#diana reyes says no to the power of friendship send tweet

[nycorix]

Consequences [8/11]

[fic post]

|part 1| |part 2| |part 3| |part 4| |part 5| |part 6| |part 7|

At long last I’m back with part 8!! Feat. the Director feeling proud of herself for #winning with him until she realizes, entirely too late, that she super lost

TW: emotional manipulation/abuse, medical stuff (see part 7 tw)

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8. 

When the Director enters Medical Bay One, 22 is sitting upright in the bed, posture ridiculously flawless, expression a perfect blank.

This does not surprise her.

She stands aside to let the medbot pass, looks on as it runs through diagnosis protocol, administers the first round of bespoke antivirals, disconnects his IV and pronounces him fit for release and monitoring. 

There was a time when she would have had to bring in a team of six. One for the treatment, the other five requisitioned for restraint purposes. Medbots only, of course—broken medbots quantifiably less expensive to repair or replace than broken employees.

Now, in year twelve of the program, 22 does not so much as twitch at any point of the procedure, his stone-faced stillness perfectly evocative of the bioengineered lab-grown AI superweapon all of New Liberty City believes him to be. If he is relieved when it is done, or apprehensive at her presence, it does not show on his face.

This does not surprise her either.

Indeed, the only thing about the operative in front of her that gives her pause is the fact that he, despite a fever of nearly 102 and a vitals display feed that is threatening to give her a migraine, does not look ill in the slightest. 

Then again, she amends, he doesn’t exactly look well either. The longer she studies him, the better she can see it: something about him is distinctly and unmistakably off, like if you took everything in a room and shifted it over two inches to the left.

The medbot leaves, but it might as well be invisible for all the attention 22 has paid it. His eyes have been on her from the moment she set foot through the door, and as she comes nearer that gaze sharpens—into the trademark unblinking uncanny fixed stare that all of the operatives have, the one that is just shy of predatory and that to this day still sets all her hair on end.

She bypasses this inconvenient primal reflex with practiced ease, fixing him with a measured stare of her own.

“When I received the operative health crisis notification,” she says mildly, in lieu of a greeting, “you were the last one I expected it to be.”

Predictably, this garners no discernible reaction. He sits there, watching, looking for all the world like a bot awaiting a directive.

“Nor, I must confess, was said health crisis anywhere within the ballpark of my expectations,” she continues, seeding the words with just the slightest measure of reproach. “Sudden-onset acute upper respiratory infection?” Reproach up a fifth of a degree. “A broken nose?”

This last finally seems to get through, if infinitesimally. A sea change stirs in his unnaturally pale eyes—the barest glimmer of…something. Not shame, not embarrassment or alarm or unease. Annoyance.

“A miscalculation,” he says, and the ever-present behavioral-scientist-backbrain part of her points out that he does not specify to which affliction he is referring. “It will not happen again.”

The lethal certainty baked into this statement sends a chill through the whole of her, scalp to soles. She muscles the fight-or-flight response down and smothers it. Lifts a brow, lips pressed in a thin smile of quiet regard, and inclines her head. 

“Walk with me.”

She leaves the room without a backward glance, his presence behind her like a weight at the top of her spine. The staccato click of her heels drowns out the faint swish of his socks on the tile of the hall, and when she clears the personnel from the nearest diagnostics room he’s there beside her, silent as death.

“Have a seat,” she says, gesturing to the row of recently-vacated chairs facing the bank of assorted lab equipment.

He does not. He stays put by the smartwall just inside the door, standing: spine perfectly straight, shoulders square. If he’s tired or symptomatic it isn’t presenting in either facial expression or body language.

A lab tech pushes a bundle of clothing into her arms with a jumbled apology as they scurry out the door. The Director takes a look at it, huffs a laugh through her nose, and sets it on a table.

“I see they’ve managed to get the blood out of your jacket,” she says, taking it from the pile and handing it over to him.

