fic: Trial By Fire (4/4)

[bonnefois]

Title: Trial By Fire (4)
Series: TF2
Character/pairing: Scout/Miss Pauling, ensemble, Administrator, Saxton Hale,
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 11180
Summary: When the mercenary group is suddenly attacked at night by Gray Mann while taking refuge in an old base, Miss Pauling barely escapes the flames with Scout. Soon after she's hit with the realization that this was no accident: there's a traitor in Teufort. With time running out, Gray Mann's armies quickly closing in and everyone a possible suspect, she tries to flush out the mole before everything is lost.
Author's note:



She had to pay the utmost attention while driving down the steep, twisting incline. Scout chatted away beside her; she didn't bother to try and respond, not with death being as close as a missed turn and a long fall. He'd barely left her side since yesterday. She would've been far more annoyed if she hadn't helped bury her own body with him.

Only when she'd passed the worst of the twists and turns, the company pick up jostling hard enough on the bumps that she thought something might fall off, that she began to speak.

"I know who did it. You were right. Spy showing me that was a ploy," she said.

"What? No! It ain't Spy, it ain't him at all," Scout said.

"I was there, I saw the Balisong in Richard's back. I felt the Balisong twist in my own back," she said.

He flinched at that, the shock of the memory halting his response. The twists stopped, until it was nothing but the craggy edge and a thin dirt road between trees. During the rainy season this base wasn't even accessible from land.

"I was there and I beat down the Spy robot until it was nothin' but pieces. It wasn't his knife," Scout said.

"Are you sure we can trust him?" she said, changing a glance over at him. "Just because he was the one to alert us to the breach doesn't mean he was uninvolved. He could be trying to curry favor, exonerate himself..."

"Ehhh, it's not like I was keepin' it from you exactly..." Scout said.

"Scout," she said.

"It wasn't like I kept it quiet intentionally! It's just, I know him. Kinda, at least. Turncoatin' ain't beyond him, but he ain't goin' to shit where he sleeps. He ain't goin' to do anythin' which puts me in too much danger, and betrayin' us and killin' you? Way too close for somethin' he won't get anythin' out of," Scout said.

"What are you saying? You've got some secret friendship? He's never had a single conversation with you where you both didn't storm off in anger," she said.

"Well, the truth is, He's hung around my family since I was little. Not like around a family gatherin' or anythin'. He bailed us out. None of the families will even touch us after what he did when those Patriarca guys. I think the only reason he didn't kill 'em all was ma didn't want to kill the unrelated people. You know, the women, the children. Stuff like that," he said.

Nothing in her files had ever indicated he'd been behind the downfall of the Patriarca family, though for once, she didn't think Scout was exaggerating at all. This added a new layer to consider in future decisions.

"And you aren't angry at all about this? He treats you worse than even Engineer and Sniper, and he can't even go through a briefing without insulting them," she said.

He rubbed at the back of his neck, a gesture he always took on when sheepish, or at a slow burn of anger and distaste that he couldn't process all the way. "On a scale of things I'm pissed about, that's about a two. I can wait until this is all over to punch him in the dick, he'll still be around," Scout said.

"Well, there goes my lead," she said. She gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. A sense of futility, like she'd slid down whatever incline she'd managed to collect. All her plans had come to naught. The mission she'd started with Scout hadn't shown any new data. If anything, this strike might be revenge for the false info.

She brought the truck to a stop. Fog had rolled in during the night. She had no patience for the beauty of nature when it made it easier for Gray Mann to kill them all. Scout reached out to touch her shoulder.

"Nah, you're real smart like. You'll figure it out. And until then, I ain't leavin' your side---I'll beat down anyone who ever tries to backstab you again."

"I haven't made any progress," she said. It was the same feeling as in her youth. Just missing a problem she knew and getting a B, not getting into the university she so wanted just because she was a girl. She could never stand failure in herself, and even pitted up against impossible odds.

"I just...really want to punch Gray Mann in the face after all this," she said.

He took her hand and squeezed it. "Trust me, I'll let you get plenty of shots when I take my bat to him."

"Oh, hell no. I'm not going to sit back and let you get all the fun. If we're going to kill people together, we've got to have an equal opportunity maiming clause. In fact, I should draw up the contract...." Miss Pauling said, distracted.

He laughed into the back of his right hand, the bandages still faintly spattered with blood with his nigh daily skirmish with Soldier. "The contract? Jeez, you're such a paper pusher, it's...." His gaze softened as he looked at her. "Abso-frickin'-lutely perfect."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she said.

"And you know how it is, nobody's got more confidence than me," he said, thrusting his thumb to his chest.

Miss Pauling knew she was in deep when even his smugness was endearing to her. But even this small haven of happiness couldn't beat back the war. Stress had wound itself a tight ball inside her. The reveal of the day before would have consequences, even if they hadn't become apparent yet.

If she and Scout wasn't enough, then she had no choice but to rely on other mercenaries. She couldn't fight an army alone, no matter how much she wanted to be able to finish it on her own, dot it off as another A+ and exemplary progress.


*

Scout had been banned from Engineer's warehouse after an unfortunate incident with a baseball, a broken window, and a particular piece which Engineer had been at work for over two years.
Engineer had a habit of saving the cracked remains of the robots to use as fodder for his sentries. She couldn't tell if it was merely practical, or his own sense of vengeance that fueled it.

This particular workshop was smaller than his others, almost claustrophobic, with half-done projects and twisted metal scrap on almost every available surface. The sleek metallic interior had turned damaged with his many experiments. Dents in the walls from sentry tests, and a scent of rust and oil which never went away.

She spoke above the machinery. He was polite enough to stop his saw, and turn to her. A robotic Pyro was dissembled on the worktable. The real Pyro was occupied with blocks with little computer readouts that Engineer had made in a corner, completely oblivious to the noise. One side of the blocks had rainbows and ponies, the other had paintings of hellfire and brimstone.

At first, she thought perhaps the Administrator was paying Engineer to take care of Pyro. An inspection deeper into his bank accounts with the company showed no such extra billable hours. Whether his care of Pyro was currying later favors to keep his buildings safe, or if he genuinely cared about Pyro, she couldn't say. With most of the mercenaries, she assumed the worst of their emotional capabilities; The Administrator wouldn't have hired them otherwise.

"Before you scrap them, I'd like to scan them. You do have robotic scanning software on hand, right?" Miss Pauling said.

