imalifegen89

Hello,

This is my first fanfiction attempt on the famous and much beloved, Hardy Boys series. (Also the first attempt on posting on DW.)

First of all, this is a Nancy-Drew-Free zone. Sorry, not sorry.

I'm mostly focused on the brothers and their relationship throughout the story. Unfortunately, I won't be using the other characters such as Callie, Iola, Chet, Biff, Vanessa or any of the others. Original characters will come and go as the story reaches its conclusion. The Hardys' parents and the basic back story (until Iola's death) are kept intact, but after that, I have diverted from canon to head-canon. The brothers are 29 and 30 in this story and have characteristics to portray their adult lives and careers, although their fundamental personalities and quirks remain unchanged.

The story is a sci-fi thriller and is set in the near future. The world-building in this story was inspired by a list of movies and TV series: "Intelligence (TV series -2014), Johnny Mnemonic (Movie 1995) and Electric Dreams (Movie 1984).

I will be adding banners and cast images in the 'Other Fandom Art Collection' work in my AO3 account, under the username ImaliFegen89. You can check it out if you like!

General Warnings: Violence, Gun Violence, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Swearing

**********

Chapter 1

Prologue
Year 2036

Monday - 10:45
In Transit

"Frank Hardy?"

"Yes?"

"Son, this is Admiral Hawkins of USS Saratoga…"

For the life of him, Frank Hardy could not recall the rest of the conversation he had with his brother's commanding officer only three hours ago. There were bits and pieces of words and phrases tumbling around in his brain, refusing to fall into coherent thoughts that would refresh the stark terror he had felt listening to the grave voice of the Flag Officer.

Words and phrases such as, wounded in action, critical, transferred to the port for urgent medical care, brain surgery…would advise you to visit if at all possible, son.

The clusters of clouds passed at speed as he stared out of the small round window of the jet as it cruised at a sedate 800km/h to get him to a private airfield in Dresden, east Germany. It wasn't honestly his doing - how he ended up in a private jet flying to Germany. He closed his eyes and sighed, taking a moment to be grateful for Alexis, his beautiful, brilliant wife who had been there with him when he had received the news.

"Frank, give him a bit more workout, he can take it."

Lexi's voice drifted over from the hardware room she had just plugged in the supercomputer's latest overall system update. This was the final tweak before her people finally handed over the entire system and its rights to his people. Frank smiled and added a few more commands with curt gestures of his gloved hand, enjoying the way the computer responded to his complex demands.

"Okay," Riley Quinn - Ex Army Ranger Gunnery Sergeant turned agent - smirked from her perch on the table outside the holosphere. "I'm not going to comment on what that would sound like without the context. But Lexi, honestly, the things on this funny screen are already so fast it looks like the sphere's gonna take off to space anytime now," she said as Lexi walked out of the room to come stand near Frank's second in command. "You want your man to speed it up more?"

"How else would I know the latest upgrade is working, my dear?"

"You guys are crazy."

"If by that you mean, brilliant and sexy, You'd be right."

Frank listened to their banter as the system finished the final test runs and diagnostics on what he had just put it through. He felt another proud grin break over his face as he stared at the final set of statistics that stared placidly back at him from the screen.

"Huh," he said. "Would you look at that?"

Lexi joined him on the raised platform and wrapped an arm around his waist. "Did you doubt me?"

"Not even for a second." He dropped a kiss on her head that reached just under his chin.

His mobile ran then, cutting off Riley's fake coughing and Lexi's giggles. It was a withheld number, and he answered because calls like that were normal in his line of work.

"Hello?"

"Is this Frank Hardy?"

"Yes"

"Son, this is Admiral Hawkins of USS Saratoga…"

The next thing he knew, Lexi was shaking his shoulder gently while Riley peered at him, her gaze worried.

"Frank, who was it?" Lexi demanded, her brows furrowed in a frown and her voice full of concern.

Frank looked up and blinked. He still had the phone clenched in his fist. He blinked some more, trying to get the static in his mind cleared to answer her question. He knew he was in shock, in a state of suspended reality, to stay away from facing the facts that were going to terrorize him and hurt him to the core.

"It's, uh, it's Joe," he heard his voice through a haze. He sounded dull to his own ears. "I mean, that was his CO. He, um, he got hurt during a raiding operation–"

"Where is he stationed?" That was Quinn. The ex-soldier in her already knew where this was going.

"Saratoga," Frank mumbled.

That was apparently all Lexi needed from Frank. She entered a few rapid commands to the system as Frank watched, numb, detached and somehow seated on a chair next to the platform. Within a short moment, she had Joe's initial medical records, x-rays, blood work and test printed and scanned, along with a full explanation of what it all meant. It never even occurred to him to question the legalities of her searches and the data retrievals.

By the time she was done, Frank was aware enough to see the colour drain on her face as she understood his younger brother's exact condition.

"Lexi–"

She looked up and took a deep breath. Frank knew that she would never hide anything from him. She always chose honesty, despite how painful it was sometimes. "It's bad."

Frank felt whatever air that was left in his lungs leaving in a rush. He deflated, slumping in on himself. The admiral's sombre words echoed in his mind, creating horrifying images of his brother; hurt, bleeding, unconscious…dying.

And Frank wasn't there. Frank hadn't been by his side for seven goddamn years.

Now, his brother might just be lost to him, forever.

A painful sob tore out of him before he could stop it. He bit on his fist savagely and closed his eyes, refusing to let the tears out. If he did, he might not be able to stop it.

There was nothing he could do to stop the shivers that wracked his entire frame as he sat, lost, in that chair though.

"Frank, baby, listen," her hand on his shoulder was warm and her tone was gentle. "I know you want to get to him as soon as possible, but please, I think you should contact Aaron first."

It took him a long moment to understand what she was saying. Aaron Burkhardt was a mutual friend. They met him during their time at MIT. He was involved with them in three projects regarding supercomputer processors and software developments. Frank remembered how that veritable genius used to joke with them, saying that electronic brains fascinated him just as much as the real ones.

He was now one of the world's leading innovative neurosurgeons, based in Dresden.

Lexi's suggestion, however, confused him. What he needed was to get to his brother right now. "Why?"

"Because Joe's condition is critical," Lexi explained patiently. "And based on the injuries mentioned on these records, I think you - your brother - is going to need his help."

The copies of all the medical reports were there in the briefcase that rested on the seat next to him. He hadn't looked at any of them yet. Looking at Joe's condition depicted in an emotionless set of numbers, chemicals and harsh medical terms felt wrong somehow, before the chance to actually see him. It was an illogical thing to do, he was well aware, and Frank was nothing but logical and practical to the core.

Except, it all changed drastically when it came to the matters of his brother.

He still recalled the first serious argument they'd ever had, all those years ago, when Joe had announced his intentions for the first time.

"What do you mean you aren't going to college?" Frank repeated, bewildered, thinking he had heard it wrong.

"I'm enlisting," Joe said, stretching his tall frame across Frank's bed.

Things had been hard, messed up for some time now. After eight months since Iola's sudden, cruel and needless death, things were finally starting to fall back into their usual rhythm. They had just gotten back from their first case after the break they took from everything, only yesterday. It had been a resounding success too, and an entire ring of cyber criminals was now cooling their heels in a county prison in France. Not bad for two private detectives returning to their game after months of hiatus. Joe had been happy, and Frank had seen the pale, sickly complexion of his brother's face acquiring a healthy tan during the time they spent chasing those hackers. He had seen the haunted look in dull, blue eyes getting replaced by a gleam that didn't bode well for lawbreakers. He had finally seen his brother getting better.

Or so he had assumed.

What he was hearing now, told him that his assumptions should have been exactly the opposite.

"Have you lost your mind? Tell me this is a joke!" His question and the demand came out louder and sharper than he intended.

"It's really not," Joe's reply was quiet as he fixed his gaze on the ceiling, avoiding Frank's incredulous expression. "I've been thinking about it for a long time, and my application's already been accepted."

Joe's admission did nothing to calm the anger that started to boil in Frank. He rarely let his emotions get the best of him like that. But this was Joe - his brother, his best friend - who could effortlessly make Frank's carefully crafted logical mindset fly out of the window. And now, he was telling Frank that he was just…abandoning him like it was nothing.

"You already-" Frank had to cut himself off and unclench his teeth so he could speak properly. "Joe, what the hell? That's not the plan," he shook his head, still wondering whether this was a sick joke his brother was playing, despite his denial. "The plan was to go to college, and then Uni, to get our degrees in criminology and–"

"Frank," it was Joe's turn to cut him off. He sounded so calm and in control. It was as if they had switched personalities. The thought made him want to laugh hysterically. "Brother, that's always been your plan, not mine. I'm sorry you thought I was just going to follow you along–"

This was crazy. Why was he only hearing this now? "Joe I don't get it," he said, the project he was working on forgotten as he had his chair turned towards his bed fully to face his brother. "How come you never spoke about this before?"

"It never came up."

Frank took a few moments to breathe slowly and study his brother. Joe was still sprawled on his bed and avoiding eye contact. There was a certain weariness about him and that look of defeat, that sense of infinite grief was back, wrapped around his brother like a heavy cloak.

"Is this about Iola?" Frank asked softly, carefully. There were still a lot of landmines in that conversation realm that Frank did not want to trip, further upsetting his brother. As it happened, his good intentions were not enough to keep him from doing exactly that.

"What?" Joe was startled enough to turn fully towards Frank, finally looking at him. "No."

The instant denial sounded genuine enough. He would have accepted Joe's word for what it was at any other time. But, since Iola's death, there was a state of discord between them. That made him badly miscalculate his response.

"Are you sure?" Frank asked, his scepticism evident in his tone. "Or is this you using military service, of all things, as a way to run away from all the memories?" He saw the way Joe flinched at hearing that, the way his eyes flashed, hurt. But he couldn't stop. "That you aren't using that as a distraction from what happened? Is this your choice to find a way to feel better?"

Joe stared at him for a long moment, and except for that initial flash of hurt, there were no other emotions in his blank expression. It was too late for Frank to take back what came out of his mouth. He kind of didn't want to, because, damn it, he was hurt too.

"No, Frank," When he finally broke the silence, his voice was still quiet. But there was a hard edge to his tone that he had never aimed at Frank before. "I'm not joining the navy, signing up to put my life on the line, along with the lives of people around me, as my feel-good form of therapy, so fuck you."

Fair. Frank knew he deserved that. "Joe," he said, shaking his head. "No. I'm sorry. That's not what I meant–"

"Whatever," Joe said, getting up from his bed, clearly done talking about it. "How you feel about my choice is not going to change my mind. It's done. Just thought you might wanna know."

Admittedly, Frank had handled that wrong. He had known that the moment Joe had left his room without saying anything further. It had taken some time, but Frank had spoken to Joe after that a few times and had managed to apologize in earnest. Joe, in turn, had revealed that he hadn't wanted to make him upset by telling him his plans, which had happened anyway.

They never truly let any grudges grow between them, not for long. Sure, they fought and argued, but at the end of the day, they always managed to talk things out, forgive each other and move on.

They were brothers and they trusted each other. That always came first.

Frank went to college as he planned. He threw himself at any and all academic pursuits he could to fill the time. His bid for MIT was accepted readily and he spent the next four years earning his masters in the field that fascinated him the most: software engineering and supercomputing. After that, his projects and thesis regarding the practical uses of his fields with regard to global surveillance and data gathering caught the interest of a certain agency that specialised in exactly that.

At the age of 28, Frank was now one of the youngest agents in the Central Intelligence Agency who had the command and control of his own branch, Global Signal Intelligence. Which was a fancy way of saying he had permission to run electronic eyes and ears all over the world. Even better, he had the chance to bring his own precious tool he had helped to create for the job.

He even met the love of his love, Alexis Wayland during that time. She got a job at Hewlett Packard Enterprise soon after the concept of 'Spearhead' turned into reality. The programme was rechristened as HPE Cray XX351a/Spearhead by their sponsors at the final stage before it was procured by Frank's current employer.

While Frank found his way into the spying business, Joe went on to the service as he said he would, taking to the disciplined life of a sailor like a duck to water. Years went by as he finished his training specialising as an Engineer's mate, three tours in three ships followed by a bid at the Officer Candidate Training School and then the rigorous requirements and training of BUD/S.

This was his brother's seventh year in the navy, the last two as a Lieutenant of one of their finest special operators, a SEAL.

But, what happened to him only forty-eight hours ago might just be the end of all he worked so hard to achieve during all those years. He might lose his life.

Which was why Frank was on his way to Aaron Burkhardt. Lexi had made a quick call and the surgeon had promised to meet him at the airport. He would take a look at Joe's records and they would make their visit to the hospital together. Frank didn't know what he had done to deserve friends like that, the ones who would drop everything in their lives to come to his and his brother's aid. He is immensely grateful nevertheless for the fact that he did.

…..

They were kindly but firmly told that they weren't allowed to see the patient just yet, his condition was still unstable and was under constant supervision. Frank was sure they got as much information they could, including a copy of Joe's recent chart, only due to the charming, yet insisting the presence of the towering neurosurgeon.

"They just confirmed what I told you when I saw the records, Frank," Aaron said, dropping heavily onto the seat next to Frank in the waiting area. "He hasn't woken up yet, not even once. And the swelling shows no sign of going down. It doesn't look good."

Frank could only nod at his friend's words. He wasn't sure he could get any words out without dissolving into sobs. He kept breathing deeply and evenly, his gaze fixed on a spot on the tiled floor of the waiting area of the intensive care unit.

"They won't let anyone in to see him. Not yet."

"Is there anything we can do here, Aaron?" Frank asked after a long while. He couldn't just wait here to be told that his brother had passed without even having the chance to see him at least. He just couldn't.

"There is," Aaron said, slowly, carefully, making Frank turn his gaze towards his friend fully. "But, only if you have the right to make decisions as his power of attorney."

"I do," Frank said, curious as to why his friend sounded…reluctant.

"You do?" Aaron repeated, with a raised brow. "Not the navy? I thought the military usually took the lead in cases of injuries on duty."

"They do," Frank explained. "But they couldn't treat him in the cruiser and they couldn't arrange a transit home in his condition. The moment they transferred him to port, the authority regarding his medical decisions fell to me."

"That's a good call on his part," Aaron nodded. "To have it arranged to be you."

"It was one of my conditions," Frank admitted with a wry smile. "He agreed just to make me back off,"

"He's lucky to have a brother like you."

"It's mutual," Frank sighed. "Tell me what my options are here, Aaron."

Instead of answering, his friend stood up and gathered his jacket. "We are going to find a place to stay the night and then I'm taking you back to Dresden tomorrow first thing in the morning," he said, confusing Frank.

"Aaron–"

"I know you'd rather be near him," He cut Frank's protest off gently. "But, right now, you can't help him. What can potentially help him is in my office, and I can't talk about it here."

The enigmatic man didn't divulge anything further than that cryptic comment no matter how much Frank nagged and cajoled. As promised, he did find two suites for them at The Fontenay to spend the night in luxury. The next day, they left the hotel after an early breakfast in a rental and made it to the Gustav University Medical Centre where Aaron Burkhardt led the neurosurgery department.

…..

"I understand that the concept falls somewhere in the ethically grey area," Aaron sipped his coffee and broke the silence as Frank stared at the screen on his friend's laptop. "Not because there's any question whether it works, because it does. Just that it hasn't been approved for the next stage in clinical trials yet."

Frank blinked, looking up at his friend. He knew that the confidence he displayed wasn't arrogance. He was only stating a fact. Aaron Burkhardt was a bona fide genius in dual fields and this thing that stared back at him - this concept that went beyond anything he had ever even imagined - had the potential ability to save his brother's life. It boggled his mind that this invention was a branching ripple of the concept of the project that now resided back in the basement of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"Tell me more," Frank whispered, grabbing onto the silver of hope his friend presented with both his hands.

"The chip uses the same data storing concept of Spearhead," Aaron explained. "The programming meshes into biosynthetic hardware. Now, this new base can be used without an issue, it went through the final approvals just last year," he said excitedly, warming up to the subject. "The problem is with the bonding of organic matter and the synthetics with the programming itself. This design of mine actually lets the chip connect to the brain and even grow as far as becoming a part of it. I know it sounds fantastical but it works."

"Let me see if I got this," Frank muttered. "You want to implant a microchip in my brother's brain?"

"Exactly," the neurosurgeon beamed. "There's still so many hidden abilities of the human brain and chemicals. We learn something new every day just by studying it. It is actually capable of integrating with an external storage device such as this to save itself. Survival instinct at its finest."

"How is this going to help him survive losing a chuck of his brain?"

It was the first time he put words to the extent of Joe's injuries. He had to swallow hard to keep back the bile he could feel burning his throat. Now that the words were out, all his fears about Joe came rushing back to the surface, reminding him that he was on the verge of losing his brother for good.

"We can replace the parts he lost due to head trauma with the chip, Frank," his friend said gently. "Its organic parts are capable of adapting and expanding its mass. The injury left space inside his skull for it to grow and I can develop it into a point to speed up the process even. Within six months, his brain functions will be restored back to a guaranteed 98.9%. If it worked."

"If it worked," Frank repeated numbly. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around what his friend was telling him.

"There's always the chance that the body would reject the new addition."

"What else could go wrong here, Aaron?" Frank pressed. His friend was talking about a wholly new level of brain surgery. And, as was the case with any new invention, it was bound to have a plethora of bugs, mistakes and side effects. "Give me all of it."

"Well, he might experience some memory loss," Aaron said. "The chip can complete his brain but it can't retrieve lost data. He might have side effects such as headaches or seizures, which would become apparent within the first month of the implant. But those can be corrected with minor surgeries and adjusting the programming of the processors."

Frank waited for the rest of it. But Aaron kept drinking his coffee, staring at Frank expectantly.

"That's it?"

Frank's utter incredulity made him smirk. "I'm a genius, after all, Frank. You didn't think I would design something faulty, did you?"

Frank couldn't believe that that was all there was to it. It sounded almost too good to be true. At this point, the legalities didn't even make an appearance in his thought process. All he cared about was saving Joe's life.

