Title: Abyss
Author: LadyNRA
Rating: PG 13 to start, R for some graphic scenes later on
Spoilers: Post "MacPherson" (Season Finale)
Characters: Myka and Pete to start with
Genre: Drama/Angst and some Hurt/Comfort
Disclaimer: The producers and Syfy may own it but I'm taking the time to play with the characters for a little while.
Summary: Artie is killed in a explosion after being trapped in the umbilicus. MacPherson takes off, leaving Pete and Myka to pick up the pieces.
Author's Note: As previously stated this is a story showing what happens just after the explosion in the umbilicus and two possible outcomes to the season finale. This is Alternate Ending 1 and starts immediately after the prologue. Alternate Ending 2 will follow in the next chapter. Also, I want to give a HUGE thank you to Milena D for encouraging me with this and for Beta-Reading it for me. Much appreciated.
Ooooooooooooooooooooooo
Chapter 1: One Possibility
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"Pete, how long do you think it'll be before Leena or Mrs. Frederic realizes there has been an explosion?"
Shrugging weakly, Pete responded. "I don't know. Does the Bed and Breakfast even have a warning system to alert Leena if something goes wrong here?"
"I'd assume so. She and Mrs. Frederic have an uncanny ability to know when there are problems, don't you think?"
"Not with the Claudia Incident," he said, his voice taking on a lighter tone as he remembered what they done through. "We were on our own then."
"True, but Leena wasn't at the B&B at the time, and Mrs. Frederic was meeting with…" Her voice dropped off.
"Artie," Pete finished it with a rush of breath though it clearly hurt him just as much to say it.
To reassure her, he added, "Look, they'll be here. I don't know how they'll know or when it'll happen, but it will. And we can wait it out or ease on down the isle and find that exit. I'll leave it up to you."
At the bottom of the stairs, she leaned against one of the platform's steel support struts. Stay or go. Go or stay. Neither would make her feel better but which would lessen the pain? Staying meant they could keep an eye on things in the warehouse until their rescuers showed up. Going meant they wouldn't fall prey to anything MacPherson might have concocted in the course of his flight. If Claudia was aiding him, she could have booby trapped dozens of places down here.
And there were the outer wall shields to contend with.
As if reading her mind, Pete said, "So what's the manual say? Will the shields block our way out?"
"There's manual override capability but I can't think straight. I'm not even sure where it is at the moment. Art—" She started to say his name and choked. "He showed me once but now the walls all look alike. No more landmarks. I vaguely remember…"
She wiped sweaty, dirt streaked palms on her slacks, leaving graying smudges on them. "…doesn't matter, MacPherson hacked the computers. He probably changed the codes. We'd need Claudia to fix the problem and she's--" She hesitated to state the obvious. Claudia may have inadvertently been a mole under MacPherson's control and had been banished from Warehouse access for a while.
"—not around to help us," he concluded for her, starting to walk away. Suddenly, he was aware she wasn't with him and he turned to observe her staring at the heap of smoldering wreckage.
Gently, he placed a broad strong hand on her shoulder and whispered, "Want to go and see if we can find him. At least get him out of that." He didn't say what he was really thinking. That if they found the corpse, it probably wouldn't be whole. Finding bits and pieces of their boss and friend would be unbearable…for both of them. But deep down he knew he had to try. To do anything else felt like the ultimate form of disrespect. "Come on. I can't stand leaving him in there like that."
Raggedly gasping, Myka pushed off from the strut and turned toward the smoking heap nearby. She walked up and down the length of it, some one hundred feet of crumbled concrete, twisted rebar, and melted plastic. It looked horrific and smelled worse. The pungent odor of the umbilicus shell permeated her nostrils, her throat, her lungs. She stifled a cough but the irritation won. Her own ears echoed with the sound of her coughing, once, then again, and finally a third time. And then she froze in her tracks. Through the haze of pain and anger, her brain registered something. She'd only coughed twice.
She turned to glance back at Pete who was walking the other side of the downed structure. He seemed less effected.
"Pete, did…did you cough just now?" she asked in a strained voice.
"Me? No, why?"
"Did you hear it?"
