Those Hollow Lies

The Sun Rises Again

08/08/09 – I think…I stopped caring.

“This place is massive, she could be anywhere.” I huffed, retracing steps down corridors I recognised by the dead, or unconscious and bound agents littering the floor like yesterday’s trash.

“Then we search every corner of it. I have a feeling that out of everyone running around here at the moment she will be most likely to want to run into you or me.”

“Probably to kill us.”

“Well I didn’t think she wanted to offer us an invitation to brunch.” I shot a bland glare at Roz’s back for her sarcasm and remained silent for a few more steps.

“Seriously, we could be here all night.”

“I’m really starting to wish you stayed in the control room.” By the tone of her voice I could hear that Roz was starting to lose her temper with me. Not that I could really blame her, but it was the ache of my arm combined with the general fatigue that was making me that little bit grumpier right now. It had been a number of nights since I had slept soundly and with everything that had happened here I had been running mainly on adrenaline after Roz arrived. It felt like some hours had passed since she made her grand entrance and now that edge had faded. I wondered how the other agents were doing, but it seemed as though Roz hadn't set up any plan for keeping in contact with them, only Joe.

I remembered Roz mentioning that she had blocked the exits, which made me wonder what we might walk back to a little later. Would all of our agents just be sitting there, casually chatting with a haul of unconscious agents as some sort of treasure for their efforts? I felt like there were things missing from what Roz had told us, but I also thought back to how quickly we had to respond once Roz arrived at the holding cells. It wasn’t like there was time for a question and answer session or even time for a quick blitz of the plan of action. She had said all that she could in the brief instructions that she had issued and then moved out, just like the others. I could probably ask her all the questions I had racing through my mind now when it was just the two of us, but she seemed so focused on the job that I daren’t even try. I didn’t need another reminder of how inquisitive I was, or a black eye to act as a visual memory of years gone by when my big mouth had landed me in plenty of trouble with Roz.

She was silent as she continued to make her way through the maze of corridors. It seemed that the deeper we went into the facility the fewer agents we encountered. I could only assume that they had all raced forward when the alarm was first raised and now they were lying in wait or had been taken care of in some way or another. It was almost impossible to start a body count at this point, but I don’t think many of the Underground Agents cared if there was a slaughter. There had been an act of betrayal, disunion of loyalty and these men and women had held almost all of us captive for a number of days. It was personal to each and every one of us, whether it started with Joe’s false imprisonment or with our own. I could think of plenty of reasons for most of them to want revenge and as I walked the paths and hallways, making my way to Bethany my own reasons began to form in my mind. Bethany had lied to me, she had framed a friend I could not have survived without and then she had captured and tortured myself and the other people I saw on a daily basis and had built solid friendships with. She had also attempted to back Roz into a corner. I doubted I needed to do anything to teach her a lesson about that, but it was still something else to add to the pile of reasons for my hatred of the woman. She might not have succeeded in targeting Roz, that plan may have drastically backfired on Bethany, but I still felt my blood boiling at the thought of her trying to hurt the woman who did hold my heart.

Roz slowed down and I noticed her shoulders tense like they always did when she was approaching on the defensive. The corridor we had turned down was empty, but the door at the end was different to the rest. It looked heavier than the ones we had kicked down and passed previously and an electronic plaque to the side suggested it was security protected.