Adam Stanislaw Kajtanowicz
Samantha Dalton
Camp Hannula, Pöyrisjärvi National Park, Finland
1100 Local Time
Crew Dependable
In spite of the cold welcome, the team had at least gotten settled into the place, the wooden lounge now having the fire going, to add a little more warmth to it. In the interim that had followed, the team had mostly all been debriefed- all bar Sam. Supplies were rolling in- including more Finland-appropriate clothing generally all around, Blue Sword troops, vehicles and gear that had beaten the arrival of the other Blue Sword upper-tier operators. It was rare that a private military company was on the good guys side- typically, most operatives would think it’s the private companies against them, but in work like this, mercenaries like Blue Sword very much leaned on the side of good, Oracle had reasoned. They had to have a reason to keep business going and were the only ones dependable enough in this situation.
For Adam, he had more business to attend to, sitting in his office, reading up. He’d gotten most of the details on the team, from a secure dead-drop that was kept on operatives within Raven. After all, a small subset of the team was only here- plenty more operatives were out, like Purna had been, and if they were centralized under his command, then they’d need to be called, known, and read up on. He’d been mostly looking at Sam, the one he had the most concern about. He wasn’t sure how he felt, but the other debriefs had been relatively straightforward so far.
On the one hand, the anger initially felt, well, it had reason behind it. Skye going AWOL was a serious, if not almost existential threat to everyone now, because she was as good as dead the next time she came up. And Adam had feelings. Many feelings about that. He respected her, even to some extent, admired her ability in the field, the fiery Scot doing things her way, all day, all the way. But she was one to adapt and let things loose. She focussed on her, and let the others focus on them. Adam preferred to support, help, but more importantly, direct and control that side of things. Combat was chaos, but he was order, a semblance of relief in the bigger picture.
So on the other hand, he respected her talent, and her ability in the field. Skye had wrote very positively about Sam. What would initially look like an unassuming CIA operative with a lot of family issues, a lot of turmoil behind her, had become a lethal, sharpened blade in modern espionage and combat, enabling the team to their successes, and becoming so much more. A perfect operative in Raven….bar her shenanigans, but in some ways, Adam had to shrug. You took rough with the smooth. You took mercenaries bad and good, you even took gang members, you took whoever did the job. So, it left him knowing he had to at least set the problem straight, but in some ways, know she was up to the task. Loyalty to people wasn’t what this was about, it was about the structure, and he knew she was next, the glass-framed room of the wooden structure revealing the low sun in the sky just beyond the lake and forest. Trauma likely must have permeated through, and Adam knew that. Skye was like that to him once, but eventually, the sting of the cut begins to die down, and it’s back to work.
Samantha woke up a few hours later after falling into an exhausted sleep. Her face felt puffy and warm from crying. Her body felt stiff and bruised from being thrown around the cockpit and flying in the fighter for so long. Samantha knew she needed to get up and move and stretch. She knew her body would feel better if she did. She felt numb from head to toe. She should check on the team to see how they were doing. She had new team members that had only seen her at her worst. She wasn’t used to thinking as a leader. In the past, she had operated as a lone wolf without a team. When she had chosen to move from the CIA to Raven Squad, she did it with the purpose of using Raven Squad to help hunt the group that was truly responsible for the terrorist attack that had taken her father and last living relative away from her.
Samantha still didn’t have any clothing. She had collapsed naked into the bed after showering and drying off. She began to warm up with some yoga stretching her tired body and muscles that had tightened up from stress and limited mobility. She was feeling better than she had since boarding the A400. She had barely been able to walk when she had boarded the plane. Then she had watched one of her best friends jump out of the plane and into a dangerous and unknown situation where the whole world would be hunting her. She had to let Skye make her decisions and she had to believe that she had made the right one for her. She went through her yoga routine and was pleased when she started feeling better physically. Mentally she was a disaster still.
Her mind kept replaying taking Rose out and watching the life drain from her eyes. She kept replaying that moment of doubt hoping she had killed the right person. That moment when pain sliced through her psyche thinking she had just killed Skye on purpose. It was like she was caught in a cycle of the worst moments from last week: the mountain exploding, a wall of snow racing them down the mountain as explosions rained all around them, and Freya being injured and almost unable to move one arm. Being in the F35 and unable to rejoin the team knowing Freya was injured. Skye putting her in charge. Samantha did not think of herself as a leader. She had joined Raven Squad with the idea of being support personnel, yet here she was being held accountable for the team’s actions. Samantha was struggling to see how she fit into Raven Squad. She had trusted Skye because she had earned that trust. Skye had taken the time to figure out what made her tick and along the way they had become close.