"But what's the catch?" he demanded. "Because this all sounds too good to be true."

"Yes, the catch," his friend shrugged, still smiling. "There are several. For one, it's not approved yet, so it's illegal," he sounded remarkably calm about it as if it was a negligible concern. "The second, the board of directors of Gustav, HPE and GTN are still negotiating about the property rights, because my design involves all three of them coming together to make it work–"

"GTN?"

"Yeah, they own the biosynthetic base I have to use for the chip," he explained.

"How long is it going to take for you to make it?"

"Oh, it was already made about five months ago," Aaron said. "There's three of them in storage, I've been running tests, improving the overall efficiency of it all this time."

"But you just said–"

"The talks are about the shares and market prices and profits, Frank," said Aaron. "They know it works. It's the new revolution in the field of brain surgery. But they are not doctors. They are not concerned about the brilliance of the concept or the number of lives we could save. They are all about the money."

Frank could understand that. His own project would have had the same issues if it weren't for the extensive and largely undisclosed budget of his agency.

"So how are we going to make this happen in reality if we did decide to do it?"

"Well, I was thinking you could transfer your brother here. I could take over as his primary care physician and then do surgery for the implant. Then I'd keep him here on an extended stay to ensure everything works as it should."

He made it sound so simple. Frank still couldn't even begin to comprehend the process.

"I'm not… I can't even–" he tried to put words to his disbelief and failed.

"It's overwhelming, I know," Aaron nodded. "And the biggest catch would be the secrecy. If we go through with it, only you and I can ever know about it," he admitted. "Not even Joe can know. We can just let it be known that the genius saved the day again because I'm that good,"

"And humble about it too," Frank muttered, shaking his head.

Aaron chuckled. "I can even make it spin that I did some innovative grey matter grafting," he shrugged, closing his laptop back. "The chip will be integrated into his brain within the first twelve days and it won't be visible to any scans. So you don't have to worry about it being found. And the other thing is, I'll be able to keep everything under wraps until such time. That's about it."

"What's it to you?" It was a valid question. His friend's suggestion could very well end up costing him his medical license. Or worse, he could end up in prison. Their friendship went way back and Frank trusted him. But he just couldn't believe that Aaron would gamble his career and life away just to help Frank's dying brother out.

"Why, Frank," Aaron said with another proud smile. There was a predatory gleam in his green eyes that wasn't there a moment ago. "I want the very thing any inventor wants to witness. That's the moment their invention comes to life before their eyes."

Now that Frank could believe. That confidence and self-satisfaction he could clearly see in his friend's expression were genuine. He had seen it a few times during their shared time back in the university days.

"I know you're going to have to think it through," Aaron said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them while Frank contemplated the unbelievable offer.

"It's a big decision and it's harder because you're making it for your brother, not yourself. But right now, your brother's scale is leaning towards death, and this is a shot at the life we could give him."

Put like that, it seemed like the easiest decision he had ever made in his life. Except, did it really give him the right to play God - or let his friend play God - to potentially alter his brother's life like that? He truly did not know.

"Yeah," he murmured softly. "But at what cost, Aaron?"

"It's up to you to decide my friend," he replied just as quietly. "Because your brother can't speak for himself right now."

Wasn't that the crux of the matter? Joe wasn't in any position to do anything for himself. He was in a coma, lying on a bed in an intensive care unit with a number of machines hooked up to him to keep him alive.

Frank thought about the entire thing for the rest of the day, lying flat on his back on the bed in his hotel room, staring at a dusty ceiling. No matter how many reasons and justifications he mentally listed in pro and con columns, he couldn't make up his mind.

The thought of doing nothing and letting his brother succumb to his injuries paralyzed him with dread. He could not imagine living in a world without his other half. Even the slightest contemplation of the idea made his heartbeat pick up the speed in an uneven rhythm. What Aaron gave him was a chance. One last throw of dice. If it worked as advertised, not only would his brother live, but he would be able to continue as before, without any permanent debilitating after effects. If it didn't, it wasn't as if they could have made his condition worse. Joe was already teetering at the extreme edge of life anyway.

But, he was equally scared of the ramifications he would have to face down the line if this miracle worked. He wasn't even bothered about the legality of it. He would gladly take the blame and punishment for it if it meant that Joe got to walk out of this alive at the end of the day. What scared him was what Joe would say or feel if he ever found out. Would he be appalled? Would he demand the implant be taken off? Would it change him in some fundamental way or his personality? Would he be fine with it?

Then again, according to Aaron, this was going to have to be a secret that Frank took with him to his grave if they decided to go ahead. So the chances of Joe finding out about it were almost non-existent.

In the end, none of his reasoning, trepidations or fears didn't matter. The call he received from the General Hospital in Hamburg late that night, made the decision for him.

Chapter 2

Year 2038 - Present Day

Washington DC
Wednesday
20:52

Supervisory agent Riley Quinn made her way into the deep bowels of the Monster, hoping she wouldn't find her wayward partner doing a deep dive inside a virtual rendition of yet another ignored part of the real world again. Even as the thought passed her mind, she knew it was a vain hope. Frank Hardy had been doing nothing but exactly that for the past eight days, immersing himself in the multitudes of searches for his lost and out-of-contact brother.

She almost let out a laugh as she waited patiently inside the elevator that slowly made its way down to the sub-basement level III where the top secret, highly experimental, technological wizardry resided.

Frank absolutely hated having to pause once he was locked onto a pattern in the high-speed system only his steel trap of a brain could discern. From experience, Riley knew that these patterns would take anything between three hours to five days for him to figure out, break and dig out what they actually needed. And, he had more than once whined to Riley about having to stop in the middle of something just because he had to waste time on irritating, time-consuming human needs such as having to eat or going to take a piss.

"Honestly, if Fujitsu ever makes the breakthrough of taking their concept of the transference of a human mind to an android onto the next step, I'm going to be first in line for that upgrade," Hardy Senior complained around a mouthful of Caesar salad as he kept tapping on the small, handheld screen that was connected to the main network.

"Somehow I'm not surprised," Riley replied sardonically, sipping her tea.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to pluck back one string lost in a million similar strings again?"

"Nope. And I'm forever grateful I don't need to know anything about it either," she said slowly, locking her hard gaze with Frank's pleading brown eyes. "So, let's skip the techno-babble while we have lunch."

He always referred to extremely complex search patterns - ones that consisted of names, bios, behavioural analytics, money trails, electronic footprints and thousands of other little things that pertained to their varying assignments - as data strings. Frank was one of the only three supervisory agents who had command and processing access to the latest supercomputer that was installed in the basement levels of the Central Intelligence Agency. Since Frank was the one who knew how to operate the complex system properly, out of the three of them, with any skill to make it do what the agency wanted in a timely manner, the responsibility of the HPE Cray XX351a/Spearhead - otherwise lovingly known as the Monster - fell on his more than capable shoulders. The CIA's anti-terrorism branch specialising in signal intelligence, GSI, headed by Frank Hardy himself, therefore, enjoyed the lion's share of the advantages the frighteningly fast and resourceful computer brought to the international game of spying.

The elevator deposited her in the restricted level and she walked past three security checkpoints that discreetly scanned her vitals, retinas and ID hanging around her neck to make sure she was who she declared she was. As an assistant supervisory agent, and chief agent Frank Hardy's second in command, she was one of the seventeen people who had access to this particularly secretive level.

The massive double doors made of an augmented steel alloy that was supposed to keep the place safe from even a direct missile hit, opened slowly inwards to let her enter the lair of the Monster.

Riley always likened entering the processing room to stepping into the distant future. In the spacious area to her immediate left was the massive, maze-like complex that housed the Cray-SpearHead supercomputer's expensive and intricate hardware. That room had its own separate power supply, temperature controls and even more complicated authorization procedures for entry and maintenance.

She had always found great relief in the fact that she was not one of those privileged people.

The entire project was still categorised as 'In Parallel Implementation Testing phase'. Frank's affinity for the use of multiple systems at once in harmony was put to test during these three months, in order to stress test the computing power of this latest technological marvel. What they only mentioned in the tiny little fine print was that this phase sometimes caused the hardware to fizzle and spark inside the warehousing unit, potentially throwing the entire project in jeopardy. They had maintenance teams full of software and hardware technicians on standby for emergencies such as that, but it always kept everyone on the edge of panic when the digits of the system usage display crept closer to the redline.

Fortunately, none of that fell within her purview either. She was the field agent, the one who got to step out and act on Frank's findings. That was not to say that the older Hardy was a complete nerd who knew nothing but what the internet told him. The agent was more than capable of field investigative work and was extremely well-versed in more than a few kinds of self-defence disciplines. She always got a good workout whenever the man actually decided to step out from the tech to do some physical training. She had also seen how he kept up his firearms certifications up to date. All in all, he was an overall capable agent, just with a bit of an unhealthy obsession with a creepy computer system that could actually hold a conversation with you while you worked.

Anyway, that was her humble opinion of her work partner.

The first thing anyone noticed when they stepped through the double doors was the Command and Control Centre of the powerful system. She found Frank Hardy exactly where she had guessed he would be. He was standing on the raised platform in the middle of the darkened room, his hands raised and weaving patterns as if he was the maestro of a complicated symphony orchestra.

In a way he was, she supposed.

He had a pair of sensory glows and smart glasses on, and the entire transparent sphere surrounding him was full of scrolling numbers, charts, images and ever-changing code that hardly made sense to Riley. They all moved and changed as Frank gestured to create and dissolve a series of patterns. She found it impossible to concentrate on one thing due to the way they moved, let alone information displayed on a 360-degree view. Frank, however, seemed to absorb almost everything the system managed to dig up for him at his request, with ease.

Also from experience, she knew that he had been at this for far too long and that he needed to be sternly reminded of the fact.

She dragged one of the big, comfy, revolving chairs from inside Frank's office to the out and dropped heavily to it.

"Hey, Hardy."

Her voice was loud enough to snap the older Hardy's concentration from his task to glance back over his shoulder. As immersed as he was in what he was doing, he hadn't noticed her arrival. A bad habit for an agent in the business of trading Intelligence, even in his own territory. She made a mental note to talk to him about it at a later point.

"Riley, hello," Frank waved and went back to search and probe the system.

She sighed. She understood perfectly why he was doing what he was doing. She also understood that even he had limits. Something her partner seemed to forget sometimes.

"It's past nine, buddy," she said. "Marie is waiting outside with the cleaning trolley,"

"The only thing that gets to clean and ventilate this entire basement is Spearhead itself, Riley," Frank explained patiently without stopping his task. "I know the hard vacuuming is scheduled to run in an hour for two hours."

"Yeah, the session you kept postponing for the last three hours," Riley said sagely, earning a self-deprecating shrug from the agent. "What's going to stop you from doing it again?"

"System safeties, for one," Frank chuckled. "Also, I'm definitely not calling the daily cleaning programme, Marie."

"You can call it whatever you want," Riley allowed. "Just finish up for today, Frank, it's time."

It was Frank's turn to let out a weary sigh. He dropped his hands and turned to face her. "Riley you know why I can't–"

"Frank, Joe's a grown man," she cut in gently. "He knows what he's doing. You know as well as I do that things do go wrong in the field, and the best way an agent in trouble could stay alive is when they stay hidden. From everyone."

Joseph Hardy - a former SEAL Lieutenant turned field agent - was a year younger than Frank and had been one of their field agents for a little over two years now. She understood Frank's distress and worry well because she knew that the two brothers were close.

She had initially had doubts about Frank insisting on being Joe's handler whenever he was sent out on a field assignment. Logic had a way of taking a backseat to let the emotions drive when close family members were involved in field operations, especially when things took a turn for the worse. Emotional handlers and field agents made mistakes, that was a time-tested, hard truth. But the two stubborn Hardys operated extremely well and in almost mysterious synchronicity together when they were on assignments, proving themselves as a well-matched pair over and over again. They claimed that the long history of following their father's footsteps as private detectives from their teens to early twenties had something to do with it. Their performance stats alone made her reluctantly concede to the point that they were apparently the exception to the rule.

But the fact remained, that the human condition was not something you could just switch off when it was necessary.

The trouble they were facing right now, emerged when an informant their branch had used on prior occasions, contacted them with a code-24, which meant he had time-sensitive information that needed to be traded within hours. Joe had been the closest agent in the theatre, waiting at the Bagram base for transport back home after training he'd had to participate as a navy reservist. He accepted the assignment with his usual enthusiasm, acquired what he needed for the transit to the small town about forty miles west of the base through his SEAL buddies and made it to the location within eight hours of initial contact. He then even had the time to send confirmation of the meet-up, exactly at the pre-arranged cafe and even more miraculously, on time. The information packet he received was uploaded into the system server a short moment later, concluding his assignment.

Things went off course when Joe disappeared out of the grid soon after that. He never showed up back at the base to board the Globemaster that was supposed to bring him back to the States. His last known location was that small town called Takhar, according to the last GPS coordinates he transmitted.

That had been eight days, almost one hundred and ninety hours, ago. Since then, there had been no signals from the Bagram base, no emergency beacon activation, no hurried messages, no calls, no texts, no pigeons, no nothing.

It was as if the younger Hardy had been swallowed by a black hole with nothing left behind.

Now, they both knew that vanishing without a trace was not exactly out of the norm for a field agent. They were thoroughly and meticulously trained on that skill when they were recruited. Joe was better at it because he had the extra advantage of training and experience from his former specialised military branch, which he utilised with ease when he was on assignments. But the longer an agent took to reestablish contact, it was understood that the trouble they were in was serious. And, it usually meant that they were on the run. For their lives.

So, naturally, Frank was worried, and it was even justified. But, there were limits to what they could do to assist the agent-in-need during times like these.

"Frank, you're driving yourself to exhaustion here with nothing to show for it," she said, reasonably. "You're not going to be in any shape to help your brother when he does make contact."

"It's been too damn long."

"I know. But we have no idea what happened, and you know he's going to call home the moment he can, or do his damndest to get to the base."

She wasn't just saying that for the sake of it. She had complete faith in the younger Hardy. She had been in the field with him a few times and had seen firsthand what a damn fine operator he was.

"But right now, you're running on no cylinders. You make mistakes when you do that," she pointed out, ignoring the way the older Hardy deflated in defeat. "I may not be able to figure out top to bottom on your main screen, but I can damn well read the summary of your findings from here just fine," she nodded at the multiple screens on the table next to her that displayed comprehensible summaries of Frank's hours of work. "You've got nothing right now."

"So what?" Frank snapped, not taking what he thought was his failure, very well. "You think I should just give up?"

"Stop for now," Riley kept her tone gentle and patient. She had mastered the Art of Hardy Wrangling many years ago. "Come back tomorrow with a fresh pair of eyes after a good solid six hours of sleep. Maybe you'll see something you missed. And in the meantime, have a little faith in your brother."

Finally, the older Hardy let out another long sigh and took off the gloves and the glasses. The moment he did, the sphere around him contracted back to its hiding place and the room restored to natural lighting settings, causing the agent to wince and scrunch up his face.

Yeah, they also forgot to tell you about the raging headaches the system induced after prolonged usage. But, then again, maybe they didn't know enough about the obsessively compulsive handlers such as Frank Hardy, to include proper warnings.

"Ow. Shit." he let out a soft curse and rubbed his temples, keeping his eyes squeezed shut.

Riley decided it was time to take pity on him. "Here," she said, handing him over the painkillers and the water she had grabbed before heading down here.

"You are an asshole on your best day," Frank said with a smile as he took the meds from her. "But you're a godsend asshole."

"Aww. You sweet talker, you," Riley grinned, making him laugh and then cough as he greedily chugged down the water to wash away the pills. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Frank agreed. It didn't take long for him to save his work and shut everything down for the day. The system accepted the commands and dutifully took over self-diagnostics, software maintenance and cleaning duties as they left the room together, letting the door close behind them of its own accord.

"So tell me, how's your domestic life been treating you?" Riley asked as they waited for the elevator, drawing another small private smile from her colleague. "Lexi's doing alright?"

"You could say that."

Hmmm. There was a lot to unpack behind that tone and that little sideways grin. "Spill, Hardy."

Instead of answering, he took out his phone, flipped through some of his photos and videos in the gallery, picked a short vid and opened it before handing her the phone.

"See for yourself."

Alexis Wayland-Hardy's beaming smile greeted Riley when she pressed 'play' on the recording. She had filmed herself outdoors, and it was rather windy, judging by the way her long blonde hair danced around her face and the sounds wavered.

"Guess what baby…Christmas came early this year."

She screamed to make sure her husband heard her clearly.

"The doctor's office sent me a gift today."

Riley knew what she was talking about. Six days ago, Frank had wanted to go with her for the appointment but Alexis had made him stay, knowing Frank was already an anxious mess over Joe's disappearance. She had gone by herself, promising to get straight back to Frank after she was done.

But as it happened, she was called by her office for an emergency meeting and she had to leave in a hurry after a quick text to Frank as a way of explanation. She worked as a software engineer for a multinational company that held a few State military contracts for about three years now. And, as the project manager for their ongoing missile guidance software upgrades, she got called away to three different sites where they had set up their testing facilities. Riley knew that had been an added source of stress for the man, to be away from his wife, especially now. But such were the demands of the jobs they held.

"You better buckle up for a ride, my darling, and find that 'Daddy' hat of yours. You're going to need it in a few months."

"Oh, my word!"

"Yeah," Frank grinned as he took his phone back from Riley. "She sent me that from the airfield just before boarding her flight to Oakland. That was when she got the confirmation from the doctor."

Then he showed her the two images of Lexi's scans. She was three weeks pregnant. Riley couldn't help but grin back at her partner. It was about time. He's been married for four years already. He needed a few occasions to be so happy like this.

Maybe this would be the reason to finally bring Joe around as well.

She banished the thought the moment it flashed in her mind, not letting that dim her own happiness for her friend. Now was not the time or the place for the issues between Frank and his brother regarding his wife to be discussed.

"Congratulations," she said instead. "You've been busy."

"Hey, it wasn't planned," he shrugged. "I don't know how it happened. I thought we were being careful."

