Not in Kansas anymore
She stacked the last crate of empty beer bottles on the shelf. Janice would have Tom take them to the recycling place on Tuesday. She drudged back up the stairs and out of the small basement. The season was over which meant she would have to go back to her off season job in the city. She really wished the place was open longer than the ride season but with the weird weather they had during the winter an open air venue like hog heaven was just ill advised at best.
She walked across the main bar area and into the small office in the back. She retrieved her purse and helmet. Seth was still talking on the phone so he simply held up her paycheck. She sighed and took it from his hand. She would miss this place for the next few months, while she poured lattes for college students instead of shots for bikers. She shoved the check into her purse and headed out of the door.
"Gin?" said Seth
She turned.
"They're already to go, if you need anything else give me a call" said Gin
"Thanks, see you in a few months?" said Seth
She nodded yes towards the man, gave a short wave and walked out the door. She crossed the bar floor again and exited through the huge sliding barn doors at one end. Walked down the short flight of stairs and across the audience area in front of the small stage. She exited out the side gate waved to the security guard as she passed him. The sky was dark and the wind was picking up. The weather man had predicted storms tonight and from the dark rolling clouds he was more than right.
She was pulling on her helmet as she crossed the parking lot. When she reached her bike she stowed her purse in the saddle bag, flung her leg over the seat and kick started her bike.
A minute later she was roaring down the highway and back to the small town she lived in, Twenty miles down from the Teton dam in the town of Wilford. She pulled up to her apartment just as her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her purse in the saddlebag and answered it on the last ring.
"what? I just got home" said Gin
"Well then hurry we'll be by in twenty minutes" said Tara.
Gin was pulling the saddlebag off as she talked and then walking towards her front door.
"I know, I just got off work. Just give me time to change, all right see you then" said Gin
She unlocked her door and walked inside, flipping on her lights as she did so. She headed for her room stripping off her work uniform as she walked. She dropped her helmet on her couch and toed off her shoes by the door. So by the time she reached her bathroom she was nude. She turned on the shower and quickly hopped inside. She washed her hair and rinsed the days sweat from her body before stepping out and heading back into the room. This time wrapped in a towel. She pulled undergarments out of her dresser and quickly put them on as she was reaching into her closet for her clothes.
She pulled out the short jean skirt a tank and a checked shirt for over it. As a lark she pulled on her cowboy boots and grabbed her hat.
She switched her wallet and check into a blue jean purse, shoved her phone inside just as her friends pulled up outside and honked. Gin headed for her front door with her keys in her hand. She locked her front door and headed down her walkway to her friend's Volkswagen. Jade stepped out and pulled back the seat so Gin could climb in the back seat.
"We need to hit the bank so I can put in my check" said Gin
Tara nodded in understanding as jade climbed back inside. Tara and jade both worked at the hog as waitresses and were Gin's few friends. She wasn't the type to really bond with other women, so the few she did call friends she kept in touch with. Tonight they were heading into the city for a chance to blow off some steam before they all went their separate ways for the season. They would be back next season because they were regulars like Gin but it would be awhile before they saw each other again.
The sky was steadily growing darker and quite a bit ominous. Halfway to the city it started to rain, so Jade was lamenting her lack of jacket by the time they pulled into the bank's parking lot. Gin hurried from the car and up to the atm machine.
She quickly signed the back of her check, shoved it into an envelope and inserted her card into the machine. She followed the prompts to deposit it and got cash back. She exited the atm cover and headed across the parking lot that the bank shared with the grocery store. The wind was blowing quite hard and lightning was dancing across the sky in the distance.
She paused to snap a quick pick of a particularly beautiful display of multiple strikes. Then she almost dropped her phone when the wind blew a cart across the parking lot and into a light pole. She turned to see where it went and froze. The clouds in the distance resembled a boiling mass of black except for in the center, which looked like a funnel. Her eyes widened in horror because it looked just like a tornado funnel. Another cart blew across the lot and this time almost hit her. Gin raised her phone and took a picture just as lightning lit up the funnel from within with an eerie blue light.
She slowly lowered it were her eyes deceiving her or was that funnel coming this way.
