Chapter Text
Sage wakes to his familiar and false absence, signaled by the lack of grogginess and dry eyes. Omen’s treatment, or whatever one might call it, has worked. Not even her neck feels stiff from sleeping upright in the chair. The humiliation of asking Omen has been paid off.
A sliver of sun paints the sky magenta as it sinks below the horizon, condensation glittering on the glass walls. Sage eyes her scabbed-over palms.
Her watch indicates that she has just fifteen minutes to locate Skye before the flight. Her spine crackles as she leaves the sunroom, skin prickling from the cool air outside. She makes a beeline for Skye’s room.
The door is unlocked, naturally, because Skye has nothing to hide. The air inside is heavy with the scent of soil and jasmine, each wall covered with shelves of plants and UV lights. The only difference, if any, is the shimmering green hawk blinking at Sage.
“Oh, hello. Where is she?” Sage asks.
The hawk stares at her blankly.
She tries again. “Your creator?”
Creator. The word choice makes itself apparent immediately. Skye doesn’t bend these animals and plants to her will because they are simply extensions of her. Sage swallows upon seeing the chartreuse lilies floating in the sink. She didn’t know Skye grew them. They’re… far more righteous than Sage’s crystals. Created out of and for pure intentions to heal.
The bird squawks for Skye, presumably.
“Never mind,” Sage coughs. “Skye, I have to go. See you in two weeks!”
“-Sage, get back here!” she hears from the bathroom. To the bird, “The nerve of her, leaving like that.”
Sage rushes out and circles the dilapidated church until she finds a patch of puffy dandelions. She doesn’t bother checking if anyone’s in there. No one believes in the old religions anymore. Radiants are the living saints, and what could be better than a divinity you could see?
She crouches beside the weeds and peels off the scab. Her nose fills with iron. Underneath it, she still smells the petrichor rising into the cypresses, the wallowing of a weak will.
Sage steadies her breathing, letting the sharp sting dissolve as she extends her awareness beyond herself, reaching into the surroundings. From the din, threads of energy jump out at her: the flutter of a sparrow, the faint and many ants moving together with a singular purpose. Beneath it all, the thrum of dandelions rooted in the earth.
They are so fragile that she doesn’t have to snap them. All she has to do is take. She envies these dandelions. How easy it would be to pass unseen through this world. To be excusably weak.
The raw edges of her skin begin to close as if stitched by an invisible thread. The weeping redness fades, now a dewy sheen kissed by yesterday’s rain. The ants give the brown dandelions a wide berth.
Sage makes her way to the plane through drying puddles and stops short. It’s Brimstone and Reyna, stacking ammo side by side. An exceedingly normal sight, except that he hadn’t mentioned anything about Reyna coming.
Reyna doesn't even glance up. Her nails tap rhythmically against a magazine casing.
Brimstone finally looks up from his clipboard. “There you are.” Before she can apologize, he continues, “I figured if you’re going all the way to Russia to run exercises, we might as well prepare a few different compositions. Agenda’s already updated.”
She forces herself to glance down at the tablet. There it is. Site clear team: Sage, Omen, Reyna. He’s also added Phoenix and Killjoy. She suppresses a grimace. Maybe next he'd put them all on a detox cleanse. Then arrange bunk assignments to maximize team cohesion.
She’d been counting on being free of Reyna for the next few weeks. Been counting on breathing easier. At least Jett has gotten her wish in this twisted way. Brimstone probably would’ve assigned Phoenix either way.
“Hmm,” she says when the polite amount of time to wait before replying has almost passed, and carries the rest of the ammo over.
Sage passes Reyna wordlessly, steeling herself for Omen: Reyna is easy to tune out, but with him, Sage can’t shake off the feeling of debt, of the possibility of not prioritizing protocol when that’s why everything has gone wrong.
“See you in a few weeks," Brimstone tells her as the engines power on.
“Good luck holding down the fort," she replies.
“Jett and all,” the captain promises grimly.
Sage finds herself walking extra quickly through the hot engine air, not looking back as the door seals behind her. Everyone’s already gathered around the screen to cover the agenda. Viper drawls, “There’s our superstar.”
Sage’s eyes search the room until they find Omen. He was already looking at her. The idea of his anticipation is not unwelcome—the idea that he prefers her presence to her absence. Or perhaps he was, like the others, waiting for their last member.
“So, we’re clearing the site when we arrive at 0100 and running exercises at 0600 tomorrow morning with Alpha comp,” Viper says, pointing at two massive blocks on the agenda.