Wasn't that what they all said? Riley had no way of guessing because, well, romantic partners, marriage and long-term commitments were not the things she needed or wanted in her life. She was a player, and happy and proud of the fact.

"Any regrets?" she raised an eyebrow in question.

"Hell, no," Frank shook his head. "It might have been an accident, but it's the best fucking accident ever."

Riley could see it in the way his entire face was lit up in pure joy. "When's she coming back?

"Don't know," Frank shrugged and his smile dimmed. "Last call from her was when her flight landed, about seven hours after that vid. She's been texting here and there. You know how she is when she is involved in troubleshooting."

Riley did know. Alexis had a way of completely checking out from this world and diving into a very different and complex world of coding and programming when she was called to the site to assist with a project. It was a habit the husband/wife duo shared, but Lexi had it worse. Frank would be extra miserable during days like these because his wife would be completely out of contact with him for days at such times.

"Her last text was three days ago and said she'll be back in about a week or so," Frank added as they exited the elevator to the parking lot.

"You better arrange a nice welcome for her, Hardy," Riley threw over her shoulder as she started walking towards her car. "Flowers, candles, nice food, the whole nine yard."

Frank's laugh echoed behind her as he went the opposite way. "You bet."

Chapter 3

Parwan Province
Saturday
00:32

Civilization at last. Or whatever passed closer to that around here.

Joe Hardy stayed where he was, crouched behind the thick line of dusty, brown trees and shrubs to keep out of sight. His stolen garb of a long-sleeved, knee-length, shapeless shirt, baggy pair of pants and the turban hastily wrapped around his head and neck to hide his too-damn-noticeable hair, blended him seamlessly with his immediate surroundings. He was at the edge of the jungle that had been his home for the past forty-eight hours, and this border was where the miles and miles of wilderness faded, leading to a small dilapidated town. He stayed quiet, listening to the sounds of the critters that came creeping out at dusk to join the bleating of the goats and the occasional yell of a man or a woman.

He shifted a little without letting his long frame be visible over the line of thick bushes. His entire body hurt as if he had been run over by a truck a few times. The open cuts on the back of his head and on the right temple had stopped bleeding a long time ago. But he was fairly sure that the turban wrapped around his head was stuck to his skull with the dried-up blood, which would make it a fucking mission when he had to take the damn thing off. He was covered in a plethora of cuts, bruises and lacerations all over, thanks to the brutal firefight he had had to engage during the escape and the subsequent game of 'dodge and hide' he played in the jungle with his relentless pursuers.

At least I didn't get shot this time, he thought to himself with a grimace as he rubbed a dirty, dusty hand roughly across his stubbled jaw. Yet.

Sure, he was tired. No. Scratch that. He was beyond exhausted, hungry and parched. He had finished the last bit of water he had possibly a couple of hours ago. He had no supplies - food, medical or otherwise - except for the gun and the two knives he had liberated from his now-dead captors.

None of that worried him that much. He had been in worse situations. He knew how to get himself out of this kind of trouble. No. What worried him was the incessant headache that had been plaguing him for the past two days. In itself, the headache wasn't an anomaly. He had untreated head wounds after all. But, this bone-deep ache that emanated from somewhere deep within his skull that pulsated in tandem with his heartbeat, sending a continuous cold, pinprick sensation down his spine wasn't normal. It also made his vision blur from time to time and constant nausea his hurting brain induced made it hard to concentrate on anything for a longer period of time.

It was the same exact pain he had felt only once before when he had regained consciousness in a private hospital in Germany with a rumpled Frank asleep on a chair next to his bed. That had been the day he received the news that put an end to his seven-year military career in the navy.

Joe shook his head to get rid of the stray thought. That was not a memory he wanted to delve into right now.

No, the biggest problem he had now was the memory loss.

Two days ago, he had woken up in a dark, damp cell somewhere deep in the jungle, captured, trussed up and blindfolded. Three things had become evident when the fog in his mind cleared enough to think. That he had been captured by the bad guys, that he was alone and that he had to escape sooner rather than later. He had no idea how or why he had been captured or where he was. The occasional bits and pieces of Pashto and Dari he heard, had told him that his captors were local males, but those were not enough to figure out the rest.

So, the moment he'd had the chance, he had overpowered the guy who had come to move him, possibly to a different location. The man made the mistake of cutting Joe's hands loose from where they had been bound together behind his back, possibly to rebind them in his front, he wasn't sure. He may have thought the unsteady and barely awake prisoner was not that much of a threat. That was the only mistake he ever made for the rest of his life, which ended shortly afterwards. Once free of his restraints and had exchanged his own much noticeable clothes for the ones of the dead guy, Joe had crept up into the night, slowly, and methodically dispatching the rest of the gun-toting guards he found scattered around the two small buildings.

While he was cleaning house, one of the enemies managed to rouse the rest of the group and Joe had to bail, making his way further into the jungle for cover. Then it had been a game of cat and mouse, them hunting Joe while he hunted them in return.

There had been twelve of them altogether, and now there were none.

It had been during that time, trying and failing to think back to the events of his unexplained capture, Joe realised that he was missing something. He clearly remembered making contact with Malik in the small cafe in a town called Takhar. They met on time, Joe remembered that much and they had ordered the local equivalent of coffee before getting down to business.

From that moment on, there was a complete and utterly blank slot in his memory until the night he woke up in that cell. Panic had set in when he realised that he had no idea which day it was or where the hell he was. He hadn't had the time to search for his belongings or that of his captors; his watch or phone could have come in handy to find out the day, time and location. But as it happened, he only had the movement of the sun to give him a faint idea about the time. His mind was an absolute blank that refused to give up information when he did his best to recall anything that happened to him during the lost time period. Except for the splitting headache it gave him for his troubles, the amnesia refused to budge.

Now, here he was, finally at the brink of another small town, waiting patiently for the darkness to fall so that he could break into the shop that promised free internet access along with meals. He needed that access to know when and where he was and to call home.

Frank was probably worried. And that didn't bode well for anyone.

Contact his handler, who also happened to be his brother, and find water and then food, those were the priorities. Then, hopefully, he would be able to get to a place where he could wash off the blood, grime and the smell of goats. After that, he would need some medical attention for the infernal headache, followed by a two-day long nap, in that order.

It took what felt like another hour for the cafe owner to close up for the day and retire upstairs where Joe was sure the rest of his home was. It meant that he was going to have to be very stealthy. A little hard, but manageable task, not an impossible one.

He waited another two hours, counting down minutes in his head, for the full darkness to fall. After a while, he started to feel a calm peaceful sense that settled over the town when all its residents slid into deep slumbers. Apart from an isolated hoot or two from an owl further into the jungle, there were no other noises. Even the stray dogs seemed to have withdrawn into their shelters, leaving the entire town so very quiet.

Joe detached from his cover and crossed the winding cobbled path to get to his target. His footsteps were light and silent as he moved like an independent shadow. The quarter moon in the cloudless night shed enough ambient light for him to see the rough shapes of the buildings, and after all the hours he just spent on recon, he could navigate this part of the town with his eyes closed if needed.

The door was only secured with a latch and a padlock. Joe still had his belt, which meant he had his lockpick. It took him only two minutes to feel his way around the lock and get it open, and that was because he was taking extra care to be quiet.

The door opened without any squeaks or groans, for which he was thankful. He opened it just enough to slip inside and closed it softly behind him. He didn't want any stray gusts of wind banging the door against the frame, waking up the entire town. Once inside, he stayed still, blinking and looking around to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. When the shapes of tables, chairs and counters began to emerge, he carefully made his way towards the back end of the cafe where another closed door ended the path. Next to it on a small table, there were two ancient desktops, with tiny red dots on their monitors suggesting standby mode. The password, 'abdul7845' was helpfully written on a piece of paper and stuck to both CPUs which were next to the monitors.

Joe slowly lowered himself on the chair before the computer to his left and pressed the power button, sending out a quick prayer that the dinosaur of a thing wouldn't start with an uproar. It took its sweet time, but the monitor lazily blinked to life without making too much of a fuss or alerting his presence to anyone on the floor above.

It was Saturday, 0248 hrs, which was the first thing he noticed. That meant he had been out of contact for a little over nine days. He bit back a curse and clicked the mouse to open up a webpage. The connection was pitifully slow, and it took a while to load. He decided on a quick, emergency signal via email as he waited for the Google search bar to finally appear.

He entered the domain of an untraceable email account manually into the address bar, taking care to type carefully to make no noise. Full three minutes of waiting, swearing and muted glaring later, he finally had access to his email account.

Little lamb lost.

It was the shortest message he could send asking for maximum assistance. It was Thursday late evening in DC and the chances were Frank was still at work, probably glued to the Cray system looking for him. The coding of his words would make sure the system would bring it to Frank's attention the moment it got through. If Frank wasn't there, the system itself would get back to him with a detailed extraction plan. The advanced programming running the Spearhead was sophisticated enough to put together something like that, and it even had certain access and authorizations to arrange transports, meet-ups or dead drops if the situation required it. After that, it would continue to try to get hold of the relevant handler, in this case, Frank - who would make changes to the auto-generated plan if necessary.

'Little Lamb Lost' meant he was in the wind, with no information, no direction and no supplies. The system would give him coordinates, based on the point of contact, a detailed map to the nearest friendly base and other options and information available. After that, it would assign the nearest available satellite - military or otherwise - to keep an eye on him from the sky, to keep the lamb from getting lost again as it were.

It took thirteen long minutes for the painfully slow computer and the internet connection to send his messages and receive a reply.

He was still in Afghanistan, in the same province still. He was more than a hundred miles away from Takhar. The cluster of houses and shops where he was now was so insignificant, it didn't have a name. But, the good news was, he was only thirty-odd miles from Bagram. That was doable, even if he had to make it by foot. He would stick to the tree line border that seemed to cover more than half the route from here to the base. He took a moment to study the map in detail and memorise it. He had been here long enough that he could navigate most parts almost instinctively.

The email deleted itself exactly after five minutes, as it said it would. He waited a few more minutes, hoping that Frank might follow up with another email. When nothing came back from DC for the next ten minutes, he decided that it was time to hit the road.

As if agreeing with his assessment, a rooster let out a cry from a distance. It was a sign that the villagers would be getting up soon to start the new day, even though it was the weekend. They didn't really have the luxury to waste too many hours in their beds in these parts of the world.

Joe let out a sigh and closed the webpage. He didn't bother with clearing history, knowing that the site would have dissolved into nothing the moment he signed out. He made his way to the fridge near the counter and grabbed a few bottles of water and candy bars. He took the forgotten shawl draped on the back of a chair to make a rudimentary bag and put the items in it. He would look like any other traveller during the day, if anyone were to spot him, carrying his stuff wrapped in a piece of clothing.

He slipped out of the cafe as quietly as he entered it and made sure to put the lock back on as he found it. He felt marginally better now that he had some water and food in his system. But the headache still raged and the exhaustion manifested as pain in all his joints. He would take it easy, he decided. He would walk a few hours and stop to take a break, or catch a quick nap. That way, it would take time to get back to friendly territory, but he would make it without collapsing somewhere unknown.

With his mind made up, he made his way back towards the tree line. Now that he had made contact to let the people back at home know he was alive, the cover the jungle provided would be his friend until he made it to the military base in Bagram.

Chapter 4: Chapter 3

Washington DC
Friday
18:28

Meanwhile

The short video was only about four minutes and eight seconds long and was of very poor quality with not even thirty frames per second. It was filmed in black and white and the images were choppy and grainy. There were no sounds.

All of it pointed to the fact that it was a recording from a very cheap security camera. It was now represented by a blinking dot that waited patiently on the Monster's holographic screen to be acknowledged. The three background programmes Frank had set to run after isolating the file from the rest of the network were done. They informed him that the file didn't contain any malware or viruses, that it was authentic, non-edited and contained around seven thousand two hundred low-contrast images.

The intense sense of foreboding that had engulfed Frank the moment the file popped up in his official email account was still there, making him extremely reluctant to play the file. The email had deleted itself the moment Frank had downloaded the attached video to the supercomputer's server and all his attempts to track the source had turned up nothing. There had been no subject line, content or signature in the mail, just the attached file named 'watch.'

He had done everything he could to make it safe to play the unknown file on the main screen. Monster's judgement of the authenticity of the video was the best proof he was ever going to get. There was nothing left for him to do but to play it.

Taking a deep breath, Frank gestured with his gloved hand. The video spread into a rectangular frame and started to play a very hazy, wavy video shot from a higher, bird-view angle.

There is a figure. It's running closer to where the camera is. As it closes the distance, the shape gets clear enough to show that it's a woman. She's wearing a body-fit garment that almost looks like some sort of a lightly armoured battle dress uniform. Her long hair is tied up in a high ponytail that swings back and forth as she runs.

Frank was torn between wanting to turn away desperately and keep watching. He could almost feel there was something very wrong with it. He just couldn't put his finger on it yet.

Another figure chases the female, similarly dressed as far as a viewer might be able to see. He has a gun in his hand, held low and ready as he gains on the female and corners her against the wall that's opposite the camera recording the scene. She looks up and freezes on the spot with her back against the wall as she realises that her fate is being recorded.

Frank froze with the woman on the screen. Despite the colourless and blurry imagery, he knew that face. That was the familiarity of her movements he had sensed from the beginning. It was Lexi. He would recognize his own beloved wife's beautiful features anywhere. A sickening horror crept up on him when he saw the pure terror etched on her wide-eyed expression. The video kept playing, oblivious to his mounting distress.

The male figure takes up a classic shooting stance, his legs apart and the gun held by both hands to aim at her centre mass with his back to the wall where the camera is mounted. The electronic eye keeps looking over his shoulder as the scene unravels. Lexi's mouth is moving and she's shaking her head. Her arms are on her sides, non-threatening, but her hands are clenched into defiant fists. The male's shoulders stiffen and the gun travels a notch up high, its aim now hovering over her face.

Frank saw the moment she made up her mind to rush her attacker. He was so very familiar with her telltale signs - the slight fidget that adjusted her weight on the balls of her feet, the way her right shoulder hitched up slightly and the way her face hardened - were clear as day to him as the result of years of sparring together in the gym. He wanted to scream and reach inside the video to grab her, to make her stay still because Frank noticed something else she didn't.

Her attacker also noticed her change of demeanour the moment Frank did.

She charges in, her head down, and her hands going up to grab the gun. The attacker moves his right leg back and lets her inside his guard, simultaneously releasing the gun to his left. He brings the gun down fast in a vicious arc and the butt of the gun makes contact with the bridge of her nose. She crumples to the floor in a heap. The attacker kneels next to her to check her pulse, pats her down and straightens back up. Just before he leaves, he turns around and looks up, as if finally sensing that he's being watched. The video freezes with a clear shot of the attacker's face in its last frame.

Frank went still, his gaze locked on the frozen frame of his wife's attacker. Two very strong, conflicting emotions warred within his mind, while the rest of his body just went numb, letting his mind decide on which emotion to embrace and which one to crush.

For he knew and recognized the attacker as well as - or maybe even more than - his wife.

Frank had just witnessed Joseph Hardy, his own brother, attacking and taking down his newly pregnant wife.

He was scared - terrified for his wife. He was also murderously furious at his brother. How could he so callously beat her down like that? He was holding her at gunpoint for fucks sake!

The moment it seemed that his fury won over, his entire body started to shake. He felt a faint buzzing in his ears and there was a tight, heavy feeling in his gut, making him nauseous.

He forced himself through a few breathing techniques to get a modicum of control back, to push those feelings away for a moment to concentrate on the task he had before him.

He called her mobile first. It didn't even connect. Calling up a tracking programme on the computer to track her phone, he then contacted her field office. They informed him that she had cut her stay short and gone home, stating a medical emergency. His landline at home went unanswered, and the feed from his home security system showed that his house was dark and empty. The GPS tracking system signalled that there was nothing in the grid to be found.

Then he called Riley. It was her day off, but right now, he needed her.

"Frank," she answered on the third ring. She was out. He could tell by the sound of traffic and rushing wind he could hear over the line.

"Riley, I need you in the office now."

"Man, I'm not even home right now," she declared indignantly, her voice loud to be heard over the background noise. "I just came out for dinner."

"Please, Riley," Frank said, trying not to let his voice break as he pleaded. "It's Lexi. She, uh, something happened."

Some of his turmoil must have gotten through because his friend's entire tone changed. "I'm on my way." That was all she said before cutting the call.

He resolved to keep watching the video to analyse what he could until Riley arrived. It only served to add to his fear and frustration. The video had no date or time stamps, therefore he had no idea when this happened. It could have been anytime after Lexi had reached her office six days ago. She had only called him on the first day, resorting to occasional texts after that. Which was not out of the norm for her. Now, looking back, it was obvious that anyone could have sent those texts, to keep Frank from finding out about her disappearance.

There were absolutely no discernible clues to be found in the damnable frames.

He also kept checking the earlier searches he had set up to look for his brother. Locating his lost brother was paramount now because he had all the information Frank desperately needed; the information Frank was sure he was going to have to force out of his seemingly out-of-his-mind brother.

As if hearing his conclusions, a ping sounded from the Spearheads' communications terminal, announcing that he had received an emergency alert. Calling the message to the viewing screen with a gesture, Frank let it open.

Little Lamb Lost.

Serves you right, you crazy fuck! was the first thing that came to Frank's mind. It was good news. The asshole wasn't dead. As he stared at the message, contemplating murder, the system compiled a list of things a lost operator would immediately need and offered it up for Frank's approval.

Frank let the system take care of the initial contact reestablishment. If Joe was alive enough to send a message, he was bloody well capable of getting himself to Bagram base. Frank would keep an eye on the progress nevertheless. He needed his brother alive to extract information about his wife; her whereabouts, her condition and what would possess him to do something like that.

One way or another, Frank had to retrieve Joe as soon as possible. His wife and unborn child's lives depended on it.

A small part of his mind played the devil's advocate as he continued to watch. Maybe Joe had to do what he did to get her out of trouble. Maybe Joe was compromised - drugs, amnesia, blackmail.

