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Harry froze, his body going rigid.
 
He’d been wearing company issue armor, black and slick in the rain, as he turned slow and even towards Mason.
 
“There’s no way out, Floyd.
 
If you come in now—”

“If I come in now, you won’t kill the right guy,” said Mason.
 
“You’re reading this all wrong.”

“There’s evidence,” said Harry.
 
He blinked in the rain, rubbing his free hand over his face, before looking down at the gun still in his hand.
 
“You know, fuck it.
 
I could just—”

“Die where you stand?
 
Yeah, you could do that.”
 
Mason’s hand hadn’t moved a millimeter, the water running down the barrel and off his hand.
 
“I don’t really want to shoot you.”

“That’s real nice of you,” said Harry.
 
“I don’t feel the same way.”

“Let me ask you one simple question,” said Mason.

“Ok,” said Harry.
 
“Take as long as you need.
 
Support’s on the way.”

“No,” said Mason, something sad in his face.
 
“That’s the thing.
 
It’s not, Harry.
 
No one’s coming.
 
No one’s ever coming again if you don’t let me do my job.”

“I just talked to Lace.
 
They’re airlifting in support right now.
 
So take all the time you want.”

Mason shook his head.
 
“Do you like her, Harry?”

“Who?”

“Lace.
 
Do you like her?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Just answer the question,” said Mason.
 
His gun hadn’t moved, still pointed clear as an arrow at Harry’s face.

“Sure, it’s your dime,” said Harry.
 
“I like her.
 
She’s a friend.
 
A partner.
 
Wouldn’t sell me out down the river for a percentage like some people I know.”

“She’ll be dead in the next ten minutes.
 
It’s why I’m going this way.”

Harry shifted, the movement subtle against the rain, but caught on the camera all the same.
 
“You’re going back to the Federate to kill my partner?”

“No,” said Mason.
 
“I’m going back to the Federate to kill
my
partner.
 
So he doesn’t kill yours.”

“Come again?”
 
Harry shook his head.
 
He took a step towards Mason, lightning flashing across the sky.

“You heard me,” said Mason.
 
He took a step towards Harry, then another.
 
The recording showed them walking closer, closing the distance, the gun still between them.
 
“It’s not the safest place in the world for me, you know.”

Harry laughed, the sound flat in the recording.
 
“No, I guess not.
 
How you going to get inside?”
 
Another step, closer again.

“I’ll work something out,” said Mason, his arm lowering slightly.
 
“You know what your problem is?”
 
Step.
 
Step.

“No,” said Harry.
 
Step, step.
 
“What?”

They were almost close enough to touch now.
 
The lightning crashed again, the image flickering in the storm, and Harry moved too fast to follow on the recording, his hand coming up.
 
Mason caught the weapon as it rose, holding the barrel, Harry’s arm trembling with effort.

“Your problem,” said Mason, “is you rely on the lattice too much.”

“Really?” said Harry.
 
“I’ve got a gun on you now.”

“Yeah,” said Mason.
 
“You’d almost think it makes us even.”

Harry laughed again, short and sharp.
 
“Mine really is bigger than yours, Floyd.”

Mason seemed to shrug, the recording showing him tossing his weapon to the street.
 
“There.
 
Now you’ve got no excuse.”

“No excuse?”

“Not to shoot me, Fuentes.
 
You’ve got to make a call.
 
Shoot me, your partner dies.
 
Take me back with you, we can stop this.
 
Together.”
 
Mason was looking at Harry, looking
for
something.
 
“Hell with it.
 
I can’t do it by myself anyway.
 
I need your help.
 
So shoot me, or come with me.”

“What?”

Mason shuffled a bit closer, pushing the barrel of Harry’s weapon into his shoulder.
 
“Here.
 
Take the shot.”

“Ok, Floyd.
 
You know what your problem is?”

“Why don’t you tell me.”

“You’re too much of a damn arrogant son of a bitch,” said Harry.
 
Something seemed to relax in him, and the gun in his hand barked, red and black blasting out from the back of Mason’s shoulder.
 
Mason spun around in the rain from the force of the shot, his good hand slapping Harry’s gun aside.
 
He continued to turn, a leg coming up and down, his foot breaking through Harry’s knee like it was kindling.
 
Harry tried to stand again, something trying to pull him up on invisible strings, and Mason’s fist slammed into the side of his head with the force of a falling piano.
 
Harry went down cold.

Mason bent over in the rain, picking up his sidearm, then almost as an afterthought he grabbed Harry’s weapon.
 
His movements were slower, something sticking inside.
 
He started to jog away up the street, his shoes splashing through the puddles in the street, red that was almost black running from the hole in his back, and tossed Harry’s sidearm into a storm drain.

The recording flicked forward a minute and ten seconds, Harry getting back up off the street.
 
He looked around, the recording overlaid with audio from the link.

“Lace,” said Harry.

“Thank Christ,” she said.
 
“You sleeping on the job again?”

“He’s coming to you, Lace,” said Harry.
 
“He’s says going to kill you all.”

“Right,” she said.
 
“You still believe in Santa Claus?”

“That’s what I thought too,” said Harry.
 
“Look, can you jack one of these cars for me?”

“Sec,” she said, and a vehicle on the side of the street beeped, a converted Chrysler, the running lights coming on.
 
“You’re in.”

“Thanks,” said Harry, pulling the door open.
 