He doesn’t even glance at it. Just accepts it wordlessly and slides it on over the thin black smart fabric undershirt he’s still wearing, his stay in Medical too brief to warrant an in-patient tunic. She frowns, just slightly, and hands him his boots and utility belt, which are received in identical fashion.

He reaches out for the gloves as she holds them out next, the extensive knotted trails of scar tissue beneath his skin visible under the harsh fluorescents. She pulls her gaze away, up to his face.

“It’s unlike you.” She speaks softly, almost gently. She wants to say she can see him brace for whatever is coming, but if she’s honest with herself any read she has on his expressions is guesswork at best, twelve years and multiple facial analysis lens apps be damned. “To lose to Nicholas, of all people.” 

To this, though, he again telegraphs annoyance to a degree she can pick up with reasonable confidence.

“I was still assessing his condition.” His voice, quietly brittle, is even harder to pick up than usual. “It was a mis…” He pauses, swallows. Immediately her interest is piqued—22 is not given to speaking without premeditation.

“Miscalculation,” she supplies.

The briefest of hesitations, then a nod. 

“Yes, so you said.” She narrows her eyes. There is significant overlap between his current expression and the one he makes when he violates censorship parameters—only, this can’t possibly be that. Even if he is thinking about the undoubtedly forbidden behaviors that landed him in this situation, the array filter does not censor thoughts. Not that any of the operatives were explicitly told this, of course.

In any case, hesitation in 22 historically amounts to weak spot in defenses, and the Director is by no means above using this to her advantage.

“Speaking of miscalculations.” She casts his vitals monitor up on the smartwall behind him, alongside data from the medbot’s report. “Can you tell me what this is?” She gestures to the image on the right, a cluster of vaguely hexagonal blobs stained bluish against a pale backdrop.

He looks at it a moment, then shakes his head, watching her sidelong. He’s starting to look just the slightest bit bleary—which, given his readings, would hardly be surprising if not for what and, more importantly, who he is.

“Human adenovirus,” she interjects into his telling silence. “HAdV-B14, to be exact. Known to cause acute upper respiratory infections ranging from mild to severe, occasionally fatal, especially in the young, elderly, or immunocompromised. Present specimen imaged twenty minutes ago from a throat swab of yours.” She folds her hands, watching his face.

“I’m not critical.” This is not a question; and the way he holds her gaze as he speaks is more than a little unsettling, as is the subtle note of satisfaction in the husk of his tone.

“....No.” She regrets the admission immediately and hastens to regain her ground. “However, there is still plenty of time and opportunity for you to become so, given the tenuous state of your health, as you are well aware.” She pauses, meeting his blank gaze unflinchingly. Recalibrates, casting new data to the smartwall with a flick of her wrist. This time it’s a building schematic, overlaid with a scrolling list of names. 

“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you,” she continues, selecting an entry on the list, “of the extensive measures we have to take to ensure your safety and wellbeing.” The name she selects is random, one she only vaguely recognizes as one of the researchers: a time punch with a small box beside it that reads health check complete. “We screen everyone who enters the building,” she adds, when he doesn’t respond. “The air filtration system is top of the line, especially—” she sidesteps the words down here, carefully—“for sublevels A through D.”

If any of this means anything to him, he gives no indication. He simply watches her, and the screen, and waits.

She pulls up a portion of his file to overlay the schematic. Name, number, age, birthday. Date of initial autoimmune disorder incidence. Dates of subsequential flare-ups. Number, type, and dates of corrective therapies and procedures. List of current medications. He barely glances at it. 

“You’re more than old enough to understand the delicate balance your immune system is suspended in. The immunosuppressants you’re on alone would make you more susceptible to infection, never mind your lack of acquired natural immunities—and I’m sure you’re well aware of the fact that the former cannot be discontinued under any circumstances. Unless, of course, you would like another liver transplant.” She waits for him to flinch. He doesn’t.

