This is the start of what I suspect will become a series. Written for sncross_bigbang over on livejournal (you should check it out, the link to my livejournal is on my page)
Chapter One
Veronica dropped the pile of files down onto the desk with more than a little excessive force. She grimaced at the covert looks her fellow operatives gave her as she glared at the pile before her. She knew what they were thinking without even having to see the sympathetic eyes which now dogged her footsteps. Poor Agent Mars, losing her husband in such a tragic way, so young, such a shame. Veronica closed her eyes and took two deep even breaths. She was sick of all of the fake concern bullshit everyone pulled.
"You wanted to see me, Agent Stewart?" Veronica asked her supervisor as she walked through the door. The sympathetic, half smile was already pasted on the older agent's face as he looked up from a pile on his desk. Veronica looked at her supervisor and smiled a little internally. Agent Stewart could be safely described as your stereotypical FBI Agent; pressed suit, late thirties to early forties, short black hair, nondescript features which allowed him to blend in to any number of situations.
"Agent Mars. Please, sit down." He motioned to the empty chair in front of him and Veronica did as he bid her. She lifted an eyebrow expectantly, eager to get back to her case. The supervisor chuckled and leant back in his chair.
"You've got some nerve, Mars, you know, coming in here with attitude after the shit that just went down," he commented, lacing his fingers together. Veronica's expression didn't waver.
"With all due respect sir, I had a lead and I followed it." Veronica attempted to infuse her voice with some semblance of the aforementioned respect, but it failed to materialise, and instead came out sarcastic. It was hard to be respectful to a man who only inspired distaste in her. He was no Keith Mars. Hell, he wasn't even on par with Don Lamb, and Veronica detested him.
"This ain't Mars Investigations, damn it!" His fist pounded into the table as his anger mounted. "You don't go running in half cocked like a bull in a china shop. Mars, there are proper channels!"
"Next time, I'll ask for permission to do my job. So sorry I didn't tell you that I'd be out after curfew," Veronica bit back.
"You're off the case. I'm putting Berkley on it."
"You've got to be kidding me!" Veronica laughed humorously. "Berkley could be outwitted by Forest Gump! He couldn't investigate his way out of a paper bag. It's my case."
"Not anymore. You're too emotionally invested now. I shoulda taken you off the case as soon as the last body turned up. You're losing it Mars, and I don't want to see one of my agents go off the deep end." The sympathetic eyes returned. "Everything that just happened in Detroit proves you're not emotionally equipped for this."
"I did my job. Bodies turned up with the same marking on them. When the bodies didn't materialise for us to examine, I investigated. What more do you want? Perhaps some juggling in the midst of a manhunt?"
"You accused the whole goddamn police force of fabricating evidence and covering up for a serial killer. You're lucky I'm not taking your badge!"
"David, I need this case." Veronica said quietly, almost desperately. This case was the only thing which could take her mind away from the empty house which awaited her, stop her looping her last homecoming over and over.
"No. That's my final word. You're on desk duty until this case is over. I convinced the Director that giving you enforced leave would damage the investigation. I know you Mars, and from now on, you're filing dead cases into the new system. No buts. Just do it, Veronica."
"Yes sir, of course sir, three bags full sir. How high would you like me to jump sir?" She said as she rose. She flourished a hand and bowed. "I live to serve."
"You can start with these," He said tapping the pile.
Two long years of dedicated service in the FBI, and what did it get her? Entering dead cases into the new filing database and then placing them in the filing cabinet, all in a musty old room filled with line upon wall of cabinets. A thrilling job, to be sure. To fill her time, Veronica found herself reading through the cases, trying to piece together how the investigation progressed, and what ultimately ended the case. She thought about how she would lead an investigation into the case. Anything to distract her overly active mind from the case she had been forced to hand over to Berkley. The smug, self satisfied bastard. Veronica and John Berkley had been in the Academy together and had a strong relationship of mutual disdain and hatred from the beginning, Berkley because he hated that a woman was better than him, Veronica because he was a misogynistic pig. Veronica had passed him in the halls earlier, and he had looked down on her and smirked. He lifted his eyebrows, as if urging her to concede defeat, and Veronica itched to kick him. Preferably below the belt.