Sam was jerked out of her thoughts by a knock on the door. She wrapped one of the towels from the bathroom around herself before standing behind the door and opening just a little so she could see around it. Tahlia stood there with a duffle bag waiting patiently for her to open the door. Tahlia cocked her head to the side as she stepped into the room appraising her with a knowing look on her face. She set the duffle bag on the bed. Tahlia: “There are some clothes and things in there for you. When you are dressed, you should take your armor and put it in the armory.” She turned and faced Samantha with a careful cautious expression on her face which was odd for the outspoken Tahlia. “If you ever need to talk about it, come find me. Get dressed and report to Adam’s office for your debriefing. He is expecting you.” Tahlia gave her an odd look before nodding her head and leaving as quietly as she had come in. Samantha focused on what she needed to do. She was still not ready to dive into the chaotic mess of emotions swirling through her. She unzipped the duffle bag and began to pull out what was some hastily gathered clothes. She figured that they probably came from the base’s quartermaster considering most of it was items you would see in the gym or training. She pulled on the stretchy sports bra and boy short underwear. She wasn’t surprised to note that the sweat pants were a size too big for her. She had to roll the waist down so they didn’t slide off and roll the pant legs up so she could walk.She pulled on the pullover sweatshirt that had a Blue Sword logo on it. She was grateful it had knitted cuffs so that she could push them up over her hands allowing the extra sleeve length to stay out of the way of her hands. She pulled on the sneakers after heavy woolen socks. The shoes were a little loose but doable. She would have to order some stuff in her size. Samantha was petite where most of the people she worked with were giants, tall, and muscular. Even the women. She ran a quick brush through her hair that was in the bag and took off in search of Adam’s office.
She paused outside his office door and took a deep breath. She was as ready for this as a root canal. She knew she would have to account for her actions. She straightened her spine. Skye had believed she could do this. She would get through this. She could fake it… couldn’t she? She took another steadying breath before knocking on the office door.Adam heard the footsteps outside, tapping on the wooden floor, sturdy as it was, it did make a noise with the door creaked a little open.
“Come in, Samantha.” He replied, the Slavic accented Pole’s voice carrying across the room as he looked over, the shaven/bald, gently bearded new team lead aware it was time, as he stood up, walking over ready to meet her.
Samantha pushed the door open gently unsure where anything was in the office since it was her first time in here. She stepped in and turned, softly closing the door behind her. She turned to face Adam, meeting his eyes. “Tahlia said you wanted to see me.” Adam nodded to the seat, as he walked across to his side of the desk, the American operative quite the talk of the town, for someone typically not out in the field.
“I did. Grab a seat, and let’s get this addressed.” Adam replied, neither harsh nor warm, sort of an indifference that came across, as he followed to his own, pulling it in.
Samantha followed Adam towards the desk and took a seat as asked. Samantha was nervous because she did not come through a military rank. She didn’t know military protocol and was used to having leeway in the field. She had learned it to work with Raven Squad. Skye had never been a stickler for saluting or all that. She hoped that held true here. She was unsure how to address Adam. She nodded in response as he told her they needed to address what happened. She waited for him to ask his questions. Adam pulled a glass of water close, grabbing a sip, looking across, taking her in for a moment, knowing she was anxious, her body language indicated that so obviously, he didn’t need to say much more.
“I’m still in shock over the entire situation. In the space of 48 hours, we have lost a critical outpost of Raven’s, at least a dozen men, the intelligence we gained from the Mercury satellite network operated by Vale, Spectre, whose whereabouts are now unknown, and even worse, I’ve just been told about a former colleague of mine going missing. And being cloned.” Adam started, gulping more, shaking his head. He may not have seen eye to eye with Skye, but professionally, there was a lot to take in about it all.
“You look like shit. So I will cut to the chase. You’ll tell me how what you did was right. And I would believe you. Skye, she allows a lot, the base, what happened to her, she’d want that to be on her. She’s a mother to her teams, which perhaps is her greatest strength. And yet, it’s also what makes her team weak. She gives people without reason a purpose, a direction. And once she does, she forgets that without her, they are lost too. Trusted you enough to make you a leader, too. So she has seen your change.” Adam started, shaking his head, looking to Sam, knowing she didn’t need to hear it.
“She is out wherever she is. And I need you to understand that when it comes to it, we now do not know what will happen if we come across her. That’s why Oracle is pissed, Sam. He gets it, he practically passed it onto her and now, sees it that she’s as good as dead. So do I. But here we are. We have potentially got a very serious situation with Rose, Sam, and if we don’t figure this out quickly, we are deep in shit. I’m not going to go into it, because there’s no point. What has been said is said, and you and me both fully understand. What matters is what we do next.” Adam added, curt, blunt, and with a certain Slavic tone, a fatalistic one, yet one that seemed on the face of it, somewhat balanced.
“So, take me through it. This is crucial. What were the differences between Rose, and Skye that you could tell. Anything about her, anything she did, said, had on her. Describe what you can. I’ll make some notes, and we’ll go from there.” The Pole ended it on, making no bones of his disappointment, but wanting no arguments, just to get on with this.
