Madness!

Volodja and Kaj had to lie Sandy on her stomach on the floor of the helicopter, her back and the back of her legs a shredded mass of red meat, making it hard to discern where her torn uniform and armor ended and where the hamburger meat that was her flesh began. Two Dragoons helped them get her into the copter, the rookie of the two immediately vomiting after he left but even the veteran looked gray in the face. Her back and legs were full of shrapnel, but the biggest piece was in the back of her neck right where the EGO implant was located, so that not only blood oozed out of that wound but a greenish black liquid as well.

Otherwise, other than a superficial scalp wound on the back of her head, Sandy's head was untouched, although her face was abnormally pale and her breathing ragged. As the Gargoyle took off, Amelia, the helicopter's pilot, looked grim as she glanced over her shoulder, doubtful that her passenger would survive the trip. Two of the Dragoons left on Alcatraz started to place bets on that very topic, until their commanding officer looked at them sternly and admonished them for not respecting a fellow soldier. The helicopter ride was uneventful, except that Sandy's pulse became weaker moment by moment.

After Sandy was wheeled into the operating room still unconscious, Dr. Orion meticulously removed all the shrapnel from her back and legs, but when he tried to remove the one from her neck, her heart stopped. He quickly got her heart beating again with a shock from a defibrillator, but then was at a quandary as to what to do next. He consulted with the EGO expert Pyotr Yershov, but he too was unsure of what to do, so they treated the wound as best they could, cutting the protruding piece of metal down close to the EGO device itself. Dr. Orion and Pyotr Yershov publically agreed that their patient needed to regain her strength before anything further could be done, but the looks in both men's eyes showed doubt as to whether she would even survive the night.

Meanwhile Sandy awoke in the dark looking up into the concerned face of Sarge. She could tell she was lying on her back and could see a flickering source of light behind him, so she asked, "Where the fuck are we Sarge?"

As Sandy sat up with Sarge's help, her pretty face winced in the pain that streamed from the back of her neck as her blue eyes noticed that a campfire was the source of the flickering light, but that otherwise everything was black. She thought to herself that "black" wasn't the right word for, for it was not so much the color of black, but the absence of light she was perceiving, which made the flames of the campfire stand out even more.

Sarge smiled his Gary Cooper smile, and replied, "Somewhere in your subconscious I think, although I'm not sure of that. I wish I had paid more attention to our EMC camp psychologist at the Friday night poker games, but I was too busy winning his money to listen to his boring conversation."

Sandy laughed melodically, which echoed strangely in that place, then said, "I wish I hadn't been watching the ocean outside my classroom window during my boring college psychology class too, because maybe I would have learned something damn useful for this situation if I did. So... what the hell do we do now?"

"We wait," Advised Sarge, taking out a used pack of cards from his uniform coat's pocket, "And bide our time while your team mates get us the help we obviously need. How about a game of Gin Rummy?"

Belle Starr was packed, all of her belongings in a duffel bag and a suit case, surprised at how little she had accumulated in the time she had been in the Bay Area and felt precious enough to take with her to Boston. She was staring at the two bags, wondering if her lover, Vo Kshaa, would bring more or less then her, when she got the call of Sandy's injuries from Atticus Batman. She sighed, stood up, and straightened the collar of her green and black Casti business suit, and headed to the infirmary in measured steps. She thought about her life at Fortress Kshaa, and how they were always on the brink of tragedy, but always seemed to be able to pull there collective fat out of the fire at the last minute. She really hoped this would be the case with Sandy this time, but she also knew that it was only a matter of time before their luck ran out and Death caught up with them and took its due. It had twice before: First with Chase Lonehart, and it may have done so again with him; and then her sister, whose remains she buried on the moon.

Belle saw Atticus and Kaj standing by the door of one of the Infirmary's patient rooms, the latter clearly guarding it from his stance. She guessed Voldja was in there with Sandy, and like them, was loathe to interrupt their privacy, so she leaned on the wall next to Atticus, folding her lean arms and staring at the blankness of the wall across from her with contemplative blue diamond eyes leaving the silence around them unbroken.

