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Olivia's eyes shot open and beheld an unfamiliar, rust-stained ceiling. She sat up with a groan, her head throbbing with the familiar pain of a passing migraine. She reached up to rub her temples and froze, staring at her hands. They were wet.

Wet with blood.

Her eyes widened in surprise and horror. She pulled her gaze from her hands and looked down at her body, searching for any wounds that might have been the bleeding's source. She didn't feel any pain, aside from her dissipating headache, nor could she see any injuries on herself. Letting out a sigh of relief, she lowered her hands to her lap but quickly furrowed her brows as the implication struck her. If it wasn't her blood...

Her head whipped about, scanning her surroundings. A small room, steel floor, steel ceiling, rock walls. A heavy door set into the stone. Two beds with a desk between them against the far wall. None of it was familiar to her. But the room she found herself in was of no importance to Olivia. Her eyes locked onto two shapes on the floor beside her and she let out a quiet gasp.

Two men lay at her side, blood pooling around them, their limbs and necks twisted at unnatural angles. They were dead.

Bewildered, Olivia scrambled away from them on all fours, smearing blood across the deck with her hands and feet. Her vision remained focused on the corpses, as though she were incapable of looking away. One of the men stared back at her with cold, barren eyes, a small breathing device dangling haphazardly from his face.

Did I do this? Olivia thought as she stared at the bodies, her breathing ragged with near-panic, her heart beating wildly in her chest. Finally, she managed to close her eyes, though the image of the two mangled corpses remained, burned into her brain. Desperately, she tried to calm her breathing, inhaling deeply, attempting to remember the meditations a fellow Color had taught her not long ago. After a few moments, it worked. She cleared her mind. and her breathing relaxed, the pounding of her heartbeat receded from her ears. Slowly, she opened her eyes again.

Carefully, she rose from the floor onto jittery legs. She took another deep breath and approached the men's remains. Blood not only pooled around them, but was splattered over the beds and desk, too. Getting closer, she could see deep cuts and gashes crisscrossing the corpses. Shakily, she crouched down beside them, inspecting them more closely.

One of them, the man who had been facing her, was clearly an Outcast, the mask nearly torn from his face a dead giveaway. The other, lying face down in his own blood, looked like a member of the Rogues, the pirates' stylized skull and crossbones stenciled onto the back of his thick leather jacket. Lying between them, half covered in their blood, was a knife. Slowly, as though dreading what she would find, Olivia reached down to her left thigh, feeling for the sheath she kept strapped to it when away from home.

It was empty. Olivia swallowed hard.

I did this.

Olivia stumbled out through the door the moment it slid open, feeling like she was going to be sick. It wasn't the grisly sight of the two corpses that caused her to feel nauseous, but rather the fact that she had absolutely no memory of killing the men, nor of where she was or how she had come to be there.

The air in the hallway she tripped into was cold and helped clear her mind and dissipate the churning of her stomach. She leaned against the wall opposite the room she had come out of, taking deep breaths to calm herself.

What the f*ck is happening? She wondered, feeling a new wave of panic building up in her chest. She screwed her eyes shut, trying desperately to suppress the fear and confusion and attempted to instead collect her last memories. The last thing she remembered doing was sitting in her ship's cockpit, hovering in space near Riverside Station in California, conversing casually with the captain of a passing navy ship. Then, suddenly, she woke up here, in a room with two dead bodies - two men she had apparently brutally murdered.

Olivia opened her eyes again, raising her hands before them. Blood. It was starting to dry, making her skin sticky and stiffening her jacket's cuffs. She lowered them again, lifting her gaze to glance down the hallway. Unlike the room in which she had come to, it looked vaguely familiar, as though she had walked down its length before. The floor and ceiling, like the room's, were made of steel plating, while the walls consisted of sheer rock. An asteroid base.

Fontana, she realized, the memory of the corridor finally clicking into place in her mind. But why was she here? She shook her head. It didn't matter at the moment. Before anything else, she had to get off the station.

Footsteps approached from a bend in the hallway up ahead. Olivia glanced down at her body. Like her hands, her boots and pants were stained crimson and bloody prints followed her from the doorway. Quickly, she slipped out of her boots and picked them up, before turning in the opposite direction of the nearing footsteps and hurrying down the hall.


- - -


Blood colored the water an unpleasant shade of red as it ran down the sink drain. Olivia took slow, deliberate breaths as she scrubbed her hands clean with soap. She glanced up at the mirror and saw her reflection glaring back at her, face pale, hair damp with sweat. She certainly looked like she had just seen a dead body. Or two. With a shake of her head, she stepped away from sink and mirror, wiping her hands dry against her jacket. She stooped over and slipped her feet back into her boots, the blood splattered across them now dry.

