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The first rays of dawn woke Knight as they always did. He groaned and sat up, rubbing at his eyes to try and force the sleepiness out of them. Then he reached up to remove the earpiece he always wore in case he was needed in the middle of the night, setting it down on the nightstand.
As was often noted, there really “ain’t no rest for the wicked”. Being the leader of Providence, a worldwide organization fighting a war with no end in sight, was a 24/7 job.
Then again, what else did he have to do when he couldn’t leave the box?
For not the first time, he was grateful for the private living space he’d been given, the bedroom and connected office at the top of the building having been overhauled to completely quarantine Knight after he’d been appointed Providence’s new leader. Those first two weeks during construction had been spent in the molecular disassembly chamber, using in essence camping equipment for the basics. Calling the experience “awful” was a massive understatement, made all the worse by how he’d been ogled like a sideshow freak by every member of the research team. Even now he took a little extra time standing under the hot stream of water from the showerhead, reveling in the feeling of being properly clean to banish the mere memory of how his skin had crawled during those weeks before he’d been transferred to the box.
Getting dressed was easy: one of several white suits with a black dress shirt. He ignored the white ties that had been ordered to go with the outfit in favor of the black one Six had awkwardly given him as a gift for his impromptu promotion. (The other man hadn’t realized that Knight’s chosen wardrobe was mostly white with a black shirt rather than the other way around.) Despite their falling out, wearing the tie that was almost-invisible against his shirt gave him a twisted sort of pleasure when he had to take a call from the Committee, at least two of the members clearly bothered by the silent rebellion against proper business attire.
He tossed the white towel he’d been using into the special hamper which would shoot it down to the laundry area. White was easy to keep sterile: a little bit of bleach would kill just about anything living in the fibers. Then a quick trip back through the magnets would ensure no nanites reached Knight.
Knight despised the color white now.
Breakfast from the cafeteria was delivered through another set of magnets that stripped the nanites out of the food and off of the dishware. It had the unfortunate side effect of also stripping out most of the flavor. Oh it all still looked perfect, the golden yolks of the sunny side up eggs a desperately-needed splash of color in Knight’s white world, but the taste was faint, almost diluted. It was more like the memory of food than actual flavor.
He sat at his desk as he ate, reviewing the reports from the night before and his own email. He grimaced as he saw Medical’s request for another blood sample. With only indirect access to natural light and some of the nutrients from his food getting stripped out alongside the nanites and flavor, he had to regularly supply blood for testing to ensure he wasn’t suffering from a barrage of vitamin deficiencies. The request called for fasting before drawing the blood. Well, that was out of the question now. He sent a response to tell them they’d receive it tomorrow, assuming he didn’t properly fast for eight hours today as they’d requested.
Still, he likely would send off the blood test this afternoon. Things got busy managing Providence. Sometimes he skipped lunch entirely and didn’t eat dinner until late.
If he turned around, he could take in the glorious sunrise over the desert right outside his prison. He could distantly hear the cry of some bird of prey taking advantage of the early morning to start hunting, the sound muffled by the thick plexiglass that separated him from the rest of the world.
He forced himself to sip his coffee and tune out any further sounds. If he focused too long on them, he’d only end up depressing himself.
At 10:03, the alarm went off. He brought up the early intel: Van Kleiss was on the edge of Abysus territory, dangerously close to a small town that had been just outside the blast zone of the Nanite Event. He authorized the Keep ’s deployment and watched via cameras as Six and Rex took off.
Van Kleiss had a massive EVO butterfly with him, the creature acting as his transport. However, there was no sign of any other members of The Pack.
“Oh, gross! Is that what butterflies look like up close?! I’m gonna have nightmares for weeks!” Rex complained as he lowered his goggles, the microphones on the cameras picking it up.
Knight’s lip curled in mute disgust. Ugh. Yet another creature the Nanite Event had ruined for him. He opened a channel to the field operatives and Holiday whom he knew was watching the same feeds. “Be careful. We don’t know where the rest of The Pack is. Van Kleiss never works alone.”
“Yeah, yeah, we know already. Sheesh. Just sit back and enjoy the show!”
Knight muted his microphone before rubbing his temples and blowing out an irritated breath. The incident with the EVO virus had helped him and Rex reach some level of understanding, but honestly? The kid could still get on his nerves. For not the first time since the incident, he muttered, “I don’t know how Six does it.”
