DISCLAIMER: I don't own Sanctuary or the Sanctuary characters, and I'm making no profit from this.
Dr. Susan Petrocelli was a respected medical researcher. She also had a plan to commit murder.
Of course that wasn't the name she had been born with, or even the name she used four years ago. Then she had been shorter, red-haired, and walked with difficulty using a cane; and she had been an essential member of the Cabal. But unlike most of her co-workers who had been killed after the attack on the Sanctuary, she had survived, because she had been prepared.
To her, the Cabal's operation had been mostly a success. She had brought out all the latent Abnormal DNA in Ashley Magnus and successfully cloned it into five others. She had altered the minds of the five clones completely to her satisfaction, and had come very close with Ashley. Only when Ashley faced her mother had her conditioning failed; before that she had destroyed and killed to order. If only the Cabal hadn't rushed her work.
But when the last attack had failed and the Cabal's super-vampires had been killed, only "Susan" had been prepared. She had simply walked out of her laboratory and driven away to a nearby garage. There, she had previously stowed another vehicle and a complete new identity. She had abandoned her clothes, purse, cell phone and cane and dressed in different style clothing stored in the trunk of the second car along with a purse complete with pre-paid phone, driver's license, credit cards, and cash. She had put on a light brown wig and a pair of built up special shoes that made her two inches taller and reduced her limp to the extent she didn't require a cane. The cane had just been something her enemies could focus on that she could throw away in an instant.
As she had driven away in the second car, an anonymous gray sedan, she had pushed the button on a small remote and within minutes the garage was burning fiercely. She had driven only twenty miles and stopped at a motel using her new identity. In her room she had used the hair dye that matched the wig she had been wearing, and disposed of the wig on the next day's drive to a city hundreds of miles away. If anyone wanted to find the Cabal doctor that had changed Ashley Magnus, they were going to have a very difficult time.
In the end, John Druitt and Nikola Tesla had slaughtered and destroyed the Cabal with brute force and done her the favor of obliterating any possible remaining traces that could have led them to her.
She had rented an apartment, found a building for her lab, and lived peacefully for years, establishing her reputation as a legitimate medical researcher. Then, very cautiously, she had made contact with a security guard who had retired from the Cabal before the Sanctuary incident. He was still loyal, and knew others who had escaped and were still loyal as well, including several Abnormals.
When thousands of Abnormals had emerged from underground, it was a simple matter to have three of her loyal Abnormals insert themselves into the hollow earth invasion force and allow themselves to be taken to the Abnormal camp. When Sanctuary personnel had rescued them from SCIU, the three along with many others had gone for safety to the new underground Sanctuary. Two had stayed as permanent residents, one had moved back to the surface after the worst of the danger had passed; but he still went back to the Sanctuary to visit his "friends" occasionally, and each time he returned to the surface he gave her every tidbit of information the two moles could produce. It made it very easy for Dr. Petrocelli to keep track of everything that her enemies did.
Druitt was gone, perhaps dead, but he was just a pawn anyway. Helen Magnus had directed the defense of the Sanctuary network, and she had been the only thing that had foiled Ashley's conditioning. And Nikola Tesla was the only one who could have crafted the weapon that killed her prized super vampires. She owed them both, and at long last she could see a clear route to making them pay for destroying her creations and the Cabal as well. Oh yes, they were going to pay, and pay dearly.
Her organization wasn't large or wealthy, but she had created her laboratory specifically with her revenge in mind, and she had guards and assistants enough. Her plan was ready, all she needed was opportunity. She was patient; she would wait.
/
Nikola had never been so happy in his life; he had the two things he desired most- Helen Magnus and a secure place to work. Plus he was king of the vampires, but that had ended up being more of a chore than a pleasure. And Helen was nearly always in a good mood these days. Of course they couldn't keep up the pace of their first night together, but over the last few months they had been almost always there for each other.
They spent nearly every evening together drinking fine wine, talking about the past, interesting books they had read, Sanctuary projects or the vampire society. Nights they spent making love or cuddling depending on how tired Helen was, and sleeping comfortably entwined in Helen's bed. Days they both had their own work, but they were in the same building and sometimes they would take a break for a walk in the garden, or just to consult about some issue.
Sometimes Nikola worked on his projects until the wee hours of the morning, and crawled into bed carefully so he didn't wake Helen. Sometimes she had to take short trips to a conference or a meeting with government representatives, but she was rarely gone more than a day or two.
Twice Nikola had had to go back to Romania and underground to the vampire society he ruled. Well, Queen Ana ruled in his absence, but they communicated regularly.
