For a moment, when he was first aware of anything outside the silence and darkness in his own head, West wondered if he had woken at all. The silence was deafening, no familiar low-level hum of information through his cerebral cortex, no data scrolling across the lower part of his vision from the self-monitoring procedures his implant ran as a matter of course; nothing existed except himself, no connection to the rest of the universe at all.

Even when he opened his eyes nothing about that changed. Wherever he was, all West could tell was that it was dark, damp-smelling, and the ambient temperature was sufficiently warm that he wasn't shivering despite the fact he was bare from the waist up. He was restrained, but that was to be expected, particularly if he'd malfunctioned in some way.

“How're you feeling?” The words came from the darkness, unexpected; West expected an increase in his visual acuity to accompany the adrenaline spike that he'd certainly experienced at that moment, but there was no change. “That was quite a fall you took.”

“Where am I?” Even as West spoke the words, memory came back with a rush; not a malfunction then, though his head ached the same way he'd felt once before when an upgrade had gone wrong. “Scratch that,” he continued, flexing his legs slightly to see if they were restrained as well - they were - before he turned his head in search of the source of the previous question. “Dr Gordon, I presume?”

There was a rattling sound nearby, then sunlight flooded the room as a metal shutter receded.

“Guilty as charged,” the voice said. West looked down, towards his feet, where Gordon was standing, still a shadow as West's eyes adjusted to the sudden influx of light. “Not that I've had a trial, of course.”

He came a little closer, one hand resting in a proprietary fashion on West's calf as he spoke, the unexpected contact more reassuring than it ought to be, except that it proved West was still all in one piece, despite Gordon's fearsome reputation.

“You were tried in absentia, Dr Gordon,” West said, focusing on the other man's face. “Tried and found guilty.”

It was Gordon, that much was clear from the few surveillance photographs West had been able to uncover, those that Gordon hadn't been able to destroy before he'd left Inscape for good. The only difference was that there was some animation about the man whose face West was examining, a sense of life that had been lost from the images he remembered perfectly. He'd had an eidetic memory even before Inscape, now enhanced by the links it provided to the rest of the system; when the connection was there, of course, which it wasn't right now.

Gordon laughed, then shoved his hands deep into the pockets of the scruffy jacket he wore; for a moment, West wondered why the removal of that warm pressure of Gordon's hand should matter, then put it down to the strangeness he was experiencing from the lack of data from elsewhere, filing it away as an anomaly. He didn't look dangerous, this Dr Gordon, but if Inscape said he was a threat to a well-ordered society then it was West's job to carry out the sentence that had been pronounced against him, regardless of any technical difficulties he might encounter.

“Anyway,” Gordon continued, leaning over West now but still apparently as wary of him as of a cornered animal, an attitude that showed a level of acuity on Gordon's part, “you never answered my original question. How are you feeling?”

Gordon's eyes were dark and intelligent, scrutinizing West so intently that he felt like the proverbial bug under the microscope. The worst of it was that for once he had no idea of what was going on around him, as he floated adrift in a data-less sea; his implant usually registered other people's heart rates, respiration, giving him a clue as to their emotional state, their veracity. West had long ago learned to rely on the input he received over his own understanding of how other people functioned and now he was left stranded by the lack of it, unable to interpret the motivations driving the man who stood beside his bed.

“Quiet, isn't it?” Gordon's tone was low, making West turn his head reluctantly to catch his words. “Had you forgotten what it was like? How long has it been since you were tuned in all the time? Since you were able to think for yourself?”

Had he been right all along? Gordon had said something about a fall; had West malfunctioned following that, cut loose from Inscape because of some relay collapsing in his brain? Even now he could be dying, for all he knew, endless data loops triggering a massive aneurysm to protect the valuable information he held from interrogation. West closed his eyes, listened to his breathing in the silence of the room and waited for his system to grind to a halt, for his heart to stop beating, for everything to just... stop.

“The fail safe sub-routine isn't activated.” There was another scraping sound, this time the harshness of metal on concrete, then Gordon's voice came from the level of West's ear. “If that's what you're thinking. Not that I was planning on interrogating you anyway.” Gordon laughed, a low chuckle that made the hairs on the back of West's neck stand on end, despite himself. “I probably know more than you do already about what's going on at Inscape, not to mention the workings of that piece of junk inside your head.”

Despite his better judgment, West turned his head, finding their eyes were now on a level as Gordon sat beside him. The sound he'd heard, the scraping of chair legs being pulled across to allow Gordon a seat..

“If you're not planning an interrogation, then why the restraints?” It was a stupid question, of course; West had come here with a particular mission on his mind, one that involved carrying out Inscape's death sentence on a fugitive, the man currently sitting next to his bed. “Or do you just like having people at your mercy?”

It was a shot in the dark, of course; he'd been told very little about his target, which wasn't uncommon for this kind of mission. West knew what he needed to, about Gordon's multiple crimes against Inscape, that he was a menace to everything their leader had worked so hard and tirelessly to promote. That was enough, wasn't it? No need for details when the other man's guilt was so clear. He was executioner, plain and simple; judge and jury had already done their parts.

“You work for Inscape and you talk about mercy?”

Gordon laughed again, then did the last thing West could have expected - he lent forward and began to unbuckle the nearest restraint, deft fingers pulling at the leather and metal even as West struggled to process that his ploy had worked somehow, even when he'd never expected it could. “

You're not my prisoner.” Gordon paused, hands stilling on the buckle. “Hell, I don't even know your name. Care to tell me?”

“West.” He'd answered before he could decide if it was a bad idea to tell Gordon anything, or not, biting back anything else he might find himself wanting to volunteer, even if he had no idea why.

Gordon nodded once, brief acknowledgment of the response, then West's right hand was free, the restraint dropping away with a clatter.

Rather than walk round the head of the bed – a more sensible response to the whole situation, given West's profession - Gordon stood, leaning over to work on the other restraint. Making it too easy for West to reach up and wrap his fingers round Gordon's throat, his grip just so in order to crush the other man's larynx without a second thought or the chance of a struggle.

He could do what he'd been sent to do, then walk away without a second thought, it couldn't possibly be any easier than this.

West didn't move, even as the other restraint fell away and Gordon sat back down, his expression now unreadable.

“What happened to me?” West asked. His wrists weren't chafed, as far as he could see - he'd either had no opportunity to struggle prior to the restraints being put on, or no reason to do so, either way he couldn't remember much of the past few hours. “You said I fell?”

“An unexpected side effect of my current jamming system,” Gordon replied, his expression now a wry smile. “Your brain is so used to Inscape input that, deprived of it, you simply shut down. First I knew of your presence was when you dropped like a stone in front of my door.”

“Jamming system?”

West was certain he sounded like an idiot and wondered if the events Gordon was describing had caused any permanent damage to his neural network.

Like all the Inscape candidates, the early ones at least, he'd been a war casualty, a willing enough human guinea pig for whatever experiments the corporation wanted him to undergo, gambling for some semblance of normality as an outcome.

“Why wouldn't you want to be connected? Unless you have something to hide?”

As he spoke, West sat up carefully, letting his body become accustomed to being upright once more without continual feedback. It was odd, the sensation of being separate from everything, not being able to use Inscape to judge distances or angles, without the continual assessment it provided of materials and people alike, reliant only on his senses for the first time in longer than West could remember. Gordon didn't move, just sat back in the chair and watched him as he struggled with the restraints on his ankles; he was usually more deft than this, more coordinated in every way.