"Like you even need to ask," Engineer said genially. He wiped his oil-slick gloves off on a rag, and left it on the work table. From one of the many cluttered shelves, he brought down a small machine, much like his PDA. He held it over the battered remains of the robot, the blue light flickering, then disappearing. It went faster than expected, though decoding it on the actual computer console was something else entirely.

"No password required to get this data, that's a good sign," Engineer said.

The few robots he had harvested had been damaged enough that none of the data was complete, but she hoped they were just intact enough to find something.

She shifted from foot to foot. Not even with her back to the wall would she find any safety here, as Engineer was notorious about booby-trapping his places. Anyone who so much as bumped into the wrong shelf might find a laser pointed right between their eyes.

And then, there was Pyro, who was unpredictable at best. Half the time gentle and childlike, half the time taking glee burning everything to the ground. Before Engineer took Pyro under his wing, she'd had to cover up quite a few towns completely burnt to the ground.

However, it went far more quickly than she thought it would. Engineer must have put some upgrades to the machinery provided, for even Administrator's strongest surveillance computers didn't work like that.

"I think you should see this," he said.

"It's...." she said.

There was a moment of cold in her blood. Every bad possibility had been distilled into the worst possible outcome. And it was inescapably true, all of it.

"Bad?" Engineer suggested.

She nodded.

Gray Mann had much more of their data than even Spy had theorized. The data was damaged, but there was enough to see that every single seed of false information Scout had placed was in there. Either all of the men were betraying her, or none of them were, and she'd wasted precious time she should've used to flush the traitor out of upper management and surveillance.

However, it went both ways. Even as she felt the sicking fall in the pit of her stomach as more and more of their data was revealed, she saw the home coordinates.
After her first failed infiltration, which they'd barely escaped from, Gray Mann had moved his headquarters. The tall building had become nothing more than a factory, one which the mercenaries had gleefully destroyed before she could. Since then, nothing had turned up in her attempts at reconnaissance, and little had changed in the men's habit of destroying all robots to the point where not even the slightest data could be gleaned.

"It's not far," she said.

All this time, he'd been less than an hour away, the smokestacks of his castle hidden by mountains. It could be no coincidence that he just happened to build his base within striking distance of theirs.

How long had Gray Mann known their plans? How long had he been mining away their schematics? She had thought with the time stamps of Spy's report it was a very recent breech, but the possibility remained that Gray Mann had been watching them for years with lurid intensity, marking every battle until he knew exactly when to strike.

"Thank you for your assistance," she said, a little too stiffly. She cleared her throat and tried again, to brush over any showing ripples of distrust. "You've been integral to cracking this."

"I know you ain't trustin' us, but my family goes back decades with this company. I watched my first matches at ten. At twelve my papa helped me raise up my first machines. Betrayin' you would be like backstabbin' my own family."

"It was nothing personal. I had to assume everyone was a suspect," she said.

Engineer took off his hardhat and held it to his chest. "Just tell me if you need anythin' more. Me and Pyro are at your disposal."

Hearing them speak his name, Pyro looked up from the corner, and titled his head.

"That one was always good at good at sniffin' out spies or any other varmints that would try and backstab us. If you need any more proof, I keep surveillance videos of my own. Nobody is goin' to be breakin' into my machines and live to tell the tale," Engineer said.

With one last glance to Pyro, she nodded. "I could use all the allies I can get."

*

A few hours of her time guaranteed Engineer an alibi. Even as her mind kept reminding her he could've edited the footage, she took a chance. She and Scout couldn't take an entire fortress alone. They'd barely managed against one wave, let alone an entire building full of robots.

The thin, metallic mess hall only had a fraction of the men. Someone had already managed dinner out of their rations, though the result looked something like pig slop with extra mud.

Scout lifted up the plate and made a disgusted sound. "Beans again? Are you tryin' to kill us?"

"Beans are a feast when you have starved. You would not survive starving. Too skinny, too loud," Heavy said.

"What does bein' loud have to do with it? Besides, you're actin' like I never went hungry a day in my life. I was raised in the projects, pally. I wasn't exactly eatin' on golden plates."

Few others would dare to get into Heavy's face, provoke him or even insult him. But that kind of brazenness was commonplace for him. Before she could call him back, Heavy returned to his food. He knew how to beat Scout most surely of all: to ignore him completely.

"We'll get more supplies soon. Someone went through the kitchen and ate everything we've just gotten," she said.

None of the men looked too guilty at this, then again, they were consummate killers and liars, so that was no surprise.

"Wish that thievin' asshole would've at least taken the beans," Scout muttered.

"Man up, private. Beans are patriotic food. Why, I ate nothing but beans and the blood of my enemies when I won these medals." He pointed to his chest, where you could just see the faint text of coca-cola on his 'medals.' His purple heart was a Dr. Pepper cap, his medal of valor a beer bottle top.

"I don't think they give out medals for stinkin' up the common room," Scout said. He scrunched up his nose and pushed the bowl aside.

This could go nowhere good. Already there was a set in Soldier's jaw, the sort that usually came before he snapped someone's neck.

"Where's Sniper?" she cut in, drawing the attention away from them maiming each other.

"Holed inside his van, probably with all that missing food. Scout tried to talk to him, but he won't hear reason. He's convinced that the traitor is goin' after him next," Engineer said.

Demoman was nursing a hangover at the table. The stress had gotten to all of them in little ways, cracking their confidence, their composure and calm. He lifted his head, giving them a bloodshot eye glare.

"Keep it down, lads, there's a wounded man, here," Demoman said.

"Ma always needed some hair of the dog. When I was a kid, I tried to give her actual dog hair," Scout said. He grinned, waiting for the laugh. She smiled when none of the other men would.

She'd taken Soldier and Heavy on the first assault. Even though that one had been less than successful, they'd gotten out alive.

She couldn't see Soldier willingly being a traitor. His warped view of patriotism and nationalism wouldn't allow anything less than absolute loyalty.

"You orders are to fortify the walls. If we don't come back, you'll have to contact the Administrator and let her know where we stand...and what's left of us," she said. She couldn't quite hide the catch in her voice, no matter how hard she tried.

"You're comin' back. I'll keep the home fires burnin', and make sure Respawn is in top notch," he said.

"No matter how good of shape it's in, it won't help us from miles away," she said.

Engineer chuckled. "You say that like I didn't spend the entire mornin' updatin' it. We could die in Texas and still end up back here in one piece," he said.

"You're a genius," she said.

Engineer smiled. "I know."

