Artificial Willpower

Personal

Art of Kathrine by the spectacular _sleepy.moth on instagram!

The two stayed at the warehouse for a few hours to treat the cut on Yancy's side, change their clothes, and eat.

Illinois didn't want to sit around for too long, but he was starting to see the dangers in just pushing through exhaustion and pain.

Luckily the chances of this car drawing suspicion were low, and they had plenty of supplies both in the car with them now, and at the safe house, he had put together.

Before long, they were back on the road and Illinois was driving again.

"We should probably start planning our attack..." Illinois said with a breath "Pitch knows I'm the one behind a lot of this now. If he wasn't on a warpath before, he sure is now"

"Right... I've been thinkin about that... there's more facilities like that place, right?"

"Yeah. A few dozen across the country with a pretty wide variety of experiments. I haven't done a deep dive into too many of them, but they all seem to be pretty gruesome, and it looks like hardly any of them are on a volunteer basis..."

"And youses goal is just to take down the one I was at, right?"

"Yeah... As much as I'd love to take all of them down, we have to be somewhat realistic"

"Ideally, how do youse think is the best way to get that place out of operation for a long while?"

Illinois' eyebrows furrowed. It sounded like Yancy was trying to point out something, but decided to follow Yancy's train of thought until they got there.

"I was thinking we get in there, make them think there's some sort of emergency, get the building evacuated, then try to blow up the place. Hopefully, with the loss of information and everything inside, it'll take them a long time to get back up and functioning"

"And once they rebuild, the cycle will start all over again. And nothin will ever stop."

"But it's something. Yancy, if you don't wanna do it, you can tell me. I won't get upset. I can keep trying to keep you safe and try to take it down myself. I understand it feels pointless, and I'd never ask you to risk your life over something you don't feel is worth it." Illinois said gently.

As hard as it would be to do alone, he couldn't truly blame Yancy if this was his way of trying to back out. It really did feel like a dead end sometimes.

"Nonono, youse not gettin it. I want that place gone just as bad as you. But I think I may have figured out a way to take em all down. Maybe even revive the Bionic Prosthetic Project." Yancy said, seeming a bit excited.

Illinois knew letting your hopes get too high could cause immeasurable disappointment, but Illinois would be lying if he said the excitement about such a possibility wasn't contagious. Could his good intentions somehow still be salvaged? Could he fix not only his own mistakes but the mistakes of thousands like him?

"I'm all ears, Yance"

-

"Doctor Pitch, perhaps it's time for you to take a step back from the search"

It was right after yet another meeting, this time about some of the most recent events on the search for Daniel Jones. Ever since the escape, people had been questioning Pitch's capabilities, and Pitch was reaching the end of his rope on the topic.

However this was the first time the head of the facility, his boss, had brought it up.

"Director Wilson, with all due respect," Pitch said, setting down his pen and giving her his full attention as he spoke "It's more essential than ever for me to be involved in all this. I worked closer with Illinois Arch than anyone here has. And now we know he's the ring leader of all this"