QT:UK - Chapter 10 - WIP (slowly getting there)

Hope you're all well and sorry to keep you waiting on this one. I capped off the heavy period of writers block by being out of the country on vacation for most of last month, which isn't exactly the most constructive way to get writing done. As you can see, I'm keeping any sort of payment on your end turned off until I feel like I'm able to give you something consistently worthwhile for it.

The good news is that I've managed to get something like 7000 words out of my head and onto the page in the last 3 or 4 days, so it seems like the writers block is mostly out of the way now.

As always, you're getting a pretty raw form of these chapters at this point, since my process is generally to get the entire thing blocked out, and then to go back and tidy up stupid grammar mistakes or places that need padding out. That being said, to cover everything I had planned for Chapter 10 done is likely to start pushing 20,000 words which is several times longer than my shortest chapters. As a result it will likely end up being split up into two parts and this will probably be an entire chapter on it's own.

There's no smut in this for now though, all of it that self-indulgent plot stuff I'm told writers are meant to be fond of. I don't like the idea of submitting anything to any of the public sites without at least a little bit of action, so the current plan is to get the back half of things written in the next few days and then submitted as a double billing submission of Chapter 10 and 11 to LE before the end of the month. I'm enjoying getting this stuff written now so with any luck I keep the pace up and have it public even quicker.

And after that, we get to Chapter 12...which is the part I've been looking forward to writing for months now, and should give several of you what you've been really waiting for.

- Aga

*****

25th October 2020

“Anas, what the fuck are you doing!”

A woman’s voice shouted from somewhere very nearby, fraught and demanding, but Aoife couldn’t see where from. Instead, from where she lay, wet in the mud, her attention was very much on the dulled metal of the shotgun barrels pointed down towards her. The firearm was a dated, functional thing at best, the sort that she could only imagine must have sat half-used in a farmer’s shed for years, but the middle eastern looking man holding it certainly didn’t seem like the sort to spend much time in the country shooting at pheasants. The thin coat, high street gloves and dirt smeared jeans he wore definitely didn’t scream that he was someone in his element. Nor did the inexpert way he cradled the gun with one hand as he attempted to readjust a poorly fitting dust mask around his dark face. No, instead the tall awkwardness screamed that he was someone who felt very out of his depth, and Aoife couldn’t tell if that made him more or less dangerous.

“You get your kicks from roughing up girls half your size, that it Big Man?”

The reaction to the indignity of finding herself on the ground came out of Aoife like a reflex. She was pretty sure antagonising him wasn’t the smartest thing in the world, but her mouth worked before her brain could; as if it was doing its best, along with the glare on her face, to keep her from noticing how fucking scared she was.

The man, who she presumed was called Anas, looked back over his shoulder, nerves obvious as he protested to his companion. His voice surprised Aoife with how young it was, laced with a posh southern accent that suggested whatever his roots were he was at least 2nd or 3rd generation. “‘If you think she’s going to leave, sort her out,’ you said.”

“I didn’t mean like that!”

“What was I meant to think that you meant?!”

Although the gun remained pointed far too much in her direction for even Aoife to feel bold or stupid enough to try something, the man was distracted for long enough for her to push herself up onto her elbows and reorient herself. Making her way over from behind the same crest of rocks that Anas must have emerged from, was a woman not much taller than herself, although she was clearly more at home out here than either Aoife or her assailant. Her coat and boots actually appeared suitable for the hillside for a start, the sort of thing she could imagine belonging on a farm, and she half expected a sheep dog to appear alongside the woman. Unlike Anas however, she was mask free, with a drawn-up scarf the only attempt at covering a young face that was all tired angles and sallow lines.

Aoife’s beanie had fallen away as she’d gone to ground, leaving the frayed ends of her hair to spill loose about her face, while her own Palisade issued respirator had been pushed down slightly towards her chin. Fresh, hillside air tickled at her nose through the broken seal, and although for a moment her instinct was to grab her hat before anything else, feeling naked without it, she had enough presence of mind to attempt to fix the askew mask first. As she sat up to do so however, the other woman picked up her pace, closing the distance to them while shouting at Anas.

“Now she’s on the ground don’t just let her sit up,” the woman said, her own voice carrying a  Yorkshire demanding twang.

He looked back at her, spreading his arms slightly in consternation. He was also younger than Aoife realised at first, still somewhere in his twenties and it was evident he had no small amount of agitation for the situation he found himself in. And as he spoke that anxiety swelled up, argumentative. If this was something they’d planned for he was doing a terrible job. “Why do you think I know what it is I’m expected to be doing? It’s not as if I’ve done this before”

There wasn’t an immediate answer however, as the other woman ignored him for a moment. Instead, she opted to cover the final few steps towards Aoife, and harshly shoved the Scottish girl back flat into the mud with a boot on her shoulder.

“Hey! Get the fuck off me you fucking head case!” Again, the words spilled out of Aoife long before her head had a chance to decide if they were a good idea or not. “I don’t know what your problem is.”

The other woman glared at her from beneath a tangle of long blonde hair, daring her to keep talking, then looked at Anas and realised whatever confused decisiveness had led to him charging Aoife had stalled entirely. His feet were beyond cold and his body language screamed equivocation while the shotgun fell lower, losing intent as he spoke. “At least let her fix her mask.”

“You’re joking right,” came the curt reply.

“I don’t know?” The Arabic man responded,  “I told you this was a terrible idea.”

“Well, you’re also the one who said that the world wasn’t leaving us with good ones.” Her tone was harsh, as if she felt Anas needed to grow some backbone but at the same time wasn’t surprised to find that he wasn’t. Her attention caught the indecision with which he held the shotgun, and with an exasperated noise, reached to take it from him even as she moved him aside brusquely with her shoulder. Somewhere, at the back of her mind, Aoife found herself with an unwanted twinge of sympathy for Anas as he shifted uncomfortably in the face of his more overbearing friend. He felt more awkward with every moment, with too many soft edges for this sort of hard faced work.

