Warehouse 13 :||: Silence

/*

* Disclaimer: I do not have photographic memory, nor do I claim to know much literal, first-

* hand stuff about it…so yeah. Just go with it.

*/

Two

Together, Claudia and Myka managed to get the television down the stairs without dropping it. Leena was right behind them, carrying the box of supplies Claudia needed to rig the television to host the images from The Ring.

"Why did you have to buy Pete such a huge-ass television?" asked Claudia, grunting under the weight of the monitor.

Waddling, Myka regripped the TV and glanced over her shoulder as they rounded the bend along the tunnel to the main office. "When I bought it I wasn't anticipating ever having to move it again, much less transport it into the warehouse," she said, rolling her eyes.

Leena slid past them to open the door. The women got the television inside and hoisted it up onto the smaller table, that had fewer books on it. Artie was hunched over a pile of books on the floor, the chalkboard next to him filled with small phrases, some of which were crossed out. Leena handed the box she was holding to Claudia, who immediately set to work.

Artie looked up. "Good, you're back. That was really fast," he said, getting to his feet.

"That's because Myka drives like a crazy person," said Claudia, under her breath. Myka shot her a hard look, which she didn't see.

Ignoring the mumbling, Artie reached for Leena and bid her to follow him. "We need to move the chair into this room," said Artie. "I think it will be best to do it in here."

"What should I do, Artie?" asked Myka, craning her neck to watch them as long as they were in sight.

"There is a protein shake on the table outside the file room," Artie shouted. "Drink that."

Myka sighed. "All I can do is drink a protein shake?"

"We're going to be imaging your brain," said Claudia from under the table. "You are going to be doing more than your fair shake in no time Myks."

Myka shrugged. She spotted the shake and walked to it. The liquid was a deep orange color that did not settle well on-sight with her stomach. Her stomach growled, but not in a hungry way. She stared down into the glass, swearing at one moment that the liquid bubbled involuntarily, then shut her eyes and whispered, "You better be worth it, Pete." She tilted her head back and began to drink. It wasn't that bad. It wasn't great, but it wasn't as horrible as it looked.

When she set the glass down again, Artie and Leena had gotten the chair into the office. It looked like a dentist's chair, but much larger and much more intimidating. Artie looked up and must have seen a wary look in Myka's eye because he quickly rounded to the chair to walk toward her.

"Don't be alarmed, my dear," he said. "This is just the only type of chair we have that can support the ring." Myka nodded and allowed Artie to lead her back to it. "Claudia, how is it coming?"

"Good, nearly set," said Claudia. A spark flew out of the back of the television and Claudia yelped. "Electrifying!" She shuddered and pulled her gloves back on.

Artie patted the chair, indicating he'd like Myka to sit down. Myka did so, stretching out the full length of the chair. Her long legs came within inches of the chair's end, which surprised her. At first glance, the chair did not look long enough for her and she was sure her feet would be hanging off the end. She rested her head back against the headrest and shut her eyes.

"There are still a lot of unknowns about this machine," said Artie. "But it has been used before, in a somewhat similar capacity."

Myka held up her hand. "Artie, maybe the less you tell me…the better." The older man nodded. "Don't you need to strap me in or anything?"

"Why would we do that?" asked Artie, stopping to stare at her.

"I thought that's always what you do in this type of situation," said Myka, shrugging.

Chuckling, Artie laid a hand on her shoulder. "You're not going to be unconscious," said Artie. "It's not going to stimulate your brain or cause you to react. It's going to feel like getting an MRI."

"I'm ready over here," said Claudia. "Now I just need to connect the two devices."

Artie shuffled over to the table and picked up a large helmet-looking thing. Wires connected all over and it made Myka picture a mad scientist assembling the chaos, fusing wires together, and then testing it on himself until the correct results had been achieved. She stared at it warily, but Leena held her hand as Artie fastened it correctly to her head and she started to think clearly again.

While Artie and Claudia exchanged annoying banter of the correct and most efficient way to use the spectrometer to connect the Ring device to the television, Myka's mind wandered until she caught Leena's gaze. Myka raised an eyebrow as Leena gave her a steady, almost goofy grin.

"What?" Myka asked, quietly.

Leena shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment. "Your aura is beautiful right now," she said, leaning in close. "You're positively radiant. I have complete faith that this process will work." She reached up and touched Myka's face with the back of two fingers. "Whatever you're thinking about…keep thinking it. It gives you a great burst of positive energy." Myka's face turned deep red, and Leena's expression changed from joy and giddiness to wonder and curiosity. "Myka?"

Myka shut her eyes and drew in a deep breath, willing her face to change colors and return to normal. The back of her neck began to sweat and Leena's grip on her hand tightened. When Myka peeked her eyes open again, she saw that Leena was laughing silently. That made Myka even more embarrassed, and she decided to keep her eyes shut until Artie and Claudia were ready.