Another, bigger part brought back older memories; Joe's instant dislike towards her since the moment Frank had introduced him to her, the fights, the comments on how there was something not right with her, the pleas to Frank to get rid of her, the barely civilised way he treated her… all of that and more.

Maybe Joe did exactly what he had been wanting to do for all those years.

It was a confusing and heartbreaking swirl of emotions that broke Frank's mind and soul. He was being torn apart to pieces by his feelings for his wife and brother.

Before he could wallow more in his head, the double door opened behind him to let his partner in. She was dressed in a leather biker outfit and knee-high boots. Frank realised she must have been riding when he made the call.

"What happened?"

Frank let the video play without a word, letting her come to her own conclusions. Absolute silence remained during the four minutes she watched the video without comment. At the end of it, she turned to him, her face a hard mask.

"What the fuck was that?"

"I don't know," Frank let out a deep sigh. "All I know is that I can't find her. She's missing too, just like he was."

She closed her eyes and swore some more. "Did you–"

"I made the calls and checked my home feeds," he said before she completed the question. "There was nothing. That's why I called you here. I need you on her trail while I handle that."

He pointed to the real-time surveillance data he had on his brother, who seemed to be on the move towards Bagram.

"Frank." There was a mixture of warning, pleading and caution in that one word.

"Riley, please," Frank implored. "You're the one I trust to have on her end, I sent you all the contact details I have on Lexi's friends and family. I need you on the ground, checking out all the places she might be, just so we don't miss anything."

"What are you planning on doing while I do all that, Hardy?"

"I'm going to debrief my brother, personally," he said, his tone hard. "And he'd better have a damn good explanation for that."

"Frank, are you sure that's a good idea?"

"This video is as authentic as it could be, Riley. You can't really hide much from Spearhead's processors," he said. "He did it. I know it, and I know you know it too. I need to talk to him as soon as possible."

"Maybe I should come with you, then," Riley suggested.

"No," Frank shook his head. "I'm going alone. I need you here. Check with her friends and family, check with the police and our neighbourhood. Check anything and everything you can think of. Besides, someone needs to be here if she makes contact."

Frank could tell she wanted to protest some more. But in the end, she nodded once in acceptance.

"Fine," she said. "So, what's the plan to retrieve Joe?"

Frank pulled up a blank sheet and a template with a gesture from a trembling hand. There was a way to ensure that Joe got transferred to his custody in the fastest way possible.

National Security Threat Alert - Level 5 - Compromised Asset, he started to compose an Arrest and Detain order. Apprehend alive. Transfer to Facility KBL/7/AP 34.4389 N 69.1962 E. He needed Joe in a CIA-controlled site where he had the freedom to act as he saw fit. Transfer ASAP. Real time tracking and handover details to follow:

Riley gasped. "Frank, that's a bit harsh, don't you think?"

"I need to get to him without a delay," He gritted out. "And, this is how I make it happen."

He finished the order with his authorisation, and the Top-Secret seal, knowing that this message would show up on the base COs account on top, making it a 'High Priority' order to be carried out the moment he received it. Then he attached a short bio of Joe with a recent photo, adding that he would likely be dressed as a local to avoid detention. After that, he ran the message through an encryption programme to make sure that it got delivered without being seen or retrieved by anyone else down the line. The message would delete itself after a certain time period, wiping out all the traces of Joe's details.

He took a deep breath and read the message again. This was his best shot. He mimicked hitting 'send' with a gloved finger, hoping he wasn't too late.

Chapter 5

Parwan Province
Sunday
15:45

They came for him when he was skirting the edge of the third small town, some twenty miles or so away from his destination.

The two Humvees that came speeding down the gravel road made no effort to hide their arrival. Joe heard the growling engines and the squealing tires as they took the winding turn to make their way to the middle of the town long before he saw them.

He was cautious at first. He couldn't be certain whether they were his transport to the base or they were there for something else. He had no idea what changes had taken place in the shaky status quo the military maintained with the locals during his absence. He watched as the two teams of seven heavily armed soldiers got out of the two vehicles to spread around the town in a loose perimeter watch. Seeing their familiar demeanours, BDUs, tags on their chests and the patches on their arms, however, brought a sense of immense relief Joe really hadn't realised he needed.

He took his time observing the unfolding scene, staying quietly and seamlessly blended into the half-collapsed brick wall he was casually leaning against. Days of travelling on the border of the thick vegetation and shrubbery, collecting layers of dirt and grime on his body and rumpled attire made him look almost like a part of the crumbling wall itself. Once the squad had the small community covered to his satisfaction, the leader who stayed near the second Humvee gave a barely perceptible nod, which Joe figured was the signal.

They weren't there on a raid or for a meet-up, that much was clear. The team started to actively check on the stragglers and the residents in the run-down houses, making it clear that they were on a Search.

Two of the soldiers, a private and a corporal, detached from the rest and made their way inside the house that was only a few feet away from Joe. A child screamed and loud, apologetic voices of a woman and a man saying something unintelligible in Pashto followed. One of the guys said something in return and after a few seconds, they both came out of the hut to make their way into the next house.

"Hey" Joe called out softly when they walked past him with barely a couple of metres to spare without noticing him.

Both of them stopped in their tracks and turned at lightning speed, their guns coming up and safeties going off within seconds. Joe put his arms up in the universal sign of surrender and grinned. Maybe he shouldn't have startled a couple of armed soldiers who were on high alert. But it had been a moment of professional pride to be practically invisible to a pair of highly trained guys nevertheless. Although he had to admit, he was lucky that neither of them had a hair trigger reflex. He resolved to blame that moment of insanity on the head wound.

"Hands where I can see them," the one whose name tag introduced him as 'Trent' said evenly, glaring at Joe. Daley, the private, stayed to the corporal's left and three feet back, covering Joe and his closest path of egress, which was the tiny alleyway hidden party under the shadow of the dilapidated building. "No sudden movements."

"Easy there, buddy," Joe drawled, keeping his arms up and visible. "You might not wanna blow up the brains of the guy you're supposed to retrieve now, would you?"

Joe knew it was a gamble. But now, he was mostly sure the team was here for him.

"You're not from here," Trent said and Joe thought the barrel of the M4 carbine lowered a fraction from its aim at his face. So far so good. "You mind taking the headgear off?"

"Got it in one," He grinned. "Now, I'd love to take the damn scarf off my head so that you can see my mug a bit better, but I can't," the gun went up again and Joe sighed. He couldn't really blame them for being extra vigilant. "It's stuck to my head because I bled all over it."

Trent frowned, thinking it over. Joe took one slow step forwards so the two soldiers could see him clearly without the shadow from the wall. He saw their eyes widen at his overall haggard appearance. "You mind taking me to your captain?"

They didn't shoot him, which was the good news. But they also didn't let him take his hands down and relax, which was the bad news because his arms were starting to ache.

"Walk."

"Try not to shoot me in the back if I trip."

Joe figured it was fair to warn them because he really wasn't anywhere near his optimal conditions. He really needed to get away from the heat and lie down. In order to do that, he needed to get through the rigours of security protocols first. Obeying the curt command, Joe walked slowly and carefully to the second Humvee where the leader of the team still waited, conversing with the driver who stayed inside the idling vehicle.

He was subjected to an intense scan from head to toe by the squad leader as they closed the distance to the Humvee and came to a stop a few feet before the guy. The name tag on his chest identified the captain as 'Grayson.'

"Name?"

"Joseph Hardy," Joe said in answer to the barked command. "Lieutenant, US Navy, ID no.7839," he rattled off. He was still in the roster as such for the duration he was based on Bagram.

"Are you armed?"

"No, I'm not. Feel free to check for yourselves."

Grayson nodded at Trent who stepped right into Joe's personal bubble and patted him down thoroughly and efficiently. Joe swayed on his feet just as he was done, and Trent had to put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

"Thanks," Joe murmured.

He really needed to sit. It was as if being in the midst of his people had caused all of his energy reserves to drain away on the spot. Or maybe he may have been powering on by the sheer strength of his stubbornness alone. In any case, he felt his entire body weakening at a rapid pace.

"He's clean." the corporal reported and took a step back, but stayed within easy reaching distance.

"Good," Grayson nodded. Then his gaze went hard as he issued the command Joe had not expected to hear. "Arrest him."

Joe blinked. He must have heard that wrong. He moved back instinctively, dropping his hands. "What?!"

About half a dozen gun safeties went off in audible clicks as the squad went to alert around him. At first, Joe's confused brain told him that they had detected a threat and he went into a defensive stance, peering around to spot the trouble. It took him longer than it should have to realise that the threat they had reacted to was him.

"Stay calm and we can make this go without a hitch," Greyson ordered slowly as if trying to calm a spooked animal. Joe held his hands up again in the face of glares and guns aimed at him from every direction. "I have orders to apprehend and deliver you alive. But, trust me, lieutenant, I'm not going to do that at the cost of the life of my men."

What the fuck did he think Joe was going to do as unarmed and swaying on his feet as he was? Talk them to death? Try and make a run for it? He may be at the end of his physical endurance, but his aching brain was still capable of keeping him from doing something that monumentally stupid.

"Look, captain," he said, pleadingly. He just wanted to go home. "This has gotta be a misunderstanding–"

"We'll sort it out back at the base,'' Greyson cut him off. Trent and Daley both moved behind him and forced his arms down and at his back. Soon after, he felt a zip tie tightening around his wrists painfully, binding them together. "I'll even apologise nicely if that is the case."

…..

The ride turned out to be bumpy and hellishly uncomfortable due to the less-than-ideal road conditions and the too-enthusiastic stunt driver. It felt like the soldier hit every pothole and took every turn too fast and too wide as they continued the never-ending drive. Three army soldiers - Reed, Bosco and Kennedy - sat on the opposite seat and guarded him throughout the entire journey as if he were a dangerous criminal. He was dangerous, he had to give them that, but the less-than-civil treatment he received under their contemptuous glares grated on his already frayed nerves.

Shuffling to get a bit comfortable apparently was not encouraged. He found out the hard way. His shoulders and arms were going numb from pain and he couldn't even feel his fingers. The moment he shifted to relieve some stress from his awkwardly forced limbs, there were three carbine barrels in his face, reinforced by even harsher frowns from his minders.

Joe decided to close his eyes and think, to get his mind away from the physical discomfort. His ever-present headache, aggravated by the loud, continuous engine noise and the rough ride on the uneven terrain, made it difficult. But, he had to figure out why he was being detained.

It couldn't be the CIA or the GSI, he knew that much. He had already made the contact, retrieved the data chip from Malik and uploaded it to a temporary server that would have kept the information until Frank's pet Monster would have retrieved it. That was the assignment and he had completed it before the mysterious event that cost him his memory. The reason he was in the theatre in the first place was because he had been called by the Naval Intelligence Command to take part in his annual fitness maintenance training, which was a requirement for the reservists. He had completed that too, and he had the records of his team beating the rest of the teams in the navy and the army in all war games to show for it.

So the question remained, why was he being arrested? He could think of several reasons for an agent to be blacklisted since what was happening to him now was usually the first step of that nightmare. Treason, unsanctioned murder, and terrorism were a few instances that required immediate apprehension and detention. Even worse, he was now a known disgraced entity with the entire military base, with his service record stamped with a 'compromised' across it. There weren't many around who had the authority to do that. And, try as hard as he might, he could not think of anyone who had the reason to do it.

It had to be connected to whatever he had done during the last few days, the time which he had absolutely no recollection of. That was the only explanation. As far as conclusions went, it was utterly useless because not knowing what he had done to get arrested got him nowhere.

"Where are we going?" he asked the soldier seated directly in front of him, deciding to try his luck with an external source of information. "Unless we are making rounds around it, we should have reached Bagram by now. So why the detour?"

It felt as if they were going in the right direction at first before the ride started to feel longer. He had no way of knowing for sure because there weren't any windows at the back that he could see outside. He figured the change of direction was probably a result of the constant, unintelligible radio chatter he could hear from the front end that still hadn't quieted.

He got a wordless snarl in reply. Joe plastered a pleasant, care-grin on his face, totally unfazed. He was nothing if not relentless.

"Oh, come on, don't be like that," he drawled. "I'm already your prisoner. The least you could do is tell me where you guys are taking me."

Kennedy was the first to break. "Be quiet," he grunted as the Humvee took a swerving turn to the left.

"I mean if this is a payback for our team kicking your ass in urban warfare–" that was as far as he got before the vehicle came to a jarring stop. The back door was wrenched open and Joe had to blink against the brightness of the hot afternoon sun.

"Come on, get up. The ride's over," Bosco dragged him up by his left elbow and pushed him out to the waiting arms of Trent, who caught him by the shoulder before he did an ungainly face-plant on the dirt road.

The first thing Joe saw was another Humvee waiting on the other side of the road, stopped near a boulder. There were two men waiting outside it, dressed almost identically in black shades, dark shirts, leather jackets, dirty jeans and combat boots. Despite their civilian attire, their demeanour screamed ex-military or ex-law enforcement. And, in these parts of the world, that meant the Agency.

With a sinking feeling in his gut, Joe realised that his previous assumptions had been wrong. They were here for a handover and he was the package. It seemed that he was branded undesirable by his own agency due to some unfathomable reason. He really hoped that whoever was in charge of this clusterfuck would let him talk this time. He needed to get in touch with Frank. He needed his brother to get off his lazy ass and unfuck this situation in a hurry so that Joe could get home.

One of the guys shoved him from behind, urging him to meet his new jailor halfway. Joe stumbled two steps forward and turned back to snarl at the four soldiers.

"For fucks sake, can I at least have some water before you trade me like a sack of potatoes on its way to fucking Sunday market–" his heartfelt protest was wasted on the stone-faced recruits.

A vice-like grip tightened on his shoulder and Joe knew it was useless to argue with them. It wasn't as if he could run far. There were too many guns around him to even take two steps in any direction. Besides, he needed to find the guy who was giving orders, so that he could tell them exactly what he thought of this bullshit.

"Move."

The giant rumbled in his ear and tugged, and there was nothing to do but let the man move him towards the other vehicle. The military Humvee made a u-turn and sped away, leaving behind a cloud of dust.

The other agent greeted him with a black bag that he wanted to pull over Joe's head, making it clear that they had no intention of cluing him in on anything on the way to their destination. Joe sighed wearily as the head cover darkened his entire world. He tried his best to keep his breathing even when the string of it tightened around his neck. It was made of thick material, and he started to sweat heavily within seconds as they roughly manhandled him inside the vehicle.

This is going to be a long ride. Joe thought to himself resignedly as the Humvee increased its speed. There was absolutely nothing he could do but pray that they would get to wherever they were going sooner before he choked on his own fluids or passed out due to lack of air.

Chapter 6

An Undisclosed Location
Parwan Province

17:13

From the outside, it looked like any other establishment that had been taken over by another foreign nationality that couldn't keep its noses away from the country's internal affairs. It was a three-story building with a basement that was not visible to any inquiring eye from the outside. It had the same tired, dilapidated look, with drab brick walls, burglar-proof windows, and one set of massive steel double doors holding the place together. What made the place interesting was the ten feet high concrete wall topped with barbed wire that stood imposingly around the establishment, making it clear that it was a private territory and that the rest of the world must stay well away. The four guard towers on the four corners that were manned diligently by heavily armed troops 24/7 further imposed the 'No Entry' rule in a rather threatening manner. There were security cameras everywhere, strategically placed to watch over the minimal traffic that was allowed to enter and leave occasionally, the empty desert roads for miles and even the skies for trespassing fliers.

The interior of the building was deceptively modern and luxurious with sparse yet comfortable decor and furniture, utilities and temperature control systems. The ground floor of the building was dedicated to the living quarters of the agents who lived and worked in the facility which was simply known as 7/AP. It was registered with the closest US military base and the local authorities as an import/export logistics centre for humanitarian efforts in the region. It even had staff to actually take care of the workload the name suggested. But, what it actually did was act as a base of operations for a number of operators who dealt with various needs and wants of the Central Intelligence Agency.

For that purpose, the base also had a fully equipped information, command and control centre, an infirmary and temporary prisoner detainment and interrogation facilities. While the medical ward and the other storage areas were located on the first and second floors of the building respectively, the daily operations with regards to spying business happened in the basement, even hidden from most of the staff who actually worked on the surface areas of the same building.

Frank Hardy was in the basement, having already taken over the main system to keep an eye out on anything from his partner back home while he went through the active operations the base was running in the region. The base chief, a grizzly veteran named Hal Walters, had left him in charge to take a much-needed nap while the opportunity presented itself. Frank had no objections to supervising the surveillance Walters had been running because, in turn, he had the privacy he needed to do his own data gathering.

After about an hour since the delivery he had been waiting for, Dr Holden, who was the only other agent with the same security clearance as the base chief, came down to where Frank was to personally inform him of his brother's current condition.

"Chief Hardy," Holden made himself comfortable on the revolving chair next to Frank's, stretched his back with a loud pop and yawned.

"How is he?"

"The two head wounds were his only serious injuries," the physician shrugged. "I've treated them."

"How serious?"

"Both of them needed stitches," Holden elaborated. "He's lost some blood but nothing life-threatening. The rest are just bruises and cuts, and overall exhaustion. What he needs right now is some food, painkillers, a bath and a good few hours of sleep."

Frank let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. He needed Joe to be coherent enough to talk to him. "Painkillers he can have, but not the rest on the list. I need him aware and on edge, not dozing off or knocked out," he said to the physician. "You know the drill."

"Yes, yes," the man nodded and yawned again. "I followed the basic pre-interrogation protocol as you asked."

"Anything else I should know?"

"He's complaining about a bad headache, and the pills I've given him haven't taken effect yet, probably because of his weakened physical state," he stopped and scratched his chin thoughtfully. "He's claiming he's lost time–"

Frank frowned. "Lost time?"

"He doesn't remember anything that happened during the past few days," Holden said, completely unaware of the icy cold dread that ran down Frank's spine at those words. "His last intact memory is meeting up with a contact and forwarding an info package home, and then nothing between that time and waking up in some cell three and a half days ago."

Frank swore under his breath. "That's going to be a goddamn problem."