He pulled out his PDA, looking over the screen, and signaling the close of the conversation. She cleared her throat to speak above the din of a whole roomful of rowdy men.

"Heavy, Soldier, Demoman, you're with me. As soon as you're done eating, report for duty at the front," she said.

"Aye, it's been too long since my blade's tasted blood. Eyelander's getting' grumpy and stealin' all me Scrumpy."

"We can't have that," she said dryly. A drunken group of mercenaries was one thing. A drunken cursed sword which fed on human heads and blood? Even worse.

"We'll show those robots what real patriotism is like!" Soldier burst out.

"Make 'em buy American and saddle them with debt," Demoman said.

"Exactly!" Soldier said.

"My gun is cleaned and ready. After lunch, robots die," Heavy said. He returned his attention to his beans, while Soldier and Demoman high-fived each other.

Scout looked from all of them, clutching his bowl harder for a moment, before pushing it away entirely. He'd been quiet for so many seconds that something had to be wrong, or something had ripped out his vocal cords while she wasn't looking.

Another check off her list. She'd have to find whatever gutter Medic had gone looking for body parts in and take him as well. Having someone who could heal woulds could deeply increase their chances of getting out alive.

She started towards the hall. She still had to find Spy and tell him what was happening. He wasn't fit for a frontal assault, but perhaps he could find a way through the secret passageways...

She heard a rush of pounding footsteps behind her. She turned to see Scout askew, his hat lost in the haste to catch her.

"Miss Pauling, what about me? Sophie, you ain't leavin'---"

She turned to him. For all his attempts at composure, he showed every bit of hurt and neglect he felt.

"You're my default. I never have to put you on the list because you're always already there," she said.

"You---You---"

Without warning, he hugged her from behind, so sudden and full of emotion that he nearly pushed her over.

"You nearly pushed me to the ground," she said, far less irritated than she should have been.
In fact, she was on the brink of laughing.

"I would've caught you," he said.

"We both would've ended up on the floor together," she said.

"Sounds like a fun fall, but then I've been fallin' for you for years, so nothin' new there."

A cleared throat made her realize that this impromptu moment hadn't gone unnoticed. Soldier, Heavy and Demoman stood in the doorway. She soon realized that Medic was there as well, just hidden by Heavy's massive body. Apparently, Heavy had informed him of the matter, clearing up on more thing for the list.

"You finally did it," Soldier said, his voice full of pride.

"Yeah, I did," Scout said. He pulled off his cap and ran his hand through his hair, unable to quite keep the blush off his face.

"He managed not to fall on his face for once, priceless," Spy said. He materialized right before the door, a sapper in hand.

"Go to hell, Spy," Scout said.

"From what I overheard, that's where we're going," Spy said.

"Well, this makes it easier," she said.

If she could call it that, taking a small group of men and attacking an entire base.

"Everybody needs to give their all. This isn't just a battle for our jobs; it's a battle for our lives," Miss Pauling said.

"Excuse you, I always bring my A game," Scout said.

Demoman took one last drink of Scrumpy. He passed it around so each man took one shot, no less.

"Aye, I can't promise I'll be completely sober, but this is about as sober as I ever will be," Demoman said.

*

Scout had called shotgun along the ride, but with Spy pushed between them, there wasn't much talking. Smoke filled the interior of the car. Behind them, Soldier and Demoman told loud stories she couldn't make out. Medic was nestled beside Heavy's massive frame, hidden away from wind which had sprung up, lending a chill to the air.

She parked far enough that she needed binoculars to see the doorway, hidden between trees and an outcropping of rock. Scout stretched between the trees, too restless to sit still any longer.

No guards, no alarm. The gridlock at the door flickered. She brought down the lenses and turned to her left. The rest of the men had gotten out of the truck to prep their materials, busying their fingers until the inevitable battle came.

"Spy, I need you to get in closer. Disarm the front, and tell me what you find," she said.

Spy didn't respond, only took a mouthful of smoke before disappearing like a woodsmoke ghost.

Heavy loaded shells into his massive gun, while Medic cleaned the blood off his medigun tip. He frowned a moment as he pulled out a severed finger from the between the coils of the apparatus.

"So that's where that finger went. Ja, I thought I had lost it," Medic said. He put the finger into his bloodstained pocket.

"How long has it been since we fight robots together, doctor?"

"Entirely too long," Medic said. "Days, at least. And even if they don't have that satisfying splatter of blood, murdering robots is quite enjoyable as well," Medic said.

He patted Heavy's arm, and whispered low A robot massacre. They held that gaze for several moments, a wordless meshing together, until they would work as one---the fabled Übermensch split between two bodies.

Miss Pauling mentally checked off her list, keeping her own restless fingers busy. No amount of preparation could make this smooth, but she would have to do what she could with what little she had.

Spy reappeared. "It's already been disarmed. It seems we may have not been Gray Mann's only enemies."

"Could you see anything?" Miss Pauling asked.

"Nothing," Spy said.

Had he gotten word and abandoned his headquarters? She'd come too far to not take that risk.

"And side entrances? Other methods of getting in?" Miss Pauling said.

"They were closed up like an abandoned building. The power has been cut in places, leaving nothing but dark rooms. Only the front door is still functional, though only just barely," Spy said.

A trap, or the remains of a robot graveyard? If the past few days had taught her anything, it was that they couldn't win defensively, not with the amount of their data Gray Mann had gotten to.

"We make a frontal assault. If it gets too overwhelming, we're pulling back. Medic, make sure your medigun is completely in working order---we're going to need it," she said.

"I tested it today. I was able to regenerate an entire arm in less than a minute!"

"Whose arm?" she said.

"That is not important," Medic said, a little too cheerfully.

No robots had appeared, despite them being within the gates of Gray Mann's base. The halls they walked through were eerie, filled with only smoking and sparking remains, and a few robots which turned in circles, completely lost. Circuits to the mainframe were rerouted. Doors outside of the main path were broken or locked.

What she thought would be the hardest fight of her life was a robot graveyard. The robots that hadn't been turned to scraps of broken metal on the floor were like aimless zombies, their circuits so fried that they barely even took notice of them.

When a wave of robots finally came through the metallic depths, they were languid, diseased. They came like they were pushing underwater while drunk. She couldn't even tell if they were coming for them, or simply coming and they happened to be in the way.

Soldier and Demoman looked to each other, and shared a wordless nod. Demoman pulled out a Sword, Soldier a shovel. In tandem they hacked away at the robots, screaming until the halls echoed with their bloodlust.