“It would be better to do maintenance first, and drills in the afternoon,” Killjoy objects.
Viper scowls. “If everyone sleeps on the plane, jet lag will keep us wide awake tomorrow.”
Groans go up from Phoenix and Killjoy, but no one argues. Sage licks her teeth reflexively and goes to brush the grime off.
When she returns, the poker table has already been populated with Chamber, Killjoy, and Phoenix, a neat stack of chips before each of them. Killjoy’s poker face is steely calm.
“German resting face,” Chamber mutters.
Nothing’s been played yet, so they let her take a seat and join. Viper pops in to watch, sitting behind Sage. Phoenix dramatically deals the cards and declares the game “World War I,” especially when Killjoy begins losing after a series of unfortunate hands.
“China wasn’t really fighting in World War I,” Killjoy objects, looking at Sage as she folds on another weak hand.
“Canada was,” Viper corrects.
“What!” Phoenix gasps mid-shuffle. “You’re Canadian?”
“I’ve lived there since I was six.” Sage lays down a three-of-a-kind.
“Twenty years?” Chamber muses.
“Don’t flatter her. She’s older than that.” The voice comes from behind them. Reyna steps into the room, towel slung over her shoulders, hair damp and fragrant with rose shampoo. No makeup. Her eyes still burn through Sage as she pulls a chair over to the table.
Viper and Brimstone have read Sage’s files, and she suspects Cypher knows too. But Reyna’s the only one Sage has explicitly told, lying on a tatami after a mission in Japan, their hair one black silky mass except where the sun shone, highlighting Sage’s red undertones against Reyna’s violet.
Don’t leave me for Iso, Reyna said suddenly.
The ample sunlight made Sage generous, so she humored the joke. Why would I do that?
Reyna was stone-faced. People are drawn to their own.
You yourself said we were the two sides of the same coin, Sage complained. Besides, he’s practically a baby.
Right, and how did you develop your collectivist tendencies? Reyna scoffed. You are a product of your culture nonetheless.
Sage confessed the whole truth then; the performative green tea, the hollowness of her passport. Iso’s Chinese-ness only intimidated her. Reyna laughed at her, saying it was an exceedingly normal fact, after all, she herself had lived extensively in America, the far-away land across the border (which Sage didn’t think was that different from Mexico. It wasn’t separated by an ocean or a continent). The issue was dismissed with a kiss.
Fast forward to now: Reyna eyes Sage meaningfully, as though saying I can tell them a lot more, too . Sage keeps her poker face in place. That’s one awful hand.
Phoenix takes one look at Reyna and bursts out laughing, evidently unaware of the wordless exchange. “It’s really World War I now! Um… You guys don't know about the Zimmermann telegram? Germany asked Mexico to fight the States.”
“I don’t think Killjoy needs my help,” Reyna remarks dryly as Killjoy raises on the flop.
Sage hesitates, folding her weak cards. Chamber follows suit, muttering in French. The turn brings nothing useful for Phoenix, who throws his cards down, revealing a low pair.
Imperial Germany ends the war with a straight flush, eliciting groans from the rest of them. Killjoy watches with quiet satisfaction as they all push their remaining chips toward her.
“Bad timing,” Chamber shrugs.
“We’ll have our rematch during World War II,” Phoenix laughs.
“Low blow, Phoenix.”
"Enough alternate history,” Viper says, "Time for bed.”
As the cabin lights dim, Sage goes to the cockpit to inspect the flight path one last time. They’re on the straightest, fastest route to Icebox. Her fingers trail over the myriad of displays, buttons, and switches. During off days in Split, she often daydreamed about stealing the plane. Just twenty minutes and she’d be in Xi’an. Shamefully, she’d even taught herself how to pilot. She leaves the cockpit before she gets any funny ideas to redirect them to China.
They don’t have private rooms, of course, but there’s an unspoken agreement for everyone to put their cots in separate cabins. The downside is that you have to walk through all of them. Sage passes by Killjoy (gaming under the covers), Chamber (wearing a silk eyemask), then Viper (seemingly asleep but turns towards Sage with terrifyingly wide eyes). Every time the door slides open, it’s a gamble—will it be Omen or Reyna first? Sage bets on Reyna.
But after Viper, she finds an empty room and sits to watch the darkening terrain below. In a few hours, when the small pricks of light disappear and the skies lighten, home will be far from her mind.
“Is it time?” Sage jolts at his voice.
She strains her eyes past the cold white lights that mostly illuminate the ceiling to find him sitting against the metal cabin walls, slits glowing dimly as though he were sleepy. Not so empty after all—and she lost her bet.
