She should be doing something. Feeling something. Dr. Irvine had knocked Reese clean off her feet, made his escape, and she wasn’t out looking for him. Not like she could with these new arms, anyway-- it’d be a little while before Goddard could construct her anything more than skeletal bionics. Thin, clumsy things that can’t do much more than pick up a fork and count to five.

Maybe she didn’t want to find Irvine at all. It’s only a matter of time before the feds track him down, slap a dozen charges and a court date on him, and she has no choice but to testify. But the memories only come by in flashes ever since Nate pulled that chip out of her neck. An empty building. Footsteps. Chains rattling. The taste of blood. A gunshot.

He went from a pioneer in bionics to public enemy number one in a week. And where Reese was once a hero throwing herself into the line of fire, she was now a killer. The press was sure to be fond of that part.

She just didn’t expect them to show up so soon.

A knock at the door produces a body with golden skin, a gentle smile, and soft, black locks tied back into a ponytail. Even despite the nightmare Reese has dragged her into, she still manages to keep morale at a steady Just About To Throw In The Towel But Not Quite level.

“I thought you’d be in your room. Hell of a lot more comfortable than the lounge.”

A dormitory on the second floor of Goddard is hardly her idea of a comfortable place. The agents had already moved most of her belongings into it, even unpacked some, but she couldn’t stay long. The guilt of trying to act like everything’s normal just days after the incident crawls up her throat until she’s choking on it.

“How is Colby?” Reese asks without looking up.

“Still sleeping off the morphine,” answers Adya. “She’s fine, even if her hands were beyond saving. That’s all that matters. Her words, not mine.”

A short silence, filled only by the sound of a TV turned down too low to hear. Reese is past the point of putting all her energy into wearing a strong face. Now, everything is just noise. Living in limbo between two worlds, unsure what the second even looks like. Everything good in her last  life was fake, except for Adya and Colby. Now, her mess is their mess-- too damn stubborn to step out of the crossfire, even now.

Adya tries to hide the wringing of her hands when she begins again: “The Department of Defense has declared the American Cybernetics Association ‘unfit to carry out the law’ and suspended all agency activity this morning. At least until they can conduct an investigation on the ACA and make sure there’s nobody else with… agendas. It’s temporary, but you know how long government stuff takes.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” asks Reese, still keeping her eyes on her slender, metal fingers. It feels like she could snap them in half if she wanted.

“Haven’t said yet-- probably federal agents, if I had to guess. In the meantime, all of us are temporarily furloughed. I’ll still be here because of my contract. If I’m not working for the ACA, they turn me over to Capitol Hill. It’s too cold in Washington for me.”

She offers a chuckle, but Reese just narrows her gaze. How can they just push you around like you’re their property? she thinks to herself. But Adya’s been fighting the battle for the rights over her bionic body for years now. Reese’s real fight is only beginning.

“I just cost thousands of people their jobs.”

Adya rests a hand on Reese’s shoulder. “Irvine cost thousands of people their jobs. He knew exactly what he was doing, turning agents into killers. It’s not your fault that you had to take the fall.”

“Maybe this is what he wanted.”

Someone yanks the doors to the lounge open and the room floods with bodies. Some in suits, some in tactical gear. The sight of a cop is few and far between, but the demographic in this room can only mean one thing: that’s going to change.

A few of them shout at Reese and Adya to raise their hands in the air. Reese follows suit, but Adya isn’t quick to join her until a man in a bulletproof vest practically screams at her. A woman in a pencil skirt and a blue blazer steps out of the mob, insisting that they lower their guns. “Reese Franklin?” she says. Reese turns and comes face to face with a slender nose and a brow permanently set in displeasure. She nods. “I’m Agent Vienna Knott. I’m gonna need you to come with me.”

“Federal or ACA?” Adya asks, standing up. She almost immediately falls into step in front of Reese, arm outstretched.

“As of this morning, ACA agents are out of operation. So I believe there’s only one option.”

“If you’re here for a statement, you’ll have to get in line. Agent Franklin is under the care and protection of the Goddard Institute of Cybernetics and she won’t be forced into doing something she doesn’t want to.’”

“Adya--” but Reese can’t make it much farther than that. The amount of artillery in the room seems to keep growing and growing.

“I’m here for a little more than a statement.” The guns train on the two of them again with no hesitation. “Reese Franklin, you’re under arrest regarding the several assaults, murders, and thefts you helped carry out as an agent with the International Covert Agent Program. The details of which are being uncovered as part of an ongoing investigation, so that’s all I can say.”

Adya stumbles over a dozen thoughts that don’t make it more than one syllable out of her lips. If her body wasn’t synthetic, her knuckles would be pale white and her palms would be bleeding from how tight her fists curl. “Are you serious? You can’t do this!” Adya says. “You can’t arrest her for things she didn’t know she was doing! I was there when we uncovered the information on what Irvine and dozens of other bionicists were doing to their agents.”

“Information you stole-- which is, like I said, part of an ongoing investigation. Your misconduct will be dealt with separately, Miss Prisham, and any information you have you’re more than welcome to testify with next week.”

“Agent.”

“Not anymore.”