A stealth mission was doomed to failure if Soldier was ever a part of it. Unlike all her foretelling of a hard battle, the defenses had been gutted. No sentries appeared, no robots had regained their senses so far.

"Miss Pauling?" Heavy asked. A polite man always asked for permission before massacring robots.

"Go ahead. Destroy them all. They might snap out of it at any time, so we'll glean our samples from the robots further in," she said.

Heavy laughed. "Come, doctor. Is robot killing time!"

"Ja!"

They never looked happier when they were killing together. Well, except when Medic was sneaking in bodies he'd stolen from the local morgue to experiment on. Or at least she hoped he'd stolen from the morgue.

"Shall we?" Spy said.

Among the laughter and chaos, they moved towards the end of the winding hall. A continual beeping sounded, like a distress call. She couldn't help looking back, past the flickering lights for a sign that out of this hollowed-out husk of a building, some life still existed.

The doors beside them burst, and the robots that came out were all wrong. Legs backwards, heads barely attached. They lurched forward, making a sound like a broken music box. She lifted her gun and fired, hitting one squarely in the loose head. One hit was all it took to detach the head entirely. The pieces collapsed like a marionette, strings akimbo.

"Master....Master..." said the nearest robot in a strangely human voice.

"Master, master."

More of them came out, tangled and wrong, smoking bullet holes cracking through their chests and legs. Dead dull eyes regarded her. They cracked in pieces as Scout fired off two rounds. He stood between her and the robots, a thin shield of flesh and bone.

"The door's just ahead," she said.

A broken, stuttered message going over and over. Master, master. She ducked as another robot came close. She fired off a glancing shot, he finished it with his baseball bat, knocking several of them together.

They fizzled, dulled until they were broken dolls, certainly nothing harmful left. Nothing was left of the threat that they had barely survived. The roar of mini-gun bullets ceased. No sword strike, no rockets. The hallway was bare bones and wires. They walked over the crunching corpses of the robots. Occasionally one would let out a long master... before completely shutting down.

The door at the end of the hall was open and sparking. She found him slumped forward on the desk. His suit was stained in red. Robots malfunctioned around him, their hailing mechanism overclocked until they ignored all commands.

The war was over, though she felt no relief. Someone else was behind this, someone strong enough to wreck Gray Mann's entire headquarters, leave his armies as limping husks, and leave his body out as a warning, a clear message which she had yet to decode.

She had seen no trace of Olivia. She could only hope that the child had crawled into an air vent, or whoever had done this had shown mercy on a child.

A robot considered her. Of the many destroyed pieces, this one remained untouched, as if it were waiting for her. Its eyes shone blue, unlike the dim zombie robots they had passed along the way.

"Take this one alive, we'll try and piece together the rest of the lot," she said.

"Hailing...failed. If God wanted you to live, he would not have created me---beep, error. Beep, bepp--Password necessary. Password necessary."

She thought on this. Gray Mann's life was largely unknown, even to her. Except---.

"Olivia," she said.

"Error. Please enter password? Two tries remaining..."

"Freedom?" Miss Pauling said.

"Error. Please enter password? One try remaining..."

Even as she racked her mind, nothing came. Gray Mann might as well be unassailable.

But Soldier? He wasn't. Of all the mercenaries, he was perhaps the easiest to placate. Other than Scout, that was.

"The password is 'Do it for America, Soldier. You'll surely get a medal for your bravery.'"

"Beep? Beep! Beep beep!" The robot's eyes flashed several times. He shuddered, metal clanging. She stepped back, away from the impending explosion.

"Overriding password."

The robot's eyes flashed for a moment, and then the data was broadcast right on the wall in a show of blue light and lines. She recognized the data immediately, though few others would. Only her and the Administrator would've had the clearance for this level. They were complex enough that even the builders didn't know, partly because the Administrator had a strict policy of killing the people she hired when she was done with them. At the end of the well of data was a single word: Royal purple.

The wrongness all went into place. She'd encoded that word into numbers, inputted numerical variations of it thousands of times through doors. She had even playfully integrated the code, taking her A in history to include the scrambled names of kings and queens throughout history. She turned, feeling slowed, numbed. She moved like she was underwater, like all the foundations had been pulled free and she was left with only fragments.

"Miss Pauling?" Scout said. "Is somethin' wrong? You look---Miss Pauling?"

"No...I was just caught by surprise," she said. "I..."

She cleared her throat and forced herself to focus, the mission, everything relied on finishing this.

"Take this one back, we'll have Engineer dissect the data," she said. "Disable it and leave it in the back of the truck.

Heavy picked up the robot as if it weighted as little as a rag doll.

"Once that's done, Heavy, you and Medic go secure the perimeters and other rooms. Soldier and Demoman, you guard the front. Spy, check around the vents. Olivia can't be left here alone," she said. "Make sure to check if there's any other computers to access along the way."

"Scout, guard this door. I need to be alone to take the last data check. If anything comes, call for help. Don't take an army on alone." she said.

'But---" Scout said.

"Your earpiece. You'll never be more than a step away. No one's going to catch me this time; you won't let them," she said.

"It's some high classified stuff?" Scout said. His concern overshadowed everything.

"Yes. I don't want any of you witnessing anything which might make me have to...give you disciplinary action," she said.

"But, you won't get in trouble, right? Because you're high up and awesome and stuff."

She paused a moment before responding. Scout caught the space, the slight hesitation.

"Right?" Scout said, sounding more desperate, more concerned.

"Right. I won't be put on probation, but you all might," she said.

"Oh, okay. Don't want you havin' to do a bunch of paperwork 'cause I was a jackass who couldn't keep my nose out of stuff. Call if you need me. Or if you feel lonely, or if you just need to see my biceps to cheer up after seein' all these robots. Always got time to show you free flexes," Scout said.

Not even his antics could bring a smile out of her. She nodded, dismissing him. Miss Pauling turned so she wouldn't have to see his hurt expression.

She held to the desk to avoid stepping into the blood that had pooled down to the floor. The blood on the walls had faded to coagulated rust. A piece of machinery lay upon the desk.

His pens, papers and other data were askew. Footprints were left in the blood. How messy, whoever had taken this out had done nothing to hide the body, or any evidence of any kind. A hack job, but not an elegant one, nothing like the kind of kills she'd done through the years.

She recognized the machine as a small television, usually kept on a ill-fated messenger’s chest. Unlike others, this one was not a live feed. She switched it on, only to find a fragment of surveillance inside.

