White Steel Serenity

Part 3 of the Mortal Conversion series. They've traded up the FBI for an even more powerful enemy. They will have to be smarter, stronger, and faster than ever before to avoid this new threat, and face the consequences of giving in to the wolf.

Chapter One: War Dog

NOW - TORY

"I want to say that this is your fault." Tory says conversationally, spitting blood out of her mouth. Some of it is hers, where her new teeth have broken her gums, but some of it isn't. "That you made me this way. But that's a lie, and unlike you I try to avoid lying where I can."

She advances on the man, sitting propped up against the wall. He looks so tired, one leg splayed at an odd angle where she's broken it.

"Truth is, you made this possible, but I'm the one who made the choice. I didn't have to become what you wanted. But if that's what I have to do, I'll become a monster." She looks at his leg. "How I wish you could run, so I could bring you down like prey. I'd be celebrated in the pack, for hunting the king bull. I would, if you hadn't killed them."

SIX MONTHS AGO - THE PACK

"Any luck today?" Tory asks Ben, setting her bag down beside the door.

"Got picked twice," Ben says. "First one was fixing a guy's house up, I mostly did the painting. Second, we built a shed. Made two hundred all told."

"Good take. Not counting what Hi or Shelton's made, that brings us to about thirty-five hundred. Niel says it's a thousand per person."

"We're close." Ben says. "I never really thought we'd make it this far."

Tory catches his eye. "You having second thoughts?"

Ben hesitates. "Just that this is our home. America. The United States. It feels wrong to be leaving."

"If we stay, we're in danger. Even with new identities, we're still wanted. They have our pictures, they're looking for us."

"That's why I want to leave, too. It just doesn't feel right."

"I know," Tory says quietly, wrapping an arm around his neck in half a hug. "Soon we'll have a new territory. One with less hunters."

SIX MONTHS AGO - THE PACK

Cooper hears it first, soft footsteps outside their apartment. It's not another tennant coming home; their feet fall heavy and fast. His head goes up, ears pricked. He gives the warning, three quiet whuffs that mean danger.

They're all awake in seconds, moving around, grabbing the essentials. They have bags packed for just this instance. It's happened twice before, that they've been found.

Tory's eyes flicker golden as she pauses, motioning for them to stop. They all freeze, and in the sudden silence Tory can hear heartbeats. Her pack's - and ten others.

"They're covering the fire escape," she mouths to the others. They had used that to escape the second time. "Too many to fight. The closet."

Hi's standing closest. He twists the handle of the closet, wincing at every click as it opens. The hinges are almost drowned in oil, and can't make even the slightest noise. At the back of the bare closet, there's a square hole cut out of the drywall, leading into darkness.

"Go," Tory whispers.

Hi, then Shelton, then Ben slip through into the hole. It's almost soundless, although Ben's bag scrapes the rough edges as he ducks in. Tory takes one last glance around the room and motions Cooper inside the closet, closing the door behind her. She sends Cooper through and crawls over herself, into another closet on the other side which is at this point getting to be a little crowded.

Hi, mashed up against the door, turns the handle, and they all come spilling out.

And the trap closes around them.

SIX MONTHS AGO

"Their mutt is putting up a fuss." Doctor Smith says, coming up to stand next to Agent Smith. "Won't stop barking and howling. We had to sedate it."

"Don't let it hurt itself." Agent Smith says. "It might be useful later on."

"Of course," the doctor says. They both watch the screens in silence. On four different monitors are four different people. They're labeled Subject 1 - TB, Subject 2 - BB, Subject 3 - HS, Subject 4 - SD.

"What's happened so far?" the doctor asks.

"After we separated them they each became far more violent and unpredictable. We had to sedate them in order to get blood samples; the sedatives wore off fast. Subject one hasn't stopped pacing since she woke up. The others sit for a while, pace, sit, pace. Subject three tried sleeping."

"Anything unusual?"

Agent Smith points to Subject 2 - BB. "That one keeps grabbing the bars and pulling at them. We'll need to transfer him to somewhere more secure soon. He's actually bending them."

The doctor frowns. "They're made of steel."

The agent mutters, wryly, "So are they."

SIX MONTHS AGO - TORY

She's at the bars in front of her cage even before the woman comes into sight, gripping so hard her knuckles turn white. She presses her face to the bars and resists the urge to snarl when she sees the woman in the white coat.

The woman's name tag says 'Doctor Smith'. Tory thinks about ripping the bars out of the floor and hitting her with them. She wants something to destroy, but her cell is just a concrete box.

Smith just stands there with a clipboard, watching. Finally she asks, "Can you tell me your name?"

Tory really does growl at her. She becomes aware of a faint scent of primal fear - intellectually the woman knows Tory is contained, but a baser part of her only sees a furious wolf, and wants to run away. Tory smiles.

"You're scared." she states. Somehow just knowing this calms her. "I can see it on you. I can smell it written in your sweat." Tory bares her teeth in a mockery of a smile.

