Chapter Text
A snowy scene cast a warm white glow across the room as Iselin stepped into her quarters, swiping her bangs out of her eyes. Digital flakes drifted across the screen, programmed to fall perfectly gently and evoke a soft, calming environment; an ambience that was impossible for her to enjoy as a metaphorical storm roiled within her that evening.
Always set to a cool 17 degrees Celsius, her room kept in line with a tidy, frigid, and minimalist habitation. The latter wasn’t so much in the trendy interior design sense, but rather from how she preferred to stick to absolute basics. Instead of clutter such as art or photos like her fellow agents decorated their walls with, she had blueprints of her devices hung up next to her neatly organized tool pegboard. Mugs used in rotation for her daily cups of coffee lived in a cupboard, lined up neatly on the shelf that was designated theirs. These were kept away from the other agents, far from the communal kitchen lest someone else be careless with them. A wafflemaker sat on the highest shelf, a generations-old family heirloom that was still in pristine condition. Not a speck of dust was allowed to settle on any of them.
As routine, she detached her prosthetic arm, rubbing the re-exposed skin as it aired out. It always itched underneath, even after finding the magical combination of liner material and moisturizer to prevent rashes from forming.
She never left her room without it. For one, wearing it minimized the number of pitiful stares she received. The freedom to be independent was another virtue. If one more person rushed to hold another door open for her, she’d be tempted to trap them in a corner with her mesh barrier for the rest of the day. But once she was back for the evening, the prosthesis came off as soon as she could manage, for her relief. With a cleaning cloth, she wiped the inside of the socket and mantled it to charge up overnight.
This room was set up to be a cozy refuge. Her taste of home. It had been years since she last saw Norway, having settled into life on some man-made island in the Pacific all the way across the globe with a wiped identity and a new name. She was fine with this, for now. Even if she hadn’t been able to convince them to install a proper sauna yet, anywhere she could source kvikk lunsj and brunost was good enough. At least, she told herself that despite the fact that replacements could take months to ship when her stocks ran low.
With home so connected to her painful past, each evening spent alone played out similarly. She’d get home, get ready for bed, and then like regularly scheduled programming, the grief, regret, and physical pain she endured in Svalbard would come rushing back. Restful sleep eluded her. When she closed her eyes, she saw glowing ones, four of them, narrowed and hungry, staring back at her. If she was lucky to fall asleep, she’d always wake shortly after, her heartbeat racing and her shirt soaked with sweat. Knowing this awaited her, she still carried on with the same routine every day. After settling her prosthetic, she would go brush her teeth, wash up, and then go listen to music or read or do anything to distract her mind until she felt drowsy enough to lie in bed.
Tonight, she was haunted not only by the usual horrors, but also by an order that she reconcile her issues with a certain fellow agent and his so-called “crew.” Shuffling into her bathroom, she ripped her toothbrush from its holder and slapped it on the edge of the sink. It took longer than she’d liked to master the art of uncapping, then neatly squeezing a dollop of toothpaste on the frayed bristles with a single hand. Her riled state made it difficult to hold steady in this instance.
No one else was concerned by the way Gekko gave those monsters free reign of the grounds. Their so-called cuteness, not to her but to everyone else, earned everyone’s trust, allowing them to bide their time until they destroyed everyone in the organization. Or something like that. Exactly how they’d achieve that goal, she couldn’t say.
Aside from their recklessness, their minds were… simple. Her research on them so far had focused on ways to contain or neutralize them, but she knew the key to subduing them was to find out the extent of their power. And she had to conduct this on her own time, in absolute secret.
Brimstone had called her to his office earlier that afternoon. He always provided snacks for these meetings, but it was well known among the team that the better the treats he had that day, the more difficult the conversation he was planning. She picked at the hazelnut wafers in a small napkin on her lap, flaking each layer apart. Though these kinds of cookies were her second favorite, losing only to the chocolate-covered type, she didn’t have an appetite for them, nor his words.
From the beginning, Brim’s authority and foresight had earned him her respect— Especially regarding the recent developments with Project Landfall. He however led with a firm hand, and sent a clear message to her when he trashed her request to have the radivores confined that his alignment was with the Protocol as a unit. This was not up for discussion. Though he commended her for her exemplary collaborative efforts on their upcoming mission, the main topic he wanted to discuss was her working relationship with Gekko, or, lack thereof.
“Listen, Deadlock. I can’t have your hesitations to work with him become a liability to a mission or to the other agents. This isn’t an easy conversation for me to have with you, but consider this radivore relations training mandatory.”
