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Basement Lab level 1

"It's okay, I'm coming!"

Andy. What was he doing here? Pale brows knit, head tilting to one side before she recalled the text she had sent to the trainee before she'd gone racing off to the Life labs. He was looking for her, because she was his trainer, she was the one that would tell him what he should be doing.

Now she heard it, the girl calling for help, and that too made her frown before the sound quick steps drew her attention to the far side of the room in time to see Andy appear in what was left of the door way. "Find the girl," she instructed, voice level as she finally stepped clear of the body of the clone. There had been only the faintest scratch along the wall where the thing had been chipping away at it with a tile shard. Nothing of worth.

"You should be helping in the infirmary," she chastised, picking her way through the rubble towards him. She'd meant to tell him to help with the evacuation, but she hadn't gotten the chance between racing off to find Astrid, and the floor giving out beneath her feet. Really, she should have been relieved that he was there, one less person she had to worry about, but she was still on edge, and she was still trying to distance herself from him.

Unsuccessfully on the last, all considered.

Life Labs Entrance

Jack glanced behind them and considered.

"Training fields," he told Chel, directing them onward. Away from various trappings of blue light that might have been safer, but also hopefully away from meddlers as well as away from possible casualties. Who knew what the clone's mission was.

hurricane

A similar pang of pain went through him when he heard Maebe's voice down the hall. Glancing at Caly, he tossed a hunk of the wall with a grunt, dusted his hands off on his jeans, and moved a little closer to communicate. (Sliding his palm over her back again in passing, always touching, always reminding and thanking and hoping. It's okay, it's okay, I got you.)

"Mayb!" he yelled hoarsely back, unable to hide his relief nonetheless. "Hey, girl! Me n' Caly got this side. I wouldn' try that hallway right now, aight, you jus' sit tight n' keep up the good work there."

Training Fields

He pocketed the phone without replying to the text and changed directions. He hoped this would be easy - he just had to keep telling himself that she wanted to get off the island. She'd been interested. He just had to be convincing.

He reached the training fields first and watched the chaos flowing through the island as he waited. They needed to get going quickly.

Training Fields

If Jack was on edge then Chel was fifty times more focused. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to pretend that she still didn't know. She didn't know how much the clone knew, what it's agenda was.

Once again she had to use her death facade on him when she didn't want to.

"Yo!" she called to him, not casual, but a bark for attention. "Chris!"

They would have landed at the infirmary entry had there been one. As it was, the pendants brought the hunters crashing down hard onto the floor below, still unstable.

Force summoning should have killed him, holding even the faintest echo of an Ancient should have killed him. But the nature of sacrifice was taking the path that hurt, and once again the peace of death was held just within reach and taken away. Frail, unconscious, and surround by rubble, Obadiah Thompson survived.

Beside him the two sleepers, Chris Axten and America Jones remained asleep, but something started to pull at them and break apart the dreams that had held them for so long.

Elsewhere, their clones would feel that pull and know that those others were now nearby. That something was coming to an end, very possibly themselves.

[ Present - Grief ]

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"Over here!" The rubble was nearly decimated as the Sun lead pulled two trainees from the debris. One of them took his hand, the other could not.

"I don't understand," said the second victim, as they tried to scramble on legs severed ten feet away. They were in more shock than pain. "I don't understand." They shook, just what remained of them, pale and blood-soaked and weak.

"It's okay," Allan gently laid a hand on their shoulder, "you'll be okay."

Clouded eyes. "I still don't understand."

"You don't need to understand. You did your job. You did great."

[ Present - Knowledge ]

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The problem was, Mark had to know. Despite all odds, he had already begin to suspect, and because he did, he was no longer sure. A part of him didn't want to find out. It was better this way, they could continue as they had for years and years.

What had changed?

He wanted to know, but he didn't.

[ Present - Reflection ]

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"Really nothing to do with me," she said, watching all of this from the fiftieth floor of somewhere very far away, the greenhouse looking a little more lively, "I'm more of a wait and see sort of girl myself."

The attendant waited an appropriate period of time. She was after all, the type of person who deliberately hired a good listener. "What will it be today then miss? Sam, or Charlotte?"

"Hmm, today? I'd say neither."

[ Present - Death ]

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"Unsightly", she whispers, but a part of her is curious, "In the end there will be no more soldiers, only empty puppets like it was before." She walked, danced, through the field of crystals."Shall we?"

He didn't move.

"Shall we? Unless you have become attached. Perhaps in those years you have found a reason to protect ? An attachment to this place, to what you have created and destroyed, or perhaps it is revenge to those who deserve to fall?"

"I am not naive," he finally responded. "Protection is the same as revenge. Words do not make something different."

"Words do not make them the same. Whether you belong to this island or it belongs to you, it makes no difference in the end. There is still attachment for you. We could have picked destruction a long time ago but something changed your mind. What was it?"

He didn't know. He didn't remember.

"In time then. There is always, another way."

Movement on the sand. A Hunter, face unrecognizable, covered in crystals, perhaps black, perhaps blue, more statue than human.

And it was crystal, not blood, that scattered on the sand. He waited. He stayed.