The inside of the compound was completely dark as they entered it.  Beez was relieved to see a staircase just off to the side.  He’d really feared an elevator.  Roxie had both of her guns out as she strode over to the railing and looked down.  There were lights on at the bottom of the stairs, maybe 3 floors down.  

 

“And you’re sure this’ll work?”

 

“Well, I’m sure HI and I are gonna do what we said we were gonna do.  I’m not sure it’ll phase them, but yeah.”

 

“Good enough,” she said, and with a flick of her wrist a small green box tumbled out of her sleeve.  Beez leaned farther and farther over the railing, watching it as it fell.  Suddenly he felt a hand on the neck of his jacket, and Roxie dragged him back just before the explosion.  They both ducked against the wall as a column of flame shot up the central atrium of the staircase.  Roxie was off and running long before Beez had his bearings.

 

“NOW,” she shouted from several landings below him.  “Do it now!!!”

 

“HI!  Phase one!”

 

The lights began flickering once per second from full bright to pitch black.  The backup lights run by the generator would kick on just a hair before the regular lights restored, creating a weird sort of fade, but the transition from light to dark was complete and instantaneous.  Beez’ contacts anticipated the switches, keeping his visibility at nearly perfect as he took the steps down two at a time.  He was only halfway down when he heard Roxie’s guns for the first time.  

 

“HI!  Phase two!”

 

A klaxon began going off inside the compound.  Beez had found the volume setting for it, which had been at 48%, and HI was firing it off at full volume.  He drew the pistol she’d given him, maybe half the size of hers but better than nothing, as he rounded the last corner.  Roxie looked totally calm, stalking down the middle of the corridor with her arms held out to either side.  

 

Spent shell casings littered the floor.  The ear pieces The Motherfucker had made for them were working perfectly; he’d barely heard the rampaging siren at all.  He wasted no time charging down the hall.  There were three bodies he could see, and judging by the way Roxie now had both of her guns trained on an open doorway further down, that left only three unaccounted for.  

 

HI directed him to the second door on the right, so he took it at a jog.  There was a bend after a few feet, leading to a long hallway.  More gunfire behind him, but he only heard it through Roxie’s comm.  The suits did a great job of handling stereoscopic sound based on their relative positions to each other.  He was gonna have to give The Motherfucker some credit later.  

 

The room he entered at the end of the hall was much less impressive than he’d built it up to be in his head.  There were two terminals.  One appeared to be a dummy; functional and connected to the external data line, but the hardware that ran it was located elsewhere.  The terminal next to it, however, put a lump in his throat.  There it was.  

 

“How’s it goin in there, Beez?”

 

“Uh. uh.  Good.  Good!  I found it, and there’s an uplink I can connect it to.”

 

“Whatever.  I’m still missing one or two, so keep an eye out.”  

 

Beez had guessed rightly.  These two terminals were designed to connect to allow data to be dumped here, and then disconnected for permanent offline storage.  HI began setting up the data connection and prepared the server at his old school to receive and rebroadcast while he sifted through the data stored here.  

 

Most of it seemed to be scientific in nature.  Formulas.  Documentation of experiments.  Patent information.  A massive chunk of data on terminated personnel.  Beez considered looking up his father for a moment, but he knew he had bigger fish to fry.  Project Salt, Project Sisner, Project Skald…

 

Project Snapdragon.  HI was only 30% through it’s task, so he spooled up the first on the list.  It was an old vid.  A pretty, brown haired woman with thin glasses was smiling broadly.  She appeared to be recording from her apartment.  Her white lab jacket, worn over a reddish-brown  turtleneck sweater, was the only visual indicator that anything science related was about to happen.  

