The Cold War of the Blessings

[Wolokai142]

"Submit. Or, Resist."

 

Previously... : https://forum.eclipse-rp.net/topic/91247-the-war-of-the-blessings/

 

~~~

 

Interval 1: September 30th, 2022 - "Disassociation. Mimic. Mimic."

Interval 2: "Prodrome Phase. Anchor. Anchor."

Interval 3: Coming Soon

 

 

 

[Wolokai142]

S E P T E M B E R | 30th | 2022

1 Month+ Since the Palmer Taylor Attack

 

 

The air was clean. All was well. The bass thwubbed in time, low but still loud enough to be felt in the upholstery of the seating. There was nothing really going on, nothing today at least. Any bullets needing spending were spent already. All chases concluded, all cops killed, all affairs settled.

Best way to end a Thursday.

She had her head tilted back, her eyes closed gently and a quiet, rhythmic wheeze rising and falling through her chest and out of her nose, her lips very partially open as she snoozed away, unaware. A rarer thing than unicorns, a peacefully sleeping warrior such as this. What cause had she to close her mind to the dangers of the world around them? Surely at any moment there would come the adversary from around the next corner, looking to pave a new foundation of bone donated from their own corpses upon the dying vestiges of the ones who made the same attempt before them. More souls to be forgotten amongst the dead, while they would live on out of spite, out of pride, out of principle. 

A people of fury...of legend...who would never fade away.

But no such danger lurked this way...no such dangers had for a long time. Like something out of a story book...the great evil was defeated, the knights reigned triumphant over the monsters who had put their fortress to siege. No more was there a council, no more wars, no more raids from the Loyalists. 

They, had won.

But like all good things in this world,

 

"Eyo you said you wanted pickles right?" Flint said as he unceremoniously got back into the driver's seat, shuffling a few bags around and dropping a brown paper bag on his passenger's lap. He started to unwrap his own heart attack supreme as her eyes opened slowly, a very gentle sigh rising from her throat.

"I said, no...pickles," she whispered, her left hand reaching up to rub her eyes groggily, her fingers pressing into her eyelids and down into the corners.

"Well you got pickles," He said back, quirking his eyebrows up once quickly with a smile "Your favorite. Bone-appa-something bitch, eat up."

She raised an eyebrow slightly, letting out a yawn shortly after and stretching as best as she could in her condition within the seat, looking down at the paper bag. "You know..." she grumbled playfully "I don't think this is exactly the -wisest- thing for me to eat right now? Aren't you supposed to be, like...feeding me vitamins and greens? Foot massages and all that internet search shit?"

"What more you want?!" Flint retorted, robbed again of his first bite as he turned slightly to look at her "I already been doing the whole damn Martha Stuart routine for you for months now. That's not enough?"

She shook her head, tilting it as she felt a smile growing on her lips "Trying to feed me a diet of milk and fast food, is not exactly what I'd call 'Home-Garden Network' material Flint."

"I think that thing's soakin' up your brain power. You can't tell me that calcium for strong bones and red meat don't help in the growth process."

She opened her mouth to comment that the simplicity of his logic (while adorable to her) wasn't really going to help with a complex situation such as this, when she heard a voice from behind her at the window. "How's my niece?" the voice asked, his body partially blocking the sun that was shining in towards her. She turned her head to address him, smirking. She couldn't really quite see who it was because of the light, but she could tell just by his voice and how he carried himself who was there.

"Would be better," she started, jerking a thumb back towards Flint "If discount Martha Stewart over here would stop getting his ideas on how to take care of me from Web-MD"

"Bitch?" Flint said through stuffed cheeks, taking a minute to swallow before pointing his free hand at her "You hear this shit? Out here trying to treat my girl like a Queen, then she get heated when you don't cut her lettuce the right way or bring her her 'favorite' heated blanket. That's crazy."

She shook her head, giggling before finally bowing her head to look down at her swollen belly. She laid her hands upon her stretched out shirt, humming very softly in the back of her throat. 'Rowena', maybe...for her mother. Or 'Regina'. 'Rebecca'? Maybe something mysterious, or edgy, like 'Raven'.

"Red."

She looked up slightly, looking towards Flint. He wasn't looking at her, carrying his conversation onwards with the man outside of their window. Neither of them seemed to have been talking to her.

