Hey guys! I know, I know, long time no write. But I'm back now with this Work In Progress. I have the general outline but have only written a few chapters out right. I've been sitting on this idea for a while and I know if I don't just put it out there now, I never will. Also if there are people who want to read it, then it'll force me to finish writing. So, I just want to say any suggestions, criticisms or praise are accepted and encouraged. :)
Also a warning: this gets pretty dark and dives into the relationships of every character on the show. Its set after the season 3 finale where there is no watch to save the day.
This has not be beta'd so any and all mistakes are my own. I apologize in advance.
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own Warehouse 13.
Black Boots on a One-Way Street
Chapter 1
"I'm looking for Mark Johnson," she says, boredom barely hidden under her authoritative tone.
The grubby bartender looks her up and down out of the corner of his eye. She stares back at him, arms crossed and legs straight, something akin to an unmovable force of nature. The man's old grey eyes narrow slightly as he continues spreading the dried alcohol around his abused counter.
"Never heard of him," he finally rumbles out, swinging the dirty cloth over his shoulder.
She closes her eyes in frustration for a tiny second before she takes a seat at the near empty bar. There are a few construction workers having a beer along the other side of the small hole-in-the-wall. One of which - the one with the cropped brown hair - has been eying her from the minute she stepped foot in the place. And there is another man in the opposite corner wearing a Stetson; his eyes are on the row of drinks behind the bar but the edges of his lips are curved just the slightest – finding humor in her annoyance.
"Jack and coke then," she orders, reigning in her sigh. It isn't what she usually gets but unfortunately it's a necessary piece of the puzzle she's been playing for the past few months.
Despite his grumpy exterior, the bartender starts mixing the drink right away, apparently unwilling to lose a customer.
"That's a pretty grown up drink, there," the brown haired worker voices across the room to her. "You sure you're up for it, sweetie?"
He snickers and the men around him laugh to please their drunken leader. She holds back a reply with ease, keeping her eyes on the bartender and the drink he places before her. She downs it in two gulps and asks for another.
The peanut gallery chuckles again, slightly less arrogantly and she can't help but let a tiny smirk grace her features. The older bartender gives her the drink with a weary eye and shuffles away from her to give the men another round of beer.
She drinks the next one slower. She has the bartender's attention even if he doesn't want to give it and she tries to enjoy the alcohol as it burns it's way down her throat to settle in her empty stomach. By the time she finishes the men in the corner have started singing a drunken, out of tune, and much more vulgar version of the latest pop song that plays on the radio every few minutes. She might have recognized the tune if she listened to the radio anymore.
But she grew tired of the constant spew of lies strewn together like an elaborate web ages ago. And in the mid-west, there is one lie that she hears more often than most in the past year: the one about a gas explosion – a freak accident – that demolished the country's biggest deposit of IRS forms. And how it might have been a government conspiracy or drunken workers or foolhardy and bored teenagers or a psychopathic man bent on the destruction of the warehouse since he was a kid. Well, that last one never got out. The truth rarely does.
Drunken laughter breaks up her silent brooding and she orders a third drink eliciting another jeering noise from the brown haired drunk. She sips the drink, ignoring the man as he slowly stumbles towards her. With a look over his shoulder at his cohorts, he leans one arm on the counter and gives her a crooked smile.
"Hey, there babe," he slurs. His breath smells of cheap beer and cigarettes and she happily takes another swig of her drink to cover his odor.
Unlike any sane, sober man, the worker takes her silence as an invitation to run his hand over her back and takes a loud, obnoxious sniff of her hair. She turns her body then, grabbing and twisting his curious hand and he ends up on his knees, his face scrunched in pain and her scent in his mouth is gone with a scream of pain.
"I wouldn't do that," she says as calmly as if she were commenting on the weather. She releases the man and goes back to her drink. The air in the bar is electrified, every eye is on her and she's only glad that she's in a remote-out-of-the-way bar with no phone reception besides the pay phone hidden in a dark corner. Someone calling for help or even texting an outsider is the kind of trouble she wants more than anything to ignore.
And yet. The man she left on the ground regains his stance and the room holds their breath. It is then that she knows she should have left when she had the chance. If she had just walked away then and there… no, this isn't her fault. She is there for one reason and it is not to be molested by a drunken construction worker.
The man tries to punch her from behind, betraying his surprise with a muttered curse word just before. She ducks out of the way and in a maneuver that comes with years of experience, she slams the man's head against the counter and he falls to the ground, unconscious. Seconds pass and the group in the corner work up the courage to retaliate for what they see as injustice. If they were sober, maybe they might have realized three men against one woman is hardly justice, she thinks blithely. It is just stupidity.