Veronica took a deep breath and looked down at the case file she had been looking at before her mind had drifted to fantasies of taking John Berkley down a few notches. It was a couple of years old now, from when Veronica had only just left the Academy, but she remembered the fuss which had been made over this man and his brother. She remembered that Agent Hendrickson would stalk the halls of this office in between his stints on location looking for the two criminals. As she looked through the file, the more the details didn't appear to add up. Veronica placed a hand on her chin thoughtfully. Since the suspect was supposedly long dead (although no body had been recovered) no one would care if she copied a few details, surely. No one was keeping an eye on her, and she needed a pet project. Maybe she could piece together the facts. Veronica smiled as she closed the file and looked at the lettering on the front. It read:
CASE NUMBER 200845637DW
SUSPECT: DEAN WINCHESTER
Chloe Sullivan looked at the schematics on the screen in front of her, following the progress of a green dot moving steadily through the hallway of what was meant to be an abandoned medical research facility. In reality it was a cover for one of the various 33.1 facilities throughout the world in which Lex Luthor captured those who had become infected by the meteor rocks which had fallen on Smallville twice, or had a naturally occurring Meta ability.
"Arrow to Watchtower," an artificially deepened voice crackled in Chloe's ear piece. "Am I good to go?"
A flash of a red dot appeared briefly on the screen in a room labelled Control Room 1 before disappearing again. Chloe pulled up the surveillance camera feed in that room and smiled as she saw Bart "Impulse" Allen blow a kiss at the only working camera in the room and wave a specific piece of paper at it. Chloe zoomed in on the paper briefly to see its contents on the high resolution image her computer automatically generated and nodded. She then deleted the few frames of film from the surveillance camera mainframe and systematically destroyed it, then cut power to that camera as well.
"Watchtower to Arrow. Impulse has the item. Looping all of the security feeds now." Chloe said as tapped several keys in rapid succession, looping the same 5 minute length of film to play over and over again to the security guards in their office near the front of the building. "Arrow, you're good to go."
"Roger that Watchtower," Oliver "Green Arrow" Queen said as the green dot on the screen began moving more rapidly through the hallway until it got to a pair of double doors. Chloe watched the dot as it moved quickly through the building, moving towards the medical bays.
"Impulse to Watchtower," Bart said as the red dot appeared briefly on her screen again. "All of the guards are occupied at the moment, mamacita."
"Thanks Impulse," Chloe said with a smile. Bart Allen never failed to cheer her up, it had to be said. "Watchtower to team, you are good to go."
Three voices sounded out their acknowledgement and entered the facility, enacting their pre-planned roles. Yellow, orange and purple dots joined the green one on Chloe's main screen, as well as the occasional flash of red as Bart stopped patrolling the building for a split second.
Chloe kept an eye on all of the heat signatures in the building as each of the members of the Justice League of America on this mission did what they needed to do. As Watchtower, she watched over them. On occasion she would pull up the live video feed from each team member's glasses to check on their progress.
"Cyborg to Watchtower, I've got the information you needed from the central database. I'm sending the medical records to the good Doctor as we speak." Victor "Cyborg" Stone said. Chloe checked the schematics, and saw several red flashing dots approaching the room in which Cyborg's purple dot steadily shone.
"Cyborg, you have incoming hostiles. Aquaman, head over to Cyborg's location and deal with them." Chloe said efficiently as she traced the information Victor was sending to Doctor Emil Hamilton.
"Roger that Watchtower," Arthur "Aquaman" Curry said as the orange dot on her screen intercepted the moving hostiles. She pulled up the feed from Oliver's glasses and was pleased to see him disconnecting wires from an unconscious patient.
"Impulse, Green Arrow needs you in Medical Bay one" Chloe said, moving the video feed to one side, watching the schematics carefully.
