“Steve? Where am I?”

The air fled the room in an instant as everyone looked to Steve expecting his response.

“Hello, Ethan,” Steve said clearing his throat. “You’re…in The Alliance underwater bunker just off the coast of Durban. The real Alliance bunker.”

Ethan’s brows furrowed in confusion. He didn’t know what to make of that statement. What did Steve mean by ’the real Alliance bunker’? The med bay’s walls clearly were marked with the Alliance insignia.

“What did I walk into in the forest? Where was I? Why are you here? Why is he bli-” asked Ethan in quick succession.

“Look…I know you have a lot of questions bu- “

“I do, Steve. And I need them answered now. For all I know, I could be a victim of kidnapping,” demanded Ethan.

Steve sighed lowering his head in defeat. He motioned for everyone to vacate the room so that only Ethan and Steve remained in the abandoned med bay. Amber shot Ethan a meek smile on her way out before closing the door behind her.

“The Alliance isn’t just a relief organization, Ethan. It’s also a military force. We fought in the war on two fronts. One against our political enemies such as the reformed USSR and another against our own defected organization, SEKT. When the world war ended, our political enemies seized but SEKT remained. Their goals don’t seem to be politically influenced at all.”

“And SEKT is still around? Is that who those shooters were?” asked Ethan.

“Yes. The assault you dropped in on was a raid on a SEKT intelligence outpost in the Alps. All our outposts are in the Abandoned Regions so that the public doesn’t detect our skirmishes.”

“Why do you keep this from the public?”

Steve hesitated, biting on his lower lip. How much could he reveal? He’d be wiping his mind after this anyway, so why bother holding back. In spite of his appearance, it was eating him to conceal the secret away from Ethan. To keep himself away from Ethan.

“Because coming clean with the public would result in a full-scale war between the two of us. The earth can’t withstand another nuclear war. It’s best for the people if we keep this hidden so that SEKT can’t use their nuclear warhead.”

“If SEKT is as bad as they say they are, wouldn’t they use it anyway?” asked Ethan.

Steve chuckled, “They wouldn’t dare. If SEKT wanted to be seen publicly, they’d want to look like the freedom fighters of society. Freedom fighters don’t drop an atomic warhead on their enemies while disregarding innocent civilians.”

“Why would they want to be see- “

Steve cut Ethan off, “That’s enough of that. You’re not going to need this information anyway. Once I wipe your mind and drop you off at the teleporting station, you’ll go back to your normal life and forget any of this happened. Deal?”

Ethan nodded. He had no reason to care about any of this. It was just more useless bloody conflict he didn’t need to be a part of. It didn’t have anything to do with his goal. He’d be perfectly fine returning to his mundane life completely ignorant of this.

Interrupting Ethan and Steve’s conversation, Breach, the third man Ethan saw in the exo-suit swung the door open.

“Steve, we’ve processed the intel. We need to talk to you, now.”

Steve excused himself from his conversation with Ethan and retreated to the back area of the med bay. Breach slipped out a slim tablet and handed it to Steve to examine.

Ethan wasn’t quite paying attention to the conversation. He was still trying to process the massive information dump he had just received. He had nearly tuned out of reality when a line from Steve caught his ear.

“They’ve modeled a bioweapon.”

There was a long silence in Ethan’s ear as Breach began to speak. The voice returned vaguely as Steve’s gruff voice responded.

“I know it’s asymptomatic, Breach, but something is fishy about it. It’s already released into the public according to this tablet.”

Ethan’s ears twitched as his interest piqued. SEKT has a bioweapon and it’s already in the public? Ethan thought.

“It’s harmless. Probably just a…”

Just a what? Speak up! Ethan cursed. Now all Ethan could hear were words and phrases. They must’ve realized how loud they had been speaking.

“Beta-virus…can’t… inoculant… Jim…mutation…”

The conversation faded from Ethan’s ears. He decided to get one last ear in on the conversation as he pretended to leave the room for a change of scenery. As he paced towards the door in his hospital robe, Ethan slammed into what seemed to be a brick wall. A blind brick wall.

“Excuse me, sir. I’m so sorry, I was just going to get some fresh air,” lied Ethan.

John tapped his feet on the ground. He then placed his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. His hand alone weighed more than a mountain. A small grin spread across his face.

“Certainly. Though fresh air is hard to come by when you’re underwater,” he stated blandly. “If you’d like a change of scenery, Amber will show you to the observatory. It’s quite beautiful, I’ve heard.”

“You haven’t been there?” Ethan asked.

“Oh, I have. I just don’t know what it looks like.”

Ethan forced out half a laugh partly disturbed by how observant a blind man could be, “I’ll go…there…then.”

John nodded to Amber and then silently glided across the room to meet Steve and Breach in the corner. Amber lead Ethan to the end of the main hallway and into an intimate spherical room. A room completely secluded from the base and solely made from glass. On the outside, the tides of the clear blue ocean ruffled the leaves of the coral reef at the seabed. The fish swam carefreely in and around the holes of the rock features in their schools.

It was almost time for Ethan’s mother to come out of the theater. Her operation was 16 hours and he had stayed up all 16 hours hoping she’d come out early. Steve stood behind him, his nervous hands on his shoulders as Ethan hugged his waist. The nurses too awaited her exit.