“Brimstone,” she said. Frustration built up, manifesting tightly in her throat. It took everything to keep her voice from raising. “You fail to understand what they’re capable of. They might be cute now, but one day, it could spell disast-”
“You and radivores have a dark history, I recognize that, but you need to find a way to work with the ones on our team.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his desk as he spoke. “With them, you make a lethal combination out there on the field. And we have some delicate operations coming up. Your cooperation is necessary for the success of those missions.”
So, they were planning to put her on more assignments with him. Why couldn’t she have been assigned to pair with someone more competent, like Fade? Or, god forbid, Chamber?
“The cages were the last straw. I can’t have you treating our own like this. It’s not in the spirit of the Protocol,” he continued. “You don’t have to love them, but Gekko and his crew are valuable assets to us. They’re not going anywhere, and we will not let them hurt you.”
That he gave too much trust to things that hadn’t earned them was a weakness that did not belong in such a serious organization. Misplaced trust was part of a pattern she’d observed in other parts of leadership as well, with Brimstone’s receptiveness to onboarding people who’d never held a firearm before. Sure, they could be trained, but how good of a shot could they possibly be compared to the other more experienced marksmen? They were lucky that he and other newcomers like Clove or Miks had decent enough aim to be of use. Not that there was anything she could do about it. Brimstone often welcomed her expertise, especially for strategic tactics on the field, but not for agent recruitment advice. Plus, that was far above her pay grade.
“And if I won’t?”
His folded hands tightened around each other. “Then your time with us will have to end here. Like I said, it’s mandatory. Some might call it a drastic alternative, but again we cannot have your dispute jeopardize our missions.”
The ultimatum wounded her. Drastic indeed. She knew her worth; she was an indispensable asset to the organization, was she not?
“What of Gekko? Is his position also at risk? This is as much on him as it is on me,” she snapped.
“He hasn’t been perfect either, but the strife started with you. He works smoothly with everybody else. I need the solution to come from you first.”
What did others find so cool about Gekko anyway? He was friendly with every other agent in the organization. He especially maintained a good rapport with some of the other more energetic colleagues. At her first time meeting the team, he’d even welcomed her warmly. How quickly that changed once he realized her situation, which was much later than everyone else. He was probably sleeping during her introduction. Building bridges with this guy was the last thing she wanted to do. Especially if that bridge also brought those four horrible monsters along with him. It wasn’t her fault that these things had somehow charmed the entire organization.
The leather-upholstered chair she sat in felt oppressive. Wafers became a pile of mushy dust. She knew she couldn’t sacrifice her second chance at life, nor disrespect the work the Protocol did to give her life-saving care, help her rebuild her arm, let her use their resources to manufacture her schematics, over a disagreement like this. She owed them her loyalty in exchange for this life.
“What if I need you both on the same mission, and you’re the only two left on the field? How can I trust you to work with him agreeably and accomplish the objective? Either you make amends, or else, consider yourself out of a job.”
She acquiesced, not out of acceptance, but for the sake of ending an excruciating meeting.
The more she replayed the conversation, the harder she scrubbed her teeth. Of course she was no stranger to being a part of a well-functioning team. In her time as a Ståljeger, she’d never dealt with complicated working relationships such as this. Her unit became her family. Even designated as the lead, everyone was equally competent and knowledgeable. So often they were on the same page that no coordination was needed, and in the rare cases of disagreements, they were ironed out with civility. Plus, they all knew better than to harbor savage beasts. Yet they were the ones who lost their lives to one. A heavy price to pay for what was supposed to be a simple extraction job.
She left Norway with two lessons learned: don’t get cocky on the job, and never underestimate a radivore.
Whatever the hell these things were was still a mystery, even to an organization as privy as the Protocol. Viper, who’d been actively researching them for years, hadn’t come close to discovering whatever powers they were secretly hiding. Because surely, Gekko’s creatures were capable of so much more power than everyone knew. They were of the same ilk as the one that could best even her own nanowire tech. The bear that left her with one less arm, without her sisters, and night terrors for the rest of her life. It was a matter of time before they wreaked havoc on the rest of them, intentional or not. At the end of the day, their nature was savage. Their trust in these radivores was a ticking time bomb. The specialized cages were meant to protect everyone; apparently her explanation did not suffice to convince them.
She acrimoniously spat the minted foam into the sink bowl, sending it down the drain with a wrest of the faucet handle. They were never going to listen. None of this mattered to leadership. These things had cemented their place in the organization before she even knew of its existence.
And ultimately, she could not let herself be the reason another mission failed.