* ● ● Unknown Location, Buenos Aires, Argentina, SAU
Everywhere Isaiah set up camp followed his usual table comprised of scattered notebooks, papers, and various electronic devices using analog connections to avoid wireless transmission interceptions. And hovering over one heavily used logbook was Isaiah’s sunken face, revealing he had not slept since his showing up at the SAU’s Assembly Hall. And now that his identity was fully revealed, he had no choice but to remain even further hidden until the dust settled, and hopefully in his favor after all that went awry.
He wore an over-the-ears headset with one ear partly uncovered, almost as if waiting to hear something. And that he did, as moments later he heard the creak of an opening door, followed by familiar footsteps. He removed his headset and placed it near his logbook as he quickly reported to his guest without even a look: “I just confirmed what we heard rumors of. That ship Hexa supposedly utilized- the one we took out yesterday… turns out it was a dummy. Intel failed us; The Arondight and Galatine weren’t on it.”
A neatly wrapped sandwich of sorts was gently placed at his right, catching his attention only for a brief second before continuing: “And Vrey is pushing hard to keep Samantha on board as I feared.”
“Eat,” Marian’s concerned voice firmly spoke from behind, followed by a sigh after getting no response. “Isaiah, we have to let things play out while I figure out Rex’s location or identity in the meantime. Besides, you’ll collapse at this rate. Especially since-”
“-Hold on,” Isaiah said with a finger up, listening intently on something coming through his headset.
Marian held her thoughts but only momentarily, shaking her head as she dropped her shouldered messenger bag to the chair near her. Letting out a sigh, she turned to wait until she could speak. Almost five minutes passed when Isaiah’s head lifted from its tensed position, signaling perhaps he was done for the time being. “Do you know how much Liotta and his failed little ‘Operation Big One’ has caused you? You realize you are in absolutely no position to go out in public, much less in an aggressor’s role.”
Isaiah half-turned her way with an impatient frown. “You do realize this is Samantha’s meeting with Vrey that I am listening in on.”
Marian finally elected to pull up an empty chair to the table, taking her time to think of a better response than the one sitting at the edge of her tongue, finding a notepad Isaiah had jotted notes of the previous day’s incidents. “I think letting this one wind itself down is better than forcing a quick finish, especially if it’s to all end up our victory just the same,” she finally spoke up as she took her seat, gingerly picking up the notepad to give it a glance. “You really expect Vrey to just spit out any kind of glaringly obvious details to his plans? Or have you perhaps gone mad since you last got yourself directly involved in the fight?”
“I only needed to confirm a few things,” he answered without bothering to take any offense to her curt remarks. He knew she was still concerned, just growing impatient of his stubbornness that he was fully aware of yet couldn’t fight back. “I have to get any piece of information I can about what I will face.”
“Face!?” Marian fussed with a snap of her attention directed toward him. “You have nothing left to use but whatever Bishop still has in its arsenal!” But the more she looked him in the eye the more she saw his determination, and it was one that seemed to have untestable potential. “You mean to say you found a way to the Curtana, don’t you,” she now spoke in almost a whisper, shaking her head with a fearful frown.
Isaiah took in a slow, deep breath before letting out a troubled sigh, taking his headset off and resting it around the back of his neck. “How to get the Curtana… Those were some of my mother’s last words to me, Marian.”
Marian hoped to completely avoid the topic upon her arrival, but she knew it would come about sooner rather than later. “Isaiah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“-It was inevitable,” Isaiah cut her off, looking back at his logbook he was jotting notes down on. “I…” He attempted to finish explaining the most logical way around the objective side of the painful memory, finding himself pausing mid-sentence, paralyzed by his regrets. “For all I know…” he finally got out through a clenched throat. “I killed her. She’s dead because of me.” He felt Marian’s quick-approaching intervention, countering it with a shake of his head. “I knew it was coming, and so did she. That’s why I have no choice but to carry through with this.” He heavily picked up the logbook, turning to slowly hand it over in manner suggesting Marian read through it.
She surprisingly saw no sorrow in his eyes, pondering what he meant by the mention of killing her, despite believing he pulled no trigger. But either way, she knew more now than ever that he was on the verge of insanity himself, if not something with far more catastrophic consequences. “Samantha wants you dead either way, and this will be suicide with the Navarre’s and Rodgers at her side,” she stiffly warned him before glancing through his notes.
She then saw what she least expected, having not had a chance to read any aftermath reports. “Renzo Navarre… Daniela Navarre… KIA listed. Kaylen Rodgers, cooldown period until December 14th- no access to Reign Operating System,” she mumbled aloud as her brow raised further and her hopes for holding Isaiah back faded. “Bishop assets accounted for- where did they get all of this?!” She fussed, now looking directly back at Isaiah. “You are taking the Curtana to lead an army of sorts? Against-?!” She cut herself short to look once more toward the bottom before shooting back immediately after: “You’ve drawn Tyrus, Nero, and Wyvern’s Underground into this?!”
