Every time he closed his eyes, the taunting slew of whickering alphanumerics remained, hovering. They had seen almost nothing but screens and screens of this ostensible gibberish since Peter had rolled up that morning; a brief hug from Nina, an even briefer but equally heartfelt handshake from Brandon, and the two of them had retreated into the ivory tower of the server room and gone to work. Peter had seen Brandon's expression evolve, in microcosm, from something close to arousal at the opening of the case, and the exposure of those siren hard drives, through cautious optimism, cautious pessimism, to its current setting of "oh hell, what have we gotten ourselves into?".

The encryption was unlike anything either of them had ever seen before − it seemed to have been designed to frustrate. One block would unravel, giving them hope, but then another two would coil up even further. It was maddening – they were trying to fit a carpet perfectly flush to the haphazard topography of a cave floor. Even with Massive Dynamic's beyond state-of-the-art equipment, they both knew this nut would require human ingenuity to crack. Thus, they had foregone sleep – Brandon until an hour ago, he was now napping in the corner on a couch purloined from the cafeteria – and set about attacking Walternate's Gordian Knot with everything they could bring to bear. Some progress had been made: from the medium-security directory, a name had floated up out of the foaming chaos. Upon consulting the web from a terminal upstairs, Peter had almost dropped the phone in his haste to call Broyles, who had expressed displeasure at being woken and had immediately forgotten it upon hearing the name Vincent Drake – Drake was a Deputy Director of the FBI, a man who was privy to almost everything Broyles had ever reported.

Since that early rally there had been very little, but neither man's attention had wandered. They had appropriated a coffee maker from a nearby staff lounge, so they had an unlimited supply of caffeine. Gradually, however, it dawned on them that they would eventually have to concede eight hours to oblivion somewhere down the line. The certain knowledge that their opponents were, at that very moment, furiously shuffling their pieces to seal this new this hole in their defence made no difference. Brandon had pointed out that their most important nexus, the junk shop, was now a smoldering pile of rubble, and had ridden that fact into a blissful-looking nap, leaving Peter straining to stay awake. It was the middle of the day, but no natural light reached the server room, and they had kept it dark to ease their eyes. Since his return he had been surfing a toppling wave of delayed adrenaline, but that wave was now breaking, and the backwash was revealing a bone-deep exhaustion.

Without Brandon's helpful distraction, his mind had begun to drift and meander, but always coming back to the same clutch of thoughts – is she awake? has she read it? Like a moth trying to alight on a candle flame, he came back and back to her stricken expression as he had slipped away. He had put the fear of God into her, and while it had gotten them home, it had also apparently unchained her double's repressed essence. He imagined the two of them fighting it out, willing the right one to win. The more he questioned his course of action, the more he came to know it was the right one, no matter how much it hurt right now. Had he glossed over his actions and not told her, there would have been happiness, but a tenuous, sword-of-Damocles happiness that would have eaten away at him until he finally broke, and then it would be too late to recover.

A deafening electronic chirrup slapped him awake – his head had sunk to the table, his arms out in front of him. The phone blared again – it was a reroute from the switchboard. Peter spun around in his seat to look at the clock. 12.01. He half-grinned, and answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Peter – stop this nonsense and come home right now." Right for the jugular.

"Hello Walter."

"If you hurry you can get here before she wakes up!"

"Clearly she hasn't yet or you would have put her on. Wouldn't you." Not a question, but he answered anyway, shamelessly.

"Yes! You know how this works by now, Peter – she needs familiar surroundings if this is going to work."

"… and she's at the old lab. Bringing her there was the right call, Walter – she's never seen our setup here."

He was wiggling like a worm on a hook. Walter lowered his voice.

"Peter… she'll forgive you."

"You can't know that. I haven't even forgiven myself. I don't know if I ever will."

"She fooled all of us…"

This, for no reason he could understand, made him angry.

"Yes, but "all of us" didn't sleep with her, did you!"

"Oh for heaven's sake!" Back to hectoring. "She went there to get you because she loves you, and you came back because you love her – I don't see the problem!" Of course he didn't. "And all this letter business… it's so…"

"What? Cowardly?"

"Frankly, yes!"

"Like the letter you told me you wrote me?"

He regretted it as soon as he said it; his head fell into his free hand. He knew now, at last, how Walter had felt while carrying his own devastating secret − the feeling of "damned if you do, damned if you don't". Only Walter had spent twenty-five years adrift in that sea, being eaten at every day by that corrosive pain, but unable to bring himself to tell his son the truth for the certainty that he would never, ever be forgiven. His anger evaporated completely

"Walter, I'm sorry. I forgot."

There was a brief, considering silence.

"No, I should have realized: you're in my shoes now. She means a lot to you, and you don't want to lose her. Sounds familiar..."

