CHAPTER 7:

THE TRAP

Harry Church didn't know it, but he met the men who would later become thorns in his side (along with that of his friends and comrades) while on shore leave. Of course, back then, he knew them by the names of Samuel Ortez and Isaac Gates. He would later come to curse them as Locus and Felix.

It was shortly after the debacle involving the Desert Gulch sim-troopers, and the Director, in a rare fit of magnanimity, gave some of the operatives of Project Freelancer shore leave. Harry, Carolina, and York chose to spend it at their old haunt, Club Errera.

"Brings back memories, huh?" York asked as they walked through the club.

"Yeah," Carolina said. "God, I need a drink, though, before we get on the dancefloor."

"Feeling all wound up, Carrie?" Harry asked with a smirk. They'd managed to repair their relationship before it was broken beyond repair. There was still considerable tension, true, but that was now due more to Carolina's drive to get to the top more than any remaining rancour.

"Aren't you?" Carolina asked, as they reached the bar. "You going for a Strawberry Sunrise again, York? With the little umbrellas(1)?"

"Hey, I like them," York protested as they sat down.

"Brave man," remarked a sardonic voice next to them, coming from a thin, weaselly-looking man. When he saw the three Freelancers looking askance at him, he held up his hands. "Hey, I ain't dissing you. Hell, it's pretty ballsy for a guy like you to order a drink that others see as, well…"

"Girly?" York asked.

"Well, you said it."

"Isaac," growled the hulking man next to the thin man. An X-shaped scar marred his face. "They're soldiers too. Don't make a scene."

"I'm just making friendly conversation. Anyway, we're soldiers too, remember?" Isaac turned to them and gave them a smile. "The name's Isaac Gates. Happy Hulk Hogan here is Sam Ortez."

"Harry, Carrie, and Baxter(2)," Harry said.

"Wow, you sound like Donald Duck's nephews," Isaac remarked. "Nice to meet you guys." Samuel merely nodded. "So, shore leave?"

"Yeah," Carolina said. "Trying to have a good time. I'm guessing you're the same?"

"Yep. Trying to drown out the miseries of war in alcohol. Nice hypothesis, shame about it not always working in practise, but hey, drinking's fun," Isaac said.

"Your buddy seems to disagree," York pointed out.

"Isaac dragged me along to this," Sam grunted. "Drinking in a place like this holds no appeal to me."

"Wow, you remind me of a friend of ours, only you talk a lot more than he does," York asked. He then winced as Harry and Carolina glared at him, remembering Maine's throat injury. Not that Maine spoke a lot before that, but still…

"Ha! Must be one hell of an achievement!" Isaac said with a smirk. "Me, I can't stop talking. And Sam here, well, it's hard to get a word out of him. So, you wanna be conversation partners?"

Harry shrugged. "Why not? What about favourite armour types?"

"Here we go…" Carolina muttered.

"Me? I prefer a Scout helmet, but I'll take what I can for armour. Sam here loves his Locus armour."

"Whoa, Locus armour?" York asked. "You trying to look scary?"

Carolina scoffed. "He doesn't need armour to look scary. He's like our friend. He could clear a room with a look, can't you, Sam?"

A faint smile twitched at the scarred soldier's lips. "Oh God, he's smiling!" Isaac yelped. "It's a fucking sign of the apocalypse! The Covenant are invading as we speak to royally fuck us up the ass! But no, seriously, I've never seen him smile before, Carrie."

"You never will again," growled Sam, apparently irritated by Felix's words.

Harry wished he could have gotten to know the two soldiers better during that time. Then again, in hindsight, if he had known what was to come, he would have shot them both in the head.

Or at least Isaac…

Sarge was a simple man. You couldn't exactly call him stupid, as he was something of a savant when it came to weapons, robotics, and cybernetics, but he was simple and more than a little insane and convoluted in his thinking. Part of this could be chalked down to his time as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, or ODST, where he saw and did things that eroded his sanity. And Project Freelancer took advantage of that, taking a man who had been scarred both physically and mentally, and putting him into the sim-trooper system. By then, his sanity had eroded to the point where he didn't give a crap about reality, only about defeating the Blues.

