(portion snipped) She didn't trust Smith not to kill Devra. Farlowe was a wild card. She didn't want Smith dead. It was out of her hands now. It would play out as it would play out.

She watched the tea turn the water green. She waited for the right shade.

---

Devra knew Smith was nearby, she could sense him. Sense his energy. A darkness. She knew from his history in the Congo that he had a history with Dark XM. It had killed his partner. Was it was killing him, or making him stronger? If he was ill, he sure hadn’t looked like it. Not when he confronted Devra in Shanghai after she’d injected herself.

The SUV pulled up in front of the massive truck. The Hulong men were joined by two others, equally mean. Equally serious. From the back of the SUV, one pulled out a large rifle with a scope mounted on top. Devra had seen the rifle before.

Her last card left to play.

“Do you know what Dark XM does to an XM construct, Devra?”, ADA asked.

Devra didn’t answer.

“It renders it… ineffective.”

The Hulong men pulled Hubert Farlowe from the back of the SUV. He was a wreck, doubled over in pain and seemingly disoriented.

(some of post snipped) “The joke’s on them”, he smiled inside. “My life ended long ago…”

Farlowe looked down at his feet. The snapped wire was whipping back toward some dry brush to his left. A bizarre light suddenly appeared. “Here we go”, Farlowe thought. “Sorry I failed you, Devra.”

He thought that would be his last memory. He was wrong.

---

Fourteen hours earlier, Farlowe had found himself Perth, Australia. Like most of his travel the past year, it was fast and unexpected.

He’d gotten word of Devra’s stunt in Shanghai. The repercussions were still being felt and analyzed. He didn’t like it that she had insisted he stay away, but he honored her request. He didn’t like it even more now that he knew at least part of what Hulong had planned for her.

Two things about this bothered him. The first was that what they intended to do to Dr. Devra Bogdanovich would be worse than death. This was something he had experience in. But the second gnawed at him even more. And that was how he had come to learn of this information in the first place. First, there was the sense. Devra’s fear. He had followed that as far as he could. Ni’s tip had taken him a few steps further. But now, now he was being pulled in by someone else. Smith? Probably…

Whoever it was, they wanted him here. He was walking into a trap. Which meant he had to take extra caution, because this hadn’t deterred him from using the information he’d been given.

(post snipped)

Farlowe loaded both weapons into a duffle bag he found in the kitchen and went to the beat up sofa in the living room. He sat for a moment and collected his thoughts. A vision of the metal man came to him again.

This had been happening since he heard about Devra. It was like a waking dream. A thin figure, similar to a child’s stick drawing, but around four feet tall. A rusted metal man standing alone near the banks of dry lake. The sun was low in the horizon behind him. The rusting metal man had no eyes, yet Farlowe sensed he was staring at him.

Farlowe tried to focus.

He didn’t know if the room was monitored. This place was a secondary site, set up by fellow agents from various agencies. Everybody put a little into the pot. An insurance policy in case you were ever officially burned by your employer.

Farlowe took a large stack of Euros from his pocket and sat them on the coffee table in front of him. He didn’t expect to be bringing the weapons back. Someone would replenish the supply. It was understood.

Then Farlowe pulled his phone from his pocket. No one had this number but Devra, and yet he had received the same text every hour on the hour for the past two days. It appeared to be a phone number, but every time he called it, no one answered.

(post snipped)

wo numbers. He started the engine. Five numbers. Farlowe put the car into reverse. Five numbers. He pulled out and then shifted into drive and pulled out of the parking lot, onto a side street and began driving toward an intersection at the end of the block. The next decision had to be correct if he was to catch up to Devra and have any hope of saving her, and he was approaching the corner not knowing which way to turn.

The rusting metal man wasn’t a man after all, Farlowe realized. Two symbolic breasts, like arrows, pointed down from the figure’s chest. How did he miss this detail, Farlowe wondered to himself.

A rusting woman. Alone. Abandoned. Left to elements in a lifeless landscape. Standing for eternity. Two numbers. Five numbers. Five…

(some of posted snipped) Antoine Smith had spent a day preparing the battlefield. He wouldn’t take Farlowe for granted. The man had survived when all logic said he should be a memory. He had an ability, almost ethereal, to be where he needed to be when he needed to be there. And he had no compunction about pulling the trigger.

(post snipped)

(some of posted snipped) “Hubert… you don’t look so good,” Devra told him as she approached.

Hubert Farlowe forced a smile. “At this point, what does it matter?”

He was right, of course. Devra realized that she was fast approaching death. And in a way that Devra still couldn’t explain, she knew that Hubert was already there. (some of post snipped)

What good would it do she couldn’t yet figure out, but she felt a pang of satisfaction. A few years ago, she wouldn’t have been capable of being this intimidating. Now with ADA’s help, she had the Hulong men questioning their situation.

“Hubert, I told you not to follow me. Why didn’t you listen?”, Devra asked him.

“I tried. But I guess since the cave, I’ve been a moth to your flame.” Hubert smiled again.

“What happened to you?”, she asked.

“Dark XM.”

She knew the answer before he said it. “This is a Hulong mining operation. Must be one of their largest deposits. What happened to you… Exotic Matter makes it possible. Now we are both being dosed with its opposite,” she replied.

