The hovercar weaved its way through the light smattering of air traffic in the city, the buildings a blur as it picked up speed. Its driver smoothly changed lanes with a quick twist of the steering wheel, and a loud 'klunk!' could be heard coming from the back of the car. The driver swiveled his head to catch a split-second look at his passenger, a man wearing a dark black set of clothes, with a small light-armor vest thrown over them, and a pair of goggles set atop his head. He had reached his arm back to scratch at his neck, which must have been bumped in the turbulence. All in all, he seemed like an ordinary, ragtag fella, probably visiting an old friend. The driver turned back to watch the road again - it wasn't his place to judge his passengers, it was his job to get paid by them.

Just as well, as the soldier in the back wasn't in the mood to talk - or, rather, in the mood to do anything other than what he had set his mind on doing. He would have taken an automated, A.I-driven taxi, but after what he'd been through the week before, he was sure that he'd be sticking to manually-performed... well, everything, for the time being. Checking the clock via his neural interface, he decided to spend the rest of his time going over (for what seemed like the fiftieth time) what had happened in the past five days. He took a deep breath, the oddly pungent smell of the fake leather chairs burning his nostrils, and started at four years ago.

He had just joined up with the UNN's military regime, opting into becoming a marine, and was immediately thrown into the harsh training facility that was operated on Io. Admittedly, at first he had been quite proud to have been picked to go to the famous facility; after all, the facility's motto - hell, their very way of life - was 'Where Men Become Soldiers'. He didn't even mind the fact that he had to spend a year with the "sissy navy wimps", since he had make quite a few fire-forged friendships with many of both sides of the recruits. And then, a few years later (luckily avoiding the 16% fatality rate of the training facility), he was launched into two years of missions as a real marine.

And then came the day where he signed up to be part of the Rickenbacker team. Groaning, he lifted his goggles, rubbed at his eyes, and slipped them back on. He didn't need them in the bright light of the city, but they were comforting to keep on, like a security blanket that a child would hold. Then again, they and the rest of his current outfit were also a reminder of the horrors that had so recently passed, and he wasn't sure whether this made him feel prepared or over-anxious. He looked out the window again, watching the other hovercars pass by. He had to admit, compared to his hometown (actually 'homecity', but really who paid attention to the little details like that?) of Boston, New Atlanta was extremely built up. Boston was pretty large and impressive of a city, but the Battle of Boston Harbor had taken a big bite out of its popularity, despite the fact that Captain William Bedford Diego... well, the late Captain William Bedford Diego, anyway, had impressively defused the situation with very few lives lost. Looking skyward, he continued his thought-chronicling.

He had applied to be part of the Rickenbacker's crew due to a combination of many emotions. The biggest part of it was that he'd get to serve with his childhood hero, the aforementioned William Bedford Diego, the hero of Boston Harbor! Every U.N.N-affiliated person, from kid to adult, knew about Diego, and every person looked up to him like a role model, including himself. Another part of it was the fact that... well, c'mon, who wouldn't want to make history and be part of the first group of faster-than-light travelers? He was lucky to be picked at all, considering his rather sparse reputation - a year of training and two years in actual combat? It was a miracle he was even able to get his name registered as a "maybe". Which, of course, made his ecstasy all the sweeter when he actually did get chosen as a crew member. And then, a few months or so after taking off, he got knocked unconscious by what apparently was a robot that dragged him to the medical bay...

The soldier closed his eyes and let out a shuddering sigh, looking out the window of the taxi again. He didn't want to think about it anymore. It was over, it was done with, and she was gone. The scenery had changed from the sleek, shining inner city to the shadier outskirts, the buildings still (somewhat) sleek, but the paint was peeling in places and a few of the apartments seemed uninhabited. He couldn't blame anyone for that, though - in this day and age, who would want to live in a dump? Or rather, who would tolerate living in a dump? He was glad that his neural interface began to play the all-too-familiar ring of an incoming transmission, and he tapped his temple twice, activating the call.

"Soldier? That you?" The soft, tender voice of a middle-aged woman spoke into his mind as an image of her face appeared in the corner of his vision, and he smiled. It was nice to hear a kind, caring female voice after listening over and over to the insulting tone of someone who considered him expendable. She was somewhat frail-looking, but her tone and posture was cold and business-like. "Soldier, this is Lansing, are you there?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here," He spoke quietly, as so not to alert the taxi driver, and leaned back into the chair. "Whaddya want?"

He heard a grunt of mild frustration come in loud and clear and smirked. "Now is not the time for jokes, soldier. As it is we were lucky to be able to find the hacker at all. The last time I heard from him, he had sent me an e-mail talking about how he was going into hiding. I hadn't expected him to hide in his old apartment. The way he had worded it, it made it sound like he was going halfway across the planet."