"Red."

She looked around in concern, peering behind her in the seat and then looking towards the rearview mirrors.

"You lose something...?" Flint asked, suddenly noticing her behavior as her breath became a little heavier through her nose.

"I just...I thought I heard-"

"Red."

She pulled the sun visor down, checking the mirror inside and seeing only her tired eyes looking back at her.

She felt a dangerous tug in the back of her heart, a sinking feeling that she had sworn she had felt once before...a feeling almost alien to her now. She was about ready to turn back towards Flint, a request to take her home bubbling its way up her throat before a voice called out, running footsteps approaching them. "Eyo hold up!"

A blue bandana clad man with sandy blonde hair panted heavily through the cloth, leaning over and outside the driver's side window as she breathed "Damn girl, can you wait up...?"

She looked towards him, a look of concern in her eyes as she asked "What are you...?"

"I just saw you walk out of the store, how the hell did you get over here so fast...?"

She shook her head, blinking as she felt her heart starting to thud rapidly. "I didn't...I was here the whole ti-"

"Also, when did you start wearing the mask again?"

Her eyes widened as fast as the light behind the man became blindingly bright. She didn't even realize they were in the air until she felt the burger from the bag in her lap hit her square in the face, ketchup and pickle pelting her eyes and cheeks.

The car rolled across the street, the shrill crashing of glass and the subsequent explosion that followed with it deafening her in a second. Fire roared across the metal of the bonnet as they impacted the ground with a crunching crash, falling upright. She felt her chest rising and falling heavily, hyperventilating as she whipped her arm out to the left, grasping desperately at air. "F-Flint...!?" she cried, looking over and feeling a crushing pressure in her ribs. Flint was gone. The seat lay empty, blood soaking and caking the entire expanse of where he had been once before, but no other trace of him there now.

She let out a choking sob, tears dripping down her face in the same cadence as the blood that was seeping from somewhere in her hair, matting the silver with crimson highlights. She looked past the empty seat, watching as the store let off a second explosion from within, the crackling flames roiling up from the interior as smoke towered high up into the sky. Bodies were flung about, this way and that, people she had known, people she had loved...strewn about like discarded dolls in a shaken up doll house, left un-picked up by their owner.

A gasp tore out of her as she felt a squeezing pressure around her neck, her seat belt being ripped from its holding as she was dragged up and out through the window, thrown onto the ground. She let out a pained cry as she shut her eyes tight from the impact, pain rushing up her side. She threw up a hand and yelled "W-wait! Please!! My baby!!!", putting a hand down to her belly as if to shield it from harm.

When her hands passed through empty air, however...her blood ran icy. She looked down in horror, her plump belly gone, her form clad only in a familiar red jacket and tight, black leggings. When she looked up, a figure stood above her, clad in an identical outfit. She beheld her smiling gaze, her piercing, dilated eyes, and her long, flowing silver hair with a look of absolute terror. 

It was herself.

Like looking into a mirror that could see into the past, or perhaps the future, or the present...perhaps all three. Perhaps, none at all. She watched as the shadow raised its right hand, a pistol clutched in its hand. It pressed the barrel against her forehead, the hammer clicking as it was pulled backwards.

"You always read the last chapter of a book first, remember?" A grin stretched far across her face as her finger slowly squeezed in on the trigger, her giggle an echo that shredded the flesh within her heart. "So, remember when I said that we-"

The muzzle flash was brighter than she'd imagined it would be.

 

She woke up with a heaving start, her chest rising and falling rapidly, beeping on both sides of her rapid and loud with alarm whistles. She looked this way and that, trying to move her body but to no avail. Her limbs refused to move, as did her head. All she could see was blinding lights piercing her vision. 

"HELP!" She screamed, shaking violently in place. "HELP, PLEASE!"

That's when she heard it.

The laugh.

-Her- laugh.

Her eyes flicked forward, staring straight up from her position. It took several moments before she could finally see past the lights overhead, when she felt her eyes widen rapidly and a gasp tremble through her lungs. She stared up at a mirrored ceiling, and what she saw could only be described as haunting. 