“Spoken like a true Inscape operative.” Gordon's tone was so derisory, West could hear the sneer and didn't bother to look for it. “My corporation, right or wrong. Oddly enough, I don't much like being told what to think and I doubt you would either, if you gave it much thought.”

West swung his feet round, sitting on the edge of the bed. Could he trust his body not to betray him once more? If he tried to stand, would his feet bear his weight or would he collapse in an ungainly heap, embarrassing himself in front of this man who should rightfully fear him and everything he stood for? Hadn't he come to carry out sentence on Gordon, after all, on the orders of his superiors?

“Go ahead, Mr. West.” Gordon's tone had cooled now, seemingly taking the temperature in the room down by a dozen degrees. “Isn't it time you did what you came for?”

It ought to be. He'd already ignored one golden opportunity, deviating from his mission's prime objective for no apparent reason. He was unsettled in more ways than one, out of his comfort zone in a way that he could barely remember, barely understand.

“I don't...” West felt his grip tighten on the edge of the gurney, fingers digging into the tough canvas as he tried to decide what to do. It was simple, it ought to be simple. Kill and leave. Complete the mission and never look back. Follow orders like a good soldier, no matter what.

Except he wasn't really all that sure he was a good soldier, not if the way thoughts churned through his head was anything to go by. What had Gordon said, that the feed stopped him from thinking for himself? West wasn't sure if that was really true, but he also wasn't completely convinced it was a lie.

“Should I make it easier for you?” Gordon continued, standing up. They were at eye level to one another, the height of the gurney compensating for any difference between them. “Though I don't see why I should – surely a professional killer ought to earn his keep and expend some effort doing so?”

West didn't move. Even as Gordon leaned into his personal space once more, crowding him, closer than any living soul had been since the implant, even for a long time before that. They were eye to eye for the longest of moments, the warmth of Gordon's body a palpable sensation; it would have been the simplest of things to raise his hands, let go of the gurney and snap the neck of the man who stood before him, utterly snuffing out the life he saw in those clever dark eyes.

He couldn't do it.

After what seemed an eternity, Gordon stepped back without another word then turned and walked out of the room. West's gaze dropped, focused now on nothing he could be certain of, whether it was the dark green canvas of the gurney, the gray concrete floor, or the ongoing silence inside his own mind.

It had been a deal with the devil, West had known that for a fact even as he'd given his consent to Inscape, but what choice had he really had? The war had been going on so long that few people outside of the military remembered its cause, the casualty list growing longer day by day, so little public interest in it now that he couldn't recall the last time it had made the headlines.

The corporations were in control, after all, feeding the public the messages they wanted them to hear, a heady cocktail of celebrity gossip and drama, spiced with a little mundane human interest to lighten the load. The destruction of young lives for no apparent reason, a long way from home in a war nobody really seemed interested in any more, was never going to make the schedule.

West had been one of those casualties, heading towards the end of his second tour of duty when a run of bad luck found him in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn't like thinking about it, tried even now not to recall just what it had felt like, but for a while he'd had nothing much else to do, if you didn’t count staring at the ceiling above his hospital bed. And then the Inscape rep had arrived, promising him something as close to normality as he was ever likely to get – the only cost, allegiance to the corporation for the rest of West's life. At least he would have a life, which wasn't likely to be the case if he didn't sign on the dotted line.

He would have done anything and he knew it for a fact. Sold his soul for real, if it had only meant getting out of that hospital bed. West wasn't proud of that – how could he be? - but he was also certain he wasn't alone in his choice, a certainty that had been bolstered every time he went into Inscape's lavishly furnished headquarters building. He'd seen the same thing on other faces whenever he was there, the look West saw every morning when he looked in the mirror.

What real options had he had, other than going along with what Inscape were offering? His body was messed up enough to throw a spanner in the works of any other plan he might have made for a post-military life, West knew that without being told the details by medics who wouldn't meet his eye when he'd first asked them for a rundown of what his injuries were. Only drastic measures would get him up and about, let alone functioning beyond anything but the most basic requirements of civilian life.

As for the head injury he'd suffered, West couldn't even begin to comprehend what that meant, what consequences that would have for any future he might once have imagined. He was the ideal candidate for Inscape's clinical trials, one way or another – West had always prided himself on his commitment to a cause, even if his cause was getting back as much of his former life as he could possibly manage, and he would take everything that was offered to him if it might help him reach that goal.

Gordon hadn't come back, had left him alone for who knew how long – there was another downside to his lack of connection with the data stream, the inability to know for certain how long he'd been in captivity as a whole, let alone how long it had been since he'd been left alone – and West had finally taken the chance and tried to stand unaided. As unaided as it was possible to be when you had one hand braced on the back of the chair Gordon had occupied and the other in a death grip on the edge of the gurney, knuckles whitening with the strain of holding him upright.

When his legs had stopped shaking, West surveyed the room, or what he could see of it from where he stood. There was no sign of cameras, which seemed a little odd for an interrogation suite; was it just his own experience of the Inscape link, that sense of being involved in everything all the time, which led him to expect to be monitored here? He couldn't be sure. It seemed unlikely Dr Gordon would leave him unwatched, unrestrained in a room full of things he could cannibalize for use as weapons, things with which he could make his escape, leaving carnage and dead bodies in his wake.

Maybe he trusts you? That possibility was an unfamiliar voice intruding on West's train of thought, the nagging call of his conscience perhaps, long-buried beneath the constant chatter of the Inscape feed? Beneath other, more subtle ways of controlling West's thoughts and emotions, if Gordon was right?

“He's a criminal.”

The words seemed even less convincing now than they might have before, despite being spoken out loud with as much conviction as West could muster. Gordon hadn't acted like a guilty man, not even like a man under sentence of death from a corporation he obviously didn't respect.

Letting go of the back of the chair, West took an uncertain step to the side, the world appearing to lurch around him as he held his breath and tried to stay upright. After a moment he realized his success, the world orienting itself once more till up was up, down was down, and both appeared likely to stay that way. It took a little more effort to loosen his grip from the edge of the gurney, even longer for the circulation to return to his fingers, even as he massaged them with the other hand.

A couple of steps and West was at the door.

Like everything else in the room, it was well-used, clean but clearly old, a sense of patchwork hanging over the whole – put together in haste, that seemed to be the case, but utilitarian despite all of that. He reached out to the handle, expecting nothing, surprised beyond measure when it moved beneath his hand, the door swinging open in mute invitation.

The corridor outside was gray and featureless, uniform concrete as far as he could see, both ends dissolving into darkness – no doors, no signs, no indication where Gordon had gone.

Right or left? Just the choice, the need to make it without any data to support the decision, was enough to make West hesitate, one hand still on the door as it stood half-open behind him. Right or left?

West closed his eyes, wishing once more for the familiar sub-audible chatter of the feed, for the assistance it would give him, a lead he could follow, sometimes had to follow whether he liked it or not. He didn't like the odds of this scenario, the possibility of being wrong as much as being right, with no clues to lead him to the correct choice. Nothing. No-one to make a choice but himself, for the first time since longer than he could recall.

He opened his eyes once more, letting the door finally close behind him.

Right or left? He didn't have to choose either, of course. He could go back to the room where he'd first woken, go back to the gurney itself if he wanted, curl up and wait for Gordon to return. Roll over and play dead like a well-trained little dog, for all the good that would do him. West shook his head, wanting to shake that thought right out of his mind – that wasn't the kind of man he was, the kind of soldier he'd been, never had been even long before Inscape had put him back together again in a shape he didn't always completely recognize. A shape that might not even be James West at all.