Samantha sat and listened to Adam begin. She tilted her head to one side assessing Adam. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him intently. She knew he was a trained operative. She used her training to spot signs that Adam was not being honest with her. She disagreed about his opinion with Skye because Samantha knew she could operate without Skye as her leader. She had operated on her own without any support prior to Skye. She still had Freya and the others not that she had proven to be all that great a leader. She had never in a million years expected to be thrust into a command situation. She was completely honest with herself. She would have expected Skye to give that leadership position to Chuck who had leadership experience or maybe Freya who had been with the team longer.
Samantha listened to Adam’s request. She watched him as she thought about what all she wanted to reveal to him. She was surprised that he had not asked about all the alterations that had been made to make the New Zealand base more secure and more effective in defending it. She distinctly remembered Oracle asking how much she had been keeping from him. She had not intentionally kept anything about the base modifications from him. Raphael and Javi had asked her opinion on what they could do to make the base more secure. She understood that they had asked her after she had shown her skills as an engineer and computer expert. She was under the impression that those changes were made with Skye’s knowledge. The only thing she had kept from everyone had been her secure cloud backup. She had only revealed that to Skye to help her in tracking Artemis. It would give her a starting place to see how Rose had comprised their base. Skye was one of the few who would be able to view archived footage and see when Rose was on base and when it wasn’t her. Should she reveal this treasure trove of information to Adam. She wasn’t sure how much to trust more people in this investigation. She had no clue who Rose and Artemis had compromised or infiltrated. She sighed because Skye had told her to cooperate with them outside of comprising Skye. She would share what she felt he needed to know.
She gave Adam an assessing look before she began to talk. Her voice is devoid of emotion. Her voice was cold and neutral. She had to lock her emotions down to get through remembering the terrible events of the past 3 days. She had to compartmentalize and push it all away. She began by sharing what happened at the observatory. “I don’t know how much time or how many reports you have had time to look over. Let me start at the beginning.” She paused for a moment as she struggled with where to start.
“Artemis was expecting Raven to hit the observatory. They had it rigged to blow. We triggered the self-destruct to buy enough time to reach the satellite core. We raced down that mountain amidst explosions and being targeted by autoguns and people from the base at the foot of the mountain. The explosion triggered a massive avalanche. We barely made it down the mountain and survived the avalanche. We went to retrieve the information core and that is when Rose appeared. Skye and Rose were locked into a fierce battle. Freya and I were stuck on the other side of the ravine. We were hauling ass to get there in time to help her. I have never seen anyone equal to Skye in battle. Rose was her equal and in a better suit. Skye was in trouble. Rose had her down and cornered. Freya joined the battle, hurt as she was and managed to kill Rose. They truly look identical and she had practiced mimicking Skye’s voice. If we had not known what Skye had been wearing and what damage she had taken in the fight, we would not have figured out who was who.” She paused and let him ruminate over their first encounter with Rose. Adam nodded, looking through the report, nodding.
“It tallies up. It’s every shot we have of her that matches the same. Every piece that Oracle sent through to me. Her body, by the way, is also gone. The team that was taking her apart in Santiago are all dead. We have limited details, but what we do have, we need to confirm.” The Pole replied, sighing, a feeling of deep just general shittiness about all of this, even in an operator that was a team lead and usually, above and beyond on the work that was like this. A clone of Skye Lyons, fucking hell, they had serious, serious problems.
“So, you were the first to respond in New Zealand too. Take me through that. We know it’s the right Skye Lyons you saved, because she probably taught you what to say, there and then. The rest seems to check out. Probably told you I was….difficult, no?” Adam cracked a rare smirk, knowing it was likely giving away something Sam might have known, and it might have forced an opening.
Samantha wasn’t surprised to hear that Rose’s body was gone. She had relayed over comms to Raven about the nanite trackers in Rose’s blood after they had discovered it. Oracle should have had this information already and was working on countermeasures. Now they were getting to the details that were not shared over open communication networks. There were some things that needed to be said in person. The details of what they learned about Rose was one of those things that Samantha had not yet shared with anyone. She signed and gave him a rueful smile as she used her eidetic memory to tell him what she really said. Samantha tries to mimic Skye’s Scottish accent, “Actually Skye said…. "Nor the new commander, if I think who it is…..he’s a disciplinarian and someone who will not mess around. And he will be annoyed enough that you let what happens next, happen.” For the first time in their conversation some of Samantha's normal emotion and personality peeks through.