She was strapped down to a long table, tubes and IV's hooked into her at several points in her body. Her torso was wrapped heavily in bandages, her arms as well and one of her legs. The leather that belted her in place was tight, unyielding. But that's not what caused her the greatest distress.

It was the fact that her reflection was 'SMILING' at her. It leered at her, eyes wide and smile stretched near ear-to-ear. It raised an arm, the leather straps falling from her bandaged form as if they were nothing, and it started to get up. "FUCK! HELP!!!" She screamed, the monster in the mirrored ceiling gently slinking off of its table and landing in a crouched pose far above her, quickly crawling onto its hands and knees and pushing its forehead down to press against the mirrored surface. It raised a hand, curling it into a mighty fist before bringing it down onto the glass, a solid crack forming within the pane as the woman on the table could do nothing but shrilly scream in panic.

A punch. A crack. A punch. A crack. Eventually a shard of glass fell free from the ceiling, falling dangerously close to the right side of her immobile head and shattering on the ground beneath her. 

She could do nothing but simply stare, her eyes transfixed in pure, undiluted fear as the monster above reached its hand through, her lips parting and showing off jagged rows of teeth, her eyes opening to the point where they could've fallen from their sockets as an expression of utter delight was contorted into her skin.

 

"Sedative, please." A voice crackled through the intercom. A sudden 'Pop-hissssss...' echoing loudly in her right ear, and her body suddenly feeling like it was oozing slowly into a warm water bed. Her eyes drooped, blinking slowly as slowly she lead her vision back to the mirrored ceiling. She looked upon herself up there, strapped down and alone in the illuminated room, the straps binding her tight to the surface of the hospital bed she found herself to be in. There was a long, eerie silence before the intercom crackled back to life, and the sound of slow, paced clapping echoed through, the words she had always dreaded hearing coming through just behind it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Welcome back, R-2."

[Wolokai142]

M A Y | 15th | 2023

9 Months+ Since the Palmer Taylor Attack

 

"Vision?"
"Check."
"Auditory Senses?"
"Check."
"Physical Therapy?"
"Cleared."
"Reflexes?"
"Concerningly high."
"Blood pressure?"
"Fluctuates between statuses of normality, rest, stress, and other factors."
"What about her mood...how is the subject reacting?"
"Before or after the implementation of MKU3?"
"Both."
"Graphs indicate normalcy...it is a false positive."
"We cannot physically tell if the subject is angry or happy or sad...?"
"Negative, subject's behavior displays the cognitive irregularities most often seen in pathological lying, but due to the specimen's 'condition' we cannot make accurate determinations..."
"What does that mean doctor?"
"It means that MKU3, as it did so with MKU2, has severely aggravated the subject's condition to the point of a near total breakdown of their psyche'. The walls between them have deteriorated to a point of complete near-nothingness."
"You're saying that at any point we could be dealing with one...or the other? In a rapid fashion?"
"NO sir, at this point if I were to make a metaphorical guess....I would say there are multiple hands on the wheel. And the subject is spiraling rapidly outside of our control."
"What is your recommended course of action then?"
"Euthanize."
"The subject is that great of a threat to us?"
"No sir, not just us. Everyone. Everything. If the subject breaches containment...and with its record this is highly likely, then there will be little we can do to stop it. The subject's very existence, the knowledge it carries, what it has done and what is going on within that self-shredding brain are nothing but evidence that could lead to our exposure. We should have never induced her!"
"SUBJECT, doctor, remember your place we are on recor-"
"I told you not to listen to Miles but you wouldn't listen! I TOLD you the consequences of submitting her under the reformed program. Her psyche is unstable, her CONDITION renders her uncontrollable, extremely volatile and we are risking-"
"Turn off the tape, and get her out of my sight."
-RECORD - [Sounds of extreme scuffling and grunting mixed with furniture toppling]
"YOU NEED TO EUTHANIZE HER, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE!!! YOU'VE AGGRAVATED THAT THING IN HER HEAD TO THE POINT OF A TOTAL PSYCHOTIC BREAK! IT IS OUT OF CON-"
"GET HER OUT OF HERE AND HAVE HER SECURED IN DETAINMENT FOR DEBRIEFING!"
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF M- SHE IS GOING TO REACH PSYCHOSIS, AND SHE IS GOING TO KILL, EVERYONE! SAN ANDREAS IS AT AN EXTREME RISK, WE HAVE TO STOP! WE HAVE TO-"
[REDACTED - End of Log]