"It's only a matter of time," Thought Belle sadly, "Before Death catches up with us all!"

Belle hoped it wasn't Sandy's turn, just as Volodja and her had finally found happiness, but in this situation, Belle was finding it hard to find the half full part of Life's drinking glass.

Vo contacted Atticus on what's happened and kept the connection with Dragoons' squad until Sandy was safely transported to their helicopter. Then he arranged Mek and other captives to be transported to the boat they came in as they were definitely in a much better condition and didn't need immediate medical help thanks to Sandy's action. After that, he left back into the bunker as they still needed to finish their mission.

"Shirra, what's the most reliable way to destroy those canisters? I don't consider blowing them up or dropping them into the Ocean reliable as we can't allow any portion of the gas to spill into the air", he asked his EGO unit as she scanned around the bunker.

"Well, I'd be glad to tell you there's a Singularity bomb conveniently placed nearby, but that would be a lie", Shirra replied. "But then, from what I can tell from the archives I've gained access to, this bunker was supposed to store a rocket. The rocket itself have never made it here, but the reserve fuel for it was already transported here and was stored in the room the mutant Engineer came from. If we combine the gas from the canisters with the oxidizer and then add the rocket fuel to the mix, then all that would be left of the oxidative reaction, the heat from the burnt fuel would take care of."

"In other words, we can just fill that room with oxidizer and fuel tanks and blow up them all, right?"

"That will work as well, but expect a huge explosion in a closed space combined with a heavy structural damage to the bunker, probably more than its walls can handle."

"That might be even better this way", Vo thought back, "Lead me to the fuel tanks then."

He went into the room the Engineer came from, noticing most of the tanks were full and intact. It didn't take him much time to get one of the lift trucks working, so he used it to pull the oxidizer tank and the fuel tank into the room which contained drug cans. He placed the oxidizer tank on top of the drug cans and poured a full magazine of grenades from his Milking Maid onto them. The fuel tank was placed a little further away so it would detonate a second later from the released cluster grenades after the oxidative reaction would already start from the initial explosion. After all the preparations were done, he closed the secret door and ordered Shirra to calculate the maximum reliable distance from which he could remotely detonate the grenades. Once he was walking the calculated distance away from the closed room towards the exit, he radioed Tony and his team to start the boat's engine and steer it away from the bunker's entrance. "But not too far, or you won't be enjoying the fireworks", Vo added with his usual banter, but not feeling any joy for the mission he was about to complete. Once Tony reported they got to a safe distance, Vo activated his Blur and hit the detonation switch. He rushed to the exit and jumped into the water, the heat wave close behind, as if in a movie. At any other time he would laugh at his dramatic escape and probably did some artistic trick as he fell into water, but this time he merely swam to the boat, not looking back, only asking his EGO if she has detected any unusual gases escaping into the air with the heat wave and feeling a slight relief there were none. He climbed on board, glanced over the collapsed bunker entrance and merely said he's ready to go back to Alcatraz as he sat at the bow and stared at waves rolling in front of the boat.



Once they got back to the main hub at Alcatraz, he met the Dragoons team and arranged their second pilot to take his team's helicopter to transport the captives to the mainland. Mek politely declined his offer to be transported as he said he had some business with Tony, so the only intermediate stop they had on their flight was at the Overpass to leave the two other Inquisitors' victims where they could find a transport to their homes. After that, the helicopter flied to the team's base so that the pilot could join the other members of the Dragoons' team on their return trip to the Alcatraz where they could continue their mission.

All the time of the flight Vo was sad and silent as the severity of the situation finally got to him. Although the mission was fulfilled, he definitely failed as a leader. As a leader, he felt responsible for each member of his team, and what happened to Sandy would be always on his head. Once the helicopter landed on the base's helipad, Vo invited the pilot to join his team mates at the canteen and then he went straight to the infirmary to learn the latest news on Sandy's condition. Upon seeing all the members of the team were there too, he took Belle's hand as it was the only reassuring gesture he though could suit the situation and said quietly, "The bunker's destroyed with all the drugs and any other Inquisitors' equipment that could be there inside. Mek decided to stay in Alcatraz; two other victims were safely transported to the Overpass. Any news on Sandy's condition?"

