“Shifty, what are you doing here?” I may not have been saying that, but I was certainly echoing the sentiment in my thoughts. Yes, I did listen to her statement. But that was a very broad statement. There was a lot to talk about.
“Everyone, please sit down,” Johnson said, as I slid into a seat close to Shifty. My clothes would be waiting for a date with the washer tomorrow. Getting another look at her only confirmed my initial thoughts.
She was tense, her body simply vibrating with nervous energy. Shifty looked as if she didn't get any sleep at all. Of course, with us proceeding to probably smash up any faith she had in her job, and our little run in with Triangle?
Probably enough to stress her out of her mind. It didn't matter that Triangle could really only posture and bluster. Just them being there would be enough to make most people balk. The fact that Counter's had a history would very much put us on a short list of suspects. If they had nothing, they had nothing.
Of course, it wasn't like authoritarian governments could or would kill for less. But the fact they couldn’t was proof they didn't have shit.
It said a lot about things that I was becoming this nonchalant about my own demise, wasn't it.
“I think yesterday goes to show that this is a lot bigger than some of us may have expected,” Johnson said after a moment. He didn't look great either, which I couldn't blame him either. The Ark sitting on something that important? After what happened to Marian?
I'd give him another hug, but I couldn't reach that far. And he wasn't wrong. This Vapaus stuff? Being something that potentially revolutionary? I had expected a bit, but I hadn't expected something that out there. Vapaus, without a doubt, could turn the entire Ark on its head.
A very sobering thought, despite the Ark's many, many problems.
“Despite the risks, we managed to accomplish what we set out to do without incurring any major damage. The question is, how long does that last?” I winced. Again, he wasn't wrong. While skill played a role more so than luck did in my opinion? We also made it through because we had good allies. Without Exia or Shifty, things would have been a greater challenge.
Even Anis shifted slightly at the comment. I didn't know what was going on inside her head. Her paranoia wasn't entirely wrong, to an extent. The Central Government was not to be trusted before, and that went doubly so now.
The problem was? We didn't exactly have a long list of prospective allies. While I had always considered that the Central Government was keeping a big secret?
Living that was a bit different than planning or even thinking about it.
“The Central Government is doing a lot of digging at the moment. I don't think they'll find anything, but,” Shifty's voice cut off. Alright, maybe my first read wasn't right. It wasn’t just nerves and anxiety.
It was fear.
“It's still nerve wracking. I didn't get much sleep last night,” and she definitely looked the part. “I know Exia is good at covering her tracks, and they still haven't found anything, but the stress has been getting to me all day.”
Okay, that might have been a bit more on me. Shifty getting involved, especially as she was the one operator I had worked with to any degree, always felt like an inevitability. With her signing up to be Counter's personal operator, it felt like that all the more. Mission control was always something you wanted to have on the inside.
In my rush, and possibly, my own nerves, I forgot that Shifty was a civilian. Hypocritically, at that. Getting involved with something like this? I didn't even think about the effects of pulling her into this mess. How she would feel about suddenly being thrust into the firing line.
Like an idiot.
“Sorry,” I said after a moment, letting my voice fill the silence. “I may not have expected the scale of what was uncovered, but I expected something that the Central Government wanted to keep in the dark. I should have considered that you might not want to be involved before I requested you to stay.”
Shifty let out a shaky breath, not meeting my eyes. Then she shook her head, looking up.
“I had a choice to make when Exia said she was hacking the Database. I don't regret failing to blow the whistle,” Shifty said, still looking fearful and tense. “But I have no idea what else the Central Government is hiding. If they're sitting on something that big? What else are they hiding?”
Shifty went silent for a moment more. “That's the part that scares me the most. If they got away with hiding Vapaus, what else could they be hiding?”
Nothing good was the answer. But that probably wasn't going to be the answer to help Shifty. Instead, I gently pat her back, hoping to give her some measure of comfort.
“So I do want to be involved going forward with whatever this is,” Shifty straightened herself up, putting on a faint but brave smile. “Kinda too late to step out anyway.”
The chuckle was faint, but one did leave Shifty's lips.
Anis shifted awkwardly in her seat. Yeah, she was eating a fair amount of crow. “Sorry I didn't trust you.”
That was all that came out of Anis’s mouth, but it was far more than I expected.
