I followed the nurse and Sandra's parents as they walked down the hallway and past the large Biohazard door. I was a little surprised at first, then the nurse turned into the Intensive Care Ward and I realized why they had moved Sandra. It was so we could see her without having to use the decontamination shower. We stopped in the little anteroom outside the ward, and the nurse handed us surgical masks to cover our nose and mouth.

“Normally this isn't necessary; but, with her severe burn and open sores, it's just an extra precaution.” The nurse said, and she saw Noreen twitch at the open sores part. “Don't worry. It's covered in salve and cleaned every few hours.”

Noreen took in a breath and let it out, then nodded and put on the surgical mask. Both I and Nathan put on the masks without comment and followed the nurse into the ward. There were 12 beds inside, separated by curtains, and I saw Craig's parents at the other end of the ward. Craig's father saw me and waved, and I waved back; then the nurse pulled open the curtain around Sandra and I gave her all of my attention.

“M-momma!” Sandra said, and tears came to her eyes.

At least she's sitting up. I thought.

“My little girl.” Noreen said and tears came to her eyes as well, and she leaned down to hug her daughter. Her hand tenderly touched Sandra's hair, and a large clump of it came out. Thankfully, she didn't visibly react to the sight of her daughter's hair falling out, and slipped the clump out of sight and put it in the pocket of her new coat.

“How are you?” Nathan asked and took her hand.

“I feel so sick, Daddy.” Sandra said. Tears came to Nathan's eyes as he came face to face with the reality that his daughter was hurt and there was nothing he could do to help her.

“You're in the hospital, so it's okay to feel that way.” Nathan said.

Sandra nodded. “The nurse said I'm going to feel like this for a couple of weeks.” She said. “I don't... I don't know if I can get through it!”

“We'll be right here by your side.” Noreen promised her. “You won't be alone for one second.”

Sandra smiled. “I know... I...” She took a coughing fit then and the nurse held out a piece of gauze-like cloth for her. She took it and covered her mouth, then coughed for several minutes. When she was done, tears streamed down her face non-stop and she handed the blood-soaked cloth to the nurse, who took out a resealable plastic bag and slipped it inside.

“I'll be right back.” The nurse said and closed the curtain behind her.

“Oh, Sandra!” Noreen said, and she didn't know what to say to what she just saw.

“They're just checking to see if the treatment is taking hold.” I said, and the three of them looked at me with wide eyes. “It's the quickest way to see if your blood is free of contaminants, without having to take it from you with a needle.”

“What... what happens if it's not?” Noreen asked.

“If the results haven't changed after a few days, they'll give her another round of anti-rad medication.”

“Oh, god!” Sandra said and started to shake. “Daddy! Don't let them do that to me again!”

Nathan wilted internally as he held his scared daughter's hand, and knew he would let the doctors do anything to save his little girl from dying. He didn't say anything, because he didn't want to lie to her.

“Jack, please.” Sandra said. “Don't let them... I can't take...”

“I'm sorry, Sandra.” I said. “Not only will I let them, I'll even order them to give you more treatments.”

“J-J-Jack, no!” Noreen said, scandalized.

“It's going to save her life, Noreen.” I said. “My mother refused extra treatments, even after father's insistence.” I sighed. “She paid for that decision with her life.”

“J-Jack...” Sandra started to say.

“No, Sandra.” I said. “I love you too much to let you go like that!”

Sandra blinked her eyes at me, then she gasped when she realized what I had said. “Jack!”

“That's the first time I've ever told you that I love you.” I said. “I'm sorry I've been too pig-headed to admit it until now.”

“Oh, Jack.”

“I'll never forgive you if you don't get better.” I told her. “I have a lot more resources than my father did when my mother was sick, so you will stay here and you will go through everything that you need to go through to get better.” I closed my eyes and clenched my fists. “I will not lose you like I lost her.” I took a deep breath and let it out, then opened my eyes and looked at her. “I have to go to work now; but, I'll be back sometime tonight.”

Sandra nodded wordlessly, and I turned and stepped out through the closed curtain. I yanked off the surgical mask and walked down the ward to the door, then felt a hand on my arm. I stopped walking and looked at the hand, then looked at Noreen.

“Jack, I... I'm sorry for...”

“I'll forgive you this time.” I said, and smiled at her surprised face. “It's supposed to be your job to keep her level-headed and to make the right decisions when she's impaired like she is. Stopping treatment is not the right decision.”

“I... I know, it's just...”

“You can baby her all you want, but don't let it get her killed.” I said.

Noreen opened her mouth to respond, closed her eyes briefly, and sighed. “She's my little girl, and she's hurt.”

