SUMMARY: When an injury forces May into a leave, Coulson volunteers to look out for her. However, things don't go as smooth as Coulson thought it would be, especially because it's the Melinda May that he's dealing with.
PROLOGUE
The mission was supposed to be easy.
The plan was Ward, May, and Simmons would infiltrate the lab while Skye would work with the cameras and the security systems of the site on the Bus. May was going to accompany Simmons as she secured the vials of the potential bioweapon and retrieve necessary files regarding it from the back end of the lab while Ward was to deal with any guards that would come up front, then the three of them are to evacuate immediately after Ward rigs the site to blow.
But of course in S.H.I.E.L.D., everything goes perfectly during the briefing. What happens afterwards, on the other hand…
Another face collided with her fist and the guard was instantly unconscious. No five minutes has passed since May and Simmons entered the facility with Ward trailing behind them. Jemma clutched the small plastic cooler that she was holding to her chest as they silently made their way through the long hallway. The lights were bright above them, and Simmons couldn't help but remember the laboratories in the Academy through the white walls and the tiled floors. Well, at least in the Academy I'm confident of my safety. Here on the other hand…
Simmons made a nervous gulp and an uneasy sigh escaped her lips.
The glass door to the lab greeted them as they reached the end of the hall. Skye notified Ward through his earpiece that the fingerprint scanner was already disabled and they were good to go. May pushed the door open and entered the lab with Simmons while Ward stayed behind as planned.
Simmons ran to the file cabinet northeast of the entrance and rummaged through the folders. "What are we supposed to look for?" May appeared at Simmons' side.
"Everything related to the BTN-4, the Norway experiments dated April 2012, and all the experiments done by a Dr Marcus Richards last year," Simmons replied.
After the two got all the folders they needed, Simmons booted up the PC beside the cabinet and pulled out a flash drive from her pants pocket. The system required a password to proceed.
"Skye," said May through her com device, "can you crack the password of the PC here in the lab from there?"
The password prompt disappeared from the screen immediately. "Consider it done," said Skye.
The amount of information in front of her overwhelmed Simmons. Images from the trials. Predicted infectivity rate. Statistics on the possible lethality rate. There was so much information but she had no time to browse them all right now.
Simmons clicked on a document. "They were planning to unleash the bioweapon in Chicago, Tokyo, and Rio simultaneously in five weeks' time." She continued to scroll down the file. "With its infectivity rate, the 45% of the exposed population in those areas would be infected in the next 24 to 36 hours and I suspect that it would be extremely lethal because of the fact that they used alien DNA."
"Did it say anything about why they chose those three locations?" asked May. Simmons shook her head as she plugged in her flash drive in the computer, copying all the files in the process. "Not at all. They could have targeted more populated cities so there must be something special about those three." She pulled out her flash drive once the files were copied and turned to the freezer at the opposite end of the lab. "Now the BTN-4…"
The freezer was filled with a multitude of flasks, beakers, and test tubes and Simmons scoured through them to find the lethal liquid they need. Simmons spotted 24 test tubes of a yellow liquid encased in two plastic test tube racks at the back end of the freezer. The labels read BTN-4.
Carefully, she reached for the rack, but right after she lifts one of the racks, the alarm inside the lab goes off. The florescent lights went out and everything was bathed with pale red light.
"Skye, I thought you disabled all the alarms?" Simmons was beginning to panic while she was trying to be as careful as she could be in putting the test tubes in the cooler.
"I did!" Simmons was having a hard time in understanding her words due to the loudness of the sirens. "But it seems like the lab itself has an independent security system, hidden in all the crap of the security system of the whole building. Give me a few minutes here."
Outside, Ward was already fighting off three uniformed men, but reinforcements keep on coming.
And just before Simmons shuts the door of the freezer, two flasks of a red liquid catches her eye. Upon closer inspection, she noticed that it was also labelled as BTN-4. "They engineered another strain," she concluded.
"It's another strain," she concluded.
"Simmons, we have to go now." May placed a hand on her forearm.
"I have to get these too," she pointed at the flasks, "These two can also contain two different strains of the bioweapon. I can't leave them here." May nodded.
Only by then did the alarm finally shut down, but it was too late. The back door of the lab swung open and five guards enter the room. May cursed under her breath. "I'll hold them off. Get those flasks as quick as you can," she said to Simmons.
She knocked one of the men down with the single kick and proceeded to disarm the next. One. Two. Three. A flurry of punches and kicks were thrown, and May sends three of the guards lying on their backs, unconscious. As more of them poured into the lab, Simmons stayed behind May, keeping her distance, keeping the cooler as close to her as possible.
May sends two men out cold again, but a new set of guards had also arrived. And as one of them tries to throw a punch at May, another was attempting to hurl a lab stool at Simmons, who was frozen in place.
Seeing this, May instantly finished off her opponent at hand, and ran in front of Simmons, raising her arm to take the blow. May quickly recovered. After a series of kicks, the man was down.
May turned to Simmons, clutching her arm. "It's better if we'd just wait for Agent Ward outside." And with that, the two of them ran to the exit.