“I wouldn't have trusted myself either,” Shifty let out a shaky sigh. “I won't deny it hurts a little, but if I put myself in your shoes?”
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Silence filled the air, but we all understood what she meant.
“Thank you again, Shifty. We will keep you informed however much you are comfortable with,” Johnson said, Rapi remaining silent like Neon, though the shorter had a slight grin on her face when she thought nobody was looking.
I wonder if Rapi had helped him workshop this? She'd been with him the entire day. It would explain why she wasn't reacting to this. Then again, the stoic that she was?
“With that being said, as I'm sure many of you are aware, the opportunities for allies are poor,” an understatement of the century. I would say it went beyond poor in terms of pure numbers. Outside of anyone in this room, excluding Exia, I don't think I would trust anyone with this. The closest I would trust with such information?
No guesses that it would be Anderson. After all he had done for it would be impossible to say that I didn't trust him, and it wasn't like I was privy to information the vast majority of the Ark didn't have. I didn't ask about the injuries, but the fact he had to be plugged into life support equipment of that caliber?
Meant something had gone down. Rapi would float Ingrid. She trusted the women implicitly, and while I owed her a debt as well? Eh, honestly Anderson's friendship with her was almost good enough for me to trust her. But on this matter, this is still pretty big.
“Chief Director Anderson and the CEO of Elysion would be the safest. There is a limit to what we can do without the Ark's resources,” Rapi said with a slight nod. Anis shifted slightly again.
“We can't keep relying on Exia, and Shifty should only be involved as much as she wants to be,” Neon pressed, a true statement on both ends.
“It has risks,” I frowned slightly. That was an understatement. “But so does just about every move we make at this point. We might just have to roll the dice no matter what we do. Might as well try and make that roll as rigged in our favor as we can.”
It wasn't ideal, but we could either continue as is and wait for something to go wrong, or we could expand the circle, and maybe something would go wrong.
Neither was ideal, but we could only play with the cards we had. It was far from the worst hand in the world. The best of the worst case scenario was that they wouldn't help us. Not exactly an impossible outcome. Realistically speaking, there was a lot of risks for not a whole lot of immediate payoff, if ever.
The reason I was opposed to Anderson being involved is that he might not want to be. Doubly so now that we knew exactly what we were dealing with. Deciding that it wasn't worth the effort was in the cards.
Still, it left almost all of us in agreement.
“I suppose. Having an operator did make things easier,” Anis said, crossing her arms. “And I suppose having backup would be nice. But that does leave a few questions. Like do we have any proof other than the data Exia collected that this Vapaus stuff works?”
Anis stopped there. There were a few other questions that could be asked, but I don't think any of us wanted to answer them out loud. Because that was a good point. We didn't have any proof. Plus we didn't know the dose necessary to destroy NIMPH. To test it, we would need to use part of our very limited supply of the stuff.
And in doing so, could make it so we couldn't save Marian if corruption threw off the amount needed by even slightly. That slap of reality made the conversation slow to a crawl. Anderson might be willing to go out on a limb if we revealed we got it from a Pilgrim. He always had an interest in the group.
Ingrid, that was less certain. She would want proof. Most smart people would. And while I certainly considered the lengths the Ark went to when it came to keeping things in the dark as proof enough? Ingrid probably had different standards.
“That is a good point,” Johnson said after a moment, a frown crawling across his features. “I do trust Exia, but they have no reason to, especially if we don't want to reveal Exia hacked the Database to get information.”
Yeah, that was another sticking point. Best to keep that under wraps. That was legitimately something that could lead to a whole lot of trouble. Testing it was the easiest solution in a vacuum. But that didn't serve what we wanted to do with the Vapaus long term.
It was a shame that Exia couldn't grab any information about how the stuff was made. I doubt they grew on trees or anything like that, but knowing that they could be replaced would make things simpler.
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“Share this information you think we'll find so intriguing. Then we'll consider this proposition of yours.”
Negotiations were not going as well as hoped. Nowhere near worse as feared, but that was a low bar all things considered. It was nice that the worst hadn't happened, but neither of them wanted to stick their necks out for this.
“This is the substance in question,” Johnson had placed the small case holding the bullet on the table, letting Ingrid and Anderson see it. “It is called Vapaus, and it was given to me by a pilgrim.”