Minutes later, she stands amongst a pile of men all groaning in pain with an almost apologetic look at the bartender. He stares at her, eyes full of fear and disbelief, as he mutters three numbers. "425," and points to the phone in the shadows.
Three numbers, that's all she wanted in the first place. And after all she's been through tonight, she wonders if she even wants to go through with her plan. But then things like money and self worth and pride dance through her mind and she nods at the bartender in thanks.
She picks up the dirty receiver and deftly punches the numbers into the keypad. After two rings a voice answers, "Yes?"
It's always the same voice, she thinks, and it's always the same answer. "Mark Johnson."
The line goes silent like it always does and she takes those few seconds to survey the bar. The drunken men are still rolling on the ground, slowly returning to consciousness but she's not worried about that. She's worried about the man from across the bar wearing a Stetson and a smirk, or rather the lack thereof. He must have slipped out when she was busy with the brown haired worker or maybe later when the full out fight occurred.
Either way, he is gone now and who knows whom he has told of his little trip to the local bar. By now he could be well into the world of cell service and any call, any text, and she'd be found out.
"- 2773 Lynnwest Court, Sterling, Colorado. Shield."
The line clicks off faster than she can pull her thoughts back to the matter at hand. She quickly memorizes what she hears and briefly wonders if they changed the format but no, just like everything else, just like Mark Johnson, like the Jack and Coke, like the three numbers in a tiny bar in the middle of nowhere, it never changes. Name, address, and assignment. She missed the name.
But she doesn't have the time to worry about it, she has the address, she can figure out the name easily. She barely gives the bartender a backward glance as she steals out into the black night.
.:.
She doesn't take off her shoes inside a residence anymore. Nor does she remove her jacket or essential things like her Tesla, keys, phone, and wallet from her pockets. She has a spare set of clothes and a toothbrush stashed in a black backpack that she carries with her. She also has an old computer that desperately needs an upgrade but why waste the money on something that will someday get left behind permanently when a mission goes wrong?
She buys whatever else she needs. Which requires money. And unfortunately, it order to stay low, under the radar, she has to do these jobs. Jobs that Secret Service agents legally cannot do and bounty hunters don't want to do. Top secret – even the government who handle the job placements don't know exactly who carries out the contracts. All they know is the person is former CIA, FBI, or Secret Service because only they know the rules. A story told by mouth to agents suspected of being demoted and might possibly quit. She learned it after Sam died.
These are the jobs for the desperate. And as much as she loathes thinking it, she is desperate. Hotel rooms and deodorant don't pay for themselves. So, when money is tight she finds a bar with the Ace of Spades card displayed in a corner window and follows the routine. It's worked well so far.
But when she enters her two star motel room on the side of a bumpy interstate road this night, she doesn't stop to check the local news on channel four. She grabs her bag off her dingy bed and slams her computer shut, ignoring the blinking message she sees on the screen. Closing the door behind her, she opens the nearest unlocked car and hotwires it. A flash of red blurs her vision but she swiftly dismisses it. Within seconds the only trace of Myka Bering left in the town of Leoti, Kansas are her footprints on the thin dust in front of the broken down motel. And even those are blown away with the next strong gust of wind.
.:.
The road is dark and foreboding as it merges with the black sky. Clouds quietly conceal the stars like a killer covering the mouth of his latest victim. A storm is coming and Myka can't help but think she's driving right into the thick of it. She reaches carelessly for the radio and curses when it refuses to click on. Silence engulfs her and her traitorous mind turns inward.
She's startled slightly by a soft cough behind her. She knows who it is before she even turns and smiles at the sight of H.G. Wells cautiously exiting the Bed and Breakfast to stand next to her fellow brunette.
They stand in relative silence, gazing out at the stars above and the quiet atmosphere around them. Myka still can't believe it – that the real live H.G. Wells is here, standing next to her, breathing the same air as her and as far as she is concerned, not evil. No matter what Artie may think.
"You seem a bit tense," H.G. observes out loud, "Dare I ask why?"
She smirks slightly, allowing Myka the opportunity to ignore the question but her eyes are incredibly curious. H.G. may present a smooth and calm exterior but Myka knows her mind is always working, always watching and memorizing, always so perceptive.
"Just thinking about what Artie said to me earlier," Myka confesses. She wraps her arms around herself despite the warm temperature outside.
"Ah," H.G. says and turns back to the stars with a knowing smile on her face. "I'm guessing a 'good job' wasn't in his speech anywhere?"