Walter's voice had pitched up in ironic humour, and Peter felt himself smile ruefully in reply. He decided to try talking shop.

"Have you figured out what you're gonna do?"

"Ah! Yes, actually, I have! Agent Farnsworth, God bless her – she reminded me of that young girl who was taken over by the dead sailor..."

Lisa Donovan. Of course. An awful lot was the same – two personalities fighting for control over one body. He also remembered the course of treatment.

"So basically it's drugs, drugs, and more drugs. Why am I not surprised…"

He heard Brandon stir behind him.

"Peter, the first thing she'll do when she wakes up is ask for you. What do I tell her?"

"Just give her the letter. Just that." At least a hundred of her different reactions at reading it had riffled through his mind between his writing it and now. In it he had spilled everything. Everything. It had taken up four pages, but he had closed with the thing that mattered most.

"I'll do that. In the meantime, can I come see you?"

The childish hope made Peter laugh, actually laugh.

"Walter, I haven't run away! Not this time, anyway. I just needed some space, that's all. Besides, it's your company – you can do whatever you want."

"Thank you." Relief. Another voice sounded off in the background. A female voice. Peter's heart froze − not yet, surely…"What's that, dear?" A pause. The voice repeated itself. "Agent Farnsworth wants to know if you're coming home for Christmas."

The tension popped, like a soap bubble, and Peter all but bellowed in unmitigated mirth, causing Brandon to shoot off the couch like a flipped-up rake. His laugh subsided, and he replied

"We'll see."

"Alright, we'd better get back to work."

"Yeah, so had we. Bye, dad. I'll see you soon."

There was a profound silence from both ends of the line. Peter recalled the hideous, insectile creature that had technically sired him, and the savage glee he had felt as his fist had crashed into his jaw. His father was, and always had been, here.

"Goodbye, son."

Peter replaced the phone in its cradle, still weary, but somehow cheered. Brandon wandered over, gouging sleep from the corners of his eyes. Through a tendon-straining yawn, he managed to say

"Shall I take over for a while? You look like you've been up since 1990."

"Well it feels like I've been up since 1985." 1985 had, indeed, been an interesting year, and after a fashion he had been "up" since then. Brandon cut through his reverie.

"Take five – I'll hold the fort. If any plans for a dark matter bomb come through I'll sound off." He sounded almost wistful…

"Nothing less." He raised his finger for emphasis, before reclining on the couch. Within a minute, a dreamless sleep had taken him.

Brandon knocked softly, cautiously. The Secretary's mood was more than volatile at the moment: he was a revolver with five chambers loaded. This was not a report he wanted to deliver himself. They were meeting at the Secretary's house, their former headquarters now a hole in the ground, and he could conceivably "kill the messenger" here with no reprisal. In an unfortunate coincidence, it had started to rain while he was walking up the driveway – rain that had come from nowhere; the midday sky had darkled to an inky blue-grey. He hoped it was not a portent.

He had been spared direct contact with the Secretary until now, having been submerged in damage assessment and rebuild projections, but he had heard second-hand that the normally-reserved man had been almost maniacal. Brandon felt as if he had been coated head to toe in a cold syrup of dread.

The door opened after a long moment and revealed the Secretary, looking harried and sleep-deprived, in his robe. His hair was slightly wild, his eyes squinting and red around the edges. He probably hadn't seen unimpeded daylight for forty-eight hours. Oh dear…

"Ah, Brandon. Come in."

He had been in this house before, for official functions, but a work meeting here seemed extremely strange, especially with Mrs Bishop taking his coat offering him tea. He declined, regretfully − Mrs Bishop made excellent tea, but the forthcoming exchange would very likely end with him running from this house for his life. He followed the Secretary into his office, leaving his wife watching the still-current coverage of the Liberty Island explosion on TV. Theories abounded, but the truth would obviously never come out. The party line was laughably contrived: an accident with an experimental nuclear power source. However, there had been no other way to shoehorn the word "nuclear" into the cover story, and even the most dim-witted conspiracy theorist could take a large explosion and an EMP and put two and two together. Better to tell a half-truth than a lie, and remove all notion of terrorism; the Statue of Liberty was − had been − a very meaningful target.

The fact that only three people had been killed "in the explosion" had been hailed as a miracle. Brandon, knowing better, remembered Peter Bishop's terrifying mannequin-face as he had shot those men. He had regained consciousness next to Colonel Broyles while lying on a lawn, some lawn, over the bay from the… where the facility used to be, and had all but drowned in his relief − if it had served Peter's purpose, he would have killed him. Along with the relief had come grudging admiration: the bomb's yield had obviously been meticulously calculated to do only as much damage as necessary. Pieces of the Statue had actually survived (but were so radioactive they would only ever be viewed through very thick glass). It had been almost surgical.