This time he looked directly at her. "What? You coughing? Yeah, so?" He kicked at some rubble and it tumbled onto the floor with a loud thwack. "The fumes from this stuff are enough to choke someone."
"Oh, no doubt, but I only coughed twice and yet I heard three of them."
That got Pete's attention. "You sure?"
"Absolutely!"
In a frantic rush, Pete ran to the nearest support columns and located a broom, one of many that were scattered around for quick clean ups. He raced back and started to push and prod the debris into fresh rows, hoping to find something out of the ordinary.
Myka willed her eyes to pierce the gloom, dust and still smoking piles. Nothing but detritus from the collapsed umbilicus was uncovered. Pete's broom eventually worked its way to the middle of the now destroyed structure and hit something soft, something that yielded to his poking.
Muscles bunching, back straining, Pete cleared some heavy remnants of the structure away, revealing a charcoal gray and brown heap. There was no movement from the prostrate form, but it was obviously a person and equally obvious, the short, stocky form of a man.
Joining Pete in clearing away the debris, Myka finally was able to kneel beside the body. A quick assessment showed charcoal colored skin, an obviously malformed and undoubtedly broken right ankle and some blood seeping from a head wound.
Trembling hands sought the side of his neck just below his ear. She wanted to cry anew when she found nothing, no fluttering, no rhythmic pulsing, no sign of life. She let her hand drop slightly, trying again. And found it, a weak but steady throb beneath her fingertips.
"Artie?" she called, barely whispering the name. No response. "Artie!" she tried again, with more force, reaching out to grip his shoulder. She was amazed at the soft feel of his sweater. No burn marks on the material or on his skin. Of course, there was still no way to know if he had internal injuries but from a visual perspective, he seemed whole.
Hopping the rubble barricade, Pete settled down next to her. He smiled hugely knowing that she wouldn't be calling Artie's name if he was beyond hearing it.
"Let's get him onto his back…carefully." He placed both heads beside Artie's head and neck to prevent any further neck injuries and very slowly rolled him onto his back. The motion elicited a moan of pain. Gradually, his eyes opened, unfocused, dazed.
Myka did a fast assessment for neck injuries. Artie tried to push her hands away but his muscles weren't cooperating. She persisted, simply avoiding his ineffectual attempts to stop her. Once he stopped resisting her ministrations and she was sure he had no head injuries, Myka pulled off her jacket, balled it up, and fashioned a pillow for him.
Gradually, Artie became more aware of his surroundings.
"Hey man, welcome back to the world of the living," Pete said with a smile, affectionately tapping Artie's shoulder.
"N—never…left," came the hoarse, wheezing reply. He tried to move, but four strong hands held him down.
"Not so fast there, pardner," Pete said affecting a western drawl. "You just got bucked off one big freakin' horse."
Surprisingly, Artie found the strength to crack a very tiny grin. "Nasty…critter…stomped all over…me," he commented, still sounding like someone had just run sandpaper through his throat. "Fire the…rodeo clown…not doing his job!" He made another abortive attempt to sit up. "Ow!" he yelled, much stronger and clearer than before. He glanced down at his injured leg which was still flopping off to the side in an unnatural way.
"Yeah, that ankle is not taking you anywhere just yet. Why don't you just rest for a minute."
"Forget that, help me sit up." He was sounding better now, more determined, and definitely more alert.
"Not wise, bro."
Turning to Myka, he said, "I need water. You have no idea how thirsty I am. Oh, and something to fashion a splint." He glanced around for something. Clearly not finding it, he soon gave up.
"You got it!" she said with huge, relieved grin. She started to jog toward the platform and stopped short. Whirling quickly she returned and stared him straight in the eye. "Before I do that, you have to tell me one thing."
"How did I survive? How come I wasn't crispy crittered?" he asked, deducing her question before it was asked. He struggled to sit up in spite of Pete's warning. Knowing their was no stopping him, Pete gave him a helping hand by clasping Artie's upper arm and steadying him
"Yeah, that," Pete chimed in as he got his boss upright and leaning against a cooled piece of rubble beside them. He settled down onto the floor as if expecting a long, juicy story. Myka simply kneeled, her eyes wide and curious.
"You had the Phoenix," he guessed before Artie could open his mouth.