Now, at least, she could move around the station without leaving a red track trailing after her. She had to get off of the rock before the bodies she had left behind in the room were discovered. True, the denizens of Fontana were not unaccustomed to violence and even murder aboard the freeport, but nevertheless, the mercenary did not want to get tied up in an investigation by the Outcasts or Rogues into the slaughter of two of their men.

Besides, she had to get someplace where she could calm down and think, make sense of what was going on, what was happening to her. The first blackout that had left her in Kepler hadn't scared her enough to seek help, but this was different. Two people had died by her hand and she had no memory of the deed.

Olivia frowned. Now, she was a danger.

She left the restroom, hurrying down the cold, winding corridors hewn into the icy rock towards the station's primary hangar bay. No one stopped her as she climbed up her ship's access ladder, and docking control granted her permission to take off without any further questions.

The mercenary let out a sigh of relief and plotted a course for Planet Denver. The doctor who had performed her medical check up following her return from the dead still owed her one more favor. With any luck, he would be able to tell Olivia what was wrong with her.

The Lich gently glided down through the light cloud cover, approaching the Southside River Clinic on Denver, a private institution far too expensive for someone like Olivia to pay a visit to. Luckily, however, the hospital's chief of medicine still owed her a favor and had agreed to meet the mercenary after hours to see to her condition.

Olivia steered the ship towards the building's rooftop, foregoing the visitor's landing pads out front in favor of a more discreet approach. The flat roof, still wet from an earlier rain shower, glistened in the warm light of an evening sun. As the Lich settled down on a gravity cushion and let its engines spin down with a tired whine, Olivia slid down the extending access ladder, landing in a puddle of rain water with a splash. Wettened blood seeped from her boots into the pool, discoloring it ever so slightly. The mercenary tried to ignore it, glad that she had been able to at least clean her trousers. She took a deep breath and steeled herself for her appointment with the doctor.

He greeted her as she stepped out of an elevator onto the building's third floor.

"Miss Sable, it is good to have you back."

Olivia nodded wearily, shaking his outstretched hand.

"Thanks for seeing me again, Doctor Macintosh," she replied and followed him as he led her down a long hallway towards one of the many examination rooms that lined it. As they stepped through the door, Olivia was once more astounded by the clinic's lavish interior design, momentarily distracted from the worries that had brought here there in the first place. The room resembled a hotel suite more than it did a hospital room, its floor imitation marble, its walls painted a comfortable shade of peach and decorated with gilded vines. Luxury meant to attract Liberty's wealthy elite, not a lowly mercenary like herself. Luckily, Doctor Macintosh did not seem to mind treating someone like her.

"So, Miss Sable," the doctor said as he motioned for her to take a seat on an examination table, himself settling down on a small stool beside it. "I must say, I'm curious as to what brings you here under these... secretive circumstances." He smiled, clearly not expecting anything too serious.

Olivia took a seat on the table, sighing tiredly. She breathed in deeply, collecting her thoughts, before responding.

"You remember the migraines I complained about last time?"

The doctor nodded.

"They haven't gotten better." Olivia hesitated for an instant, deciding how forthright to be. "Actually, they've gotten a lot worse."

Doctor Macintosh stroked his chin.

"I take it you have been taking it easy lately, as I recommended?"

Olivia cringed slightly. Easy was not what she would call her lifestyle. Noticing the doctor frown at her reaction, she quickly responded, "It's not stress, I'm sure of that. Stress wouldn't-"

Macintosh raised an eyebrow as she cut herself off. He waited a moment for her to continue, but when she didn't, leaned forward and smiled reassuringly.

"Well, Miss Sable, if you don't think it's the stress, I suggest we take some more scans and see whether anything has changed."

Olivia nodded slowly, agreeing. The doctor rose from his stool and motioned toward a door in the wall behind them, leading, as Olivia already knew, towards a small laboratory. She got to her feet and followed him into the room. It provided a stark contrast to the luxurious examination room, its walls and floor covered in white tiles, no decoration to be found anywhere. It was instead filled with medical equipment, scanners, computers, and locked closets. The doctor opened one of them and retrieved what looked like a crown made of diodes and wires. Turning towards Olivia, he nodded at a chair for her to sit in and pulled up a second to sit across from her.

"Alright, Miss Sable," he spoke softly as she sat down before him, "same procedure as last time." He leaned forward and gently placed the device on her head, attaching the diodes to her scalp. "This will give us a preliminary picture of your brain's structure. If anything immediately noticeable has changed, we'll know where to look more closely." He turned towards a table to his side and brought up images of Olivia's last scan from one and a half months ago on a computer screen on top of it.

"Ready?"

Olivia nodded.

"Let's-"

She blinked ... and found herself standing in the middle of the small room.