~~~

"R-2," The man said with a warm smile and a look of sympathetic gentleness. There were two cups of coffee resting near his clasped hands upon the metal surface of the table, light whisps of smoke still rising off of them that carried the faint scent of vanilla. To his left was an open manila folder, papers and pictures pulled and strewn out in front of her in some organized yet slightly haphazard fashion. Pictures of Los Zetas, Aztecas, Triads, Philipe Sanchez, Lewis Langley, SADOC, and Palmer Taylor...before, -and- after just to name a few.

Her eyes were tired, weary, blinking and unfocused. The sedative they had her on was enough to keep her cognitive...but enough to keep her down. Her gaze meandered to the corners of the room behind him, trailing over the hulking forms of the monsters who stood there. Clad in thick, black leather and bull masks that were faded, torn, patched and scarred. Legionäres...the top Enforcer's of The Blessings. They were the personal bodyguards of their highest caste, and dispatched to destroy their most ruthless and heinous of enemies, something not even normal Enforcer's could hope to do...

...enemies like her.

But they had not killed her, however. Instead, they had cared for her...treated her...nursed her back to health. They were saving her from the destruction she wrought against San Andreas and the Hive below, and now found herself here. Several months of physical therapy, tests, questions, all in a repeat cycle. 'What is your favorite color? Who were your parents? What is the color of the sky? Do you remember Missouri? Do you enjoy hurting other people? Who is Lewis Langley? Who is Leah Lennox? Who is Lex Roth? Who is Lola Devalera? Who is Solomon Cobb? Where is-'

On and on, the questions didn't stop. It didn't help that she was starting to see shit now too. Whatever it was that they had done to her...whatever they put in her system...it was making her see something. Something dark...something dangerous. Something-

"Your health screens are looking rather good, all things considered," The man said, nudging a cup of coffee in her direction, around a polaroid that depicted a rather large amount of bodies clad in green and tactically blue-clothed individuals standing around it, AK's in hand and staring at the camera. "Though of course this isn't your first time being shot at or shot directly. The LSPD has left quite a considerable amount of bullets in you, Mister Sanchez most notably. Bad luck maybe or...good luck considering that you still seem to be walking amongst the living."

He was an aged gentleman, she could tell. His hands were calloused and thick, as if he could crush concrete and rebar in his bare hands. His posture was one of practiced authority, his tone old like the feeling of walking through a 1970's downtown library where one would find the smell of old pages and the fragile crinkling of the brownish, stained pages within the books there.

The only thing misplaced about him was the lion mask he wore on his head, it took of an old, faded look. She couldn't see his eyes behind the glassy irises...but she knew that he could see her very clearly. See right through her even. His was an aura of death and danger...a feeling of unease and nervousness running through her blood despite the sedative pumping the brakes in her head. She knew who she was...but wanted to hear it anyway. Hear him confirm the status of his legend, the one responsible for everything that had happened in her life from childhood to now. She wanted to hear him say it, say he was the one that lead her and her family to its demise, that put their mother in her grave and their father amongst them in their ranks, soulless and entombed within a mask like theirs.

"Who are you...?" she asked, tired, oblivious to the coffee or just not even caring.

"A 95% prison break record as well...not that its surprising. SADOC isn't equipped to hold you like we are, regardless of their ever growing security measures. Combine this with your concerningly long combat record within the criminal underworld of Los Santos...it is quite the concern that you are exceedingly hard to kill." He looked up from the files, peering straight at her "That makes you an unsolvable problem. And we do not have those."

"Who are you...!" She asked again, tired, the sounds of light heeled steps shuffling behind her a moment.

"Can you see her?" He asked, tilting his head slightly, peering around her as if searching for something though besides the other two Legionäres that stood behind her, nothing appeared amiss. "I've been told you've been subconsciously reacting to something, noted stimuli as if there is someone in your containment chamber though we repeatedly see nothing...and I must wonder if the good doctor was accurate...that your condition 'is' growing aggravated. I'm rather curious to see i-"

She yanked her hands up though they didn't get far, the handcuffs and the chains that secured her to the table clanging tight and taught as she roared "WHO ARE YOU!?"

Nobody moved, nobody spoke. The lion-masked man stared at her for a long moment, quiet and stoic. It was a long moment before she could hear the heeled steps behind her, a soft mumbling...a shuddering breath...a giggle?

"You know who I am...Miss Moraine," The man said, re-clasping his hands and leaning back slightly "I am Your Benefactor. I am CEO, Lead Administrator, General, and Lead Scientist of The Blessings Initiative of America." He held a hand out towards her, palm up as if motioning to her as a display "And you...are Agent R-2. My greatest creation since R-0." He looked down back to her file, flipping it back to near one of the beginning pages and reading it off as she stared at him, her thoughts nothing but soggy cereal floating around in her head. "100% Combat Effectiveness and Lethality...extensive knowledge of explosives, infiltration expert, population destabilizer, assassination prowess...goes on and on." He shrugged slightly, leaning forward over the table as he spoke "This file contains everything there is to know about you...everything you've done, everything you've been. Birth certificates, high school diploma, every process, every test, every deployment. Everything we've done to you, for you, and everything you've done against us, and the entities of Vice City and San Andreas." He tapped a picture of her mugshot below with a finger "I release this to Lewis Langley...and the GOV will have the first documented case of the death penalty on its hands. You -will- be put to death for what you've done should this ever get out...and that would be the 'least' of our problems."