Ingrid listened to his words, but I couldn't tell if she was interested or not. Her expression was stern and stoney as it tended to be. Anderson though?
The man didn't seem all that focused. Not on Johnson’s words. They were locked onto the bullet, resting inside the case. As if he would take his eyes off it, even for a moment, it would vanish into thin air. Part of his face looked aged. He was far older than he looked, for almost a fraction of a second, he looked his real age.
What that real age was? I didn't know, but it looked like he had gained half a century in the blink of an eye. If not more than that.
“I must admit that is an interesting story. If it is true,” Ingrid said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “If it does function as you claim it does, then it is important information, but without that guarantee.”
I bit my lip, trying to avoid letting a light hiss slip through my lips. That was always the problem. We had no real way to test whether or not it worked. Not without risking there being too little to save Marian.
“I can guarantee Vapaus works as advertised.”
“What?!”
I was not the only one to say that. Even Rapi spoke aloud and Ingrid raised her eyebrow, asking it without saying.
Anderson's head had turned upwards, keeping the room within his line of sight, but his eyes were focused on Johnson. How? How did he have that piece of information?
“It is highly possible that bullet is the last of its kind. All I can say about the material is that the Ark no longer has the necessary resources to produce it,” Anderson spoke calmly, as if he hadn't just said what I thought he did.
“I see,” Ingrid's face warped back into something unreadable. She was looking at Anderson, silently weighing him up for a moment. “I suppose if that is the case, then possibly a joint operation could be in order.”
The way she spoke conveyed a bit. Anderson would owe her for this, and she wanted answers. And to be perfectly fair?
So did I! What the hell, Anderson? How long have you been sitting on that? Hell, the word resources had implications. As if it wasn't technology that was the restraint on making more. It was that the source of the material was so rare and exotic that the Ark couldn't just, make or mine more.
“A joint operation? If you intend to let them go to area H?” Anderson cut himself off as Ingrid raised her eyebrow again. “Very well, I will allow it. The five of you should get ready to leave at once.”
Alright, make that several favors.
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“What do you think they're talking about in there?” Anis asked as we walked. It wasn't the smartest question in the world in some ways. Vapaus was going to be the subject of the day.
It was a matter of how it was being discussed that was the real question here.
“I think it's how. How do you make Vapaus? How does he have that information?” I shrugged. No small part of me wanted to be a fly on that damn wall right now. Ingrid did not seem happy about this. Then again, she was far from the only one.
“He's much higher up in the Central Government. If he knew something, that is possibly where. I don't think he's lying though,” Commander Johnson's tone made it clear he was a shoe in for the list of unhappy people. Not that I blamed him, or disagreed.
Anderson looked too taken by surprise by the bullet even being there. But he had been hiding the existence of the material. Rare, possibly extremely so, that it may be.
I shook my head. Best not to focus on that right now. I needed to be at my best if we were going out into the field in an off limits area. “So, have any of you met Absolute before?”
The question got me more than a few confused looks from everyone.
“Oh, you were unconscious for that, I forgot,” Neon piped as I frowned, with strained looks growing on everyone's faces.
What happened with Absolute?”
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“How much of that was the truth?” Ingrid crossed her arms. Her temper wasn't building, but she was still taken off guard.
“More of it you think. Creating a bullet like that is possible with the Ark’s current technology, with the right knowledge,” Anderson was sitting down. For the first time in a while, Ingrid found Anderson looking more of his age. “It's that the source material is extremely rare. That's the hard part.”
“How do you know that?” The question was a simple one, but it hung in the air. “How do you know any of this? For almost anything, your word is good enough for me. But this is bigger than that.”
“I know because I was there when they first discovered it. That Vapaus kills NIMPH and could be used to free a Nikke from corruption,” the man let out a tired, strained, and pained chuckle. “In a way, I suppose you could say I'm the source of Vapaus.”
Ingrid felt the words hit like a hammer blow. She and Mustang had been leading their respective companies before the Ark. Anderson had also been there by the time the Ark was founded. Well to have been part of the military structure. They had met not long afterwards.
“Though, I will admit, anymore blood would likely be the death of me,” again, for the first time, Anderson looked his age, the weight of a century, no, more, on his shoulder. If he was the only one that could produce Vapaus?
That was a secret, and it needed to stay that way.