His leg was dragging, and he had to hop and shimmy into the driver’s seat.
 
“Lace?”

“Yeah, Harry?”

“Lock the door, ok?”

“On it,” she said.
 
“Go get that motherfucker.”

The recording clicked forward again, another forty two seconds, picking up from a different vantage over an intersection.
 
A man was running through the rain, favoring his side, and the overlay put FLOYD, M above him.
 
A car drove up the street behind him, a Chrysler, moving at the speed limit.
 
It didn’t have to rush, to draw attention to itself.
 
A green wire frame dropped over the vehicle, the image zooming into the driver, before placing FUENTES, H over the vehicle.

It drew closer to the jogging man, the image showing Mason’s face, drawn with the pain of his shoulder.
 
When the car was no more than ten meters back, it accelerated hard, kicking up water from the street.
 
Something must have caught Mason’s attention, the lattice picking up the difference in the sound of the rain, because he managed to turn and bring his weapon up to bear before the car slammed into him.
 
Mason’s weapon went off, tearing a chunk out of the front driver’s side tyre, before he was spun away to land at the side of the street.

The Chrysler struggled, the front rim carving through the asphalt of the road, and it slewed and plowed through the wet street before crashing into a parked car.
 
It was hard to see on the recording what went wrong, where it all started, but light broke out from the inside of the Chrysler as the man behind the wheel tried to escape.
 
His door was crumpled, jammed, and whatever was wrong with his leg was stopping him getting leverage.
 
The light chattered and burst again, an arc of electricity fountaining from the rear of the Chrysler, sparking in the rain.

The recording zoomed in on the Chrysler for a moment, the wire frame dropping down again before
POSSIBLE FUEL CELL BREACH
flicked into life beside it.
 
The man inside began to get frantic to escape the car as somewhere inside red and yellow flickered into life as the fire began.

At the side of the road, Mason moved.
 
He was slow as he tried to roll over and push himself upright, but the crash had hurt something.
 
The recording mapped the lines of his body, the wire frame marking possible fracture sites.
 
He managed to get onto one knee as the lightning fired inside the Chrysler again, and again, the sound cutting out the audio on the recording as it peaked.
 
Static flickered over the recording a moment before the fire really roared, something catching inside, and the lightning continued to coil and breach inside the vehicle.

The man inside was screaming, thrashing, slamming his hands at every surface.

Mason pushed himself up and started to move up the street again.
 
He looked at the Chrysler for a moment, then looked up the street.
 
The sound of the man trapped inside, his screaming, overlaid the recording.

Mason took another step up the street, away from the Chrysler, then stopped.
 
His shoulders slumped, and he turned back to the Chrysler, the fire blasting out of the windows, flames stretching high into the night.
 
The rain was boiling and steaming in the heat, and Mason held a hand up in front of his eyes against the brightness of the light.

Whatever it was in the Chrysler that started the fire gave up, an explosion rocking the back of the vehicle, tearing metal away, throwing fragments through the vehicle.
 
The lightning stopped then, but the fire didn’t.
 
Mason threw a last look up the street towards the Federate, then ran to the car, pushing himself into the fire.
 
His wet clothes ignited, burned to ash in a moment, and even in the resolution of the recording it was easy to see as the laminate of his skin began to blister.

Whatever was left of the man in the car had stopped making noise, and Mason pulled the body out of the wreckage, pieces of metal and plastic sloughing off.
 
The body was still burning, and Mason rolled him across the water on the ground until the fire guttered out.
 

The recording flickered green over the body — what was left of a man — on the ground, before labeling the shell UNKNOWN ID.
 
Mason wiped an arm across his forehead, his own skin cracking and fracturing as slices of charred and melted plastic fell to the ground.
 
Something red and angry seeped from underneath, and he held his arm out for a moment before looking down at the remains of the man before him.

Then he levered himself to his feet and began to shuffle and stumble up the street.
 
Back towards the Federate.

The recording flicked ahead again, audio only this time.
 
Four minutes had passed, and Lace’s voice was frantic.
 
“Harry.
 
Harry!
 
We’ve lost your signal.
 
Harry!”

There was the sound of a door opening in the background, and Lace said, “Thank God, he didn’t get you too.”

A man’s voice spoke.
 
“Who?
 
Who didn’t get me?”

“Mason,” said Lace.
 
“Harry was…
 
I’ve lost Harry.”

“Ok,” said the man’s voice.
 
“Don’t worry, Lace.
 
We’ll get him.”

She sounded angry.
 
“He’s
your
partner.
 
How did it come…
 
Wait.
 
What are you doing?”

There was a moment of silence before the bomb went off, the crash of the explosion making the buffers of the recording stutter and cut out.

SIGNAL ENDS.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

“Now you know,” said Carter.
 
She’d waited a minute or two after the feed had finished.

“I—”

“He didn’t have to, you know.”
 
She sighed.
 
“He might have made it back here in time if he hadn’t stopped for you.”

“But…
 
Lace got hurt.
 
Because he stayed.”

“Everyone got hurt, Harry.
 
Everyone.”
 
Carter paused.
 
“Maybe if you were a bit more honest you’d see it.”

“Honest?”
 
Harry’s voice was small.

“Maybe if you’d listened to him, Lace wouldn’t be in a chair, and you’d be drinking margaritas on her lawn.”