 

“Project Snapdragon, videolog entry 1, Jan 1 2042.  Dr. Ana Stone.  I’ll be beginning the self injections in a minute, but I wanted to say a few words first."  Her tone became quieter, more intimate, as she leaned toward the camera.  "I know you’ll never see this, Tessa, but I did this for you.”  She seemed to get a little choked up.  “You are every bit as… amazing… as your mother.  More, and you know what a compliment that is!”  She laughed through the tears.  “Ok.  Even though my initial thesis on the subject was rejected, I’m continuing on with my work on gene therapy.  My calculations for the previous formula’s all seem to have fallen well short of the tolerance of the immune system to handle minor variations granted by modern cancer prevention shots.  This new version is altered significantly enough that I've 86'd Project Electra and am proceeding with Snapdragon. So, without further adieu…”  The woman stood up, revealing herself to be naked from the waist down.  She reached beside the camera and when her hand reappeared, she held a small syringe.  There was a patch just above her vagina where her pubic hair was shaved smooth.  Beez watched in horror.  Dr Stone grimaced as the needle pierced her skin, and the green contents of the back end slowly disappeared.  

 

The road to hell, he thought to himself.  The next vid loaded itself automatically.

 

“Project Snapdragon, videolog entry 2, Jan 2 2042.  Dr. Ana Stone.  No discernable change.”

 

“Project Snapdragon, videolog entry 3, Jan 3, 2042.  Dr. Ana Stone.  No discernable change.”

 

Beez stopped and skipped ahead.  The video was still being taken in the same room, but Dr. Stone was further from the camera, and fully nude now.

 

“Project Snapdragon, videolog entry 105, April 15, 2042.  Dr. Ana Stone.  As you can see, my penis is now 7 inches in length.  The documentation for my formula calculated that the original injection I gave myself should have produced an extra inch past this.  I have recorded no growth beyond past this length in 14 days.  I'm ready to establish that it has finished growing, and the slightly diminished length means I have once again underestimated the immune system, but I’m still prepared to call this an unmitigated success.  I am undecided about continuing to add further male genitalia, but that falls outside the goals of this project.”  

 

The video ended, and Beez examined the remaining contents of the directory.  Entry 105 was the last entry for nearly 5 years.  Dr Stone appeared a little older, and significantly more weary in the next.  She stood in a larger facility now, and a dozen technicians scurried behind her.  HI was at 53%

 

“Project Snapdragon, videolog entry 106, Aug 18 2046.  Dr. Ana Stone.  At the insistence of my board of directors and against my own better judgement, I am officially reopening Project Snapdragon in an expanded capacity.  My original work is still years ahead of our nearest competitor in terms of gene therapy, and we can…”  She frowned and sighed.  “We cannot afford to give up our edge in this emerging field.”

 

He skipped ahead again.  This time, a man was presenting.

 

“Project Snapdragon, videolog entry 184, Oct 17, 2046.  Dr. Merrill Long.  Our efforts to unlock the underlying principle behind Dr. Stone’s work is coming along slower than we would like, but her departure was neither unforeseen nor insurmountable.  Stone Chemicals may still bear her name, but our work will outstrip her limited vision a hundred fold.”  There was a fierceness in Dr. Long’s eyes, despite his cool delivery.

 

542 total entries.  His eyes lingered on number 273, the one he'd seen before, but instead he skipped to the very last video.  A much younger man vaguely resembling Dr. Long, especially in the eyes and nose, sat smirking.

 

"Project Snapdragon.  Final Videolog entry.  Dr. Jason Long.  The destruction of Stone Memorial has slipped from all relevant news sources.  Early speculation of our involvement was successfully redirected.  The bodies of Tessa Stone and her daughter Rebecca have been recovered and identified.  Rebecca's daughter Roxanne is still listed among the missing, but her last known whereabouts immediately prior to the explosion placed her in the animal testing areas at the lowest levels of the complex.

 

"It's unfortunate that it had to come to this, given the debt we owe the deceased Dr. Ana Stone, but their continued digging into the nature of the explosion at the Janus facility put us on a collision course, metaphorically speaking.  Hopefully we'll be able to put this episode behind us, and move on to more profitable enterprises in the near future.  Stacy, earmark this whole project for archival."

