liesdontfindyou | Open Post

"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.

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.

"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."

"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.

"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."

"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."

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."

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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.

"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.

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"You really think he'd do anything about it?"

The question is asked with a bitter edge to her tone. She can do whatever she wants.

Connie holds her hands up a little.

"Just checking. I don't know the length's he'll go to. But... that's good," she says, "because my next idea was that we rendezvous out in the scrapyard and you come with me. Lot harder for my contact to try and make me leave with him if I have someone with me, and if I'm with another agent... I look less like I just took off to the Project and more like I was acting in their interests."

Tex nods slowly, thinking.

"I think that would work," she says. "We'll have to make it as quick as possible, though."

"I can do quick. If he starts acting up, you have my express permission to threaten him so we can make a quick exit," Connie says, and there's almost a hint of a joke in her voice. "He could do with a little reigning in."

Tex snickers. "One of those, huh."

She glances toward the door.

"We probably better get back to our usual routines. We don't really want them to notice this is happening."

"Yeah, one of those," she says with a quiet laugh. "Right, I should uh, I should probably try and get in what actual sleep I can. I'm... usually awake around the time you came to me tonight," sleep has been difficult to come by for a while, "so whenever we need to talk, feel free to come around."

"All right." Tex nods, steps back to let Connie leave the room ahead of her, and then heads to her room.

She remembers now what happens when she ends up in there—she connects herself to the port in the wall and sets herself on sleep mode. She's resting and recharging, but not in the way a human would. From now on, she's not going to forget this is what happens. She's not going to end up remembering unstrapping her armor, taking a shower, and snuggling down in bed. She doesn't even know how those memories replace themselves in her head. But that programming is broken now.

Connie falls back into her bed with a thump that she's surprised doesn't wake the still heavily sleeping South on the other side of the room.

Despite how drained she is, there's a new energy in her; after days of feeling like she was here on borrowed time, she, for the first time, has an ally on board. A gamble finally payed off and now, there's a plan that might actually work.

It's the most alive she's felt in months.

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