He turned his attention back to the feed as Van Kleiss had the butterfly take off. The midday sunlight reflected off of the creature’s wings, creating rainbows of color that swirled lazily through the air. They danced around each other in a way that was almost soothing.
He thought he saw Van Kleiss’s lips move, like he was saying something, but shook his head to clear it. Was he really so tired that a pretty light show could distract him that easily?
The following battle was almost disappointingly textbook. Van Kleiss retreated not too long after the battle had started, leaving the butterfly behind. Even that hadn’t lasted long, Rex curing it with ease once he’d managed to get close enough to touch it…though the teenager had been shouting protests at how disgusting it was the whole time.
It was, quite frankly, a waste of time. Knight had hoped to glean some insight into Van Kleiss – every new battle could teach them something about the leader of The Pack – but it almost seemed like the man was phoning it in today. Or maybe he just wanted to waste Providence’s time and resources.
Knight almost hoped it was the latter. At least it would mean that Van Kleiss still took them somewhat seriously.
As the Keep began its return to base, Knight closed the video feed. Something out of the corner of his eye drew his attention, making him blink.
The palmprint scanner was up.
“...When did that happen?”
Knight closed the scanner back down before pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I really need to get more sleep.”
But right now wasn’t the time for that. He checked the clock. Well, if he waited another hour, he could get that blood sample off to Medical before they started hounding him for it. In the meantime he had reports to sort through and a meeting with the Committee in a few hours to hustle for some cash to cover some of the equipment in desperate need of replacing.
God, he hated being the boss.
It was a surf and turf night in the cafeteria, but the steak was just as muted flavor-wise as breakfast had been. At this point he’d sell his soul for the greasiest cheeseburger from the seediest dive bar on Earth if only to taste something.
He retreated to his bedroom, the crescent moon providing little light, but that wasn’t an issue: There really wasn’t much he could trip over in the dark. He changed into sweatpants and a tank top, flopping down onto the bed with a groan. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand: 23:42.
He glanced at the tablet sitting there but decided to forgo the book he’d been trying to read for the past few days. (He might not have much in the way of spare time, but there wasn’t much to do when he actually had it.) He picked up the earpiece and inserted it into his right ear, taking a moment to ensure it wouldn’t fall out. Then he closed his eyes and waited until he fell asleep to escape the silence.
Knight hugged the pillow tightly as light filtered into the room. He gave a wordless murmur of irritation at the sound of some bird chirping away outside his window, tempting him to open fire on it to shut it up.
‘There are no birds that sound like that this far out in the desert.’
He snapped his eyes open, seeing sunlight filter in through the perfectly ordinary window. His hand brushed against his right ear as he looked around in open confusion. This wasn’t the bedroom connected to his office. It had more furniture for starters, the items made of dark woods rather than white plastic and metal. The blanket currently spread over him was a patchwork quilt of several different colors, a gift from his mother that she’d found at some craft fair ages ago. There were photos propped up on the dresser that he knew contained his family.
“I’m in my house?”
He hadn’t seen the place in over a year. The two-story home sat on a quiet street in the suburbs of Bellwood. It’d been a permanent base of operations during his mercenary days before he’d been hired by Providence. It had become more or less a vacation home when he and Six were on leave back before he’d been bleached, far enough away from Providence to recharge but close enough that they could get back to base quickly to assist with any major threats.
He slowly got up from his bed, subconsciously rubbing his arms to quell the goosebumps of the familiar-yet-unfamiliar setting.
Then he realized he wasn’t in his biosuit.
“No no no! Where is it?!”
He snapped his head around the room, hoping to see it standing somewhere off to the side. Outside of the layers of filters which cleansed the very air of nanites before he could breathe them in, he could become infected…assuming he wasn’t already. But there might be time…!
“Knight!” A familiar voice. Six’s voice.
His head whipped towards the bedroom door as Six entered, the man clad in a simple green turtleneck sweater and slightly-worn jeans, his face showing concern. He stumbled back into the far corner, sweating with terror. “Don’t come near me!”
Six paused for a moment before giving a quiet little sigh. He took a slow step closer. “It’s all right. It’s over. It’s been over for the past two years.”
Knight stared, body trembling from the adrenaline flooding his system.
“Take a few deep breaths. It was just a dream.”
“A…a dream?” Knight put a hand to his forehead as details began trickling into his still-waking mind. “Right…right…There’s no more nanites. No chance of being infected.”
“That’s right,” Six told him, taking another cautious step closer. “Holiday finally synthesized a permanent mass cure.”