 

Suddenly, Roxie charged into the room at full speed.  She threw the door shut behind her and ducked down as 4 bullets slammed into, but not through, it.  

 

"Bulletproof!  Some luck!"  Her grin slipped a little as she looked around.  "Awww, but it's a dead end!  Alright.  Just one left.  I'm goin back out after him before he digs in out there."  Beez looked over at her, his eyes watering.  She had a nick across one of her cheeks and it looked like she'd been shot in the leg, but she seemed otherwise unaffected.  "I'll be fine."  Not as reassuring as he wanted it to be.

 

"I'm almost ready to start," he said, as he wiped at his cheek.  "and then it will only take another minute once the transfer starts."

 

"Ok!  Here goes!"  She yanked the door open and dove back out into the hallway.  Gunfire traded back and forth, but none of it seemed to reach into the room where he was.  

 

86%.  Beez sat, staring at the videolog entries, and pondered the need of scientists to record everything.  From the deeply personal to the downright malevolent, it felt like some things should just be private.  He hesitated only briefly before deleting the first one hundred and five entries.  

 

By the time the deletion was complete, HI was ready to go.  He set up the physical connection to the data line and Project Snapdragon raced off, in a torrent of ones and zeroes, to it's initial hosting site.  From there, a small script would replicate the data indiscriminately to as many locations as it could find unprotected.  Over and over, it would spread, hopefully worldwide.  It was only a matter of time then until some of it found its way to a news source.

 

They'd realized that one copy, or a few copies, would be too easy for Long to repossess or discredit.  It was with great pleasure that Beez sat back and watched the transfer progress.  This would be too big to stop.  

 

"Is it done?"  Roxie leaned against the doorway, breathing heavily.

 

"It's done."

 

"Good.  Can you cut this shit out with the lights?  I'm starting to go blind."

 

"HI, shut down phases one and two.  Aren't your contacts taking care of that?"

 

She shrugged.  "Not wearin em."  

 

***

 

"This is a terrible idea."  Roxie looked around ceaselessly.  She was always nervous in open spaces, but open spaces up top were even worse.  "You're going back on thinking probation."

 

"I may never get another chance to do this after today," he replied.  They'd both known that, even if they got through the assault in one piece, they'd never be able to stay.  Long Chemicals would be hurt by the revelation that they'd caused the explosion themselves, but Goliath doesn’t go down that easily in real life.  

 

The massive headstone was just as terrifying as it was final.  His mother's, father's, and brother's names were hard to see.  His own name at the end was the worst.  Brandon Zimmer stood in silence and stared down at his own grave.  

 

"I think I saw something,"  she growled.  "2 minutes, and we're gone."

 

Brandon nodded, but she was already off, her brown and red duster trailing her like a cloak.  She knew what she was giving up too.  "Don't worry, guys.  She’s gonna take good care of me.  Even when she’s powerless.  It's not like every house comes standard with a mini-fab system these days."  She was just gonna have to learn how to be mortal 24/7.  “Mini-fab.  MF.  I get it!”  A branch snapped behind Brandon, and he spun.

 

He'd never taken the time to appreciate the absolute perfection of rifling before.  The immaculate swirl, fading out of sight into the black, was an aesthetic joy he'd never had the mettle to face without crying before now.  It was almost funny, when he thou-

 

Click.

 

Click

 

"In the last frame before the explosion, there is a significant distortion in the area she was standing.   Watch.  She’s standing there, she’s standing there, she’s screaming, static, explosion!"

 

"And it is your allegation that the terrorist is then still at-"

 

Click.

 

"-ad news just keeps coming for industry titan Long Chemicals.  Last week, it was the release of documents revealing extensive, and highly illegal, human testing related to the Janus Incident."

 

"The Attorney General released a statement on Monday saying that, although the statute of limitations passed decades ago, his office would be launching a joint ethics investigation of the company with the help of the FDA."

 

"And then yesterday, the world was stunned as a lone gunwoman stormed the company's east coast headquarters in uptown Manhattan.  The casualty count was in the hundreds as she fought her way through nearly 40 occupied floors.  The number of deaths thus far has been reported as low as fifteen, but that figure may change by the hour."