Her face hardens and falls back into neutral lines as she continues. “Skye, Freya, and I had just gotten back from the observatory operation. Chuck, Tahlia, and Tiny Nord had just gotten back from Columbia. Matteo had left on that operation but was making his way back to base on his own due to issues that came up when they tried to pull out. Both of those operations were compromised because Artemis had expected us to try for them. We managed to complete the missions but they had resources waiting for us to step into these traps.” She paused thinking about Columbia and wondered if Spectre had been impregnated with tracking nanites as well. Hindsight was probable. She shook the thought away and continued. “Skye let the team rest and called an emergency meeting the next morning. The team was waiting for decisions from Oracle about Skye’s status as team lead. The entire team had been put on lockdown and administrative leave status while Rose’s body was investigated.” She paused once more as she tried to condense the action of the team into easier to digest pieces. “Skye let the team know what had happened and our current status. She then left to go to her office. I knew Skye was struggling to understand what had happened. She had seen a person who looked just like killed in an operation. This person had tried to kill Skye. Skye was reeling trying to find answers. Rose had known things about Skye that she struggled to understand how she could know it. She was stuck wondering if she had a long lost sister out there that was now dead.”
She paused again and moved forward. “I gave Skye a minute or two before following her up to her office. Skye is a good friend and I thought she needed someone to talk to. When I got there Skye was on the floor leaning against the concrete wall. She looked horrible and weak and had a dead man switch taped to her hand. Rose was standing over her. I made Rose give up her gun. I moved her away from Skye. They both tried to convince me that they were Skye.I was very confused since we had killed Rose the day before. I had no idea what to think. I decided the best way to figure out which was the real Skye was to ask her something only she would know. I asked her a question about a personal conversation we had after the Singapore Operation. Skye gave me the right answer. Rose gave me a vague answer. So I killed her. Then Skye told me what Rose had revealed. I understood the implications right away. There was also a bomb to look for. Skye had been injected with a neurotoxin. I gambled that Rose had the antidote and gave it to Skye. I hit the intercom and told Chuck to look for the bomb. He is the explosives expert. I then hit the base alert and triggered the faraday cage I had built into Skye’s office to support operational security.” She paused and waited for Adam’s questions at this point. Adam listened intently, the blanks being quickly filled by Sam’s words, and it was beginning to make a lot more sense. There was a complexity to all of it, a difficulty too, but she was doing as best as she could. There was a lot of stuff Sam had clearly engineered without Raven’s knowledge, more than he liked the idea of, but then again, it had probably saved Skye’s life.
“It must be difficult for her. Dealing with that. Feeling unstoppable, and running into yourself.” Adam replied sincerely, as he finished his glass of water, offering another cup to Sam, with a larger 2L bottle on the table next to him, before continuing.
“So, the fact she opened up to you is the reason she is alive. Impressive. You gambled, but Sophie managed to do a check of her and she was right, there was nothing in that serum. Whatever it was, Rose gambled on Skye too, it sounds like. Which is important.” Adam nodded, as he reached across the desk, pulling out a couple of folders, looking through the notes on the New Zealand attack, the maps, damage, everything brought together by Raven’s internal SIGINT teams.
“Then she passed it over to you. That’s where the line continues. Skye must trust you a lot, almost completely. It is no mean feat to have her do that. So, I have given you, how shall we say, benefit of doubt. I may not have seen eye to eye with her, but I understand her. And in time, you will what I mean.” Adam replied, the Pole’s accent holding, as he sighed, knowing that it was laced, albeit difficult.
“But there are going to be a lot of questions from others. I don’t want any trouble. I need no trouble right now, because we have a job to do. I will trust you Sam, but in return, you need to be as transparent with me as you can be. What you say is important, because it’s the other half of what we now have with Rose. And any detail like that, is critical at this point.” Adam added, pulling out one of the folders, a highly redacted, highly classified piece, unclipping it and pulling it loose, revealing the pictures of her.
Samantha sighed and assessed Adam. He was not Skye but if she was going to stay with Raven Squad she would have to learn to work with him and that meant trusting him. She took a leap of faith that Skye would not trust him if he was untrustworthy. Samantha nodded her head as she made her decision. “I am going to trust you because Skye trusted you. I never expected to be put in a leadership position with Raven. I joined as support personnel and found myself in the field. All the changes made to the New Zealand base were done because I was asked if there was anything we could do to beef up security. I have a background in engineering and computer science not to mention espionage. Those changes were made with Skye Lyons approval. I did the work and design which is why it is not in any official records. Skye brought in the material I needed. As we learned more about Artemis operations we continued to make changes to base security protocols to counter Artemis.” She paused knowing that was a big part of what was bothering him.
She returned to answering his question about Rose. “Rose is a bioengineered cloning system that jumps from body to body using a data link over the internet, satellite, or cellular. All she needs is a signal and bandwidth. We have no idea how many bodies she has. One thing we now know is that she wants Skye’s body but it is the only one that is not tied into the system that controls Rose. She wants freedom from her masters at Artemis. The other thing I know is that Skye left to take the fight back to Artemis. She knew she would be locked out of operations. With her in the field, Artemis will have to question and look at Rose’s actions more closely. They will now be faced with the same security nightmare that Raven is experiencing. Skye plans to infiltrate Artemis as Rose.”
