acts_of_gord | For daemonmuses. Week 4.

"The time has come for one man to die in order to save hundreds of lives."
-Bruce Willis "The Siege"

The pug daemon, Alcestis, leaned hard against Dr. Kleiner's leg, her liquid black eyes and soft, asthmatic wheezing the only clue that betrayed exactly how tense her human was. "Of course, you owe us nothing," Kleiner said. "I know how much you've been through, and how many times you've risked your life already. But you've come this far. You know as much about these creatures as anyone alive."

Xen. Another dimension, another world, and a being like no other to kill if there was going to be any hope at all... Sati's test tube was nestled securely between the HEV suit and his sternum. The pounding of his heart must have been deafening for the tiny daemon.

The fossa slung around the security guard's neck added, quietly, "Enough to know that if you don't wipe it out, there won't be much for you to come home to."

"Gordon," Sati murmured urgently, her voice reaching him only through the vibrations in his bones. "You saw the display."

It'd been back in the satellite launch center, a holographic map of the world, green gaps speckling outwards from New Mexico, the projected rents and gapes of the resonance cascade spilling across the planet one after another after another. He'd seen, all right, and if he ever slept again that image (one rift, then four, then nine, then sixteen) would haunt his dreams more than all the dead Marines piled up together-

The satellite couldn't stop it alone. Only this thing's- whatever it was- this thing's death had a chance of giving the satellite a chance to work. Only killing it, whatever it was, would end the cascade and stop the onslaught of monsters. Fine. He could accept that. He glanced up to the guard, intending to answer, and froze; the guard wouldn't meet his eyes.

Feeling as if someone else were working his mouth for him, as if the act of speaking were the most momentous effort in the world, Gordon managed: "I won't be coming home either way, will I."

Silence, then, except for the pounding of his own blood in his ears. All that broke it was Alcestis' soft little whine as Dr. Kleiner finally said, "I'm sorry, Gordon. There's no possible way to guarantee you a return trip, whatever the outcome."

He'd accepted his death as a fact just before the final desperate charge that laid the grey-skinned monsters low and brought him to Lambda alive. He'd lived, somehow, and made it through. He'd just come to accept that that was real, that he'd live and he'd make it, and now this...

But there was a map of green light spilling across the surface of the world, one-four-nine-sixteen-twentyfive-thirtysix-fortynine and on and on and on and on; and somewhere miles under the Earth's surface there was a locker, and in the locker there was a picture of his brother's baby girl.

"I'm so sorry, Sati," he whispered with his fingertips to the lambda on the suit's chestplate. Then, aloud, he said, "Show me what I have to do."

As Dr. Kleiner proceeded to explain as much as he could, Sati's voice reached him again through his bones. "For what it's worth," she said to him, "I'm proud of you."