Welcome back, my dear readers, and say hello to the one of the defining moments in "Ashes".  In this chapter, we learn that Steve Hawke is more than he seems, and also one of those twists I mentioned occurs.  By the way, I don't know if I told you about this before, but I love feedback about my stories!  Send it all here and don't be shy... I'll only bite your head off metaphorically.  Kidding.  Anyway, the story is underway, as I consider this to be the first chapter of the story, with "Awakening" as more of a prologue.  Still, I can't change it now.  Well, I guess I could, but I'm just too damnably lazy.  Anyway (or neway in l33t), enjoy Chapter 2.  I wouldn't want to spoil Chapter 3 by telling you that it's going to get a few more twists, so I won't.

 Enlightenment

For the next two days, John Murphy avoided the eyes of Steve Hawke and found his heartbeat racing whenever he was forced to talk to him.  By the end of the second day, Steve knew there was something going on, and tried to confront Murphy in a side hall of the compound.

"What’s the matter with you, John?  I can’t even talk to you anymore... what’s happened?"

"Nothing.  Nothing’s happened, Steve."

"Oh, come on.  Even I can see there’s something wrong."

John took a deep breath, and decided to bite the bullet and ask the question.  "Okay, Steve.  We need to talk.  Do you know someplace?"

"Come to my apartment after work.  We’d be safe there."  Murphy walked away without another word.  Steve had a nasty suspicion that he knew what Murphy needed to talk about, but… no, he couldn’t know about that.  He’d kept it too well hidden.  There was no way-

His eyes opened wide as he finally made the connection.  Of course!  he thought, Elly!  He now realized exactly what a precarious position his secrets, his career, and even his life were in.  He stood in the hallway for a minute more, unconsciously biting his thumbnail, before hurrying off down the hall in the direction he came.  He had a very important email to write.  One that just might save his life as well as John Murphy's.

*      *      *

The bell sounded, and Steve rushed to the door.  He had just performed his daily check for tiny microphones or cameras hidden in his spartan apartment, and was confident that his and John's conversation would not be overheard.  One couldn't be too careful, with this government and its agents.  He had over a dozen methods of tracking entry to his apartment and would know if anyone had performed a little nonchalant spying.  He also had ways of removing the unauthorized trespasser...

He flung open the door and quickly ushered John Murphy inside.  "Something to drink?"

"No, thank you.  I have to talk to you."

Steve sighed inwardly.  He'd hoped it wouldn't have had to come to this.  He forced a smile.  "Shoot."

"Steve, I know about your connection with my daughter and with the NSF.  I know that you two were close, and..."  He took a shuddering breath.  "...when she was killed she left her datacube.  After reading that, I've formed some, um, speculations."  He glanced at Steve and saw him staring at the ground, with a hopeless, depressed, and above all old expression in his eyes.

He looked up briefly.  "Do tell."

"I think that UNATCO is not an agent of the UN, it belongs to a group called Majestic 12.  I think that the Grey Death is produced and spread by Page Industries, as is the Ambrosia vaccine."  He swallowed.  "Am I right?"

Steve slowly raised his head and looked directly at his friend.  It looked to John as if there was some fierce battle raging inside his head, a battle between his oath to secrecy and opening up.  Eventually, like some Oracle who requires great impetus and great effort to speak, he said, "Partly.  The apple is more rotten than you ever thought.  UNATCO is an offspring of the UN, yet it still is corrupt.  How do you think that's possible?"

"Only if..."  He shook his head.  "No.  No, the UN is the only organization that binds together all nations, the only one with control over... them..."  He realized exactly what Steve was saying.  He searched Steve's face for any sign that he was going to say something, anything except what he knew he'd hear.

Steve nodded grimly.  "Majestic 12 controls the UN and its offspring.  But even that is not the whole of it.  The core of the apple is the most rotten of all, and living inside that core is 'Mr. Nice Guy' Bob Page.  He, and only he is the very root of the whole tainted mess."  Steve's expression changed.  "John, you must not, you cannot tell anyone what I have just told you.  The fact that it is a secret ensures our own motives.  That's why I convinced your daughter to join our cause."

Murphy's head snapped up.  "What did you say?"  Rage suffused his normally placid countenance.  "You got her into this?  You got her into this and now she's dead?" he snarled.

Steve sunk back in his chair.  "No, John, she's no-"

A noise like the very thunder of doom cracked in John's ears and he stared at the now-smoking doorway, with no door left in it.  A man stepped through the smothering blackness - but he could hardly even be called a man.  He had so many pieces of machinery and tubing under and above his metallic skin that he looked more robot than human.  He took three giant steps and broke the coffee table with a flick of his knee.  Steve hopped over the back of his chair and pulled a heavy pistol out of his detective holster.  He pointed it at the terrible man-machine and fired.  The bullet ricocheted off its skin and buried itself in the wall behind him.

The awful apparition reached down slowly, never taking its augmented eyes off Steve's terrified face.  With an apparently effortless twitch, it sent the heavy chair hurtling across the room, breaking a window and leaving a massive dent in the wall.  The dread nightmare advanced on Steve.  The agent fired his gun once, twice, three times, and still the machine did not stop.  Murphy could see from his vantage point that at least one of the bullets had hit its mark and was lodged somewhere inside that strange skin, but the heavily augmented man - for John could clearly see it was a man now, just so upgraded that he was barely recognizable - was completely unfazed.

He reached out with two arms bristling with mechanics and tried to grab Steve, who wriggled and ran for the door.  The man, quick as lightning, grabbed a flowerpot off a nearby table and sent it flying with remarkable accuracy straight for Steve's head.  He went down.  John's friend got up on his hands and knees and tried to crawl for safety, but the man grasped him firmly and held him immobile with one hand.  He seemed to notice Murphy, cowering in his chair, so dumbfounded he couldn't move, for the first time.  He reached into a small pocket on his trousers and extracted a badge.  It was a badge very familiar to John - there was an identical copy in the pocket of his coat.

"UNATCO Special Agent Gunther Hermann.  I apologize for any inconvenience," he said in thickly accented German.  His voice had a curious grating sound that rasped on Murphy's teeth.

As the huge man walked out of the destroyed apartment, Steve squirmed and freed his mouth.  "She's not dead, John!  She's not de-" he bellowed.  The metal hand of his captor quickly covered Steve's mouth and he was quiet once more.

John was scared out of his wits, terrified and shaking, and had bitten his thumb so hard he could taste the blood.