"-go..." she finished, trailing off in confusion. She glanced about herself. Doctor Macintosh was nowhere to be seen. Frowning, she reached up to her head. The scanner was still placed firmly atop of it.

"Doctor?" She called out warily. When no response came, she stepped forward, towards the chairs they had been seated in seconds earlier. "Doctor Macintosh," she repeated. She glanced around again, a wave of anxiety building up in her chest. She stepped around the computer table beside which they had been sitting, heading towards the door to the examination room, and nearly tripped. Catching herself, she spun around and glared down at the floor.

Olivia's eyes widened in shock. Sprawled on his back across the tiled floor lay Doctor Macintosh, half hidden behind the table. Olivia took a careful step towards him and froze, noticing his head. It was twisted around, face down into the floor.

"Oh god," the mercenary muttered as she realized the man was dead.

The Lich rumbled as its engines came to life with a deep growl. Olivia sat in the pilot's seat, breathing hard and staring into the darkening sky above her.

She was caught between feeling sick at what she had done and being frustrated with herself for fleeing the scene of the murder in a near panic.

This isn't like you, she tried to encourage herself. You've dealt with worse.

But, ever since her return from the Omicrons, her mind and feelings had been a jumbled mess, and she found herself confused and afraid more often than ever before. She kicked herself mentally for not at least remembering to close the medical files that were still on display on the laboratory's computer. Now, whoever discovered Doctor Macintosh would know immediately that she was responsible for his murder.

But what was done was done. She couldn't risk returning to the scene now. No, she had to get out of the system and get back to her apartment immediately, before the doctor was found. So, she punched her ship's throttle. It lurched off the rooftop and shot into the sky.


- - -


Olivia hurried down the long corridor from the elevators to her apartment. The flight to Manhattan had been easy, no one trying to impede her. She smiled, despite her bleak circumstances. At least something was going well. As she swiped her keycard through her flat's door's lock, she felt a vibration from within her jacket. Striding through the opening door, she reached in and pulled out her PDA, glancing at the notification that had popped up on the small screen.

She paled.

It was a public bulletin from Liberty Police Inc., not an uncommon sight for her. The name on the header, however, made her breath catch in her throat. She opened the bulletin and quickly averted her gaze as a picture of herself stared up at her from the display.

"Sh*t."

So much for things going well.

Her heart beating faster, she pocketed the datapad and hurried across her apartment into the bedroom. If the police already believed her to be the prime suspect, they would dispatch units to her apartment, leaving her with only a few minutes to grab the most necessary items and make her escape.

Olivia ran to her bedside dresser, tearing open the top drawer with enough force to almost send it hurtling across the room. From within, she grabbed a single sheet of paper. She let her eyes wander over it for but an instant.

Miss Olivia Sable, If you are reading this, you have survived against substantial odds..., it read. She quickly folded it up and shoved it into her jacket's inside pocket. Then she turned to her bed and leaped up onto it. She leaned against the wall it stood against and with one hand reached up towards the ceiling. A perforated metal plate was embedded into it, covering a ventilation shaft. With the other, she reached down to her left thigh, feeling for her sheathed knife. She found it empty.

"Sh*t."

She remembered leaving the blade behind on Fontana, lying in a pool of blood between the two bodies she had woken next to.

Getting anxious, she reached up with both hands and tried to get a hold of the metal plate. Her fingers searched its edges, looking for any protrusion she could latch on to, but it was flush with the wall.

"Come on," Olivia growled in frustration. Angrily, she struck the plate with the ball of her hand. It rattled against the wall. She struck it again, harder, and was rewarded with a metallic pop as one corner came loose from its fittings. Impatiently, she grabbed at the sharp metal, ignoring the pain of it digging into her fingers' skin, and pulled, hard. The plate bent before coming free with a loud bang. Olivia fell, sprawling across the bed, and the plate went flying across the room, crashing against the far wall. Shaking her head, the mercenary got to her feet again and gazed at the now open ventilation shaft. Tucked inside was a black crate.

Olivia let out a sigh of relief at the sight of it and reached up, pulling the heavy box out. She teetered briefly under its weight, then cautiously set it down on the bed, crouching before it. Taking a deep breath, she pressed her thumb against the biometric lock on its front side. With a quiet hiss, the lid unsealed, and Olivia flung it open. Blue light washed over her from within and she smiled as she beheld the crystal orb that lay within the container. Immediately, a wave of tranquility washed over her, sweeping away the fear and frustration that had built up inside her mind.