“He's a criminal.”

Again the words didn't sound convincing, but at least they helped distract sufficiently for West to finally make up his mind. Left it was, then. Hoping he looked more certain of his decision than he felt, West headed off down the corridor, the fingertips of one hand lightly trailing on the wall as it curved round, as he walked through each small pool of light provided by yellowing bulbs that seemed to sway above him despite lack of any perceptible breeze to make them move.

After a short distance there were doors, similar to the one he'd just closed, set on both sides and all locked. He should have brought something with him, ransacked the makeshift interrogation room after all, for something – his hands felt empty without a weapon and he wondered what was behind all these doors. More prisoners? Had he been the first sent to infiltrate where Gordon was hiding, or just the latest in a long line of failures, all waking to find themselves restrained, their futures equally uncertain? All equally confused, or was he alone in that?

The next door he saw was standing a little ajar, a mute invitation he chose to accept. Not much, just a couple of inches, a slant of light falling across the concrete floor and sounds of movement from within, subtle but noticeable for all that. Even for West, his artificial senses off-line but those his life as a soldier had given him more than capable of compensation.

West flattened himself against the wall, edging towards the open doorway. From inside he heard the chime of a timer, then the click of something opening followed by the smell of heavily spiced food. His stomach responded before he could even think about the possibility, loud enough that surely whoever was inside the room must have heard it.

After a minute or so, when nobody had come to look, West made a decision and pushed the door open anyway, stepping through the doorway prepared for just about anything. Anything, it appeared, except Dr Gordon, sitting at a table that occupied most of the space in the room, calmly dishing out what appeared to be curry onto a second plate, the first plate sitting half-eaten in front of himself.

“I was wondering when you'd come in,” Gordon said, putting down the plate he held and sliding it across the table. “Help yourself to rice.” He picked up his fork from where it lay across the contents of his own plate. “It's vegetarian, in case you're wondering. Lentils. Not much chance of meat out here, unless you're happy to put up with GM and who knows what you're eating then..”

The words had the sound of a well-worn argument and for a moment West wondered just who Gordon had discussed the matter with, since he'd seen nobody but the two of them since he'd got here.

Despite himself, West glanced down at the plate, his stomach rumbling once more. Glancing up, he was certain he saw a smile flicker across Gordon's face but it was gone in an instant, camouflaged as well by a mouthful of food.

“Is this a new form of interrogation, Dr Gordon?” West asked, still standing.

He wasn't sure when he'd last eaten – that was another thing the data-feed usually controlled and monitored for him so he could get on with being the perfect soldier – but the way his stomach was growling told West it had been a while. He could eat, hoping that the food wasn't laced with some kind of truth serum, or continue to starve and let himself become weaker till he was unable to resist an interrogation when it did come. Spurious logic, but he was prepared to trust it somewhat.

“Just food, Mr West,” Gordon replied, between mouthfuls. “Nothing more.” He'd finished what was his on his plate and was taking a second helping as he spoke. “Your choice. Eat or starve, and if you choose to starve then I won't force-feed you, that's a promise.”

Gordon turned his attention back to his meal with those words, seeming to dismiss the sheer fact of West even being in the room as he picked up a battered looking book and thumbed it open with one hand even as he continued to wield his fork with the other.

West hesitated, then pulled out the other chair, eyes firmly on his captor even as he reached for the plate Gordon had filled, then pulled the serving dish full of rice toward where he sat. He might be Gordon's prisoner, for now, but that didn't mean he'd forgotten that the first duty of a prisoner was to escape, and for that he needed to be on the top of his game. Or at least as much as he could be without the data-feed, and to start with, that meant food when it was available.

Even as his stomach reacted again to the smell of the curried lentils, traitorous in the extreme, West reminded himself this wasn't giving in, it was survival, pure and simple.

Uncertain when his last meal had been, without the feed to tell him just how much time had elapsed since then, West had forced himself to eat much slower than he really wanted, making himself savor each mouthful rather than bolting the food as fast as humanly possible. While Gordon gave every appearance of being engrossed in his book, West was certain he was still the subject of scrutiny, and the thought of Gordon's gaze upon him made his skin twitch. Ironic, for a man who'd spent the entirety of the past five years under constant surveillance because of his link to Inscape, that one man's interest in him should be sufficient to unsettle him this way.

After the second plateful of food, when he was certain he could eat no more – for now, at least – West pushed his plate away and leaned back in his seat.

Gordon was turning the pages of his book slowly, the fork in his hand suspended partway between plate and mouth, giving the impression of a man completely focused on what he read.

Time for West to turn the tables, if he could.

His gaze was blatant, not bothering to hide his interest in the man who sat across from him – the man West had come here to kill. He wasn't certain what he had been expecting, but it was certainly not this odd combination of medical attention and gastronomy. The best a captured agent could expect was interrogation, with varying amounts of pain depending on the skill of the interrogator, the worst of course death. Instead he'd been allowed free access to this man and his surroundings, not to mention, ample chances to put his years of training to effect, training that West seemed to be very good at ignoring where Dr Artemus Gordon was concerned.

“What do you want from me?” West asked, finally, when the silence between them – punctuated only by the occasional rustling of pages turning and a distant dripping sound he couldn't quite locate – had grown too much to bear. “You know what my mission is, so why am I still alive?”

It took a moment for Gordon to respond, as if he'd forgotten that he wasn't alone. That seemed unlikely, the act of a man taking the absentminded professor persona a little too far for it to be believable.

“Your help,” Gordon said, “of course.” He'd put down the fork, aligning it carefully on the plate, then closed the book, a scrap of paper to mark his place, but was still holding it in his hand. “If you'd really wanted to kill me, I expect I'd be dead by now.”

The words were matter of fact, spoken with such a casual air, but very much true. West had considered and turned down a dozen scenarios ending in Gordon's death, messy or otherwise, even just since he'd been in this particular room. When he thought about it, West knew something had changed since he'd been here. The compulsion to follow the orders he'd been given, the familiar subtle yet continued pressure to which he'd become so accustomed since signing up for Inscape, that was what was missing from this scenario. He could see it now, even if the last thing he wanted was to admit Gordon was right.

“Which all makes you perfect,” Gordon continued. “I need to be able to trust you implicitly, in order for my plan to work.”

Either the food was drugged or Gordon was talking nonsense – none of this made any kind of sense.

“Plan?” West echoed, his mind striking out like a drowning man and grasping at anything which might give the support he required. “What plan?”

Gordon smiled, the expression changing his face utterly. West was certain he felt his face heat as he stared at the other man, his body reacting in a way it hadn't done in years to another man's behavior – it seemed the constant input from Inscape had influenced him in more ways than one, dampening his libido dramatically if the strength of this unexpected reaction to Gordon was anything to go by. That or the food he'd just eaten really was drugged, as he'd originally suspected.

“My plan to overturn Inscape, once and for all.”

Again the matter of fact tone, despite how crazy the words were, how ludicrous the very idea. How could one man stand against a massive corporation like Inscape, let alone plan its demise?

“Now I know you're crazy,” West replied, the words leaving his mouth before he could censor them.

If anything they made Gordon's smile widen, for some reason he couldn't quite figure out. Maybe Gordon should have been the one strapped down on a gurney, if he thought he really had any chance of doing what he said he planned to do?

