RAZOR

Razor fought a creeping uneasiness as he approached Parallax on the deck of the warship. She was sitting cross-legged next to the hangar door leading to the outside. A consistent rush of wind coursed through the portal, making her dark hair ripple and flutter behind her head. She was stooped, tired-looking, with dents and scratches in her armor, some scarring on her face, and smudges of dark synthetic fluids she still hadn't wiped away.

Still, she was beautiful. Of course, she was. In fact, there was something almost more approachable about her when she was like this, without the fierce battle prowess, the confident statuesque poses, or the determination in her eyes had drawn Razor to her. It was moments like this that made him stay. He wanted to understand her better, to know her completely, to see beyond the armor-like facade she had erected around herself.

It's a rare thing when she lets her guard down completely and lets him in, but there was something different about it this time. She didn't react to his presence, even though she was the one who had wanted to meet him.

He waited for her to acknowledge his approach. When she didn't, he sat down next to her anyway. He gazed out the open hangar door, trying to see what she saw. At the moment, the ship was just a few thousand feet below cloud cover, a puffy white rolling mass overhead. It was actually quite magical, and easily better than the alternative – gazing downward at a pocked and broken landscape.

It was the aftermath of their most recent battle. Multiple high-level SERAPHIM Incursions converging together.

The chaos was practically unmatched. For the most part, Razor had been operating in the outer fringes of the combat zone, working together with Howitzer to distract and pick off some of the more powerful Acolytes that had spawned.

Meanwhile, Parallax, Gunsight, and Valkyrie had been shuttled directly into the eye of the storm, facing off against the HERALD's themselves. It was honestly incredible what they'd accomplished out there. It was the type of work only an elite bio-droid can do. And then some. Normally, after a fight like that, Parallax would be exhausted but exuberant, feeling completely drained and practically invincible at the same time. But it was different this time. The battle had been victorious, but she seemed despondent. It was more than the fact that it seemed counter to her programming. It didn't match up with the Parallax he believed he knew.

Unless...

She was doing that thing. When faced with hard choice, or a tough inevitability, she would start to shut down emotionally. Preparing herself for the unshakable stoicism required to push through.

Though, if she was going for stoicism, she wasn't exactly succeeding. As Razor looked over at her, watching her, she tucked her legs against her body, resting her chin on her knees.

"You know," Razor said, turning back to gaze out at the clouds. "There's this new AR program in the network. It shows you what the world used to look like. Before everything. It's...nice. Hey, I should show you. We could go take a look."

He was trying to think of a way to cheer her up. He was throwing out a suggestion to see what might stick. Parallax wasn't normally into the Old-World stuff, but she'd begun to change her tune recently. She seemed to enjoy hearing Razor's observations on the subject. She liked it when he showed her stuff from the archives.

"I can't." Her voice was muffled, the lower half of her face buried in her interlocking forearms.

"Oh? Is it your OS? Maybe after your repairs, then--"

"No," she said, with more force this time, more intention. She leaned back, straightening, still staring straight ahead. "I can't...with you."

"Um...I...I...don't understand."

She sighed. Took a deep breath. Beads of moisture shone in the corners of her eyes. She rounded on him, her face unnaturally firm.

She was holding herself together. That's what it was. Buttressing her defenses. Ready for a fight. With herself.

And with me.

"I can't talk about this. Not here. Not right now."

"Parallax, I don't even know what 'this' is."

Parallax didn't respond right away. She turned her gaze ahead again. The silence drew out and on, and the longer it did, the more an inner tension built in Razor. He could feel it in his chest, his gut, his throat.

They were on the precipice of something. He could feel it. And he was pretty sure there was nothing he could do to alter the outcome.

Parallax's chin returned to its perch on her knees. "Razor, it was really bad, today."

"It was a tough fight. And I was just on the outer edge of it."

"I almost bit it. I almost went down for good."

"But you didn't. If it were me out there, in the middle of that, I would have been toast. Most of us would. But not you. You're the best."

"You do a disservice to yourself," Parallax said, smiling fondly at Razor. A small, sad smile. "And you overestimate me. As usual."

Razor had half a mind to contest that, particularly the second point, but she was already moving on.

"Everybody has a trick. Something that keeps them going, no matter how hard things get. For me, it's about losing myself in the fight. Letting everything else just...fall away. When I'm in the thick of it, it's like I don't even care if I live or die. I shut off my mind, and my body moves on it's own."