Olivia closed her eyes, giving herself a few seconds to enjoy the peaceful respite. Under better circumstances, she would have gladly spent hours sitting before the strange, blue crystal, letting it calm her jumbled thoughts and suppressing the migraines that were ever-threatening to torture her. But, sadly, these weren't better circumstances. Breathing deeply, as if to inhale the relaxing blue light shining over her, she closed the crate's lid again, sealing its contents from the outside world. Hoisting it up into her arms, she dropped off the bed and hurried back into the living room.

It was as barren as ever, Olivia never having gotten around to decorating it. Luckily, this meant that there was little she had to worry about taking along on the flight. She strode towards the small table that stood close to the apartment door and grabbed a belt, holster, and sidearm from off it, placing them on top of the crate. Then, giving the room one last glance, she strode out of the apartment and down the hallway towards the row of elevators.


- - -


The Lich jumped into the sky, accelerating quickly away from the apartment complex. Olivia scanned the airspace around her, looking for any signs of police activity. Flashes of blue and red caught her eyes, a group of police air cruisers approaching in the distance. She pulled hard on the control stick, turning away from the incoming police units and shooting off into the opposite direction.

Trying to leave Manhattan through the orbital docking ring was out of the question. If the police were already looking for her, docking control was sure to be scanning passing traffic for her ship's transponder. If she tried to get through, a wing of police ships would be sure to intercept her in orbit.

So, Olivia kept climbing through the planet's atmosphere, in the direct opposite direction of the docking rings. It was risky, but she would have to attempt an unassisted orbital ascent and try to get clear of Manhattan without being caught by law enforcement.

She took a deep breath as the clouds passed by her ship's canopy and the blue Manhattan sky grew darker and darker around her as she climbed into the upper layers of the atmosphere. She tried to think clearly, to formulate a plan for how to escape the police's pursuit, escape Liberty if necessary, but she found it hard to focus. Her mind was a mess of questions.

What was causing her to blackout? What was making her kill people? Where could she go, where could she find answers?

She shook her head.

One problem at a time, she thought to herself.

The Lich kicked up a storm of dust and sand as it settled down on the barren ground of Pittsburgh, hidden away between the sheer slopes of two enormous rock outcroppings. To the east, the dark, smog filled sky was faintly illuminated by the lights and blast furnaces of Camp Davisson, a small, nearby mining settlement.

The flight from Manhattan to Pittsburgh had been fairly simple. Olivia had managed to escape into the Jersey field undetected and cruised from there through empty space, through the Pittsburgh scrap field, descending on the far side of the planet through a safe atmospheric approach vector she had discovered some months ago. No police ships patrolled the debris fields and even the Rogues, who claimed them as their territory, were often hesitant to venture too deep.

Olivia powered down her ship's reactor and its brown hull quickly blended into the brown dirt all around it. She sighed and rubbed her eyes. What adrenaline had kept her going despite her lack of sleep was wearing off, and she could feel exhaustion creeping up on her. But now was hardly the time to rest. She glanced at the cockpit's communications panel. Both Reyes and Isla had reached out to her upon seeing the police bulletin. She had told them what little she dared reveal. To the mercenary's surprise, even Haze had contacted her.

I guess you are a criminal now, the woman's message had read. Olivia cringed as the reality of that statement settled in.

She needed help. Discrete help. Help that could get her out of Liberty. Her name and ship were both flagged. It would be nigh impossible for her to escape the house with her current means.

Olivia scrolled through her list of contacts, looking for anyone she could reach out to. The couple wouldn't be able to do anything for her other than stay out of her way. Prower she didn't trust enough to ask for help - she was, after all, the director of naval intelligence. She hesitated as she found Beige's contact details. She knew he would be willing to help, but she feared she owed him too much already. Besides, she had gotten him arrested by LPI once already, she didn't want to make a habit of it. The list was growing short.

Cobra. She almost scrolled right past the name, but paused at its sight.

"F*ck it," she muttered and started composing a brief message.

Olivia gently placed down the crate she had lugged onboard and stepped up to the cockpit, holding on to the pilot chair's backrest as the ship accelerated away from the valley and the small town beyond.

"Thanks," she said simply as she stared out through the Eagle's canopy, watching the smoggy clouds pass by as they rocketed across the planet's inhospitable surface. It had been months since she had last visited the planet, and the memories she had of it were far from pleasant. But finding at least a brief respite at the Xenos' hideout was still preferable to camping out in the middle of the desert with nowhere else to run.

"Just some ... personal stuff I couldn't leave behind," Olivia replied, suppressing an urge to turn around and stare at the crate. While inaccurate, it wasn't technically a lie, and she hoped the Xeno would be satisfied with the vague answer. She kept her eyes up front, gazing out ahead over Damien's shoulder as he and his wingmen maneuvered towards their hidden base of operations.

Quietly, she took a series of deep breaths, trying to clear her head from fatigue and the uncertainties that kept ricocheting around her mind like a bullets in a barrel.