Silver Saint

Twenty-Six: Burn

//Report: Quinn, Jackson.

//Saint Corp Plaza.

//Horizon City.

//Greece.

//Resume log.

The city outside was restless. Even at this hour, when the world should have been quiet, I could hear the hum of distant engines, the sounds of traffic. Light pollution drowned the stars, casting the skyline in an eerie, artificial twilight. I sat by the window in my room, watching the world go by.

Project Cold Iron.

The words still flickered in my head, repeating over and over, like an earworm I couldn't shake. We had found it—everything. The truth, laid bare in clean, clinical text, waiting for someone to read it, to understand it.

With all we'd found, I should have felt victorious. With the information on Axion's server, we would be more powerful, more capable and better equipped than ever. If information was a weapon in this day and age, we'd just been handed a nuclear bomb.

Instead, all I could feel was the weight of it pressing down on me. The burden of knowing.

My fingers curled into a fist against my knee, and I felt the bedspread shift beneath me. I should've been asleep by now—it was almost two in the morning—but I could only sit at the edge of my bed, staring at the geometric sprawl of Horizon City below.

I had wanted answers for so long. I just wasn't sure if I was ready for them.

I shifted in place, moving my hand to stifle a yawn, and felt something angular press against my thigh. I was confused for a brief moment, but as I drew the item from my pocket I was easily able to identify the culprit.

It was an old memo recorder, all black plastic and square edges—the gift I'd been handed by one of the reporters earlier tonight. So much had happened since then that I'd almost forgotten about it, tucked away in my pocket. It had a comforting weight to it I hadn't expected, and despite my earlier trepidation I was almost glad to have it. So much had happened in the past few months that I hadn't had a chance to process.

I turned the device over in my hands, tracing my thumb across the back, and found a small plastic tab poking out of the back of the casing, where the batteries were likely located. Seizing the tab with two fingers, I pulled it free, and heard a quiet beep from the device.

Turning it back over, I could now see that the screen was illuminated in a brilliant orange, and a red LED flashed at the top of the device.

It was recording. But what was I supposed to say? What could I say?

I thought back to that strange reporter, the man in the suit who had given it to me in the first place. What was it he'd said to me? Where had this all begun?

I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the sudden pulse of a headache at the back of my mind. It wasn't that complicated—I could just treat it like a debriefing.

Where had this all begun?

I thought back, before the fall of the Firmament, before the battle for Project Themis, the fight in Minh's Deep, before the siege of Frostpoint. Our troubles hadn't even begun with the second battle of Stalnoy, even if it felt that way.

No. The realization was like a wave of clarity—it had all started in Bright Harbour.

Inspired by this realization, I brought the recording device up to my mouth... and spoke.

"Report... Quinn, Jackson." It was awkward, acting like this was some kind of military debriefing, but it was the only way I knew. Forcing aside my self-doubt, I continued, forcing myself to picture that mission, all those months ago. What had I felt? What had I seen?