If she’d let that thin crack of understanding remain for more than a moment she might have wondered just what path led someone like him to being here like this. But with the woman now standing over, framed by steel grey sky and with her silhouette made broader and more imposing by the thick coat she was wearing, the feeling didn’t last long enough. Instead, Aoife reached out and clung to the petulant anger that was the only thing keeping her own nerves from leaving her to sink into the mud.

“You’re taking that out of context,” he mumbled, half apologetically.

“And you’re forgetting what they’re all doing down there.” There was a tip of the woman’s head back down the hill in the direction of the Hall, small in the near distance. But her hands remained fixed on the gun, held towards Aoife with all the purpose Anas had lacked. “If you want answers from them, they aren’t just going to give them to you.”

Anas turned to glance back towards Taymont as the wind picked up, pulling green strands of Aoife’s hair across her face. The pause was long enough for the engineer to realise just how cold she was starting to get and she found herself pushed to speak again, almost reasoning that no matter how much it annoyed the other woman it was better than freezing to death in a puddle.

“Look, I don’t want to interrupt whatever this is between you two but I’d quite like to get up off the fucking ground now, if it’s fine with you.”

“You really need to stop talking unless you’re being spoken to.” The woman was impassive, before jabbing the end of the shotgun into the bottom of Aoife’s ribs.  “Give me your ID.”

Aoife found herself glaring back rather than moving, only for the words to be repeated slower and more firmly, as if she was too stupid to have understood the first time.

“Give me your ID.”

Carefully, the green haired engineer reached into her jeans pocket, reaching for the NEBC lanyard she’d stopped actually wearing weeks ago, after anyone had stopped caring enough to check. Reluctantly, she offered it upwards with an outstretched hand, only for the side of her nature to win out as the other woman’s fingertips brushed the plastic. With a defiant flick of her wrist, Aoife tossed the badge aside, throwing it several feet away to land with a soft slap in the mud. Pointless, yes. Stupid, very. But even so, seeing the displeased exasperation creeping out from behind the woman’s pulled up scarf made her feel just a little better. The world was leaving her needing small victories, no matter how childish they were, even before she’d been waylaid.

“Oops.”

The frustrated sigh from the other woman was audible, even though it was only a small ask for Anas to fetch it from the nearby ground and bring it to her expectantly waiting hand so she could read it. “Aoife Ryan…you don’t look like much of a head engineer.”

“Aye, well it’s not like I was anyone’s first choice.” She only noticed the melancholy in her own voice after the words had already passed her lips. And for the first time since she’d noticed something was wrong up there on the hill, her thoughts failed to keep the terrible shape of what she’d learnt from the harddrive at arms reach. The memory of it came at her with a jolt, and she tried to do her best to shove it away again. Luckily, she had plenty of practice at burying feelings she told herself she didn’t have the luxury of being able to deal with.

Besides, if Ethan said it was going to be ok…

Fuck. Ethan. Would he worry if something happened to her up here? Would he come looking for her?

It was a couple of seconds before Aoife realised the blonde with the gun hadn’t immediately replied to her, and she looked up to see genuine agitation from her for the first time. “What do you mean you’re not…” Apparently she had caught some implication in what Aoife had just said that had bothered her. “Shit, they’re just as desperate as the rest of us.”

The rest of them? Had she thought that the NEBC was part of something that was keeping itself above what was going on with the rest of the world? That there was some greater context to all this bullshit she might be able to find here? If so, Aoife could see how knowing that they were also relying on people like her just to keep going would disarm the other woman. If you were imaging villains, it must be scary to realise they were down in the muck with you.

Anas was the next to speak, his tone sounding as if he was trying to bargain with the situation as much as he was with his companion. “This was definitely a bad idea. Maybe she’s just as out of her depth as we are.”

That, at least, was hard for Aoife not to see the humour in. “Mate, no-one’s as out of their depth as you are.”

He did his best to ignore her, but allowed a brief flicker of hurt show regardless before continuing. “Hayley, She might not even know - “

“No! It doesn’t matter.” The reaction from the woman Aoife finally had a name for was laced with a swell of anger, hot, wounded and emphatic. And for the first time since taking the gun, Hayley looked away from Aoife and gave a sharp gesture in the direction of the hall. “They’re still lying to us down there! You know they’re lying to us. She is still part of that. People deserve to know whatever’s going on.”

Aoife knew she wasn’t as astute at reading people as Ethan was, but even she could pick up on the subtext to what Hayley was saying. ‘I deserve to know what’s going on’. There was too much emotion sitting ragged on the surface of what she was saying to escape that some sort of pain had brought her this far. The worst part however was the unpleasant feeling that Hayley was right. Aoife knew now just how much was being kept from the public about DuoHalo and just how ruinous it was, and like it or not she had been a part of that for months. They had been lying to people. An unimaginably huge and cruel lie that she had no sense of what it must have been like to actually be living through.

What’s the sane way to react to a conspiracy theory when those lies are real anyway?

She had always poked fun at the trope of how the bad guys in movies had minions willing to do their dirty work for them, but wondered if she’d somehow stumbled into being one in someone else’s story. Standard issue, with her Palisade Services coat and boots making for a comically unflattering uniform. But then, Ethan knew; and for whatever reason she wasn’t ready to accept the idea that he would allow something like that without a purpose. If he had, then the idea of him she had in her head didn’t exist and the only thing keeping her going would burn away with it.

With the gun pointed with less intent as Hayley looked away, Aoife tried to sit up again as her own guilt pushed her to attempt to defuse things. “Lady, I don’t know what you think I-” she started, only for the words to be replaced by a cry as Hayley returned her boot to Aoife’s chest, misreading the green haired girl's intent. The gesture was even rougher than before, jarring Aoife’s head back against the ground. Her vision swam, and the taste of blood filled her mouth as she bit her tongue.

