Chapter 29
Specter
I killed the engine and tracked the perimeter of Vessy Pumping Station. Snow had stopped. Night turned the municipal facility alien. Red beacons pulsed through thin fog, bleeding halos in the dark.
“One way in, one way out,” I muttered, focus fixed on the rusted maintenance entrance. A perfect kill box.
“Blackout chose this place deliberately.” Selina kept her tone even, but her breath ticked higher beside me. Her cast caught the dash glow.
I brushed her uninjured hand. Her fingers closed around mine at once. “Stay in the car.”
“Not happening.” Her jaw set in that stubborn line I knew too well. “If Mattie’s hurt, she needs care now. And Blackout said both of us. No one else.”
Arguing would burn time. Fog thickened, visibility shrinking.
“Stay behind me. If I say run, you run. No arguments.”
A single nod. She tightened her coat around the injured arm.
We moved. I kept my body between her and the entrance. The maintenance door groaned open onto a concrete maze washed in dim emergency light. The sound of the outflow swelled.
Vapor curled off narrow channels, shaping ghosts in the red haze. Metal walkways crossed the churn, grating slick with frost. Every surface wept condensation; the cold put our breath on display.
“There’s nowhere to hide in here,” Selina said under her breath.
I took in the layout. “That’s the point. He wants us exposed.”
A cry rose in the distance, bouncing off concrete and steel. Mattie’s voice, warped by pain and space.
“That’s her.” Selina’s good hand clamped my arm.
I drew my gun. “Stay at my back. Put your feet where I put mine.”
The cry came again, sharper. I moved faster. The grating trembled with the current beneath us. One misstep and you fed the undertow.
“Wolfe, it’s a trap,” she said, breath warming my neck.
“I know.” I didn’t slow. “We’re not leaving her.”
Another cry pulled us deeper through bridges and platforms. The sound scattered, impossible to pin to a single direction. We were too far from our entry point, and it scraped at me.
We reached a central chamber where multiple channels met. The cries peaked here—then cut off, leaving only the roar below.
“Mattie?” Selina called. The facility almost swallowed her voice.
“The asset and the doctor. Right on schedule.”
Blackout’s voice came from the opposite span. He stepped out with a raised weapon. Behind him, the exit door stood shut.
He advanced along the narrow bridge, gun steady on my chest. Selina’s heat hovered at my back. Her breath shortened. White noise rose from the outflow, a constant that would eat any struggle.
“Stop,” I said, keeping my aim level. “That’s far enough.”
He halted. Something was wrong. Posture perfect. Head tilt off. Birdlike.
“Dr. Crawford. You will… will… accompany me. The other asset will be terminated.”
That glitch. Not Oblivion standard.
I shifted, placing myself fully in front of Selina. My left hand slid back, fingers spread: stay put.
“You’re not taking her.” My aim locked between his eyes. One shot would do it.
A fractional weight shift. “Operational parameters are clear. The Director requires… requires… Dr. Crawford’s presence.”
Another slip. His mind fraying.
Selina’s fingers bunched my jacket, but she kept behind me. Good. She knew not to present a clean target.
He reached into a pocket with his off-hand. I readied to fire, but he produced a phone. One tap. Mattie’s voice filled the space, warped by acoustics and the rush.
“Selina! Please, help me! They’re going to…”
Silence.
“Basic synthesis. Effective lure.” His face was blank. His cadence wasn’t. It stuttered like a damaged file.
Relief hit, but I kept my face still. Mattie wasn’t here. I’d suspected. Confirmation loosened something iron in my chest.
“Selina,” I said, just for her. “On my signal, ease back toward the door we used.”
Her slight nod pressed into my shoulder blade.
Blackout’s gaze narrowed, tracking the tiny exchange. “Dr. Prieto was never… never… never here. Dresner’s instructions were clear.”
He adjusted his stance with a microsecond lag. Left eye ticked. Another crack.
“The Director’s final command: retrieve Crawford, eliminate you, and… and…” His jaw seized, muscles jumping. Through teeth: “and use the words. The words that hurt.”
Trigger words. The ones that turned a person inside out.
Selina drew a tight breath behind me. She understood.
His face shifted. The struggle surfaced—sweat gathering along his hairline, jaw working, tendons peaking in his neck.
I held steady, reading the misfires: stutter, spasms, delays. Something inside the machine was failing.
“Xavier,” Selina called, clear and careful. “Xavier Hale. That’s your real name.”
A violent twitch in his left eye. “That… that designation is not recognized.”
“You had a sister,” she said, voice carrying over the roar. “Maeve. She’s still looking for you.”