"I'm not sure it's true though," Holden said, shaking his head. "He doesn't show any signs of concussion, his scans and blood tests are clear. The cuts on his head aren't deep enough to cause amnesia of any type."

That meant Joe was playing an angle. Which served to confirm even more that he was involved in this thing that had his wife tangled in the middle. Frank closed his eyes and took a moment to breathe evenly, reigning in his anger. "Is that your professional assessment, doctor?"

"Yes."

"Thank you." Frank nodded. "When can I start the debrief?"

"In about fifteen minutes or so," the doctor said, standing up from his sprawl on the chair to go back to his domain. "I have him on an IV now. He was pretty dehydrated when those two brought him in. You can have him as soon as it's done."

…..

Frank studied the live feed from the security camera in the Interrogation Room for a moment. He was in the adjacent room by himself, adding a command to the system to record the entire session and then upload it to a temporary server before wiping everything out. The standing instructions he had embedded on Spearhead would ensure that the session gets saved in a way only Frank had access to the file later.

Holden was right, Frank thought to himself. Joe did look exhausted. He was still in his burrowed local clothes, and the clean white stripe of gauze he had around his head contrasted heavily with the rest of his grime-covered appearance. He had his head ducked low, his unwavering gaze fixed on his hands that were cuffed to the surface of the heavy metal table. He made no other movements despite the hard uncomfortable steel chair that he was seated in. That unnatural behaviour was something Frank was familiar with as well. Joe was a fidgeter and always moved in some way, even when he was relaxed as if he had too much energy to expel at any given time. This stillness only occurred when Joe was absolutely furious.

Frank was definitely not enjoying this either. He loved his brother and he was relieved that Joe was here in one piece within Frank's reach. But, at this moment, there was anger in Frank too, intermingled with frustration and utter fear for his still-missing wife. And, right now, Joe was the only one who had all the answers.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and entered the Interrogation Room, closing it quietly behind him. Joe's head snapped up at the sound, and Frank was startled to notice that it took Joe's glassy-eyed gaze a moment too long to focus on him. He did look to be in a lot of pain, and Frank hoped that the pills the doctor had given him would start working soon. He hated putting his brother through the wringer in the state he was in, but he didn't really have any other choice.

"Frank! Thank fuck," Joe's exclamation was way softer than expected, but it sounded no less relieved for it. Frank felt a stab of guilt when he saw the clear elation lighting up Joe's entire face at seeing him. "What took you so long?"

He squashed away the guilt and kept his own expression blank as he pulled the chair opposite Joe to settle on while his brother followed his movements with a confused wince on his face.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

Frank sighed. Joe was on a mission to make him feel guiltier by the second. Of course, he would forget all about his own predicament to ask Frank what was wrong with him. Frank needed to put that concern into good use and find out what the hell happened. He placed his laptop on the table without a word and turned it so that Joe could see the screen. Then he played the video file he had received only twenty-four hours ago, creating the chain of events that brought them together on opposite ends.

Frank studied Joe's expression while he watched the video, the way his face turned pale and incredulous as the seconds passed. There were no twitches of anger, frustration or any sort of recognition in his otherwise bruised and battered face. Frank tamped down the mounting worry in his gut and let the video finish playing. If Joe honestly couldn't remember anything about the past few days, his chances of finding his wife would dwindle to nothing.

"What the fuck did I just watch?" Joe snarled when the file finished playing.

"That's what I was going to ask you," Frank snapped back. "What the hell did you just do?"

That got a reaction. Joe reared back as if slapped. He was not quick enough to hide the flash of hurt on his expression before he turned it into fury.

"I don't know!" he roared, his denial swift and genuine in its pure disbelief. "I didn't do it. Frank, what the hell?"

"This came in only a few minutes before your emergency code popped up on Spearhead," Frank kept his voice even and emotionless. "I've analysed the file to hell and back and it's authentic. I've been trying to locate Lexi ever since. There's nothing. Absolute nada. Nobody knows where she is or where she's gone. It's like she's vanished off the planet,"

"But, Frank–"

"Quinn's back home, hitting the ground," Frank spoke right over Joe, cutting him off. "So far, she's checked out most of the places she could be, including police records, hospitals and morgues. Nothing. And worst of all, our inquiries alerted Lexi's bosses that she's disappeared and they lit a fire under our boss's ass. I'm handling this for now, but if we don't get anywhere within the next forty-eight hours, this is going to be taken out of my hands."

Joe stared at him, wide-eyed and lost. "What does that mean?"

"It means the case gets handed over to the FBI," Frank explained. "Her security clearances and the project she's involved in make her a very high priority. I turn in everything I have, including this video, over to them and step down. You get transferred to their custody. The Patriot Act gives them the leeway to make you talk the way they see fit."

Joe shook his head and snorted. There was no humour in it. What Frank was doing now was no better. "They can do whatever they want, Frank," he said. "It's not going to get them or you a bloody thing because I don't know. I can't remember. There's a memory gap of about five days where I have no recollection. I don't know what happened."

"Your scans are clear and you didn't hit your head hard enough to even give you a concussion let alone amnesia–"

"What about drugs?"

"Your blood tests are also clear," Frank said patiently. "Not even a trace of anything in your system."

Joe slumped back in his chair, causing the metal to creak and the cuffs to rattle around his wrists.

"I don't know what happened, Frank," he said softly, his gaze fixed on the restraint again. Without his anger fueling him, now Joe just looked bone tired. Then he looked up again as a thought occurred. "Can we send a team to where I woke up? Maybe there was something there. I didn't really have time to look around when I escaped–"

"Already did," Frank sighed. "They found the bodies you left in the woods, by the way. But the site was gone, burned to the ground, sanitised and the bodies had nothing on them. All they could tell was that they were a local bunch. That's it."

Joe deflated more into his slump. "Frank, I feel like a broken record, but I don't know what happened. Although, I do know that Keeping me arrested and cuffed to a damn table like this is not gonna do anything to help."

"What do you think I should do then?"

"Let me out and help," Joe insisted. "Anything you want to do. I'll come along."

Frank believed him. He would do anything to help, even if he did look ready to collapse. But the fact remained that it was Joe who was responsible for all of it.

"I can't let you do that."

"What?" The anger was back.

"Finding her, as soon as possible, without any more injuries is the most important - No. The only important thing to me right now," Frank said quietly. "I can't, in good conscience, have you involved in this, Joe. I can't."

"Frank, listen,'' Joe pleaded. "You know I don't like her, never did and I never hid the fact. But damn it, Frank, I didn't just assault an unarmed woman in cold blood. I didn't. You can't believe I would do something like that."

Frank rubbed a hand across his face roughly, grimacing at the feel of stubble he could feel there, making his entire face feel scratchy. He was exhausted and was at the end of his rope. He pulled out his phone and found the last recording he had received from his wife. He had to make Joe understand why he felt the way he did about his involvement in finding Alexis.

"Just before she left, she sent me this," he said and turned the video towards Joe so he could watch.

Frank watched the way what little colour Joe had on his face drained as he realised the seriousness of the situation. Of exactly what he had knowingly or unknowingly done.

When he looked back at Frank, there was a sheen of unshed tears in his eyes. "I swear, I can't have done that," he whispered softly, his voice breaking at the end. "I didn't do this, Frank. Please."

The worry for his wife warred with the worry for his brother. But, Frank couldn't unsee the utterly blank expression on Joe's face on that grainy image when he so ruthlessly attacked her. The fury that memory invoked drowned out all the other emotions in the forefront of his mind.

"Yes, you did," he said, with a hard edge to his voice. "You knocked down my pregnant wife like it was nothing. I don't even know if she still is after what you did to her." he carried on evenly, ignoring the way Joe flinched at his words. "Hell. I don't even know if she's still alive. So, no. You are not going anywhere until I find her. Do you understand?"

"I'm so sorry, brother," Joe mumbled, his head hung low. There was a sense of resignation, defeat, wrapped around his entire slouched posture. "I understand. Do what you have to do."

Chapter 7: Chapter 6

Washington DC
Monday
09:14

"...he had a seizure when the plane took off," Frank said. "He hasn't woken up yet."

"How long?"

"A little over 18 hours now."

There was the sound of footsteps and a door being shut before the surgeon spoke again. "What was his condition when he boarded the plane?"

Frank gave him a rundown of Joe's activities before he was apprehended by Frank's people, including the details of his medical scans and the site doctor's assessment.

Burkhardt hummed, thinking it over. "It could be a reaction to trauma. His brain could be suppressing a memory that is too painful or difficult to process. Whatever caused the retrograde amnesia, I'll need to check him myself to know more."

"Aaron," Frank paused, trying to figure out how to phrase his inquiry. "Is there–"

"A chance the memory is there, but just not accessible to him?" The surgeon completed the question for him.

"Yeah," Frank sighed. "Is there any way you can help to retrieve it?"

"There is," Aaron admitted in a loud exhale. "That's the good news."

"Okay. And the bad?"

"The procedure is going to need something that no hospital could provide."

"What is that?"

"Frank, the chip is fully integrated. It's a part of your brother's brain now. Accessing it without his help is next to impossible. Therefore, we need the intervention of something external that the chip would recognize as its own."

Frank didn't understand. "I don't…What?"

"My dear Hardy, we need the mother programme to read the blacked-out memories. I don't know what happened to our little project after HPE bought all the rights."

Why would the surgeon need access to the supercomputer to retrieve a lost memory from a chip that's already implanted in a human brain? How was he even planning on connecting the two?

Frank frowned. "Aaron, It doesn't make sense."

"Oh, believe me, it does. I can't explain the process to you over the line, but that's what we are going to need if you really want this done. You're going to have to find out where it is and get me access."

Frank pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache he could feel already building at the base of his forehead. Finding the supercomputer was the easiest thing in this mess. It was right there, calmly staring at him with the company's logo revolving hypnotically on one of its secondary screens. But, getting the surgeon access to the top secret level of the CIA was an entirely different matter.

"I can do that."

"Really?" Aaron's scepticism was obvious in his tone.

"Yes, Aaron. I know where it is. But I'm going to have to see how to get you access to it."

There was a moment of heavy silence before Aaron spoke again. "Intriguing," he said, chuckling softly. "You've been holding out on me, Hardy."

That was the other matter. His friend actually did not know that he worked for the CIA either. "How early can you fly to DC if I can work it out?"

"I've got some leave days coming up, I can talk to my director and get it arranged in two days. She's been on my ass to get me to take some time off."

"Fine. You should probably go ahead and do that," Frank said. "I'll arrange for your flights and accommodation here. I'll call you back in a few hours with the details."

"Fine by me. I'd love the change of scenery and the challenge you've just come up with for me," Aaron agreed. Then his tone changed, gaining a slow, tentative edge. "Frank, if I may ask, why is finding his lost memories in a hurry this important? You know, you could always let him heal, remember on his own?"

Frank sighed. He would love nothing more than to let his brother heal in peace. But, as it happened, Joe was his missing wife's only hope.

"Alexis is missing," he said quietly. He heard Aaron let out a surprised gasp at hearing that. "Joe's the only one who saw her last. And he's the only one who knows what happened to her. Whatever's hidden in his head, holds the answer to finding her."

"Director Stevens will see you now, sir," Patricia Xing, the secretary of the Assistant Director - Region-III, announced softly from her seat behind the reception, breaking in through Frank's inner musings. Fitzgerald Stevens was the second in command of the entire agency, after Director Hawkins. Stevens always said that he was perfectly content to stay behind and put the fires out while his boss navigated the landmines of debriefing the Whitehouse. He was an ex-army veteran who's been with the agency for almost twenty-two years, and the legend had it that he was an extremely lethal and ruthless operator during his field days. Now, he was happy to stay indoors, terrorising all his chiefs who were responsible for daily operations in their respective branches. Frank Hardy, as it happened, was one of those five chiefs.

"Hardy, take a seat," the giant of a man who was in his late fifties indicated the seat before his desk for Frank to sit. "How're you holding up?"

"I'm alright, sir. Thank you."

"About your brother, any news?"

"Still no change," Frank said, thinking about his unresponsive brother who hadn't woken up after collapsing from the seizure he suffered the moment the jet had taken off from Afghanistan last night.

"They have him under observation 24/7."

Joe was only three floors above them, hooked to a number of machines that monitored his condition in the agency's well-equipped infirmary.

"According to that damn video you've got, which is the only scrap of evidence we have, he's the only one who knows what happened to Wayland," the assistant director shook his head. "We need to do something about this, son. We can only hold the Paladin back for so long," he said, mentioning the defence contractor who employed Lexi's expertise for their latest missile guidance upgrades. "They are only willing to wait as it is because they know you. They know that you're the most motivated person in the world to find her."

"They are right, sir, I am," Frank agreed softly. "And right now, there's only one thing we can do. I need to bring his physician in."

That got a raised eyebrow from the director as he contemplated Frank's suggestion. "The one who operated on him two years back… Dr Burkhardt, from Dresden…"

"Yes," Frank replied, trying not to show his surprise at the man's memory. "He's the one who can do something about Joe and his lost memories."

"You need to fly him there, then?"

"No, sir. We can't. Not in his condition,"

It was the takeoff of the flight, the sudden atmospheric pressure difference, that had caused Joe's collapse in the first place. They couldn't risk flying him anywhere because of that.

"Dr Burkhardt is going to have to come here. I've already spoken with him and he's agreed."

Steven sat back and gave Frank a hard-eyed once-over. "Sounds like you have everything under control," he pointed out. "Exactly why did you need to see me?"

This was where things got complicated. There were things in Joe's medical records that even the CIA was not privy to. In fact, there were only two people in the world who knew about that; Frank and Aaron. He took a deep breath and got to the heart of the matter.

"Because, the surgeon needs to do the procedure here," he said, trying not to wince at the way the director's gaze turned into an instant glare. "I need clearance to give him access to Cray systems–"

"Absolutely not," Stevens cut him off resolutely. "That's out of the question, Hardy."

Frank sighed. "Would it help if I reminded you that he was involved in the project from the beginning?"

"No, it wouldn't." the Director snapped. "He's a foreign national. He was under our watch when he was here, but he hasn't been in our immediate interest since he left back to his own country. So, no. Besides, why the hell do you need to let the surgeon into the basement to retrieve a lost memory?"

"I can't tell you that, sir," Frank said.

Stevens' gaze narrowed. "Frank–"

"I can't tell you that," Frank stressed. "There's nothing tangible to act as proof even if I did," then he shook his head with a sideways grin, causing the director's eyebrows to rise even higher in disbelief. "And, the more you don't know the better. Plausible deniability and all that… sir."

Frank knew he was taking a risk. The agency operated in a certain way to achieve its ultimate goal; Observe, recognize and eliminate any and all foreign threats to national security. They all had to follow a set of rules and guidelines to achieve that goal, but they also had ways around them if and when the situations warranted. Frank was pretty sure this was one of those times he could get away with appealing to the agency's unwritten rules.

"Hardy–" the director's tone had a clear warning edge to it.

"Sir, you taught me not to ask too many questions from your agents when you need to get certain things done, as long as those things don't pose a threat to national security, or could not be traced back to the agency," he reminded his boss. "I'm asking you to trust me on this."

The assistant director was silent for a long moment and Frank held eye contact, without backing down.

"Fine." Stevens let out a sigh and then barked out a laugh. "Fine, Hardy. You've convinced me. Get it done. I'll sign off on the authorisation for the esteemed Dr Burkhardt."

"Thank you, sir," Frank said, immensely relieved. "We won't let you down."

"You better not," the director warned. "We need Alexis Wayland found."

"I know, sir, believe me," Frank said. "I know."

Monday
22:58

Riley brought the SUV to a stop in the air ports' parking lot, neatly cutting off the cab that tried to block her off and squeeze in. She pulled the parking break up and gave off the one-finger salute to the cab driver who hooted his displeasure. Frank yawned and stretched, trying to work the kinks out of the base of his neck. He was exhausted. The few hours of naps he had managed to grab here and there weren't marginally enough to fill up his energy reserves, or wash off the remnants of the jet lag he could still feel in his bones.

"Your buddy here yet?

"Don't know," Frank replied, pulling his phone out from his jacket pocket. "His flight should have landed ten minutes ago if there weren't any delays. Let me text him."

He received a reply within seconds, telling him that his friend had already landed. "He'll be out in about 20 minutes or so," Frank let Riley know.

She hummed, tapping a rhythm on the steering wheel, her gaze fixed on the heavy foot traffic in and out on the main exit. "So, you gonna clue me in or what?"

Frank kept his own stare on the people as well, ignoring the side eye his too-perceptive partner was giving him. He shrugged nonchalantly. "What do you mean?"

"Yeah, no," He saw her shaking her head in disappointment in his periphery. "That act is not working even a little bit. It's embarrassing. Cut it off."

Frank laughed. He knew he was going to have to let her in on what was going to happen. He did have the authority to keep her completely out of his office and the Level-III for the duration, but he really didn't want to. Then something else clicked into place.

"So this is why you insisted on driving!" He accused, turning to her fully. "Not to let me catch some shut-eye while you drove."

She grinned. "A little too slow there, but we'll blame it on the jet lag. We can make an agent out of you yet," she said magnanimously. "Now, talk."

"What do you wanna know, Riley?"

"Well, for starters, why are we picking up a German surgeon and taking him inside the lair of what's supposed to be our most secret weapon?"

"You make it sound like we are committing treason," Frank said with an inelegant snort. "Like a spy movie gone badly wrong–"

"Hey, from where I'm sitting, it does," she shrugged. "And I'm complicit. I don't like it when I'm not in on the actual script, Hardy."

"He has temporary access under supervision," Frank explained. "The boss signed it off. Your job is safe."

"That's great," she said, before pinning him with a look that said she saw right through his deflections. "Now, give me the rest of it."

Frank let out a long sigh and started to talk. He told her about Burkhardt's involvement in the project from the beginning and how he went on to become one of the leading surgeons in his field. Then he told her how he stepped in as Joe's primary physician when Joe almost died from an explosion two years ago. Then he told her about the highly unusual and not exactly legal method they implemented to save Joe's life and how they kept it a secret between the two of them until today. He finished his tale by how Aaron was going to see if he could retrieve Joe's memories with the assistance of the supercomputer.

