Eos, Chapter 2.3: An Unwanted Mission

Dameon turned away. “Why did you bring him here?” he demanded of Gregory. “Sir.”

“D7 — ” Dan began.

“Don’t call me that,” Dameon snapped.

“Since you haven’t picked a new name — “

“My name is Dameon,” he insisted.

“Dameon,” Dan relented, and that’s how Dameon knew he was serious. “We need to talk.”

Dameon kept his eyes on Gregory, pointedly not looking at Dan.

“I’m sorry, son,” Gregory said. “I would have told him no, but… Please, just hear him out.”

Dameon finally looked at his dupe. You never quite got used to it, looking into your dupes’ eyes. You noticed the obvious differences first, of course— hairstyle, scars, clothing. Then the quirks, the same way you raised an eyebrow, the same way you rocked back on the balls of your feet when anxious. Then more differences, the important ones. The micro expressions. The veiled look in his eyes that should be perfectly familiar but just isn't — not quite. Like watching yourself on video, but worse. Instead of your past self, an entirely different person who had stolen your body and now called it his own.

Not everyone had that reaction. But enough that housing jurisdictions made sure that fallen who were dupes of Vitas citizens were housed in a different sector to their counterparts. Even that was rare, and it was nearly unheard of for multiple dupes of the same person to fall through.

Dameon and his brother Sam were exceptions to that rule. Unfortunately.

“Dameon, I was sent on behalf of President Samuel and the rest of the council to revisit our offer.”

“President Samuel gave me the pitch three years ago. I told him to go to hell. What makes you think my answer is going to be any different this time?”

“We have a mission in mind for you.”

“Find someone else.” Dameon turned back to the shooting range.

“Dameon,” Dan said, grabbing his shoulder. “I get it. I do. I wanted to leave you alone. But we need the best for this mission. We need someone we can trust completely.”

“And you think that’s me?” Dameon gave a sharp bark of a laugh. “You don’t know me. None of you know me.”

“You and I both know that any Dameon, once he’s sworn his service, would never break his word.”

Dameon felt a pang of sorrow. That was what he had thought once, too. “That’s where you’re wrong. I walked out of the FBI. At least three of me did.”

“The FBI used you,” Dan said flatly. “They promised you you were serving America, but they lied. Dameon, when I tell you that the future of Vitas will depend on the work we’re asking you to do, I swear to you I believe it.”

His fingers tightened on Dameon’s shoulder.

Dameon raised his stunner and fired into a tiny gap between two targets, hitting the very back target dead on. “Start talking.” He didn’t stop shooting as Dan began.

“Two weeks ago, a rescue team responded to a fallen in southern Texas. About a three-hour flight. A team was in, so they left right away, but when got there, the fallen was gone.”

“So? Some of them run the moment they land.” Dameon scanned the targets. Eight out of twelve, one collateral damage. Not good. He waited for the red on the targets to fade. This time he would go for disabling shots.

“They tracked the omicron readings. He was already fifteen miles away, being driven in a modified Jeep. We ordered them to get a closer look. The others were Eos citizens. Dominic was with them.”

“That Dominic?” Dameon set the stunner down halfway through his round and turned. He folded his arms in defiance, but he was curious. Nobody knew much about the split five years ago where S31, who had been Samuel’s second-in-command, had been exiled, along with D18 — Dominic —and a small band of supporters. It had happened before Dameon had fallen.

“Where was Soran?” Dameon asked, using S31’s chosen name.

“Not with them.”

“So, they split up. Dominic’s out there with his group, and they found a fallen. So what? If a fallen doesn’t want to come with us, they don’t have to. Did they land and talk to him?”

“We told the rescue team not to try,” Gregory said. “We called them back and sent a more… stealthy team to poke around.”

Dameon snorted. “You’re making a mountain out of nothing.”

“We wish,” Dan frowned. “Word on the ground is they have a whole compound just south of Texas. With pre-collapse tech, all working. And they’ve been recruiting over the past year or two.”

“This wasn’t the only instance they collected a fallen,”Gregory added. “We’ve always had a few cases, usually around that area, where the team would arrive, but no fallen was there and the omicrons had dispersed enough to make them undetectable with the equipment in the hoverjets. Between the time it took the team to arrive, especially if they can’t respond right away, and how some fallen start walking as soon as they fall through — we thought it was nothing. Now, we aren’t so sure.”

“Either way, they’ve stepped it up now, Dameon. Since the first instance two weeks ago, two more teams have seen them. In one case, they arrived at about the same time as our search-and-rescue team. We got the fallen, but shots were fired.”

Dameon shook his head. “I’d have heard about it.”

“We asked the teams to keep it quiet,” Gregory said. He looked faintly surprised. “In truth, I didn’t really trust them to hide it from the other teams, just the public.”

He fell silent, and the silence rose like a wall between them. Dameon knew what was coming next, but he waited anyway. He owed it to Dan to finish hearing him out.

“We need you to lead a team to the area and find out everything you can about what Soran is doing. Depending on what you find, we may need you to… take action. Please, Dameon.”

The concern in Dan’s voice almost swayed Dameon. Dan believed. He really believed. Then Samuel’s smug face swam into Dameon’s mind. Then the echo of a single gunshot, reverberating out of the past. No. Dan had been taken in by Samuel, just like all of the others. He may have experience leading an army, but he hadn’t seen firsthand how power ate away at a person and left him a rotting husk.

“No,” Dameon said, getting angry now. “I’m not joining the service so Samuel can make sure a couple of us who had the gall to disagree with him can’t build their own life hundreds of miles away from Vitas. If they want to compete with us for recruiting fallen, let them. You can’t seriously consider them a threat.”

Dan stiffened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You weren’t here. You never knew Soran.”

He didn’t. Dameon didn’t care. “If he scares you so much, then bomb him and his whole band to hell. You don’t need me to sneak around and spy for you.”

Dan stepped closer to him. Their faces were inches apart, and the anger in those brown eyes was enough to make Dameon’s heart skip a beat. “That’s your final answer? You’d rather tell us to kill dozens, maybe hundreds of innocents in a bombing run than help us figure out what’s going on down there?”

No. I don’t want them to die. I just don’t believe a word you say. Dameon said nothing aloud. He turned his back to Dan and Gregory, picked up the stunner, and shot twelve times for twelve targets. Exactly the same — eight out of twelve. Behind him, he heard Dan leave the room with a huff of disgust.

Gregory remained. “Dameon,” he said in a quiet voice, “I want to respect your decision. You’ve been hurt, and frankly, there’s no point in asking you if you’re unable to do the job. But ask yourself why. I know you’ve never seen a counselor about it — “

“I don’t need therapy,” Dameon growled. “I want to live my life, Gregory. Doing some good, like bringing fallen in. But on my own call. No one else’s.”

Gregory nodded. He took up a position in the lane next to Dameon’s, sighted with his own stunner, and fired. Dameon knew by his easy posture that Gregory had accepted Dameon’s choice. Dameon let out a long, slow breath, a silent release of tension and gratitude.

He waited for Gregory’s signal, and they fired the next round together.