She watched him gather up the file, the pictures, the graphs, her face, scooping them up and placing them in the folder to be closed. He took the small cord dangling off of it, wrapping it around the button to keep it closed and non-chalantly tossing it into a trash can to his left upon the floor. "Ironic...I suppose," he said, reaching into his dark suit jacket and pulling a small box of matches from within, plucking and striking one that hissed with its small light, illuminating the various scars on his fingers "You are the single greatest threat to us, to our organization and everything we stand for..." he placed the wooden end of the match into the opening of the box, tossing the entirety of the package into the trash can with the folder...and watched as it grew alight with spreading orange and red "And yet...to try to kill you, or stop you...has been nothing but an impossible endeavor. One that's costed me time, resources, and too many lives." He scoffed a small laugh, shaking his masked head before turning it up to her to address her directly "Even now...I could put two in your face right now, have the entirety of your body harvested, organs spread out to every country in this world, burned, melted, and flittered away into the wind into nothingness....and yet, you would still find ways to haunt us, to destroy us."

She watched the trash can light up from within, watching as the written history of her life burned away. He went on, his voice drawing her gaze back to him with a flick of deadened eyes "Likewise are your endeavors against us pointless. Vice City, Palmer Taylor...Rhea while I commend the immensely heinous and creative effort, did you really think that Langley, or anyone was going to budge? Fear of the unknown, and the inability of the human mind to accept conditions other than the delusions of safety in which they must live to retain their sanity and stability is one of which our species will never endeavor to move away from. You told Mister Langley that a Nationalist-Terrorist organization was coming to invade his state. You blew up a power station and launched an assault against said state in an effort to persuade him into action against us. And yet...here we are." He held his hands out to the room, shaking his head "Rhea, your fight was a good one...a commendable one. But on the night of August 30th, 2021...I sent the Colonel after you to deliver you a message, to open your eyes to a lesson you needed to learn. You chose to ignore it, and escalate it far past the point of necessity." He sighed then, looking down for a moment as the trash can continued to burn from within.

"The point is, Rhea..." he said, looking back up to her "It was never about a 'coming' invasion. We were already there. We were there before 'you' even got there. We've been in San Andreas for longer than you know, and what was 'supposed' to happen did eventually happen but...after a very aggravating fashion." He stood up then, clasping his hands behind his back and taking a slow meander around the room, his gaze and focus never leaving her "You needed to realize and understand...that this crusade you've been on, this mission for revenge? It leads nowhere Rhea. Palmer Taylor did nothing, except hurt people. Langley has forgotten it, everyone has forgotten it. Exactly what the Colonel said was going to happen, happened. We are always going to be here, everywhere. Our existence is incomprehensible to human kind. Even if you were to shine a light on us, they couldn't understand what it is they were looking at...and that would fill them with fear, and the alternative of simply feigning ignorance and turning away from it would present itself and be taken."

He leaned over slightly, standing to her right as his voice dropped lower "No one -wants- us to be real Rhea. They don't want The Blessings to exist. We represent a very real danger to everyone's 9-5, white picket American dream...even if we are the ones supplying that to them."

"Liar..." a voice suddenly said behind her, the back of her head starting to hurt, a coming headache pulsing through her brain as the voice repeated in a more sing-song fashion "Llliiiiiiaaaaarrrr.....!"

Her Benefactor continued his pace behind her...oblivious to the voice. Couldn't he hear it? "The point of these past few years Rhea is that this vendetta you have against us...it needs to end. I could've had you erased immediately after Vice City, and against the screaming panic of my advisors I let you live because quite frankly...I'm a connoisseur of art, and I hate to see  good art burn." He stood behind his chair, leaning his hands down across the surface and towering over the surface as the light from the trash can started to fade. "I can't kill you Rhea...for a myriad of reasons. Nor can I let you continue to try and stall our efforts." He pressed an index finger against the table, poking it in time with words of emphasis, almost pleading in tone "I need, you, to under-stand. Your war against us is over. Your efforts are misplaced, and this continuing cycle of violence needs to stop."