The first time was to help them set up a communications network; the vampire scientists just couldn't get it to work right no matter how much advice he gave them, so eventually he just got on a plane and went and did it himself.
The second time was more serious. A newly freed human had stood up for her rights with some old-fashioned vampires and they had broken her arm and clawed her face. The vampires were arrested, but when no trial ensued some humans had rioted. The vampire Guard was trying to use restraint in dealing with them, but the situation was deteriorating and Ana begged him to come. When he had arrived the situation was about the same except the humans were engaging in a sit-in with signs advocating their free human rights, and many of the human slaves had severely slowed down their work in protest.
Nikola dressed up in his fanciest king regalia including a diamond coronet that Ana gave him. He had two big ornate chairs put on the dais in the main cavern, and surrounded himself with Ana, High Lords and guards, and had the human leaders of the riots brought before him.
He read them the law; human grievances were to be taken to the courts like anyone else's. Had anyone pressed charges, gone to a judge, or High Lord Dramelin? No? Then what were they protesting? Riots and deliberate work disruption were illegal too. He gave the four of them whopping big fines, which they couldn't pay; the two who were slaves had the fines added to their purchase price, the two who were free were indentured until they had worked the fines off.
He addressed the muttering human crowd. "The laws are here to protect you, but they are not effective unless you follow them too. Riots are illegal and anyone instigating or leading a riot or work slowdown will be punished. You want justice for an attack on a free human by vampires; that's fair, justice is for everyone, but you will only get justice if you obey the law. Next time, anyone who starts a riot will be fined double."
Then he had the offending vampires brought out. They had been arrested after the incident, but no trial had been held, partly because no one had filed a complaint, and partly for their own protection from the angry humans.
He questioned them, and both human and vampire witnesses until he was sure they were guilty. One had actually done the injury, the other two had failed to take any action to stop him. He fined all three at the same rate as the humans, and had the attacker publicly apologize to the woman he had injured; it was humiliating for the vampire with humans watching and a good deterrent. In addition the attacker was sentenced to one year on the tunnel crew at half pay and reduced to a Three. His buddies got three months each and were reduced to bottom Fours. Tunnel work was dirty and hard, and right now the crews were being driven relentlessly to complete the necessary improvements to accommodate electric vehicles.
He told the rest of the humans to go back to work, and any more nonsense and he would raise their purchase price schedule; and next time, just follow the law. They went back to work, somewhat mollified by the fact that the vampires had been punished. And none of them wanted to be seen as a leader and be fined so much they might never be able to buy their freedom or lose the freedom they had worked so hard for, albeit temporarily.
Nikola wasn't sure he had done the right thing, but he hadn't wanted to stay a week and go through a trial. But apparently the law needed work. Once the vampires had been arrested an investigation should have taken place and a trial should have happened. He talked to Rene who agreed to make some tweaks to the law, but also make sure the judicial bureaucracy had procedures in place to handle legal questions involving free humans; the law was only as good as its implementation, and the implementation had been poor. And the human population needed to understand their responsibilities too, so there would have to be public lectures or something on the subject.
He talked to Ana about a few more things while he was there, and she mentioned adding a robe and maybe a scepter to his king outfit. Nikola shuddered a little inwardly, but gave her permission to tog him out however she pleased. He didn't care for it, but pomp and glitter impressed some people so it could be useful. Vampires in particular seemed to like it, although he himself appreciated quality in his clothing over flash- usually.
He stayed a couple more days to make sure all would remain quiet. He spent an evening in the bar hobnobbing with the lords; the bar was now open three nights a decday. Both High and Low Lords were frequenting the place, and Kammick was head bartender. He seemed much happier than he had been in Lab Two and had been promoted to a bottom Five.
Several thousand acres of land had been purchased at the estate's surface entrance, and vampire engineers were working on bringing some of the underground water to the surface there for agriculture and supplying blood-production herds. A trailer had been set up for the Sanctuary representatives and a road was being built to connect the current road to the tunnel entrance. Nikola checked over the plans for the water diversion and found them adequate.
Nikola returned to the Sanctuary pleased with the progress being made, but also sure that the road to human freedom there was not going to be a smooth one. A lot of attitudes and preconceptions were going to have to change, and that would just take time and a firm hand.
He got back to the Sanctuary early in the morning. He'd napped on the plane so as soon as he got back he went to work on his latest invention. He didn't see Helen as he walked through the halls; he was sorry not to see her, but it was better if she didn't see him going down to the subbasement. He wasn't sure if she would approve of his latest experiment, and he wanted to be able to demonstrate it to her when he told her about it.