And the thing was, despite the oddity of the message from Command, he was all too-willing to accept it. Despite the fact that it wasn't Vic, or that lady who sometimes called him up. Rather, it was a polite, cultured voice. Some armchair general who hadn't seen any action, no doubt.

"Red Base, this is Command," the voice said. "Come in, Red Base."

"This is Blood Gulch Outpost Number One," Sarge said.

"Good day to you," the voice said politely. "This is General Taren Capel(3). We have a traitor in our ranks. Agent Washington is reassembling the Blues, and has suborned Freelancer Agents Texas, Carolina, Virginia, and North and South Dakota. They intend to use their forces for attacks against UNSC command. This is a level one directive, Red Base. Reassemble your team and deal with them, for once and for all. They are heading for the disused power station. I believe you are familiar with it."

I knew he was up to no good! Sarge yelled inside his head in vindication. I knew that bastard was a Blue! Out loud, he said, "Yes, sir! I am very familiar with the location in question!"

"Then move out. Good luck. Command out."

Sarge grimaced as the connection clicked off. He couldn't ask about requisitioning any supplies of soldier poison or robot nuts. Instead, he barked out, "Lopez! You heard that? That was Red Command!"

If Lopez had eyes, he would have rolled them. Instead, he had a very basic sensor suite behind his visor. So, in lieu of that, he nodded. "I heard the call," he snarked in Spanish.

"Were you listening to it?" Sarge asked.

"I record all our calls for quality assurance purposes," Lopez retorted.

Sarge didn't understand a word of Spanish, save perhaps for 'si' or 'yes', so he said, "Those dirty Blues and the Freelancers are up to no good!"

Lopez would have sighed had he lungs. Instead, he just said, "To my knowledge, there is no General Taren Capel. That was a reference to an ancient TV series that, as most things do, fly over your head."

"I agree! We have to stop them, no matter what the cost!"

"And, of course, you don't listen. Every time you went up against Tex, she kicked our asses," Lopez said.

"Of course you're right! Time's a wasting, and I can't spend it all yappin'! Even if we're going up against Tex, or any Freelancers, an order is an order! Who knows, maybe Grif might get caught in the crossfire!"

Lopez thought that sounded pretty good. Of the Red Base members, he liked Grif the least. Still, he said, "You're going on a fake mission for a fake general that will end in a not-so-fake death. Have fun with that, moron…"

The motley crew of soldiers had divided into three groups when they reached the power station, which was littered with the corpses of those who had once been stationed there. Harry and Carolina would be in one group, along with Church. Tex and the Dakotas would be in another. Wash was stuck with Caboose, intending to cut off the Meta's retreat.

As they moved carefully, Church asked quietly, "Look, assuming what you told me is true…is it a good idea to split up like this? Especially as I'm supposedly an AI, and so is Tex. Not to mention the twins have one apiece as well."

"Sigma will probably be some time recharging Maine's armour," Carolina said back. "And in truth, we've got the backup plan. Remember those coins?"

Church nodded. Shortly before they went in, Harry gave them a bunch of Galleons that he had turned into Portkeys. "And what else?"

"You're safer with us than with the others," Harry said.

"I can believe that with Caboose, but while Tex has been trouble, I'd rather have her at my back than a couple of Freelancers I barely know."

"Church, you've never seen either of us let loose," Carolina said. "And you can trust me enough to keep you alive. You're family, and you didn't deserve what happened to you."

"Even though I'm, allegedly, based on your dad's flash-cloned brain?"

"You act very little like him," Harry said. "Now, quiet a moment."

He said that because they had reached a large chamber, a generator room of some sort, and they looked down, only to find a distinct lack of the Meta. "Motion detectors on," Carolina said quietly.

They saw the Dakotas and Tex inching out of another corridor. Tex met their eyes, and then made a number of hand signals. Nothing on motion detectors or anything. And as the power station had a number of corridors, it wasn't like they could have trapped the Meta.

Then, Tex suddenly made a panicked gesture, pointing to the generator. Harry and Carolina looked down at it, and saw the haphazardly-made device blinking away. "Bomb!" Harry snarled. "Church!"

"Running away! Got it!" As they did so, Church yelped, "Is that thing gonna kill us?"

"It's too small and improvised to have much of a yield, and this is a wind-power station!" Carolina snapped as they charged down the corridors. "We should be fine once we've exited the main complex!"