Artie shook his head and started to speak, but Myka cut him off. "You said the Phoenix protects those who touch it. Does that mean any touch, even previously?"
"Well, that's true. The effects last a bit but the protection isn't long term. Maybe several minutes at most."
"Damn! Good thing I didn't bet my life on it."
"Good thing I didn't bet mine," Artie said with a trace of macabre humor.
Myka found herself trying to fight back tears. "Don't make jokes about it. We thought you were dead."
Turning red rimmed eyes on her, Artie stretched out a comforting hand, clasping her wrist in a warm grip. "Funny thing about Mrs. Frederic," he said in a conversational tone, "Carol was right about her, you know. She did like to pick agents for their arrogance. Or self-confidence, really would be a better term. It's why we adapt to problems so well. No panicking. Well, little panicking at any rate." He exhaled loudly. "Anyway, that's not the main motive for her selection. Intellect is one thing she looks for. I'm sure that's no surprise." He caught both of their eyes as they looked down on him. "But she also prizes agents with unique survival instincts, the ones who get vibes as you do, Pete, or similar unexplained urgings…"
"Like you get?" Pete asked, nodding to himself as if he'd always suspected as much.
"Precisely. My spidey sense was tingling after putting James through the bronzing process. That was odd in itself. So before going back to reshelving items, I made a side trip to India 28 Yamuna."
Pete's eyes rolled up into his head as he mentally sought the section in his memory but couldn't quite place what was in there. Some of the older items were cataloged in the sectors named for the country of origin, meaning that Artie had paid a visit to the area housing artifacts from ancient India but the other reference he didn't recognize.
At that moment, Artie's hands dropped to his button down shirt and lifted. Pete drew back in shock. His first instinct was thinking that Artie had his skin burned uniformly charcoal gray. The hairs at the nape of his neck rose at the appearance of the leathery skin, bumpy and sprouting coarse, spiny hairs. He leaned in, as did Myka. Hesitantly, she placed a hand on that exposed spot. Fur, it was sparse fur, she realized.
Disregarding the appropriateness of her action, she quickly unbuttoned the rest of his shirt to reveal a shirt of supple gray leather stretching from collarbone to groin. Because Artie always wore his shirts untucked, a casual observer would never have seen such an unusual undergarment.
Noting the question written clearly on her face, he explained, "This is referred to as the Babr-e Bayan. In ancient times, there was a fearless warrior named Rostam. There were lots of accounts about him, ranging from ancient Persia to India." Artie winced and shifted. He looked around as if confused. "Glasses, where are my glasses?"
Rising quickly, Myka located them nearby. Miraculously they hadn't broken. Artie unceremoniously shoved them onto his face and sighed in relief. "Now, where was I? Oh right, Rostam. To make a long story short, there was supposedly a sea serpent or dragon if you will, that lived in Indian waters. It would rise out of the ocean one day a week and Rostam supposedly slew the beast and made a garment of the skin. This garment, also referred to as a coat though clearly it isn't, was said to be fire-proof, water-proof, and weapon-proof. And the whole person was protected just by wearing it."
He paused to lick dry lips and spit out the grit pulled into his mouth. "Uck! Myka would you please get me some water before I die of thirst?"
"Wouldn't help," Pete said.
"Why?"
"Coat's water-proof too, remember?"
"Oh, ha, ha! You really stretched for that one." He stared pointedly at the woman before him. "Myka ignore him. I see he has no sympathy for my suffering." At that point, he faked a pathetic cough, which nonetheless spurred Myka to her feet and dashing toward the office platform.
When she returned, it was with a couple of cold Deer Park water bottles, and what looked like two pieces of his favorite antique desk chair.
"My chair," he cried upon seeing the wood slats.
"Sorry, Artie, it had a shelf unit fall over onto it so it was damaged anyway. I figured we could use it for splints." She held up with some thin, resilient lengths of rope.
Artie's head twitched at the thought of his beloved chair in ruins and parts of it about to be strapped to his leg. And then he thought of the general destruction caused to the office and umbilicus areas. His anger grew to rage as remembered how James MacPherson had not only tried to kill him, but his agents as well. "MacPherson is going to pay for all of this, I swear it." Masking his fury, he gave an angry twist to the cap of the bottle and took a long, noisy drink. The action deflected some of his yearning for immediate revenge.
