Thankfully, the old SSR base had been built to withstand heavy-duty abuse. The DWARFs' thorough scan revealed no signs of serious structural damage, and after an hour and a half in the chilly evening air, Skye was very happy to go back inside.
The team convened in the briefing room at Coulson's request.
"Did everyone remember to duck and cover?" he wisecracked before switching into business mode. "It looks like we are going to have to get an earthquake evacuation plan on paper." He lifted an eyebrow toward May, who shot him a dirty look.
"You know how much I love red tape," she muttered.
With a mischievous smirk, Coulson replied, "Consider it payback for all the forms you've made me fill out over the years."
May rolled her eyes, a tiny smile playing on her lips.
"Sir?" Bobbi interrupted. She was standing a little apart from the group, Hunter beside her, watching news coverage of the earthquake on her laptop.
"Yes, Agent Morse?"
"I think you need to see this." She tapped the space bar, then set the laptop down on the table, spinning it around so that everyone could see the map on the screen. "They've pinpointed the epicenter of this quake, and it's right over our location. But that's not all..." She spun the laptop back around and began clicking. "I was checking on the other two quakes as well -" she turned the screen back toward them - "and the epicenter of every one has been directly beneath our base. The media are talking about how it's unprecedented to have three quakes in a row with the same point of origin."
Coulson blinked, studying the graphics, then turned toward May. "Any chance it's a coincidence?"
May shook her head, her lips tight. "It's much too coincidental."
"Fitz, Simmons, Bobbi - does Hydra have any tech that could cause - or mimic - an earthquake?"
Fitz and Simmons looked blank, while Bobbi scrunched her forehead thoughtfully.
Simmons' response was hesitant. "I suppose that with a plasma drill they could induce a vibration...but the drill would be fairly conspicuous. We'd have noticed it."
"There's gravitonium," Fitz offered. "It caused quite a bit of shaking on Malta. But I haven't noticed any strange gravity-related effects, and I don't think they could use it without us seeing those."
Coulson swore under his breath. "I forgot they have access to that now." He thought for a minute. "Nothing else? Nothing underground?"
Simmons shrugged helplessly, and Bobbi shook her head. "Nothing that we know of," Bobbi specified.
"Understood." Coulson looked at May again. "Anyone on the Index with this kind of power?"
"Seismic? No."
Coulson stared thoughtfully at the epicenter map on Bobbi's laptop, tapping his fingers on the table.
"What do you think?" May prompted him quietly.
Coulson sighed, clearly not enthusiastic about his options. "We're facing a localized threat of unknown nature and origin," he concluded reluctantly. "I think we have to move."
May nodded.
"And just as it was starting to feel like home," Hunter quipped, folding his arms across his body.
Coulson turned to Billy Koenig. "What's our best option?"
"I sent Sam over to the Party House after Puerto Rico," Koenig replied briskly. "It could be ready within the hour."
Skye spoke up, incredulous. "The Party House?"
"It's another old SSR base," Koenig clarified. He rolled his eyes. "I let Sam name it."
Hunter was suddenly consumed by a violent fit of coughing. Bobbi elbowed him.
Coulson hesitated for a moment, then spoke in a decisive tone. "All right. Everyone, go pack your things. Koenig, sound the evac, then call Sam and tell him to expect us."
"Yes, sir."
"Skye, I'm gonna need you to back up the system and wipe it before we leave." She nodded. "Everyone else, make sure all our tech and files come along. I don't want us leaving anything for Hydra to find." He turned to make eye contact with each agent. "Okay. Wheels up in thirty. Let's go."
Everyone scattered.
Skye started the system backup before heading to her quarters to pack her things. It took her all of two minutes to sweep her meager possessions into a black SHIELD duffel bag. She crammed her pillow in there, too. It had taken her two weeks of snooping and bartering to find a decent one, and she wasn't taking chances on the pillows at the Party House being any better.
She gave her room a final once-over. Despite Hunter's sarcasm, it had come to feel like home over the last few months. It was nice, after living in a van, then a plane, to have a home without an engine.
Of course, as a SHIELD agent, she supposed "home" was a relative term anyway. She switched off the light and shut the door behind her.
Out in the hallway, everything was controlled chaos, people all but running to get things loaded onto the Bus and the quinjet before takeoff. Skye wondered how it all would fit. She was pretty sure the emergency evacuation plan for a SHIELD base typically called for more than two planes. Even running a skeleton crew as they were, they might all end up packed together like sardines.
Hunter walked by, carrying a black duffel of his own. "Hey," Skye called to him. "Can you take mine down there too? I have to go back to the lab and finish wiping the system."
"Sure," he replied, taking her bag. He paused, looking at her piercingly. "You okay?"
Skye knew he was referring to the emotional breakdown the quake had interrupted. "Yeah, I'm fine," she replied shortly, flashing him a strained smile before turning to head back to the lab. She appreciated his concern, but felt uncomfortable at the thought of being an object of pity.
Once they were in the air, Skye let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. There was something seriously unsettling about an unknown enemy who could attack using earthquakes, and it was a relief to be getting out of the danger zone.
Skye looked around at the agents occupying the other seats in the cargo hold of the Bus. Surprisingly, many of the faces were unfamiliar. They must have been working down in the bowels of the Playground somewhere.
"Skye!" The sound of Coulson calling from the top of the spiral stair interrupted her thoughts. "I need your eyes on something up here."
She unbuckled and wove her way between Lola, the SUV, and forty thousand boxes of lab tech on her way to the stairs. Before she left, Skye found the most responsible-looking agent present and reminded him, "Make sure nobody touches Lola."
He blinked and nodded.
The upper deck of the Bus was a literal maze of file crates and more boxes of tech. Skye picked her way amongst them to join Coulson and Koenig in the command center as Coulson was pulling up a few images on the screen.
"Just before the earthquake hit," he began matter-of-factly, "I received a strange report from Agent Ferreira, head of SHIELD operations in São Luis, Brazil.
"He and his team intercepted some chatter a few days ago about a deal going down on a Chitauri artifact. When the field team arrived to scout the location, they were ambushed and knocked unconscious. They woke up an hour later, no serious injuries, but with needle marks in their veins."
Skye's eyes widened. "Were they injected with something?"
Coulson's face was impassive. "We don't know. Ferreira has them quarantined, in case they begin to exhibit negative effects. As soon as we land, I'm going to have Simmons analyzing blood samples." His brow furrowed, betraying deep concern. "We can't afford to lose any more agents."
Skye nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat.
Coulson fixed his eyes on her. "I want you to go over the intel they found, see what you can find out about it. Figure out where it came from. See if anybody's talking about this, anything that might give us more information. And while you're at it, keep an eye out for anything new about the earthquakes." His lips set firmly. "If SHIELD is under attack, we need to know what we're up against."
Obsessive canon compliancy author's note: The map of SHIELD locations that Skye and Coulson briefly consider at the beginning of "A Fractured House" has a dot that's almost certainly over São Luis, Brazil. What's with the random ambush there? We'll find out...