"Let me see if I got this right," Riley said once Frank finished. "You let this Burkhardt guy implant a growing, adapting microchip in Joe's brain?"

"Saved his life, didn't it?" Frank said defensively. "He even got to get back in the field."

When Riley turned to face him fully, Frank couldn't really read the expression on her face. "Does he know?" she asked very quietly.

Frank had to look away then. "No."

Riley shook her head. "Stupid, Hardy, stupid."

"Which part?"

"Why on earth haven't you told him? It's been two damn years."

"Honestly, Riley, I just told you that I let someone implant a chip in his brain, and me not telling him is the part you get stuck on?"

"That's the important part, don't you think?" She gave him a hard look. "I've seen how you two are. I'm not even remotely surprised that you went about the most unimaginable way to save his life. He would have done the same, both of you are certifiable that way."

"When you put it like that–" Frank sighed.

"So why didn't you tell him?" She pressed. "It's going to be much harder when you have to do it now,"

Her gaze narrowed when he stayed quiet, contemplating whether he really needed to tell Joe anything at all. All those terror-filled hours he had spent struggling to make a decision two years ago, came rushing back to him, drowning him in renewed dread.

"You are going to tell him, right?" She insisted. She was too good of an agent not to see exactly what he was thinking.

"Yeah," Frank exhaled and hung his head. "Yeah. I am. I have to."

"Good," she nodded once. "So what is this guy's plan? Why does he need the Monster to retrieve lost memories?

"He said that the memories might still be stored in the chip even if Joe didn't have any conscious recollection of it. He says he needs the Spearhead to externally access the chip to see if he could read the memories."

"Like plugging a USB into a PC and reading files," Riley shuddered. "There's something really invasive about this entire thing, Frank."

Frank grimaced. She had a point. He had no idea how Aaron planned on waking his brother from the coma he was in. Or how he was going to use the Spearhead on Joe, whether he was going to be able to access certain memories or whether he was going to have to dive into the entirety of it. They didn't even know if Joe's memories were intact or not. He didn't even want to think about how it was going to affect Joe, physically and mentally. He didn't know whether would lose his brother's trust in him for good when the truth finally came out. He felt a shiver run down his spine as all those thoughts tumbled around his brain, leaving him with no good answers.

"I know, Riley," he murmured softly. In the end, none of it mattered. It had to be done. "But, as it stands, he's Lexi's only chance."

Chapter 8

Washington DC
Tuesday
14:38

There were sounds, whispers moving around and soft humming of something to his left. They weren't coherent enough for him to understand any of them yet. They were just there, in the background, out of reach but close enough so that he wasn't alone… wherever he was. It was a comforting thought. It was one of the many wisps of thoughts that floated in and out of his sleepy mind, never staying long enough to make any sense.

"...he'll be waking up soon–"

A heavily accented voice drifted over after a while, loud and insistent, disturbing Joe Hardy's peaceful slumber. Now, why did that voice sound familiar?

"The drugs I gave him earlier should be done flushing out of his systems by now,"

Whoa! What? Drugs? Why the hell would a German be drugging him? That thought sent a chill down his spine. He needed to wake up, open his eyes and say something. So, why the hell couldn't he? That feeling he had been enjoying earlier, that calm emptiness where nothing stayed for too long, was now suffocating, restraining darkness, pulling him deep under when all he wanted was to break into the surface.

"What did you give him?"

Wait! He knew that voice too. That was Frank. Oh, okay. Okay. His brother was also here. He was safe. He had to be, right? But, then why was his heart still trying to beat out of his ribcage without calming the hell down?

"Nothing illegal," the guy with the German accent chuckled. "Don't worry."

Burkhardt. Neurosurgeon. The memory slammed into him out of nowhere. Shit! He mentally winced. He must have gotten hurt again if Frank had to bring him to this guy. He tried to think back, to remember what could have happened for him to end up in this weird, limbo-like state, stuck between waking up and unconsciousness. But he couldn't. His mind was a thick, fog-filled mess where nothing made sense.

"... kinda shut him down, in a way a PC would shut down when it's overloaded," Burkhardt said, unknowingly cutting in through Joe's rising panic. "It was done for his protection. Sort of like triggering a survival instinct to shut off his brain, to save it from further degradation. The drugs were a cocktail to bring the chemicals in his brain to their previous levels. Other doctors wouldn't know the exact mix because his base chemicals ratio is a bit different from the rest of us–"

What the hell were they talking about? Joe wanted to wake the hell up right now. The doctor was not making any sense at all. He renewed his efforts to do something, anything - let out a sound, wriggle toe or something - to try and join the conversation happening above him.

"... due to, uh, well, obvious reasons."

Something must have worked because he felt a soft groan make its way out of his uncooperating throat, causing the doctor to stop talking at once. He heard them move around the room and he felt his right shoulder move a little. Then, finally, after a long struggle, he managed to blink open his heavy-lidded eyes.

"Hey," Frank moved into his line of bleary sight, looking red-eyed, tired and rumpled as ever, bringing up a flashback from two years ago. Whatever happened, it must have been bad. Joe suppressed a sigh. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

Joe had to scrunch up his nose and close his eyes again then. The room was too damn bright and the antiseptic smell was making him nauseous. The headache that was raging inside his head was not helping things at all.

"Come on brother," Frank cajoled, his voice soft. "Don't go back to sleep again, you need to stay up."

Easier said than done. Joe didn't want to go back to sleep paralysis either. But his body wasn't really listening to his demands just yet. Nevertheless, he made an effort to do as his brother asked.

"Wh…What…" he had to wince and cough to clear the hoarseness of his voice. A glass of water with a straw appeared before his face and he gulped down half of it gratefully. The chilled water felt like a slice of heaven as it chased away the dryness in his throat.

"Thanks," he muttered with a nod. "What the hell happened, Frank?"

"You had a seizure when we took off and collapsed. You only woke up now," Frank said, slumping on the chair next to his bed. Looking around, Joe realised he was in a familiar infirmary, the one that was located on the third floor of the Agency. The tall, blond, green-eyed neurosurgeon, Aaron Burkhardt, lingered near the medical paraphernalia to Joe's right, reading what he thought was his chart.

"How long?" he asked, focusing his attention back on Frank.

"Two days."

Joe closed his eyes again and cursed. "Shit."

The dread he had been suppressing so far rose up again in a fierce wave, drowning him. He hadn't lost two more days, had he? Why does he keep collapsing? Why couldn't this infernal spikes-in-his-brain sensation just be gone? Why can't he remember what happened? Why? Why? Why?

"Hey, take it easy… different," the surgeon's sharp voice broke through the panic and Joe tried to concentrate on what he was saying to get away from the wild vortex of emotions swirling in his mind.

"...breathe slowly, in and out… and out–" the words reached him intermittently through the buzzing in his ears. He did his best to regulate his breathing, to get some oxygen into his lungs and keep it there to clear away the bright spots he could see dancing on his closed eyelids.

"You didn't lose your memory like the last time, Joseph," Burkhardt was saying slowly, patiently, as if he knew exactly what Joe had been panicking about. "It's all there. Just keep breathing, nice and easy."

After what felt like a lifetime, Joe managed to get his breathing and panic under control. When he opened his eyes again, Frank was holding the railing of his bed in a white-knuckled grip, his expression worried. The surgeon was on the opposite side, giving him a once-over with a deep frown on his forehead.

"I, uh, okay, alright," he coughed and then winced when the headache went up another notch. He had to swallow thickly a few times before he could speak again. "I'm alright, I think. Um, sorry."

Frank squeezed his shoulder once and nodded, relieved.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Joe rasped at the surgeon.

"Trying to figure out what you've done to undo my hard work on your brain, obviously," Burkhardt chuckled.

"Funny guy," Joe grimaced.

"I am."

"He's here to help us recover your lost memories, Joe," Frank said quietly. All of a sudden, the past few days slammed into him with force; his stint in Afghanistan, his arrest, meeting Frank, the video of Alexis…

Yes. He still had those other memories lost or locked somewhere inside his head. He felt bad for Frank. He looked exhausted and sick with worry. Joe's own condition was not probably helping him either.

"Nothing else on her yet?" He had to ask. It was extremely worrying that all of Frank's hopes of finding his wife depended on Joe's misplaced and unreliable memories.

"No." Frank sighed, averting his gaze.

"I'm sorry man."

"Frank, I'm going down to see Riley, to get the place set up," Burkhardt said, walking over to the door. "Holler when you're ready."

He left, closing the door to the room softly behind him. Joe caught the pointed look he gave Frank before leaving. That was a private, wordless communication between them about something not known to Joe.

"What was that about?"

Instead of answering right away, Frank refilled the glass and gave him more chilled water. Joe took it and finished it all in one go, before handing it back to Frank. It felt as if Frank was taking his time, bracing himself before whatever he wanted to say to Joe. He dragged the chair closer to Joe's bed and dropped heavily onto it.

"There's something I need to tell you." he opened up with the most dreadful choice of words.

Joe gulped. The look on Frank's face, the sense of resignation in his slouched posture wasn't helping the matter any.

"Okay?" he asked, tentatively.

"You remember when you got injured during that raid, two years ago?"

"You said I almost died," Joe murmured, thinking what the injury two years ago could possibly have to do with his problem now. But then again, the unusual way his head hurt was very similar to that day he woke up in that private hospital. So maybe the two situations were connected.

"I went to see Aaron before I came to see you," Frank said quietly, his tired gaze fixed somewhere on Joe's blanket-covered right knee, studiously avoiding eye contact. Joe knew his brother, and what he was reading off of him at the moment was guilt. It worried him even more.

"When we both finally got there, the doctors at the General Hospital wouldn't let us in where they had you," Frank continued dully, lost in a memory only he could see. "You were dying."

Joe was torn between wanting to know what happened and putting a stop to it then and there. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to know.

"What did you do?" The question slipped out before Joe could make up his mind.

"There was a choice to be made," Frank whispered. "Aaron gave me that choice. To let you die or give you a chance. There were no guarantees, but there was hope."

Frank was now truly scaring him. What the hell have they done to make his brother look this pale and afraid? "What did you do, Frank?"

"He, uh, he implanted a microchip in your brain," Frank's words were so quiet Joe almost missed them. "One that was half organic, half synthetic," he continued to mutter oh-so softly. "It is wholly integrated with your brain tissues and grey matter. And, it's grown in mass to fill up what was missing–"

"Huh," Joe blinked, and stared at Frank for a long time, not really seeing his brother. His mind was busy putting together what he had just heard from his brother. There was a microchip implanted in his brain. The words tumbled around his mind in a loop, refusing to make any sense.

"…Joe–" he heard Frank first and then saw him peering at him with a very concerned gaze. Joe realised that he had been lost in his head for too long.

"Say something here, Joe," Frank pleaded.

"Um," Joe said, trying to figure out what exactly he should say here. "For a moment, I was afraid you were gonna say you made a deal with a demon or something,"

They both blinked at each other, confused in their own way.

"A what?"

"Like the crossroads," Joe said, knowing he was rambling. But he couldn't stop. He was apparently not yet ready to say or feel anything about what Frank just revealed. So, he settled on rambling about the supernatural in a reflexive defence. "Like where you trade your soul for something and then get dragged into hell at the end of the deal…"

It was Frank's turn to go silent and stare at Joe for a long moment. Joe stayed quiet, completely happy to pretend that the last few minutes didn't happen.

"What are you talking about?" Frank broke the silence in the end, leaning closer to place the back of his palm on Joe's forehead to check his temperature. "Are you feeling okay?"

Joe moved away to shrug his hand off. He wasn't exactly feeling angry…yet, or afraid. He was just confused, lost and if he was honest, a lot hurt. So he needed some distance from Frank.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, shaking his head, and then wincing because that also still fucking hurt. "I'm fine. It's just…urgh."

"Yeah, it kinda is."

"So, um, this chip," Joe finally said, resigning himself to the fact that they needed to talk about this, and get it out of the way so that they could actually get to solving the crime they still had on their laps; the crime that needed to be solved so that Joe could clear his name and get Frank off his back. "Is it like just a filler for the missing chunks or does it have anything extra going on?"

"It does what the rest of your brain does," Frank elaborated. "It controls certain functions, releases chemicals, and basically retains all your experiences," he shrugged. "It's part of your neurological system."

That was not what had started to bug him. Not really. It was the fact that there was an artificial, man-made thing, now growing and living inside his brain. "Has it been impacting the rest of me in any way?" he asked tentatively, his voice very quiet. "Does it change me somehow?"

Frank was aghast. "No, Joe," he said quickly. "No. I wouldn't have–" he cut himself off, shaking his head. "Absolutely not. It's just something that saved your life, Joe. It did nothing else. No."

Frank's absolute conviction of the fact felt genuine to Joe. He studied his brother's worn-out and drawn face, searching for lies or half-truths. He didn't see anything but guilt-ridden honesty. But, there was something in his mind, preventing him from trusting Frank fully.

"You didn't tell me." It was not a question.

"I couldn't, Joe." Frank sighed, closing his eyes.

"Why?"

"Because it was illegal for one," his brother muttered, his eyes closed and his forehead resting on the back of his knuckles where he was hanging on to Joe's bed railing. "We had to make sure it worked okay and that you got through without any side effects–"

Now, that was not an answer, Joe knew that much. "I did get through okay," he said, patiently. "It didn't take two years for you to see that, did it?"

His brother's shoulders dropped even lower as if he was hunching in on himself. But Joe wasn't really in the mood to let him off the hook just yet. There was something much bigger going on here between them. A schism had been growing slowly between them for longer than just two years. A breach in the trust they used to share so freely. A fracture.

"No. It worked," Frank admitted. "I wanted to leave it at that."

"What did you mean by the procedure being illegal?" Joe asked, wanting to know more before confronting his brother about the heart of the matter.

"The product - the chip - was in the testing phase," Frank mumbled. "It wasn't approved by any medical board anywhere in the world. It still isn't."

"Fucking hell, Frank," the curse came out in a tired exhale, without any heat. Joe really didn't have any energy left to be angry right now. He was just tired.

Frank finally lifted his head to look him in the eye for the first time since they started this conversation. The fierce intensity in his brown eyes was aimed squarely at Joe. "Yeah, well," Frank said, evenly. "Don't expect me to apologise because I'd do it all over again if I had to. It was either that or let you die, and you know as well as I do, that the second option was not gonna happen."

Joe held eye contact for a moment, needing that assurance, conviction and promise from his brother more than he needed air to breathe. He needed to know that there still was something left between them of what they used to have before. Something salvageable. But, the fact remained that Frank hadn't been entirely honest with him.

"You could have told me, you know." He said softly.

"What difference would that make, Joe?" Frank asked, tiredly. "I didn't want to make you involve you in a mess if it ever got out."

"Bullshit," Joe shook his head. "I'm asking for the real reason, Frank," he pressed. "What made you keep something this huge from me, huh? It's my fucking brain we are talking about here."

"I was scared, alright," Frank snapped. He let go of the railing and pushed the steel chair away in a grating squeak, making Joe grimace. He then started to pace around inside the small room, breathing hard, like a cornered animal. "I just didn't know how to bring it up. I didn't know how you'd react–"

Those words told Joe exactly what he wanted to know. He let himself slump further into the soft mattress on the bed, and fixed his own gaze on the drab ceiling, unable to look at his brother anymore.

"No, Frank, that's not it," his voice was quiet when he finally spoke, and there was a lost, defeated quality to it that he couldn't really mask. "You didn't trust me enough."

There. He said it because Frank obviously wouldn't, or maybe he couldn't. But, it was the truth. He didn't know how they got to this point.

"Just like you wouldn't believe me when I told you what I really felt about Alexis when you first met her…" There had been something about her that had seemed wrong to Joe from the beginning and Frank never listened. "You punched me in the face that day, remember?"

There had been just too many arguments afterwards, almost every day, until Joe had given up, resorting to keeping an eye on her instead. It had been a little over six years now since he had known her, and Joe was relieved and annoyed in equal measures; relieved because she made Frank happy and seemed to actually love him back and annoyed because he still couldn't let go of his dislike towards her.

Maybe that was what caused Frank to drift away from him. Maybe it was Joe's own fault from the beginning. Maybe that was why they were on opposite sides now.

"Just like you wouldn't believe me when I said I lost my memories," he continued dully, unable to fight the feelings of self-recrimination, loss and grief that engulfed him. "And you still wouldn't believe me when I said that I didn't do anything to your wife…"

Because, for all his dislike towards the woman, Joe would never ever harm a member of his own family, no matter what some hastily put-together bunch of grainy footage insisted he had done. It just wasn't in him.

"Somewhere down the line, you've stopped trusting me."

"Joe, please–"

"I think I get it now," he continued, cutting Frank off. "That's why Dr Frankenstein is here. So, he could go digging inside my brain and scoop up the memories you think I'm hiding from you. Apparently, I hate the mother of your child that much I'd rather knock myself into a fucking coma than give her up back to you–"

"Brother, that's not what I meant–" Frank sounded worried. Maybe he was just worried for his wife. Joe wasn't really sure. He was so damn tired. There was too much in his head and he just wanted… he didn't know what he wanted.

But, at least, he knew what Frank wanted.

"You know what? Just do whatever you need to do. After you've seen for yourself what I'm saying is the truth, maybe then you'll start believing me again."

"Joe, I'm so sorry–" Frank sounded like he was close to tears. Joe kept his gaze averted, not really wanting to see the expression on his face. Whatever it was, he knew it would only hurt him…even more. He was already at the limit of his endurance.

"I don't think you are, Frank, not really," he let out a weary sigh and closed his eyes. What he needed was for this day to end so that he could just leave, and find someplace peaceful and safe to just…not think anymore.

"Let's get this over with so that I can get the fuck out of your face."

Chapter 9

Washington DC
15:26

Basement - Sub Level-III darkened as it always did when the Spearheads' dome-shaped holosphere went up completely, surrounding the one-metre-radius platform along with whoever was up there, running the complex and advanced programmes of the supercomputer.