She looks him in the eye. “Skye needed to do this. She is more useful in the field than locked down on a base. That is why I let her go. With the way she left, the world thinks she is a rogue agent without resources. Artemis and Rose will be looking for her. They will not suspect that she is on her way to infiltrate them and disrupt their plans posing as Rose. The more chaos I could create the more folks thinking I made an emotional choice, the better. The truth is we have no idea who or how deeply Raven has been comprised by Rose and Artemis. If the whole base thinks I am an immature looney bin, and that Skye is out there as a free rogue agent with the world hunting her, I am okay with that. Because the fewer people that know her plans and the truth, the safer Skye will be. If I had brought her back and she magically escaped later, Artemis and Rose would suspect something. By doing it this way, they are blind to her true intentions. If the base of operations is compromised in any way, she is safer this way. She is also my friend and deserved better for her efforts than distrust and being locked out of an operation that is deeply personal to her.” She leaned back in the chair and watched for Adam’s response.Adam nodded, shrugging, knowing it was likely that Skye was right on this, but still, it left Adam uncertain. He was used to more oversight, not freeform.
“And it paid off. And I will give her that. I’d ask more questions, personally. And I’m not even a hacker.” Adam replied, to the point, as he listened to what she had to say, shaking his head, knowing the problem it caused. It half confirmed his theory, and was in no place to talk about it.
“It puts her in risk though, Sam. She probably told you that. Just remember. You’re here in Raven not for family, or friends. Oracle, or Imran may not look much but him, and the team that came before stopped everyone you know from being killed in nuclear fucking hailfire. That’s what is at stake.” Adam added, knowing it was hard to balance, but it had to be told, plain and simple, and whilst that in itself was confidential, he hoped that would set the stakes.
He looked down at the files, and well, Rose, in the flesh, on security cameras, seemingly impossible considering the timezones she was in, at the times of recording. It was clear what she was. And it was clear now she was in the open.
“She is trying to throw us. As of last night, Purna recovered some critical intel back from Artemis. Limited our exposure, limited what she could have done, whilst also, recovering detail on Artemis’s capabilities.” Adam started, shaking his head.
“It confirms what we thought. Rose isn’t being held by Artemis, however. I think there’s something worse. It seems to me like she set them up. Spectre went missing, but only because she has reason for him. If she hated Artemis so much, she’d slit the poor man’s throat. So….that is what I don’t get.” Adam continued, looking to Sam, before revealing another document.
Samantha nodded agreeing with Adam’s assessment of Rose to a point. “That makes sense in a way. Whoever her master truly is though, her goal is the same, freedom. For her that means stealing Skye’s body. Skye made her decisions. I just supported her decision. She knew she would be hunted from all sides. She also felt like she was in a unique position to take the fight to Artemis and get inside information.”
She resented that he felt she was treating her position in Artemis like a teenager. Her face hardened as she met his eyes again with a hard look. “I joined Raven because as I worked on investigating what happened to my father, I uncovered signs of Artemis. I didn’t know who they were at the time. I was tired of working for an organization that was covering up the truth and protecting terrorists for their own reasons. I wanted to help make the world a better place. I thought I was doing that in the CIA. I learned differently. I joined Raven to make a difference and fight the injustice I was seeing at the highest levels of government and militaries around the world. I am very very good at what I do Adam. Finding information and getting into systems is one of my specialities. Which has been benefiting Raven. I didn’t realize I was supposed to shut down and not be human. Most people make friends at work. I am no different.” Samantha sighed feeling ridiculous that she needed to defend herself for liking the people on her team. She wondered if they expected good little robots that never questioned an order. That would never be her again. Her decision to let Skye go was an emotional one for her but the logic of the good she could do in the field outweighed following an order that had not been well thought out. Besides, Artemis would have questioned if she escaped later. They would be expecting her and looking for her. She knew she had made the right decision. Adam nodded in reply to her, unfazed by her, knowing there was much to probably unfurl, and bit by bit, it was starting to make more, and more sense.
“I felt the same. Yet Skye doesn’t really keep everything permanent. She is a lone wolf, an operative that keeps many, many plates spinning. A mothering character, but one that always finds home in nowhere. If she did not do this, she wouldn’t be who she is. I imagine she looked after you….but in this game, nobody lasts forever. Perhaps she thinks the same now. And perhaps she will. I just hope you are right, but we have no way to know.” Adam replied, knowing it was a harsh, horrid truth, but the matter was coming around back to what Sam had begun with.
He looked down at the files, feeling it was probably time. He hadn’t revealed any of this to Chuck, or to Freya, Athena even, or Ebrima. But Sam was in the middle of the firestorm, seeing it first hand. He didn’t like the fact that she knew, but well, it had to tie this up last.
“Oracle informed me more about the details of the programme. Of what the intent was. As far as I can tell, Rose follows what you just said. A biologically identical clone, with a neural link. Of course, nobody can explain, let alone even try and figure any of this out. What I have been informed about is more interestingly, about the drug your team recovered. And what she was injected with. Because it’s just as important as what she is. And your story, it ties up what we have.” Adam added, pulling the page aside, looking over.
