ship. They burrowed deep into the tanker, pulverizing into the metal skin. The foaming sounds of the ocean tore through girders, prying open the sides of the ship. A tsunami of water engulfed Arngrim. System Krait went dead on my sensors amidst the violent currents. I closed my eyes as the ocean crushed me beneath its weight. The decks beneath had broken, casting me into the waters. The ocean was dark that far below its depths save for the dull rays of sunlight that crept in, like a searchlight in the dark. I felt my consciousness slipping. My eyes focused on that light. My consciousness had slipped.

I thought of David. I thought of the time we spent on San Francisco Bay, the cherry red of The Golden Gate at his back. Seagulls soared free, their wings fluttering softly on the wind as the descended into waters, searching. They were pearls on the silken blue fabric of the water. David looked inside of me. He found the real me. I cried. My eyes had met his. We kissed. And in his arms, for the first time in my life I felt accepted. I felt whole.

Two figures stood over me. Between the blur in my eyes and the damage to my suit, I couldn't tell what was going on. I was on the beach beneath a clouded afternoon overcast.

"Maybe next time she'll ask for help a little sooner." A gruff woman said.

I recognized one of the voices. It was Felicia Grant, cyborg and ex-police officer. She had saved my life on more than one occasion and was one of the few people I could call a friend. Her blue fatigues and military pants were soaked. Beside her, clad in a hard-shell obsidian and white armor was Sierra, also one of my closest friends. She, too, was soaked, her shorn and short cropped hair falling in bangs along the side of her face.

"Is she awake?" Sierra asked. Felicia's gloved hands were at the base of my helmet, turning my cheek from side to side.

"I thought I saw her move. God, she was so far from the surface we're lucky her air supply held out."

"Or the pressure didn't crack her suit." Sierra chimed in.
My hand (the good one) reached out lightly grip Felicia's wrist. Sierra rushed to my side, undoing my helmet. The HUD shut off as it was removed and I felt the fresh air on my Zeramite covered skin. The inhibitor on my wrist noted the lack of my helmet's presence, the Zeramite crystals receding and flaking off, leaving my bare skin to feel the cool ocean breeze. I felt like I had been through a blender.

"How'd you find me?" I croaked.

"That signal you sent out on police and UNTIL's was scrambled but got through a bit late. We had a little help finding you actually, actually." Sierra said, standing up. She walked to the beach's edge, looking out on the now flaming and half sunken wreckage of the tanker. Clean-up had already begun.

"Who told you about me?" I asked, coughing up a mix of coppery blood and what might've been bile for all I knew.

"That friend of yours, Julian," Felicia said, cocking a grin, "Your little executive assistant was keeping track of your progress until your signal went dead. He? 'shot us a text' so to speak. I think the tip about the armed ship leaving from dock, and the explosions were good hints, too. Apparently the guy stayed up the whole night you were working, monitoring you."

Felicia helped me to my feet, hooking an arm around her for support I hobbled to the shore, admiring my handiwork. I owed Julian an apology, and more than anything I owed him my friendship. I needed to get a grip on myself. This wasn't just my revenge. The trail of death ran farther back than my own grievances.

Maybe Arngrim was right. Maybe David and I were biting off more than we could ever hope to chew or understand. Helping others is not as black and white as to go for a one-shot solution. Maybe we were blindly firing the first volley, but I would make sure that the guns would someday run silent. I would make the world a peaceful place, or die trying.

As the ocean winds brushed through my hair, standing with my saviors, I looked out onto the blue fabric of the waters, grateful to be alive.