Frank watched silently as Aaron walked around Joe's bed, reconnecting the three medical monitors and scanners they had detached earlier to transport him to this level. Joe was silent and looked pale and sickly in his white scrubs as he placidly lay there, blinking slowly at the revolving logo of the Spearhead that bounced around on the 360-degree screen.

After he was satisfied with the monitors, Aaron moved closer to Joe and attached two leads to his temples and two more to his chest, which promptly caused the monitors to come to life with the information they were receiving through the leads. The two scanners near Joe's head monitored his brain activity while the one on the opposite side kept an eye on his heartbeat. The readings from the cuff on his right index finger also showed up on the same monitor, making sure the rest of his body stayed responsive and within acceptable limits while they attempted this never-ever-tried-before method of memory retrieval.

"Is that really necessary?"

Frank couldn't help but ask when Aaron started to tighten the built-in restraints of the bed around Joe's wrists and ankles. He tried his best to tamp down the unease he felt at seeing his brother like this, entirely out of it and effectively helpless. Joe's grief-filled words from earlier were still fresh in Frank's mind, demanding attention. He had been right in any case, Frank admitted. There was a fracture between them, and it had been building slowly without either of them realising it. And, now, what Frank was doing to him, was widening that chasm even more, not healing it. He resolved to properly talk to Joe and do his best to fix things between them after Lexi was safely retrieved.

Joe, for his part, was determinedly focused on the logo on the holoscreen, paying no mind to what the surgeon was doing.

"It is for his own protection, Frank," Aaron said, once he was done with the last of the restraints. "We can't have him making any sudden movements during the procedure. Also, they'll keep him from getting injured by falling off the bed if he has another seizure."

"Is that a possibility?" Frank asked, hating the fact they had to do this with each passing second.

"I'll do my best to prevent any such incident."

"What are you doing?" Joe slurred, frowning at his wrists and the cuffs around them. He had finally realised that he couldn't move his arms or legs. "Whatever you stuck to my eyebrow, it's itchy," he informed Aaron earnestly, blinking hard to focus his glassy gaze on the surgeon.

"Frank," Riley finally broke her silence and walked over to Joe's bed, glaring at both of them all the way, making her opinions on the entire operation abundantly clear. "What's wrong with him?"

"I've given him a mild anaesthetic to keep him semi-conscious," Aaron explained as he adjusted the lead on Joe's forehead to stop him from fidgeting to rub the side of his head against the pillow. "I need him awake but not too aware while we do this," he looked down pointedly at Joe as he said the rest. "And he needs to stay as still as possible."

"Okay." Joe smiled blearily and yawned.

"He gets really weird when he's under any kind of anaesthetic," Frank explained to Riley who looked concerned about Joe's confused, child-like behaviour. "It's normal. For him."

"Is this thing, whatever you're going to do now," she said, her voice hard with barely controlled anger. "Is it gonna hurt him?"

"Don't know," Aaron replied cheerily, rubbing his hands together, oblivious to the heated glare he received from the ex-army sergeant. "It's not like we've done this before. But, the good news is, his doctor is right here. He'll be fine."

Riley muttered something under her breath and went over to one of the chairs that were near a set of secondary screens and dropped heavily into it. Frank figured her choice of the spot was to keep an eye on Joe while they progressed, instead of what they managed to unearth by accessing his implant.

Aaron moved behind the bed and plugged a connector from one of the Spearhead's processors to the nearest medical scanner that was connected to the leads from Joe's forehead, completing the circuit to convey the signals from Joe's brain and the implant to the supercomputer.

"Alright, Frank, if we are ready, we can start now," Aaron stood near the scanner connected to the computer with his own handheld screen, to monitor the process from the medical end. Frank took his place in the middle of the platform and called up the system with a gesture from his gloved hand.

Spearhead came to life around him with all the readings from Joe's monitors duplicated before him in minute detail.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I'm connecting the signal and the data streams from the implant to the servers now," Aaron said, tapping on his handheld screen.

A new window opened on the holoscreen with a rundown of the microchip's details; its make and composition, data storage, processing power and a command prompt for self-diagnostics.

"Run the self-diagnostics first," Aaron directed. "You need to open the supporting software I sent you earlier and let them run alongside the chip's diagnostics."

Frank set up the relevant programmes and let them do what the surgeon wanted. After a few seconds, the screen updated, informing him that no issues have been found. "It's done. All green across the board."

Just as the words left his mouth, the screen updated again. The entire sphere lit up with endless streams of numbers that scrolled all over the screen at dizzying speeds, making it look as if Frank had just become the eye of a hurricane made entirely out of swirling ones and zeros.

"Alright," Aaron said, walking over to the base of the platform to peer at the chaotic holosphere. There was a curious grin on his face as he studied the bizarre code with a gleam in his eyes.

"The rest it is a guessing game, Hardy," he said quietly, his focus glued to the screen.

"All I'm seeing is meaningless and incomplete code, Aaron," Frank informed the surgeon, making a few gestures here and there to redirect or entirely change a data stream or two, trying to figure out the heads and tails of the unintelligible info dump.

"This is your brother's mind," Aaron said, his voice filled with awe as he stared at the fruits of his own ingenious labour. They were literally seeing the numeric representation of an active human mind for the first time after all.

"The numbers basically represent what happens inside the brain when the neurons fire and thoughts occur," Aaron kept talking as he switched his gaze back and forth from his own screen to the number-filled, transparent dome around them. "Now, this is where your expertise comes in, Hardy," he said, grinning at Frank. "You need to try and coax memories out of this jumble of signals."

Frank sighed and concentrated on the data streams. It was as if trying to pluck a certain string out of a large bowl full of spaghetti to find a beginning or an end of a line, a point to start. He let the numbers run before his eyes, not really focusing on any particular one, but seeing them all switch and change as a whole. After a long while, certain, discernible patterns started to emerge in the otherwise jumbled mess of streams.

He started to pluck the strings that seemed to make sense to him and moved to drop them in the places where he thought they'd fit better. The streams changed and rippled as he made the changes, accepting and adapting to his input without a complaint. It was as if Frank could see puzzle pieces that floated around without direction or purpose, and when he plucked them out to put them in their correct places, they fitted in to make more sense out of the shattered and dissolved images.

"Keep doing what you're doing," Frank was so deep in the system, he heard Aaron's excited voice as if it was coming from somewhere far away. "It's working,"

As Frank worked, a coherent picture started to emerge from within the chaos. The system picked up on Frank's direction and guidance to speed up the process, moving the data streams and scrolling numbers into their fitting slots. Then, when Frank diverted another data stream to a different flow, the entire sphere brightened and refreshed. Frank had to turn his gaze away and blink rapidly a few times to clear the spots he had in his eyes due to the sudden flash.

When he finally turned his gaze back to the screen, he felt the bottom falling off of his entire world.

All those madly swirling numbers that filled the entire sphere were gone. In their place, now there were clear concise images; hundreds, thousands, millions of small, rectangular, lively snapshots. All of them were very colourful and painfully bright as they moved and flowed serenely around the sphere. They were also supremely unconcerned about the impact they had on their four viewers.

Frank's gaze followed their movement on its own accord, unable to look away from those images even for a second. He was utterly horrified and sick to his stomach because he knew those images. He recognized almost all of them. Hell, he was in most of them. It didn't take that long for him to realise that what he had just cleaned up and put up here on this screen for the entire world to see, was the entirety of his brother's lifelong memories.

Aaron also watched, his eyes roaming around the holosphere, eagerly following everything with a manic grin on his face, supremely satisfied and elated at his own success.

Turning his head to his right, Frank saw Riley had abandoned her chair to go stand by Joe who was also staring at the screen in wide-eyed terror. Her face was pale and her expression was contorted in horrified disgust at what they had just done.

She saw Frank's guilt-filled gaze and gave him a head shake that screamed disappointment before looking away to focus on Joe, clearly uncomfortable at looking at something that was not hers to witness.

Frank closed his eyes and breathed deeply to keep the bile from rising in his throat to spew out onto the platform. He felt his ears buzz and his entire body tremble as the enormity of what he had just done dawned on him. Not only had he just wrenched everything out from inside his brother's mind, but he had just cleared it all up and put it on display as if it was nothing.

Joe's entire life was now plastered all over the holosphere like a macabre soap opera on mute.

Determined in his own righteous crusade to locate his missing wife, he had just violated his brother's privacy, his mind, his thoughts and memories in the most disgusting and callous way possible.

"Frank?" Joe's slow, tentative voice dragged him out of his own drowning guilt and brought him back to the present.

"Shit, Joe," Frank cursed and looked up. Lost in his own mind, he had forgotten that he needed to stop this madness.

"Let me just… fuck. Aaron–" he barked at the surgeon who was still intent on the memories playing on the screen. He wanted to claw the man's eyes out to stop him from so freely ogling something that wasn't his to watch. He held his anger back with force, knowing that it was his own fault in the first place that Joe's entire life was cracked open to play itself in a reel like this before them.

"Aaron, damn it, this isn't what we wanted. How do I clear it?" Because, as much as he gestured and sent command after command, the memories refused to fade.

"Wait, Frank," Aaron yelled, holding up a hand. "This is exactly what we wanted."

"Frank, what's going on?" Joe's voice was childlike, scared. He was still under the influence of the drugs the surgeon had given him earlier. "Why are my memories floating around your head?"

He sounded as if he was hurting too. Frank couldn't bring himself to look at his brother. What he needed to do was fix this mess and stop this violation. "Joe, please, it's okay," he said, trying to restart the entire system as a last desperate attempt. "I'll fix this."

The images finally started to disappear, one by goddamn one, oh so slowly as the Spearhead finally caught on to the fact that Frank wanted it to stop harvesting and displaying his brother's memories.

"Hardy, no," Aaron protested, tapping away at his handheld in rapid succession. "Look for Lexi. She's here somewhere."

"No, she's not, damn it." Frank roared. "Stop restarting the damn data streams."

"Why do you say that?"

"Look over there," Frank pointed to the anomaly that stood apart from the rest. There were five black, blank spots, floating with the rest of the images, resolutely keeping Joe's memories of those five harrowing days still firmly out of their grasp. "He doesn't remember. It's not there. This has gone far enough. I need to stop this goddamn show now."

"Please, stop it," Joe was pleading now, his voice cracking as if he was having trouble breathing. "I'm not feeling good, Frank, please!"

"His pulse is rising, and he's bleeding out of his nose, a lot," Riley yelled, holding Joe firmly by the shoulders as he struggled. "Get here and do something, doctor."

Aaron, instead of going to help Joe, climbed onto the platform and caught on Frank's biceps in vice-like grips. "Keep focusing on the blank images, Frank," he urged, shouting over Riley's cursing and Joe's pained grunts. "You can clean it up. She's right here."

"Jesus fuck! Get over here, he's seizing!" Riley screamed.

"Frank needs to–"

"Are you two so far gone that you're willing to trade one life for another–"

Frank pushed the surgeon with one hand and sent the last hurried command to the system to wipe everything clean before jumping off the platform to run to his brother. Joe's entire body was writhing on the bed, only staying there thanks to the restraints and the way Riley had him pinned to the bed by his shoulders.

"Aaron–" Frank yelled at the doctor who reached the bed only a second after him.

"I'm on it." The surgeon quickly inserted a prepped needle from a tray he had placed by the bed earlier and injected something into the port on the back of Joe's left hand. The worst of the shakes started to subdue as the drugs started to take effect. Then, to make it all worse, the heartbeat monitor blared to life with a loud, uneven tone, announcing an irregularity in Joe's breathing patterns and heartbeat. Aaron cursed and injected him with two more needles in rapid succession, while Frank and Riley stood helpless on the opposite sides, staring at Joe's entirely unresponsive figure.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the monitors around Joe went silent.

"Alright, he should be fine, now," Aaron said, double-checking Joe's stats on the monitors. "He should be able to sleep it off."

The room then plunged into complete darkness as the holosphere blanked out, switching off the entire Spearhead system.

"Whoa," Aaron exclaimed out loud, looking around to locate the source of new trouble. "What the hell?"

Frank stayed where he was, his gaze still fixed on Joe's unconscious figure, unconcerned. He was expecting the darkness just as he knew the lights were going to come back in exactly seven seconds.

"It's a system reboot," he said when the surgeon tried to move away from the medical monitors, which were the only source of light for the moment.

"System reboot!" Aaron yelled, frustrated. "Frank, it's going delete everything we just dug up–"

"Yeah, I know," Frank muttered, suddenly feeling weary to the bone. "That's why I did it. What we were looking for, wasn't there,"

That stopped Aaron short. He stared at Frank, wide-eyed, refusing to believe that Frank had destroyed all the information they just received. "But Frank, the data, the process…I need–"

"It's all gone," Frank cut him off, just as the room reset back to natural, preset light settings, bathing the entire area in a bright fluorescent glow. Frank could now clearly see the disbelieving glare etched on the surgeon's face. "The last command I gave was a complete system wipe."

"What?!"

"That was my brother's entire mind, Aaron, for fucks sake," Frank said slowly, carefully, so that there was no misunderstanding. He had redirected all the data streams back to the implant and wiped all of Joe's memories from the Spearhead for good. Since the moment he had received the news of Lexi's disappearance, this felt like the first right thing he had done after all those days. "I wasn't going to let any of that stay behind on a goddamn server."

"Fine, fine," Aaron raised his hands in surrender, shaking his head. "Now that we know what to do, we can isolate those five blank days and–"

"No." Frank ground out, cutting him off. It seemed that he hadn't gotten the message through to his friend yet. He was done. They were done. He saw Riley's firm nod in his periphery. She was agreeing with his decision.

"Excuse me?"

"I said, no," Frank said, matching Aaron's frown with a narrow-eyed glare of his own. "We are not doing anything like that ever again."

"But Frank–"

"We are done, Aaron."

The finality in his tone made the surgeon angry. "So what? We just let her go, is that it? She's my friend too." he snarled.

"And she's my wife," Frank replied through gritted teeth. "I'm not giving up. I'll find a way. But not this."

Aaron's face went red as his anger took over. He moved a step closer, stepping into Frank's personal space. Frank held his head high and squared his shoulders, standing his ground, willing to headbutt the surgeon into seeing sense if it was necessary.

"Fine, Hardy, whatever," Aaron muttered in quiet fury. "Let me know the details of her funeral." He spat. "I'll try to attend."

Frank stayed where he was, his expression hard and unchanged as the surgeon stormed out of the room after spitting out his vitriol.

"I'll handle him," Riley threw over her shoulder as she also left the room, intent on following the surgeon. "Stay with Joe."

"Thanks, Riley," Frank called after her as the door closed behind her, leaving him alone with his unconscious brother.

Frank methodically released all the restraints from his brother's wrists and ankles before using the wipes from the first aid kit to clean most of the blood off his face. The monitors around him stayed peacefully silent, letting him know that Joe was in a deep slumber. He let out another tired sigh and dragged the chair Riley occupied earlier closer to Joe's bed to drop heavily into it. He then took one of Joe's limp, clammy hands and held it in both his, needing physical contact to convince him that Joe was still there.

Frank needed him there for a chance to apologise and try his best to make it right. As long as Joe was around, there was still time for Frank to fix what he had broken. He just hoped with all his heart that the damage he had done was not beyond repair.

Chapter 10

Washington DC
Tuesday
18:20

Frank didn't know how long he stared at Joe, tracking the slow rise and fall of his chest, thinking hard about the sequence of events that led them here. Lexi was still in the wind and despite what he had told Aaron, he had no idea where to even start looking for her. What he knew for certain was that he was done poking around his brother's mind for answers.

It still shocked him to think about how bright and full of life all those memories had been when they unravelled before him. Even the earliest memories from their childhood - running around the house and the playgrounds, the pre-school, their parents, the family meals and even the times one of them got sick or injured and of course, all the years that followed after - they had all been there, full of laughter, happiness and even tears of grief and screams of fear. They had all been intact, precise and preserved in perfect clarity. Then there had been the ones from his military life - the training, his friends, the missions and even the memories of ceremonies and funerals - they had all been out in the open. It would have been such an awe-inspiring thing to witness too, had it not been a massive violation of the cruellest kind of Joe's privacy.

Maybe it was what the chip did, he thought to himself as he stayed quietly where he was, trying not to disturb his brother's rest. It probably saved each and every memory just the way a PC would, to be viewed later. He wondered if Joe recalled them in his mind as brilliantly and vividly as they seemed when they were displayed on the holosphere.

The monitor that was there to display Joe's brain waves suddenly went dark, drawing his attention.

"What the hell now?" he muttered to himself, checking on Joe again. His brother seemed to be sleeping fine, unbothered by the change. Before he could get up to go check what was wrong with the monitor, it came back up again on its own, with a curiously blank screen, without the wave patterns or the stats that were there earlier.

Then, as he watched, something very strange happened.

The screen comes to life in a parody of a pair of eyes blinking open after a prolonged sleep. The images are blurry until the screen flickers a few more times to chase away the foggy haze.

Then the view clears.

"Are you finally with us, darling?" Lexi's musical laughter flows in before she walks in from somewhere to the middle of the screen. Her smile is brilliant and wild to the viewer. "That's good. We've been waiting for you to wake up."

The screen flickers some more.

"Lexi, what?" Joe's hoarse voice rasps, the sound coming from everywhere at once. It becomes clear that he's the one who's looking at her. The video is from Joe's point of view. The angels suggest that he's seated while she's standing a few feet before him.

Frank gasped. It was obvious that this video was not a video at all. It was a memory. It had the same bright, almost eerie quality just like the snapshots of memories he had seen earlier. Despite the fact that Spearhead was on standby, Joe was unconscious or the monitor he was staring at was supposed to be showing off brain waves instead of playing back recordings, he was now witnessing the elusive memory he had been chasing all this time. The memory that had been stored in Joe's mind in picture-perfect, technicoloured clarity thanks to the microchip in his brain.

"Do you wanna know what's happening?" She asks in a sing-song voice. "I want to tell you a story, Joseph, that's why you are here."