I turned and took her into a hug. “Then help her get better.”

“I will.” Noreen said and cuddled into my chest. I opened my arms a few moments later to let her out of the hug, and she held on.

“Noreen?”

“Thank you for the outfit.” Noreen said and looked up at me with a knowing smile on her face.

“I only paid for it.” I said. “Nathan picked it out for you.”

“I know he did.” Noreen said, stood up on her toes and kissed my cheek. “You're a good man.”

“What lies have you heard about me now?” I asked her, and she chuckled.

“They're gigantic and horrendous lies, apparently.” Noreen said. She took out a tissue from that magical place that all mothers had tissue stashed, and rubbed her lipstick off of my cheek.

“Those are usually the best ones.” I said to her, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and left the Intensive Care Ward.

“Sir!” The nurse said. “You have an urgent message!”

“What?” I asked and glanced over my shoulder at my small backpack. “I didn't get any notification that...”

“Not over normal channels, sir.” The nurse said. “Come with me, please.”

I nodded and followed the nurse down the hall and to the elevator. It went down 10 floors and opened, and I followed her through several corridors until we came to a military checkpoint. The nurse held out her credentials, and they waved us through.

“I didn't know there was a military outpost under General Medic.” I said when we were far enough away from the guards there.

“It's only been here for a year.” The nurse said. “We needed quicker access to medical once the skirmishes picked up.”

“Hold on.” I said. “Why have they picked up?”

“I don't have the pay grade for that information.” The nurse said and stopped by a nondescript door.

“I thought you retired.” I said, and the nurse smiled.

“I may have left the service, but I'll always be a member.” She said and knocked on the door with her cybernetic arm.

“Come.” A gruff male voice said, and the nurse opened the door.

“Sir, I've brought...”

“I can see that.” The gruff man said. “Dismissed.”

The nurse nodded to him, ushered me into the room, and shut the door. I recognized the colonel insignia immediately and came to attention.

“Sir.” I said and gave him a quick salute.

“They said you had a sense of humor.” The colonel said. “You outrank me.”

“I used to.” I corrected, and he laughed.

“You can keep telling yourself that you're out.” He said. “But we both know differently.”

“What do you want, colonel?”

“We had an unscheduled skirmish yesterday.” He said and sat back in his chair, and hit the button for the vidwall. “Take a look.”

“Sir, I haven't analyzed a battle scenario in...”

“Just watch.”

I sighed and looked at the vidwall, then watched the combat. Cyborgs advanced across a small field, then lasers, tanks, and shells started to fly past the screen. Explosions and bodies littered the landscape, and then something caught my eye in the background.

“No.”

“Caught that, did you?” The colonel asked and rolled the footage back to what the footage had captured. It was my family's vacation house.

“What were they doing there?”

“We don't know.” The colonel said. “You see, after your little excursion out there to The Fall, we've had scouts deployed at each stop on the lift.” He smiled. “Normally we wouldn't launch such a costly operation, but when the squad with you spotted the Stalker and a rival faction just casually driving around...”

“You tried to find out what they were up to.” I said.

He nodded. “It wasn't even a designated combat area, and yet they initiated operations there.”

I stood up. “I'll need an insertion team right away.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“It's off-limits.”

“I don't care.” I said. “I need to see...”

“It's fine.” The colonel said and hit a button, and the vidwall changed to a very clear image of a 10 foot wide biosphere dome that had been placed over my mother's grave.

“Thank you.” I said in relief.

“Don't thank us.” He said. “We didn't put that there.”

“What?”

“It was there before the battle started.”

I sat down and stared at my mother's grave. “Why?”

“That's what we want to know.” The colonel said and looked at me. “Someone took a lot of care to erect a safety dome over that one piece of land, and then wrecked everything else.”

“Wait, what?”

“It's all gone.” He said, and I stared at him. “The house. The maintenance bay. The gardens. The yard and the trees...”

“You... you can't be...” I closed my eyes and held back my tears. “No.”

“I'm sorry.” The colonel said. “The battle lasted a very long time.” He said. “Nearly three times a normal skirmish.”

“I don't care about that.” I said and opened my eyes and leaned forward to put my head in my hands. “That was my mother's resting place.”

“I know you've sunk thousands of Points into keeping it maintained.”

“I don't care about that, either.” I said and stood up again. “I want it restored immediately.”

“It's still off-limits.” The colonel said. “That hasn't changed in the last few minutes.”

“What part of 'I don't care' didn't you understand?” I asked.

“You can't get to it.” He said. “After the battle, everyone moved their forces out. The Fall Maintenance Crew even removed that stop from the main lift.”

