Coulson's team had been gone almost a day when Shanghai's power grid failed. Over 24 million people were plunged into darkness and no one seemed to know why. Berlin went black an hour later, followed by Sydney, then Chicago. Major cities all over the globe blinked out like fairy lights in a Christmas tree with no discernible cause and no way to predict which metropolis would be targeted next.
When Rio and Los Angeles lost power within seconds of each other, President Ellis contacted the Director and enlisted SHIELD's help.
The upshot of the chaos was that Simmons did not have to worry about the Director looking over her shoulder while she and Fitz scrolled through the encrypted flight itinerary to track May's whereabouts.
"There!" Fitz exclaimed, pointing triumphantly at the screen.
"Houston, Texas?" Simmons asked. "How can you be sure?"
"Because," he started. "Look: The quinjet stopped in DC, as expected, but then it logged another two-hundred miles before it returned to the base. I pulled the feed from the flight data recorder. The jet was spotted as a blip on radar outside of Ellington Field, a joint military base near Houston, before the automatic cloaking could jam the signal. The pilot was asked to transmit authorization codes to flying in military airspace."
"How do you know they landed there?"
"Because it only takes thirty minutes to fly from Houston to the Playground, but, according to the logs, the quinjet landed two hours after they were tagged on radar over Ellington."
Simmons bit her lip.
"I don't know, Fitz," she hedged. "They could have stopped somewhere else along the way."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," he said excitedly. "But remember what else is in Houston?"
He pulled up an image on the screen and Simmons's eyes widened in recognition.
"The third decommissioned Momentum Energy facility," Jemma exclaimed.
"That can't be a coincidence, right?" Fitz asked.
Simmons's eyes darted across the screen, looking for an answer that she knew she would not find.
"What could the Director be thinking, sending her to the same facility where they make the energy cubes that held that—thing, ghost, incorporeal what-ever-it-was? That's what made her crazy to begin with!"
"I don't know," Fitz said. "But it can't be good. We should contact Coulson."
Simmons shook her head slightly.
"We can't," she muttered. "His team has been dispatched to Miami to get Yo-Yo to help with this blackout. Besides, there's no way to reach him without the call being monitored."
"Well, what can we do, Jemma?" Fitz asked. "I want to help May, but if it's just you and me infiltrating some sort of secret base, I don't exactly like our odds. Besides, I saw the footage. If May's under the influence of whatever this thing is, she won't be in a state to help us… What?"
Simmons grabbed the keyboard from him and scrolled through a list of files logged under the heading "Drug Trial: Hive Sway." Grinning, she clicked on one of the documents and a three-dimensional image of a molecule filled the screen.
"Do you remember this?" She asked.
"Yeah, it's an experimental atypical anti-psychotic," Fitz said. "Dopamine antagonist. But we couldn't even test it on Inhumans that were infected by Hive. I doubt it will work on May. Remember? All it did to the mice in lab tests was make them… pass out."
A look of realization dawned on his face.
"Exactly," Simmons smiled. "We still have some samples stored in the lab. How fast do you think it will take you to aerosolize it?"
"Couple of hours?" Fitz said.
"Perfect."
"There's still a matter of getting to Houston," Fitz reminded her. "Unless you've learned how to fly a quinjet without me noticing."
"Let me worry about that," Simmons said. "Meet me in the hangar bay in two hours. Loop the feeds. We need to move fast!"
"He's not answering!"
"Ring the doorbell again!" Simmons directed. "The sedative's wearing off. She starting to wake up!"
Fitz shifted his grip and jammed the button with his thumb.
"Come on, Radcliffe! Open up! It's Fitz and Simmons!"
Nothing.
"Holden!" He yelled again. "I know you're in—
Dr. Holden Radcliffe opened his front door to find Fitz and Simmons struggling to hold an unconscious woman between the two of them. A third figure clad in black tactical gear stood behind them with one hand resting on her sidearm.
"Fitz? Simmons?" Radcliffe sputtered. "What the hell…? Is that Agent May?"
"Yes," Simmons panted. "Dr. Radcliffe, can you please let us inside? She needs immediate medical attention."