The footage was one day earlier, according to the date listed at the corner. Robots passed in working order, Gray mann sat in his office and regarded someone just off screen.

"It's been a while," Gray Mann said.

"I didn't come here for pleasantries," The voice said. Husky, thick, she'd taken thousands of orders from that voice.

"I gave you simple guidelines, and yet you felt the need to push at them. As if I wouldn't notice your indiscretions?"

"I'm afraid you made a mistake if you ever thought I'd be nothing but your tool," Gray Mann said, his voice filled with disdain.

"And you made a mistake for thinking I would ever let this stand. Your services are no longer needed."

She'd never seen the Administrator get her hands dirty. She was always ordering other people to do the killings for her. But this time, she did. She twisted the knife in deep, taking her time, savoring the shock on Gray Mann's face. Then, she stood back and watched him die, smoking a cigarette all the while as his blood splattered across the wall.

The firing squad after the stabbing was an overkill, but Administrator never did anything halfway, especially not to someone who had tried to double-cross her.

The screen went black. She saw her face reflected, and she knew exactly who the mole had been all along. She'd spent so much time trying to figure out who was leaking information, when she hadn't secured any of the surveillance equipment. She hadn't taken away Scout's earpiece, which he was constantly forgetting to turn off. Even now, she knew this was a warning left for her.

*

The last footage had shown Olivia escaping with a whole wave of robots. While the robots that filled the factory had been gutted, the war was far from over. The robot had been left with Engineer to further extract data, though the most important details had already come out.

Even as worn as she was, she made her way to the gym. A restlessness was in her. Her mind kept going over and over that video with the sure knowledge that she knew that voice. She couldn't pretend it had been faked, that she'd misheard. And she knew what it meant. She was being fired. Miss Pauling had done it so many times that she couldn't remember the names, only the shallow graves and blur of faces. So many had realized only as the hard barrel of her gun was pushed to the back of their head that this wasn't a talk about benefits or a pay raise.

She'd sacrificed so many years of her life for what? To be tossed aside and be buried in a shallow grave? She was supposed to be different. More trusted than all the other people she'd been ordered to kill, too valuable to ever discard and leave under a layer of quicklime. Sometimes she'd even thought that the Administrator liked her---at least as much as it was possible for her to like anyone---and valued all the hard work Miss Pauling had put into the company.

Naive. I was so Naive. And so damn stupid, but most of all naive. How could I have trusted her to the end?

One glaring fact remained unanswered. If so, then who put her in Respawn? Engineer? Medic? Some combination of the two? And if so, what hint of danger had made them act? Whose orders were they acting on?

Usually when her day was too stressful, she'd go to the firing range and empty a couple of clips into the targets. But Saxton Hale was and always had been an ally of the Administrator.

And so had she, until a few hours ago.

They'd have to be careful with every bit of ammo they had. No wasteful drunken nights of shooting up the ceiling, no making patterns in the walls with bullets for fun. She would have to monitor the men even more closely, at least until she made it back to headquarters.

She hit the punching bag hard enough to make it go flying. It never came back to hit her—strong arms held it back.

Heavy held the chain of the punching bag until it hung still.

"Your posture is wrong," he said.

"I'm just letting off some steam," she said. She pushed her hair back from where it'd come undone, dark black falling into her face.

"Your feet, they go like this," Heavy said.

She hadn't seen the chalk hidden in his massive hands. He drew two foot outlines on the mat, drawn like a body had once been there. She put her foot on the marks, and lifted her fists again.

"And your hands, they need gloves or wraps. If you ask Scout, he will show you. No gloves your size," Heavy said.

"I wasn't really thinking," she said.

"You expected a fight, and someone else had already gotten there," Heavy said.

Her expectations and the truth were so far apart, she could barely even connect them. Was he in on it as well? Perhaps all the mercenaries had been traitors, pawns under her control whether willing or not.

"Punch. Beat out the anger. Is good for you," Heavy said.

She slammed her fist so hard into the punching bag that she felt an edge of pain. It brought her back into focus.



*

Scout had been huddled outside her door. He moved his ball back and forth, something to assuage his restlessness. Only when he felt something against his head did he look up to see a letter shoved in his face. He hadn't even heard the asshole come around. Fucking stealthy spies.

"How the hell did you get to Boston and back in that amount of time?" Scout said incredulously.

"I have my ways," Spy said.

"I bet you got like a secret jet plane or somethin'. Am I gettin' close?" Scout said. As much as the guy pissed him off, he had to admit it was cool. A secret jetpack or plane? Man, that was James Bond level cool.

"If so, you'd be the last to know," Spy said.

Scout took the letter and ripped it open, too eager to take any care. It was doused with his mother's perfume, which had only faded a little in the journey. He pushed the pieces of envelope paper to his face and took in a deep breath. He remembered all the times he'd put his head to her stomach and been pulled close, told comforting words.

Just keep workin' and you'll be a champion runner yet. Those nuns don't know a thing, don't you take their words to heart.

"That was only if the worst happened, though. You didn't go tellin' her I went and died, did you?"

"Of course not. I spent some time forging a letter, complete with some photos of what you've been up to. She told me to tell you that she expects Miss Pauling for dinner as soon as possible."

Scout could only gape. Just when he thought he'd figured out that guy, he went and pulled some off the wall shit. Here he was, smirking like a smug motherfucker.

He opened up the letter and quickly scanned over her familiar cursive writing. His ma always wrote so prettily, like something to frame on the wall. She tried to pass it down, but his brothers and him either couldn't sit still long enough to take the lessons, or didn't want handwriting like that.

There was a picture of his ma waving at the camera in the living room. He wanted to hold it to his chest and make all this stress go away. Pretend he didn't have to deal with saving the world or watching his girl die for just a little while. But like hell he would do that in front of Spy.

"What do I owe ya?" Scout said.

"Nothing. She already paid. Quite nicely, might I add," Spy said. His voice positively dripped with suggestiveness.

Scout frowned. It took him a second for it to all fall into place. When he'd been a kid, he sort of thought the guy might be an uncle or something. With age and far less innocence, it was all falling into place.

"You motherfuckin' jerkwad---"

"Indeed," Spy said. He laughed and disappeared before Scout could even throw a single punch.

"The minute this war is over, I'm goin' to punch your face in! You hear me? Your time is marked!

Spy peeked (frigging peeked) about the corner. "And what would your mother think about that?"