“Do not fucking test me.”

It might have been a misunderstanding brought on by Hayley’s own emotions fraying, but Aoife still felt her desire to cooperate gutter away. Instead she simply locked eyes with the blonde woman, as if they were competing to be the one who was most pissed off at the world around them. It was a contest that only ended as Hayley’s chest shook with a heavy rattling cough, forcing her to turn away. Anas stepped towards her with concern, but she pushed him back with her free hand.

“I don’t care how bad the world is.” She spoke insistently, as if she needed to prove her resolve not just to Aoife and Anas, but herself too. “I’m not just letting it end around me without a fight. There has to be some sort of meaning we can still give to things.”

Again, Aoife’s anger spoke for her. “Even if I did know something, which I don’t, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be telling some mental bitch up a hill.”

“She doesn’t exactly look in the mood to talk,” Anas said, trying to play peacemaker.

Hayley gave another cough, less intense, but enough to spend the last of her patience. “Then we get her in the car.” The statement was simple enough, but Anas immediately blanched. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t pretend that you didn’t know what ‘finding someone to get answers from’ meant.”

“I didn’t think we meant kidnapping her.”

“No, you damn well knew that’s what it might mean.”

The way Anas looked away, unable to maintain his gaze towards either of them came as its own admission. For a moment, the sensation of hearing two people looming above her, talking about her impending abduction, threatened to be unreal enough to detach Aoife from her indignation. But Hayley spoke, and it was enough to ground her back in her distaste for the other woman.

“Are you going to talk?”

She knew she should. The rational part of her tried to reason that she had no reason not to, let alone when her own safety was on the line. And yet her mouth failed to move, unwilling to feel like she was yielding to the treatment she was receiving. She was too fucking tired. Had put up with too much over the last few months. She didn’t care how stupid it made her. If the world was going to push her, sometimes she just needed to push back. And even if she did talk, what guarantee did she have that they were going to just let her go. They all felt far too committed to choices they’d blundered themselves into.

Hayley waited for her reply, and sighed when it failed to come. “No? I didn’t think so. Get her up”

Dutifully, Anas stepped forward, stooping down to help Aoife, obviously placing himself between the stricken engineer and the barrels pointed at her. Briefly, Aoife considered taking her chance to try and make a break for it, but even her stupidity had limits, and even if Hayley’s shotgun posturing was a bluff, she knew there was no way she could make it all the way back to the Hall without one of them catching up to her. Instead she simply watched him as he reached over, trying to offer her what care he could manage by adjusting her slipped respirator back around her face. Making eye contact was still more than he could muster however, even as he helped her to her feet.

“I’m sorry about this, really,” Aoife heard him mumble. But the apology was clearly as much for himself as it was for her.

“Yeah. I’m sure you are.”

*****

The low conversation from the McNamara sisters quietened fully in the back of the car as it pulled up the final approach towards Taymont Hall, stilled by their uncertain anticipation. Ethan had insisted on driving Nia’s EV, given how exhausted she’d allowed herself to become, although any surprise at how easily she’d relented into letting him do so was short lived, as she’d quickly found herself snoozing in the passenger seat next to him. It turned out even she had her limits. What caught him more off guard however, as the ivy covered walls crept into view, was how glad he was to be back.

It had been mid afternoon before they’d be able to return up the motorway, after waiting for Alex to wake following her imprinting. And even after she had stirred Ethan had been keen not to pressure her. It was the last thing he thought she needed after the night before, and he wanted to make sure she had as much patience as anyone could offer her. And so even with the desire to see Aoife tugging, insistent, at the back of his mind, he had given Alex and Jess some space together, lingering in the spare bedroom as the redheads talked.

Ethan had tried practising what he thought he might say to Alex, trying to pick the exact right tone of easy reassurance. Not that he was able to put the effort to use. Instead, when Alex did come to find him on her own, almost an hour later, it was fresh from the shower. The sight of her dropping her towel at the bedroom door was enough to make any sentiment he had prepared catch in his throat for long enough for the redhead to close in on him, and cut him off with a long, grateful kiss.

Her first words to him were a heartfelt, “thank you,” before following them up softly as she leant against him. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not right now. I just…want to feel wanted…Like I’m not just a mistake you’re stuck with.”

It would have been easy to promise her she wasn’t. But the intent expression that looked back at him made it obvious that doing so was going to hurt her. She knew this wasn’t something any of them had planned for and her trust wasn’t going to be built on hollow guarantees. He couldn’t be sure how Alex would fit with Nia or the others, or tell her with any certainty things would be a fairytale. This was one leap of faith that hadn’t even had the pale comfort of the algorithm. But he could do what she asked.

They’d fucked again, this time with Alex on top, as she rode him through the post-imprint high that Gemivax has left each of his partners with; yearning curves strained. And when they’d come it had been together, arriving there naturally without the vaccine’s help. Although Ethan was pretty sure that without it he wouldn’t have managed to climax with quite as much force as he did, given it was for the fourth time since pairing with Jess the evening before.

Then, as the drive back had gone on, Ethan had begun to realise that what he’d mistaken for Alex remaining reserved after her ordeal, was actually much closer to her personality than he’d first thought. She didn’t say much, certainly not compared to the awkward energy of Jess, but what she did was almost without exception wry and sarcastic. Something she confirmed with a dry aside as he began to draw the car up towards the front of the hall.

“Well living here’s going to be utter torture.”

Beside her, Jess’ nervous chattering had hushed as she took in the grandeur of the hall, but her sister’s sarcasm drew her attention back with a chuckle.

“It did start to lose some of its charm after being stuck here for months,” Ethan replied.

“And that is your first red flag” Alex’s tone was flawlessly deadpan as she turned to her sister. “He’s saying he gets bored of too much of a good thing.”  