Suddenly, they heard gunfire from outside. "This is Washington! Hostile sim-troopers in red armour!" radioed in their fellow Freelancer.

"Yell something about a bomb about to blow up the power-station!" Harry yelled.

"Tell them it was one of O'Malley's little presents!" Church added.

They heard Wash yell that, and predictably, they heard at least one voice scream in fear, while another voice berated them with a Southern accent, more of a gruff one than the smooth, cultured tones of their father. Then, they burst out of the doors in time for an explosion to hurl them off their feet, as it did with the Dakotas and Tex.

Harry recovered in time to see part of the building imploding on itself, dust and flame and smoke billowing everywhere. "Jesus H Christ, did we just pull off a fucking action movie cliché or something?" Church muttered.

"Happened far too often for our liking back in Project Freelancer," Harry said, helping first Carolina, and then Church to their feet.

"What in Sam Hill was that?!" barked a belligerent voice from just beyond the gates to the facility. The source of the voice came from a man in red UNSC armour, wielding a shotgun. Two other newcomers stood nearby: a rather pudgy soldier in orange, almost yellow, armour, and another in dark red armour.

"That…was a distraction," Carolina muttered in realisation. "Wash, did you see any trace of the Meta?"

"None. I thought I saw a blur when we were taking shelter, but it was running away," Wash said. "Sigma must've thought the odds not worth the risk. Must still be getting used to piloting the armour."

"While that is a logical supposition," Delta said, appearing at South's shoulder, "I was able to analyse the bomb. The components took longer than usual to analyse partly because of their improvised nature, but the bomb, despite appearances, was not on a timer. It was on a remote detonation. My thought is that Sigma decided to flush you out in order to avoid damage to both the armour enhancements and the AI fragments, including myself. Also, there is evidence of his using the communications systems here shortly before we arrived, though the content of the message and where it was directed is unknown, save that it was offworld."

"Okay, so, why the fuck would Sigma want to communicate with anyone?" Church asked. "Has he got buddies?"

"Insufficient data," Delta said.

"Yeah, well you never fucking know the answer when it's important," South snarled(4).

"My supposition was that he intended for the Red sim-troopers to attempt to kill us, and that he would swoop in when we were distracted," Delta said.

Carolina snarled, before storming over to the Red's leader. "And why did you come here?"

"You listen here, Miss Fussy Britches! We had orders direct from Command to stop your attacks against our superiors!" the man snapped in his Southern accent. "Direct from General Taren Capel himself!"

"Taren Capel: the name given to fictional character portrayed by David Bailie in the Doctor Who serial The Robots of Death. Transmission year 1977…" Delta intoned.

"You can't fool me with your green colour, Blue!" the man said, before Harry snapped off a Stunner, causing the belligerent soldier to collapse.

After everyone else stared at him, he said, "What? He was getting annoying." He looked at the other two Reds. "Are you going to be any trouble?"

"Are you kidding?" the chubby one in orange said. "About the best thing he ever did for me was save me from a firing squad."

After a moment, the darker-red one shrugged. "As much as I respect Sarge, sir, I make it a point not to annoy a wizard. I mean, that's why you have the wand?"

Harry decided to go with it. "Yes, I am. What's your names?"

"Private Richard Simmons," saluted the darker-red soldier.

"Dexter Grif…oh, wait, it's actually Sergeant Grif now," the orange soldier said.

"And you had a stellar career as an officer, sir," Simmons said sarcastically. "One that nearly ended up with us getting court-martialled and shot."

"Wait, Grif got promoted?" Church said flatly, before looking at the sky. "Reality isn't collapsing in on itself, so maybe I hit my head when I dived for the ground."

"Oooohhh, congratulations Grif!" Caboose said. "Did you get a cake?"

"Actually, yes. It was delicious," Grif said proudly.

"Enough," Carolina said, before looking at Simmons. "Seeing since you seem to be the relatively sensible and competent one…"

"Hey!" shouted Grif in protest.

"I am going to need your help. We are trying to deal with Project Freelancer, but we have a rather persistent attacker in the form of the Meta."

"And why should we stick our necks out for you?" Grif asked, perhaps unwisely.

"Because if you don't," Tex said, "I'm going to have Harry use a spell to restrain you while we each punch a body part. I've got dibs on his genitals."