“It’s a compound that was identified initially as a sarin-like equivalent, a neurotoxin of typical kind. Memory loss, that sort of thing. But what surprised me was when taken apart, what it really does. It’s the way that Rose was able to jump, from point to point. A long-form suicide pill with a pathway to allow her out, and it’s baked into her very blood, and likely, how she wanted Skye to follow her….the only part required of course, being that device in her spine. It would have stabilized anyone like her, perhaps Rose intended to use that cradle like her other forms. In one format, that is what it does. Yet, slightly change it, refine it up a little…and it becomes an incredibly potent, easily spreadable neurotoxin that can be used to kill indiscriminately. It kills everything it touches, near instantly. Even in tiny traces, it is far, far worse than some biochemical weapons any known actors have. Any amount of this in a subway network could kill tens, if not hundreds of thousands, over the course of hours.” Adam said, pulling another page.
“It is this which is key to making Rose what she is. It flattens the differences in what her head does, and what her memory is. It is far too complicated to understand fully, but the point is, Rose is reliant on that.”
Samantha decided to give him a crucial piece of evidence that Raven Squad could use to identify the difference between Skye and Rose. They should already know from Rose’s autopsy but she would confirm it for him. “Rose had what she called a neural node along the spinal column. Rose had tracking nanites in her bloodstream. Artemis is able to track even a single drop of her blood to see where she is. That node you are talking about is how you tell Skye from Rose. Skye doesn’t have one. It is why I triggered the faraday cage. Any signals transmitted would be blocked. That iteration of Rose was unable to upload. It also blocked the tracking nanites in her blood. The base had already been compromised by that point though.” Adam nodded, interested as he pulled the next page.
“Which makes sense. Sophie provided her medical records, as unethical as that is, and it seems to match. Rose is sitting on a biochemical weapon of mass destruction. So, the next problem. Problem we have is, those pictures prove she is alive. Whatever version of her was there, was instantaneously copied before she entered the faraday deadzone. It won’t remember of course, what was said to Skye and you in that moment. She is simply going from her last saved point.” Adam added, pointing to the various timestamps. Some were older, but one was from six hours ago, in Doha International Airport, no less.
“What was being worked on by Artemis was a sequencing of that drug. Messy, but they would get there in time, to try and turn it into its full potential. The intel we have suggests that Rose vanished from SIS’s systems the moment they wanted her dead. So to turn on Artemis like this, or at least, bare them open is to send a message. Using her very own genetic copy to do so, then cleaning up afterwards. Only she underestimated you.” Adam continued, Sam having something to add on those pictures.
Samantha nodded and was honest with him about what she recommended they do next. “If what you are telling me is true then Rose is not one consciousness like we though. There are more than one version of her running around. That makes sense with the chaotic personality she had and the way she spoke. It seems like they share a core of basic memories but then their experiences vary based on that iteration’s experiences.” She paused thinking. “Does that mean that Raven believes there is a terrorist attack imminent at Doha International Airport?” Samantha knew that they were not the only team that Raven could deploy to prevent such as incident.
“Our team was prevented from examining any of the information or material that was extracted in those last two operations. I would have a geneticist look at the information retrieved from Rose’s autopsy. If you have a blood sample, I hope it is in a faraday cage to block any tracking.” She tilted her head to the side. “I looked at the chemical formula that was recovered on the drug. I don’t have an expertise in chemicals or pharmacology. I can tell you it was part engineering and part mother nature’s laboratory. It sounds like you know more about the drug than I have had any time to look into it.” She listened as he continued sharing information. She was trying to follow where Adam was leading. Was he trying to say that Rose was not stopped and still working for Artemis? Was he trying to say that Skye was involved with Rose? Now he was talking about the past? In response, Adam pulled one last picture out, one last shot, nodding.
“We have some idea, but yes, perhaps it varies on iteration. The same Rose is still there, though. Seems to be she just gets used to death and cares so little. But it’s messy with the blood, considering the circumstances that just happened in Santiago, we got caught short. What we knew was lost. But, there is something to salvage.” Adam wasn’t sugar coating it, things were bad, and well, there was some reply in turn, as he pulled that picture out.
“This is a picture from an archive that was thought to be burnt, but is the last remaining piece of information we have on anything to do with the project Skye was involved in. Have a look.” Adam slid it across the table, and placed it in front of Sam.
It was a shot of what appeared to be three researchers, one that was a taller man of the three, and one that was bald, in lab coats with what appeared to be a fully formed six-year old redhead girl, a shot that seemed to be worn out on the paper. A cross existed through one of the men in the picture, revealing no features or anything at all.
“I’m not sure if it’s Rose, or Skye. It’s the only remaining picture we have. Oracle worked in SIS at one point, and couldn’t even find who it was that looked after Rose, trained her, interrogated her, perhaps hell, Imran may have been on both and would have never known. The well seems to keep going, but everything behind this is covered up. Someone knows they fucked up. Badly. And somebody knows that if anyone were to get a hold of this information, they’d be doing it too.” Adam commented, looking at it, moving his finger across.