To ease her mind, Myka looked for a happy place that didn't involve Pete. Or the warehouse. Or Artie or Claudia or Leena. She looked for something in the past, someone that could bring her the same solace that she had just found while thinking about Pete, but that wouldn't give her away in such an obvious way. She found this very difficult. Though she knew her life before had been filled with happy times, many with Sam, many with the Secret Service while protecting the President, she couldn't find a memory that gave her an instantaneous feeling of happiness.

She was deciding whether to fight off thinking about Pete again, fully aware that Claudia's explicit acknowledgement of her feelings for Pete was making this all more prominent and noticeable than it had been before, when Artie announced they were ready to begin.

"You may hear a low humming sound when we fire the machine on," said Artie. "It'll sound like…mosquitoes in your ear. At least that's what we've been led to understand. Anyway, ignore the sound, it's normal. We will lead you and prompt you throughout."

"I can't see the screen," said Myka.

"You're not supposed to," said Claudia.

"We need to see what you saw," said Artie. "If you're seeing what you saw as you remember seeing it, you may incorrectly remember events."

Myka blinked. "That almost made sense."

"You already saw all this," said Artie. "If you keep your eyes shut and remember everything as visually as you can, we will see nearly the same thing."

"What do you mean nearly?" asked Myka.

Artie sighed and turned Myka's chair so she could see the screen. "Think about my face," said Artie. "No, don't look at me. Just remember me."

Myka thought. She thought about his glasses and his hair, his long face and stubbly chin. Before her eyes she saw an image mapped out on the screen before her that uncannily resembled Artie, incomplete, but still very much resembling it's real-world icon.

"If your eyes were closed right now, the detail would be greater," said Artie. "But this black-and-white image, in this pointillism fashion, is about as much as this will produce."

"Wait," said Leena, looking between Claudia and Artie. "If this is all the detail we are going to get, how are we going to be able to notice anything that might have affected Pete?"

Artie nodded. "Well, like I said, the detail will be greater when her eyes are closed. It's just different for someone with photographic memory. Myka can shut her eyes and pinpoint something exact from a previous experience, or a word from a letter she read, but the rest of the image still exists. So while she is reliving the experience in her mind, the machine will use those detailed pictures she's remembering to recreate the things she doesn't explicitly think about."

"Think about taking a photograph," said Claudia. "Your lens focuses on a person's face, but that doesn't necessarily mean everything else is unfocused."

Leena nodded. "Okay, okay. Just making sure we're not putting Myka through all this for nothing…"

Artie turned Myka around again. "Close your eyes, Myka. Think about my face again."

Simultaneously, Leena and Claudia both drew in breaths. "Whoa," they said, together.

Myka opened her eyes and turned her head so she could see the screen. Artie patted her arm. "No, no, no. If you break your concentration, we can't see what you're seeing. Believe me, what we're seeing is nothing in comparison to what you see."

Myka shut her eyes again. "Yeah, but you're still seeing something…" she mumbled, completely dazzled by the thought.

"All right, Myka," said Artie. "Take us back to your trip. Start from the beginning."

:||: Pete & Myka land in Egypt :||:

Myka was digging through her purse looking for the Farnsworth. They hadn't used it since the drive to the airport in South Dakota almost 30 hours ago. Suddenly, Pete caught her by the belt and drew her back, away from the curb. She looked up and watched in horror as a taxicab flew by, right in the space she was about to step into. When Pete let go of her, she realized what he had done and spun around.

"Pete!" she said, angrily.

Pete rolled his eyes, his boyish face responding sarcastically to her less than grateful exclamation. "You're welcome," he said. He held both of their bags, each slung easily around his shoulders.

Myka sighed, realizing her hasty response. "Sorry. Thank you for keeping me from getting mauled by a rogue taxi," she said, trying to smile. "Next time can you use your big boy words rather than grabbing my ass?"

"I grabbed your belt, Myka," said Pete. "And I did say something. I said several things, actually, but you were somewhere else."

"What did you say?" she asked, finally finding the Farnsworth. She pulled it out and waved it in front of his face.

"You were looking for the Farnsworth this whole time?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "We need to tell Artie we landed." He drew in a breath, not as though he was annoyed, more like a disappointment, or a resigned understanding of her current mindset. She cocked her head and looked at him. "What is it, Pete? What were you telling me?"

"It's not important," said Pete, looking around. "Let's call Artie."

:||: The Warehouse :||:

"Myka…" said Artie, tapping her hand.

"Yeah, Artie?" asked Myka, not opening her eyes. The picture on the screen changed from an incredibly detailed image of Pete's disappointed face, overlaid on an outdoor Egyptian terminal, to an image of Artie. Claudia and Leena giggled.

"This is really good," he said. "This is way more detailed than I could have imagined."