Her jaw tightens. Waving away the display, she closes the distance between them, picking up a package of antibacterial wipes along her way.

“Given everything I have just shown you,” she says, tipping his chin down, bracing a hand—a gentling hand, a warning hand—against his jawbone as she begins wiping away dried blood leftover on his upper lip, “the only logical conclusion is that at some point in the last seventy-two hours, you or one of your fellow operatives spent a significant period of time outside of this building.” 

He stays still—stiller than should be possible—as she works at the staining on his skin. He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. She’s not sure he’s even breathing, come to think of it. If it wasn’t for the warmth radiating off him, for the pulse in his neck, even she might be inclined to think him more machine than human.

“Of course,” she continues, “none of you were under directive to do so, meaning this excursion was unauthorized.” She gives him a meaningful look. A don’t worry, you aren’t in trouble as long as you confide in me look. “I already have the security feeds to confirm this, by the way,” she concludes, conversationally, pulling back to admire her handiwork. “I’m simply giving you the opportunity to tell me the truth before any more…” she pauses, delicately— “...final decisions are made.”

He says nothing. 

She presses her lips into a flat line, patience beginning to wear thin. “I don’t think you understand,” she begins, waving a grainy blow-up of a lens-captured photo from some customer-citizen’s social that depicts 06 and 22 huddled together in the middle of Greenleaf Square over to the blank smartwall, “how much is at stake here. Not just for you, but for her, and for Nicholas as well. So if you have any information for me, it is in your best interest and theirs to share it now.”

Minutes pass, silence and eye contact unbroken.

Irrational anger seizes her, product of the history between them—of the incomprehensible long game she suspects he’s playing but can’t even approximate the shape of; of the way he’s the perfectly obedient foil to 06’s rebellious streak, yet something in his eyes is anything but; of too many unfruitful conversations just like this one. 

“I didn’t want to do this, but—” she stops short, distracted by a sharp movement from 22. More of a twitch than anything else, but the sheer uncharacteristicness of it puts her immediately on high alert. His pulse simultaneously spikes, incongruous with the absence of any detectable motion from him.

She glances sharply at him when he does it again, some kind of spasm that has his vitals feed going momentarily haywire with each one. 

“Something the matter?” she says, eyes narrowing—and when it happens a third time, his expression contorting in an obvious flinch before he forcibly schools it back, it suddenly makes sense. 

“Gesundheit,” she says, arching an eyebrow. “I’d advise you not to keep trying to stop them like that, by the way. If you give yourself an aneurysm, I can’t help you.”

The contempt in the look he brings to bear on her then is enough to curdle her blood, though in a moment it, too, is wiped from his face with a hard blink and the faintest hint of a sniff.

She feels a headache coming on.

“Or Kit, for that matter,” she adds, in a sudden fit of inspiration, probing for sore spots that exist if one knows where to look. “Is she faring similarly after your little excursion, I wonder?”

“I don’t know.” His response is as instant as it is flat. 

“I believe you,” she concedes finally, after another long moment of not quailing beneath his stare, “but only because if she were severely ill you would have brought her to me.” She pauses. He doesn’t quite blink under her sudden scrutiny, but he doesn’t quite not, either. “Unless, perhaps, you’ve got her sequestered away somewhere on sublevel D.”

This, finally, visibly strikes a nerve. As well it should—he came out of the incident she’s referencing with a double concussion, a punctured lung, fourteen broken bones, twenty-eight mishealed ones and a stress-triggered flare up. He was in the ICU for almost a month.

…But then, of course, she doubts that’s the nerve that was struck. She remembers all too well how Kit flatlined no less than eight times during her liver transplant, and she’s certain he remembers it too. The only times he had surfaced from delirium during his own harrowing recovery were to ask if she was alive—and with such uncharacteristic distress that multiple personnel broke protocol to answer him truthfully, in case it would improve his chances of pulling through.