“We got a hold of this a few hours ago. Oracle filled me in on the detail, because after he called it in, he was given a single picture, and a single lead. And he was told to contain this, immediately. By any means necessary. He was told it was thought Rose was gone….and yet that proof of her alive has got more people shitting themselves than anyone wants to admit.” Adam gulped, even his stoic demeanor giving into this.
“The taller man, that is Skye’s….well, I suppose father. Doctor Richard Peters, but in this picture, named Ian Lyons, who Skye would have never known properly, in how many double lives it looks like he lived. Went to the University of Edinburgh as a researcher, and then seemingly, disappeared about eight years prior to this picture from the face of the earth, car crash….apparently. But here he is. And he lived on, as you now see, with a quiet life under a new identity. Then died again, seemingly at sea.” Adam started checking his notes, very much a burn after reading type.
“And next to him, his research assistant. Professor Henry Simmonds. He was actively in academia, until about ten years ago, but since then, he has retired and gone completely cold. The third we’re not sure of. Someone that it seems, might already be dead. The girl, she’s likely Skye. But there’s no way to tell.” Adam commented, using the annotation he’d made personally, the detail of which was at the highest level of secrecy. What was being shown was exceptionally dangerous- this was very much the inside look at something that even black-ops, of any country, would never have been able to get a hold of. It was worse than just a security risk, it was guaranteed death. The programme Skye had described, and Adam now knew about, was clearly one that had been repeatedly tried by other countries, albeit with multiple failure. It was the holy grail after all, virtually being immortal and well, creating an operative that could just go again and again, time and time until anything was their oyster.
“Rose likely is trying to make her move, using all of those things she has recovered. With access to that satellite network, refinements to the drug, parts of Raven’s data, and all that the team did to unravel Artemis, she’s got an opportunity if she is genocidal….but in what way, I don’t understand. But this Henry must be somehow linked. He’s the only piece of the puzzle we have left. If there was any way to stop this, he may know. He’s virtually a surrogate father to them both. And we may need him to stop this. A killswitch, shit, at least some idea of how fucked we are.” Adam replied, knowing it was tricky to explain, but had to be shown.
“Artemis are anarchists, but they don’t want an apocalypse, just control. Rose wants the end, it seems. We need to stop her, because she’ll use anything she gets her hands on to get what she wants. And you saw it yourself. She’s not going to stop coming.” Adam added, knowing Sam would be spinning after this, and it was not an easy conversation to have. Anything Sam had here, would help.
Samantha sat forward and frowned as she struggled to put all this into context. She searched her memory of what Rose did reveal in conversation around her. “She was using a voice modulator to impersonate Skye’s voice. She has a different accent. Skye said Rose had a whole stable of clones to jump to. Rose shares Skye’s biosecurity and has used it to compromise all of Raven’s data. The only reason we prevailed at the base during the attack were the upgrades were not in any official files. Skye told me that Rose said she was defective and that it had to do with her genetics.” Her eyes flared wide as she looked at Adam in horror as she repeated what Skye said verbatim thanks to her memory. Skye said: “Shit Sam, she was talking a lot about some horrific, world ending stuff. Worse than a nuclear bomb. But if we don’t get out of here fast, we’re all going to follow her. Artemis may even be expecting Rose to deliver the goods….oh shit, of course. I didn’t even say. We gave everything to Artemis because of her, the intel, the drug…... All of it! She used us….knowing I’d fit perfect. Now it makes sense. Shit, shit, shit!” She paused and looked at Adam “So Rose was using Artemis to get her hands on what she needed to take control. She used her ability to steal data from Raven by impersonating Skye and using her security credentials to do it. So double check anything that Skye had access to. That might tell you where she will show up next or what her next target is.” Samantha’s poor traumatized brain was kicking into high gear. “Whatever she is doing with this drug, she hopes to weaponize it. Were there any other uses for the drug? It was initially developed by a drug cartel who supplies things like cocaine and methamphetamine to illicit drug markets. They were hoping to develop a new street drug from it. Something caught the eye of Artemis. It had to have a unique quality that Artemis thought would help them with their endgame strategy. What piece are we missing?”
Samantha was thinking out loud as she struggled to make connections from learning about Skye’s past to Rose and her objectives. “What did Spectre want with that drug? What was so special about it that they sent him in to vet the source?” Samantha lapsed into silence as her brow furrowed in thought. “Control…” she thought about what Adam had said about Artemis. “Artemis was hoping to use the drug to control people. Which people? How many people? Why would that interest Rose? Maybe it would help her reach her goal.” She looked up at Adam for his thoughts. Adam’s eyebrows raised, as she went into details, thinking it over and suggesting those comments. From Skye, that Sam repeated like a macaw, and other parts he was familiar with.
