"No!"

She writhed, screamed, the machinery inert and unmoved around her. Ru's motions became spastic. Some instinct deep within Jensen told him to duck-

"I can't-I can't take-"

Just before she died, he glanced up out of cover as Zhao Yun Ru screamed again.

Then she ripped apart. Just before she died, just for a split second, Jensen saw blinding light pouring from her eyes, her mouth.

He ducked down, just in time to avoid the blast.

He waited for the noise to stop.

He staggered on.

Behind the byzantine machinery he found a control room. A familiar face lit an obsolete and disused LCD screen in unnatural green.

Eliza.

"Hello, Adam." No emotion at all in the machine's face, no accusation... no anything.

"Welcome to the edge. It is not the end of the world, but you can see it from here."

And she'd laid it all out. Every path. Every future. Every alternative.

And he'd picked the truth.

It had just seemed like the right thing to do. It didn't need to be his decision anymore. Humanity's future belonged to everyone. No more shaping the truth. No more manipulation. Just delivering it, unscathed, to the people it affected. And maybe, he'd thought to himself later, treacherously, as the ocean water filled his lungs, that at least that way, it wasn't his decision anymore at all.

"Such melodrama does not become you," said Vera, firmly, as she busied herself with the equipment she'd brought with her. "You did the right thing, Mr Jensen."

Malik just held his hand, listening in silence, holding his gaze in her own. Somewhere behind them, Mick shuffled through disused parts while Chia listened a little more attentively.

And then he'd left. Back the way he'd came at first, until he ran into too many casualties regaining themselves and decided he needed a route with fewer witnesses. Eventually he'd found another maze of ductwork, just tall enough for him to walk normally, and followed it for what felt like about a kilometer. No answer on his comm from Malik or Pritchard, but a lot of extraneous traffic, as if the whole world had converged on Panchaea.

He could literally see light at the end of the tunnel, maybe twenty meters ahead, when something stung him in the small of his back and everything below his neck went numb. His body tumbled, hit the deck. Jensen's nose slammed into the floor.

An immaculate, expensive-looking shoe prodded him onto his back. It was Taggart.

"Hello again, Mr. Jensen."

Jensen had seen plenty of people angry at him before, but rage had etched itself into the lines of Taggart's face like acid. Jensen could make out a vein twitching angrily on one corner of his neck. After everything, Jensen supposed, maybe Taggart had a right to that. He was holding something, something with a shape halfway between a remote control and a gun.

Taggart caught what he was looking at. "Ah. Yes. A very expensive piece of equipment. Highly experimental. I suppose I should have made you sign something before I made you its first human test subject."

And behind him, Jensen could make out another man, head haloed into shadow by an LED lamp above, but easily recognizable nonetheless.

"Sarif?" Jensen managed. The haloed man winced and glanced away, gaze fixed on a nearby air intake vent with studious interest. Taggart cracked a smile.

"Oh, yes. I'm afraid you've made a great deal of people very angry, Mr. Jensen. David here was kind enough to track you via your GPL implant for me. A rather thoughtful gesture, after all of this." He bit his lip, something in his eyes caught fire, and for a moment Jensen thought Taggart would let go finally, empty all of his rage into finishing Jensen off. But then, instead, Taggart's hard-edged diplomatic control woke back up and the expression melted away.

"I should kill you," said Taggart. "Everything you've done- all the years of hard work that you've destroyed-"

He was leaning forward ever so slightly. Beside him, Jensen watched David's gaze flit back to Taggart, evaluating. Taggart had one hand holding the EMP device that had put him down, but the other was in his pocket. Jensen didn't need years on the force to know that in his other hand, Taggart was holding a gun, presumably just waiting for David to give him an excuse.

Don't do it, Sarif, he willed silently. Just play his game and get out of here. Don't try to be a hero.

But on the other hand...if he could just distract Taggart a little more, grab his attention a little harder-

"The people know what you've done, Taggart. It's over. You don't get to use anyone any more. Give it up."