“It's been said before.” Gordon's eyes dropped to the book he was holding, his thumb rubbing idly over the worn spine while he spoke. “I don't suppose you ever met Inscape's esteemed founder and CEO?”

West shook his head, eyes drawn against his will to the movement of Gordon's thumb, transfixed by it. He'd been a 'guest' of Inscape for months, but meet someone so high up in the corporation, let alone the reclusive genius called Loveless? There had been little chance of that when he'd been strapped to a bed in the medical facility, recovering from the operation that put his implant in place.

He'd been glad of the medication they'd given him, the hours he'd spent asleep rather than wondering whether the procedure had worked, whether he'd have some semblance of a normal life, even if that life was apparently bought at the price of slavish obedience to the corporation and its wishes. Was it worse to be oblivious and then discover you'd been tricked than to know all along you were doing things you might otherwise despise?

“Above my pay grade,” West said. His eyes flicked up to Gordon's face, only to realize he too was being watched now, assessed and found wanting maybe? He couldn't be sure of anything, not even the expression he thought he saw in Gordon's eyes, the interest there which had to be a figment of his recently sensation-free libido.

No-one had looked at him like that in a while, or had he just been programmed not to notice that kind of attention because it interfered with the things Inscape wanted from him?

“I just go where I'm told...”

And kill people. That was the unspoken truth between them, the uncompleted conclusion of that particular thought. After all, he'd come here to kill the man sitting opposite him, they both knew it, even if West had turned down a dozen, a hundred opportunities since he'd regained consciousness.

If he put his mind to it, West could make a list of the people he'd killed for the corporation; for the first time he was left wondering if all of them had been deserving of the fate they'd found at his hands. If any of them had, when before West had never given a thought to right or wrong, trusting in the orders Inscape had given him.

“A high price, Mr West.”

West forced himself to meet Gordon's gaze, the smallest of wars underway between them, wanting to see which of them would break first and look away. He wasn't sure how he felt about the things he'd done for the corporation, it wasn't that simple, never had been.

That would have made his life easier, if when they'd opened up his head for the implant they'd taken away his conscience somehow, letting him fail to give a damn about anything or anyone else than doing as he was bid. Apparently Inscape's technology wasn't quite as good as they might wish it to be; his conscience was still there, even if it had been on vacation while the implant was active.

“My choice.” West almost didn't recognize his own voice. “I knew what I was signing up for.”

He hadn't expected to be the one to look away, but that was what happened. West's eyes dropped to his hands, finding them clenched together in his lap, though he couldn’t even remember putting down his fork. He heard the scrape of metal on concrete, then Gordon was sitting beside him; he'd moved from the seat opposite to the vacant chair next to where West sat, his silent presence there more comforting than it ought to be.

West woke, disoriented for a moment before he recognized where he was, the room Gordon had brought him after he'd pretty much had a meltdown over dinner.

The ceiling was the same gray, featureless concrete as all the rest in this complex, the blankets rough beneath his touch, but he was warm, dry and had a full stomach, which had been pretty much all that mattered most of the time since he'd become Inscape's pawn.

And he was alone, not needing the complexities of the feed to tell him that – Gordon hadn't taken advantage of his state of mind, if he'd read the flicker of interest in the other man's eyes correctly, just stood in the doorway for a moment before leaving quietly, as if all that mattered was checking West would stay where he was put.

Not that it felt like he had many options right now; just the idea of choice was somehow terrifying, too complex for his unenhanced mind to grasp.

It wasn't hard to wonder what exactly it was Gordon wanted from him – not what he hoped was the case, he couldn't be that lucky, surely? - but what his role was destined to be in whatever harebrained scheme he was cooking up against Inscape. Some kind of complicated revenge strategy, that much was clear, and something he needed someone from Inscape for in order for it to work. Someone like West, someone Gordon apparently believed he could trust, despite the reasons why he'd come here in the first place.

It seemed perfectly idiotic, when you came right down to it.

He was an assassin, pure and simple – bought and paid for by Inscape from the time he'd signed himself over to their care – so what was Gordon doing even thinking West could be trusted to turn on the corporation to which he owed so much of a debt. If he had any sense he'd get out of here before Gordon got him into something he couldn't get out of, some scheme that would all fall apart the moment he stepped out of this shielded facility and was open to the data stream once more.

If Gordon was right, if Inscape not only fed him the information he needed to do his job but also effectively led him around by the nose, then surely the very concept of Gordon putting his trust in West outside of this environment was the most dangerous thing he could possibly do? Once outside of this facility, away from the jamming system Gordon had created, West would be open to the data stream again, back under the control of Inscape once more.

The scariest part of it all was that he apparently wanted Gordon to be able to trust him, that the thought of turning on him made West's stomach roil in a way he couldn't recall since long before he'd been a soldier on his first tour of duty. He hadn't been that frightened then, maybe because he hadn't known what he was getting himself into – ignorance was not always bliss, he knew that now.

“You know this won't work,” West said, pushing open the door to the room where Gordon was sitting, the same room they'd eaten in the previous night. This time around he was apparently steadily working his way through a carafe of coffee, the detritus of breakfast covering the plate in front of him, the book from last night lying abandoned on the table at its side. “This plan of yours, it doesn’t have a chance.”

Gordon didn't respond, just drank another mouthful of coffee and looked up at West as if those were the most important things he could be spending his time on, rather than dreaming up half-baked plans that would probably end up with both of them dead.

“I won't do it,” West continued, when the silence had dragged on a little too long for his comfort.

The idea of getting Gordon killed, ironic since he was the man West had come to execute, didn't sit well with him and he didn't want to hear from Gordon how whatever he had planned was the only way.

Even if it was, even if Gordon was right and Inscape was up to all sorts of things he didn't want to contemplate any time soon; things that only began with controlling West and people like him.. “And you need my help.”

You need me. The words West had spoken transformed themselves, rattling around inside his head as if it was a vacant space in need of filling, as if he needed something in the absence of the data feed, something to keep himself from going crazier than he already was. Than Gordon already was.

“It has to be done,” Gordon said, finally, “with or without your help.” He drank a little more coffee, then frowned down at the cup he held as if he had no idea where it had come from. “With would be significantly easier, but I promise you, I've given it much thought and can see no other way to get the thing done.”

West didn't sit down opposite Gordon this time, like he had the night before; instead he found himself taking the chair next to him, as if sheer proximity to the other man would be enough to break this plan apart. As if good sense was somehow contagious and if he just kept on pushing at the craziness it would dissipate beneath his hands. Which, of course, was just as crazy as whatever idea Gordon had of overthrowing one of the major corporations with only the help of a former assassin turned whatever-he-was-now.

“And nothing I can say is going to change your mind, is that it?”

He couldn't tell what Gordon was thinking, not a flicker of whatever was going on behind those eyes – West cursed the lack of his data feed more than ever, he'd have given anything for a pulse read right now, some kind of tell that would let him know if there was any chance of persuading Gordon to change his mind. Even if he already knew how futile that hope was, how unlikely it seemed that this man ever did anything by halves, no matter how crazy the idea might appear to anyone else.

“Then I don't have a choice after all.” West knew how he sounded – no enthusiasm for Gordon's crazy plan, how could there be when there was a strong chance of both of them ending up dead, and for what? “Just tell me what you need me to do.”

He couldn't look at Gordon as he spoke, not wanting to see triumph of any kind on his face. He'd probably just signed both their death warrants, so how could West be happy about that? Not that he was certain he had anything much to live for, even more so once the Inscape folks figured out how he'd messed up this assignment more comprehensively than anyone could have thought possible.