Sighing, Myka peeked one eye open and the image disappeared completely from the screen. "But…" she prompted.

"But we can't see what he's saying, and this is just a conversation…" he said. "Focus less on the conversations and more on the locations. We're assuming Pete has been affected by an artifact and I, of all people, know an artifact can be anywhere. So move through locations, remember the rooms you went into, or the buildings, the outdoor landscapes…think about where artifacts could have been."

Myka shut her eye. "Okay," she said. "I get it."

:||: Arrival at the first site :||:

Myka eyed the large stone, that was meant to be a door, very cautiously. If the last year and a half had taught her anything, it was to watch out for things that didn't belong. But this does belong, she said to herself. She traced the door with her eyes, looking closely at the symbols, looking for something that didn't belong. Everything seemed consistent.

Behind her, Pete shuffled impatiently, as he always did while she ensured they were in the clear. It was annoying, and frustrating at times, but his usefulness came in later on. But, since she couldn't just let it go, she turned around to face him.

"Would you like to go first, Mr. Jones?" she asked, bowing slightly and holding out her hands in a gesture that would allow him to pass.

Pete raised an eyebrow. "What? No, no, do your thing, I am just...scoping out everything else."

"You know why I do this, right?" asked Myka, looking around the desert behind him, at the camels they'd ridden in tied up to stakes they'd driven into the ground themselves. The locals who'd rented them the camels said the camels would just as soon eat sand as run away from them, which Myka didn't find entirely comforting. But Pete did, he looked positive about the ordeal and even excited to ride a camel.

The desert stretched on forever. They'd ridden for hours, with a compass that didn't want to work, until they found the place they were looking for. A hunk of rock in the middle of nowhere, claiming to possess the source of the necklace artifact they'd found in central California, belonging to some budding movie star.

Pete kicked some sand lightly and shook his head. "Of course I know why you do it, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to belittle you," he said. He didn't look at her. She knew he wanted to talk, but they didn't have time for that now.

Myka turned back to the door. "Okay, if I were living in Ancient Egypt and I needed to lock a door without a lock, what would I do?" asked Myka, mostly to herself.

"Secret knock?" Pete suggested.

Myka shut her eyes, but did not respond. "A hole, perhaps? Push a rock in? Pull a rock out?" she started feeling the wall of the rock. "What do you think, Pete? What looks like it might open this door? If it were your secret hideout, what would you do?"

"Well, if the secret knock didn't work—"

"Pete—"

"I know, I know…you'd need someone on the inside," said Pete. He moved forward and looked closely at the door. "What are those little pegs there?" he asked, pointing to a section of the door.

As Myka got closer, she reasoned that they weren't really pegs, but sliders, wooden slats that needed to be removed in a specific order to unlock what was traditionally a box. But they were large enough to work for this door, and when she brushed them with her fingers, they felt more like rough marble and it felt prickly warm under her fingers.

""Do you recognize it?" asked Pete.

"Yes," said Myka. "But…shockingly, I never learned how to solve them."

"But you're all about puzzles," said Pete, confidently. "You'll figure it out."

Myka smiled, then wiped it away and stared at the slots on the door.

:||: The Warehouse :||:

"Remarkable!" Artie exclaimed. "Simply exquisite." He approached the monitor where they were watching the images Myka was remembering. A vivid depiction of an Egyptian tomb filled the monitor screen.

"Do you want me to keep going?" asked Myka.

"Yes, yes of course," said Artie.

"What are we looking at?" asked Claudia.

"This is supposedly one of Pythagoras's original projects…a key made out of numeric symbols. The answer, of which, is embedded into the door as a reminder in case the individual who built it forgot," said Artie, reaching up and almost touching the screen.

"Anything dark or evil that Pete may have contracted from the, um, wooden…thingys?" asked Claudia.

Artie frowned and looked at her over his glasses. "It's a lock, of course not," he said.

Claudia put up her hands. "Hey, just asking. Last week, anyone who touched that weird Buddha statue burst into flames…so you never know."

"That Buddha was imbued with the dark magic of a sorcerer who lived during the brief period of time where approaching that statue, much more touching it, was thought to bring about positive karma for anyone and everyone living in that village," said Artie angrily. "The sorcerer was capitalizing on the people's ignorance."

"Okay, okay," said Claudia.

"Guys, it's hard to concentrate while you're distracting me," said Myka, her tone gradually increasing as she spoke. The image on the screen flickered between memories of Claudia and Artie and the door of the Egyptian tomb."

"Sorry," Claudia mumbled.

"So you got through the door," said Artie. "What happened next?"

"Don't you want to see how I figured it out?" asked Myka, upset.

Artie sighed. "Some other time. Remember Pete? We're trying to figure out what happened. Let's focus."

