I Do Not own Hellboy. So, yes, now that that's taken care of...
It was so cold, so dark, everything was numb. The air whooshed around his body as something pulled him further down. A metallic taste suddenly filled his mouth.
John hissed as he woke, his bitten tongue throbbing in pain. Stupid nightmares...they'd been occurring on and off for the past three months.
"Agent Myers, you're awake. Perfect timing, too. We're here," the helicopter pilot said jovially.
"Where is here, sir?" John asked peering hopelessly out of the darkened windows. He had never been informed of where he had been transferred to. All he had to go on were a few chuckles and looks of pity… not to mention a memo saying to pack heavy clothing and to turn in all his weapons.
"Byrd Surface Camp, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, Agent Myers. Welcome to the end of the earth."
As he sat in a wooden chair waiting for his new commanding officer, Agent John Myers of the B.P.R.D. thought back to a few days before, at the main base in Newark, New Jersey...
2 days ago
" Goodbye, Agent Myers... John. I hope that, someday, we meet again, perhaps under normal circumstances." Abe Sapien chuckled at his own slightly tacky joke. The man, er… fish-man, rather… tended to have a self-deprecating sense of humor. John tried not to look uneasy, but his laughter told a different story.
"Good luck" Manning said as he quickly walked through the building's foyer.
Liz stepped forward. "Bye, John. Be safe, okay?" She reached out to give him a hug. Suddenly, he saw a flicker of red from behind a column.
"Um, yes, well, thank you, Liz." John quickly stuck his hand out for a handshake, which earned him only a strange look from Liz.
As he walked toward the exit, he heard a familiar deep voice from within the shadows say "Bundle up, Boyscout."
Now
Despite the fact that he was indoors, John Myers was cold. "Sh-sh-shit. It's f-f-freezing." John stuttered as he paced around, trying to keep his circulation going.
"Actually, Agent Myers, it's below zero." John jumped to what could be considered a poor excuse for attention. He attributed his "rustiness" to the fact that at HQ, one was more focused on getting the job done than adhering to procedure.
"Relax, Agent Myers. No need to get jumpy," the man jibed as he walked to the chair behind the desk. "Agent Myers, please, sit," the man said pleasantly as he sat down. "So, what did you do to get transferred to Byrd Station? Shoot something you shouldn't have? Set some important document on fire? What?" The man grinned.
John shifted nervously in his seat. "I'm not quite sure, sir."
"Ahh, you pissed someone off, didn't you? Must have been pretty serious, eh?" The man laughed. "No matter, you're here now, aren't you?"
John wished he wasn't.
2 weeks ago
"Myers! What the fuck were you doing out there?" John pointedly ignored Hellboy by staring at the floor and picking at the lizard guts plastered to his pants. Hellboy paced furiously in the back of the garbage truck , his unshod, hoofed feet clicking against the metal.
"Red, if Liz is on fire, I can't exactly grab her and push her out of the way! Besides, she's fine." John protested.
"Yeah, well I bet you wanted to..." Hellboy muttered darkly.
" 'Wanted to' what, Red?"
"Wanted to grab her! I've seen the way you look at her, Myers -"
"Red, I've told you at least eighty times, I don't feel that way about Liz! If I had a sister, she'd probably look like Liz, so I treat her that way! Goddammit, Red, I just want her to be happy. I know that, sometimes, you have doubts, but you don't always have to come gunning for me!" John whipped his head around, only to stare in disbelief at a sleeping Hellboy in the corner of the truck.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me!"
Now
"So, sir. What exactly do you do here?" John asked tentatively.
"Agent Myers, I'm not going to sugarcoat anything for you. This cold, desolate, sad excuse for a base is a storage unit." The man stepped over to a rusty filing cabinet. He turned the handle on the second drawer so that it was vertical. John heard a shift of gears and pipes, and a familiar *whoosh* sound that usually accompanies a high level security vault. It was a comforting sound. A panel that John did not observe opened in the wall to reveal a long, descending corridor.
"We're walking." the man said as he set off down the hall after gesturing for John to follow. The man walked at a breakneck pace, John noticed as he struggled to keep up.
"Sir, if you don't mind -"
"I probably do, but ask anyway."
"Do you...have a name?"
"Not that it's any of your business, but yes."
"Um..."
The man stopped abruptly in the long, underground corridor. He sighed. "If you must know, it's Merriweather Derickson."
"Merriweather as in Lewis of Lewis and Clark?"
"Yes." Agent Derickson raised John hoped was an approving eyebrow.
"So one of your parents was a history buff, sir?"
"My father, and yes, I suppose he was a history buff, of sorts. Ah, here we are." Agent Derickson stopped at a heavily reinforced steel door and keyed in a code on the pad to the side. The door hissed open. "Well, Agent Myers. You used to work in Area 51. Welcome to Area 0."