Six sat down on the edge of the bed, leaving plenty of room for Knight to join him.
With shaky steps, Knight walked over to sit beside Six. He could’ve sat farther away – probably should’ve given how the sweat clinging to him probably didn’t smell in the least bit pleasant – but he wanted to be close enough to brush against Six if he chose. (It’d been two years, but he still desperately needed physical contact.) He put his head in his hands as he recentered himself. “I don’t have to be in the box anymore. I forgot.”
“The dreams get to me, too.”
“Yeah, I remember.” He blew out a breath and ran his fingers through his sweaty hair.
“What you’re seeing isn’t real!”
Knight looked up from the floor to look at Six. “What?”
“I said what you saw wasn’t real.”
Knight sighed and leaned backwards, reaching back to prop himself up. “I’m really off today.”
“Well, you’d better get some of your head back on straight or Rex is going to eat everything once he and Holiday get here.” Six smirked at him. “Even without powers, the kid can pack it away.”
He almost asked why Rex was with Holiday before it came back to him. Right. The kid was staying with Holiday and her family now. It allowed the kid some normalcy along with allowing Holiday to be close by when Rex had his own flashbacks. It was also safer for Rex to be there instead of in the same house as Knight and Six. The two former mercenaries could handle one another’s flashbacks, but things got pretty dangerous whenever the flashbacks got bad. Honestly, Knight was glad Six had agreed to stay rather than jumping back into the game of Numbers for both Six’s safety and his own sanity. The isolation he’d endured for almost two years had been more than enough to last him a lifetime.
Besides, the amount of pay from the war they’d each had saved up guaranteed they’d never have to find contract work again. The partners had finally laid down their arms and retired. Oh there was talk about periodically traveling for pleasure, not business, but honestly they were perfectly content with their new lives on this quiet little street.
Six reached up to massage the tension out of one of Knight’s shoulders, the burlier man giving a sigh of relief. “At least put on a proper shirt before Holiday and Rex get here.”
Now calm, Knight grinned. “Can do, partner.”
Six returned the grin with a small smile of his own. Then he retreated from the bedroom as Knight debated the pros and cons of getting in a shower before breakfast.
Best not risk it. If Rex got here quick enough, Knight might not get a scrap to eat. The garbage disposal-like tendencies had carried over to Rex’s cured state.
“Maybe we should eat on the back deck,” he mused out loud as he headed to the closet. “Could use some fresh air and sun.” He eyed the still far-too-pale skin of his arm. “A lot of sun.”
Not that it would really help. Nowadays he didn’t tan; he straight-up burned if he wasn’t careful. The physical effects of his bleaching would likely never go away.
“Knight, you need to listen to me!”
He whipped about, searching this way and that for Six. The shout had sounded urgent.
Nothing.
Deciding his brain was still playing tricks on him, he turned back to the task at hand. He’d take a proper shower after breakfast. Right now, he looked through his closet for an old T-shirt that he didn’t mind getting a little sweaty. The sight of all the colors in place of white suits and black dress shirts brought a smile to his lips. He reached out towards the gray “Music Band” shirt Rex had gotten him last Christmas as a joke. (The kid had claimed he’d never wear it in a million years. Might be fun to blow the former EVO’s mind.)
For a brief moment, it wasn’t a shirt he was reaching for but the palmprint scanner for the Bleach Protocol.
He jerked his hand away, eyes wide. Then he reached out and poked the shirt, watching it swing on its hanger.
“...My brain is really messing with me today.”
Right. Breakfast first, then shower, and then, if his head was still screwing with him, take a nap and ignore the “old man” comments from Rex if the kid chose to hang around for longer than food.
He grabbed the shirt and put it on before heading downstairs to the kitchen. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose, delighting in the smells of freshly-cooked meat as he heard it sizzling in a pan. He opened his eyes, mood lifting significantly at what he saw. “Steak and eggs?”
“I figured the extra protein would keep Rex’s locust tendencies under control long enough for us to eat, too,” Six said with a smirk.
Knight laughed. “I’ll get the coffee started to ward off Zombie Holiday.”
His partner at the stove snickered.
“Figures, doesn’t it?” Knight asked as he inserted the filter and added the grounds to the coffee machine, his back to Six. “Frontliners get horrible flashbacks while the scientists end up with crippling caffeine addictions. Three minutes should be long enough, right?”
“KNIGHT, STOP!”
Knight whirled around to face Six who was still at the stove, turning over the latest steak in the pan.
Six looked up. “What?”
