Strategist | Six Months Later >

[Dated February 12, 2005, sixteen days prior to this email.]

To: Stateswoman CC: Patriot One

First, I hope this finds you well. I stay as up to date as I can on what's going on back in the states, and of course we get the monthly status reports from the other branches, including yours, and I've seen the tremendous growth you've experienced and your team's success. You should be proud of what you and yours have accomplished.

Second, thank you very much for your offer. I'm flattered. Deeply.

Third, I'm not sure how much you know about my history with the US government, but suffice it to say that I chose my current position within the Phalanx EU with a very clear goal in mind. I haven't served with any unit in the US since 1977, and I'm satisfied with that decision.

That said, "satisfied" doesn't mean "stuck with".

In plain terms, I'm not saying no. I'd thought I'd gotten used to the idea of simply filling my current role in the Phalanx and letting Captain Scotland and Ignacia handle the larger matters as they like -- your letter shows me I haven't. That alone leaves me much to consider.

Again, even the offer is an honor. Expect another message soon. Thank you.

- Strategist

---

[Email, Dated February 15, 2005.]

To: SC

Cathryn, I'll need files on Paragon City. Pull everything have onto one of the SD learner-chips.

---

[Email, Dated February 16, 2005.]

To: Stateswoman, Patriot One

If you'll still have me, I'm in.

- Strategist

---

[Email, dated February 20, 2005]

Stateswoman,

There's been a snafu. Thanks, I think, to my less than stellar relations with the U.S. Government (or my lack of residency in the last three and a half decades), it seems that my current functional security level with the EU Freedom Phalanx will not transfer to the Paragon City registration network. In essence, I've been told I have to re-earn my clearance levels.

It could be worse. The bright spot is that they're letting me in at all; I had my doubts.

I'll make plans as best I can. Expect to see me in fourteen days.

- Strategist

---

[February 20, 2005]

It's never a good idea to start off a long relationship with a lie. I was careful with the letter.

"You'll see me," is different than "I'll arrive."

I've got work to do. A part of me is happy, actually, to get out in the field -- sick of smacking around rookie trainees and running ops from an armchair -- glad to get my hands dirty.

Another part whispers that it's been a decade, but I ignore it.

My jet's ready at the field. Two hours of sleep with the learning software engaged, four more reveiwing Paragon logistics, and one getting the suit on. The HUD's like an old friend with a good facelift.

I enter my name with the City's Meta Database and get my I.D. I don't even bother talking with the desk drones about the problems with the sec-level transfer.

They hand me a teleporter ID for the Hospital network and I have to chuckle. I explain to the tech that I haven't let a street punk touch me in almost 12 years while I tuck it in my belt. He nods and smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

My people have been setting up safe houses since two days before I officially accepted the job. I start the project I've dubbed "field research". Drug samples from confiscated shipments. Cheap artifacts taken from ignorant cultists. Blood and tissue samples from the Vahzilok and Lost, the latter of of which I've seen before, the former exotic outside of Paragon. I move through the streets, and they talk to me. I run the rooftops and they tell me where a gang will meet. The punks are more informative still.

It isn't just easy. I'm enjoying myself.

This is a young man's game, but I'm young today. I'm thirty. I'm twenty. I haven't aged a day.

It's not as good as it used to be.

It's better.

---

[February 21, 2005]

Stiff and sore, but nothing a few stretches don't fix. I'm on the streets again, working like a well-oiled machine. It takes a little while to get going, but it's easy. I catch wind of Council activity and move in on it like a bad storm. Vazhilok we might not have in London, but Council are everywhere, like bad teeth and rats.

They move with military precision, but there isn't a soldier among them. Thugs in jackboots, I take them all down in an hour.

It's a good day.

---

[February 22, 2005]

---

Pain. I spend the morning shaking down a few leads and questioning small packs of punks, until the noon sun warms things up for me and I get back into the action. I watch some of my 'brothers' fly by over head and feel that same sort of aversion I always feel -- too much color, easy targets -- the best place to be is wherever they aren't, because they draw fire that it's better off to avoid.

I learn about a drug shipment, and it's in the hands of the police by midnight. After, I return to one of my shelters, and I think I'm asleep before I'm supine.

It's more coma than actual rest.

---

[February 27, 2005]

---

Five days. I've been working non-stop, getting the city to acknowledge the mistake they made in not transferring my clearance in the first place, and it's worked. I sneer every morning when I pick up the hospital transponder, but I always pick it up, because while my muscles have given up the pain and settled for a bone-deep ache, the ache won't leave.