“Less mind control, yet more for her own bodies to stay capable. The adaptation, it’s the only reason at all she probably can even parse it. Perhaps Spectre wanted an idea of what they meant when they said that. And that led us down the rabbit hole….and why we got Spectre before he could find out any more. It’s why Rose managed to somehow get Raven to kill two birds with one stone for her there and then. The threat to her internally, and the capability Artemis had, into her hands. And knew Skye would take the bait. And all of our intel teams too.” Adam replied, shaking his head, it starting to suddenly come into place.
“Shit. Sam, this isn’t good.”
Samantha turned a horrified face to Adam as another thought crossed her mind. “What if the drug kills the personality center of the brain leaving a healthy but mindless body behind. If the technology had been advanced so that those nanites could then transfer ANY consciousness into ANY body that had been prepared with the nanites and had no controlling personality. The downloaded consciousness could take over that body. This would be a way for virtually immortality and to have the body of your choice as long as it had been properly prepared. It is the next logical step in this technology that created Rose and Skye.” She raised an eyebrow at Adam to see what he thought about this possibility. Adam shrugged, looking down at the picture, and the drug compound, putting both hands to chin, leaning in, looking at it.
“She said something about it. That an AI was helping her parse across. That she was in control of it, that’s what we got back in the report from Skye. Of course, Rose and Skye only work because they’re the same. They can’t work any other way, so…..perhaps it’s what she was looking for in the drug. Maybe the reason doesn’t make sense, but Rose wanted whatever that was for her own gain, to perhaps continue it on easier. And now she has it….shit. She’s gonna fucking kill billions. She just needs the right deployment for that drug, and spread in population centers, it’ll basically leave corpses and the rest of the infrastructure intact, and what doesn’t need to stay, she can use the satellite network to disrupt. She’d leave bodies with genetic material she can repurpose for her own self, not even the bones but just the carbon alone. A fucking hivemind, picking and choosing who she wants continuing in her utopia. Playing at God.” Adam looked dead into the eyes of Sam, knowing this was a heavy conversation to have with someone who had literally only just now, expected a serious debriefing.
“Kurwa. This is good. I think we have to get some leads next. I’ll make some calls. If Skye is out there, she’s in the way right now, but we need to do what’s needed to stop that.”
Samantha slumped into her chair looking dejected. “I do agree with you that it doesn’t really matter why Rose wanted it. It is bad news either way.” She wanted to be out there working to counter Rose. She had no idea where to start next. She normally would be with the teams sifting through the data from the last operation. But that operation had been the evacuation of their base. They lost all the data. She was not ready to reveal her archives. She could offer what was captured during the operation. “I do have information on my laptop hard drive that might not have been compromised from the base attack. I can turn it over to your analysts since you don’t seem to trust me at this moment.” She looked at Adam for his response. Adam shrugged, nodding in response.
“It’s not about trust, Sam, it’s about doing what’s needed. Whatever you had with Skye, you’ll need to build with me again, because I can’t tell what else you are doing. But I work simply. Do what’s needed, and we’ll get on.” He replied with a simple turn, to the point and effective.
“None of what you just said leaves the room. I can’t begin to explain how fucking risky what this is, and irrespective of what looks like. Wherever this came from, whatever good, or bad this came from, needs to die. Or else we will not have families to go back to.” Adam reiterated, knowing full well the circumstances now.
Samantha gave him a rueful look. “You are going to need to be more specific Adam. Skye allowed me to help in any areas that I could be of use. I don’t mean to sound…. Boastful or arrogant but I am exceptional in many areas. I helped with hacking and data analysis. I also helped with engineering and building new gear and upgrades. I have a background in engineering and computer science. I know you have a dossier on me. Skye plugged me in a lot of areas. I am not used to how you work. Just tell me what you need me to do.” She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. She didn’t know how to be any more blunt. She had known what Skye wanted from her. She had no clue how Adam operated or what he wanted her to do. Adam pulled the folders in, putting them back into place as he listened, nodding.
“Work with Raph, and the Signals team for the rest of the morning and afternoon. I’ll put together a plan of action with Oracle. We may need to remedy this situation sooner than I would like. Time will be running out, and we need to find this Henry Simmonds, and more importantly, wherever the hell Rose’s banks are.”
Samantha rose to her feet with a nod. “I am happy to help with the data. Where do I find them?” Adam stood up, looking outside of the window at the log cabins by the lake.
“You nerds have an upgrade. Down there.” Adam wryly chuckled, pointing across to it, and with it, taking his water bottle to hand.
“Dismissed, Chaos. We have lots of work to do.” Adam replied, looking across to Sam, with an expectant look. This would be different, yes, but no doubt Adam recognised her ability. Just a little more turns of the screw would keep his sanity in check.
Samantha nodded, turned and left. She went in search of her fellow nerds. She went to find the way to their operations center so she could lend Raphael a hand. 
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