“Did you say something?”
“Just that three minutes should be fine. Set the timer.”
Knight leaned on the counter, bringing a hand to his forehead. “I think that dream threw me off more than I thought.”
“Hmm…” Six moved the pan off the hot eye and walked over. He reached up to place one palm on Knight’s forehead and the other on his own, comparing their temperatures. Then he lowered his hands and reached out to rub the back of the Knight’s neck, trying to ease the tense muscles. “You do feel a little warm. Maybe you’re coming down with something. Your immune system still isn’t at a hundred percent, after all.”
“Being locked up in total quarantine for almost two years will do that,” Knight admitted even though his germophobic tendencies had been pleased by the sterile environment of the box.
Six returned to the stove. “Why don’t you set the timer and go sit down? I’ll be there in a minute.”
Knight nodded and turned back to the coffee machine.
And froze.
“Six?”
“Hmm?”
“When did we get a new coffee machine?”
“We’ve always had that one.”
Knight’s eyes narrowed. “No, we haven’t.”
It wasn’t an ordinary coffee machine. The base was dominated by the timer. Rather than the typical digital numbers based on pieces of the number eight, there was an actual font on the screen. A very familiar font that was used all over Providence.
“We’ve had that machine for a while,” Six insisted.
Knight turned back around. “...Partner, I need you to take off your sunglasses.”
“What?”
“Take them off. Now.”
Six blew out a resigned breath. “Let me call Holiday to let her know we need a few extra minutes.”
“Six, I need to see your eyes. Please.” He gave an awkward grin. “Just…just humor me, okay? I’ll make it up to you.”
The man in the green turtleneck reached up to grab the temple of his sunglasses but not to remove them. No, he was holding them in place, clearly agitated by the request. “I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can. It’ll help ground me. I swear.”
“You’re almost there, partner!” Six’s voice said, but the man’s lips didn’t move. “Come on!”
Knight lunged forward, catching Six by surprise and pinning him against the stove. He reached up and yanked off the familiar sunglasses.
A pair of segmented eyes stared back at him, each of their seven segments a different color of the rainbow.
The world around them cracked, blinding white blazing through.
“Turn on the timer.” It wasn’t a request. It was a demand. And not in Six’s voice this time. It was a different voice, an accented voice, a distantly-familiar voice.
Knight turned his head back to the coffee machine, but it wasn’t there anymore. Instead, he was looking at the screen for the Bleach Protocol.
“Turn on the timer.”
He slapped his hands over his ears to block out the order as the illusion cracked and collapsed around him into a sea of white.
“Knight!” Six’s voice again, the tone urgent.
Knight’s eyes snapped open, and he found himself in his office standing behind his desk. The screen displayed the Bleach Protocol, palmprint already accepted. All it needed was the timer set.
He hastily closed the timer interface before it popped back up, counting down from three minutes. Because his palmprint had already been scanned to approve the procedure, someone had activated the timer from the bleach bomb itself, likely the same person who’d inserted the arming key.
“SHIT!”
“Good to have you back, partner,” Six said from his earpiece.
“I hope that’s really you right now,” Knight grunted as he started inputting a series of abort codes, aiming to stop the bomb while also locking anyone else out of its systems.
“Cabo Luna seven years ago.”
Knight’s finger hovered over the six key as he momentarily forgot the next code in the sequence, his entire body flushing bright red.
“Wait. What happened in Cabo Luna?” Rex’s voice was tinny, the result of being picked up by Six’s earpiece rather than being part of the channel. It sounded strained as if he were fighting something or holding it back.
“Don’t ask!” Knight barked as he resumed inputting the abort codes, belatedly remembering that Rex couldn’t hear him. He finished off the sequence by slamming his palm onto the palmprint scanner.
BLEACH PROTOCOL: ABORTED.
Knight groaned with relief, knees nearly giving out in the process. He breathed shallowly, listening to Rex and Six fighting something over the channel.
‘Get it together,’ he scolded himself. ‘You need to find out what’s going on and get control of the situation.’
“Still with us, partner?” Six’s voice held a note of concern.
“Yeah. Yeah, just…just give me a moment.”
He took in a deep breath through his nose before blowing it out his mouth. Then he turned his attention back to the screen, bringing up the target of the Bleach Protocol. His blood stopped cold:
Providence HQ.
He’d nearly blown them all to Kingdom Come.
“What the hell is going on?!”