Fucking hell. He couldn't believe the guy had pulled the 'i'm going to call your ma' trick. Sure, he'd pulled that throughout childhood and still from time to time when his brothers put him a headlock he couldn't escape, but to have it used against him? Now that was humiliating.

"Smile for the camera," Spy said .

Scout gave him two middle fingers and the worst frown he could muster.
He opened up the letter and smiled despite himself. Ma looked so happy. It kind of irked him that she was happy there and it had nothing to do with him, but he swallowed it down. He didn't know this asshole's name, but he'd never let them down. He'd kill to see his mother happy again, steal and lie and yes, even tolerate that smug jerkface.

With a long sigh, Scout said the most difficult words of his life other than it's like you're under my skin.

"I'm not callin' you 'dad' if you come to Thanksgiving," Scout said.

"Good, I wouldn't want people thinking we're related," Spy said. He shot one last picture and disappeared down the hall.

"The least you could've done is tell me where she is," Scout muttered. This time, Spy didn't appear. So, Scout waited. He'd been waiting six years; he could wait a few more hours for her.

*

She kept her secret inside for hours. Cold and metallic, the voice she knew so well. It was only when they were alone that he touched her cheek. For someone who she'd once assumed was nothing more than a self-absorbed skirtchaster, he was quite perceptive when it came to her.

"You all right?" Scout said. His voice was full of gentleness and tenderness. Just the sound of it was a small comfort.

"I'm exhausted; we all are," she said.

"You can say that again. I'm about ready for a ten-year vacation," Scout said.

He patted the bed beside him. "Rest your feet, they gotta be achin'," he said.

He put his arm about her shoulders and held her tight to him. She leaned into him a bit, focusing a moment at the warmth of his skin.

"I was lookin' for you. About tore the place up, but then I figured, maybe you didn't wanna be found," he said.

"I was hitting the punching bag, but Heavy, he said my posture was wrong, and I needed to wrap my hands," she said.

"Oh, just lemme know, I'll make your hands look like they're dressed up for the ball---ball breakin', that is!"

She didn't smile.

"What, is it back there? Ain't it good that Gray Mann got shanked? He sure as hell deserved it. I know you're disappointed that we didn't get to beat him ourselves, but it ain't the end of the world. There'll be plenty of others to beat down, and we'll enjoy smashin' their skulls in just as much."

"I know who did it...It wasn't any of the men. Or at least they never masterminded it. They probably all helped along, even I did," Miss Pauling said.

"Wait, you're sayin'?"

"I know who our traitor is," she said.

"Who?" Scout said. "Do I even know them?"

"I feel like if I even say it, they'll hear," Miss Pauling said, her voice barely above a whisper. She couldn't help but look behind, as if even now, she was on camera, every little action being laid out and dissected. It probably was. Every little plan, every little strike back and she never thought deep enough. It was unfathomable to think of her as a traitor. The one she'd served, killed for and run so many errands for.

It shouldn't be a surprise. She'd 'ended the contract' of so many people that she'd lost count.

All those times she'd told Scout to not trust anyone, she'd been a hypocrite. All this time, she'd trusted the Administrator, of all people. The one person she should trust least she'd expected to keep the order, to have all the best interest of the company at heart. But she'd destroyed the paperwork and hollowed out the many shell corporations for the Administrator. For all she knew, this was their pink slip.

"What are we goin' to do?" Scout said.

"I'm going to fix this. I don't know how, but I am," she said.

He didn't press her for details. Instead stroked her hair. His chest smelled faintly of smoke and oil. She let herself sink, let herself be comforted. Giving in, intimacy, all so foreign at heart, and yet she did not draw back or push him away.

"No matter what, I got your back, aight? Ain't nothin' goin' to change that," Scout said.

She looked up to his gaze and saw only love and that assurance he always had. So innate, even when they were losing, all he could see was victory.

"You don't know who you're facing. We very well could erased from Respawn and in shallow graves," she said.

"Don't matter. I told you, I'm with you till the end," Scout said.

"And, you know...it ain't just this mission, right? When I said I'm with you until then, I meant it."

Somehow, he always knew the words to say to make everything all right, even when the world was on the precipice of crashing down around her.

"I know," she said.

"Good, now don't you forget. No mater what, don't you ever forget."

She could hardly forget something burned inside her, fire-forged kisses, the cold of water, the edge of life and death cutting so near. She leaned up on tiptoe to kiss him and reclaim that moment of safety, the warmth and hope that he always seemed to find within her.

*

Despite her inexperience, of anything, Olivia was far more aggressive than Gray Mann ever had been. Whereas he had used tactics, Olivia was pure youth and rage. Fueled by vengeance, she and her battalion kept up an assault. Engineer's improved defense system kept her out of the mountain base, but it didn't keep Olivia from following their escape, with small, vicious attacks wherever she could.

But the army was small enough that the men were sufficient, even as the day by day attacks wore them down. Today was no different. If anything, she'd gotten used to ducking to avoid bullets, to waking up to robots attacking them—if she'd even slept the night before at all.

"Hey, they're behind us," Scout said. "Gunnin' for us and everythin'."

He ducked as a bullet crashed through the back window.

"Don't tell me you've never shot from a moving vehicle before," she said.

"Shot my mouth out," Scout said. "But I do that all the time."

"I'll shoot ye mouth off myself," Demoman said.

"Heavy, Demoman, Soldier, you know what to do!" She had to yell above the storm of incoming bullets, but they heard her. Rockets pitted the countryside.

The tank moved on, crushing the trees between them. It was slow enough to be no direct threat as long as they kept moving. However, it seemed different than usual. In the side window, she saw Olivia pop up from the top, waving and smiling in a way which was both sweet and deeply vicious all at once.

This complicated things, but she'd dealt with worse. Miss Pauling swerved as a robot arm went flying, metal pieces raining down with rocket shrapnel.

"No matter what, don't destroy that tank. Understood? No matter what happens, we are not stooping low enough to kill a child."

She heard several shouts of agreement.

She may have the blood of thousands on her hands, but she wasn't about to add a child to the list. Even a vicious homicidal one bent on revenge.

She kept driving, the many shots ringing in her ears. From the rear view mirror she could see several robots fall. Broken pieces scattering across the ground. At least she'd gotten out of the mountains before Olivia caught up to them. The dirt road was bumpy at best, but it wasn't a winding path where any wrong turn could mean falling to their death.

"It'll be better when we get to the headquarters," Scout said.

He always tried to find hope in the most desolate of places.

But for now, she kept driving. Engineer liked to tinker with little things, and her vehicles were no exception. The robots would run out of oil long before she ran out of gas. As long as her tires held up.