Jess laughed again as Ethan drew them to a halt on the hall’s gravelled car park. And as he did, he gave a glance into the rear-view mirror and found the green of Alex’s eyes looking back at him. He offered her a smile, and found that the one she gave in return didn’t seem half as forced as he expected.

On the other side of a small, unkempt flower bed from the car park stretched one of Taymont’s few lawns that hadn’t been claimed by the sprawl of NEBC gear, with green stretching out towards where the smudge of muddy hills rose to meet the sky. It was there that Ethan spied Farah, the former cricketer still oblivious to their arrival as she bowled a ball across the turf before jogging after it. She had mentioned to him, briefly before he left, that the shoulder injury that had ended that career seemed easier in the aftermath of her own vaccination. But even with the segments they’d filmed for their own broadcast he didn’t get the sense she had quite let herself believe in the data from the US that showed the serum was known to trigger tissue regeneration in some recipients. Which made his satisfaction at seeing how freely she was wheeling the joint with experimental ease even greater. He took a moment to watch her, even as the sound of the McNamara’s climbing out the car caused Nia to stir in the passenger seat beside him, and he only stopped as he heard Jess shout out.

“Shit! Moxie!”

They’d fetched Jess’ jack russell to bring with them, but what patience the dog had been able to show to that point, travelling in the rear of Nia’s car, evaporated at the sight of open grass to run into. All it had taken was the boot door to be opened and Mox had taken off past her owner, bolting in the direction of Farah as if the cricket ball she was throwing was an invitation. Jess rushed after her, and watching the artist as he also stepped out the car, it was Ethan’s turn to laugh. There was something endearingly normal about the sight of Jess struggling to keep up with her pet, and the looming embarrassment of whatever first impression she was about to make on Farah. And it was almost enough to allow himself to think that things might-

“This is the part where you say how you feel like things might all work out somehow.”

Alex stood next to him, having collected her bag from the boot, and the wry note in her voice remained as she spoke and cut through his thought before he could finish it. Somehow she’d  managed to vocalise exactly what he was thinking, and seeing his surprise offered him a small smirk.

“You get this look about you every so often,” she explained, “like you’re caught up in your own thoughts. Seemed a safe guess that Jess would be causing good ones.”

Nia appeared to his other side, producing a cigarette and lighter from the pocket of a well tailored jacket. “Is he doing that thing where he gets the thoughtful little wrinkle between his eyes?”

“He was. It’s more of a frown now.”

There was the feeling of soft lips pressed against his cheek as Nia leaned in to reassure him. “Evie loves it when you do that, you know? You’re cute when you’re being introspective.”

It was hard to muster much in the way of earnest protest and he resisted the urge to find some sort of playful quip back. Instead he opted to simply let Alex have her moment with Nia and set to unloading the rest of their bags. And by the time he was done, carefully carrying Jess’ drawing tablet to sit with the small pile of luggage next to the Hall’s entrance, Farah was striding across the lawn, cradling Mox in one arm. Jess trailed behind her, attempting to offer apologetic explanations of how her dog was normally better behaved, only for them to be brushed aside as unneeded by Farah. They’d spent several minutes attempting to chase Moxie down, something that the athlete had apparently loved every second of, and she beamed as the animal strained up to lick at her face.

“I did wonder who was going to kiss me first when you got back. I’m not sure this is the answer I was expecting.”

“Sorry. Moxie’s enthusiastic and…” Jess started a characteristically awkward reply but was silenced by Farah.

“I swear if you apologise one more time I’m going to leave you out.”

The short redhead blushed, seemingly not having realised that she was on Farah’s list of people to be kissed. The pair had interacted a little during Jess’ brief, remote courtship with the group, but hadn’t quite expected the other woman to be as forward with her interest as she was. Ethan considered sparing Jess’ blushes from his least inhibited partner but, before he could, he found Mox being pressed into his arms by the cricketer instead.

“Here, hold the dog for a second.”

As Moxie wriggled, Ethan watched as Farah turned and stooped to feather the barest, tenderest of kisses on the younger woman’s lips. Jess gave a sigh-like exhale as they parted, a contented look on her face even as her cheeks flushed further.

“I know your night didn’t go how anyone wanted it to, but you’re part of the team now. And that means I’ve got your back, understand?” Farah was predictably sincere with her tone, and Ethan didn’t doubt she meant every bit of it, even as she turned to Jess’ sister. “Alex, right? That goes for you too.”

For a moment, Alex seemed a little uncomfortable at the attention, as if the idea of being paired with Ethan enough to deal with that she hadn’t even found the emotional bandwidth to consider the rest of the team. Less than 24 hours ago she’d been screaming on a bathroom floor as the world closed in around her, and even as she forced her body language to relax, Ethan still wondered how much was going to be too much too soon for her. And he realised he wasn’t even sure if her Delphi questionnaire said she was interested in other women.

“Farah…” he interjected, only for Alex to speak for herself, doing her best to steady herself behind dry humour.

“It’s fine. As long as it’s not too awkward if I say no to the kiss? I wouldn’t want you to enjoy it too much and upstage Jess.”

“Of course, that’s the last thing I’d want,” Farah said, finally picking up on the guarded discomfort Alex was carrying with her and gracious enough to play along with the refusal. “I’ll settle for a hug instead?”

Alex nodded, eventually, and quickly found powerful arms slung around her shoulders as Farah drew her reassuringly close, holding the embrace just long enough for the redhead to allow herself to ease into the contact. And when Farah spoke next her words were simple, soft and earnest.

“Welcome to the team.”

From her expression, it was possible to see how the sharpest edges of Alex’s anxiety were smoothed by the contact, and Ethan had to resist parroting her words about believing things might be ok back at her. Farah’s tone however turned more serious as she turned to Ethan.

“Evie wanted to know when you were back. She didn’t say why but it seemed more important than just being desperate to jump you.”