Even as he asked it, some part of his mind flashed back to the boring fight with Van Kleiss and the giant butterfly. He remembered those wings that had held every color of the rainbow that swirled so soothingly together.
He remembered Van Kleiss’s voice eeling into his brain: “Providence HQ should be bleached.”
That son of a…!
He called up a video feed, easily locating Rex and Six in Bleach Storage. Holiday – still in her nightgown – was being held back by Rex who was desperately trying not to hurt her. Six had no such qualms with Calan; that arm was almost guaranteed to have popped out of its socket.
“Okay. Okay, Calan, Holiday, and I were affected, but not Six and Rex. But that doesn’t make sense; they were onsite like Calan! How’d they avoid – ?” He gave his head a vicious shake. “Not important right now! Focus!”
The affected duo had their own codes to activate the Bleach Protocol in the event Knight was compromised and unable to perform the duty himself. Very likely they were trying to complete what Knight had unknowingly started.
“Six managed to snap me out of it, but how do we get through to those two? We need something to interfere with the illusions, but what?”
His eyes darted over the screen, flicking back and forth to the video feed in hopes of divine inspiration suddenly handing him a solution. He pinched the bridge of his nose, wracking his brain.
Finally, an awful idea occurred to him. He looped Rex into the channel with Six. “Rex, Six, cover your ears.”
“What?” his two agents asked.
Knight typed in a few commands to the audio-visual equipment in Bleach Storage. He barely had time to turn down the volume of his own earpiece before a loud, high-pitched screech filled the space.
Six and Rex clapped their hands over their ears. Calan and Holiday momentarily froze before they, too, started clawing away at their ears in pain.
After a few seconds, Knight shut off the sound. He projected himself onto a video screen close by, uncaring that he was looking significantly less-than-professional at the moment. “Is everyone all right?”
“What?!” Holiday yelled, rubbing at her ears.
Calan only gave a low moan but whether that was due to the auditory abuse or the dislocated shoulder was anybody’s guess.
“I think so,” Rex groaned, his nanites likely already fixing the damage.
“No!” Six snapped, rubbing at his left ear in particular. “You blew out my eardrum!”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Knight smirked. “That’s for bringing up Cabo Luna.”
“Seriously,” Rex began, “what happened in Cabo Luna?!”
It was, quite frankly, the least professional-looking debriefing SitOps had ever seen. Only Six was wearing normal clothing but that was because he literally slept in his suits. The suit was rumpled but otherwise looked fine enough.
The rest of the participants on the other hand…
Holiday was trying her best to hide her embarrassment at being in her nightgown, Six having given her his suit jacket to cover her up some. Rex was in boxers and a spare T-shirt. Meanwhile Calan matched Knight with the classic sweatpants-and-tank-top combo though he was also sporting a sling from Medical.
Knight’s own image was in a small corner of the main screen, a freeze frame from the earlier battle dominating the display.
“It’s a form of hypnosis,” Holiday explained. “The sunlight on the butterfly’s wings created visual patterns that relaxed our brains and opened us up to Van Kleiss’s suggestion to bleach Providence.”
“Okay, so why weren’t all the grunts affected? Or me and Six?” Rex asked, unknowingly echoing Knight’s earlier confusion.
“Simple: eye protection. Six has his sunglasses, the grunts have their visors, and you had your goggles on. All three were tinted enough to distort and throw off the color patterns enough that you didn’t succumb.”
Calan groaned. “Looks like I need to get me some sunglasses or something.”
“But how were you and Knight affected? You two weren’t there.” Rex then stopped, shaking his head. “Wait, no. I can guess: the video feeds.”
“Exactly,” Knight said. “Van Kleiss knew at the very least that I’d be monitoring the battle. He couldn’t know who else had override codes, but he’d know I was in charge of the Bleach Protocol.”
“So Van Kleiss came up with a way to attack you even in your office.” Rex shook his head again. “At least the butterfly’s back to being a normal butterfly so he can’t use it again.”
Calan shifted in his seat, reaching up to rub at his injured shoulder. He seemed to instantly regret doing so, but at least the sling seemed to be helping overall. “So…what did you two see?”
Knight and Holiday stared at him.
“The dreams were to keep us from realizing what we were doing, right? That whole time I was back on my family’s ranch, dealing with alien cattle rustlers.” He paused. “They still exist, you know. Castle rustlers, I mean.”
Rex’s jaw dropped. “What the…How did you not know you were dreaming?!”