"Right," Razor said, nodding. "Flow state. I'm terrible at that. I always overthink everything."

"Razor." Serious. Firm. And almost like a warning.

Don't try to make this light. It's not. It won't be.

"When I was out there," she went on, "I kept trying to get into that headspace. And I couldn't. And I realized...it's because I kept thinking about you, and the way I felt about you, and...us. And I realized...I'm becoming soft. I have things to live for. Too much to live for."

Razor started to reach out and touch her shoulder, then stopped himself. "That's not a bad thing."

"It's dangerous, is what it is. I...I need to be strong, Razor. And you make me weak. You make me less than what I need to be."

"What...what are you saying?"

She gave Razor one last, mournful, bittersweet smirk. She stood.

"Parallax?"

Her back was to him as she walked away. She didn't stop. And she didn't look back.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

*****

As Razor wakes, the memory is fresh in his mind, like a wound whose scabs have been torn away from the skin, leaving the injury bloody and new.

He should have left all that behind a long time ago. He'd mourned the loss, and moved on.

Or so he thought.

Now it's all coming back. The emotions are raw. Fierce. Unassailable.

He remembers thinking, back then: This is what a break-up feels like? What humans used to go through in the day-to-day?

How did they live? How did they function??

When he and Parallax were together, he felt complete. Fulfilled. When he was with her, he was in the exact place he was supposed to be. Or so it felt.

How did a person come back from that? That violent severing? That splitting of the self?

And why did Razor feel that same pain so strongly now? All over again?

Seriously, get yourself together. Things may suck now, but if you can’t get your head on straight, they’re going to get a lot worse.

A voice of reason, stomping around in Razor’s head, barking harsh truths through an old-school megaphone.

He needs to put his feelings on the back burner. He needs to focus. If he’s careful, he might still survive this. More than, he might be able to attain two of the things he wants more than anything else in this sorry world.

One: freedom.

Two: an earth restored to at least some semblance of what it used to be.

There’s also a secret third thing, one he can scarcely admit to himself. The possibility that he still might be able to turn Parallax over to his side. Maybe he can have his own happily ever after, despite everything.

It's ridiculous, of course. He'd already faced the ultimatum. He chose his dream over Parallax. That's all there is to it.

Perhaps at this point, the most that he can hope for is that he won't have to kill her in the process of saving himself and the others. No--he can't. That's the real issue here. He's willing to help his new friends, but not at the cost of Parallax's life.

How he's going to pull that off, he doesn't know.

All he knows is that he needs to put his feelings aside, for the moment. He needs to stop letting the past distract him, to the point he's barely cognizant of the here and now. He--

What the hell?

He's stuck. His arms are clasped together in front of him at the wrists. Meanwhile, there was some kind of metal bar wrapped around his torso.

It's dark here--where ever here is--and shadowy, but activating his night vision and using internal sensors to scan his surroundings is second nature to Razor.

He's in some kind of box. A tall, square cell. Only four or five steps in diameter. The walls of his cell are thick and clear, like reinforced plexiglass. If there's a door, he can't see one. It's almost like this place was designed for permanent containment, built around Razor, never intended to be opened up. More than a little claustrophobic. Though the material is vaguely see-through, it has a strangely obfuscating effect, preventing him from making out much of what's on the other side, even with his enhanced senses.

The bar holding him against the wall has him several inches off the ground, just high enough that there's no way he could even manage to tap the floor with his toes. Clasps hold his legs in place against the wall as well. There are little bumps in the wall just behind his elbows, pushing his arms just far enough forward that he won't be able to successfully ram them backward or move them much at all, really. Nor can he slam his head backward--not that there would be much point in that. There's a brace holding his neck in place.

He is sorely and completely trapped. But at least he still has his OS. For some reason, his programs and protocols are still functional. Which means...

He uses his Nanobit to print a razor-sharp knife in his hand. Only one problem: the cuffs holding his wrists together are so tight that there's no room to maneuver his hand. His palms are pointed forward and out. There's no way for him to tilt the blade backward and slice through the cuffs. Frustrating, but a minor setback regardless. He rearranges the blade, adding more Nanobits to it, turning it into a wildly curving sort of sickle, with the razor edge looping backward and around the cuffs. He pulls, twisting the handle of the knife. The blade sinks into the mechanism easily, cutting through hard plastic and the metal joints and frame. It slices the cuffs clean through, and they come apart, falling off of his wrists. Not too bad.