She heard a cry of triumph and victory behind her. Another glance at the rear view showed the tank caught between trees and rocks, the robot force mostly decimated. The men behind her cheered, a ten-gun salute to Olivia's inexperience and poor plannings.

In the end, she chose to take her fate alone. She wouldn't entangle the men in her war. She would face the Administrator head on, no matter what the consequences.

*

She returned to New Mexico as if it were a typical day. The codes hadn't been changed, no rain of bullets shot them down. Miss Pauling walked in with as much nonchalance as she could fake.

Lying had always been a particular skill of hers. Now was no different as she smiled at orderlies who had probably helped her die, and who she'd have to kill off if she lived long enough.

She nodded to orderlies as she passed. She'd rarely intermingled too much with people she'd eventually just have to kill. Coffee in hand, clipboard under one arm, she walked steadily towards the main office. A room of smoke and television screens which the Administrator presided over like a fell queen of the underworld.

Her gun was at her thigh, full of bullets. There was a knife at the other thigh holster, but that was a fail-safe; if the Administrator survived the first strike, Miss Pauling wouldn't live long enough to get a second chance.

She smiled, and put the coffee before her. Poison was out of the question; The Administrator always checked.

"You're late, Miss Pauling," she said.

The Administrator turned the chair around to face her. There was no give, no telling twitch to reveal her plans.

Of course not. She'd ordered the deaths of thousands, and that was only the beginning. How many had she ordered killed in her lifetime? Millions, probably. Enough to rival the great tyrants who down in history with shocked whispers and bloodstains deep enough to ensure their name was never lost to history, even as their victims were left in unmarked graves.

"We ran into quite a few hitches," Miss Pauling said. She was unable to quite keep the edge out of her voice. She cleared her throat and started again. "–But, they've been cleared up, as has the head of the armies. There's still some roving robots, but with no orders from above, we hope to soon clean them out entirely. Then this whole mess will be behind us."

"Ah, that annoyance. Good riddance," The Administrator said.

The cold metal of the gun dug into her thigh, a reminder of her task.

"Is that all, Miss Pauling?" The Administrator said.

Miss Pauling said nothing.

"You're weak, Miss Pauling. In the end even as you realize I've been trying to kill you, you can't bring yourself to pull the trigger. Go on, kill me like you swore you would. I know you've got some viciousness in you, despite all that naivety and kindness you had to get over through the years."


Miss Pauling forced the steel barrel of the gun against the Administrator's forehead hard enough to leave bruises.

"Don't test me, don't you dare test me. Firing me like this, after all I've done? I've killed thousands; I won't hesitate to make you one of them," she said.

The Administrator didn't even flinch. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it, and blew smoke in Miss Pauling's face.

"Test you?" The Administrator chuckled. "This was all a test. And whether you fail or pass hinges on one simple thing. Pull the trigger, Miss Pauling. You've done it dozens of times with whoever I told you. Now, as your superior, I'm commanding you: finish it. Or are you too weak?"

"I'm not weak," Miss Pauling said.

It took so little to end a life. A pull of a trigger, a knife across a neck, twisted in the back. For once, she hadn't remembered to put on a silencer. The gunshot was so loud. Everything felt slower, numbed for a moment. The front of her dress was stained in blood.

The Administrator had fallen back. She'd died with a smirk on her face, like she'd been the one victorious in the end.

She heard the breaking of glass, knew the voice that called out. Instantly she dropped the gun and pushed it under the seat. She clutched Helen's still warm body to her, a pieta of lies. She'd done it all before, she'd told every story before.

Saxton Hale broke down the door, oil spattered like blood over his chest.

"Helen---!"

"I---I was too late," she said. She bent down, faked a sob through the numbness stupor of fog she'd been pushing through since she realized.

"One of them snuck in here. One of those robot spies. I tried to do something, but I couldn't...." She ducked her head to give the appearance of tears. At this angle, he couldn't tell just how dry-eyed she was.

Saxton trembled with rage. There was a blankness to his eyes, one she knew so well. A world without the Administrator was like the sun being blotted out, the earth out of orbit. His moment of empty space solidified to pure rage. Vengeance and desolation, a coldness unleashed. No catch -phrases, no boyish charm. He clenched his fist.

"This has gone on far enough. Well, Robots, you want a fight? You've got it!"

She waited moments after he left for any others to come, for any more lies to add. When no orderlies or mercenaries came, she began to clean up. A battle raged on the screens. Olivia had untagled herself, or perhaps abandoned that tank. Either way, she had every bit of the forces against them.

She laid the body out on the floor. It felt wrong to prop her up, to play pretend that this never happened and she would just turn around, her job would continue as if she'd never been fired.

A manilla envelope lay on the front keyboard of the computer. No seals, no locks, no secret traps. No name was left, but she knew it was hers.

A video, and several papers was inside. She pulled out the papers first, and briefly glanced over them. Something insider her was too rattled, too marked by chaos to truly focus.

Six months ago, there was a line of coding of Respawn. She'd never seen this particular report. No, now she remembered. That was the day of the mainframe failure that knocked out the records.

Even that had been manipulated.

She recognized the last few lines of coding. The coding of Royal Purple, her own birthdate put into the machine. It hadn't been Engineer, or Medic after all. It made no sense. If she were being fired, the Administrator wouldn't strive to keep her alive. She remembered the lines on that surveillance tape, the brutal execution.

Shaking her head in confusion, she put the video into the computer slot. .The screen flickered with static for a moment before the scene came into focus. The Administrator considered the camera with her usual cynical derision.

"If you've found this, then you've succeeded. Congratulations, Miss Pauling, you've outgrown your naivety and delusions of kindness."

Administrator took a deep drag of her cigarette. Grey smoke curled up. Miss Pauling looked for a trace of humanity or feeling, but as ever, she found none.

"You idealized me, even trusted me at times. You always were too kind, with your friendship and giving the mercenaries keys. You're surely thinking to yourself 'why would she do this?' I'll tell you why. My diagnosis said I had six months to live."

The Administrator coughed. No other sign. Even in all that time, she hadn't even guessed. She had kept up the facade so well that even her assistant had no clue.

But, the life machines. She held more power than anyone else in the world. There had to be a way.

"And surely you're thinking of those life machines. I wouldn't become so helpless, relying on everyone around me until I couldn't even move. Just waiting for someone to pick me off with a knife. Australium is a finite resource. You should know better, Miss Pauling."

