When The Lights Go Out

In the Old World, they had a phrase… The City That Never Sleeps. If there was ever a phrase so apt to describe Clifton, it would be that. Even if the Old World could not even imagine something like Clifton, they came up with a perfect name.

There is not a single minute of any day when the noise stops, when the lights go out, and when normal people would be able to fall asleep. The more affluent people got noise cancelling tech in their sleeping rooms. They put blackout curtains over windows. They did their best to imagine that the sun had truly gone down. That the day was truly over.

Living as he was, Jonathan did not have the benefit of noise cancellation or light reduction. Most nights he lay awake until sleep forced its way into his mind. Tonight was one of those nights. Before sleep visited him like a jailer, the air grew tense and Jonathan got out of bed.

He did not bother changing out of the pajamas he wore, he went straight for the service pistol he stole when he left Moira Singh's office. It felt right in his hands, despite that he felt like he was the eye of a storm. On queue from him racking the slide, the lights went out.

The lights going out right after he felt the air tense up, some kind of technology was at play. Rook said he would pull all the strings he could and Jonathan was hoping that would get him one night of sleep before things went badly.

He might be able to survive what came next but there was only one way to ensure that his neighbors would come out of this unscathed. Jonathan grabbed a duffel bag and made his way to the window. He waited until his door burst inward, until they saw him fleeing. Then he jumped to the street below.

It stung as his feet hit the ground, but it was nothing compared to what would come if he did not move. The magnitude of the blackout was only two blocks out and two blocks up, as far as Jonathan could tell. He could have made it to the light, but without knowing what he was up against, Jonathan knew that he could not face them in the light.

If they could create a blackout, they would have tech at their disposal outside of it. They might mask their presence with the blackout, but they also left themselves blind to support. Some faith their employer must have in these clean suits.

Jonathan ducked back into the gym from the ground and made it to the side of the staircase just as his pursuers came down. He stepped out from behind the four clean suits as soon as they passed him by. Absently, Jonathan wondered if they were the same four that had been with Rook. He wondered if Rook was nearby watching. He wondered if this had anything to do with the blackout that cost him his partner. Wondering only got him so far.

To their credit, the clean suits did not stand a chance. They thought that Jonathan was on the street and fleeing from them. There was no way to know that he had circled back so quickly. The first one went down with a busted knee and a broken neck, from their it turned into a dance of two parties.

Three versus one, the clean suits must have felt secure still because they engaged Jonathan in melee combat. They could have used the pistols they were carrying, but for whatever reason they holstered their guns and advanced on him. It was their folly if they were trying to take him alive. Jonathan had a modicum of training and a laundry list of pent up frustrations. The clean suits should have known that, they should have known to not engage him.

When the last one went down, Jonathan wondered how much they knew. Now that he had seen their faces up close, he knew they were not the same suits that had been with Rook. Did it mean that everything was compartmentalized? Rook's team was sent in to try and talk Jonathan in but when that didn't work, these men were sent to hit him during a blackout? If they were supposed to leave a corpse behind, why not shoot? If they were meant to capture him, why use the blackout? No one would have noticed someone go missing in Bleak Barrow.

The door to the gym opened, Jonathan drew his service pistol again on instinct. He had expected to see Rook standing there, but instead there were two civilians about his age. One of them was carrying a laptop. That was the first sign something was off. Civilians did not walk around during a blackout with a laptop. The second sign was the other one, he was covered in tattoos that made no sense. They looked like background noise, ink blots and static. Digital ink, disrupted by the blackout.

Jonathan could see that the girl with the laptop's eye was twitching. Cybernetic of some kind, the blackout was playing havoc with it.

Console Ghost.

They did not look like they were here to help. The girl with the laptop was a half-step behind her partner and he looked like he was ready to fight as soon as the blackout lifted. Jonathan put away his service weapon, hoping that would ease the tension. Before he could find out if it helped, the lights came back on and the girl with the laptop disappeared.

His eyes adjusted and Jonathan realized that the girl had not disappeared. Instead the room had shifted somehow and he was standing next to her by the entrance while the tattooed man was standing over the four suits that Jonathan had dealt with. He felt a prick on his arm and looked down to see the girl with the laptop holding a used needle in her other hand.

She mouthed the word SORRY as the world swam around Jonathan. Everything blurred together and then eventually faded to black.

Jonathan should have been worried, but he had no strength to fight the darkness that encompassed him. Instead, he gave into it. It had been months since he slept well, his brain and body were both tired. He needed the rest, he could deal with the consequences when he woke up.