Myka smiles but doesn't answer. There's no need anyway, no one has seen Artie since he stormed out after H.G.'s reinstatement, which has been collectively determined a "not good thing" as Pete so eloquently put it.
"I've said this before, but I don't expect all of you to trust me right away," she pauses and Myka can't help but think how endearing H.G. looks as she continues to sheepishly talk to her shoes. "Gaining trust is a slow process, I know that but…"
H.G. turns her gaze to the stars once more and smiles brightly, almost in embarrassment, "You have a wonderful family here and I'd hate to be the one to cause such a rift between you and Artie – "
"Artie and I will be fine," Myka cuts off whatever H.G. was going to say with a firm nod. H.G. blushes slightly and returns her gaze to the ground as Myka continues, "And he'll come around in his own time. He… He has his own way and his own secret tests that determines who can receive his trust."
"Yes, he seems very protective," H.G. agrees and the two share a laugh.
"You have no idea."
They lapse back into comfortable silence for a few minutes before H.G. breaks it softly, "Well, all this excitement has worn me out. I'm going to head to bed."
She turns but stops at Myka's voice. "Thank you."
"For what?" H.G. asks innocently. Myka hears the peeked curiosity and the wheels turning in her head. She smiles and turns to the British woman. "Thank you for saving my life with the grappler. And for saving Claudia's and Artie's."
They share a smile and H.G. nods humbly before replying, "You're welcome. I'm very glad I was there to help. See you in the morning." And then she slips back into the dark B&B and Myka wonders once again how someone this intelligent and humble and thoughtful could have ever been bronzed.
Tears blur her eyes and the few and far between streetlights morph into lines guiding her through the darkness. She barely has enough gas to make it to the Kansas/Colorado border so she decides to pull into the nearest town to get a room for the night.
The room is bigger than her last one but somehow less expensive. She tries not to think about what is missing or what's damaged that has lowered the price. Instead she just locks the door, windows, and pulls the blinds closed before she puts down her bag and boots up her computer. She opens the cheap bar of soap in the bathroom sink and scrubs her face before hopping in the shower for a quick once over and a cleansing cry. Changing into her new, cleaner set of clothes – black pants and a blue shirt – she falls into the bed. And glances at her computer screen.
It's there again. The message blinks on and off like a never-ending strobe light.
I can help you bring her back, it says. And she knows exactly who sent it. Who keeps sending it every time she opens her computer. And who the "her" is referring to.
Maybe it's the lack of sleep and the downside of an adrenaline rush. Maybe it's the fresh tears and an old memory resurfacing that makes her do it. Maybe she is just tired of life on the run.
Whatever it is, the last thing Myka is cognizant of before falling into the ecstasy of sleep is typing four keys.
How?
.:.
She revels in the moments right before fully waking but when she's still asleep; the last vestiges of her dreams cling to her semi-conscious mind before reality startles her awake. She sits straight and quiets her breathing in milliseconds and remains still for a full minute listening for locks clicking, footsteps on carpet or cement, car doors shutting. But she hears none, nothing but the tweeting of two birds announcing the sunrise and her own breathing.
Slowly she lies back down and relaxes. It's been months, maybe even a year since she's experienced those few precious moments of pure bliss. As she puts on her shoes and washes her face, she tries to remember her dream. Bits and pieces come back to her; the feeling of happiness and the scent of apples are among the most powerful.
Draping her jacket over her shoulders she looks at her computer. She freezes; there are more words than the simple line she's learned to overlook. There is a tiny word that forms a huge, astronomical question and underneath that, there is a simple yet so complicated address and time.
Myka searches her memories, before the sleeping and the amazing dream, but after falling onto the bed. Yes, she did type that word but she never pressed "enter." She never did. She doesn't really want to know how to save her… right?
No, the rational part of her brain insists. There's no way to save her, especially now, eighteen months later. So there's no point even giving it a thought.
But there is, she thinks with more positive emotions than she's felt in months. There must be a way because the person on the other side of her computer says there is and she doesn't lie. Not about things like this. And when Myka stops to really think about it, she never has to press enter. All she has to do is point the gun, and the girl on the other side of the computer will willingly pull the trigger. And she has.
There might be a way. The idea floats lazily in her mind as if it wasn't the most heart wrenching decision she's ever made. It blurs her eyesight and Myka, damn the logic, the rationality, wants to know the truth. It's like she has been given a taste of a drug and she needs more. She needs it and she wants it and she so loves it because there is a way. Maybe.
Myka can almost hear her logical self sigh in resignation as she snatches up her things.
So what do you think? Let me know. :)