Myka caught the look on his face. "Let's deal with him later. First things first. I still want to know how come you weren't killed. The coat protected you from the flames, somehow. I get it. And you also somehow mysteriously, miraculously survived the fall. Thirty feet, Artie."
Taking another swallow of cool liquid, Artie responded, "Miraculous, perhaps. Mysterious, not really. James didn't count on me thinking about the Babr-e Bayan, which, incidentally, is probably a place name rather than the item itself by the way," he stopped short as if suddenly aware he was going into teacher mode at an inappropriate moment. For a few seconds, he stroked the silvered hairs under his lip. "Anyway, James assumed he'd kill me, trap you down here, and be done with it. He made off with the crystalline diamond necklace, and I'm thinking that may have been what he wanted all along."
"He went to amazing lengths to get it. What a crazy scheme."
"And it worked, didn't it," snapped Artie. "Sorry, sorry. Question is, why is he seeking access to everything? We've already determined that making money off them was never his goal primary goal."
Myka shrugged, "Maybe he wants what every megalomaniac wants…to rule the world."
"He's crazy but not that crazy. No, there's something more and we're not seeing it." He shifted again as the cold hard floor took its toll on his tail bone. The movement elicited a groan as the broken bones in his ankle or lower leg sent rivers of molten lava rushing past his knee and into his thigh. "God, that hurts! Time to splint it, because there's still so much to be done and we must get to it."
As Myka set about constructing a crude splint, she distracted him by pushing for more information. "Back to the explosion, Artie. We've established the coat saved your life there but what about the fall. Full disclosure, remember." She finished the sentence with a half smile as if to remind him of past disputes but not to inflict emotional wounds by doing so.
"Yes, well, there's an amulet, over in Greece 14 Olympus, believed to grant an ability to fly like the wind, like Hermes, messenger of the Gods, simply by being in contact with it."
"Like the Phoenix," Pete commented, watching Myka carefully wrap the ankle.
"More or less, except that there are no dire repercussions for its use. Owww!" Artie's cry ripped out of an already sore throat, but after that he stoically bore Myka's ministrations.
"Sorry," mouthed Myka, and tied some knots to hold the splint in place. She checked the apparatus to make sure it wasn't cutting off circulation. Aloud, she said pointedly, "There's a huge difference between flying and falling, Artie. And judging from where you landed, flying wasn't what resulted."
"Too true. Actually, the amulet didn't grant true flight, only something resembling floating. One's feet didn't touch the ground. It operated like something akin to a hover-craft. Repulsion forces were created between user and the ground. Thereby creating the illusion of…" his voice trailed off as if he were thinking of something else.
"Flying." Pete supplied rhetorically.
"Precisely."
Nielsen craned his neck toward the ceiling to where the covered entranceway used to be. "I was concerned that James might be able to escape after I learned of the mole in our midst." Then he shrugged. "I hoped I'd be wrong, but…," again the voice faded away. Reorienting himself, he added, "As soon as I suspected he was free, I realized he'd try to kill me. There were only a few places he could trap me. And I knew if he blew the umbilicus while I was inside, I'd need to make a safe landing. So I retrieved the second artifact before confronting him."
He reached into his right sweater pocket and pulled out a small carved figure with tiny wings on the feet. "It worked. More or less, but I didn't fall feet first...exactly." He snorted derisively. "If you want the truth, it was more of a belly flop. Somehow I managed to get my feet under me at the last second, felt the artifact do its thing, and then I bounced off something like it was trampoline."
An odd far away expression crept across his round face. "On the other hand, Hermes was reputed to be a trickster so perhaps its failure to function properly wasn't entirely my fault. In either case, I got lucky and ended up as you found me."
"Fortunately, the coat also protected you from additional burns and falling debris."
Artie nodded in agreement. "Fortunately." He reached up to Pete. "Help me up. I can't sit here all day, broken leg or not. We've got to concentrate on contacting Mrs. Frederic but we need to get out in order to do that."
Pete looked up at the gaping hole in the wall above them. "Ladders?"
"None big enough."
"If we moved one of the shelving units over—"
"Too heavy."
