Dialogue

Jay hung back as the others departed, and as the last of them filed outside, instead of following, he pushed the ruined door closed and turned to regard Cass
Even in a blood spattered dress, she still looked as good as ever, and he found his eyes involuntarily drifting over her sparse curves and enjoying the low cut of her dresses neckline; which provoked unwanted but tantalising pleasant memories of what lay beneath the dress and the things they... How she...
Oh, stop it, he mentally chided himself and guiltily snatched his eyes away, only to glance back at her again, almost immediately
Her hair was still short, he noted; so whether she was keeping it like that now, or it hadn't had the time to grow, he couldn't say; although the tan she'd had from Fernando's had faded, so Jay guessed she must have been away more than a few months
“So do you want to tell me what’s been going on?” he asked, trying to keep his tone neutral as he strolled back across the room towards her “I mean, what’s really been going on?”
Cass took a deep breath
“There’s not much time” she paused to give him a lopsided smile “Where should I begin?”
“How about the easy stuff?” Jay shrugged, perching himself on one of the tables opposite her and folding his arms “How long have you been away, and what happened to the rest of your squad?”
“I’ve been away about six months” Cass sighed and turned to settle on a table top of her own “I spent the first month or so with Brittany doing weird paradoxical stuff, and then I’ve been with the STCP ever since”
“And so what happened to your squad?” Jay asked “They don’t let rookies out on their own”
“They were all killed by the hosts” Cass replied somewhat testily “I told you that already; Commander Ramirez died first during a routine reconnaissance, then it was Harker while she was out on patrol with me, and then finally Kwon and Riggs when the hosts attacked us the night before you arrived”
“And you didn’t think to use your time drive to get out of here?”
“Oh, we did” Cass nodded “One of the paradoxes I created means that they never left the STCP, so they’re all still alive, and yet dead here...”
“Jesus...” Jay was aghast “Have you any idea what you’ve done!?”
“Of course” Cass shrugged “I’ve engineered a whole bunch of paradoxes. They're preventing other STCP squads gating in, and are stopping Brittany tracking me across time while reality adapts to what I've done”
“You could have destroyed whole fucking the universe!”
“That’s a bit harsh” Cass protested “They told you a lot of shit while you were with the STCP, and whether you realise it or not, you were doing the same kind of thing, virtually each and every single day.
“All they’re doing is hiding us; I’ve bought us time – Time away from her influence and time to chart our own destinies. Maybe a year, maybe a couple of decades... I dunno
“I would say that Brittany was stupid to ever let me out of her sight, but I've a sneaking suspicion she planned all this. She even went so far as to show me how far I could push things with the paradox engineering”
“Fucks sake” Jay sighed “It’s just as well we came to rescue you, isn’t it? You’re in way over your head”
"I don't need rescuing” Cass retorted with something of an edge in her voice “Not any more. I just need a ticket out of here; and you're the only person that I trust who has the means to help with that, ergo my message via those solicitor’s”
“It's still a mess, isn't it?” Jay sighed, massaging his forehead with one hand “I take it that the time drive you were using got destroyed?”
“Yeah” Cass gave him a sheepish smile “It got consumed in the team being dead and alive paradox; I didn’t know that would happen”
“No, you wouldn’t, would you...”
"This was my first field assignment as an enforcer” Cass protested “As soon as I had unfettered access to a time drive, I made the most of it"
“Yeah, but all the same” Jay protested “The paradoxes...”
"Aren’t as bad as some of the ones you had a hand in!” Cass interrupted “I saw my opportunity, and I went for it. I wasn't going to fuck about
"And besides" she shrugged "We're all still here, aren't we? The universe is fine, and all it means is that after we're done here, we get lost in space and time and have a bunch of random jumps as reality twists itself back into a new pattern”
"Yeah, I wondered what that look you gave me was about, when I mentioned going home" Jay sighed and pushed himself up onto his feet “So what you’re basically saying is that you managed to achieve in six months what it took me six hundred years to do?”
“I didn’t like to mention it” Cass smiled mischievously “Incidentally” she continued “You missed my birthday; you owe me a kiss”
“I...” Jay faltered, not wanting to say anything that would encourage her
“Oh, don’t make it any harder than it already is Jay” Cass sighed and slid down off her table to walk over towards him, and catch hold of his reluctant hands in hers “I lost” she said bluntly, her green eyes gazing up into his “And as much as I don’t like it, there’s not a lot I can do about it”
She paused to glance down at her hands in his
“I wish you had felt the same way” she sighed and gave his hands a squeeze as her eyes flicked back up to his “but you didn’t. I...
“I don’t want to argue or fight” she said firmly, apparently electing leave what she was about to say unvoiced “It’s great to see you again. I’ve missed you”
“Yeah, same here” Jay nodded "We..." but with that she had let go of his hands and thrown her arms around him in a clumsy embrace that he only hesitantly returned after a moment’s guilt ridden consideration, silently reflecting on how good it felt to have her this close to him and in his arms again
“How touching” the voice of the Chief Constable startled them both “The STCP bitch has a mate”
The man, a short, bearded and pot-bellied individual, resplendent in his shabby breeches and frock coat, walked into the room followed by a half dozen of his cudgel wielding cohorts, leaving Jay and Cass to awkwardly begin disentangling themselves
“Don’t move a muscle” the Chief Constable barked
“Fuck that” Cass breathed in Jay’s ear “He’s a host”
“Two” Jay murmured back “one... Now!”
They flew apart, both drawing their pistols as one and opening fire on the infected constabulary, slaying three of them before they could even react
Sweeping her pistols downward, Cass fired off another couple of shots, kneecapping the Chief before one of his cohorts barrelled into her, knocking her off her feet and bowling her painfully over and onto her back
“Little bitch” her assailant snarled, scrambling to sit astride her, and pinning her with his weight, before the side of his head blew out with a shot from Jay, leaving Cass to fire another volley up from the floor and kill one of the remaining hosts, while Jay, in turn, wheeled and dispatched the last
Pushing the dead weight of the man off her, Cass scrambled up and strolled over towards where the Chief Constable, was moaning in pain on the floor and clutching at his ruined legs
“Why did you leave this one alive?” Jay asked, checking his pistols ammunition as he walked over to join her
“There’s got to be something the our squad’s physician missed when he examined the spiders” Cass replied “I don’t specialise in squashy sciences, so I’m way out of my league. Why don’t we get Artemis in here to examine this one?”
“Hmm” Jay grunted “It’s as good an idea as any; Jade might be able to provide some input as well”
“If they find anything like a command mechanism, maybe Jamie or Alex could reverse engineer something that’ll be able to triangulate the command nodes?”
“Sure” Jay turned to leave “You watch this one, I’ll let Artemis know he’s got a live one here...”

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