"That may be so, but why is this hacker so important to me anyway? So maybe he went through the same thing that I did, that doesn't mean he needs to give me therapy on how to move on." In actuality it was nothing more than a charade; both he and Lansing knew the importance of the hacker, since he was the one who had originally de-ethicized the A.I. all those years ago. The soldier would have gone ahead and pinned the entire Von Braun incident on the hacker's shoulders, but he knew better than to blame the recent events on someone who probably had no idea what had been going on for the past week or so. He found it somewhat ironic, actually - he had started the mission as a U.N.N soldier, and now he was part of a Tri-Optimum team focused on A.I-related incidents; a total reversal of sides he fought for. Then again, Lansing had told him about her involvement in the Citadel incident nearly four decades ago, so he knew better than to take her information for granted.

"Ugh... just get the info from the hacker and be done with it. I'm not playing around with you anymore, soldier." And with that, he heard a buzz in his mind, indicating that Lansing had cut the call. Tapping his temple twice, he exited his "mental-mail", as he had nicknamed it, and looked out the window. The taxi wasn't moving anymore, and he turned his head to see the driver looking at him.

"Alrighty, here's yer stop. Pay up." The man gave him a greedy look, and it took all of the soldier's willpower not to whip out his concealed M2A3 and splatter the dashboard with his gray matter. It was greed that had caused the whole Von Braun incident. Breathing deeply to calm himself, he paid the driver his nanite fee, exited the taxi, and watched it zoom away into the thicket of metal and concrete. Hah, concrete. That was something you didn't often see in cities anymore. Spinning on his heel, he looked up at the apartment complex that was now staring him in the face. He opened up his interface and checked his older messages, stopping at Lansing's first message to him, which he opened up. Thankfully, it was only a text-message instead of audio-mail or video-mail, and it had exactly what he was looking for.

"New Atlanta, Sector 11. Building 71-G." He walked forward, each footstep resonating in his mind, and sneaked a quick glance at the sign in front of the double-doors. 71-G; he was at the right place. "Apartment 2... floor 83, B-side."

He entered the building, ignoring the call of 'hello!' from the front desk's protocol bot, and strode towards the repulsor platforms, waiting patiently as a small group of men, women, and children exited. Men, women and children, happily smiling and laughing at the pretense of another day together. He closed his eyes and thought - he hadn't seen any children on the Von Braun after the disaster, but he did remember seeing signs warning about children in the more dangerous parts of the ship, and the bits and pieces of his memory that weren't part of the UNN file that Lansing had read off to him did contain a few kids... what had happened to them? Did the Many consider them to be unfit for assimilation? Did the reprogrammed robots get them? A chill ran down his spine as a particularly gruesome thought entered his head. Did he himself kill them? Could he not differentiate them from the monstrous Many? The cyborg women on the ship had spoken about 'little ones'...

He broke out of his trance as another family exited the repulsor platform, which had been reoccupied in his hesitance, and after that little group left, he walked onto the steel-and-glass elevator, inputting the number '83' on the side-panel. As he felt the wind-like sensation of anti-gravity begin to push the lift upwards, he closed his eyes and slipped his hand into his pocket, holding his pistol tightly. The grip was all-too familiar, and it was more than a little comforting. He would have also brought along his laser rapier, but Lansing had confiscated it, saying that it would have made him a target in the eyes of most citizens. Despite the numerous laws put in place to ensure a safe, legally-concealed-handgun system, melee weapons were still getting the short end of the stick.

Lansing had actually confiscated most of his weapons - along with his laser rapier, he had also lost his M22 rifle, his shotgun, and his H4 energy pistol, along with his oh-so-treasured powered armor suit. In fact, other than his aforementioned standard-issue pistol, his clothes and the light armor vest, he was basically naked. It was an odd feeling, going back to a typical way of life after spending three days avoiding death hundreds of times. He wondered if this was the post-traumatic stress disorder that so many soldiers went through after particularly bad experiences. Slowly, he reached into the inside pocket of his vest and drew out a needle, which he jabbed into his wrist, pushing the plunger all the way in. As the chemicals entered his bloodstream, he felt his tension lessen and his body slacken somewhat. Thank god for relaxants. The lift slowed to a stop as it reached an open hole in the wall with the number 83 marked above it.

Peering out into the deserted hallway, he heard the repulsor lift powering up to shoot off to another floor, and sighed as he stomped forward and entered the Beta section of the eighty-third floor. The cold, steel floor under his feet clanked with each step he took, the noise echoing in his head like a ping-pong ball bouncing off of a paddle. He stopped at a large, sliding metal door. This was the place. Now he was really glad he had taken that relaxant. He pressed the talk button near the door, and a muffled static noise could be heard coming from inside the room, indicating that the person inside (if it was even a person) had opened up a communication link.

There was no turning back. The soldier took a deep, shuddering breath before speaking.

"Hac..." He thought better of it. "...Employee 2-4601? I'm here to talk to you."