dappered | (no subject)

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He's been out in the open for a week now, tracking cold trails, talking to people who had noticed thefts of vehicles, weaponry, ammunition but had never seen the thief. He recognizes the efficiency and tells himself it doesn't mean anything. His partner isn't anywhere inside the thing he's hunting now. It wears the body like a mask, driven by the jumble of AI.

Wash has never particularly trusted AI programs, especially not after what happened to Epsilon. Whether or not it was their fault didn't change the fact that they were inherently unstable, and to him there was no 'if' they became a danger to their partners.

It was only a when.

It's not hard for him to imagine a clusterfuck of uncontrollable AI occupying one headspace. He knows what that's like, thanks to Epsilon, and so he clings to the belief that Maine is already dead. When he puts his gun to that familiar face and pulls the trigger (Command might want the Meta taken alive, but Wash knows that's not going to happen), it won't be murder. Just putting down a mad dog. Maine would do the same, if their positions were reversed.

Probably.

He's holed up in a shitty abandoned base, crumbling cement and gutted computer ports, leaning against the wall with only the bottom half of his armor on, inspecting the damage done to the back of his chest armor. Fucking South Dakota. His rifle leans against the wall.

The exhaustion creeps up on him, and he has to put his tools down when he notices that he can't concentrate on the tiny wires he's trying to manipulate. He'll have to finish in the morning, and putting the armor back on will undo the repairs he's managed so far. So he props himself up against the wall, rifle across his lap and a camo net covering him like a blanket, setting his HUD to alert him when a few hours have passed.

He's out like a light.

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Maine's not dead.

He's just a little different.

Maybe he's as good as dead, with what he's become and how he's changed, but he's not actually dead. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, when Maine's body wears itself down to a point where he can't even function anymore, he stops to rest, trembling fingers fumbling with the latches of his helmet until he can pull it off, until his entire world whittles away into an eerie, uncomfortable silence. The helmet never stays off for long, and Maine never stays in one place.

He's at Wash's side a half hour after he falls asleep, looming over him like a bad memory, a bad dream. Wash seems to chase Maine in circles -- he's always a step or two behind him, recognizing his patterns even when he can't recognize him, fucking up his shit and plans, ruining what he can like he thinks he can fucking stop him, and if Maine could speak to him now, he'd call him a shitty friend.

( please don't haunt me anymore )

Maine blinks. He kneels there, inches away from Wash, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. He slides one hand up, back to his Magnum, working the hard steel free of its holster until he can fit the barrel of the gun neatly under Wash's chin.

It's unforgivable the way that Wash hasn't gotten used to Maine being gone. It had been a long time in the nuthouse, a lot of things had changed in his absence, and intellectually he knows that his partner is gone, no more Maine to watch his back, anything on his motion tracker should be considered a threat. Even fellow Freelancers.

But he sleeps through Maine's entrance, sleeps through the vague familiar scent of his armor, sleeps through the cat quiet footfalls, the sound of someone breathing so close to him.

Once upon a time, he had trusted his partner to stand watch while he slept better than he could trust his own AI to do the same. Once upon a time Maine had known the nightmares that Epsilon unwittingly put him through when he did sleep, and stood both their watches just so Wash could get a little more rest.

So maybe that's why he doesn't jerk awake, when the little noises finally start to register, when his eyes crack and he sees the EVA helmet. His expression is still sleep blurred, and that helmet is familiar (safe), and he starts to apologize for sleeping through his watch, Isaac--

The gun registers. His throat closes, his pupils dilate, and cold washes through him like a bucket of icewater. He holds himself utterly still.

"--Meta."

It's not a question.

The name Isaac is something strange and foreign to Maine, anymore. He recognizes it, but it doesn't feel like it fits him now, like it's something he left behind a long time ago, during another time and in another place when shit wasn't so fucking complicated. He looks down at Wash, the gold faceplate of his helmet glinting in the dim light of the bunker as he keeps the gun pressed flush to his chin.

And he's silent.

( -- ash? Wash, Dave, you fucking asshole, are you listening?

Yeah, sorry. What were you saying?

Are you sure you're okay to do this shit, man? I don't want -- )

But he's never really completely silent, with his mind running on hyperdrive, kicking up old memories and feeding them through his head like a movie reel he can't shut off.

Maine shifts his weight, leaning back on his heels into a more comfortable position. The Magnum stays where it is for a long second or two, pushing bruises into Wash's tender skin, before he's drawing his elbow to his knee and lifting the gun away from him.