The image on the screen switched suddenly to a dark, torch-lit room. Pete was holding a torch and walking ahead of her down a passageway. He kept his hand on one wall and Myka's eyes focused in on it. There were markings on the wall they couldn't quite make out. Claudia coughed loud and the image seemed to shift, focusing less on Pete's hand and more on the wall it was touching.

"Okay, okay…" said Artie, mostly to himself. "Now, these images are telling the story of the cave. It is a tomb, but this symbol here, it's used to dignify a…a double purpose. A cave used as a tomb and as a resting place."

"What's the difference?" asked Claudia.

"Well, we can assume a couple things," said Artie. "First, since the entrance stood above ground, the tomb will be at least fifty feet below the surface. Second, since there is a passage immediately behind the door, there will be at least two chambers just below the surface, and I do mean just below. A narrow set of stairs should appear shortly…"

At that moment, Pete began to get shorter, until Myka's view shifted and stairs appeared on the screen. Artie let out a satisfied sound of familiarity and they let the images tell the story.

"What we think is missing from this cavern is a large ring, probably the size of a hub cap," said Artie. "But we don't know its precise shape, nor exactly its ties to the cavern. Since the Egyptians embedded all their artifacts, or at least the ones they felt were important, within their stories, which just happened to be on the most readily available canvas—their walls—the correct cave will have the full explanation of the artifact we're looking for."

Pete reached the bottom of the stairs and he turned to make sure Myka had also safely reached the bottom. He smiled, jovially, like a true adventurer, and continued to walk on.

"Myka, if it's possible, continue to focus in on the walls around you," said Artie.

"Artie, I'm not actually there, remember?" said Myka.

Artie grunted and mumbled something unintelligible. "It's a narrow passageway," he said, emerging from his mumbling. "Use what you remember of the room to create the rest of the passage, particularly the story on the walls. It's not always about what you can remember looking at, but about what images your brain captured during that time."

The phone rang.

"Is that the phone?" asked Leena. Her footsteps ran off to somewhere away from the room.

The images on the television switched very suddenly from the vivid portrayal of the Egyptian cavern to a very detailed image of Pete being rushed through the emergency room doors in Egypt, gasping for air and clutching at the guardrails of his bed. His lips mouthed Myka's name as vessels popped from his neck and forehead. The medics pushed him down flat, tore his shirt open with a knife, and then used a long needle to poke a hole into his lungs through his ribs to help him breathe. His chest began to heave up and down again, and, almost instantly, he passed out from exhaustion.

"Whoa," said Claudia, under her breath.

"Whoa is right," said Artie.

"What?" asked Myka. The images on the screen flickered between the faces of Claudia and Artie, and then refocused on the Egyptian cavern.

"Artie?" said Leena, from somewhere beyond them. Arties footsteps moved away from the chair Myka was fastened in.

Myka opened her eyes and Claudia, seeing the screen go black, looked over at her friend. Myka looked around for Leena and saw she and Artie conversing under their breaths just a short ways away from them.

"That first series of images…" said Claudia, "you know, the one where Pete grabbed you by the belt to save you from getting hit by the cab?"

"Yes," said Myka. "What about it?"

"What was going on, there? Why weren't you paying attention?"

"I was digging through my purse for the Farnsworth," said Myka.

"Well, I gleaned that much," said Claudia. "But Pete was trying to tell you something and you weren't listening to him."

"I was…" Myka's voice trailed off. "I had a lot on my mind that day."

Artie reappeared at her side. "Pete is getting worse, we need to keep working."

"Worse?" asked Myka. "What does worse mean?"

"The infection is spreading to his internal organs," said Artie. "But since it is an unusual virus, that seems to originate or dwell in the Cricothyroid muscles, the doctors are unsure of how it will manifest as it spreads."

"So it is a voice box thing," said Claudia. "That's what Myka has been saying from the beginning."

"Yes," said Artie. "I thought we'd established the source of the infection?"

The three women looked at each other. "That must have been a conversation you had with your self," said Claudia.

Artie sighed. "The factors Myka pointed out to the doctors at the beginning, the odd sounds Pete was making, led the doctors to biopsy his larynx. The muscles that control the tone and pitch of the voice were causing a disruption to his epiglottis, which in turn affected his breathing, which is why they didn't start with examining the contents of the lungs. Whatever infected him is either so old or so new that it is unknown."

"How could it be old or new?" asked Leena.

"Pete and Myka traveled down into the resting place of some very old Egyptian royalty," said Artie. "Imagine how many diseases lie dormant in the remains of slaves or personal handmaidens."

Leena and Claudia made disgusted faces and thanked Artie for that visual. Leena caught sight of Myka, however, and stopped abruptly.

"Myka?"

Myka was pale, her eyes were wide, and her mouth gaped open slightly.

"Close your eyes, Myka," said Artie. "What were you just thinking of?"