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“Oman Orsi didn’t completely fail,” Isaiah flatly replied as he took the logbook back. “He rallied the other hardliner’s assets last month under several tables. This fight here in Buenos Aires is against not just the weaker factions, but we are taking down the one thing that breathed life back into Hexa, and in turn, back into the SAU branch we tried to dismantle with Operation Big One.” He then pointed to a flipped page as he handed the logbook back to her. “Samantha is Vrey’s newest poster child, just like he did with his son. What was his face of his program for the Confeds before is now his face for Infinity, and the big heroine took down a Tiger downtown, saving the city.”
His tone then grew cold as he leaned back, staring off into the distant darkness of the unlit corner of the room. “The SAU presence as of now is as amassed as it will get; If we strike soon, we get the effect we originally intended. That draws in the weaker Underground factions along with Rex’s thoroughly fractured resource network, and in turn, Samantha. If I take her down before the Galatine goes live, Infinity falls, Rex falls, as will this continent’s confidence in the overly complacent SAU.”
“You’re forgetting about Rex altogether, then?” Marian asked, wondering why she sacrificed her hours of work seemingly for nothing by the way Isaiah suggested fighting him head on rather than dismantling him from within.
“No,” he answered with sudden stiffness, shaking his focus back together as he put his headset back over his ears. “Rex’s forces will fall first, then he himself will have his time come soon enough, thanks to you.”
.
.
* ● ● North Palermo District, Buenos Aires, Argentina, SAU
Sam left the communications room with a tense sigh, exhaustion and depression mixed with a new shot of inexplicable anticipation. Sebastian soon followed behind, as did Kaylen, and the three found themselves sitting on the floor and against the recessed wall along the mostly empty connecting hallway.
“Two days,” Sam told herself under her breath, repeating the instructions told to her moments ago in her head. “Two days wandering a city I’ve never visited before, looking for a target location or person,” she now wryly chuckled to herself. “This is what, the fourth time we’ve been in that situation, now?”
“Sam,” Sebastian impatiently reminded her what he was trying to get in before being naturally silenced by the situation earlier. And as he took in a breath to continue, he didn’t notice Kaylen was now looking in on the rapidly changing air between the two with a keen eye. “I want to say one thing now that I see what is going on,” he continued, looking her dead in the eye as he put his hands over hers. “You are falling to pieces. Come with me tomorrow so that you don’t have to lose yourself in the process- They can’t tell you no.”
Sam quickly remembered him asking about going with him to Colombia earlier, and she immediately dismissed any negative feelings that might have risen up in response to him going against her staunch determination. She knew he had to go, and it made her feel the weight of several layers of guilt for denying him outright this time. She wouldn’t have the heartbeat to produce the wind necessary to speak in return if it wasn’t for both of his siblings’ sacrifices, after all. “I have to do this, Sebastian. I have to finish this for good, and you know I have to,” she spoke after gathering the courage, smiling weakly in return. “I want to go with you so badly, especially for their sake as well, but you know this can’t wait or everything will have been in vain.” She winced at his turned-away sigh, trying to hold gaze. “We can’t lose any more than we have, and stopping this is the only option we have to-”
Sebastian abruptly stood up, pausing in tense hesitation before ultimately biting his tongue as he turned to walk away.
Sam extended her hand reflexively as if to grab a hold, but in that same moment she felt the cold rush of reality sweep over her as he distanced himself down the hallway, never stopping or turning to look back. He was already past his breaking point. And as tightly as her throat closed in on itself, choking out any words she could have uttered to change his mind, what she knew she denied him gripped her conscience even tighter.
Don’t go, her mind wanted to speak out so desperately, but it was like something pulled back, keeping her tongue in her mouth. And as hot tears of fear, desperation, and panic began to trickle down just the same as the day prior, she instantly felt trapped, isolated by the prison she chose. No tears would bring back her mother, Renzo, Dani, nor Sebastian at this point.
“Hey,” Kaylen spoke from behind with a hand on her shoulder. “Give him space. I know all about that from experience,” she heavily advised, and continued despite Sam seemingly unaware she was even talking. “We have to keep moving forward, and he has to go his direction as well. You can’t let one person dictate both people’s paths if they aren’t meant to be one in the same.”
“I’m not giving up on us just yet,” Sam muttered in a broken voice, still looking down the empty hallway.
“I know. You shouldn’t give up on him, and hey- you also have another path to not give up on, either.” She finally had Sam’s attention, albeit because she had not much other choice. “You can do both, not just for him, but for you as well.”
Sam wasn’t expecting to hear a softer side from Kaylen after nothing but harsher words and stances since Bahia Blanca.
“I know, crazy coming from me,” Kaylen answered without having been asked anything other than going by Sam’s easily read expression. “But the most important thing is coming back to an intersection in your paths where you both laid to rest what you have to, and let what tore you apart be completely out of the way so that your futures can rejoin once more.”
Sam finally realized that moment why Kaylen was still carrying her married name all this time despite her lifestyle choices. There was a lot to get to know about her, and it felt like this was about to be something to capitalize on-
“-I still need to go talk to him even just one last time, sorry,” Sam interrupted her own thoughts, speaking as she quickly stood up, brushing herself off before taking off down the hallway after Sebastian. “Thanks! I’m taking your words to heart!” She shouted back before disappearing while wiping away what tears she could.