"Arrow to Watchtower, Impulse is taking the last of the casualties out of the building as we speak." Chloe started to respond, but her attention was caught by a blue dot on the edge of the screen. Not a heat signature and not one of the team, but still a human body. She quickly processed where each of the team members were, and how important what they were doing was. A.C. was still dealing with the hostiles, Victor was downloading yet more information, Bart was dealing with the casualties and taking them one by one to the JLA medical facility in Star City, and Oliver was on the other side of the building. That left only one other team member active on this mission.
"Watchtower to Speedy, I need you to check something out for me. Start going along the corridor you are in, heading towards the double doors, I'll guide you the rest of the way." Chloe watched the yellow dot, signifying Mia "Speedy" Dearden; start to move rapidly in the direction indicated. Chloe gave her quick instructions, and disabled all of the alarm systems guarding the room with the blue dot. She typed in one last override code to open the door of the room in question.
"Uh, Watchtower, there's some freaky shit in this room. I'm sending you a visual now," Speedy said as the yellow dot stopped moving. Moments later the computer to Chloe's right registered an incoming visual from Speedy's sunglasses. The live feed began playing, and Chloe almost felt sick to the stomach at the image presented to her. In the time that they had been dealing with Lex and 33.1 she had seen some terrible things, but this, this was truly horrific.
The walls, floor and ceiling of the room was covered in strange sigils, drawn in fresh dripping blood, covering every spare inch of space. At the centre of the room was a large circle, painted in dripping blood. Strange words were written at the edge of the circle, with a seven pointed star in the middle, points touching the egde of the writing. At the centre of the star was metal six pointed star, standing upright. Chained to this star was a man. His hands were nailed to the star, silver chains looping round his middle and torso were the only things keeping him upright. Blood flowed from bullet wounds in his shoulders, from fresh gashes in his chest, from jagged holes in his legs. Chloe was fairly sure that she could see a hint of ivory poking from his one arm, clearly a broken bone. Burns, both from chemicals and fire littered his skin. His head was flopped forward against his chest.
"Is he breathing?" Chloe asked Mia quietly.
"I don't know," Mia said as she began to move forward, trying to avoid the biggest patches of blood on the floor. She felt something wet land on her bare shoulder. Suppressing the urge to gag, Mia ignored the blood which began to run down her arm. She moved closer to the man on the star. A faint humming noise reverberated around the walls. Her heart sped up. She inched closer, trying desperately not to tread into the words written around the edge of the circle. As her second foot entered the circle completely, the man's head snapped up. His eyes were completely black, and his mouth was twisted into a sneer. Mia flinched back.
Chloe felt a jolt of apprehension as the man opened his mouth and laughed. Laughed loud and unrestrained. The laugh of a madman.
"Watchtower to Arrow, are you done?" Chloe asked, a hint of fear for Mia colouring her voice.
"Yes, Impulse has taken the last of the casualties to the med bay, and is transporting all of the guards out. Cyborg and Aquaman are planting explosives as we speak. What's wrong?"
"Go to Speedy's location now Arrow." Her voice brooked no arguments. The man on her screen continued to laugh.
"Speedy, Arrow is on his way. Step back." As Mia started to comply with Chloe's instructions the laughter stopped abruptly.
"Don't do that now sweetheart," a gravelly voice intoned gleefully. The man shifted his body until his shoulders wrenched back into place. "I like new people to talk to."
"Who are you?" Mia asked, her voice shaking a little.
"Who am I?" he appeared to be deep in thought. "I am... Sam. Yes. I am Sam. Sam I am. Green eggs and ham. Dr Seuss is a wonderful purveyor of words."
Mia slid her foot back slowly, ignoring the faint squelch of blood as she did so.
"You shouldn't have done that," the man said in a sing song voice. Mia froze. "Look at your feet."
Slowly Mia looked down, and saw the break in the circle her foot had made.
"Mia look up!" Chloe shouted. Her view of the situation was limited to what Mia's glasses showed, and she wanted to keep an eye on the strange man, 'Sam.' Mia looked back to the star. It was empty.
