RvB - Bits of Memory

It's cold.

That is his first realization upon regaining consciousness.

His eyes close, open again. Half-lidded and shrouded by a visor scratched from battle, they strain to keep themselves from shutting once more, from letting the blackness become his consciousness. He coughs, then winces as the action causes his ribs to shake and shudder, damaging himself further.

'Ugh, I can't...'

Can't what? Vague memories float back to him, still too out of focus to be of much use. Memories... Yes, that's important, he recalls. For some reason, that word sticks in his mind. Memory...

He can feel the warmth in his fingertips draining out into the white snow. Slowly, he lifts them towards his chest, vision hazy. One moment, clear. The next, blurred confusion. Is this insanity, he wonders? Or is he just dead?

Another cough. This time, he raises a gloved hand to smother it, keep it inside of him where it belongs. It's a futile movement that only sends him another jolt of pain. His wrist collides with the helmet in the process, reminding him of his pounding headache.

He notices the fresh blood on his hands. Is this his, or... He can't seem to think of any names.

Something nags at him, a peculiar sense of urgency that screams at him to get up. He doesn't like it. It irks him, sending his mind into bouts of sharp clarity along with the stabbing pain. Wouldn't it just be easier to lie back down and stop trying? Wouldn't it... The hand falls back down, about to collide with the ground--

A vehicle in his narrow view. It's also... Wait...

Something else in his line of sight. A dark figure, looming out across the snow. Black against white.

'Tex?'

And suddenly, something familiar. A rifle. Instinct tells him to grab it and so he does, lunging for it in the way a man in the desert gropes for water. He needs this thing, he knows. Memory follows instinct and now everything's clear. His eyes dart across the healing unit, glowing faintly at his side. Status: 70% complete. He smiles bitterly.

'I guess I'll just have to do with that.'

A foot slams down on his hand. Tex's foot. Agent Washington looks up from his desperate grab to stare into the visor of the woman who has just lured him into her trap.

"You're supposed to be dead."

"Don't sound so disappointed."

...A few seconds later, a large shape hurls itself at Tex with a growl and Wash finds himself free, for the moment. After a brief interlude of disorientation, he draws the Capture Unit from his back and prepares himself.

'Just like old times, huh?'

Another memory inserts itself into his mind as he kicks, twirls, stabs and lunges at the AI mindlessly, barely needing to think to perform the familiar motions. He knows them all by heart.

The Meta, younger and under a different name, his armor slightly different. Wash, back-to-back with his partner, at the edge of a cliff. They're both grimacing a bit, having sustained minor injuries at this point. But all-in-all, Wash knows they can't lose; after all, the enemies are only simulation troopers, right? His only worry is about the score they will receive for their injuries.

Maine again, lying in the operation room, medics about to perform life-saving surgery on him. Bullet holes riddle his white armor, a vivid shade of scarlet seeping out of the cracks. Will the stains ever come off? A helmet floats off in a corner, leaving his face exposed. "Hang in there, buddy," Wash whispers regretfully through the glass even though he knows his partner in unconscious and can't hear him. "You'll make it. I swear."

If he closes his eyes for just a second, he can imagine that he really is fighting alongside his best friend again. The one who growled while fighting because he thought it was cool, not as a result of a stupid mistake. The one who would recklessly dive into battle without thinking, leaving a certain someone who always had to save his ass in the nick of time.

And then the Capture Unit flies out of his hands. His eyes widen and he leaps, temporarily abandoning Maine -no, the Meta!- to retrive the precious artifact.

"No!"

He can't let it fall, it mustn't fall, no, not now!

"Well what do we do with it?"

Wash stares the Alpha straight through his visor, to what he hopes is where the eyes should be. His hand is clenched firmly on his weapon. 'If only he remembered...'

"We take it, and we get it in the hands of someone who can use all its information. Then they can bring down the person responsible for what was done to Alpha. And to me. And to my friends."

It isn't just about revenge anymore. The time for that is long past. Revenge won't bring Connie back, won't bring Maine back, won't help anyone.

He stumbles, but just barely manages to save the Unit before it's out of reach. His hands are warm now, warm and alive and he can feel the blood in his veins.

"Be more careful, this thing can't take any more hits!"

A beat passes and Wash wonders who he thinks he's talking to. He's the one who let go. Tex sure as hell isn't going to listen to him. The Meta simply snarls in reply, his mind apparently bent on Tex.