Taggart's face contorted into open rage. "How dare you! What I've done? What I do keeps the world from falling into chaos!" He was yelling now, loud enough Jensen was surprised the hallways weren't ringing. He leaned forward. "I didn't spend years of my life fighting to keep the world from eating itself alive so that I could be talked down to by a corporate pitbull! You narcissistic, naive little psychopath, do you honestly believe that telling everyone-"

There was a sharp crack, and Taggart's gaze abruptly shifted out of focus. He toppled over. Jensen suddenly smelled iron in the air.

Behind him, Sarif was rubbing the blood off of his augmented hand with a handkerchief, looking Jensen over guiltily.

"Hey kiddo." He moved out of Jensen's line of sight. Jensen felt himself lifted onto his heels. David Sarif was dragging him down the corridor, towards the light.

"With friends like these, huh?" Jensen murmured bitterly.

"I'm sorry, Adam. I really am. His guys ambushed my guys, it was a bloodbath. Then that bastard put a gun to my head, got us away from the fight before my people could realize I was gone, and told me that either I was going to track you down for him, or he'd kill me, then go after Malik, Pritchard, everybody at Sarif Industries. My whole family. Everybody that had ever even shaken my hand at a research conference. I didn't think the gun would work, and I thought I'd get an opening before that. I'm sorry."

"Uh huh."

His head was perched against the back of Sarif's; his former boss carried him along on the ridges of his shoulder blades, arms locked around his own, like a cross on his back. Jensen felt Sarif turn his head.

"Fine then." said Sarif, sadly. Jensen might have heard something crack in his voice, but he couldn't be sure. "Believe whatever you like, Adam. But I'm getting you out of here. Malik'll be in the airspace within hours. You, uh, got that rebreather online yet? "

"Just a few hours ago, yeah."

"Good. You'll need it. This isn't exactly what it was built for, but there should be enough air bubbles in the water that you'll cope. I've told Pritchard to disable your GPL the moment he hears Malik's found you, permanently. Nobody's tracking you after this." He heard a rueful smile in Sarif's voice. "And you can keep your hardware and your LIMB account, with my compliments. Call it a retirement present."

Jensen said nothing.

Sarif cleared his throat. "I just want you to know, son, I'm proud of you. One of the guards had a radio. Picus covered the whole thing. The broadcast went out. Everybody's heard the truth, now. That wouldn't have been my call, but. Well. I can respect you doing that."

"Everyone deserved to know," Jensen whispered. "Everybody deserves to decide what happens next."

David stopped walking. Jensen fancied he could feel Sarif's thoughts moving like gears spinning in synchrony in his head.

"You weren't actually serious," said David, slowly, "what you said to Taggart just now, right? All that 'will of the people' bullshit-"

"Things could change."

"Oh, get real, Adam. So you won this hand of cards. You think the game's over? Sure, you saved a lot of people today. Maybe the world. But... Look, I'm not trying to break your heart here, but nobody's gonna care about what some senile madman said before he tried to nuke the world. It's a terrorist's manifesto. A couple news outlets are already calling Darrow's report on the Illuminati a rant. Give it a week or two, the only thing most people are going to remember is the disaster, not why it happened. One person can't change the world's future. Take it from me."

"Eliza-"

"She's yours today, sure. But after today?" Sarif shook his head. "The Illuminati are going to clean house here, champ. If she's not still one of theirs, if this all wasn't some kind of...I don't know, Xanatos gambit mindfuck... she'll be reprogrammed and back to spouting the party line in a week. Two tops. Believe me." And Adam heard the weariness in Sarif's voice, and did. "After the attack, I was all about exposing those guys. Pritchard found a link between Taggart and those mercs. I even talked it over with Darrow. You think going public would have changed anything?"

"We live in a democracy, boss."

Sarif laughed. "Come on, Adam. I was barely out of school when we lost that war. It's all just lip service now."

Jensen felt light on his face. Sarif squatted down, laying Jensen down on the remnants of the passageway. It had been ripped apart, some aftershock of the human cataclysm that had torn away everything beyond it into the ocean. Jensen could smell the sea air. Sarif leaned over him, peering owlishly.

"You'll want to get to ground," said Sarif. "I won't be able to protect you anymore, not from them. Not Malik, either. You're both too damned hot right now. She's got your coordinates, she'll pick you up, and after that, you'll both be off the grid. Stay airborne as long as you can, Frank'll help you figure something out-"

"You're just going to toss me in?"