Something about the way she spoke brought back the familiar sensation of being torn in two directions for Ethan. He could tell she was doing her best to understate things, but there was a hint to her voice that betrayed a weight to the statement and just how badly Evie needed to see him. And at any other time, his instinct to go straight to her would have kicked in, but in the moment, the larger part of him couldn’t ignore Aoife any longer. The part of him that had been demanding he go and find the green haired girl, louder with every moment since he’d passed back through the hall’s gates. He’d forced himself to take the extra few minutes to not leave Jess and Alex feeling abandoned on the doorstep, but even that had limits while he knew she needed him.

“I’ve something I need to take care of first,” he heard himself saying, as he passed Moxie to Jess. “If you see her, tell her I’ll catch up with her as soon as I can.”

“She really did make it sound like…”

Ethan caught Farah’s lips before she could say anything to make his priorities feel any more split; a long deep press that drew a pleased moan from her before it ended and reminded his body just how much it had missed the feel of her.

“I believe you,” he said. “If Evie says it’s important then that’s all I need to hear. But this really can’t wait any more than I’ve already made it. I’ll make it up to her.” Whether it was the conviction he said things with, or simply the sway of his kiss leaving Farah’s mind weak, but she relented. “Just promise me you’ll make this one get some rest,” he added, lightly pushing Nia into Farah’s arms to cover his own exit.

He left them, with the sounds of Nia’s protests to Farah that she was fine and had work to do following after him. Knowing Aoife he suspected she was going to be found in her workshop, buried away in the Hall’s basement, but it wasn’t there that he headed first. He’d received a text from the newly re-nationalised Royal Mail while he was away and had asked Evie to leave the delivery it had announced to wait for him out of the way in his old room. The Pokemon plush he’d ordered for her had originally been meant as an apology when he still thought she was mad at him and although the sentiment had changed a little, the fact that he wanted something thoughtful for her hadn’t. He didn’t really know what a ‘Turtwig’ was, other than the soft turtle creature that looked up at him with wide eyes as he opened the package, he just knew she liked the cute green ones, and he hoped it was endearing enough to make her smile even with everything that was going on.

It was as he turned to leave the room, however, ready to make his way to the old service elevator that led down to Aoife’s basement, that Evie appeared at his doorway.  The sight of her alone was enough to briefly ease the tight knot of anticipation that had collected at the pit of his stomach, but the relief was short lived as he caught her expression. There was concern there, measuredly written across her normally serene demeanour alongside a sad tug of her lips. It was the sympathy behind the brown of her eyes that really caught him however, as he realised whatever she was about to say was going to come with gentle consolation.

He searched her face for answers, and spoke only when he couldn’t find them.

“What’s happened?”

“We’re still working that out. This morning…” Evie started to speak, but as she did so Ethan glanced downwards, his notice happening to fall upon the fact that his partner was holding something. There, held between painted fingernails and caked in dirt, was a starkly familiar beanie. One he wasn’t used to seeing without green hair poking out from beneath it. He tried to find insight in Evie’s expression again, but his mind slipped on implications like a tyre spinning in mud and he found himself taking an involuntary step backwards.

“According to one of the other engineers, Aoife went to run repairs on one of the dishes…”

Evie kept talking, but her words sounded as if they were coming from behind glass. Dimly he heard her mention how they’d found her toolbag, and phone when no-one had heard from her. Or how they already had people looking for her. But most of it bounced off him, lost as soon as he’d heard one sentence that kept ringing through his head as the world closed around him.

“We don’t know what’s happened, but right now, Aoife’s missing.”

***

From the window of the honeymoon suite, Ethan watched another police car draw up onto Taymont’s lawn, joining the clutch of marked and unmarked vehicles that had been growing there as events lurched around him. In the handful of hours since they’d returned, it didn’t really feel as if the ground had been allowed to settle under his feet. Nor had he been able to work out if the speed at which the response had escalated was reassuring or concerning. With enough evidence to already suggest there was a serious security incident around the NEBC and DuoHalo, matters had very quickly been taken out of the hands of Pallisade’s in house security, with Ethan being left to understand that several of the dark cars that had arrived belonged to the Special Branch of Yorkshire police. And phrases like ‘official secrets act,’ ‘national security,’ and ‘intelligence services’ were being thrown around enough to only feed the disquieted energy building inside him. The part of himself that said he should be out there, turning over every rock on his own until he found her.

That he wasn’t doing just that was due at least in part to Evie being the one to have broken the news to him, leaving her able to soothe some sense into him. But he hadn’t found the answer to exactly what he was meant to be doing instead, left to feel helpless with worry.

Behind him Nia was talking, but for a brief moment his attention wandered as he looked through glass, eyes straying from the Hall’s grounds, towards the hills, and the curved profile of the satellite dish. Until the sound of her cursing dragged him back.

“Jesus Fucking Christ. Ethan, how the fuck did she even get access to those files.”

While he was more than used to hearing Nia swear when they had sex, Ethan wasn’t sure he could remember her ever losing enough of her composure to do so at any other time. And, as a result, the words landed with a heft that made it clear he was far from the only one struggling to hold things together.

He’d wrestled with telling someone what he knew about Aoife accessing the classified drive, worried about holding back something, anything, that might lead to her being found quicker, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to. It felt like too much of a betrayal. But he should have known Nia would get there on her own as quickly as she did. His partner’s instincts were always to make sure she was ahead of things, to not be caught out of control of the narrative wherever she could help it. And she had realised immediately the potential for the likes of Special Branch to become involved, along with the implications. That the moment they arrived they would start combing through Aoife’s life at the hall while they worked out just how significant any of this was, whether she was a target or a conspirator.

Nia had been right to make sure she got there first. She’d understood that if there was anything waiting to become an even bigger problem for it, it was going to be found in Aoife’s room or workshop, and so that’s where she’d quietly gone looking. And she was vindicated through finding the cracked copy of the drive from the Scotland team. Ethan just hated the thought that she must have been asking herself exactly the same questions about Aoife that the police were.

