dappered | (no subject)

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."