"We remove the artifacts from it and—"
"Still too heavy. And most of the units around here are bolted down to prevent them from being moved." Artie stood balanced on one foot, using a hand on Myka's shoulder to provide additional support. "Get me that pike over there. It'll make a decent staff for now."
Pete retrieved the ancient item and gave it over, all the while wondering if it had any special abilities or characteristics that he wanted to avoid if at all possible. Artie handled it like it was totally benign, resting on it instead of on Myka.
Artie hobbled a few paces in the direction of the platform stairs. He gazed up into the damaged portal. "Blast door is still down."
"We can get it open, right?" queried Pete hopefully.
"Not likely. Wiring running the length of the umbilicus is non-existent now, obviously. It can be opened from the outside, provided the door isn't jammed from the explosion."
"Okay, I get it, there may be no way out through that unless the cavalry comes. So now what? Make phone calls?"
"Wiring…" Artie turned his palms up, waggling his fingers like something going up in smoke. "Boom!"
"Damn!" muttered Pete.
"Indeed," replied Artie.
Pete pulled Artie's arm up around his shoulder, preparing to access the platform area. "Well, at least I know we won't die from lack of oxygen right away." He looked out toward the high distant ceiling.
"Not a concern. There is a passive ventilation system not reliant on mechanical devices."
"Comforting," Pete told him flatly.
Myka stood assessing the stairway and thinking. "I think Pete's worried about starvation or dehydration. Any chance we can avoid those two conditions?"
"Yeah, where's the beef?" Pete replied, pulling out a childhood memory.
Artie pointed toward an unmarked door on the opposite side of the area they were in. "Got tons of it in there. Mostly MRE's but they last a very long time, and are both nutritious and reasonably edible if you aren't picky. Barrels of purified water too. This structure is set up to house quite a few people for months if necessary. Years, if the number of occupants is low."
Turning to her boss, Myka said, "I'm going up there to see if any of the phones or computers still work." As Artie opened his mouth, she thrust both palms at him. "I know, I know. Boom. But I want to check the overall damage anyway. And get my bag. I still have my cell phone in it and if we can get out, it might come in handy."
"Fair enough," replied Artie, blowing a quick audible breath through his nose. If Myka wanted to double check everything, he reasoned, let her. It wasn't much different than lights going out in a power failure and having the occupants flipping light switches 'just to see' what would happen despite the problem being totally obvious.
While Myka was upstairs, Pete maneuvered Artie to the steps, and helped the older man sit down on them. "Please tell me there's a way to get the shields down without Claudia's help."
"There's a way to get the shields down without Claudia's help."
"Funny, okay, ya got me. No, really, can we reprogram the codes to use the exits." He pointed at the 'war zone'. And don't dis me over not reading the manual. I promised I would and I meant it…after we get out."
Pointing toward the far right side of the vast structure, Artie stated, "Over that way are the access panels for the manual overrides. But there is an additional obstacle thanks to James activating the security shields. Those shields cover the exits. Normally, said barriers protect us from outside attempts to get in here. We usually don't care if they are covered in the event of an attempted break-in because it's expected that we will stay to protect the warehouse. So technically, we need to get the shields down and then reprogram the codes for egress. I might be able to use one of Claudia's computing stations to accomplish our objective." He held up crossed fingers to indicate how confident he felt about his abilities to do so.
"Well, okay, that sounds like a plan." Pete responded hopefully.
Once Myka reached the floor level of the Warehouse, she was wearing a very grim expression. Her eyebrows were virtually kissing. Not a good sign, Pete decided as he watched her.
"All I can confirm is that nothing works but we already knew that. The exception is your computer Artie. No internet of course, but the basic computing functions are still there. So I took the liberty of leaving a note for Mrs. Frederic just in case she figured out how to get in and we were…elsewhere."
She brandished her cell phone. "I'm going back to retrieve my coat and help you get those shields down."
Pete glared at her. Of course, she'd know how to do that, he thought in mild frustration. She'd read the roughly one-thousand pages of the manual and memorized it as thoroughly as teen-aged boys would devour an x-rated novel.
Together, both younger agents assisted Artie to his one uninjured leg, and like two friends in a three legged race, he and Pete slowly made their way toward the computing station nearest the far wall with Myka trailing in their wake.