“Hello, Omen. You missed the poker game.”
“I was wondering if you’d want my help.” Omen doesn’t budge from his spot, and talking across the room is awkward. She moves next to him, sitting under exposed wiring and insulation.
He asks, "Who won?”
“Killjoy. How come you don’t play? Your poker face would win you everything.”
“I prefer more meditative things,” he says, voice low. “I arrange stones in the west garden, and sometimes I style bonsai.”
Sage raises an eyebrow. “You have a zen garden?”
It occurs to her that she should stop prescribing traits to him in her mind. She doesn’t know him at all, this colleague of three years. But it’s hard to muster any inhibitions when she suddenly feels so tired…
Omen probably finds her judgmental, for he nods but doesn't elaborate. Instead, he asks, “May I?”
She tries to make up for her blunder by talking impulsively. “Of course. I slept very well. Perhaps you should open a sleep clinic instead of doing this?” By the time she realizes she hasn’t replied, her eyelids have drooped shut. “Are you doing it right now?”
“No, but since it works so well, I will invoice you.”
He says it like it’s a real offer. Sage huffs a breath.
“Though…” Omen muses, “You’d be better on the staff than a patient.”
She smiles faintly, the ceiling blurring above her. “I wanted something else before all this. Before these medic duties.”
He doesn’t reply, just sits there, those pinpricks of light flickering as though from a far-off signal. Omen’s head tilts slightly, as though listening to something far away. His body pulses. Light flickers across his broad shoulders like they’re water.
“I almost remembered something,” he says, like he doesn’t trust it.
Her eyes snap open. Any traces of sleep in her have burned away. “What did you see?”
“It’s gone now.” He slumps forward onto his elbows, wisps of darkness unfurling from him. One of them chills her like liquid nitrogen, and she flinches back. “If it were ever really there.”
“Don’t you think you’re getting closer?” She watches the vapor dissolve into the air, already analyzing its behavior and any changes in his appearance. If he can remember—if his memory is chemically or neurologically reactive—then they might find something quantifiable and repeatable. She should be documenting this, but Omen says-
“Go to sleep, Sage.”
The cold hums around them again, and the shadows near her boots lift like dust stirred underwater. Her eyes slide shut. Only the cold and the distance between them.
…
“Helloo, time to suit up-”
Sage’s head throbs as she finds herself on a cot. A cot she most certainly did not fall asleep on. Killjoy’s grinning face blocks out the overhead lights, but her yellow jacket makes Sage’s eyes throb.
Her pulse picks up as she pushes aside the two layers of uncomfortably thick blankets. They’ve left her with a film of sweat gathering at the back of her knees. She feels a wave of dizziness, the remnants of a sleep that’s too deep and too sudden. Definitely worse than last time—like an unplanned nap that’s wasted an entire afternoon, and the headache like a vice tightening at the front of her skull. At least there were no dreams this time.
This isn’t the room from last night. She groans, “Who moved me?”
No one responds. Killjoy’s gone to talk to the others at the opposite end of the cargo bay. Her eyes flicker toward the rest of the team donning their gear. No Omen.
Her fingers twitch as she retrieves her gear from the locker. Sage slips on the empty vest and begins loading the plates in. Twenty-five pounds of metal feels a lot like invincibility, even when it’s a little loose around her waist. She tightens the straps until it hugs her like a second skin.
The plane’s engines shake the air and everything inside it as it lands, the familiar prelude to combat.
“All feeds clear. I'm turning on the power,” Killjoy reports.
The hinges groan as the ramp lowers. Then the crisp air rushes in, wrapping her skin firmly like a present for the cold to unwrap.
The floodlights glow blindingly white against fresh snow. It’s all so sterile and stunning, this expanse of glacial peaks at the northern border of the world; the saline gust that stings unlike the Venetian breeze; and the brightness of stars in the absence of pollution. Here’s no underbrush here to hide in, no soil for sprawling colonies, no creatures whose life and pain she might accidentally feel. Only unrivaled clarity.
That is, besides Reyna’s eyes boring into her as they advance towards the site. Lucky for Sage, Reyna is a duelist: she takes the lead with Sage close behind and Omen trailing even more.
Sage stiffens and turns back, putting more snap and predictability in her movements so Omen can resume holding the headshot angle above her shoulder. A sudden movement, a startle to the system, a quiver of the hands, and her skull would be splattered on the wall. Even though they’ve all gone through the most rigorous of training, Sage still fears the volatility of the radianite in their veins.