Not good. So very not good. He curses his own stupidity silently, stupid, too fucking stupid to have assumed he was far behind his quarry, stupid to have assumed that the Meta--that Maine didn't have some recollection of how he operated, the places he would choose to hole up, his habits and his security routines.

He keeps as still as possible the entire time the gun is under his chin, hardly daring to breath. If he died here all of his plans would be for nothing, he'd never bring the Project down, he'd never be able to get the proof he needed--

And then Maine (no, it's Meta, you can't think of him as Maine, it's not Isaac anymore) is backing off, and Wash wastes one precious moment just breathing instead of tensing to go for his rifle.

...he should go for his rifle. He should try to tackle him, even half-armored. He should do something, instead of sitting there staring, breath rattling in and out of his lungs.

"...Isaac?"

The smallest thread of hope in that question is pathetic, even to his own ears. But he has to know, he has to confirm it, he has to try.

Shit's about to get a lot harder for you, buddy.

Maine has no reaction to his name. He settles his elbow on his knee, his Magnum drawn in his hand, barrel pointed up to the ceiling, but he doesn't move when Wash speaks. He blinks, behind the helmet, because it's not just his name, and he's not just hearing it from anyone. This is Wash. This is David.

And even if Isaac is an empty shell of the person he used to be, he's still Isaac.

( Somewhere. )

( Davi )

He moves, finally, letting his arm drop from his knee as he brings his Magnum down and holsters it. If Maine looks relaxed and at ease, it's only because he has no doubt in his ability to snap Wash in half, should he even think of going for that rifle. He'd be dead before his finger touched the trigger. So, he stays where he is, seated back on his haunches, peering down at Wash.

Edited 2011-04-15 04:05 (UTC)

So much for that. Something in Wash sinks at the lack of response, and not for the first time he grits his teeth and hates what has been done to them. To all of them.

There are things inhabiting Isaac's mind that are walking his body around like a puppet, making him do these things, and even if they can't help being crazy it's still not something that anyone deserved. To be consumed like that.

He watches the gun. Yeah, he's not much of a threat right now, half out of armor, exhausted, alone, with little chance of winning a hand to hand fight and none of getting to his weapons before Meta can pull the trigger. What he can't figure out is what the AIs want with him. They could have executed him in his sleep if they felt he was impeding their goals, or if they had wanted to take his armor. Why wake him, why show him the gun, why stage it like this?

(He can't bring himself to think that maybe, maybe they were going to shoot him, and Isaac stopped them. He can't bear to think that there's something left behind that blank visor, trying to communicate.)

"What do you want."

Every AI in that helmet knew who he was. Maybe, if Isaac wouldn't or couldn't answer, one of them would.

Maine doesn't fight for control, because he really has no reason to. Sigma took care of any hesitation he might've had a long, long time ago, and none of it is left, now. There's just a man and AI, sharing one brain, and sometimes he gets a chance to breathe on his own, to think on his own, and sometimes those voices whisper him back into oblivion, cradling him deep within the folds of his own mind.

He's not just one person anymore. He's not even really a person.

And he's silent, at first, to Wash's question, gloved fingers curled loosely over the top of his kneecap. Maine, well, he doesn't want anything from Wash. Meta wants his fucking blood, wants his guts strewn across the concrete walls, wants his bones and fingers and hands piled at the Director's fucking feet. Wash is a risk, a threat, to everything that they want, to everything they've worked tirelessly for, and Meta wants him fucking dead. Meta wants a lot of people dead.

Maine shifts again, rocking forward onto his toes, and it's another moment before he lifts his hands to his helmet, his fingers slipping beneath the latches to snap them off. When the helmet comes off, everything gets a lot quieter, and Maine has to take a moment to really focus on where he is, on what he's doing, on the fact that Wash is seated right there in front of him.

But when he focuses, when his pupils constrict, he smiles. "Hey, buddy," he says, and it's like he never left, amiably squeezing the fingers of one hand over Wash's shoulder. "Long time no see, man."

Fuck. Fuck.

It's a trick, it has to be. Isaac wouldn't do the things that the Meta has done, Isaac wouldn't want to, Isaac--

(wouldn't hurt him)

--wouldn't have snuck up on him like, shoved a gun under his chin and then taken it away like it was a joke, no hard feelings.

He's too tired to control his expression, though, and he knows that every bit of shock is probably clear to read on his face before he makes the effort to lock it down.

"...stop it. I know you're not him, Meta."

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