“Do you understand how they’re going to react if they knew she had this without authorisation? How damning this looks for her? Especially when she’s immediately just upped and disappeared.”

The word ‘disappeared’ stung, no matter how many times he heard people using it, and the way that Nia’s face immediately softened suggested she could see how much it hurt him.

“She wouldn’t do that,” Ethan heard himself insisting. “I spoke to her, she was hurting, Nia. She’s headstrong and principled, and god, she can do stupid shit, but she said she was waiting for me to get back. I told her I was going to make this make sense for her. She wouldn’t have just…” His words faltered in the face of the smallest spark of doubt. What if he was wrong, could he deal with knowing she hadn’t trusted him enough to wait?

“First Delphi and now this," Nia mumbled. He watched her close her eyes and slowly exhale, doing her best to reign in her own simmering frustrations. “I know you’re just thinking about her,” she said, doing her best to sound sympathetic. “But stupid is an understatement. This is going to be treated as the data breach to end all data breaches. If what she knows now becomes public knowledge before it’s meant to, the consequences are going to be…”

It was Nia’s turn to trail off, trying to spare him her anger, but Ethan finished the thought for her. “Fucked. We’ll be fucked. You don’t need to tell me that.”

“She’s not exactly here to reassure anyone.”

“You don’t need to tell me that either.”

“And you’ve still not told me how she got access.”

Ethan sighed, knowing he couldn’t stonewall Nia now things were forced into the open. “She didn’t say, not exactly. Just implied she was able to copy the drive and then hacked it open somehow. She didn’t know about the vaccine, that was part of what I needed to tell her still.” The look of displeasure on Nia’s face was unmistakable, but she didn’t speak immediately either, prompting Ethan to continue. “I guess this is the part where you curse her out and tell me you knew she was trouble.”

For a moment she continued not to say anything, keeping her thoughts her own, before managing to offer him a strained smile. Her words were measured, but it was clear she was trying for him. “This is hard enough for you already without needing me to say what I think right now. And it’s not going to help me fix anything.”

That was just like her, the casual manner in which she put the burden squarely upon her own shoulders without a second thought.

“You don’t need to be the one to fix every little thing.”

“Yes, I do. If it’s you I do.” Nia insisted, her words quiet, but disarming Ethan with just how much conviction there was behind them. Sympathy didn’t come easy to Nia, but as their eyes met, he found her offering him resolve instead. “Do you trust her?”

The question came out of nowhere, catching his feelings further off guard. “Nia..I…”

“I need to hear you say it to me, even with everything that’s at risk. Do you trust her?” Her hand found his cheek with a gentle familiarity as she asked, leaving him resting under her gaze.

Ethan found his certainty. “I do. Maybe more than anyone.”

The smile that tugged at the corners of Nia’s lips this time was bittersweet.

“Then that’s all I need,” she said. Turning from him and talking as she moved to fetch a tablet from her side of the bed before purposefully tapping away. “One thing at a time then. We need to protect her from official scrutiny until we can make sure she’s back, safe at the Hall. I can retroactively add her to Project Upstart, and say she’d been given clearance while she was in the process of being assigned to one of the teams. That should be enough to stop any immediate consequences from her stunt with the drive. I’ll just have to go back and confirm what her Delphi scores with Lukas and Rhys were.”

That was a suggestion that caught Ethan in the gut with a shocking amount of force. Rhys had made his way back from Nottingham with Armstrong ahead of them, and while he had to admit that the journalist’s indignation since then seemed to be as much about Alex and flaws with Delphi as it did his ego, the idea of Aoife being matched into Team Barclay left him utterly cold. What surprised him more was the subsequent realisation that he didn’t like the idea of her being with Lukas much better. He knew that she would be a good fit for his team, that even with the age gap between them Lukas would respect her as much as anyone. And yet…

Nia hmm’d. “It’s not the best, but she would have a 73% compatibility with Team Barclay, which is just enough to feel plausible. Given the circumstances-”

“No.”

It wasn’t until Nia turned to look at him that Ethan appreciated he’d said that out loud, or that he’d done so with quite as much force as it had ended up coming out with.

“No Nia. I know you’re trying to help just…not Rhys.”

She lowered the tablet as she looked at him. And again, he watched the effort she was putting into picking her words and pushing her own feelings aside for him. “I’m not saying she definitely has to pair with him, we can revisit that once she’s safe and we have time. Even put her back through the algorithm. But right now, if I don’t have something I can show Special Branch when they come asking why she had those files, I don’t know what that’s going to mean for her.”

“I get that. But not with Rhys.”

“Ethan,” Nia’s voice turned assertive. “This isn’t a choice.”

***

It was only once the blue light from the laptop began to sting his eyes that Ethan brought himself to push it away. He closed them, leaning back in his seat, rubbing his hands with his face. And as he did, he felt them begin to water, although he couldn’t honestly tell if they were from the strain of the screen, or the sheer, powerless frustration.

Earlier that morning he thought he’d been able to see the waiting relief. That every body blow he made himself take trying to be the person they all needed him to be might actually have a payoff.

But this was too much. He’d be scraped too thin, left clinging onto his emotions by brittle fingers. Threadbare.

He couldn’t face the idea of losing her.

But even now he was still trying to struggle forward to do what little he could, worried that letting go and allowing the emotions out might somehow stop him from doing what he could to find her. While he knew that driving up and down the country roads outside Taymont was fruitless, Evie had called in some favours from a contact in the Department of Transport for him. She’d managed to get him limited access to the remote feeds that had been set up for the pandemic, for monitoring the government traffic and CCTV cameras. He was only allowed to view the ones within 25 miles of Taymont, but that was still dozens of cameras and hundreds of hours of footage.