"Gah! Okay!" Grif yelped. "What's with you and bashing my balls?!"

"Target practise," Tex said. "I need to keep my eye in by attacking smaller objects."

South snorted. "Good one. Better than Wyoming's knock knock jokes."

"Can we at least maintain some small level of professionalism?" Wash asked in exasperation.

"I've got the feeling that the correct answer is 'no'," Harry remarked.

Locus, once known as Samuel Ortez, sat in the transport as it was sent to the sim-trooper training world. He was meant to land close to the Desert Temple, hook up with the man masquerading as the Freelancer CT, and wait to meet the Meta. Dealing with the sim-trooper who seemed to be holding off 'CT' was also part of it. Unfortunate…for the sim-trooper, at least.

Felix, predictably, had been disappointed that he wasn't coming along. Indeed, he had been upset. Locus had tried to empty himself of feelings of any kind, to be a professional, a machine, a soldier…but he had to admit to smiling a little, at least inwardly, at Felix's tantrums. Instead, Felix was continuing the preparations for the Chorus operation, albeit under supervision. Oh, he was a genius, Locus had to admit, but he was temperamental and gave less thought to consequences than he should. And he loved to ham it up, play to a crowd.

As he waited for the transport to finish taking him to the world, he thought back to the briefing. About the Freelancers present on the world, Freelancers he may end up fighting. Washington and the Dakota twins, currently the only surviving loyal members of Project Freelancer…and there was the possibility of encountering Texas, Carolina, and Virginia.

Maybe one of them might have the answers Locus sought. On what it truly took to be a soldier. To be truly free of the burden of guilt from killing. To be a tool in the service of one's commander.

Or maybe the Meta had that answer. Yes, Locus intended to speak to the Meta. And maybe he would find his answers…

CHAPTER 7 ANNOTATIONS:

Well, that was a clusterfuck. And now, Locus has entered the ring! It was fun getting into Locus' headspace, especially a Locus between the events of the 'Mercenary Trilogy' from Season 14, and the beginnings of the Chorus War. While Felix is a fun character to watch (insomuch as a raving lunatic can be fun), Locus is a fun character to write for. Plus, he'll be interesting to contrast with Sigma-Meta. Sigma, for all his atrocities, wants to be human, and Locus wants to be a machine.

Now, one possibility that occurred to me while writing this was possibly making Locus the new Meta…but that seemed rather predictable, and I like Locus well enough to keep open the possibility of his canon redemption. However, Sigma and Locus are going to have interesting conversations on the nature of humanity and being a soldier. I think they'll certainly get along much better than Felix and Locus. It's the start of a beautiful friendship (insomuch as Locus can have friends).

Another character who was fun to write for for this chapter, if only briefly, was Lopez. I didn't go to all the trouble of trying to translate his dialogue. I try to avoid doing that for my stories, as Google Translate can be unreliable (though I did hear somewhere that Lopez's Spanish is actually crap), and when I do use some phrases, I try to use Wiktionary for phrase equivalents in another language like French or German. Usually, though, I put the English translation of what people are saying into italics.

1. York's drink choice was that of Yang Xiao Long in the Yellow trailer for RWBY. I admit, it seems a bit odd for York to order such a girly drink, but I decided this was a guy who is basically comfortable doing that sort of thing. York, as in Red vs Blue canon, is straight, he just has his quirks. Plus, it gave Felix a way to mock him.

2. Baxter is York's first name in AkumaKami64's GATE crossover GATE: Thus The Blood Gulchers Kicked Ass Here. Despite not continuing after a certain point, it's well worth a read for the sheer black comedy of the sim-troopers managing to hold off the army from GATE.

3. As Delta states later, Taren Capel is the main villain of the Doctor Who story The Robots of Death, though he earlier masquerades as an engineer called Dask. He was a human raised amongst robots, and thought himself a robot himself, freeing his brothers for a revolution. He was played by David Bailie, who makes a non-speaking appearance as the mute pirate Cotton from Pirates of the Caribbean. In the Big Finish audios, David Bailie actually plays the Celestial Toymaker.

4. Another Doctor Who reference, albeit to an infamous outtake from The Armageddon Factor. On a BBC outtakes tape, it is K9 who says 'Insufficient data', and Tom Baker saying South's words…