The fear-scent swells a little more. Tory can see the woman trying to push it back, to seem calm. She looks down at her clipboard, writing something, and looks back up at Tory.

She can't look away.

Her gaze is caught in a mad, yellow stare. Somehow she knows that if she looks away for just a second the wolf will be upon her, will devour her whole. If her eyes flicker, or close even once, she's dead. She has to keep them open, looking into that cold, wild, madness. How could she have ever thought these eyes were as soft as gold, as warm as amber? They're two frozen stars, bright and impossible.

Her eyes burning, with a supreme force of will Doctor Smith blinks. She wrenches her eyes away and doesn't dare look up again. She knows, from the corner of her eye, that Victoria Brennan is giving her that mad, sharp-toothed grin.

SIX MONTHS AGO - THE PACK

The cell doors come unlatched all at once in four different cells. Their four occupants waste no time; they are all out less than a second after the latches come up, and running down the only path available. The four halls converge on one main room with no discernible exit, whose doors lock tight after being opened only once.

In this way the four subjects are allowed to meet once again, and are trapped where they do so.

They all arrive at almost exactly the same moment, and don't break stride for even a second, meeting up in the center of the room. There they fall together, touching, reassuring, becoming acquainted again. Agent Smith turns up the volume on the cameras to catch their words.

" - how long?" Tory is saying.

"Two days I think. Feels like two years. I hate..." Hi says, shuddering.

"Yes, I hate." Tory agrees, spitting the last word.

"Did they try to take blood?" Ben asks.

"Had to knock me out." Shelton says.

"Yeah,"

"Same,"

"We don't give them anything." Tory says, looking at all their faces. "Fight them every step of the way."

"What will they do?" Hi asks.

Shelton swallows and speaks up. "Our blood. They want us for what we can do. Figure out how it happened... see if they can make it happen again."

"Can they?" Tory asks.

Shelton shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not."

"We will try." Agent Smith breaks in, speaking over the intercom. "And in the meantime, we want to know more about you. What you can do. But really it'll all go easier if we have your cooperation."

"You've been listening," Tory says, narrowing her eyes at one of the cameras. "You know we're never going to work with you."

Unseen, Agent Smith smiles. "You wouldn't be able to guess how many people say that. Most of them come around in the end."

"And the ones that don't?"

"They end, too."

Tory anchors herself on her pack, one hand on Ben's should, another on Shelton's. Ben has a hand wrapped around Hi's wrist, another on Tory's ankle. Shelton's pressed side-to-side with Hi and gripping Tory's forearm. The gas comes hissing into the room through hidden vents.

"When you swear not to harm the people who work here," Smith says as they're fading. "We'll start moving on with the project."

ONE MONTH AGO - TORY

"Alpha, what's your position?"

"North wall," Tory mutters into her comm. "Going to east entrance. Report."

"Pluto on the South wall." Hi says.

"Balto at east entrance." Ben says.

"Rin Tin Tin in position." Shelton says.

"Move in," Tory orders. "We've got a man to catch."

FIVE MONTHS AGO - BEN

Every once in a while he falls asleep to the sound of hissing gas, and wakes up to find food left in his cell. It's set on the floor, a tray separated into three sections and a liter of water. He makes the water last longer. The food is gone too fast. He's always hungry.

At some point they turned out the lights. It's always pitch dark now. He's starting to forget what seeing was like. He has to clasp his hands together to prove he's still there, has to shuffle around the cell to find the food because he never knows when it's brought anymore. He can't tell the difference between sleeping and waking. Even the hiss of the gas has gone.

Ben is slowly being unmade, and he can feel himself going, piece by piece. Soon he will be gone - and he's not even sure that there will be anyone to miss him. He remembers parents, who cared, but thinks he might have made them up, seen them only in a dream. It's hard to tell the dreams and reality apart when he can't see reality.

The only thing Ben knows for sure is this glowing golden thing inside of him. For a long time it raged at the cage he's stuck in (he's in here because there is no out there) but eventually it stopped that, stopped pacing, and settled back to wait with the unending patience of a thing born to outlast every other thing.

It's waiting now, silent, watching. Ben can feel it inside. Sometimes it comes and joins him, and in those times Ben stops being an uncertain creature. He becomes something powerful, something that knows its purpose and its abilities and is stronger for it. The thing he becomes does not worry about the future. It lays down to wait, always watchful, always alert.

There is another thing that Ben keeps close to himself: the knowledge that he can't have imagined his pack. Nothing fake can hurt this much.

A tiny light flickers on in his cell. It's nothing more than a pinprick, dull red, but it blazes like a sun in his sight and he flinches from it. Suddenly he can see everything in greatest detail. His breaths aren't so muted, when his feet scrape the floor they make a sound. The little star grows brighter, and brighter, until finally all the lights come on and Ben blinks with the return of his sight.

He wonders what new hell this heralds.

"Good news, Subject 2," says the voice on the intercom. Ben hates that voice that seems like God, talking from above and always watching. "Your alpha wolf has decided to cooperate."