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[liesdontfindyou]

 

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AUs:

• Connie survives Longshore and either a) is the CT at Sandtrap b) ends up in Blood Gulch c) disappears until another point in time, canon event related or not.
• Connie never defects from Project Freelancer.

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[liesdontfindyou]

That comes as no surprise. Connie nods knowingly and in agreement. Though some (her contact) may have seen the torture of a living, but artificial, mind as incidental to the protocol violations, she'd never been able to shake the sense of obligation she held towards the Alpha and the other AI, too.

It's why the dog tags were placed there in the first place, after all. Not just because she believed she could trust Texas, a belief now proved true, but because Texas deserved to know the truth.

"They only recently split off another fragment. North is due to receive it— him after the assault on the scrapyard finally goes ahead. Alpha is..." She pauses to consider her words. "I don't know what state we might find him in, whenever that may be."

[a_shadow]

If Tex could look pained, she would right now. She angles her head, thinking.

"We need to figure out how we're leaving. That's the first thing to have in mind. Once we've accomplished everything we're trying to do, we need to be able to get out. Or to bail if things go wrong."

[liesdontfindyou]

"I don't suppose you know how to fly a ship?" Connie asks. At the start of the sentence, she's only half-serious, by the end, she's tilting towards 'dead serious'. "My only way out before was through my contact. I was meant to meet him on a scrap ship and leave with him. One of the few things I couldn't plan for was bailing early, I didn't have the means."

No allies, no flight experience, meant no emergency exit.

[a_shadow]

"I do," Tex says. " I don't know why..."

Contemplating that is a futile notion. She shakes her head slightly.

"Anyway, point is I can do it. Do you trust anyone else here?"

[liesdontfindyou]

Connie sucks in a sharp, audible breath. The question is a little like a loaded gun, or a blade against the throat of a part of her she loathes to face.

"I don't know," she says, the words spat out like she wants them away from her as soon as possible. "The honest answer is... I don't know. I thought I did, when I started this, and I want to," god, she wants to, "but... there's a reason why it took until I thought I was leaving to even 'tell' you."

[a_shadow]

"Who is it?" Tex asks quietly. Connie obviously has someone in mind. That's the important thing here, to begin with. To figure out if the person she suspected she could trust was actually trustworthy.

[liesdontfindyou]

Connie folds her arms and pins her hand against her chest so she can't scratch that scar.

"There was a time when I thought that Washington might be someone I could trust," she says, after a moment's silence. "Only, he never listened, so I gave up trying, but..." She hesitates for another second. "He almost caught me, once. He never turned me in."

[a_shadow]

"Washington?"

Tex doesn't really know anyone here that well, but Washington never struck her as someone who would be all that forthright in a situation like this. He's too idealistic.

"That's something, but..." She shakes her head. "I don't have a good feeling about it."

[liesdontfindyou]

"Like I said, there's a reason why I only ended up telling someone when I was meant to be gone," Connie sighs, drags a hand over her face. "He used to question things like I did, but the second it turned serious he started making excuses. He wants this place to be what we were told it was. Obviously, it isn't."

She paces a little in place, restless energy brewing.

"There's people I wish I could trust but... loyalties are tricky to decipher. I didn't even know where yours lay. I was never one hundred percent sure that you wouldn't side with the Director." Then, holding her hands up, "Not as any judgement on you! The fact was I just... didn't know you. I couldn't be sure."

[a_shadow]

"I've barely spoken to anyone," she says. "I just see how people act in the training room, and that's only if our sessions overlap."

She restlessly uncrosses her arms and then crosses them in the other direction.

"What if it just ends up being the two of us?" she says. "It might mean rescuing Alpha and taking him for evidence to whoever."

She doesn't relish that prospect. In her mind Alpha deserves to rest after what they've put him through.

[liesdontfindyou]

Connie opens her mouth, then closes it. It's hard to admit that she isn't sure how well she knows the others either, anymore.