 

"And finally today, the company issued more than one thousand digital press releases.  The vast majority of them seem to be unedited, and fairly damning, records of misdeeds ranging from sexual misconduct, to fraud and insider trading, human rights abuse, and conspiracy to commit murder, not to mention the raw security cam footage from the attack.  The representative we tried to contact was unavailable for comment, although there was a pre-recorded message blaming a ' nasty mother-effing computer virus' for fabricating these lies."

 

Click

 

"Kneecap, kneecap, kneecap!  It's not a coincidence that the body count is low.  She went in there and did exactly what she wanted to do!"

 

Click

 

"Initial reports of the gunwoman being an animal rights activist have been shown to be false.  By now, everyone has seen the final few seconds of footage before she detonates explosives strapped to her chest where she appeared to be saying that she was doing it, quote, for the bees, or possibly for bees, end qu-"

 

Click

 

"This is the scene from the top floor yesterday.  The footage from the security cameras is everywhere.  What you are about to see... is extremely graphic.

 

"Several executives are scurrying to hide, but she chases them down... one... by... one...  the only verified kill shots were fired on the top 5 floors. 

 

“Our Truth Crew here at News 409 has taken the footage of the shooter, compiled a facial reconstruction, and is prepared to identify the shooter as one Roxanne Stone, the last known descendant and heir of the Stone Family.  Their long-standing rivalry with Long Chemicals finally coming to a bloody-"

 

Click

 

"-taken to the streets in record numbers here in The Bottom.  Things have remained peaceful so far, but there is a vocal minority interspersed with the crowd holding signs with messages like "Roxie Lives!".  It's clear to this reporter that-"

 

Click

 

"4,000 channels, and nothings on," he said as he tossed down the remote.

 

***

 

//Authors Note//

 

Being an amatuer nerd has allowed me to spend a lot of free time learning just enough about a great many things to be able to speak about them with a modicum of intelligence.  Science represents my greatest triumph and failure in this way.  On one hand, I can throw out words like "M Theory".   I have just enough of a grasp of physics to speak about a few of its implications, but the technical underpinnings are fully beyond my tiny brain.

  

That being said, I have always been intrigued and fascinated by the idea of parallel dimensions.  Fundamentally identical states of being in all but one or two crucial areas.  Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time dealt with this concept with its portal stones.  A man goes left, or goes right.  Is one decision more true?  Could not both be true?

 

Another example is Schrodinger's Cat.  It's a thought experiment in which a cat is placed inside a box with a randomly powered silent death trap.  Until the box is opened, that cat can be thought of as both alive and dead.  Two separate states of being.  

 

It was always my intention to end Chasing the Dragon in this fashion.  I have tried to take care with the wording of the last chapter to the extent that it is never explicitly stated what happens to Roxie and Beez.  Yes, Beez was shot.  Yes, Roxie detonated a huge amount of explosives.  However, in both cases I attempted to infer death rather than explain it in gory-but-definitive-details.  She has not been stated to have held him in her arms as he drew his last breath.  The janitor has not explicitly cleaned tested-and-identified brain matter from the ceiling of the board room at Long Chemicals.

 

Always question the offscreen death.

 

And so it is with great pleasure that I leave the final chapter to you, the reader, to remain in your imagination.  The story certainly unfolds as if their deaths are real, and if closure is your cup of tea, then let it be so and let it be good.  

 

However, if the escape into the sunset followed by years of bliss and intimacy on a private island suits you better, then it's important to remember/know (depending on if you've read my other story, The Ballad of Jaimie and Vera and caught the connection), that Roxie is loaded, money-wise.  They could have faked anything they wanted to if they applied a little grey matter.

 

In either case, as per usual for me, this is the end of the story.  Under no circumstances will I ever pick this back up or write a direct sequel that canonizes one ending or the other.  If you made it this far, then you have my sincere gratitude.