Kill the target? No, he'd changed sides instead and was planning to help him overthrow the corporation to which West owed his normality, such as it was, and possibly his sanity as well. Even if that corporation was even much less on the moral high ground than he could have thought possible before the last couple of days, what with the underhanded mind control and all?

“I know this is hard,” Gordon said. “Thank you.”

West was suddenly more aware of his presence, of the heat of his body beside him, the closeness as Gordon leaned over into his space, one hand resting on top of West's hand where it gripped the edge of the table.

West's breath caught in his throat, the desire to pull his hand away from under Gordon's almost irresistible, the pressure of his palm sending a jolt of arousal straight through his body, making him respond despite himself, despite everything he'd been sure was over for him when he'd been wheeled into the hospital facility what seemed like another lifetime ago. He didn't move, couldn't move, not even to look at Gordon, to try and ascertain just what the hell Gordon thought he was doing, what he wanted now. Wasn't it enough he was turning against his employers, but now Gordon wanted his soul as well?

“I don't...” West wasn't sure how that sentence was going to finish and it dwindled away into nothingness. “You can't...”

He knew what he looked like – he'd seen it in the expressions the hospital staff had tried to hide when he'd first been admitted. Inscape had been no better, though he'd almost given up caring what anyone else thought by then. There was no point, when no-one would ever want him in that way, even if the corporation fulfilled its promise and gave him back a meaningful life.

The idea struck him then – was Gordon one of them, the people he'd never seen but to whom he owed such a massive debt? Had Gordon seen him at his worst already, so low that nothing else he could do now could ever matter, even if it all went wrong?

Gordon leaned back, his hand lifting from where it had laid, the loss of that contact as startling in its own way as the jamming system he employed had been on West's implant. Before he could consider the consequences of his actions, West had moved, turning quickly from where he sat till he effectively pinned Gordon into his seat, thighs straddling the other man's legs, breath hot on Gordon's face as he leaned closer, then closer still.

Gordon didn't move, apparently transfixed by West's actions, mouth dropping open slightly as West leaned over him, hands gripping the arms of the chair to support his weight as he kissed Gordon avidly, a rough press of lips that seemed to go on forever.

He could feel Gordon respond, the space between his action and Gordon's reaction just a matter of a heartbeat, his hands coming up to grip West's shoulders. Not pushing him away, not pulling him closer, just holding him in place, cooperation in whatever-the-hell this was. Not that West was planning to go anywhere any time soon, not with the hot press of Gordon's body against him, the even hotter press of his arousal evident in the slightest of movements West made.

“This is crazy,” West said, pulling back once he'd regained some kind of sanity. He wasn't oblivious to how Gordon moved forward in his seat, mouth following West's even as he disengaged, one hand moving up for fingers to tangle themselves in West's hair, stopping him from moving further away. “Dumbest idea I ever had.”

“It is if you stop now,” Gordon replied, tightening his grip and pulling West back to his previous position, kissing him with abandon now as if nothing else mattered, not the crazy scheme they were about to launch, nothing outside of this room and this moment.

The room next door had a bed, a proper bed and not just the cot that West had slept on – he would have found this a matter for complaint, if it wasn't for the press of Gordon's body against his, the rough callouses of Gordon's hand wrapped around his erection as the two of them found themselves in a much more intimate situation than West could have expected when he first woke in this place.

He'd expected danger, that much was a normal scenario for an Inscape operative, but he hadn't expected this, whatever this was. Hadn't remembered he could even want it either.

Gordon was draped across him now, quiet breaths against West's shoulder indicating that he slept, one hand still resting in a proprietary manner on West's hipbone. In his turn, West's arm was around Gordon's shoulders, fingers splayed across his skin, moving gently with every breath he took.

West wasn't certain if Gordon was right, if Inscape chose to tamper with its operative's libidos, but the evidence was certainly stacking up on his side of the argument – he hadn't ever done much with his fellow soldiers, nothing he couldn't categorize as 'fooling around', but then he hadn't ever done much with the ladies either. When West had been in the military proper, he'd been too concerned about what he might leave behind to form attachments that might not last, contenting himself with whatever casual acquaintances might wish to share his bed. That was how he'd lived, like it or not, and West wasn't sure when that had ceased to be the case.

Once Inscape were on the scene, of course, it had all been different. At first he'd been self-conscious, aware of the aftermath of his operation, scars upon scars, then he just hadn't been interested the same way as before – at the time West had put it down to what he'd experienced, never thinking that there might be something more sinister at work. It was something he'd thought he'd get around to in time, but that time never came.

Now, away from the constant data stream that Inscape provided, suddenly West found his libido back and in overdrive. He barely knew the man he'd just bedded, couldn't be certain he could trust him the way he wanted to be trusted, but none of that had stopped him from taking Gordon to his bed. Or being taken to Gordon's bed, whichever was the case. Because it was pretty clear that this was Gordon's own quarters he was now in, sparsely furnished as they were. If nothing else the pile of scientific journals on the nightstand testified to that – if West had been asked to describe what the lair of a wanted criminal, one sentenced to death by Inscape, might look like, this spartan existence wasn't it.

No diabolical devices on display, no detailed plans for the scheme he was hatching against Inscape, a scheme West seemed to have signed up for, despite his worries about the likelihood of its success. Nothing but the paraphernalia of a scientific life, the few things Gordon had accumulated around himself since he'd gone into exile a hunted man.

And Gordon himself?

He was clever, that much West had always known from the moment he was given this mission, that view reinforced a thousandfold the moment he'd seen Gordon with his own eyes. He just hadn't been prepared for the reality of who Gordon was, the unexpected gestures of kindness that had disarmed West more surely than anything else could possibly have done.

He hadn't been prepared for Gordon to trust him at all, when he shouldn't have done anything of the sort, let alone try and co-opt him into some form of partnership, allies in a common cause against a corporation that could crush them both without a second thought. He certainly hadn't been prepared to be attracted to Gordon in any way.

If they'd met before Inscape... West quashed that thought ruthlessly, even as it formed. He couldn't know what might have happened, if Gordon would even have had the slightest of interest in a war-weary soldier whose life seemed to have ended on the battlefield, a man who had always been certain he'd left the best of himself behind when the evac had finally come.

This was better in so many ways. Gordon knew who he was now, knew why he'd come here, yet still accepted and trusted him, more than he ought. He hadn't been repulsed by West's scars, the way that the Inscape medical staff had pretty much put him back together from scratch, instead tracing the path of his scars with a curious finger as he'd drowsed, perfectly relaxed despite the fact that West could have ended his life within a moment.

The only thing West knew for certain at this moment was this - his loyalty to Inscape was wearing thinner and thinner by the moment, replacing itself with a desire to do whatever Gordon wanted, no matter the cost.

“Get some sleep,” Gordon muttered, the words breathed against West's skin.

He shifted a little turning his head to try and make eye contact, rolling onto his side as West's hand slipped across him, both slowing his progress and allowing him to move, arm still draped across Gordon's back.

“I mean it, West, you'll need to be ready for us to leave.”

“I'm ready,” West said, less certain than he knew he sounded. “I don't need a keeper.” If there was anything he was sure of, it was that he didn't ever want Gordon to see him as a liability.

Gordon laughed, a little more awake now, mouth curved into the smallest of smiles.

“Inscape would beg to differ,” he replied. “Or they will, once I'm done with them.”

“Once we're done with them,” West corrected him, watching Gordon's smile grow in response to the words.