Somewhere, on one of the feeds, was a car with Aoife in it. That had felt like it should have been simple enough but he soon realised there were no cameras directly on any of the approach roads to the hills around the hall. Instead, he’d got a notepad and started writing down the licence plates of the vehicles that would have been in the area at the team, reasoning he could track their movements across multiple cameras. But he’d underestimated just how much of a task that was and as it approached the early hours of the morning a breakthrough was no closer to coming than it had been when he started, initial optimism totally overwhelmed.

Ethan couldn’t bring himself to move for several long moments, holding his face in his hands as he chided himself for wanting to cry. He had found himself retreating to the privacy of Taymont’s bar earlier in the evening, perhaps on some level understanding the cracks were about to show, while feeling too responsible to the others not to let them see. It wasn’t a conscious choice. He’d reasoned to himself he just needed space to work. But if pushed he’d have admitted the last thing he wanted was to feel like his feelings were making things unfair on Jess and Alex, or harder for Nia. And it meant that, as he sat in the same booth he and Evie had drank together in the night before their vaccination, he wasn’t expecting to have anyone else’s voice interrupt him.

“You look like shit.”

Ethan startled slightly, shifting his hands from his face in embarrassment as he looked in the direction of the gruff, Polish accented words that had come from the doorway. Lukas appeared impassive, the other producer never one for pandering or pretence, studying Ethan briefly before giving a nonchalant shrug.

“But then you always look like shit.”

Ethan’s laugh was short. “Thanks.” He considered a joke about how Lukas and his perpetual 5 o’clock shadow never looked much better, but his mind took too long to find the words that might have otherwise come easily, and by the time it had, the moment had passed.

“No-one was sure where you were and were starting to get worried.” The older man’s words softened just enough to betray his own concern as he crossed the short distance across the hardwood floor, to join Ethan at the booth.

“I’m fine,” he replied, failing to come close to convincing even himself. He continued to lean back in his seat, eyes straying upward towards the ceiling rather than letting himself look towards the other man and having to confront how weak his insistence was. “There’s too much riding on things to not be, not that that’s much different to normal.”

The grunt that came from Lukas in response was predictably sceptical. “Normal doesn’t usually involve people we’re close to being missing like this. You are allowed to feel the strain you know.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that’s exactly what normal has been lately,” Ethan said, although he quickly regretted it. Pointing out how many of their colleagues had left the Hall with what had to be DuoHalo, only to never come back, only made the anxiety around Aoife bite harder. He had an entire list of people he knew he wouldn’t be seeing again that he hadn’t processed yet, and he had no idea how he would manage if he had to add her to it. “And at least with Aoife there’s something I can try and do about it. Unless you’re here to chew me out for leaving you with all the work again?”

He could feel Lukas’ eyes on him as the older man remained non-committal. “Hmm? No. It is what it is. Unless you asked for everything to go to shit around you?”

“Right. You know me, can’t get enough of the melodrama.”

Finally, Ethan sat forward again, reaching out to click forward from the frame he’d left things frozen on. jumping to the next camera feed on his list as he attempted to follow a white SUV that had been in the area. Briefly, Lukas watched, before nodding towards the screen.

“Any luck?”

“...no” Ethan said, hesitating before picking up a pen to add the licence number to his list with the other. “Not yet. That doesn’t mean I can just stop looking, what else am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, it seems like there’s enough police out there looking for her, you could-”

Any lack of certainty to Ethan’s replies vanished as he cut Lukas off before he could suggest he stop and simply leave it to the police. Instead his speech was firm, almost resentful. “They all want to find Aoife, they don’t actually care about her. There’s a difference.”

The police presence had gradually continued to grow throughout the afternoon the more things had progressed. It transpired that Pallisade’s security hadn’t disclosed any of the previous damage done to the satellite, along with several instances where people had been seen acting suspiciously around the grounds, opting to ‘remain vigilant’ on their own. It had meant that as soon as actual members of the security services had arrived on site, however, that there was enough of a pattern to suspect whatever had happened with Aoife was the culmination of a real risk to national security.

In truth, it had been surprising to Ethan just how emphatic the response had been, especially given how bare bones most other services seemed to be, including the NEBC itself. A sizable contingent of uniformed officers had set about investigating the hall and sweeping the hillside, but it was the half dozen plain clothed police that had joined them that felt more disquieting. They were the ones obviously in charge and who, when pressed, had announced themselves to be from the Yorkshire Police’s Special Branch ‘DuoHalo Unit.’ They were the ones conducting interviews and who clearly had security clearance far in excess of what Ethan knew.

But then, on reflection, he reasoned that the existence of units like that was likely inevitable. It wasn’t just enough for the NEBC and it’s sister broadcasters to be telling people what they were meant to hear. There had to be someone out there making sure that the information that wasn’t deemed safe for the public to know wasn’t being spread. Ethan suspected it was going to be another thing he needed to get his conscience around later.

“If they get her back, what difference does it make,” Lukas asked.

Another question the younger producer didn’t have a good answer to. He just knew that it did. That he needed to know that someone who really cared about her was looking for her. Not just those who saw her as an expendable piece of a picture too large for anyone to see the whole of. He realised he’d gone too long again without his brain being able to put quite what he wanted to say into words, and instead gave a shrug without looking far from the screen.

Again, Ethan could tell Lukas was giving him a hard look before speaking again. “I was a little worried they might think she’d done something dumb. But Nia said she was being worked up to be matched with Rhys.”

Ethan paused, the Polish man’s statement landing somewhere close to an accusation. Even knowing that the match wasn’t quite real, hearing someone else voice something he wanted to forget about felt more than Ethan could take. As if the more people said it the closer it came to being willed into being. He couldn’t bring himself to reply, leaving Lukas to keep going once the silence became awkward.

“I don’t know what was going on between you two, but you always lit up when you talked about her in a way you never did with anyone else.”

