Epilogue: Handing off the captives

You found a much warmer reception at the Russian airport than you'd originally received upon your first arrival. This didn't mean that the Russian agents were running up to hug you or offer you gifts; instead it simply meant you didn't feel as though your every move was being coldly scrutinized. You even found Milaslava waiting for you near the gate, dressed in her finest military uniform and snapping a salute. "Very good, Washington! I am very surprised to see the three of you all alive, although one of you looks much worse for the wear than when last I saw him. My brother always was stubborn. To think you'd fight him man to man... you with your weak, human body and him with his aged, withered one!" She had a good laugh at your expense; listening to her cackle was the last thing you needed. "Did you discover the link between him and the Deliverers?"

You told her candidly that it was a much stranger situation than you'd dared to anticipate. The only reason he'd helped the Deliverers was because some "Machine Voice" had told him he ought to.

"The 'Machine Voice...'" Milaslava repeated, crossing her arms beneath her expansive breasts and continuing to smirk. "Yes, I should have suspected. He would never answer the question of why the Machine Voice told him to do a thing, only that it told him to do it. At least in the old days, his delusions were just an obstruction... now, they're a threat to world security. A threat that you've helped curb. Our men have gone to sweep the facility and nab the rest of his research. You can trust that it will be in good hands with CEDIT Russia." The big smile across her unpainted lips did nothing to assure you that CEDIT Russia was going to stay above the board, but that was a bigger mission than you could handle in this one trip. "So... You will leave Ivan for us, yes?"

You told her that you planned to, but first, you had to report in to Goodbye. You'd prefer to do that in the privacy of the ship, with your fellow Washington agents.

The woman's smile became colder and wider. "Yes. Sure. Protocol. There is a fine bottle of vodka waiting for you in my office, whenever you decide you are ready to hand over my brother."

You sat in the Gambit, watching the creepy face of that immobilized doctor, stuck under induced sleep. Tschau and Despedida both waited in the background, the former with her phone out and the latter with her headphones in, pretending not to listen to your report in to Goodbye. The mousy woman's face was displayed, big and round, on the screen of your laptop. "Oh, God, I'm so glad you're safe! When I heard about the scuffle with CEDIT Russia, I thought we had an international incident on our hands. I didn't think you were going to make it to Bortnik's base! Why is everything so gosh-darn hairy when the Goodbye Girls are involved?" your boss questioned, running her hands through her frazzled hair to spruce it up. It seemed she'd only just thought about the fact that she was on a visual display.

The rest of the report went pretty smoothly, except for her panicking when you made a joke about how you'd been forced to replace your injured body parts with cybernetic enhancements. That caused her to scream for a bit.

Once she'd calmed down, you told her that you were having a hard time reconciling handing Bortnik back over to the people who'd clearly spawned his maniac agenda, even if they were supposedly running under new ownership now.

"Look... I get it, Ciao, but you're walking in a mine-field right now. We barely escaped an international incident earlier and there's still time to make one. Just give the Russians Bortnik back, okay? That's an order... Let's not be cowboys."

You gave her a nod and closed your laptop, though you were still brooding. There were the allies you were asked to suspect against your nature, and then there were the ones that you didn't need a reason to suspect because they were so clearly shady. CEDIT Russia and Milaslava clearly fell into the latter category. You felt like no matter where this doctor ended up, he was going to remain a threat to the world's safety, with his ridiculous capabilities and his crazy 'Machine Voice' theory.

As you sat pondering the right move, Tschau moved closer to you, keeping her eyes narrow and pocketing her phone. With Goodbye gone, she could say what she really wanted to. "Ciao... I need time with Bortnik. I need to speak to him alone and settle the score. I'll never have another opportunity to do this... Don't deprive me of the ability to have my peace," she ordered you, clutching her hands at her lap while watching the unconscious doctor with hate in her eyes. You felt pretty sure you knew how that particular meeting would end. Handing him over to Tschau was basically submitting him for execution.

Could you do that, as a CEDIT agent? Sure, you hated the guy and understood Tschau's hatred for him was even greater, but being a CEDIT agent meant rules. The Russians would go berserk if they learned Tschau had murdered the guy before he could be interrogated by their own agents. However, Tschau had a good point: if she didn't get her chance at Bortnik now, this moment, she probably never would.

"Think it over..." she encouraged you with a meaningful glance, then retreated to step outside the Gambit and watch the outside.

No sooner had she left than Despedida slid up to sit across from you, wearing a sneaky smile as she pulled her earbuds out. "Hola, mi amigo! I don't think I have to tell you, cause you've got a good brain still popping around in there, but if anybody has to investigate this guy, it's me. This freak and me are probably the two smartest roboticists in the world right now... In Mario Party, we'd be the two with all the stars. Our struggles are the ones that mean the most. What I'm saying is: if you hand this guy over to CEDIT Russia, we never see him again. If you hand him over to Tschau, she's gonna murder the shit out of him. So... Why not give me a crack at him first?" As if appealing to your lust now, she leaned closer, almost allowing you to see down the chest of her thin t-shirt. "Once I'm done with him, you can hand him over to whichever you want. But that little time will give me a chance to poke around in his prosthetics and his noggin, see what I can learn, and benefit all of CEDIT! I lost out on seeing Promethia's tech, so this is the only way."

... It may have been the shadow of her cap over her eye or that out of place, friendly grin, which seemed like an oasis calling out to you in this world of suspicious and blood-thirsty people, but you felt an ill omen. You felt that whether you handed the guy over to Tschau or Despedida, you were signing his death warrant either way. You had a tough choice ahead of you.

"Come on, homeboy! Which is it gonna be?" she questioned again, batting her eyelashes and trying to look extra harmless.