Hunter has been right; the Doctor proves useful for their survival; Fitz surprises himself when he takes out two Russian mobsters in a gunfight, his heart rate hardly accelerating or when he bashes the head of a black suit against the wall with a move he pretty sure never practiced with Mack.
After two weeks of deadly cat-and-mouse with the US government, the Russian's men and god-knows-who-else chasing their tail, Fitz can hardly believe they make it inside the lab. He runs through the corridors trying to locate the room that will reveal the secrets of the fragment. Instead he freezes in panic when in one of the rooms he sees a man strapped to a bed. He enters and for a moment he thinks his mind finally cracked, that it was all a dream and he is back in the reality of the Framework, because the person hooked up to various machines is Vijay Nadeer.
"I am so sorry." he whispers.
"Do we know each other?" Vijay looks at him confused. Yes, I tortured you to death, stole your powers while you were screaming. I'm the Doctor Mengele from your nightmares, he screams inside. Then he remembers, they never met in this life.
"You are Vijay. Simmons mentioned you." he says. "She and Daisy tried to find you, we thought you died."
"You know Jemma Simmons? Is she here?" Vijay asks excited. "I was trying to find her after I got out of the cocoon – this time by myself… She promised me SHIELD would keep me safe…"
"You went through terragenesis again?" Simmons smiling eyes float into his mind for a second. "That's fascinating." Fitz and figment-of-his-imagination Simmons say it at the same time. "Did your powers change?"
"Yes, I think so, but I'm not quite sure what they are." Vijay replies. "Are you with SHIELD?"
"Yes. Let's get you out of here." Fitz nods and starts to unhook Vijay from the machine, hoping it will not trigger an alarm.
Hunter enters the room and looks at them. "You know this guy? I think I found something you'll want to see."
Hunter leads them to a room and they see through a small window an arching structure. Fitz nods "This must be it – the gateway."
The door is locked. "Can we break in?" he asks Hunter.
"Maybe with explosives" Hunter rubs his chin.
"I think I can do it." Vijay says and disappears through the door. They hear the latch click open on the other side.
"Cool superpower, mate. And convenient." Hunter quips.
Fitz takes the fragment out of his pockets, and looks at the machinery in the room. "This is way beyond anything I have ever seen" he sighs as he tries some switches. Suddenly a hologram jumps in front of him, with intricate lines.
"What is this?" Hunter asks. Fitz steps back and just stares at the hologram for a while.
"It is a hypersphere or part of one. The manifolds can locate the right curvature…"
"What?" Hunter and Vijay ask at the same time.
"It's a map of a multidimensional space. And the fragment…" Fitz jumps excitedly "is not a fragment at all, but coordinates. I just need to find how the input works." He frantically searches the machine, until he finds the right spot. "I think if I put this in here…" suddenly, a yellow light flares up on the hologram. "That's where they are."
"You know that or you are hoping it?" Hunter asks, but Fitz is not listening anymore. His mind is hyperfocused on the contraption in front of him.
"Hunter, you should leave now and take Vijay. He's an inhuman and will need your help to get to safety." Fitz says then turns to Vijay. "You can trust him, he is a friend of Jemma. He'll get you to safety. SHIELD will come back for you when they can."
"Fitz, this is crazy… You have no idea how to get back yet." Hunter protests.
"It is my shot to get there, Hunter. I have nothing to lose. We'll figure it out with Simmons. Get out while you can. And Hunter, thank you. For everything. Give my love to Bobbi and good luck with the baby." he holds out his hand.
"Anytime, mate. Good luck to you too." Hunter squeezes his shoulders and ushers Vijay out of the building.
Fitz rummages around the room until he finds a box with more of the same type of fragments. He stuffs a few in his pockets. He draws a couple of points of the hyperspace into a notebook, trying to commit to memory some of the main curves. He snaps some pictures with his phone of the gateway. Then he fires up the machine and steps through space and time, again, hoping that the forces of the cosmos that keep tearing them apart also bring them together again, like gravity pulls back the rock thrown up in the air.