He should have expected it, of course. Outside the range of Gordon's jamming system, the feed came flooding back into West's head with the power of a blow and he would have gone to his knees if Gordon hadn't grabbed his arm just in time. He'd staggered, regardless of the support, the flood of information and software updates just too much for him to handle even though the implant meant his brain ought to be able to cope with so much data.

“Deep breaths,” Gordon's voice said, somewhere from outside the fuzz of sensory overload, and he tried to comply. The only other link to reality, to unaugmented life, was the feel of the grip Gordon had on his arm and West tried to concentrate on both of those, to use them as an anchor to hold onto a sanity he felt slipping away with every passing moment. “West? You still in there?”

“I think so,” West replied, although he was anything but as certain as he wanted to sound.

There was an edge to Gordon's voice he didn't like, a panic lurking at the back of the calmly-spoken words, that warmed West as surely as the feel of Gordon's hand still holding on.

“It's all too much.” West didn't want to elaborate – one of them panicking was enough to contend with right now.

“Okay.”

Gordon didn't sound convinced and West wasn't sure he could blame him. He wasn't certain himself that this would pass, that Inscape would let it pass, that they wouldn't instantly know everything the two of them had planned, his betrayal of the corporation that had put his life back together and for what? The words of a man he'd met only hours before?

If they knew, he realized, that would be the end of it. His eyes still resolutely closed, West tried to straighten his back and to look as if he wasn't a man whose mind was trying to tear itself to pieces and reassemble itself to accommodate all the new things the corporation needed it to know. He was waiting on the lightning strike, the blow from the heavens that would drive him to his knees as his treachery was uncovered once and for all.

It didn't come.

After a few more long minutes passed the buzz of new data began to slow to a trickle. When he was certain he wouldn't either throw up or pass out, or possibly both, West let his eyes open a crack, wanting to be sure that he was still in control, that some kind of crazy override hadn't been put in place. That Inscape's grip on his mind wasn't absolute, that he could still choose to do other than they might want...

The morning sun still looked the same, watery through the low cloud, and Gordon's face – the next place he looked- just as worried as might have been expected.

“West?”

His grip on West's arm didn't move in the slightest but he seemed to be readying himself to let go, to run for it if necessary – Gordon had to know how futile a gesture that would have been, the chances of escape so minimal – but still he was there, right beside West till he knew the worst. There was something about that which resonated strangely, a sense of camaraderie West hadn't expected to see again outside of uniform, and something more, something deeper that warmed him to the core.

“Still here.” Still in charge, that was the thing he didn't say, but there was no need. If the worst had happened, if Inscape had taken him over, they wouldn't be having any kind of conversation right now.

Gordon's face cracked into a smile and his grip tightened for a moment, the briefest of squeezes, before he let go. It seemed strange, the sudden absence of pressure and warmth – the software inside West's brain calculated the temperature drop, the reduction in skin tension – the part of him that remained human oddly registering the movement as loss even though Gordon was still standing right beside him.

“Time for these,” Gordon said, pulling out a set of electronic shackles. They weren't West's – he was an assassin, not a retrieval specialist, there was no need for restraints in his line of work – somehow he was reluctant to even touch them. “Come on,” Gordon continued, pressing one end to his wrist and watching how it coiled around, tightening just enough to be secure but not cause pressure on the skin. “I can't close the other one properly if I'm holding it.”

The synthetic material of the restraints was slick under West's fingers It was cool even where it already wrapped around Gordon's wrist, taking on no warmth from his body, or from West's hands where he held the remainder of it, letting Gordon press his other wrist to it and watching it move in an unnerving way, in mimicry of the life it now surrounded.

“Are you sure...” West began, uncertain of what he was asking. He hadn't let go of Gordon's hands, his fingers still loosely wrapped around the material of the restraints, synthetic and skin both under his touch, and Gordon hadn't pulled away.

“I trust you,” Gordon said quietly, the words enough in themselves to make West look up from his study of their hands to the other man's face, wanting to see the veracity behind them, to be sure Gordon understood the risks he was taking. Not just in doing this, the crazy idea of breaking into Inscape, but in trusting a man who had a wealth of Inscape technology inside his head. “Sounds crazy, I know.”

“It does,” West agreed. “We should get moving.”

He didn't want to let go, that much he knew without any degree of doubt, but they couldn't stand here indefinitely and the longer they waited the more chance there was of discovery. And he needed time to figure all of this out, to figure out the man who'd got him into all this, the man whose restraint-wrapped wrists he had now reluctantly let go, the man he'd been sent to kill.

Report.

Once back on-grid, West had expected the demand for a status update and when it came, he'd already figured out what to say. Not the truth, of course, another sign that he was in charge and not the technology inside his head – for now, at least, if Gordon was right about the purpose of most of it – and he wanted it to stay that way. His lies had to be plausible ones, nothing that would make the corporation suspicious, that would make some kind of override switch get thrown, the corporation taking control of West, body and soul.

Target apprehended - vital info for corp. Extraction requested.

A long silence. He couldn't be certain how his deviation from mission parameters would be received – how much leeway did he really have, anyway? - it was a gamble with both their lives. Inscape wouldn't kill him, he was much too valuable an asset for that, but they had the power to control everything he did and effectively destroy who he was. Gordon, he was certain, they'd kill without hesitation if the lie wasn't close enough to the truth to be believable.

Return to base approved.

A flurry of coordinates for an extraction point followed, nothing more, and he was still in control. No reprimand, no reminder of his mission objective, just four simple words that could be either a death sentence for them both or a chance for Gordon's crazy scheme to be put into play after all.

“West?”

He hadn't been that easy to read, had he? West was certain there'd been nothing in his expression, no telltale that would let Gordon know he'd been in communication with headquarters in addition to the flurry of data he would know about, the earlier influx of information that had literally staggered him.

“Sitrep.”

“Did they buy it?”

Not a flicker of doubt in Gordon's tone or in the expression on his face, trusting West was still on his side when he had every opportunity not to be and Gordon would never know till it was far too late for both of them.

West's hand tightened on the strap between the restraints – to the observing world, to Inscape's satellites, it would look as though Gordon was his prisoner, that he was dragging him back to face justice but in reality he felt as though this was all that anchored him to reality, a connection to Gordon that didn't raise questions.

“I hope so,” West replied. An honest answer, as Gordon deserved.

The extraction had been textbook precise, no questions asked about the deviation in plan by the men who picked them up – he'd pulled Gordon into the transport by the restraints, positioning him into a corner so he was shielded from the other Inscape employees. It was a typical flight, no smalltalk, just silence and the drone of the engines as they headed toward corporation headquarters.

He could see Gordon's face from the corner of his eye, feel the warmth of his body pressed up against him and also what seemed like the slightest of tremors from the other man's body. Gordon looked nervous, which was only natural, even when he caught West looking at him – at least he didn't react in any positive way, cognizant of what that kind of response might mean for both of them. West looked away, focusing on the passing scenery while wondering just what kind of reception they would both receive at Inscape when they arrived.

It proved to be an anti-climax, the transport crew throwing open the doors and letting him step out, Gordon pulled along behind him – no interference, no phalanx of armed guards waiting for them to emerge, just a long well-lit corridor heading out from the transport landing bay.

He didn't look round, didn't check to see if they were being watched – that much was certain, constant surveillance was a way of life within Inscape itself – just headed in the general direction of the main body of headquarters, wondering how far the two of them could get before they were challenged in any way.