"I'm not sure if I trust the UNSC with you or Alpha," she admits, instead. "Alpha has been through a lot and you are... unique, and ONI are ONI. There was a time I planned to stick around long enough for Command to actually give me the fragment assigned to me, as evidence, but with my position on the board..."

She shrugs slightly. It's been a long few months of plans being made but falling through. The fatigue is written into every line of her stance.

[a_shadow]

"It's one shot, then," she mutters. They either rescue Alpha and leave it at that, or they try to bring the Project down themselves in one feel swoop. What would an act like that consist of? Tex thinks for a moment.

"Then we take him," she says. "The Director. Take him back to the land-based HQ and hold him there."

[liesdontfindyou]

"That... could work," Connie says, tapping a foot against the floor. "We're a long way from HQ, we couldn't make it in a Pelican, but we should be due to make another stop over there... then it'd be possible."

Her contact wouldn't like any of this, she knows that much. It's more time on the ship, it takes them away from him, but her trust in his intentions and ability to follow through on his promises is failing. After so long unable to do anything, there's an appeal to taking direct action.

[a_shadow]

"All right," she says, already trying to think through some of the possibilities. "We'll have to start keeping an eye out for opportunities to connect with trustworthy agents. Otherwise we'll just put plans together as if it'll just be the two of us."

[liesdontfindyou]

"Be wary of Florida and Wyoming," Connie says, with a note of urgency. "I may not know which agents are trustworthy, but I know that they are definitely not. There's been... close calls."

She starts compulsively picking at her scar again.

"My contact will still be expecting me if this mission goes ahead. If I go to meet him, I don't know that I can get back, but if I don't, I don't know what he'll do."

[a_shadow]

Tex reaches forward and stills Connie's hand. That little nervous habit is making her nervous.

"I can't promise you everything will be okay," she says, "but believe me, you're in a better situation now that I'm on board."

[liesdontfindyou]

Connie freezes automatically at the contact, but makes the conscious effort to relax again.

And then she smiles, with a genuine sense of relief.

"I am. Thank you," she says. "I should have come to you sooner, but hindsight makes a genius out of all of us and all that."

[a_shadow]

"Nah, you're right, you couldn't have known how I'd react," she says. "Seeing everything...all the evidence...it unlocked something in me. But you didn't know if that would happen."

[liesdontfindyou]

"I hoped it would," Connie says. "I came close, a couple of times, to walking up to you and telling you, because you deserved to know. You deserved to find out from a friendly face. Hence..."

She gestures vaguely at where dog-tags would hang around her neck.

"I can't imagine what it was like for you, to actually see it, of course."

[a_shadow]

"I doubt you could, yeah," she says, muttering again. She doesn't intend to elaborate any further on that, though, at least at this time. The whole thing has left her with a drifting feeling, unmoored in her own time and space. "Thank you for doing it. It was brave."

[liesdontfindyou]

"I owed it to you to try. I owed it to everyone to... do all of this." That's what she's been telling herself. Once she saw what was going on, she didn't have any choice but to do something.

It's been weighing heavily on her and some of that weight is still visible in the way she holds herself.

[a_shadow]

"You didn't owe me," Tex says. "The Director is the one who owed this."

She draws back a half step, balling a fist. She cares for him, she can't deny it within herself, but he's being an incredible asshole and she wants him to be punished somehow. Not by the law. By herself.

[liesdontfindyou]

"We'll get him. One way or another, we'll... we'll do something," Connie says, sounding a little surer with every word.

She starts to pick at her hand, but stops herself this time.

"First obstacle is this mission. I don't suppose you know if you're on the roster, the way you usually are? They've locked down those files tighter since they started noticing my... poking around."

[a_shadow]

"I am," she says. She'd received the mission briefing earlier, when they thought they were going to be going ahead with it. "Separately from everyone else, as usual."

[liesdontfindyou]

"As usual," Connie says, shaking her head slightly. She has a thought, but whether that thought is feasible is another matter entirely. "How able would you be to... stray off your intended orders, a little?"