The mahogany desk was strewn with so many tablet computers that no trace of the timber was visible, and the sight caused Brandon's stomach to drop even further: the Secretary hated paperwork. What had happened two days ago had been nothing short of a catastrophe, but the very first problem that had to be dealt with was, much to the Secretary's fury, publicity. Always loath to address the proletariat himself, he had nominated Colonel Broyles to do it on his behalf, thereby restricting himself to dealing with other politicians, but even this had angered him. He would rather have been on the factory floor, Brandon knew, which was why he had been called here for an update. This would likely be the Secretary's first "real" work since the explosion.

"Sit down," he said gently, gesturing to a tan leather couch. Brandon sat, on the end closest to the door. The Secretary took the opposite couch, putting a paperwork-free coffee table between them. He lifted a red apple from the glass fruit bowl, bit into it with relish, and half-turned to his left, gazing out at the now-heavier rainfall. Apparently he found its sound soothing, and a soothed Secretary could only be a good thing. Brandon did not break the silence; no sane person would have done so. This was going far too well for his liking.

"So," he managed to say around his mouthful of fruit, turning to face his young visitor, "let's have it."

He didn't seem to be on that terrifying hair-trigger any more − his infuriating back-and-forth with the government might have blunted his rage. Brandon relaxed, very slightly.

"I just got back from the off-site server. It looks like we'll be able to recover seventy to eighty percent of our original files when the time comes."

He had started with good news, but the Secretary bypassed it completely, seeing it for the prevarication it was.

"How long?" Another bite of the apple. Brandon imagined it was his own heart in the boss's hand. He took a steadying breath.

"Six months. Maybe five."

He had half-expected to have the fruit bowl flung at his head, followed by a howl of inarticulate fury, but the Secretary merely nodded, and chewed. Their former headquarters had been a double-edged sword: it had been stuffed to the gunwales with the most advanced technology on Earth – on either Earth, they had known − but that same technology was extremely difficult and expensive to replace, as they were now discovering. But the Secretary was tight with everybody who mattered. Money meant next to nothing.

"How much of it did Peter get, then?"

If anything, this could be the worst news of all, and Brandon's respite might end very abruptly here and now. He took another steadying breath.

"Everything in Black, everything in Grey, and about half of White."

Black was their most highly-classified data; White, their least. Peter had known exactly what he was doing: stealing a magician's notes on his most guarded tricks. Moreover, he had then destroyed those notes, intended that the magician would never be able to perform again. The Secretary surprised Brandon again by not murdering him where he sat; he merely ruminated on his apple. The rain battered the bay window ominously, the wind throwing great fistfuls of it every few seconds. Brandon fidgeted in his seat, wondering if the Secretary was strong enough to throw him through it. Again, though, the response was measured. Astute.

"That was only to spite us. He knew our Dunham would be carrying intelligence on their side; he wanted to break even."

Brandon was relieved, but tried mitigation anyway. In his occupation it was automatic, despite his knowledge that the Secretary detested it.

"All the data was encrypted. It'll be a while before they can read it…"

"But they'll cut through it eventually; my s… Peter is extremely capable." He paused, considering. "Have all our people over there contacted and told to abandon their posts − they'll have to be replaced. My typewriter doesn't seem to work any more, so you'll have to use the synchro-wave generator, even though it takes a good deal longer to get anything over. I doubt they'll crack the codes before all our people get out, but their Brandon might be as good as mine…"

Brandon had no reply. They had gone right past the bad news and were onto damage control already. His confusion didn't go unnoticed.

"You were expecting me to be angry."

Incredibly, something resembling a smile had crept onto the Secretary's face. Brandon felt himself grin in response.

"Frankly, yes." He restrained himself from adding that "anger" was far too mild a word for what he had been expecting.

"What with our entire operation gutted and crippled for half a year, our most dangerous secrets in the hands of the enemy, and our one bargaining chip lost?"

"Pretty much." Brandon then realized the Secretary had seen some sort of silver lining here, and found himself intrigued at what it could be. But not intrigued enough to ask. Happily, the Secretary told him anyway.

"Peter's plan had very little subtlety, and no foresight. He was trading solely on his state of mind…"

His expression was one of carefully masked petulance, and Brandon knew that this had been his first taste of being on the wrong end of a kamikaze mission. One that had utterly, completely wrong footed him. Made him look impotent, ineffectual. Foolish, even. He had seen his almost God-like authority totally subverted, and this, more than any material damage, Brandon knew, was what was bothering him. This all sounded very much like sour grapes. Then again, who knew what had happened between his being knocked out and them leaving…

"… but I'm quite sure we'll never see that Peter again".