Surprisingly far, as it turned out, the first response to West and Gordon's movement through the building a sudden arrival of armed guards as they crossed an otherwise abandoned lobby.

“Hold it.” West had already stopped, one hand raised and the other pulling Gordon by the restraints till he was stood directly behind West, no viable target for any of the newcomers if the standing order for Gordon was still assassination. “Explain yourself.”

He could feel Gordon's breath on the back of his neck, his solid presence behind him a distraction West really didn't need. The protection he provided by standing between Gordon and the men who stood in front of them was an illusion, he knew that, knowing as well as they did the capability of the weapons they held. But it was a gesture that made him feel better about the whole situation, a little more in control, and at the moment that was all that counted.

“My prisoner has vital intel.”

At least Gordon had enough sense to keep quiet, to let West do the talking – he shared a language with these men, had probably served with some of them even if he couldn't remember it – this was the best chance of both of them making it out of this alive and they both knew it.

“Your prisoner,” the squad leader said, “is under a death sentence.”

“Change of mission parameters was authorized,” West continued. Gordon shifted a little behind him, not quite putting himself into the line of fire but leaning just a little closer to West's back – the movement puzzled him, till he felt Gordon's fingers wrapping around where his fist closed over the restraints. The warmth grounded him, reassuring West he wasn't alone here, for the first time in longer than he could remember. “I was ordered to return to base.”

The squad leader didn't reply – West studied his face, wondering if he'd seen the man before, shared a foxhole with him perhaps? His own link to Inscape was quiet, strangely so given his proximity to the servers, but he was certain that wasn't the case for the other men.

“We'll accompany you.” It wasn't a question, there was no uncertainty in the words and no room for negotiation. “Dr Loveless wants to see you. Both of you.”

“Sir?”

The doorway in which the squad leader stood had slid open, soundlessly, at their approach. West hadn't heard permission given to enter but clearly it had been given as the man turned, beckoning the rest of them to follow him.

The room itself was a laboratory, at least mostly. One side was clean and metallic, all stainless steel and polished glass – the other was more ornate, more luxurious. Long velvet drapes covered much of the walls, heavy furniture looking out of place yet oddly right at the same time.

“Ah, Dr Gordon”, a man's voice said. West couldn't help staring a little at the source of that voice – a small man in a velvet suit, its color perfectly matched to that of the drapes, a rich dark purple. “So nice of you to join us.”

“The pleasure is all yours, Loveless,” Gordon said dryly. “I see the place hasn't changed since I've been away.”

“Only for the better,” Loveless replied, crossing the space between them and then stopping as if he wanted to study Gordon, to figure out what made him tick. To take him apart piece by piece, if necessary, to enable that to happen.

The men who'd escorted them here were ranged round where West and Gordon stood, closer than West would like but he found himself unable to think of a reason why he might ask for them to move away.
West found himself tensing, though Loveless himself presented no real threat to someone with West's training, let alone the enhancements his own corporation had made. Loveless was the CEO of Inscape, after all, and ought to know better than anyone what his subjects were capable of.

“Take him,” Loveless said suddenly. “Don't interfere, West,” he continued, those quiet words enough to freeze West where he stood, the strap between Gordon's restraints pulled from his unresisting fingers as Gordon was bundled out of the room.

One of his captors had a hand wrapped firmly across Gordon's mouth, stifling any complaint he might make at this treatment, at their forcible separation, his eyes still turned towards West in mute entreaty even as Gordon was dragged out of the door.

“Where are they taking him?” West asked, uncertain why he had obeyed so readily but starting to have an inkling of why that might be when he remembered what Gordon had told him before. Except that it felt right to do what this man asked of him, even if West couldn't remember why he should.

“I need to talk to you, West. Man to man.” It was as if West hadn't spoken, Loveless ignored his question so completely. “About the lies Artemus Gordon has told you. About Inscape, about yourself.”

“Lies?”

Loveless had rocked back on his heels a little as he spoke, hands shoved deep into his pockets, the very picture of a man completely at ease rather than a man alone with someone who could probably tear him limb from limb without breaking into a sweat.

“What did Gordon tell you?” Loveless' voice was relentless, almost hypnotic. “That he was the victim in all this, that Inscape was warped somehow and only he could set it right?” He pulled one long-fingered hand out to gesture with it expansively. “That he had some kind of plan to change everything, to write some wrong that had been done to you and the other recipients of Inscape technology, because my evil plans had corrupted all the good that he had done?”

Put like that, it sounded so ridiculous. How had he ever fallen for it? Except he remembered waking up, certain he ought to be dead because how could anyone show him mercy when he was trained – programmed? - not to show it to someone else, regardless of the circumstance? Gordon had been kind to him, reassured him and he'd trusted the other man because of it.

“None of that happened,” Loveless insisted, as if he knew the way West's thoughts were running. He grabbed hold of one of West's sleeves, turning him to face the full-length mirror that hung between the drapes on one wall of the room. “The whole encounter between you and Gordon was in your mind, none of it was real. Artemus Gordon doesn't give a damn about anyone but himself and certainly not about you.”

They looked ridiculous, the two of them stood there so different and yet so alike – the mirror was distorted somehow, making Loveless look far taller than he was and making West look like every carnival freak show inhabitant there ever was rolled into one. All West could see was his scars, the parts of himself that Inscape had repaired and replaced, and still Loveless continued to talk, his voice low.

“He played on your weaknesses, West, weaknesses he programmed in to the very software in your brain, preparing you and those like you in case this day ever came and he needed an assistant, a way back into Inscape that would allow him to still keep his hands clean.” Loveless laughed then, an ironic cackle. “As if his hands were ever clean!”

It was too much to process, an overload not of data but of emotions, Loveless' account of his meeting with Gordon and his memories in head-on collision, till neither of them seemed completely real. He needed a chance to think, needed time and objectivity to process all of this, to make sense of two such conflicting accounts and figure out if there was any truth to either of them.

“Now do you understand, West, why I sent you to kill him?” Loveless asked. He'd walked away from the mirror now, leaving West alone in front of it, climbing onto a stool beside a workbench, as if the whole conversation were secondary to whatever work he was undertaking, a distraction from the everyday. “Gordon's too dangerous to live. I cannot allow him to roam the world with such power at his command!”

“What do you want me to do?” West asked, turning to where Loveless sat. The doctor's clever fingers were tinkering with something West didn't recognize, even as he thought about what West was asking, his head cocked to one side, eyes bright. “Should I complete my mission?” Loveless resembled a bird, West thought, deciding which worm to select.

“Why not?” Loveless replied. He dropped the device he was tinkering with, clearly uninterested in how it fell when it hit something else on the workbench then clattered to the floor unheeded. “Yes, West. I want you to kill Artemus Gordon.”

It was all so clear now. He'd been played for a fool, though he had no understanding of why – what had Gordon stood to gain from tricking him this way, from getting himself brought back into Inscape?Nothing good, West was certain of that, and hardly the altruistic actions Gordon had told him about, this desire to free the other recipients of Inscape technology from a captivity he had forced on them in the first place!

He didn't trust Loveless either, but that didn't matter at all. They were probably more alike than they cared to admit, Loveless and Gordon, both wanting to use him in their own ways. The ironic thing was, if Gordon had been honest with him in the first place he might have just left him alive, finding some excuse why he couldn't fulfill his mission without jeopardizing his own future the way he had.

At least now Loveless was giving him a way back into Inscape's favor, a way to repay them for all the things the corporation had given him, for giving West back his life, such as it was.