The paper thin layer Ethan was managing to keep on top of his emotions faltered. He could feel the cracks. Aoife’s face strayed into his mind’s eye, and he did his best not to picture where she might be right now. He knew that he couldn’t hold up the veneer if it kept being pushed. And he wanted Lukas to stop talking. But the other man didn’t.

“I was just surprised you didn’t have more to say about it…Especially with how hard you’re taking all this now.”

Of course he was taking it hard. How couldn’t he be? It felt a ridiculous thing for someone to say, and yet he was the one fighting back against acknowledging it. Of course it didn’t help that Aoife was the one who normally helped him feel better about things. Ethan wavered, doing his best to try and remain in control while he struggled against the rising tide. “Yeah, well, right now all that matters is trying to find her,” he said eventually, straining to keep his voice flat. “Besides? What was there to be said?”

“Ethan-”

It all became too much, and he snapped back before Lukas could talk further, frustration prickled hot across his skin as the words tore out.

“Look, I know you think you’re trying to help, but what the fuck do you want from me Lukas!? I am trying so fucking hard right now to be what so many different people need or expect me to be and I don’t fucking know anymore. I thought I did but apparently all I’ve done is fuck it up badly enough that Aoife is gone and doesn’t even know that I can’t deal with the idea of not getting her back. And that’s before we even get to the world ending plague we’re all expected to be dealing with.

“So by all means, tell me how the fuck I’m meant to handle realising that, actually, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with her, right after I’ve pharmaceutically bonded myself to 5 other women. Ones who don’t get a choice in being stuck with my bullshit now.

“Because I can’t even start to see what the right answer is anymore. And I am sick of feeling like I’m a prick who’s doing nothing but failing everyone because of it.”

For a second, Ethan’s anger ebbed, and he was left considering whether to chase back after it, clutching onto the catharsis. He breathed, chest tight, and finally let himself get enough air for his thoughts to catch up with his feelings.

Lukas blew out his cheeks, and his face suddenly resolved, from something to be shouted at, into something Ethan was actually looking at, wearing consolidation surprisingly well on his normally stony features. The Pole spoke, but did so simply, not trying to talk over the way Ethan’s emotions were still settling.

“Well, damn.”

“Sorry…Lukas…I…”

“No. Don’t be…you love her, huh?”

It sounded simple enough to almost be foolish the way Lukas said it, and Ethan found himself simply nodding.

A firm hand clapped him on the shoulder, offering reassurance as Lukas rose from his seat. He paced towards the bar, and the shelves of drinks sat behind, speaking behind him as he went. “Got any more you need to get out?”

Ethan did. About Aoife and Nia, DuoHalo and Alex. But as he reached out for it he found it hard to find the shape of anything specific. Nothing he had words for. It had felt good while he was speaking, to finally just rage against it all, but the more seconds he let pass the more it just felt like all he had done was open up more space he didn’t know what to do with.

Without an answer, Lukas spoke again as he browsed the dust peppered bottles. “You know, my dad was full of shit, nasty drunk, temper like you wouldn’t believe. But he did give me one good piece of advice I kept with me.”

“Did they have many situations like this in Soviet era Poland?” Ethan was surprised to hear himself joking, even if there was a heavy bitter note to the humour.

Lukas graced him with a small chuckle, and a theatrically wide shrug before continuing.  “He said there’s no such thing as a right decision.

“We don’t ever get to go back and see how the other choices we could have made might have played out. He’d never find out if his life might have meant something if he’d drunk less. I’ll never find out if I would have become President of the World if I’d never left Poland to film people kicking a ball around. And we’ll never get to know what it would be like if we hadn’t done things the same way with our Teams and Delphi.

“Maybe things could have been better if you’d done something different. Maybe they could have been worse. You’re never going to find out, just like any other decision you make from here. And you’ll never know if anyone’s going to thank you for doing any different.

“So don’t ask yourself which are the right choices, ask yourself which are the ones you’re going to be able live with and fucking live with them.”

The final sentiment sat heavy enough that Ethan struggled to tell if he was being reproached or not. Even if he had expected Lukas’ words to have some magic to them that would fix things for him, that wasn’t what he was given. Just an oddly reassuring clarity, teased at his fingertips if he wanted to reach for it instead of the impossibility of ideal. And while maybe it soothed some of the guilt, it wasn’t much help for grief or worry.

“And if I don’t get that chance with her?”

Lukas selected a bottle of spirits, turning back towards the table, a single tumbler in his other hand. “I don’t know, can you live with the decisions you made to get here?” Ethan honestly didn’t know, but the Pole continued anyway. “I told you, he was an angry old drunk. Better, worse, maybe his advice was just as shit as everything else about him. But you know what else I think?”

It was as Lukas stepped back towards him that Ethan saw which bottle the older man had picked out, the half drunk whisky belonging to his old boss Tom. The one he’d opened with Evie the last time he was here. He didn’t know if Evie had mentioned it to Lukas, or if the Pole had found some other significance to it, or if it was just coincidence, but something about the choice stood out regardless. Even if it was just imagined.

“What else do you think, Lukas,” he asked, noticing how raw he still felt.

“That it’s past midnight and you’re an idiot if you keep going like this thinking you’re going to be helping anyone bottling things up like this. Least of all yourself.” The cork popped from the bottle. “When was the last time you even cried?”

Ethan tried to recall, failing. Not since well before the pandemic started. He certainly hadn’t taken the time to grieve, either for the people he’d lost or the world he knew none of them were going back to, worried if he came undone he might not fit back together. Let alone even started to deal with what he was feeling now.

 “I…not since - “

“Exactly. And we’re only built to take so much.” Lukas set down the tumbler purposefully in front of Ethan, pouring him a neat double measure. “Now be a fucking adult and cry like you need to.”

There was a sensation of something inside Ethan letting go, as if he’d been waiting for permission. And before he’d even reached for the glass the first of months worth of stockpiled hurt were showing on his cheeks. He shuddered, and exhaled.