“Oh, I knew. I always know when I’m dreaming, but I can’t always snap myself out of it. Just have to ride it out until the alarm goes off.” He gave a wry smile and tapped the side of his head. “My subconscious likes to mess with me a lot, so I didn’t think anything of it. Besides, I’ve never sleepwalked before.” He looked back and forth between Holiday and Knight. “So what’d you two see?”
“I think I’m gonna pass,” Holiday said awkwardly, shifting uncomfortably in her seat as she clutched at Six’s jacket. “Knight?”
No amount of love or money would ever get the whole truth to pass Knight’s lips. Instead he offered a shrug and answered, “Nothing special. Just making breakfast at home.”
Rex lifted a brow. (Clearly that was a habit picked up from Six.) “Wow, that is the most boring dream I’ve ever heard of.”
“Get locked in a box for a year, and you start dreaming about the little things you’d never thought you’d miss,” Knight said dryly. “It’s late, so we’ll circle back to this tomorrow. In the meantime, dismissed.”
Despite his words, Knight was finding it near-impossible to get back to sleep.
For the fifth time since he’d lied down, he looked back at the clock to check the time.
Yup. Still 03:21. Same as the last three times.
He groaned and ran his hands down his face. He really needed to get some sleep, but the adrenaline had yet to wear off due to worries that it might happen again the moment he closed his eyes.
His earpiece quietly beeped. “Knight?”
“Six?” He reached up to place his hand on the earpiece. “What’re you still doing up?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“I could’ve been asleep.”
“You weren’t.”
Knight’s eyes narrowed as he grumbled in annoyance. The man knew him too well.
“I wanted to see how you were doing,” Six told him.
Knight sighed. “Been better. Been a lot better.” He sighed again. “We’re lucky you called me when the alarms started going off.”
A shame those alarms hadn’t been loud and high-pitched enough to do anything to snap him out of it.
“I didn’t call you. You called me.”
Knight blinked. “What?”
“You called me, but it sounded like you were having a completely different conversation with me than the one I was actually trying to have with you. I almost thought you were talking in your sleep and had activated your earpiece on accident. You weren’t responding to what I was saying, so I headed towards your office after the alarms started. On my way, I saw Holiday and Calan heading for Bleach Storage and neither of them was answering me either, so I called Rex for backup. I was holding back Calan almost the whole time I was yelling at you. Unfortunately, Rex wasn’t able to stop Holiday before she inserted the arming key, and we both had our hands too full to remove it.”
Knight laid there, completely stunned, as he stared at the distant ceiling. Somehow, some part of his brain not distracted by the dream had realized something was wrong and had automatically called the one person he always called when he needed backup. He could even remember how he’d brushed one hand absently against the same ear the earpiece had been in even though it’d been missing in the dream.
But then something occurred to him: “You were going to break into my office to stop me.”
“Yes, I was.”
Knight sat up, one hand on his earpiece and the other clenching the pure white blankets. “Care to share what the fuck was going through that Zen Buddha brain playing cowboy, Agent Six?!”
Six didn’t answer, just letting him rage.
“You would’ve broken quarantine! Re-infected me! I’d also be at risk to go EVO at any time! You could’ve doomed the world!”
“It would’ve been worth it.”
Knight’s rant instantly died as he was forcibly reminded that Six may have improved over the years, but the needle of his moral compass still lingered too close to the red zone for most people’s comfort.
Taking his aborted rant as an opportunity, Six continued, “You were lost in that dream. Probably wouldn’t have even tried to evacuate. Holiday and Calan certainly didn’t. I wasn’t going to let you burn again.”
Maybe it was because of the stress. Maybe it was because it was too late for anyone sane to be awake. Maybe it was just leftovers from the memory of the dream. Regardless, Knight felt his eyes sting.
He hastily swiped at them. “This is why you’re not in charge of any of the bleach override codes, you know.”
“I’m well-aware.” There was the hint of a smile in Six’s tone.
“I’m still mad at you.”
“Of course.”
“Stop being reasonable, asshole. I’m having a hard enough time coming up with ways to yell at you.”
Six chuckled, the sound somehow relaxing Knight. “Keep the channel open tonight. Just in case.”
Knight realized what Six was offering: Six would keep an ear out in case he attempted to activate the Bleach Protocol again to stop it from happening. He felt the tension drain out of him.
“Yeah. I think I will. Thanks, partner.”
“Anytime.”
He was still alone in the box, still the boss of a global organization fighting a war with no end in sight.
But for the first time in a long time, Knight got a good night’s sleep.