One sniveling pigeon spills about another Council op, and I hit their doors running, barreling ahead of the doubt in the back of my mind.

This time, they brought real soldiers.

The leader is young, and fit, and fast, and confident. He leaps into the fight in a way I realize I've been avoiding, because I don't trust myself. I want to beat him, personally, very badly.

I get him in the solar plexus, solid, and for a second I think he's going to fold too soon.

No worries.

He lets me have a shot at his face just to show he can take it. I take a second one, and he smacks it away like an annoyance.

Then it's his turn.

I want to tell myself that he wasn't alone. The extra jackboot goons around him didn't help, that's true, but inside, I know it was him that was faster. Stronger.

Younger.

He knocks me into a pile of crates and one of the staves goes through my thigh like a fork in a pot roast. I take a swing and he pops my shoulder out of the socket like wringing a dishtowel -- boring housework.

I think I go black for a second. I think I must have, because I'm flying and I know I can't do that.

Then the floor comes up and greets me, and this time I know I black out.

There's a hand in front of my face when I can see again and I flinch back and knock it away. Someone yelps.

I blink the focus back into my eyes, and realize where I am. In the shiny green tile of the hospital, I can see the smiling, understanding face of the man that handed me the transponder.

Right then, I hate him. I don't even know his name.

---

[February 28, 2005]

---

The hospital was a cold cup of coffee -- bitter and real and enough to wake me up without actually making anything better.

I've got thinking to do.

---

[March 5, 2005]

---

I know Stateswoman and the others are wondering where I am. By now, they know I've left London -- know I must be in the city; must wonder why I haven't made contact.

Haven't officially made contact. The roster of the Phalanx is public, so I know them even if they don't know me.

I've been thinking. My personal demons and the angels of my better nature have been brawling in the back of my mind while I do my work in the city and play it a bit more carefully than --

((a weak old woman))

-- I might have otherwise.

Positron noticed me yesterday. I don't know if he was more disgusted when he thought I was some punk cashing in on an old poker-friend's ID, or when he realized I wasn't.

There's a letter to Stateswoman on the desk. Declining. Unsent. I know I could have the position. I know that at some level, I deserve it. I know that at some other level, I don't want it, the way an old man doesn't want pneumonia.

Fear.

I push the paper around the desk.

My comm beeps a distraction. Something bad.

Bad, and there's no one I can call in. There's no time, and I haven't earned that right yet -- not even from myself. I pull the helmet on and run. The letter sits on the desk.

The Vaz have taken an office building. Hostages. Bombs. Seven of each. The Clock is ticking in the corner of my HUD.

---

The walking dead on the first floor don't put up more than a token fight, but I'm breathing hard by the time I reach the first stairwell. Too soon. I'm an old man who needs more time on the treadmill. More cardio.

Maybe a goddamned pacemaker.

I lose track of time on the second floor, and there are going to be dead people if I don't move. My HUD is constantly blinking warnings -- Orange Threat Level, multiple targets, physical trauma, lactic acid buildup. My legs are on fire. My arms are fifty pounds each. Smoking holes in the armor. I can't feel my fingers.

I put everything on the table when I reach the leader, and nearly pass out when he hits the floor. The room swims out of view twice, but I can still see the numbers on the HUD, crystal clear.

Fifteen minutes left. Three bombs. Three hostages.

The office is too well lit, and there's no place to stage an ambush except the areas they already control. Offices -- where I've been the last ten years. Where I've been dying, the last ten years. Killing me then, and it's going to kill me now.

I find a bomb and a young woman named Sarah in an office boardroom. I make them both safe and sit for a moment to get my breath back.

I had a chair just like this, back in London.

That thought alone gets me moving again.

---

Two bombs. Two hostages. I've cleared all the occupied floors and I'm down to a nest of back rooms and back stairs. Just around the corner, I can hear a woman pleading, a man crying. I can hear the bombs beeping away in rythym with the clock on my HUD.

I have almost no time left. I can't rest, and I can't win -- an old man in a young man's game.

I push myself away from the wall I didn't realize I'd been leaning on. My hand goes to my belt. Pulls out the transponder. Drops it on the carpet.

They're going to hear me coming, so I make it good.

"This is the Strategist," my voice barks through the helmet speakers. "Give up now. Avoid the rush."

''It sounds believable. My voice doesn't waver. I leap down the stairs, and for a moment, my limbs are light.

''I'm a young man. Thirty. Twenty.

---

There are four minutes left on the clock when I shatter the last timer.

---

[March 7, 2005]

---

The letter's still on my desk.

I'm using it for a coaster.

---

Strategist | Six Months Later >