"You'll float, trust me. Those implants have a lot of carbon composite honeycomb. You should be pretty buoyant. C'mon, you're light enough the Icarus landing system works, right?"

The 'should' didn't sound too promising, but Jensen supposed he didn't have too much choice.

"And repairing what Taggart did?"

Sarif grimaced. "Yeah. Sorry about that. Not part of the plan. Get Vera to deal with it. I think she's in Iceland, Frank'll be able to track down where-"

"Can I trust her?"

Sarif frowned, turned away. For a moment, he almost looked ashamed.

"Yeah. More than me."

He coughed.

" Just try to get clear of this installation as fast as you can. Panchaea's the first place the Illuminati are going to want to put out of the picture. Too much evidence lying around that they'll have trouble spinning."

"And you?"

"I've got my own way out, Adam. But if the Illuminati find me again... Well. Just get out of here."

He sighed, grabbed Adam by the shoulders, and shoved hard.

"Goodbye, Adam. Been a pleasure working with you."

And then Jensen was falling, and he hit the water like a spear going through it. He floated down about ten meters before he stopped, the steel detritus of Panchaea falling past him, Panchaea itself an endless submerged tower that descended endlessly into the blackness.

And then he'd been unceremoniously hauled, barely conscious, onto the deck of Malik's bird hours later.

"God," said Malik, finally, when he'd finished. "I mean, I heard a bit of that-but I-God." She put her hand over her eyes. It had taken a few hours to tell the whole thing properly, including a few medical interruptions spurred by Vera and the occasional question from Vera or Faridah about Eliza or some other detail they weren't entirely aware of.

"Did Sarif make it out?" Vera asked, frowning with thought.

"He was all over Picus earlier," said Mick.

"I am aware that his likeness was displayed on Picus, with footage that appeared to have been recorded moments after the attack. I am asking if you know whether he got out of Panchaea alive."

Mick stalled for a moment, then just shrugged and shook his head.

"Well," said Vera, "at the least, it is likely that he is still alive. And that he still has some of his compassion. A small comfort. I-"

Then, apropos of nothing, she began to weep, shuddering but utterly silent. Malik got up put her arms around her shoulders, murmuring something. Jensen felt at his own numbness to the pain, like a space in his chest where his heart should be, and found nothing at all to say.

Vera wiped her eyes. "I am... Sorry. It has been a long day, it. There has been so much death."

"How many were there in the hospital?" Jensen whispered.

Vera turned to look at him.

"How many people died there today, how many did I watch go insane, or how many did I know personally?"

She sighed. "Excuse me. I think I need sleep. Adam, if the catheter-"

"Yeah," Adam said quickly, "I'll let them let you know. I'm mostly battery-powered these days anyway."

"Cots in the back," said Chia. "Nothing fancy, though."

"You should get some rest too, by the way," added Mick. "We'll be ready to go in about eight or ten hours."

"You boys work quick," said Adam, dryly.

They shrugged again.

And then their two hosts left the workshop, leaving Malik and Jensen alone. She sat down next to him again.

"David's wrong," said Malik firmly. "He was, spyboy. At the very least, the people at the top will know what happened, it'll-"

"The Illuminati and the people in their pocket, you mean?" Jensen said sharply. Malik shut her mouth. Adam immediately felt ashamed.

"Sorry," he whispered. "Like Vera said. Long day. I didn't-I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay."

He looked over, realized she was squeezing his hand.

"I can't actually feel that," said Adam.

Faridah, blinking back tears, caressed his forehead with the tips of her left hand.

"How about that?"

"Yeah. That feels pretty good," said Adam. And his own voice, he realized, was beginning to crack as well. He felt a nervous tremor run through himself, through his whole body. Malik smiled.

"Involuntary movement's a start," she whispered. "We'll repair the rest tomorrow. Count on it."

"I am," Jensen deadpanned, but even as he did, some inane voice in the back of his brain chanted, And all the king's horses, and all the king's men-

Jensen shut his eyes. Dimly, he felt her kiss the tears out of one of them.

He fell asleep to the sensation of Faridah Malik cradling his head.