He moves on to the rest of his constraints, starting with his neck and moving downward, cutting first one side and then the other so that the clamps fall away from the wall. He finishes the last brace, the one connected to his left leg, and it falls to the ground with a clatter.

He brandishes the knife in his hand, morphing it into a more generally practical shape, before approaching the glass-like wall of his cell. He stabs, embedding the blade of the knife partway into the material. It's definitely some kind of plastic. Difficult to penetrate. It's not brittle enough that he can simply ram his way through, but it shouldn't be a problem.

Keeping the blade embedded an inch or two into the plastic, he sweeps the knife in a complete circle. He brings the knife back, then presses the palm of his other hand against the barrier, in the middle of the circle he just etched into it, half expecting some kind of alarm to go off or some kind of lethal containment system to activate.

So far, nothing.

Razor brings his arm back, making a fist. He punches the clear wall right in the middle of the edged circle.

Thunk.

The wall trembles a bit. Cracks creep outward in the clear material, connected to the circular cut.

One more punch, harder this time. Another thunk, a long with a splitting, cracking sound.

On the third hit, the circular window tumbles forward and out of place, leaving a gap in its place. Razor peers through the hole, his vision no longer obscured by the cell walls. He can see now that he's in some kind of cell block. The shapes of the other disparate cells loom eerily in the darkened hall. Even with his night vision turned on, there's something about those cell walls keeping him from being able to determine what's inside. Still, he can hear something. It's quiet, almost a whisper, but if he amplifies the sound using his OS, it becomes clear.

"Hello, who's out there? Seriously, I'm fucking tired of this. I have to pee."

That has to be Shiloh. And if she's here, the rest of them are, too. Hopefully.

Razor steps through the hole in the wall. He peers down the length of one end of the hallway and then the other. He sees something; some kind of control panel. Can't access it remotely. It's firewall-ed off.

He walks toward it slowly, warily. He passes Shiloh's cell. She's still muttering in there, probably more to herself than anything.

When Razor reaches the control panel, lightly touching it with one of his fingers, he lets out a breath. All of this seems too convenient, too easy. There has to be a catch, but nothing's happened yet. No lasers, no self-destruct sequence, no floor opening up with a hundred sawblades spinning below.

Okay, so those are things that might have happened in Old World movies, rather than being an actual possibility. Still, it's strange. What's the point of putting someone like Razor in a cell if you're going to leave the door unlocked and ajar, metaphorically speaking? They must have known he would be able to free himself.

'They'. There's another question. Who's 'they'?

Someone with full control of the facility, and all its workings. Someone who very well may have been here when Razor first raided the place. Maybe they couldn’t intervene, at the time. That’s one theory.

Razor taps one of the buttons underneath the console screen. The screen lights up. He knows this interface. It was in the schematics he was able to acquire when he hacked this facility, before the raid.

He enters a password at the prompt screen. From there, he's able to navigate to the local power settings and security measures. He selects the option to open up the cells in the block, all of them. Then he turns on the lights.

Lights flicker on from fixtures in the high ceiling, extremely bright, oversaturating everything. Razer finds himself squinting as he peers over at the cells. Clear walls have begun to recede downward. Within moments, it's as if they were never there at all. Nothing to see here, nothing but a long, wide hallway with smooth white pristine walls and a grid pattern on the floor. Then of course, there's Shiloh and Cade, standing just a few steps apart from each other, having been housed in adjacent cells.

Shiloh glances around before exchanging uneasy looks with Cade before looking to Razor. "This is it. This has to be it."

Razor nods. "It is. This is where Silas woke up."

And the place where I killed all of Silas' old friends, while they were in stasis.

He should feel some remorse. If he does, it's tucked so far down he can barely discern it. He's used to following orders, usually without question. In this line of work, it doesn't pay to stop and think about whether the ends justify the means. Better to simply do as you're told, remaining unattached to the results, having faith that there's a point to it all, a grand scheme.

Of course, Razor left that mindset behind, so he could set out on his own. Only to immediately align himself with a cause once again. One that's almost certain to get him killed at some point. If it's not Ironhold who does the deed, or SERAPHIM, it might as well be Silas himself. At this point it seems like only a matter of time.

Not that it matters. He has to keep moving, regardless. He has to take the chance. Take the shot.

"But where is he?" Shiloh says.

Razor turns back to the console. "I think I can find out."