☹
☹ - A sad or remorseful memory.
He remembers the moment everything started to fall apart.
It was a call from Mantis that alerted him, a tickle in the back of his head and the familiar rasp -- “Eli. Come here. Hurry.” That was all. The solemnity in his voice was enough to push him to move, fast, heading to the psychic’s location. The cells -- Octopus.
His heart skipped a beat when he realized, and he felt ill, praying to deities he didn’t believe in that he was wrong. Please, no.
But he ran through the open doorway and stopped dead at the door to the cell, Mantis already kneeling next to the body.
The body.
Octopus’s body.
The psychic had removed the mask, and his real face was visible, eyes closed and face pale. He was so still...undeniably dead. He’d seen enough dead men to know that.
He felt himself drop to his knees, reaching out to put a gloved hand over the disguise artist’s limp one. “How.”
“FOXDIE,” Mantis replied. “The virus we heard about. It must have targeted the DARPA chief’s DNA or nanomachines Octopus was using.”
There was silence, and Liquid stood slowly, picking up his teammate’s -- his friend’s -- body, and laying it gently on the bed in the cell, arranging it carefully.
Something shifted in him, and his chest hurt, but he pushed it aside. Now, more then ever, they had to finish this. For his sake. For all their sakes.
He felt Mantis’s hand on his shoulder and didn’t push it off; they stayed there a moment, before he turned to look at the psychic. “No more deaths,” he said firmly.
Neither believed it, but still -- it was an attempt to reassure themselves of success, even if they knew that things were falling apart.