But he had called her from the plane to let her know he was on the way back, so after a few hours she went looking for him. She popped into the lab he shared with Henry, but only Henry was there.
"Henry, have you seen Nikola, he should be back by now."
Henry kept working. "Nope, haven't seen him."
"I'm starting to get worried. He should have been back hours ago."
"Well maybe he's down . . . somewhere . . . you know, got delayed."
Henry was terrible at keeping secrets, and Helen instantly knew he was keeping something from her. "Henry, what do you know? Where's Nikola?"
Henry squirmed a little. "Well he didn't actually say I'm not supposed to tell, and I guess you should know anyway. He's got a room down in the subbasement he's been working in; he might be there."
"Doing what?"
Henry shrugged. "Beats me. He just breezes in, grabs a few things and off he goes."
Nikola hadn't said anything to her about working in the lower level, and lately they had been talking a lot. So it wasn't that he hadn't had time to say anything; whatever it was he was actively hiding it. And when Nikola started hiding things, alarms went off in her head. She charged downstairs and began searching the halls. She came around a corner just in time to see Nikola coming out of a door.
"Nikola!"
He stopped and looked guilty. She strode up to him and asked "What's in there?" gesturing toward the door.
"Ahh, just an experiment."
Helen headed for the door but he quickly stepped in front of her. "You can't go in there."
"You were just in there."
"I'm a vampire, I'm resistant to radiation."
Radiation? Good lord, now what. "Tell me. Now."
"Okay, I have a small . . . a very small rift node in there."
She was horrified. "How could you? We had this discussion before. You know you're disturbing the creatures on the other side. Why would you do this?"
"I fixed that. I have a membrane that expands when the node is on blocking anything above atomic-sized particles from crossing over. It gives me an area of the rift about the size of a large closet to work in with no chance of an oogly-googly beastie coming through. The only downside is it does have a tendency to trap and reflect radiation back into the room."
"Nikola the rift is dangerous. And with a membrane you can't be pulling enough energy to create your power company anyway, can you? So there's no point to it. Turn it off and dismantle it."
"I'm a scientist. I'm trying to understand the Praxian technology; I can't do that without understanding the rift."
"And what about the rest of us? Are you spreading poisonous radiation throughout the Sanctuary? How far does the rift field extend, and is the node stable?"
"I have it under control. I have the room sealed and shielded, and a decontamination chamber right inside the door. The rift field and the radiation is contained completely in the room, and I have titanium rods in place so I can shut the node down whenever I want."
"You spent four billion dollars on your node at SCIU, how much have you spent on this? That much titanium alone would cost . . ."
"You had it in stock. You had a lot of things in stock, I didn't go over my $50,000 limit."
"Nikola, you knew I wouldn't approve of this, but you did it anyway. Why? And don't give me any nonsense about being a scientist; there are plenty of other things you could study."
"But nothing with this kind of potential. Look, when that Cthulhu thing dragged Henry off to its lair, it went from point A to point B without passing through the space in between, and so did I when I went after him, and so did you and Adam. I'm learning how to tune the node frequency and still have a stable node powered by energy from the rift."
Helen just shook her head at him, not comprehending.
"Aiming my reentry point in the cavern from one node was very difficult. Adam had predetermined exit points, but I'm trying to do something a little bit different. If there were multiple nodes tuned to slightly different frequencies, it would be possible to connect any two by matching the frequencies and you could walk in to one node and out the other; instant transportation, and distance is irrelevant. I'm going to put the airlines out of business; and you have to admit the way they treat their customers these days they richly deserve to be put out of business."
"So you're just repeating what Adam did. Nikola, he destroyed Praxis."
"No, I've made significant improvements and I'm not using it for time travel. All I need is some way to shield the passage between two nodes but it's a little tricky physically when we're outside the laws of physics. But a shield would exclude the radiation from the interdimensional event horizon as well and make it commercially viable."
"Nikola, I'm sorry but it's just not worth it. The amount of energy and radiation that's being generated in there could destroy the Sanctuary if anything went wrong. You must dismantle it."
"Helen, this is the biggest opportunity mankind has ever had! We could put a node on the moon, or on Mars, or on a planet orbiting a distant star. We don't need impossible faster-than-light ships or generation ships to explore outer space. Send an unmanned rocket with a node wherever you want to go, and a few years or decades later you can just walk there from earth in an instant. Take rockets and more nodes through the first node and sent them out and in a century or two you can travel to multiple planets; in five hundred years people could be all over this arm of the galaxy. You know, just like Star Gate, although I haven't quite figured out how to get that cool-looking water effect."