He finally sat back down, shaking his head with a weary sigh through his masked lips "But my efforts are wasted in trying to convince you to stop...I'd have a better chance of trying to stand upon the railroad tracks and ask a runaway train to slow down. We're too far down this rabbit hole now...too far gone. Again, against the words and advise of my advisors, I submitted you into the MKU3 program...not to try and reign you in as an Agent back into our fold...but at another opportunity at a lesson. Maybe one you can teach yourself."

He looked up, staring at her as the sounds of shuffling and heels were still heard behind her head. Why couldn't he hear it? "Instead of trying to stop the train...I'm going to try and 'redirect' it down another track, a longer one...and give you enough time maybe to find it within yourself to slow or stop the train yourself. Because dear...the way we're going? I've seen the ending to this movie already...and I don't think you're going to like what happens at the end of the line."

"What do you want...?" Rhea asked, the giggling turning into cheerful whistling somewhere in her ears.

Her Benefactor was quiet, staring towards her from behind the visage of his rageful mask, the contorted, soundless roar of it echoing painfully in her ears "It's simple, Miss Moraine..."

"...I want to make you an offer."

~~~

The wheelchair squeaked loudly as she was pushed down the hallway, her head bouncing about as she was hunched over, glassy eyes staring at the floor. She was flanked by two armed guards, and a few people in white lab coats, the lights above silver and fluorescent in nature making her feel cold and empty inside. The odd thing she noticed though straight away...is that there were no Enforcers with her detail...something she found odder than the voice that followed behind her over the sound of clacking heels.

"What a load of bullshit," the voice said, the others around her not seeming to react in any sort of way as they made their way down the hall "What kind of offer is that? You call that a way out? Unreal dude..." 

"Can you please stop...?" she huffed in response, the person pushing her wheelchair stopping suddenly.

"...what the-? Her sedative is wear- why is it wearing off we gave her a heightened dosage."

"It's fine..." one of the guards said with a sigh, turning to face the detail "Containment is just another hundred meters up, doesn't matter."

"It does fucking matter you moron!" The man said in response "Call containment detail, there's protocol!"

"You know what I think...." The voice said, her tone light and daydreamy. Rhea could hear the heels clacking on the floor next to her as the detail argued amongst themselves "I think I got a better idea..."

"Bro, would you chill?" The guard said, his voice growing aggravated as the man looked at him almost pleadingly "She's fine, she's in coo coo land, let's just go, dump her off, and then we can all get back to doing the usual yeah?"

"The reason we need to sedate her is because she is IN coo coo land dipshit!" He cried out, turning to one of the other lab-coated persons and pointing a finger down the hall "Get to an intercom box and call it in, R-2's sedation is ineffective. Deploy the Enforcers, now!"

"Are you deadass?!" The guard shouted back "We coulda fucking been there by now, and been done with this already! What's the fucking prob-"

"DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS?!" the man shouted back, pointing down at her.

"And what idea...is that...?" Rhea groaned softly. She felt a sudden grip of her chin, her head getting yanked up suddenly. Her eyes widened considerably, staring into the visage of a pristine looking fox mask. Seers of red color enflamed her vision as a voice purred behind that smiling vulpine face as she simply whispered to her "It's such a lovely day outside...don't you think we oughta go enjoy it?"

The last thing the guard in front of her saw was Rhea's mouth partially falling open, and her eyes dilating rapidly.

~~~

"...Damage report?"
"All KIA. Two guards and three lab technician personnel in the containment hall, five more dead in central processing, and a large number of injured within the garage areas. The reports are still coming in."
"And the subject?"
"Gone. We have done a search of all CCTV and are still going through the general recovery protocols, but it is safe to say that the subject is no longer within the facility."
"Do we know where the subjects is heading?"
"There is a 93% chance of probability that the subject is returning to San Andreas. Should we notify the local police and Government agencies?"
"No, at the request of Our Benefactor the subject is to be unhindered."
"....Sir?"
"The order has not been misdelivered. Agent R-2 is to be left alone. No attempts at returning the lost asset to containment will be authorized, nor any of the Enforcement to be dispatched after her. All other San Andreas operations are to continue regardless of R-2's interferences, or lack thereof."
"...Forgive me if I speak out of place sir...but did he say why? R-2 presents a significant danger to our protocols, efforts, and the civilian population itself...what are-"
"The order has not been misdelivered....we will maintain. Our Benefactor has stated it simply enough:

'The train has left the station'."

[Wolokai142]