agent cheyenne

We The Committee - This Won’t End Quietly

If this were a one-off, if this was a situation that Lincoln was getting out of tomorrow, if this were a quick meeting and he’d never see Cheyenne again, Lincoln would be acting very differently right about now. He’d found a button, and his instincts wanted to exploit the hell out of it. Ruthlessly. He wanted to ask if it had been death that had taken her A.I. away from her, who the A.I. had been, if that had anything to do with why she was studying her hologram but didn’t want to talk about it.

And he could do it. Very fucking easily. He’d interrogated before, though it hadn’t been his main job. Just came along with stealth missions sometimes; you found a mark, you questioned them. He knew he could get the answers if he just pushed.

But the reality was, he had to stay on this ship. And he couldn’t afford to piss people off, not when they were clearly assets, not when they were obviously sources of information.

"I’m sorry to hear that," he said instead, his tone genuine. "From what I’ve seen, a lot of the Agents here have bonded with their A.I. It must have been hard to lose yours."

Cheyenne. Lincoln’s thoughts turned inward for a second, recalling the sparse files he’d read. Cheyenne had been listed as being paired with Taurus, aka Tara.

“No, you misunderstood me. I should have made myself more clear. My A.I. wasn't destroyed, she was reassigned to a different agent.” With a slight humming sound, the tablet purred to life. “We never really got along anyway. So much for matching agents and A.I.s based on a potential for the best possible team.”

She pressed a few buttons and the tablet's screen lit up, running through a quick diagnostic. Lincoln was probably uncomfortable hearing all of this, but she hadn't met his eyes once while she talked about Tara. But she did now.

Sighing, he turned his gaze to the rest of the group, lips pressing into a firm line.

So he showed up. And he listened to the completely obvious, poorly written clue. And then he was more than a little shocked when no one seemed to instantly understand it.

“If you know so much, why don't you just lead us there?” She snapped at Orion, not even trying to contain her dislike for his haughty attitude at this point. “My best bet is that it's either the medical bay or the restoration lab. Like Calvin said, those are the two most obvious places used for fixing things.”

Possible martyr complex. Though that could just be a sense of work being more important than the body, which Lincoln could certainly understand.

Really, everything about Agent Cheyenne seemed perfectly normal. But Lincoln hadn’t been picked for this job because he was stupid. There was something there, something under her demeanor, that spoke of … something. Who the fuck knew what it was yet. Maybe it was something, maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was something little, maybe it was a secret that could crack this whole mystery right open.

"Well, be that as it may, please don’t injure yourself too badly on my account,” Lincoln replied, watching her work. She was a deft hand, obviously an excellent engineer—people picked for this Project wouldn’t be anything less than excellent.

And with no clue of what this something was that Cheyenne might have to tell, Lincoln was left to cast a very wide net.

He leaned back in his chair, casual and relaxed, features quirked in interest as he watched her work. “Was that a hologram of your armor you had?” he asked. “Or of the AI?” Like he hadn’t gotten a close look. Cheyenne wouldn’t have noticed, though, she’d had her head down over the hologram. Lincoln smiled, edging some bemusement in there. “I just got implanted to my AI yesterday. Definitely not what I was expecting, though I guess every newbie thinks that. Are you partnered to one?”

Just making small talk. Just a soldier new to the ship, expressing his amazement at the technology to an engineer that might know more about the AI than he did.

Ah, the hologram. Cheyenne knew she shouldn't have had it in such a public place, or at least not with the EMP wiring displayed, but she hadn't thought anyone would disturb her. She seemed to be at the point where people flat out avoided her until necessary rather than attacking her, whether verbally or physically. She couldn't tell which was worse. “You wouldn't be interested in that,” she said, a lame attempt to throw him off of the subject. “It's just a little project I'm working on. I mean, I could go into it if you want, but you'd probably get bored of all the technical terms after a minute or so.” As she spoke, she unplugged a few wires and put them into alternate ports.

But at the mention of A.I., her relaxed mood was gone. Her fingers stopped for a second, just a second, as she processed what Lincoln had said. Partnered to an A.I. just yesterday. Fresh off the transport, and they were already giving him a match. She wondered how long it would take the Director to crank out the next batch of robots, how many agents would be implanted with a person of their very own, how many excuses he would make up for reasons why she couldn't have one. Except they wouldn't be excuses, just facts. Volatile. Prone to self-preservation above all. Violent contact with A.I.s in the past. Paranoid. Rebellious. Ungrateful.

Physical wounds, though, he could do something about.

Still, he couldn’t help but mutter in annoyance Cheyenne’s words — “Huh. Facing facts.” — under his breath as he worked.

It had been a long time since he’d done this, but that didn’t mean that it felt any differently than it had back then. The feeling of breaking human flesh was still such an odd thing. It felt like pushing a needle through what he imagined a freshly killed cow must feel like. They were just meat — blood and sinew and bone. Being this up close and personal with the human body was just a reminder of that.

Concord moved as quickly and efficiently as he could. He took no pleasure in doing this — especially when it wasn’t really his job — so he wanted to finish as quickly as possible. But it seemed to be taking him longer than usual, or at least longer than it had when he was out in the field. Maybe it was because his adrenaline had been pumping then, and it made things appear as if they were going faster than they actually were. Or, he’d been doing a half-assed job back then and didn’t realize it.

When he’d made his final stitch in Cheyenne’s arm, he clipped and tied the remaining thread. What remained of his roll of bandage was wrapped around her arm and tightly closed. If he had somehow fucked this up and her wounds reopened, she would at least have something to keep the blood from spilling everywhere. At least for a few moments.

Having finished up, Concord started to put the remaining medical supplies away. He knew he shouldn’t say anything more, but Cheyenne’s words were still nagging at him.

“What am I supposed to do, start a rebellion? I'm being as resistant as I can without being aggressive, and I'm toeing that line even now. I can't exactly parade myself around, it would be disrespectful. I fight people when I need to and work on the projects I have to and talk to the few friends I have left.” She was doing her best to keep her voice level, but it was hard. How could he not understand?

"I hate you."

"You’re dead to me."

"I trust you."

"I’m dying."

"I’m pregnant with your baby."

"I never really loved you."

"I want you. Naked. In my bed. Now."

"I’m proud of you."