“Stop talking!” First real emotion—rage tangled with confusion. His grip tightened until the bones in his hand stood out.
“You were in the army,” she pushed.
A shot cracked, sparking off the railing inches from my head. Shards glittered in the haze.
“Final warning,” he said, human bleeding through the flat delivery. “The next one won’t miss.”
I fired back. My round tore his shoulder, shredding tactical fabric. He barely reacted, reset his stance like a drill, and fired again.
I dropped behind a concrete column while rounds sang off steel, punching lines into pipes. Hot vapor screamed into the haze, visibility collapsing to a few yards.
“Down!” I shouted. Selina crawled behind a low control panel—meager cover, but better than nothing.
He advanced, legs faltering between steps, trigger finger twitching without committing. Fighting himself.
I waited out his cadence, counting the beats of his approach, listening for the telltale pause. There. I leaned out and sent two rounds, forcing him back. Sparks jumped behind him.
The current thundered beneath us, nearly drowning thought. The grating shook, every step a risk on frozen steel.
“Wolfe!” Selina called, barely carrying over the noise. “He’s fighting it! Something’s wrong with his conditioning!”
She huddled behind the panel, cast tucked in, face pale, eyes bright and working. My chest tightened with the need to keep her breathing.
“The control room,” I called, pointing to a door at the far end. “Move.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
He appeared through the haze, gait halting. His left arm jerked as he lifted the weapon, as if something inside had tried to knock his aim aside.
Three quick shots from me. He ducked behind a junction box. “Now, Selina.”
She rose and ran low for the side door. I kept him pinned, watching her progress from the edge of my sightline.
He came out firing with lethal accuracy. A round tore my sleeve, heat grazing skin. Another hit the pipe above Selina, flooding the span with a new cloud that hid her for a beat.
“The Director requires termination of… of assets,” he called, the words warped.
Back to the column. I listened. The steam blinded us both.
“He reset you,” I said, drawing his focus. “Like he tried to reset me. It’s failing, isn’t it?”
A shot went wide. “I’m… operational.”
“Then why the glitches? Why can’t you take a clean shot?”
Through a break in the haze, Selina came into view. She’d reached the door and fought the wheel with one hand. Her cast thumped metal as she tried to crank it.
Rounds struck the railing. Selina flinched behind me. Her breath hitched, either fear or pain.
“We have to move,” I called.
He pressed through the fog. I answered with more fire, driving him behind a concrete pillar. Through the gray, I saw Selina still at the door.
“It’s locked!” she shouted, wrestling the wheel. Her cast knocked the metal again.
Two more rounds to cover her. My magazine felt light. Four left. Maybe five. I tracked his shots—he’d need to reload soon too.
“The valve,” I called, pointing to a red wheel by the door. “Clockwise.”
She left the wheel and grabbed the valve, straining. Metal groaned. Then a heavy clunk. The lock released.
My final shot pinged off the pipe above his cover as she slipped into the room. He fired twice; both went wide.
Click.
Faint under the roar, but recognizable. His magazine was empty. I squeezed the trigger.
Click.
Both of us were dry. For a beat, we held each other’s gaze across the chamber.
Then he moved.
He launched down the span with inhuman speed. No time to reload. I tossed the dead pistol and set for impact.
He hit like a battering ram, driving me into the railing. Metal screamed. We grappled at the edge, churning flow fifteen feet below ready to take whoever went over.
He cut for my throat. I blocked and buried an elbow in his ribs. He hardly noticed. Textbook Oblivion form—each strike flowing into the next.
Until the rhythm broke.
His right arm flickered mid-punch and went wide. Confusion flashed across his face—quick as a blink.
I didn’t waste it. A knee to his solar plexus. A fist to his temple. He stumbled.
“You’re fighting it.” I circled on the slick grating. “I can see it.”
He reset. “Operational parameters… within acceptable levels.”
The glitch worsened.
We crashed together again, trading blows on icy steel. His fist caught my jaw. My head snapped back, and I tasted blood. I rode the momentum and drove an uppercut into his side. Something gave under my knuckles.
His strikes didn’t vary. Every one meant to end me. What saved me was the hesitation—the hair-thin lag between decision and motion that betrayed the war inside him.
Through the haze, I caught sight of Selina in the glass-fronted booth above. Blue light lit her face as she worked a terminal. I needed to buy her time.
He seized my distraction and slammed me into the railing. His hands closed on my throat, thumbs digging with machine-bred control. The edges of my vision went dark. I clawed at his grip, then drove my fingers at his eyes. He recoiled. Air burned back into my lungs.