She understood now, she really did, and she hated to crush him but it was too dangerous, she couldn't allow it. "I'm really very sorry, but my decision stands. The radiation is dangerous, the rift field is dangerous, and if that node goes out of control there would be nothing left of the Sanctuary but a smoking hole."
"I'm not going to lose control of it. The odds of something like that happening are five percent, tops, and the energy involved is far less than the one I had at SCIU. It wouldn't go beyond the room, all shielded, remember?"
"There's no way to be sure of that. And if you were in the room at the time, would you survive?"
Nikola looked uneasy. "In that confined space, probably not. But it's a risk I'm willing to take, and anyway nothing is going to happen."
Helen was shocked. At any time over the last few weeks she could have lost him, and she hadn't even been aware of it. "Shut it down and dismantle it."
Nikola just stood there looking at her in dismay. "You can't mean that. Can't you see how important this is?"
"I do mean it. Maybe we can find someplace else and a safer way you can work on this, but not here and not with you in danger."
"I thought you understood who I am, what I do. I can't stop experimenting just because there's danger. Scientific progress has always come at a cost. I thought you loved me, all of me including the scientist part."
"I do love you, but I still cannot allow you to endanger everyone just to tweak Adam's work, and you have no way of knowing if your membrane will prevent further incursions or not." We've only just found each other, I can't lose you. "I know you mean well, Nikola, you would never deliberately harm any of us, but my job is to protect everyone here. I've spent my life doing this job, it's who I am. Dismantle it."
"I am not just tweaking his work, what I'm doing is important, can't you see that?"
"I see that what you're doing is dangerous, and simply not worth the risk. For the last time, Nikola, I'm giving you a direct order as a Sanctuary employee. Shut down the node and dismantle it.
Nikola dropped his head and blinked rapidly. He struggled to speak for a moment, then he got out a pained "Okay." He added resentfully "You're the boss."
"How long will it take you?"
Nikola's head was still down. "Not long. I can have the node down and disconnected in an hour, but it'll take days to take it all apart and remove the shielding and everything."
"Henry can help you with that, can't he?"
Nikola nodded, still not looking at her.
"Good. I'll send him down. Oh, and there's a staff meeting this afternoon at two. Please be there."
He didn't acknowledge her, but she knew he heard her. He went back into the room as she left.
She stopped at the lab and told Henry that Nikola was dismantling his experiment in the subbasement, and to please assist him. Henry nodded and went off to see what he could do.
At two, Helen held her meeting. Will and Henry came a little early, and Nikola walked in just at two and took a chair rather than stand by her side as he usually did. Biggie's presence hadn't been required.
"Gentlemen, we have a relatively simple collection operation. A warehouse has been abandoned because of a foul odor and scurrying large tailless rats. It's not really rats, of course, but appears to be a nest of kodors. I suppose they hitched a ride in some cargo and decided to make the warehouse their home. They have teeth and claws, but they are not aggressive; their most potent weapon is their stench. In the wild they dig burrows and eat insects and small animals; their smell drives away predators. The people at the warehouse attempted to capture them with rat traps and then poison them with rat poison. Of course they failed since kodors aren't rats, and they have had to temporarily abandon the structure due to the smell."
Will asked "So how are we supposed to capture them? We can wear masks against the odor, but what do we do, bait them?"
"They are really far too clever for that, and it would take days even if we could find something that would lure them. No, I'm sending Nikola to frighten them and drive them to you."
Will glanced at Henry who was looking at the floor shyly. "Why not Henry? He can be pretty scary when he wants to be."
Helen replied "Henry is going to be staying home for the next few months. I believe Erika is getting near to her due date, and Henry should be here when his child is born."
Will grinned and lightly punched Henry's arm. "That's great! Why didn't you tell me?"
Henry smiled sheepishly. "Erika doesn't want a fuss, and it'll probably be at least a month or two yet, so, you know, I could go, but the Doc won't let me."
Nikola had been eyeing Helen angrily. "Really, you want me to be a sheepdog to a bunch of rodents?" he asked sharply.
Helen gave him an apologetic look. "They're not rodents, and sorry, but yes, it's the quickest way. They're not used to predators being around them and all you'll have to do is vamp and drive them to the capture area. Will and an assistant will set up netting to guide them into the cages. The whole operation should take only a few hours. If you leave in the morning you should be back within 24 hours."