“Now you listen to me.” I said, leaned menacingly close, and braced my hands on his desk. “My mother loved that place. It was her final request to stay in the spot she enjoyed the most. It will be put back to the way it was. Right now.” I stopped leaning over and stood up straight. “You will instruct The Fall Maintenance Crew to add the stop back into the main lift, take the resources there to fix the place, then remove the stop again.”

“You realize that...”

“I know what it means.” I reached out and laid my hand on the concealed scanner on his desk. There was a loud beep, and a popup appeared on the vidwall.

Thank you for accessing the System (Military Grade)

Do you wish to re-activate your commission?

“Yes.” I said.

Please speak your chosen code phrase.

“I really hate being in the military.”

The screen went blank for a moment, then another popup appeared.

Welcome back, (RANK RETCONNED) Jack (LAST NAME RETCONNED)

“I've never seen that before.” The colonel said. “How did you... no, never mind. I don't need to know.”

“That's right.” I said. “Now, issue my previously stated orders. They are to be followed immediately.”

The colonel nodded, and hit several buttons on his desk. A secretary came in with an armful of folders and almost ran into me. I avoided her easily and caught the papers before she dropped them, then put them on the desk.

“These are the lists of assets in the current deployment area.” The secretary said. She wasn't at all flustered from our near collision.

“Why are you giving them to me?” I asked.

“You're the ranking... I mean... the System said to...” The secretary tried to explain, and this time she was flustered, because she was pretty sure she had messed something up.

“Next time, just put them on the desk. No one needs to know who I am.” I said.

“Yes, sir.” The secretary said and saluted. She held it and stared at me.

“Don't salute superior officers if they are out of uniform.” I said, and she slowly let her hand drop. “Even if I was in uniform, do the mandatory quick and jerk. Don't hold it. That'll just get me shot.”

“I... I...”

“She's new, sir.” The colonel said in her defense. “She hasn't had a lot of field experience, but she's very good at her job.”

I nodded at the colonel and looked at the secretary. “Carry on.”

“Yes, sir.” The secretary said. “Sorry, sir.”

“Soldiers don't apologize! Dismissed!”

“Sir! Yes, sir!” The secretary said, did the quick and jerk salute, and left the room at a jog. After a few moments, the colonel laughed.

“You can't tell me you didn't miss doing that to the rookies.”

“I can't tell you a lot of things.” I said, which made him laugh harder. I sat down and looked at the vidwall and the paused footage. “Run that back at half-speed. I want to see if I can identify anything.”

The colonel started the footage over and I watched it as I flipped through the folders the secretary had handed me. I found the folder with Alyssa's squad in it and set it aside.

“I assume you've already had the tech guys go through it?” I asked.

“It's in the bottom folder.” The colonel said. “Operations.”

I nodded and pushed the other folders aside and opened the operations one. I held the papers up so that I could watch the screen and compare the findings with the results. I marked which cyborgs, weapons, and tanks they got right, which ones they missed, and which ones they were so far off it was almost funny.

“Any new mods within the last 5 years?”

“No.” The colonel said. “We're pretty much at the top of cybernetic modification.”

“Across the board?” I asked, and he nodded.

“We've got people placed in each Cavern system that can safely monitor tech levels.”

“So, they took my advice and sent cybernetic doctors as immigrants?”

“That was a brilliant idea.” The colonel said. “It's taken years to pull it off, but...”

“I told them it was the best way to keep an even field of play.” I said. “But this... a Mark 8 Industrial Tank? Really?”

“It was a surprise for the higher-ups, that's for sure.” The colonel said. “It was modified, too.”

“How?”

“Watch.” The colonel said and turned to face the vidwall and ran the footage at double speed. I put down the reference sheets and watched. A few minutes later, he slowed it to half-speed again. I watched as an industrial tank rolled out onto the field and shot it's heavy laser to keep our front line troops under cover. When it's batteries ran down, the tank turned around to leave the battlefield. When it's back was revealed, I saw that it didn't have a cockpit anymore. What it actually had was a large troop carrier.

“No way!” I said and sat up straight.

The troop carrier opened and let out a squad of cyborgs, and they attacked the suppressed front line of our defense.

“How did they get my idea?” I asked the colonel.

“We're... looking into it.”

“Look harder.” I said. “There weren't many people that knew I had a hand in trying to push that through.”

“You don't know how sorry we are that it was used against us.”

I laughed. “You're going to be really sorry soon.”

The colonel looked at me with wide eyes. “Why's that?”

“If they've already got one of my designs on the field... an actual working Phase One prototype...” I shook my head.

“What?”

“I hope and pray that they didn't get their hands on my plans for Phase Two.”