She stubbed out a cigarette, slow and precise. Her blood was on Miss Pauling's cheeks, spattered across her dress. There was no date on the corner of the screen. It could have been filmed months ago, years ago, or yesterday.

"I won't go on. This has been your trial by fire. You were my brightest pupil, and if you have succeeded, then you will take my place. Where you take Teufort in this new world without Redmond and Blutarch is of no concern of me. You will know what to do with it. Enclosed inside this envelope is all the information and contracts you'll need."

Another series of deep, hacking coughs. This time she noticed spots of blood on the Administrator's fingers.

"I betrayed only enough to give you the adequate danger to do so, and to show you the consequences of trust and underestimating anyone around you. And I always had an eye on you. If you trusted any of your precious mercenaries, then you were wrong. Even him. Did you forget about the earpiece he's always wearing? Or how easy it is to slip into the machinery, all the hidden ways to allow me access. You've done it hundreds of times in my name, but you never guessed I could do the same."

Miss Pauling flinched at that. Administrator had watched her every movement, judged her, and found her worthy enough to be her successor in spite of it all.

The Administrator took another drag of a cigarette, and the screen went black. The rage had burned to embers inside her. All Miss Pauling could feel was an overwhelming weariness. The war was coming to a close, but she had been the biggest casualty of all.

One day she would mourn for the life she had lost, for the shreds of innocence she had kept through it all. But now, she had work to do. Miss Pauling rubbed her bloodstained hands on her hips, one of the few places that the blood spray hadn't hit. She tapped the microphone, flecked with so much red that she thought it would never come out. But it worked. She wouldn't be surprised of the Administrator's blood was the only one buried deep in that microphone.

"Men, this is Miss Pauling speaking. I'll be taking over for now. Fight and give it your all, and most of all, spare Olivia at any cost," she said.

Her voice held a hollowness. But they fought for her. Her kingdom, her landscape, her mercenaries. How they battled, with unbridled ferocity and rage. She'd once thought them a group of barely literate hired killers, but now she knew better.

"Hey, you're doin' the boss job," Scout said over his earpiece.

"Pay attention, Scout," she said.

"Don't worry, we'll win it for you, Miss Pauling!" Scout burst out.

"For Miss Pauling!" came the battle cry. Each man said it, passed it like a torch lit in her honor.

*

It took less than three hours to decimate the last of Olivia's forces. We have the girl, Engineer had said over Scout's earpiece. What she would do with Olivia would come later. Perhaps she could make use of her, with better luck than the Administrator had with Gray Mann. But for now, she had other things to attend to.

The day turned to twilight. Metal parts and pieces were scattered across the countryside. Miss Pauling surveyed the damage of what was now her kingdom. The air was bitter with the scent of oil and rust. She saw the figure coming, but did not draw out to meet them, already having an idea who it would be, and what news would come.

Mags came back with his body, or what was left of it. Miss Pauling had never seen her look so bitter and withdrawn, like a piece of her had died with Saxton. Wounds covered her body, over her chest, her arms, even up her neck. She couldn't tell if the blood across her chest was her own, Saxton's, or a mix of the two.

"There's no more robots to fear. Of course he had to go at it alone," she said. Old bitterness and hurts filled her voice. He was draped over her shoulders, bloodied and beaten. Not even Saxton Hale was invulnerable in the end.

She laid him on the ground before Miss Pauling.

"Did he leave a successor?" Miss Pauling said.

"Knowing him, he probably left it up to her," Mags said, with a certain bitterness that time and lost loves had forged.

The woman who had taken Saxton away from her, the woman who had won in the end, even to the death. The Administrator never let go of the people she thought her own; their only escape was death. Either by chance, their choice or hers.

"I'll bury him," she said. "I've buried four husbands, I can bury him, too."

She touched his cheek, beat in and bloody, uncaring at the stain of red left on her skin.

"And to think, I thought we could fight armies together. In the end, not even you could keep up. You really have gotten old, Saxton. So have I. Back then, we thought we were invincible."

It felt too intimate. Miss Pauling pulled back, murmuring and excuse as she stepped away. Mags' grief was too raw, too familiar.

Except there was no Respawn for Saxton Hale. He always resisted any attempts to encode his DNA, saying it took the bite out of all his fights.

*


She pulled her hair back. When she looked into the mirror, she barely recognized the person she was. She'd found the suits in the back of her closet. Newly made and just her size, smelling faintly of smoke even through the packaging.

Even as she betrayed them all, Administrator had believed in her. Or to be more precise, she had chosen her for the task, and molded her to fit the role. She'd thrown her into the lake of fire and expected Miss Pauling to find her way out.

She cleared her throat as she took the mic. "Overtime," she said.

No, too mousy, too gentle. It lacked the edge of a woman willing to kill to gain what she wanted. She imagined crushing companies and anyone who opposed her under her new purple high heels.

"Hey, beautiful."

She caught sight of him in the mirror. Scout leaned on the door frame like he was striking a pose for a magazine shoot. He always acted like he was being shot in a movie, like he was following a script as the action hero. She'd come to believe that was how he saw himself. Time had made even his attention-seeking and willingness to paint himself the hero or become it endearing.

"You're supposed to be helping the clean up," she said.

"I wanted to see the new digs," Scout said. He looked her over, then gave a grin of approval. "You'll slay 'em all wearin' that."

She gave him a very unprofessional smile. It was the first glint of happiness she'd felt in a long time.

"Have you ever thought about running a store?" she said.

"Never," Scout said. "You want me to? What I gotta do, anyways?"

"If Saxton Hale was any indication, strip off your shirt and yell into the camera and fight bears occasionally while you leave the majority of the business end of things to assistants."

"I'm a champ at pullin' my shirt off, I'm real good at yellin', not so great at bear punchin', but I can learn," Scout said.

"We've both got a lot to learn," she said.

"As far as I can see it, if anybody can handle it, it's you," he said.

"Well, I've survived this long, I suppose I can survive a little longer," she said.

She tapped the microphone again. Overtime she said, more throaty and hoarse this time, from a harsh place inside her which felt no mercy, only cold steel.

"You nailed it," Scout said. "See you later tonight, sexy boss lady!"

He winked as he left, one last moment of flirtation, and plenty more to join it over his earpiece.

The confidence hadn't completely come, but one day it would. Just as she had gotten used to killing, disposing of bodies, so would Administration come. Filling the Administrator's shoes was perhaps the most difficult task she'd even been given, but Miss Pauling knew she could manage.