None of them talk; the site is expectedly empty except for a snowman that someone probably built from last time. Protocol says they should knock it over, but no one touches it. They arrive at the loading area before everyone else (they’re a good team, she thinks, an incredibly disquieting thought).
“See you tomorrow,” Sage mutters to both of them but directs at neither, because it’s too strange to part wordlessly.
Reyna’s lips curl slightly. “Good night.”
Omen doesn’t give her any indication—in fact, he’s already turned to leave. Not that Sage minds. It’s too soon for him to enter her room, and she doesn’t want to address whatever happened with his memories earlier.
Sage makes her way along the north wing’s stout, modular facilities until the floodlights grow sparser. Her room is marked by a slow orb hanging from the door, a joke between her and Sova about how the Russian climate has preserved his youthful appearance. He said that the cold would stabilize the radianite, and he was right: she could take the orb onto the field tomorrow without issue.
The inside of the room is almost as cold. Sage turns the heater on and it hisses quietly, blending into the rising wind outside. She begins to remove her outer gear painstakingly. Each tear of velcro feels like a bandage coming off. She’s no slob, but would it be so bad to lie down on the floor? It’s not like she wears her shoes in here.
“Fuck this,” she mutters, getting down to lie next to the heater like a dog. The carpet is rough but doesn’t smell at all. It’s sort of nice not to have to shower. She stares up at the ceiling panels, feels the wool under her fingers.
Maybe she should’ve asked Omen to come. She can already tell that her sleep will be uneasy tonight.
With a groan she gets up, wrapping her blanket around her shoulders and settling cross-legged in front of the terminal like she used to while studying for exams. The terminal whines as it boots—maybe the radianite shielding messing with the circuitry.
She logs into the private network. The feed is quiet. Brimstone’s last communication was terse: No distractions this time.
She hesitates. Maybe she should do her best to sleep now that there’s no help from Omen. Or maybe she should learn from the younger agents a bit. They never listen to Brimstone.
She starts typing.
Kingdom contract radiant rights
Nothing useful.
Kingdom radiant labor clause
One hit, redacted. She strains her mind again. These things came to mind so easily when she spent all day in stacks of legal briefs, memorizing clauses and precedents. She won’t find something searching for labor rights. If there’s anything, it will pertain to another aspect of Jett’s contract. The words on the screen swim for a moment as she searches:
Radiant asset jurisdiction mercenary status Korea
There are a few pages of hits. She goes through them until she finds a government page. She scrolls through the dense text. It’s a legal artifact from a failed trade agreement arranged by the East Asian Trade Coalition. Still technically recognized in legacy code and probably never invoked.
Jett’s contract was drawn up in Manchuria. That has to fulfill the border zone clause. If Sage can prove that the contract creates a conflict of national interest in cross-border missions, there might be grounds to renegotiate.
Sage bookmarks the article, opens a new document, and begins outlining the clause in bullet points. Her fingers don’t stop moving until the screen glows with a dense explanation. She rereads it, her stomach sinking. The argument is paltry. Kingdom Legal Division would laugh at it.
Her mouth feels dry. She used to love the clarity of case logic, the feeling of being useful before someone was dying. But how can she find anything that Cypher hasn’t seen and Kingdom hasn’t accounted for?
Jett isn’t escaping this, and Sage has no right to care anymore.
…
Sage blames the cold.
The morning is gray and gutless despite the early sunrise. She’s already done five laps around her corner of mid, vapor curling from her breath, boots whispering over compacted snow. Her fingers ache inside her gloves. In the five hours between arriving and running drills, she slept maybe two hours last night, jostled into wakefulness every time her body began to conjure up dreams. Just as she’s about to radio everyone to ask if they can call it a day, it comes.
She’s too sluggish. The KAY/O knife embeds in the wall, and a sphere polarized radianite blooms out like a bruise. Her powers go silent. The world snaps into sharp relief. She throws the safety off her rifle and hunches down. The corridor yawns open like a mouth. At least they’re properly equipped this time.
“KAY/O knife on mid hit me. Not a drill.”
“You’re fucking kidding me. Is Killjoy even on the feeds?” Viper hisses before going silent. Probably switched channels to radio KJ back at base.
“Brim’s gonna kill us,” Phoenix groans.
“Well, the fools brought a knife to a gunfight,” Chamber chuckles through the static. “I’ll see if I can get any information.”
"Wait,” Sage says.
Ghostlight floats across the snow, announcing his presence before the rest of him, loose and bloody bandages crinkling at his elbows. His malformed silhouette seems to absorb light.