With Radcliffe's help, Fitz and Simmons were able to manoeuvre May into the downstairs lab and place her on the operating table.
"Do you have a cardiac monitor?" Simmons asked.
"Yeah, over there," Radcliffe pointed to a darkened screen on a rolling platform in the far corner. "Can one of you tell me what is going on?"
Fitz rolled the heart monitor over to May's side and watched as Simmons placed the electrodes on her chest.
"I need to check her vitals," Simmons explained. "She nearly coded on the flight over. Her blood pressure was through the roof. I had to give her a sedative."
"What the hell happened to her?" Radcliffe asked. "And who are you?"
The third member of their rescue party had remained silent and out of the way.
"I'm just the pilot," she answered.
"Dr. Holden Radcliffe, meet Agent Piper," Fitz said. "Piper, Radcliffe. Agent Piper helped us rescue May from a laboratory in Texas."
"Doesn't SHIELD have entire tactical teams to do this sort of thing?" Radcliffe asked.
"This wasn't exactly a SHIELD-sanctioned op," Piper explained.
"What did they do to her there?"
"We don't know," Fitz answered. "But it seems like you were right about not trusting the new people running SHIELD."
Simmons activated the heart monitor and checked the leads.
"May was… exposed to some unknown agent that induced psychosis," Fitz continued. "The new Director shipped her off to a defunct energy facility to have her experimented on. So we went after her."
"We pumped a dopamine inhibitor into the air-ducts and it acted like a knock-out gas. Everyone in the lab was out in seconds."
"Except May," Piper added.
"She had some sort of hypo-manic episode," Simmons said.
"Started screaming her head off and throwing anything she could get her hands on," Fitz continued. "It was pretty scary."
"Piper restrained her," Simmons said.
"Just barely," Piper murmured.
"This is all my fault," Simmons moaned. "The bloody drug was experimental. It should have stopped the psychosis, at least. I managed to administer a sedative, but… Oh God…" she trailed off.
The heart monitor display showed May's heartbeat at forty beats per minute and falling.
"Why is this happening?" Simmons demanded. "The sedative was wearing off! Why is her heart rate slowing down?"
The heart monitor let out a high-pitched whine and showed a flat line where May's heartbeat should have been.
"I need a defibrillator!" Simmons cried.
Radcliffe handed her the paddles and stood back from the table.
"Clear!"
May's body jumped at the electric shock and fell back to the table with a dull thunk.
The heart monitor's persistent wailing continued.
"Come on, May!" Simmons pleaded. "I'm not losing you!"
"Try it again!" Piper yelled.
Another shock.
May's head lolled to the side and the lights of the laboratory flickered. The heart monitor stopped whining and winked out. There was a moment of complete silence as Simmons, Fitz, Radcliffe and Piper stood blinking in the dark.
"What is happening?"
"What's going on?"
"I don't know! There were reports of power outages in cities all over the globe. Whatever it was must be causing this."
"What could do that? Even an EMP would only-
"Quiet! Both of you!" Simmons yelled. "I can't feel her pulse. I can't feel anything!"
Fitz activated the flashlight on his phone and aimed it at the table. Simmons looked as pale as May in the harsh white glow. Fitz felt his heart drop to his stomach. There was nothing she could do. Without electricity to power the defibrillator, there was no way to bring May back.
Simmons looked up at him.
"I have to crack her chest and perform cardiac massage."
"Are you crazy?" Radcliffe asked.
Fitz had to agree.
"It won't work, Jemma," he said. "She's too weak. The room's not even sterile! Even if you could restart her heart, she could get a massive infection!"
"I can't let her die, Fitz!"
"Perhaps I could help."
Four heads whipped around in the direction of the voice. The tall brunette that entered the lab wore a serene expression that was quite out-of-place amidst the chaos.
"AIDA," Fitz whispered.
Thanks again for all of the lovely comments! I apologize for any mistakes in this one. I'm not used to writing this fast!
Still to come: Fitz has some apologies to make and Jemma faces off with The Director.