Lady Christianna sat in a big comfortable wing backed chair in the nursery, watching the sleeping twins in their cribs. She wore only an oversized bright yellow t-shirt with a happy face on the front of it that did not mirror her own. Her skinny chalk white legs were curled under her and she nervously tugged at the electronic house arrest band around her thin ankle with one small alabaster forefinger. Pink tears streamed from her pink eyes and down her pretty Castithan face as she stared into space, her small mouth agape in shock at the news Belle Starr just sent to her EGO.

"Another victim of my madness," Thought Lady forlornly to herself, "First all those kidnapped Indogenes, then Iri in a coma. Chase has disappeared into the Canadian desert and is probably dead. And now Sandy..."

Lady stood up, activating the holographic nanny, and proceeded to wander aimlessly in the bunker they called home, still crying with regret for all the harm she had done. She remembered promising her husband Atticus Batman that she wouldn't leave their home, and she didn't intend to, but as she wandered, she found herself in Atticus's armory. She plopped down on a small wooden bench next to a worktable and stared with tearful pink eyes at the guns mounted on the wall in front of her.

"Just wanted Eden. Just wanted a Utopia for kids so they wouldn't have childhoods like Atticus and me. Wanted to do something important, be someone important. Was that so much?" Lady asked her EGO Psyche, MOM, as she stood up taking a Wolfhound pistol mounted on the wall that had caught her eye.

Lady remembered a year ago of simpler times, before she was a member of the Protectors, before she was married to the infamous Atticus Batman, before she had twin children, before she aspired to become the Mistress of Sorrow, when she was merely a teenage apprentice ark hunter in training with a brand new EGO implant, and the famous Belle Starr, clan mate and adopted big sister agreed to be her mentor. Belle was showing her how to take down a War Master, that one attacked the back where the armor was weakest, and that you stripped away that armor with a SMG or Assault Rifle with bio or rad nanos. Once that was down, the War Master hunting experts of the clan all agreed that a wolfhound pistol was the best way to kill it, along with teamwork of course.

Lady had religiously followed her training whenever she hunted War Master with her ark hunter clan, much like she had always followed instructions her whole seventeen years of life. That was, until she took on the role of Mistress of Sorrow, and took her destiny into her own hands - seemingly destroying so many lives while doing it. As pink tears fell from her eyes with renewed vigor, Lady took the barrel of the Wolfhound pistol and stuck it into her small mouth, stretching her lips so much that the corners of her mouth began to bleed.

"What are you doing Lady?" MOM, her EGO psyche, mentally yelled in alarm at her.

As the taste of metal and blood permeated the taste buds of her mouth, Lady moved her delicate right forefinger to the cold trigger of the Wolfhound revolver as pink tears continued to stream down her face, then she pulled the gun's barrel out of her mouth and sadly replied out loud, "Nothing. Promised Atticus. Wouldn't leave the house."

When Atticus returned hours later, he would find her still sitting on the work bench alone in the armory, still holding the Wolfhound pistol, her tears spent but her huge pink eyes red and swollen from all the crying, staring without focus at the floor. He would gently take the gun away from her, pick her up in his strong arms and with her arms held tightly around his thick neck take her to their bedroom and lay her down in the bed they shared. He would then strip off his armor and lay naked next to her. Ladxy buried her small head into his scarred chest while he held her as she cried herself to sleep, muttering the words over and over again, "I'm so sorry," until she finally fell into an uneasy sleep.

Atticus lay holding her through the night, awake as he listened to her periodic whimpering and feeling the trembling that often tore through her tiny thin body, as he stared at the ceiling with electric blue eyes and thought, "This is indeed Madness!"