Most importantly, she finally realizes, is the mass of paranoia in his hands, quivering like an infant. It breathes with no lungs. It sees —she knows that somehow—and it recognizes her from missions before. It knows exactly what to target.
A deep thrum resonates in her bones. Maybe her ears. Her vision peels like film left out in the sun. The corridor warps into a kitchen. The pork dumplings rot in their wrappers. The doorbell shrieks open-
She throws herself to the ground. The paranoia flies past above her, and her hair flutters from the force of the soundless howl. Then all is still.
“Sage, what is it?" Chamber’s voice crackles.
Even prone on the ground she feels the weight of her rifle. It makes a promise to her when she fires. A death will follow.
Magenta—Reyna. Sage doesn’t see if the promise is kept. Pain rakes her cheek. Bullets find the wall behind her with a harsh clang. She empties her mag and crawls back to cover to reload.
She stands and peeks. There’s only one warm body against the frigid earth, twitching as faint turquoise light ebbs out.
The Omen gasps wetly. His body forms and reforms, one huge spasming of muscle. What’s wrong with this one? She knows he can teleport when he’s heavily injured.
She won’t wait for him to succeed. She shoots again. Again. Again. The last shot cleaves through his skull, and only then does the twitching stop.
Yet the familiarity of the limp body lying there makes her pause. What if it is her Omen-?
Her radiance surges to her fingertips, but she quells it. By the way the teal light lingers on the ground, he could still be alive. No need for resurrection yet. She grasps the life force to see if he is hers, tastes
(the dying of a star, of a universe, galactic force obliterating light itself
a scream older than the universe, before air could carry sound
they came from nothing and shall die as nothing)
—retches. Bile stings her throat, and she spits whatever comes up onto the snow. She didn’t kill him. She ended something that had never begun.
“Were those your gunshots, Sage?” The husky voice of her Omen speaks through her earpiece. As though he’d sensed her distress.
Her heart knocks back into rhythm, and she quells her powers. “Ah- yes. I neutralized a hostile Omen by mid and there’s a Reyna whose location is unknown. Requesting backup now.”
“Wall it off now and retreat,” Viper instructs. “I’m on my way.”
“Body’s in the open. Can I get a smoke?” Sage relays.
“Phoenix, go burn it-”
How could Phoenix even burn something more entropic than a star? Would the universe simply collapse?
“Omen, can I get a smoke?” Sage repeats. The longer she holds this angle, the more she imagines Reyna returning to finish her off. Or her own double dragging the body off to resurrect.
Sage hasn’t run into her double too often. She thinks this team would be better off with the other version of her. A healer severed from moral weakness.
“Phoenix, stay on B, we don’t have any other info. Let’s just hope the other Sage isn’t here,” Viper says grimly.
Sage wipes her face impatiently. “Omen, can I get a smoke? Do you copy?”
“They’re on me!” Omen hisses. “Sounds like one- two-”
“Sage, go back him up-”
“I’ll take mid, you go A-”
Chamber and Viper’s voices buzz in her ears like two angry hornets and Phoenix interrupts, “Hold on a minute now.”
Sage obeys for a good twenty seconds, listening hard. No gunshots. Perhaps the hostiles have backed off. She grits her teeth. It’s always she who has to fix things. She expects Omen to comm back as soon as he catches his breath, and stays put watching mid.
Omen’s icon flashes on her monitor. Three teleports in less than half a minute. He doesn’t panic like this.
“Sage, go!”
She closes her eyes, inhales slowly. Fine. If she won’t do the job, then who will? It’s always her. Then she runs.
At the entrance to the site, Sage stops dead. The black maw of the building looms before her, the only light filtering in murkily from the other entrance. There’s no indication of Omen besides the icon on her monitor. He’s not moving.
“The electricity on A got cut. It’s completely dark in there. Am I still clear to engage?” Sage asks.
“No, sit tight,” Chamber pants. “Phoenix, get to Sage. I’ll leave a trap on their flank and cover B.”
A slight swish, then metal thudding. The clip of a zipline. Jett. And, as much as the name makes her chest ache, Sage switches her safety off.
“Their Jett’s pushing,” she hisses. She stares down the entrance of A, thinking again of shudder racking through Omen’s body on the plane. How vulnerable he must be in there, even if the darkness is his element. She thinks of her absolute helplessness on the plane while he tried to remember.
No matter. Omen is somewhere in there. He caught her before. She’ll return the favor. And so she descends.