Nikola sulked until Helen ended the meeting. He strode out immediately followed by Will but Helen stopped Henry on the way out.
"Henry, a moment? Can you give me progress report on the rift node, please?"
"It's turned off and we've got the major components apart. We're disassembling the larger modules now, we'll have that mostly done today and I can finish up tomorrow. I'll decontaminate everything as I take it out, and then I'll decontaminate the room before I disassemble his decontamination door unit and strip the shielding. It shouldn't take more than two or three days. Do you want us to pack it for shipping?"
Helen hesitated. She had mentioned trying to find another place for him to continue the experiment, but she doubted there was any way for him to work on using the rift for transportation without endangering himself. Well, it could be completely broken down later. "Yes, that will be fine, but mark the boxes clearly and keep them under lock and key for now. How's Nikola taking it?"
"I think he's really hot under the collar. He hasn't said an unnecessary word; mostly he won't even look at me. That membrane he created is amazing; I've never seen anything remotely like it. It's too bad, I would have liked the chance to work with that set up he had myself."
"You know it's too dangerous."
"Yeah, sure, I guess. But it's fascinating stuff, I mean the potential is amazing."
"Thank you Henry, and in the future, if Nikola starts acting oddly, please speak up so it doesn't go this far again."
"Yeah, he always acts oddly and he doesn't confide in me. I figured he was confiding in you, you two are . . . well I thought you knew all about it. How am I supposed to know in the future if you two are talking to each other or not? Besides, I'm not a tattle-tale."
"Yes, I understand, I'm sorry Henry; go back to your work. Nikola is my problem not yours." She was more flustered than Henry had seen her in a long time. Well, living with Nikola Tesla could do that to a person.
Helen waited for Nikola in her sitting room all evening with one of her most prized bottles of wine, but he didn't come. Disappointed, she left it unopened and went to bed alone. This was their first real fight, and she wasn't sure what to do. She couldn't go to him and apologize; it would only raise his hopes of being allowed to continue his experiment with the rift node. She decided to wait until he had returned from the warehouse job. He would be less upset then and they could talk calmly and try to find a compromise that wouldn't endanger anyone. But her bed was cold and lonely without him.
Nikola raided her wine cellar and took the best bottles he could find back to his sitting room and downed them, glass after glass. It was petty revenge; petty enough he knew she would forgive him for it.
The problem was he knew he couldn't give up working on the rift technology. It occupied his mind the way electricity had so many years ago. He was obsessed with it; if he succeeded the Nobel Prize committee would beg him to accept the prize in physics. They already owed him at least one, even if they didn't know it. He loved Helen and wanted so much to be with her he was even willing to live at the Sanctuary and do nearly anything to please her. But if he couldn't continue the experiment here, if she refused to agree to him continuing it anywhere, what was he going to do?
He didn't have the funding personally to start over and set up his own lab with the materials he would need; and no way was he doing that song and dance with rich people again, giving away all his rights just for a few dollars to continue his experiments. He'd learned that lesson. Of course he had been incredibly naïve back then, thinking men who were making fortunes selling electricity and who had large investments in the copper for the wire would support someone trying to create free wireless electricity. He had been too focused on his work and too little aware of the rest of the world.
If he stayed he would have Helen, but he had no desire to work on anything but the Praxian rift technology, and now he couldn't do that here. His work was his life and he couldn't just twiddle away his time, even if he did have a lot of it. But if he left he wouldn't have Helen, and he was so happy with her. He didn't have enough funds to continue without her support anyway. Unless he went back to SCIU? No, bad idea.
He could leave and take the components for the node with him and set up somewhere else. But he would have to abandon Helen; if she knew where he was, she would descend on him again like she had back at SCIU. And it would be stealing- sort of. What he had done with her raw materials was worth more than the materials themselves, but Helen would probably see it as theft. But since he worked for her and she stocked everything for him and Heinrich to use, he had a right to use the materials, didn't he? Didn't he own what he had created more than she did?
And if he wanted to risk himself, what right did she have to deny him? It wasn't easy getting Helen to change her mind; he couldn't recall ever succeeding before, once she had decided something. So he would never be able to convince her to let him set up his node somewhere else, she was adamantly opposed to anyone using the rift technology.
He just couldn't find a way to have the two things he wanted most, Helen and his work. The whole question just kept spinning around in his mind. Nikola went to bed with the issue unresolved; it was making him miserable to keep thinking about it, maybe his subconscious could figure out something. Tomorrow he would go chase smelly little creatures into cages to please her. After that, he didn't know what he was going to do.