More fighting. His body moves as if on its own, pulling the trigger, slashing with the knife. As if it's any good. He ignores each numbing blow Tex deals to him for every meager attempt at a strike, tries to remember why he's still fighting, still going on. The Meta snarls and hisses alongside him, words that not even his best friend can understand.

'Ex-best friend.'

He has to remind himself. What hurts more than his beatup body, so tattered and pushed beyond what its limits should be, is his mind. Another memory takes over and soon the only thing that takes up his mind is the thing that took over, the thing that killed itself.

Alpha. His thoughts, all embedded with those two syllables. Al-pha. His helmet, thrown against the wall. His face, covered with the claw marks of his own bloodied nails. Tufts of hair, drifting to the floor. Alpha.

Make it stop, he pleads. Just make it stop. Tears run down his bare face. But Epsilon keeps pressing the word into his mind, emphasizing every letter with a memory. Alpha. He's no longer himself. He is not David, not Washington, not even Epsilon. For the briefest of moments, he is the Director, Alpha, then the Director again. He is all of the AI, he is none of them. He is Anger, Deceit, Logic, Creativity. He is Alpha. He is all and he is none. He is Memory.

The bits and pieces of the Directors' life mix with the tortured moments of Alpha until eventually they are interconnected. One. The shards of emotion and memory bury themselves into his mind, seeking, feeling, probing. His eyes roll back in his head and he screams, a bloodcurdling noise that defines all aspects of the word.

Who am I? he wonders desperately. Who am I...!

Wash resists the urge to clutch at his temples in an attempt to calm the violent headache raging through his head and instead concentrates on Tex. Her hand, in particular. A snowflake lands on the device she's holding -some kind of trigger?- and he realizes his mistake too late.

"Is that a--"

Several beeps emerge from the wall of ice behind him.

"--mountain?"

The frozen rock detonates, spraying boulder-sized chunks of ice and stone everywhere. One grazes his shoulder. He ducks, barely avoiding being smashed by falling debris. He whirls back around and begins the deadly dance once more. Soon he finds himself back on the ground once more, wind knocked out of him and the Capture Unit impaled in the ice.

"Meta! Take it!"

He shouts over the sound of falling rock and the hulking monster complies, plucking the device back up as if it were plastic. Yes, he is the Meta. Wash reminds himself again. Maine is dead. Maine is gone. He won't be coming back.

His arms and legs follow Texs' movements, fighting barehanded since he has no other weapons. She knocks him down again, forcing him to roll over to protect himself from another slab of rock. Recovering, he jumps, the momentum carrying him onto an airborne boulder and then to the next, chasing Tex.

'It's like acrobatics,' he thinks to himself. 'We're all doing backflips in the air.'

"Hsss-" Maine is lying on the ground, hissing in pain after pulling a muscle in basic training. After a moment of confusion in which no one else approached the injured male, Wash rushes over to the, at that point, complete stranger, helping him limp off the practice area. The bigger male shakes his head, shrugging him off, and says, "I-I'm fine. Just pulled a hamstring. I guess my body's not used to doing acrobatics, y'know, backflips and jumps and all this other stuff."

"Are you kidding?" he asks worriedly, trying to get Maine to lie down. "It could be serious, or--"

"No, it's okay. Thanks anyways." Maine smiles weakly. "It's not too severe. I've had worse. And besides," he jerks his thumb at the other agents, "you've gotta be able to take a little pain if you wanna be the best." A grin; Wash swears that this guy is crazy. But for some reason he nods, and holds out his hand. "I'm Davi-- er, Agent Washington." "Maine." And then he stumbles back out into the session while Wash watches, not quite sure of what to think of this 'Maine'.

He allows himself a moment to treasure this memory, one of the few happy ones he has left after Epsilons' rampage. Looking back on it, Wash is amazed that so much of his memory involves suffering.

"You know I can see why you didn't want anyone else in your head. Got some pretty heavy stuff going on there. I think you need to talk to a professional."

Wash smiles ironically and replies to the thing that is the source of most of his problems.

"That's too bad. I just lost my job, and we have great mental health coverage."

'Yeah.'

A single backwards glance at the cobalt shape off on the sidelines.

Church, or rather, Epsilon, doesn't seem to be moving.

'You don't know the half of it.'