"Thank you very much, little girl," the gravelly voice sounded behind her. Mia spun around as the man grabbed her throat and bought her close to his face. "You and your friends have been most helpful!"
He pulled her lips to his, his superior brute strength winning over hers as Chloe cried out for Oliver. She felt so helpless. The body holding Mia suddenly slumped to the ground as Oliver slammed through the door, arrow already ready to fire in the bow. Mia stumbled away from the body on the floor, towards Oliver.
"Arrow, Speedy, what is happening?" Chloe asked as she pulled up the feed from Oliver's glasses on the screen next to Mia's. Slowly, cautiously, Oliver leant down and put his fingers on the man's throat.
"He's dead. Let's go Mia." Oliver took the girl by the hand and began pulling her out of the room. Chloe took a deep breath of relief as the door swung shut on the room.
Veronica looked at the closed file in front of her, and sat back on the black sofa. She took a deep breath and picked up her mobile phone, thumbing through the contacts until she found the number of her supervisor. She pressed call and held the phone to her ear, listening to the dial tone.
"Hello?" a female voice said calmly. Veronica smiled softly at the voice on the phone. Rosa Gelano was David Stewart's middle aged, take no prisoners receptionist and personal assistant. Many FBI agents, veterans and new, baulked when faced with an irate Rosa, and the majority knew when it was best to steer clear of David's office. Luckily, Rosa had taken a shine to Veronica, and was determined to feed her up.
"Hi Rosa," Veronica said sweetly. "It's Veronica, how are you doing today?"
"Oh, Veronica, I didn't expect you to be calling so late. I'm doing fine, Jody's got the flu at the moment, but George is at home with her so everything is taken care of," Rosa chuckled. "I dread to think what she has convinced my wayward husband of today. I'll just put you through to David, sweetheart. I'm thinking of you, okay?"
"Thanks Rosa, I hope Jody feels better soon." There was a characteristic click, and then a male voice sounded on the phone.
"Agent Mars, I was just about to leave the office," David said long sufferingly.
"Apologies, Agent Stewart. I didn't realise the time." That was a lie. Veronica had purposefully called at this time, knowing that at the end of the day David would be tired, and would want to get home to his wife and sons, and therefore would be more likely to grant her request. "I just wanted to apologise for my behaviour yesterday. I was emotional and out of line, and would normally have never dreamed of being so disrespectful. Spending the time alone today helped me gain some perspective."
"Go on," a slightly suspicious tone entered David Stewart's voice.
"I think that I need some time away. From work, from my house, anything which reminds me of Logan. If you would grant me leave, I'll go visit my dad, maybe take the long route back to Virginia. I'm really not dealing with everything as well as I should be." Veronica kept her tone of voice even, letting a little of her all too real bereavement slip through. As devastated as she was on the inside, Veronica wasn't above using it to get what she wanted.
"You're not using this was an excuse to chase down your own leads on this case are you?" suspicion still coloured her bosses voice.
"No," Veronica said, completely honestly and a little indignantly. "You can give the sheriff a call if you'd really like."
There was silence over the phone line for a few long moments, and Veronica could practically hear David thinking through her request. Then he spoke again.
"Okay Mars, I'll bite. I'll put you on 6 months leave for personal bereavement and you'll go on your little road trip, starting in Neptune. My only provisos are that you check in with me on occasion and I get to talk to Sherriff Mars once you get there, so I know you're being honest. That sound reasonable?" Veronica could tell that this was a solution which he was happy with, provided that Veronica stayed out of FBI business as she made her way back to Virginia. As much as he tried to hide it, David was as worried about Veronica's mental state as everyone else in the Bureau.
"Thank you, David," Veronica said sincerely. "Goodnight. Say hi to Anna for me?"
"Will do. Enjoy your break Mars," David said as he hung up. Veronica lowered her phone from her ear and placed it on the coffee table. 6 months to visit her dad and investigate the Winchester case. Plenty of time.