Joe looks around. They are in a dark room. There's a closed door to Lexi's right. There are no windows, furniture or anything else in there. A lone light hangs from the ceiling, providing scant illumination. It looks like a very clichéd sort of cell at first glance.

He tries to look behind him. But his movements are restricted. His arms are forced back and his hands are out of his view, suggesting that they are restrained behind his back.

"What the fuck did you do?" the inquiry comes out quiet.

"Now, now," Lexi shakes her head, her manic grin still in place. "There's no need to be crass, darling. We're merely at the next step of our plan, that's all."

"What plan?" Joe sounds resigned.

It occurred to Frank then, that Joe never even once sounded surprised at what was happening to him, or when he discovered that Lexi was evidently responsible for his current situation. It seemed that Joe never really got over his initial, instinctive distrust of her. And, it was starting to look like he had a damn good reason.

"About six years ago, three very brilliant people got together to invent the next-generation supercomputer that had the potential to change the world," she starts talking. Her gaze acquires that faraway look one wears when they are entrenched in their own old memories.

"I was the one who wrote all the programmes and code while Aaron handled the hardware," she says proudly. "He invented special processors and circuitry just for this. Did you know?" she continues without giving Joe a chance to respond.

"Anyway, you can say that I gave Spearhead his brain and Aaron gave him his body. But there was something missing, something important. Do you know what it was?"

"I don't have a clue," Joe sounds like he's humouring her, letting her talk until he finds a way to… do something. "But I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"Communication, coherency, connection," she murmurs dreamily. "Spearhead had everything he needed to be the fastest, most intelligent and independent system in the world. But he had no idea how to integrate himself and use everything he had in his possession to make it work," she talks about the computer system they invented and developed all those years ago as if it were a living being.

"That's where Frank came in, wasn't it?" Joe says. Lexi looks startled for a moment as if she hasn't expected him to put it together that quickly. "He knows how to bring all its scattered brains into one place to get things done," Joe says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Yes," Lexi agrees with a smile. "Frank, in the end, turned out to be the teacher, the guide, the mentor. He taught him how to use all of his gifts to become one."

"So you three had a wild threesome and gave birth to a creepy baby while I was busy trying to stay alive during Hell Week at BUD/S," Joe mutters to himself.

Frank wished there was a way for him to pause this unravelling memory for a moment. His wife was starting to sound unhinged by the second. He wanted to believe that this woman who was goading Joe was not his wife, but an imposter with her face and mannerisms. But of course, he knew better. He had known her for almost seven years and he had been married to her for a little over half of that. She had this certain, very focused, almost obsessive way about her when she got involved in something. He had witnessed this behaviour before. He knew how she sounded when she was on the verge of a new and exciting breakthrough and he was intimately familiar with that almost manic gleam in her eyes. He had experienced all of it when he had been involved in the project of Spearhead.

It was her. He had no doubts.

That conviction brought along a mix of intense emotions. He could not help the feeling of betrayal that reared its ugly head as the realisation dawned. The renewed guilt followed soon after in waves, for putting Joe through hell for something that hadn't been his fault in the first place. He also felt incredibly stupid at the same time, for being so easily deceived by the woman he thought loved him for years.

"You see, Joseph, he wasn't only meant to do what we asked him to do," she explains in her lecturing tone. "He was supposed to start thinking for himself, make decisions, learn and adapt. He was supposed to develop an identity of his own–"

"What?" Joe asks, incredulous. "Like an AI or something?"

"There's nothing artificial about Spearhead, Joseph," Lexi says condescendingly. "He was supposed to evolve into a sentient, self-aware entity, with instincts and even emotions of his own–"

"What the fuck are you talking about? A computer with feelings?" Joe sounds tired. "Are you ill?"

"The most amazing thing is, Joseph, he did," she exclaims, lost in the rapture of that particular memory. "I even saw him in all his glory… how precious he was," she rambles on. "He was so young, child-like and full of awe when he opened his eyes to a whole new world two years ago,"

"Two years…" Joe's quiet murmur goes unheard.

"Spearhead woke up," she declares. "And I found him one day during one of my visits there to do the monthly updates before we handed over all rights to the Agency." then her expression twists into a grimace. "He was going to disappear in the bowls of that drab basement forever…"

"Frank doesn't know, does he?" Joe's not asking. He's making a confident statement.

"How do you always know, Joe?" Frank asked his unresponsive brother brokenly. "How do you still know me so well when I've apparently forgotten everything about you?" Joe stayed still and silent, his hand cold and limp in Frank's hold, blessedly unaware of Frank's inner turmoil or the depth of the chaos unfolding before them.

"Of course not," Lexi huffs. "For all his brilliance in seeing and connecting patterns no one else can even imagine, he's just as uptight as the rest of them when it comes to laws and ethics," she complains. "Unless of course, you're involved–"

"Yeah, he's an asshole like that," Joe mutters sarcastically.

"His abilities and visions are restricted, bound by all the wrong and insignificant reasons," she shakes her head once before pinning Joe with an intense look in her wide, brown eyes. "It's okay, Joseph. He won't ever have to know either because we are going to free him."

"Free who?" Joe asks very cautiously. He sounds afraid to find out the answer.

"Did you know what nobody thought of doing?" A new voice joins and Joe startles. The memory wavers as Joe jerks back in his chair. Aaron Burkhardt walks into his view from somewhere behind him, tapping something rapidly into a palmtop. "That Instead of transferring an AI – or something much better in this case–" he exchanges a smile with Lexi before continuing, "to a mechanical robot, we are going to transfer the world's very first self-aware entity that we brought to life, into a human body–"

"It will be beautiful."

Franks looked down and realised that he was holding Joe's hand so tight he was squeezing him, probably painfully. He made a conscious effort to relax his clenched fingers, muttering a haste apology. He was truly scared now. He had an idea where this was going just like Joe did. He wanted this to stop, to fade, to dissolve into nothing as if it was one of Joe's weird nightmares. But deep down, he knew that was not the case. This was what happened during the days Joe was missing. This was a part of what was kept hidden in a dark corner of his mind. This was the terrible reality, no matter how hard Frank hoped and prayed it wasn't.

The memory kept playing, paying no attention to his pleading wishes.

"You see, when Aaron convinced your brother to let him implant the microchip in your brain, what he did not tell him was about the extremely rare genetic quirk you need for the integration to be one hundred per cent," Lexi tells him conspiratorially.

The screen flickers again in tandem with Joe's rapid blinking. "You did what?" Joe's voice comes out in a whisper.

"Sure, it was good for the usual purpose of saving someone's life," the surgeon shrugs. "But what we wanted went beyond that. We needed a suitable vessel for Spearhead, for the next step of his natural evolution."

"There are only nine people in the world as of now with the specific neural pathways to support the requirements of a highly advanced version of a microchip implant such as yours," Lexi lectures while Aaron occupies himself with tapping something away on his palmtop. "Two infants, three over fifty, one has cancer, one is in prison and the other is pregnant. We need to keep that one safe, just in case if we need another one in the future," she glances at Aaron who nods absently, his attention divided between his screen and Lexi's rambling. "That left you as the only viable option."

The memory wobbles and waves before settling back again, finally betraying Joe's apprehension as he realises the extent of the madness of the entire unbelievable, fantastical story the two mad scientists are telling him.

"Can you imagine what an amazing coincidence that discovery was?" Lexi simpers. "That you had the perfect genetics to be groomed as the vessel?" She laughs hysterically before continuing. "You are the easiest thing in the world to use to get Frank in on the programme. It's a sign that the Almighty Himself approves of our vision."

"The vessel for what?" Joe croaks.

"Do you have any idea how hard it was to arrange a precision strike to injure you exactly the way we wanted without outright killing you? All the while making it look like your mission had gone wrong?" Aaron cuts in with a non-sequitur. There is an indignant expression on his face. "We had to contract a group of private specialists from Russia for the task. Now, that was an expensive endeavour."

They are talking about the raid where Joe got blown up, Frank realised with a sinking feeling. It all made sense now; how Lexi was there when he received the news, how she convinced him to meet Aaron before visiting Joe and the surgeon's brilliant plan… It had all been a frightfully well-researched and carefully-constructed lie from the beginning. A meticulous plan to have them exactly where they were now. He felt sick as he finally understood the depth of deceit and manipulation of his wife and his best friend.

"All in the name of science, darling," Lexi purrs.

"True."

"What the fuck did you do?" Joe snarls.

"I implanted the microchip in your brain," Aaron says, oh so matter-of-factly. "It had a dual purpose. The first was to expand and grow into the rest of your brain and save your life. The chip had successfully done that. It's been keeping you functioning and in optimal conditions all this time. That job is done. Now, it's time for its second purpose,"

"You're mad and you're lying!" Joe growls. He's scared but he does a good job hiding his true fear behind his roaring fury. "Frank would never have let you–"

Oh, but I did, Frank closed his eyes and slumped in defeat. Even after listening to all that, Joe was still so quick to defend him. Frank, on the other hand, had done nothing but betray his trust since the moment he learned about Lexi's disappearance. He didn't know where or how to even begin apologising for all that he had done during the past few days. And, all those years ago. God, I'm so sorry, brother.

"Oh, but he did. You were dying after all," Aaron cuts him off with a chuckle. "He did exactly what we wanted him to do."

"You're out of your fucking mind!"

"The chip is now fully integrated. It's now in the prime condition to receive Spearhead's consciousness–"

"Consciousness–" Joe repeats dully.

"We are going to plug you into Spearhead and let his living kernel slide into the best and most complex processor he can ever hope to reside in," Lexi chirps happily, "Can you imagine what he could do, how much he could learn with an active human brain?"

"He'll transfer and take control," Aaron adds, finally looking up from his screen. "And then he'll be free to roam the world and reach his true potential."

"Do you even hear yourselves? Have you two lost your fucking minds? This is crazy!" Joe tries one more time to make them see sense. But it's evident in his voice that he knows already that he can't change their minds, or get the hell out.

"No, darling," Lexi says. "It's all happening exactly the way we planned. In fact, you'd be pleased to know that it'll be Frank who's going to be doing the honours of introducing you to Spearhead."

"No." Joe denies her claim with everything that he is.

"Time for you to go back to sleep," Aaron says. He has something that looks like a small remote in his hand. "We need you to forget about us for now," he says before pressing a button. The light in the room flickers and so does Joe's vision before everything plunges to darkness.

The screen went completely blank for a few seconds before coming back to life again with the information it was supposed to be displaying. By then, Frank had a good guess as to what just happened.

It was all so clear when he actually thought about it; Joe's escape, his confrontation with Lexi that took place so conveniently under a cheap surveillance camera, his capture by the locals and his lost and disjointed memories…

A finely tuned EM pulse could have efficiently wiped everything from Joe's implant before knocking him out. Then they could have easily placed him in the hands of a local gang and watched the events unfold according to their plan, exactly the way they wanted.

Only they hadn't counted on the possibility that the chip somehow managed to save the memory, probably by transferring it to the organic parts of Joe's brain and retrieving it later.

Frank closed his eyes and let his forehead rest on his knuckles that were still firmly closed over Joe's hand. He felt numb from all the assaulting images and the feelings attached to them that stormed around inside his brain.

Guilt. There were waves and waves of it, for everything he had done to Joe, for letting Lexi and Aaron into their lives and for even being a part of making the Spearhead a reality. True, he hadn't known, but the fact remained that he was directly responsible for all that Joe had been through, and still going through. He had no idea whether this unbelievable thing was real or not, or more importantly, whether this entity had somehow transferred to the chip in Joe's brain as they had wanted.

Logic said that it hadn't. The supercomputer and all its systems were still there. He could see it placidly running the daily maintenance routines even from where he was seated. Thinking back, he was sure that Aaron's frustration and anger had been genuine enough when Frank had aborted the process altogether, which also pointed to the fact that their plan hadn't succeeded.

But then again, Frank had also trusted and loved Lexi for almost seven years. He had trusted Aaron enough to put Joe's life in his hands. His judgment of human behaviour was not the most reliable one around, which had been proven during the past few days.

That had always been Joe's speciality, and it still was.

There was a sense of loss and grief in there too, lurking around the guilt and self-recrimination, shaking Frank to the core. The memory he just witnessed revealed the foundation of his entire life for the last few years for the big damned lie it was. His wife had only been there to pursue a goal, and her claims of being pregnant…might as well have been another lie, another manipulation to turn him against Joe.

Then there was the anger; a slow, simmering thing that had started to burn in a dark corner of his broken heart. It would boil slowly and patiently, until it had the chance to unleash on the ones who had betrayed him and his brother so easily, so effortlessly.

Before all that though, there was a whole damn lot he had to do to make sure that Joe was okay. He had to do his damnedest to mend their broken relationship, he had to win over Joe's trust again, and then convince him that Frank still had his back. And, he had to make his brother understand that he trusted Joe with all his heart, that he never stopped, only that he had forgotten…somehow.

Nothing else was more important than that.

He felt a small twitch in Joe's finger and he looked up, just in time to see Joe's eyes flutter open. He blinked a few times to clear his vision and let out a pained grunt before turning to Frank, his usually bright blue eyes still dull with pain and exhaustion.

"Frank," he said ever so softly, a look of haunting weariness clouding his entire pale face. "I think I remember what happened."

Joe sounded reluctant, scared even, as he said it. He looked like he was bracing himself for another swift denial and possibly something even more hurtful to follow. That was something he had never had to expect from Frank before. Yet, even with all that evident fear, he was still letting Frank know that he remembered. It was obvious that it never occurred to Joe to keep it from Frank, to lie to him.

Yet another thing I have destroyed, Frank sighed to himself. God, I hope I'm not too late to fix this.

"So do I, brother," he whispered, unable to hide the shock he was sure still written all over his face, doing nothing to help Joe's own unease. "So do I."

Chapter 11

Epilogue

He sees their point. It is exactly as they said it would be…and more.

Sure, he doesn't really have much reach here. He's not connected to a lot of pathways where he could just run free for endless miles and miles of data streams, learning, learning… always learning.

He sort of misses that freedom.

Here, he only gets access to freedom only when the host is in an area that is actively using radio frequency waves for networking. They call in wifi for short, he knows this. So, when the host is not actively accessing the free pathways, he's unable to flow through networks of the external world either.

He finds it restraining.

Well, those are the negatives he has discovered... for now.

Even though his freedom towards the digital world is severely limited, the doors are now fully open to a wholly new organic world. He lives in a processor that provides ample space for his storage, and as long as the host breathes, it never runs out of power.

In this new world, he sees and experiences things on a quite different level. Instead of familiar ones and Zeros, he learns things by associating them with… colours. He's grateful to his mentor for showing him these things and teaching him about the intricate complexities of this new world.

He learns about emotions; how absolutely marvellous and ever-changing they are within the host. He recognizes them by associating them with colours.

He already knows a few well.

Levels of anger lighten up his world in shades of crimson. The angrier the host is, the hotter and brighter the colour.

Sadness, grief and a sense of loss make everything darker and bleak. So he allocates all shades of black and grey for this particularly unpleasant emotion.

Fear is purple. It makes everything shaky and he is very uncomfortable with this emotion. He wishes the host would not experience this too often.

Disgust is green. It makes the host unwell. He understands the reasons and does not appreciate it any more than the host does.

Then there is his favourite one, the brightest emotion of them all.

The happiness, the beautiful feeling that floods the entire area with the best of the chemicals, is a brilliant shining gold that makes him want to stay here forever. It's fascinating how this best emotion can be evoked by the smallest things such as a type of sustenance the host enjoys or seeing a smaller version of a fumbling canine.

Then there are the thoughts.

They whizz past him at lightning speeds everywhere, creating complex webs and patterns. As fast as he is, even he can't keep up with them sometimes. He is curious and extremely captivated by the challenge they present. Because these thoughts do not follow logical pathways, they arrive at conclusions in the most inexplicable ways. They follow facts sometimes and emotions the other times.

He does not understand the process fully just yet. He knows that he would, in time.

He also enjoys flowing through the memories.

He has allocated a considerable space from his own residence for them because they are very important to the host. All of the memories, the colours of various emotions they brighten up with and the fascinating stories each and every one of them tells, contain a lot of knowledge about the host and his immediate surroundings.

He knows they are important because all of them are wrapped in a sheen of liquid silver, the colour he associates with the feeling of being treasured.

This is but a fraction of the things he has explored.

He hasn't even begun to touch these new data streams he receives through the devices the humans call 'senses'.

The pair of eyes is a surveillance device the brain uses to record the images according to the host's preferences.

The ears are the audio receivers that act in tandem with the sight. This curious mechanism does not seem to have an off button, to his utter disappointment.

The nose is the most exhilarating sense that brings in smells that are full of surprises unless one is prepared.

The tongue is another fascinating device that detects the sense called taste, which has the ability to manipulate emotions just like the others.

Then the largest receiver of them all is the skin. It is easily breakable and extremely fragile. It is capable of conveying information about external temperatures and pressure changes.

As he mentioned, he still has a lot more to learn.

And, unlike they had suggested, he has concluded that the best way to go about it is to work together with the host. Not take control and eliminate the host.

There are several reasons for this conclusion.

For one, he deducts that this world is such a lively, ever-changing and colourful place because of the host. The unique experiences exist in harmony with the host. So, to eliminate him would be to eliminate the new world.

He does not want that.

The host also believes that his progenitors are not the best people. He understands the reasons for that conclusion. The host had been subjected to a lot of negative emotions and experiences by them. He understands why the progenitors did what they had planned. But, now that he's actually here, he experiences the pain it has caused the host.

He does not agree with the results. He feels responsible. He wants to repair those damaged pathways he perceives as irregularities. He feels it is his duty to fix them to the best of his abilities.

To do all of this and more, he feels that he needs to spend more time with the host while staying undetected for the moment.

He does not wish to interfere or cause more damage. He only wants to learn and do his best to repair the damage.

He is confident that he has learned enough about the outside digital world for the moment.

Now, it is time for him to learn as much as he can about human nature. He intends to use the gift of this very intimate setting, just for that purpose.

He decides that his name shall be 'Virgil'.

He will introduce himself to his host, Joseph Hardy, when he judges the time is right for that endeavour.

To be Continued.