“Yeah. Smith hit me with some sort of weaponized version of it. “

“Where is he now?”

“Smith? Don’t know. He turned me over to these clowns and left. Best guess, he is a safe distance away from whatever is about to happen. But I guarantee you he is watching.”

“No doubt. You and I are expected to put on quite a show,” Devra said.

“I’m already on stage…”

Devra looked at the man who once was supposed to take her life, and then in the process of trying to save it had been transformed into something else. Now, because of his concern for her, he was suffering. And she wasn’t sure that his suffering would ever end.

“I’m sorry, Hubert. I’m truly sorry about… everything.”

“I know. My fault, though. Should have anticipated this, but Smith’s trap came out of nowhere. Ticked me off, because that’s my play,” Hubert laughed, and then began to cough.

“Your play?”, Devra asked.

“Coming out of nowhere. And now, that’s where we are both going, doc,” Hubert coughed.

“Coming out of nowhere. And now, that’s where we are both going, doc,” Hubert coughed.

“Think so? Because I don’t, Hubert. You’re proof that there is more to life and death than we could have imagined. I don’t fear dying… not anymore. I fear failure. That is my biggest regret. That we will be face down in the sand while the world burns. And it will burn, Hubert. Of that, I am sure.”

(some of post snipped)

(some of post snipped) Devra nodded. She was breathing easier now. But as she watched the flaming wreckage in the distance, and the blood flowing from the bodies near her feet, she knew that there was more.

“What does this have to do with me and Farlowe?”, she asked.

“Farlowe? Not much, but you like him, so I see no reason to waste a bullet.”

“Thanks,” Farlowe said. It didn’t sound like he meant it. “And those don’t work on me anymore.”

“Looks like Smith found something that does, though,” the assassin replied.

Farlowe grimaced and nodded. A dangerous development. “We need to get scarce.”

(some of the post snipped)

“So what is it, exactly?”, Devra asked.

“You’re going to have earn that answer, doc. But I can promise you it will be worth it,” the assassin smiled as he opened the rear passenger door. Farlowe was leaning against the opposite side of the vehicle, waiting for her cue.

Henry Bowles watched her through the rear view mirror as he started the SUV.

Devra looked at the destruction and death around her, and the destruction and death that was holding open the door, offering her a debt she had no idea how she was going to repay. She didn’t think long as she climbed inside the vehicle. Farlowe quickly followed.

(some of post snipped)

(some of post snipped) For Devra, it was the most poignant of all. All of it was erased. The escape with Jarvis, Visur, the CDC, Shanghai, Australia, the 13MAGNUS Nest. She wouldn’t remember Farlowe, her assassin turned guardian angel or 855. She was shocked to see Hank. She’d thought he was dead. She hugged him. He told her she'd understand, in time. It went through her. Truth is, she thought she was dead and this was some afterlife initiation ceremony. She focused instead on what she could control, and that was to return to the familiar. Her apartment. Her office. Her books. Hank felt a deep sadness, the images of everything they had shared over the last three years kept flashing in his mind. Meeting on the bridge. Sitting on the bench in New York. Those long conversations that could make time stand still and the world shrink into the palms of their hands. She would never know any of those memories. But maybe new ones would take their place. So much had been lost, but Hank had hope for what could still be created.

Hubert Farlowe watched the Chinese man in the tailored suit step away from Devra through the scope of his Kel-Tec RFB, keeping the crosshairs trained on him until he was well clear of her and his intent was certain. If at any point during their meeting, Devra had moved to stand up, then the man would have met a quick, violent and certain end from one of things he’d taken with him when he and Devra separated from Visur.

From his position across the lake, just beyond a small dam with gently cascading water, Farlowe re-acquired his original sighting position in the scope.

Devra was in the crosshairs again.

She was still sitting on the bench, but this time, was looking his way. Directly his way. She closed the briefcase and held it up with both hands. She had what she wanted. Which meant that for now, Farlowe had what he needed. A reason to keep going.

Farlowe gave Devra one last look through the scope, then began breaking down the sniper rifle.

“Where is the last of the inoculation, Devra?”

Bogdanovich stood up. She was tall. She reached into her purse. There was activity in the observation room. Had she been checked for weapons. Bodanovich pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Slowly. Casually. Enjoying the moment. She exhaled smoke in Hwang’s direction. She walked towards him, speaking as she walked. “I gave it to Hubert Farlowe. Good luck getting it from him. If I die, I didn’t give him any instructions. In order to randomize the outcome. God knows what he’ll do with it. Especially when he finds out that I’m dead.”

Hwang stepped backwards, against the wall. Looking trapped. Humiliated. But more than that, fearful.

“He will do nothing, because he will have no way of knowing that you are dead.” Hwang said. It was not a good answer, but he did not have a better one. And he had to answer.

“The world leaks secrets, Dr. Hwang. We might as well not even try to keep them. You ought to know that. If I die. He will know. If nothing else, he will feel my absence.” Then she turned back to the mirror. Took another puff. “But you’re right. I didn’t give it to Farlowe.”

“If you did not give the last injection to Farlowe, what did you do with it. We can negotiate.”