There was a point when I thought I had nearly lost her. But now the doctors properly fixed her and everything would be back to normal, Ethan thought optimistically.

A cold, lifeless body rolled out of the theater as the doctors lowered their heads in defeat. Ethan’s heart was too innocent for him to realize his mother was gone. It had told him, no, sincerely convinced him she was just asleep. The thought of losing her never crossed his innocent mind.

A smile spread across his face as she was hauled out of the white doors. Ethan looked up at Steve in earnest hopes he’d return the pleasant smile but only two misty eyes met his. He could be crying from relief, he naively thought. That happened, right? But realization slowly set in with the pulse monitor flatlining.

“It never used to make that noise before...” muttered Ethan. “It used to go beep...beep...beep but now it's going beeeeeeep..."

Ethan rushed over, eager to meet his deceased mother, “Mom, please wake up. Please?” he pleaded desperately. But she didn’t respond. His unsteady voice turned into a wail. “Mom! Wake up! Don’t go!” he screamed as his foolish heart came to terms with what had happened.

Her decaying body had been drained of all life. Her eyes did not twinkle as they once did. Her sore muscles were tense, and the color had drained from her face making her whiter than the walls of the hospital. He knew she wasn’t coming back, but Ethan had dearly hoped he was mistaken. He wanted everything to be okay, even though he knew deep down it wouldn’t.

“Mom, please.Please.Please.Please.Please....” Ethan whispered until his violent sobs did not allow him to speak any further.

The young boy looked up at Steve as he was trying to hold back his tears. He closed his eyes, one tear running down his cheek. He moved over to Ethan's mother and with his two fingers, closed her eyes. As Steve dragged him out of the room, Ethan looked back to see Haley one last time. Her frail body looked soulless and cold.

Ethan had wished the world would swallow him up right now, but it didn’t. It wouldn’t until he served his purpose in life. His beloved mother’s premature death would shape his life. I swear on every cell in my body I will not stop until I have ruthlessly destroyed the very filth that destroyed Mom, Ethan promised as he walked away with tears in his eyes.

“Uhm!” Amber cleared her throat drawing attention to herself. “I think you owe someone a word of thanks…”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Sorry. Thank you for saving me back there,” Ethan said apologetically.

“What are you going to do? Get your mind wiped?”

“No. SEKT has a bioweapon they’re developing. I need to stop it.”

“Why you? You could just have your mind-wiped and then treat the patients of that bioweapon like you usually do. That’s helping too, you know.”

“That’s treating the symptoms instead of the disease. For a time, I thought my efforts were hopeless. The regular clients returned to me asking for more inoculants for new weapons. The same people suffered, and the outcome was always the same. Now, I can pull the plug on biowarfare so that no other man would die the way my mother did.”

“And you’re willing to fight for it? Kill for it?” she asked.

“Whatever it takes.”

Amber shook her head with a smile, “good luck convincing Steve to let you join.”

“He’s not my dad. And I’m not a small child anymore. He can’t tell me what decisions I can and can’t take. He doesn’t have to look out for me,” Ethan countered. “He never has before.”

Amber received a call on her link disturbing her conversation with Ethan, “…Yes?... Yes, I did… Okay, I’m coming, calm down!”

She hung up and politely excused herself from Ethan’s company, shuffling uneasily over to the doorway as quickly as she could in her lab coat. Amber turned around at the doorway and tossed Ethan’s card he used at the station to him.

On one side was the insignia of The Alliance and on the back was his ID, his photo, and his employee number. Ethan flipped the card from one side to the other. From the Gold-feathered shield to his photo and then back to the gold-feathered shield.

Ethan crushed the ID card in his hand with all his rage channeled into it. His photo split down the center and his digital ID disappeared as the card was deactivated. He let the card slip through his fingers and drop onto the concrete floor barely making a sound.

Steve leaned against the wall outside the observatory listening to Ethan’s conversation with Amber. His eyes were glazed with personal regret as Ethan spoke with Amber. It was true. Steve had reluctantly abandoned Ethan shortly after his conversation with Sigvald that day. He had kept a watchful eye on Ethan from a considerable distance but was never present in his life.

Was it all worth it? Steve asked himself. The boy grew up without parents when I could have been one to him. I could’ve done more than just make sure he was alive. Should I have? I can’t stop him...but I can help him. I can help him be better.

Ethan steps out of the observatory unfazed by Steve leaning with his back to the wall. Without uttering a word nor sharing a gaze, he continued onward, his slim feet sliding smoothly across the tiled floor. The red patch on the bandage wrapped around his eye had grown to twice its size in the time that had passed. His leg felt lighter, but the acute pain reminded him of how weak he was right now.

“Ethan,” began Steve in a hushed voice barely audible to Ethan.

“Don’t try and stop me, Steve,” hissed Ethan without caring to cease in his path.

“8 am sharp. Right here. Don’t be late.”

Ethan paused briefly. He finally turned around to meet Steve’s gaze for confirmation. Steve threw Ethan the teleporting card to access the facility. The card was almost identical to his previous one.

The gold-feathered round shield appeared on one side with notable highlights of lush green and rosy red on its borders. The rear side of the card, however, was as blank as a new canvas with only a single barcode denoting the number and branch. Ethan tucked it into his back pocket and strode through the hallway. There was no going back now.