Time: Approx six years before our story kicked off
Place: Darmouth, Marian’s office
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Isaac: We’ve figured out what happened.
Marian: Jesus, finally.
Isaac: An Area Supremacy Patrol ran into one of the Regime’s Fists near the end of their route. They engaged and were wiped out, just one survivor.
Marian: Shit.
Daria: That doesn’t make any sense.
Isaac: I assure you, the evidence is…
Marian: Why did they engage? Why on earth didn’t they break away once things started going wrong? One Fucking Survivor?
Isaac: The enemy used subterfuge to pin the patrol down in a gas station, they didn’t believe that they had the option to flee.
Daria: Oh, Alerter’s trick?
Isaac: Indeed.
Marian: What’s Alerter’s trick? She’s in First Fist, right?
Isaac: Yes, one of the auxiliary members. She controls sound.
Marian: What’s her trick?
Daria: She impersonates your superior’s voice over your comband, gives you fucked up orders. We use codes to stop it from working.
Isaac: Unfortunately, Eva apparently swallowed the phony assertion that the passcode holder had been destroyed.
Marian: Ah.
Isaac: She thought that her team was buying time to complete an evacuation. Last Stand kind of thing.
Marian: I take it that was not true.
Isaac: The ASP was the only unit involved in combat operations in that area.
Daria: Who survived? Jean?
Isaac: An unpowered human. One Fidel Martinez.
Marian: The commanding officer? How’d he escape?
Isaac: He didn’t buy the ruse, but Eva mutinied, and the other Ultras took her lead.
Daria: They’d have had to. She was the strongest in that crew by a long way.
Marian: So he ran?
Isaac: Stayed and tried to regain control, but they just knocked him out. First Fist tortured him for a while, but bugged out before finishing the job.
Daria: They ran?
Isaac: We got the gist of the situation from the comband, and ‘accidentally’ leaked that you were on your way.
Marian: This Fidel…how’s he doing?
Isaac: How do you think?
Marian: See if he’s broken. If he isn’t, then I’ve got plans for him.
Daria: Making another hero?
Marian: Shrewd enough to see through their tricks. Brave enough to stand up to Eva. Lucky enough to walk out of a fight that no one else walked away from. We could do a lot worse.
Isaac: ASSUMING he’s not broken.
Marian: Of course.
Interesting — now we know what Fidel’s “gas station” event is, or at least the general outlines. From Fidel’s hints it sounds like Remover deliberately let him go. I wonder what her plan was here…