The door to the detention level slid open silently. West could feel the scrutiny of the guards, the ever-present security cameras whose feed he could tap into if he wanted, the weight of the firearm in his hand. This was the right thing to do, the only thing.

“Gordon?”

“Cell 3.”

West nodded his acknowledgment, then carried on walking. The other cells he passed were occupied too – a man with his head in his hands, a woman curled up into a fetal ball on a padded bench – but West had no interest in any of them. Gordon was all that mattered, Gordon and the successful completion of his mission.

Like the other cells, this one's front wall and door were transparent, iris recognition controls embedded in the wall on one side. His approach had been silent but somehow Gordon seemed to know he was there, looking up as West stopped before the door, the expression on his face mingled hope and concern.

He was a good actor, West had to give him that. Combined with whatever his software had done to West's cerebral cortex, Gordon had given a convincing performance of someone who gave a damn. If Loveless was right and he was an amoral bastard, then the performance was even more impressive, since Gordon could hardly be said to be playing to type.

Gordon half-rose from the padded bench on which he had been sitting, then saw the gun West was holding and froze in place for a moment before sitting down once more.

“This isn't a rescue, is it?”

Despite everything, Gordon's voice was still calm. West shook his head, still wondering exactly how Gordon had done it – how much had been him and how much the software? Would he have ever realized he'd been tricked or had Gordon planned to kill him when his help was no longer needed, once he'd played his part and got the other man safely into Inscape, letting the fox in the proverbial chicken coop for the final time?

“I trusted you,” West said, certain those words would be enough to tell Gordon he knew everything, that Loveless had told him enough to know he'd been tricked, that he now knew the truth. “But none of it was real.”

None of it, not even the desire that had led him to share Gordon's bed, the response to that desire he'd believed he'd seen in Gordon's eyes. All of it a lie, a self-serving one at that, in more ways than West could possibly have imagined.

“Is that what he told you?” Gordon hadn't moved, though it would have been futile if he had, there was nowhere to hide now. “That you imagined it all, that everything I told you, everything you felt, was a lie?” He leaned back, his head resting against the cell wall. “If I was so clever, so powerful, West, how come I'm the one in here?”

“You made me do what you wanted,” West replied. He didn't know why he'd leaned forward as Gordon had moved, why his free hand was now pressed against the wall by Gordon's cell, his face almost against the Plexiglas of the cell wall. “It was all in my mind, in the Inscape implants, I didn't have a choice.”

“So kill me,” Gordon replied, “if you're so certain I've tricked you into doing anything you didn't want to do. I'm dead anyway now Inscape have me back.”

The words were quiet, almost resigned – when he'd finished speaking, Gordon looked down as if done with the conversation, unmoving even as West continued to watch his face, wanting to see the truth but suddenly uncertain if he'd recognize it if he did. They couldn't both be telling the truth, but what did Gordon have to gain from continuing to lie to him?

He couldn't possibly expect West to rescue him from the mess he now found himself in, detained in the very heart of Inscape headquarters – that was the stuff of old-style movie plots, not real life, one man against a corporation always ended badly – so why not admit the truth now, agree that Loveless was right and West had been played for a fool?

West thought back to the conversation he'd had with Loveless, to the casual way Loveless had been able to speak and make West do things. With a few words he'd prevented him from acting, from stopping the guards taking Gordon, for one. He'd felt no such compulsion when he'd spoken with Gordon, never believing he was doing anything against his will – it might be an illusion, but if so, it was a powerful one, throwing everything Loveless had said into a different light.

He'd almost made the worst mistake of his life, believing Loveless not because he spoke the truth but because somehow the work Inscape had done to his mind and body had corrupted him, making him a willing puppet of a man who clearly had no compunction in using that power to get rid of his only rival.

“Damn it.”

Before he could change his mind, West acted. The locking mechanism of the cell recognized him, the door sliding open even as he turned to where the guards stood – men like himself, men who owed much to Inscape and gave it their loyalty as unthinkingly as West himself once had – shooting both of them without a second thought.

“Come on,” West said, turning back to where Gordon still sat, his eyes wide at this turn of events. “Before I change my mind.”

Before someone else has me believing the things I should never have believed in the first place, things that were contrary to everything which ought to be self-evident if he'd just taken the time to think them through instead of letting Loveless play on his own fears like the consummate schemer he clearly was.

He wondered for the briefest of moments how Gordon was feeling right now, going in the blink of an eye from a man on the verge of execution to the subject of as fantastic a rescue attempt as in any novel.

“Why?” Gordon stood, following West toward the door. “I don't understand.”

“Later,” West said, hoping he'd have the chance to explain, certain now that his choice was the right one, no matter what the consequences.

The building began to lock down, of course, running through a series of countermeasures designed to prevent just what the two of them were now trying to do, West's enhanced strength being put into play more than once to force a door that hadn't quite closed in time.

“Will this do?” West asked, as Gordon headed toward the nearby computer terminal, one eye still on the half-closed door that was all which stood between themselves and the security guards who would inevitably come, probably sooner than either of them might want.

“Perfect,” Gordon said, sitting down.

His attention was fully engaged in moments, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he tried to put his plan into place. All West could hope was that he'd been right, this time at least, that Gordon was someone to be trusted and not the Machiavellian schemer Loveless had portrayed him. Time alone would tell which was the case, though West wasn't quite sure what the aftermath of all this would be if Loveless were right – he didn't want to think about that right now, not when all he could hear was the click of keys from behind him and the sound of running feet in the corridor.

“How much longer?” he asked, pressing himself against the door so he could get a better look at the corridor itself.

They were surrounded, that much was clear and utterly unsurprising. West hadn't expected an answer from the man who sat behind him, still furiously working at breaking into Inscape's system, and he didn't get one.

And then he did. A datastream, sudden and unexpected as a lightning strike, sending him to his knees. Dimly, West could hear the gun he'd been holding clatter to the ground and was unsurprised when he followed it all the way down – his stomach churned too, turning a slow and lazy loop before settling once more as he blinked his way back to some kind of consciousness.

He was on his back, head in Gordon's lap, the fingers which had been so busy on the keyboard now at rest – one of Gordon's hands gripped West's shoulder, almost a little too tight for comfort, while the fingers of the other on his hair. The touch was so light, for a moment West thought he had imagined it, only his enhanced senses telling him it was reality after all.

“West?”

He tried to speak, feeling as if he was learning words all over again, his voice a croak when it finally emerged.

“What happened?” He saw Gordon's smile, a little smug, and realized the answer for himself. “You did it?”

“With your help.” The grip Gordon had on West's shoulder tightened a fraction as he tried to move, determined to see if he was really free after all. If Gordon's promise held the weight he hoped it did. “Take it easy.”

“The guards?” He had to get up, they were still in danger.

“Somewhat the worse for wear too,” Gordon replied. He'd retrieved West's gun and pressed it into his hand, clearly realizing his need to be able to defend the two of them, even if he was under the impression there was nothing now to defend from. “A lot of upgrade in one fell swoop.”

The intercom system crackled into life, the intrusion unexpected – West's fingers tightened on the grip of the gun he held, wondering just what he might be called upon to do now.

“Damn you, Gordon.” Loveless' disembodied voice was full of anger, the words clearly almost choked out, and it didn't take much for West to imagine the little man, so angry he could almost burst. “What did you do?”

Gordon didn't move, made no effort to get up and answer Loveless' demand; they had all the time in the world, or so it seemed, and that was just fine by West right now.