She had, regrettably, been one of said personnel. 

In the end, obviously, both operatives had survived, and if it was by virtue of the tenacity of their fucking bonds she did not care to know it.

When she glances at him again, his face is blank, any trace of a reaction wiped clean from it.

A spike of frustration nearly claims her before she tamps it down. 

“If neither of you are in critical condition,” she says evenly, “and if Catherine does not choose to join you in the next, let’s say, five minutes—” she makes a show of checking the time on her lenses— “then I’m afraid you’re going to have to take full responsibility for the consequences of your actions, with or without her participation.”

He remains silent. If she didn’t know him better, she’d almost think he was exhibiting the faintest air of impatience.

She sighs. “We both know whose idea it was to leave the grounds,” she says, softening a degree or two. An olive branch. A final offering before she drops the other shoe. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

“Risk assessment,” he says crisply—and oh, there’s the infection. Raised just a little louder now, she notes that his voice is nothing like itself, thick and raw like he’s been gargling knife blades. Interesting. “She would have left regardless. I followed her according to the buddy system protocol.” 

Listening to him makes her want to clear her own throat. She fights the instinct, instead pressing her lips together in the approximation of maternal concern she’s honed to perfection.

“If you tell me where she is now,” she says carefully, eyes fixed to his, “I will leave you both in the green. Just this once.”

It’s a bluff, all of it. Whether he knows this or not, whether his obstinate lack of cooperation is inspired by this, or his loyalty to Kit, or his compromised state, she couldn’t be fucked to guess; but whatever the case, he does not budge an inch. They stay locked in this stalemate of a stare before finally, hating herself, she blinks first.

“Time’s up,” she says calmly, though her mind is anything but. “Unless you can somehow summon her in the next ten seconds, I’ll be sending you out to do street cleanup.” She pulls up the appropriate communication channels and information packets on her lenses. “When Catherine is found, she will be assigned to SCQ for the remainder of the month.”

SCQ—what the operatives dubbed “the box” when they were children, despite all her efforts to shut the pejorative down—is Catherine’s least favorite punishment, and she knows as well as 22 does that expecting her to spend a full thirty days in it is absurd, even dangerous. 

“I’ll go,” he says without batting an eye, in what appears to be utter disregard of both his own failing health and the guaranteed wrath of his partner. As if in some involuntary acknowledgement of the first, however, he sneezes again, stifled to silence against the flat of his fist.

“Be careful.” Her tone is part admonishment, part threat, his name threaded onto the end of the phrase to seal the warning. As it leaves her lips his eyes snap to hers again, unnaturally quick, and something that looks disturbingly close to dangerous flashes in the depths of them, there and gone. 

She musters every ounce of her will not to flinch or look away and the moment passes almost before she can register it, leaving him looking distinctly more tired than before.

“Let me be clear: I’m assigning you to clear 13th through 17th Street, alone, before curfew,” she says tightly, unsettled in a way she can’t quite parse. “No assistance, no excuses. If you fail to comply, I’m sending you to the community services department in the morning. Do you understand the directive?”

“I understand.” His tone, beneath the layers of fatigue and congestion, is ice and steel. Worse, though his expression does not change, somehow she gets the distinctly uncomfortable impression that he is, against all sensible logic, pleased. “Will that be all?”

It feels entirely too much like letting him have the last word. She grasps at the straws of the resolve she’d thought was airtight, coming up with little more than a ghost of a threat, the last cast of a baitless hook. “Not quite.” She folds her arms. Realizes the defensive nature of the posture and almost unfolds them, forces herself to remain in the position for consistency, taps her fingers against her arm. “I’m sure you’re as concerned about Catherine as I am. Would you like me to notify you when she is found?”

His eyes when they lock on hers are baleful, a coldly burning gray that pins her like a butterfly to velvet. “That,” he says quietly, “will not be necessary.”

She takes a breath, but by the time the words come he is gone.

|part 9|