All the time in the world wouldn’t be enough with Reese’s memory still full of holes. She’s confident that Agent Knott knows this, and so does every other court involved. No matter how much Adya puts up a fight, it’s not her war to win.

“Adya.” Reese’s skeletal fingers rest along her friend’s shoulder. “I have to do this.”

“No, you don’t!” she shouts. Some of the guns tighten on her, but she hardly moves. “You have asylum here.”

“As an agent. Which I am not anymore.”

“What about witness protection?”

“The ACA no longer has the authority to carry out any sort of witness protection,” Agent Knott mentions. “Also, to my knowledge, such wouldn’t apply to her situation.”

Adya doesn’t bother to hide her distaste for the woman. Her grimace softens when Reese’s other hand rests on her opposite shoulder. “She’s right,” she says to Adya, low and unaffected. “This was going to happen sooner or later.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Adya says. There’s trembling in her voice that only Reese picks up on instantly. “You just-- this just happened. You deserve more time.”

“I just learned I’ve been lied to for months. I want it to stop. Just because I didn’t have a choice doesn’t mean they’re not crimes. I am a criminal, Adya. I have to deal with this.” The words feel dry and cold on her tongue. The truth doesn’t even sting anymore. 

“Please don’t say it like that. You are a good person.”

“Then let me convince the rest of the world that.”

Reese steps forward and raises her silvery hands, which quickly get brought down to her lower back and handcuffed by an officer. It’s a miracle they didn’t detach her arms altogether in one final act of dehumanization. She turns to look at Adya, but she can’t stand the sight and faces the wall with a hand over her mouth. Her friend, someone who dreamed of making more than ripples in people’s lives, reduced to a handful of criminal charges that she had no choice in the execution of.

Soon, she’s lost behind the sea of police officers when the lounge doors fly open again. People cling to the hallways of Goddard-- former agents, bionicists, reporters-- and all their eyes tighten on her. A few ask questions she can’t hear. Some wear faces of pity, others contempt. She doesn’t linger long with them.

Colby would wake up to this news. That fighting tooth and nail for Reese’s freedom couldn’t even make a dent in the concrete wall of the justice system. She bet her career, where it was safe and happy and real, all because Reese’s own wasn’t. The chip was out of her neck; she could never hurt strangers like that again. But now, for the first time, she was hurting friends and conscious for every second of it.

“Officer!” someone yells from around the corridor. Nate’s hair spills down over his neck, unkempt and rattled. Wherever he’s just come from definitely was not close. “Officers, I need to speak with Agent Franklin. I’m her lieutenant. Just two minutes, that’s all I ask.”

Not entirely true, but it’s convincing enough to let the federal agents take a few steps back. He hardly needs a lengthy look into her eyes. Reese finds herself wrapped in Nate’s slender embrace. Her chest tightens and the agony inches up her throat and spills from her mouth and heaving, choking sobs.

“I don’t know you like Adya and Colby do,” he says, hurried and quiet, lowering to her eye level, “but I know what it means to realize you’ve hurt people only after it’s done. Do not let this guilt choke you out like it almost did to me.”

“I’m not ready,” she mutters into his shoulder; words she was too afraid to say in front of Adya. “I want it to stop, I’m not ready…”

“Nobody ever is. But I saw the look in your eye when you went into Goddard the other day. You were angry. I know that ember is still burning in you, Reese, and you can snuff it out when everything quiets down, but right now, I need you to feed it. The guilt means you care. The rage means you care.” He leans in, out of earshot of Agent Knott and her parade, and says, “Set this fucking trial on fire. They need the ugly truth, and nobody knows it better than you.

“Adya and Colby aren’t quitting on you. I’m not quitting on you. This shit hurts, but it’s real. I would consider that a win.”

“You know this is gonna get messy. If you testify, you know they could--”

“Bring up my history? Ask what the ex-fascist, sobered up addict could possibly know about telling the truth?” 

Reese stiffens. “I… didn’t know that.”

Nate rakes his hair back from his face. “I won’t roll over for the DOD just because they wanna pull skeletons out of my closet in front of an audience. I can’t live with myself if I stay quiet when people’s lives are in question.”

Reese takes a deep breath and a step back, finally settled in her body. She thanks Nate for his advice. “Adya is lucky to have you for a mentor.”

“And when this is all over, hopefully I’ll be yours, too.” He pulls her into one last embrace before the feds snatch her away, lost again as a mouse treading through a sea of pythons. But Nate knows it’s a hell of a lot more than it looks. Adya and Colby and even Zion know, too. They have seen her bare her teeth when it really mattered. She has more bite than all the reporters, agents, and cops in this room combined.

Playing a part for Irvine for years makes one more week of living on someone else’s rules simple. Agent Knott spoke of next week, meaning that a court date has already been set. Someone has already been arrested, questioned, and accused, setting the precedent for every other ICA they can round up in the next seven days. She’s not the first and she won’t be the last.

A quiet calm settles over Reese as they place her in the back of a (needlessly) armored vehicle. No static this time-- just peace in knowing the truth. Wherever she’s going, there will be people who believe her. And they are just as desperate to bare their teeth to the world as she is.