The wind suddenly got stronger so gin turned tail and ran for the car. The weather was no longer just an inconvenience now it was downright scary. She was halfway to it when lightning struck one of the light poles in the lot right near the car. The pole swayed and jade quickly put the car into gear. The car lurched forward out of the way of the now falling pole, just in time.
Gin started for the car again because now it was farther away and the wind was so hard she was having difficulty staying on her feet. Lightning struck the ground a few feet from the car and then danced across the parking lot. Her friends screamed in terror. She took a few more steps, trying to fight her way to car. Then suddenly something hit her legs hard enough to knock her off her feet. She felt like she was being lifted so she grabbed for the only thing within reach of her fingers, a concrete car stop. She screamed and over the howl of the wind she could hear her friends screaming her name. One of her nails broke off as the wind dragged her fingers across the concrete and the short stab of pain caused her to lose her grip. She was pulled screaming up into the clouds as lightning danced across where she had just been. She was still screaming as she was thrown around by the wind. Something smacked her upside the head and everything went black.
When she came to she was falling, rather quickly. She screamed again just as the ground came into view. She slammed into the ground hard enough to leave a small crater. Everything hurt, literally every inch of her was in agony. She coughed weakly and felt something metallic in her mouth, then mercifully passed out again. When she woke she heard voices and vaguely registered she was being strapped to a board by what looked like paramedics. She drifted in and out of consciousness as she was lifted out of the hole.
He frowned as he watched them lift the girl out of the rubble that had been shield's base. The tessaract had really done a job on the area and the storm it generated didn't help one bit. He popped a stick of gum into his mouth and caught Coulson's eye. So far they had dug nothing but dead bodies out of the debris until they found her. She had yet to be identified and at first they thought she might be a visitor to the base that was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. She definitely wasn't one of theirs, you could tell just by the way she was dressed. Gravel crunched next to him and he didn't need to turn to know it was Hill.
"they're taking her to mercy, do you want me to set up a guard detail?" said Hill
"Yeah until we know who she is and more importantly how she got on the base, then we will work from there" said Fury
"They found three more alive near where they found her, perhaps she's good luck whoever she is" said Hill
"I don't believe in luck" said Fury
He turned to watch them load her into the ambulance. The doors were closed and the vehicle sped away. Two more people were being loaded into the remaining ambulances. So far the death toll was just over fifty with only a dozen survivors, if you included the girl. He still wasn't sure if he should include the girl.
"Hill when you get back to the carrier run her face through the system, she has to be in there somewhere" said Fury
"Yes sir, ah?" said Hill
"Go we've got it from here" said Fury.
He looked out over the horizon to where the dark clouds were slowly dissipating. The eerie blue lightning was gone now but the clouds still looked creepy. One of the searchers pulled what looked like a small blue jean purse from the debris.
It definitely wasn't shield issue so he beaconed to the searcher.
The bag was carried up the hill to his position. He took it from the man's hands, looked it over briefly then opened it. He ignored the make-up and the tampon. The phone he would look through later. What interested him was the paper, it looked like a paycheck stub.
"Cygin Smythe. Odd name. Hog Heaven, interesting sounds like a biker bar" said Fury
He opened the rather childish wallet with the weird cat face on it. Inside he found cash, a motorcycle license and an atm card from a bank he didn't recognize the name of. The picture on the license looked an awful lot like their mystery woman. He tapped his earpiece.
"Hill?" said Fury
"yes sir?" said Hill
"Run a search for a Cygin Smythe, address 221 Baker apt B Wilford, Idaho. I believe it is our mystery woman. Also look up a Hog heaven and a bank named wells Fargo" said Fury
"Wells Fargo? Okay?" said Hill
He heard typing
"So far nothing either under the name or facial. The town no longer exists, hasn't for about twenty years, got wiped out by a flood after the dam burst and there is no such bank by that name anywhere in the United States or elsewhere for that matter" said Hill
Fury frowned that wasn't what he wanted to hear.
"review the offsite footage up until they go off line, see if the cameras picked her up and double the security detail. She doesn't leave that hospital until we know who she is, and what she was doing at our base" said Fury
"Will do, I'll call you if I find anything" said Hill