"What makes you say that?" He knew his boss was one of the great readers of men.

"You've heard the phrase "the most dangerous opponent is the man with nothing to lose"?"

Brandon nodded, remembering Peter's casual execution of those guards and his physics-lecture tone when describing what would have happened if Brandon disobeyed him. He shuddered internally, further recalling the abject terror he had felt when his thigh had been pierced by that dart.

"In taking his Olivia home with him, he gave them each something to lose."

Brandon was quietly astonished. His entire infrastructure in ruins, his most precious documents copied, stolen, and the originals shredded, and the Secretary had looked ahead right to the end of the game. The rain's clattering seemed to amplify the following silence. Again, Brandon did not break it.

The Secretary had finished his apple.

"Do you want me to supervise the rebuild?" Brandon ventured. He didn't particularly want to, and didn't expect to be asked to, but he knew he was expected to offer.

"No – anybody could do that. I have something else for you." He wiped his hands on his robe, which was, handily, also red. To a child, he would have looked like an evil sorcerer.

Brandon thought he knew what was coming next − the Secretary's colossal long-game demanded it: they had to do something about Peter's apparent immunity to their threats. He was not disappointed.

"I need you and your teams to start working on alternatives to the Weapon. I want this finished."

"We've tried reconfiguring the parts we have to work with a different genetic code, or, better yet, no code at all, but we couldn't find any way to do it. They don't seem to have been programmed, as such. They have no moving parts. Somehow, symbiosis with your son has been built right into solid metal."

He noticed the Secretary's face harden at the word "son". He moved on swiftly.

"The only option we have is to try to use the damage they've already done. Reflect it back on them, somehow."

The Secretary's face slackened, seemingly in pleasure: the idea of inflicting that same drawn out, cancerous decay on them was apparently very appealing. He nodded thoughtfully.

"Get started tomorrow – I'll find somewhere in the Pentagon for you to work where you won't be disturbed. Was the Weapon damaged in the explosion?"

Brandon was overjoyed at being able to offer some good news.

"No – it was deep enough not to be harmed, and the EMP had no effect we could see. I can't help wondering what would have happened…"

"If Peter had known it was down there? We were lucky. The only reason he didn't know is that our Agent Dunham didn't know. If she'd known, he would have brought something that would have put us on the Moon."

"Has she been debriefed yet?" Brandon sensed that he was now safe from the Secretary's wrath, but wanted to move off the subject of cataclysmic destruction.

"No, not yet. There's a potential gold mine buried in her subconscious, but all I've had in both ears for two days is people bleating about that bloody Statue! As you know, she could only tell us that their Dunham had been exposed to some drug that had activated her abilities, but she was never able to send us the molecular formula – that foolish old man would forget his head if it wasn't screwed on. Obviously, we now have nothing from which to take a sample."

Indeed – all of the other Dunham's blood samples had been in storage at the base…

"I'd also intended her to bring some or all of the Weapon's missing pieces back with her, but she was discovered before they could find more than two. If they have any sense at all they'll destroy them, but they don't, and they won't. They're too curious. They're keeping something that can literally make peoples' heads explode in that rickety Harvard laboratory of theirs, after all. I'd like you to set up a memory probe for her as soon as you're able." Brandon nodded.

The Secretary rose, which Brandon took to be his cue to leave, but he was again surprised.

"Would you stay and eat with us? Elizabeth's been driven to distraction with my moping these past two days and she'll be glad of the company."

Brandon, having just been relieved of his reconstruction duties, had nothing else to do, and accepted. He even managed to convince himself that he had been free to decline. But first he had to be sure of something.

"Sir… does your wife know?" Whispered, despite the closed office door, and the rain's roar.

"That Peter did this? No."

Brandon, reading between the lines, nodded his acquiescence.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," he said briskly, "I'll go put some clothes on. Dining in my robe… I couldn't imagine."

Brandon laughed, and not entirely obsequiously – the idea of Walter Bishop sitting down to eat in a dressing gown was truly ridiculous. He followed the Secretary back into the living room, where the latter branched off to go upstairs. He took his coat and put it back on.

"Oh Brandon, surely you're staying for dinner," Mrs Bishop's musical voice pleaded as she rose from her chair. Her expression was beseeching.

"Oh yes… I forgot!" he replied, with his first smile of the day. As Mrs Bishop rushed forward to take his coat again, he reflected that he had come here under a metaphorical raincloud, been followed by a real one, and had expected to leave this house with his head on upside down. The fact that the Secretary himself had made him see that all was not lost had filled him with a vital glow. They were still in this fight.

He took his tie off, rolled his sleeves up, and went to help Mrs Bishop set the table.