"I miss you too," Barry Burton spoke into the rigged cell phone, treasuring these stolen moments away from the planning, the late-night intelligence monitoring, the black market arms trading. Dusk settled gently upon the park, gilding the trees and grass in a rosy halo. It was late afternoon, but the team wouldn't be expecting him back for another ten minutes or so. He didn't want the others to see him like this, so lonely and weary. "The girls are behaving themselves?"
"They miss you." Barry's wife, Kathy, said hesitantly. Barry knew where this was going, where these conversations always led. "Moira is adjusting well to her new school, but Polly eats alone, doesn't talk to the other kids. You were her best friend, you scared away the dark for her, and now she feels totally afraid and alone all the time."
"Kathy, you're killing me here." Barry said, voice heavy with choked tears. "There's nothing in the world I want more than to come home and scoop all three of you up in my arms, but if I stop my work-"
"Yeah, I know," Kathy interrupted. "The world will end." She sighed, but Barry could almost hear a faint smile play upon her lips. "This is the price I pay for being married to Superman."
"I prefer the Hulk."
"I bet you do," Kathy laughed now, and it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
"I have to go," Barry said regretfully.
"I know."
"I love you."
"I love you, too. Be safe, OK?"
Barry nodded and ended the call. He picked up the two bags full of Chinese food from off the picnic table and headed for his truck, wondering if he could comply with his wife's request.
"The root of all evil is located in Hyden, Kentucky," Rebecca Chambers stated as she rolled out a large map onto the rickety conference table. Gathered around her, Billy, Sean and Barry ate out of their take-out containers. Rebecca couldn't eat, obsessively looking at her wristwatch and imagining a new horror being administered to Lucia and Sherry with each ticking second. "Just a mile outside of Hyden is a coal mining site. It's been abandoned for years, but the Panacea Group bought up the land eleven months ago and fenced it off."
"I went through news articles from the area," Sean said after swallowing a mouthful of lo mein. "Seems like there have been several disappearances since Panacea moved in. The local authorities are blaming it on bears. The woods are choked with 'em."
"Sounds more and more like the Raccoon incident," Barry said, setting his dinner down. Rebecca nodded, a grim line set into her mouth. She laid a transparent map down over the first, one that displayed the satellite images of the Panacea facility. The structure was massive, blocky and gray.
"Chris reported back to us this morning," Rebecca informed Billy, who listened intently. "The facility has two perimeter patrols here and here. There's an old aqueduct on the far east side that presumably leads back into the building's waste treatment center." Rebecca pointed to a half-submerged pipe that led out into a man-made lake about half a mile away from the building.
"Presumably?" Billy asked.
"That's what we're going to find out," the young woman said. "If it is an entrance point, then we'll initiate Plan A."
"Which is?"
"Find the girls and blow away anyone who tries to stop us." Rebecca stared at Billy, a hardness passing over her eyes that he couldn't recall seeing when they had been trapped at the Umbrella training facility.
"What about the justice part?" Billy asked, folding his muscled arms over his chest. "Are we just going to go around blowing up buildings without bothering to get the police involved? Sounds a hell of a lot like terrorism to me."
"You saw what happened to Umbrella after the military bombed Raccoon to hell. They walked away looking like a benevolent corporation that had done everything in its power to save the town. Their public relations agent even led America in a moment of silence on the eight o'clock news for chrissakes." Rebecca was getting flushed, her eyes shining wetly. Umbrella had murdered her friends, her town and her career all in the name of profit. She wasn't going to be bothered with something as trivial as due process. "If the mission is successful," Barry cut in, trying to staunch the quickly mounting tension. "Then Chris will place a call to the Air Force and make a bomb threat. The 'force will trace the call and find the Panacea scumbags all tied up with pretty pink bows on their heads."
"All right," Billy gusted a sigh and shook his head. "This is about the shoddiest strategy I've ever taken part of, but I can't think of any other way to do it with your resources." Billy noticed that Rebecca had quirked an eyebrow when he said 'your resources.' They'd have to cross and burn that bridge later. "Where are we meeting up with Chris?"
"He's waiting for us at a motel at the outskirts of town." Sean supplied, gorging himself on Chinese food, blissfully unaware of the tension. "We'll meet him there, then head on over to the mining site. Should be a short drive."
"If there aren't any more questions, let's rest up. We're moving out early tomorrow." Barry clapped his hands together, effectively ending their meeting. Rebecca shot Billy a withering look and sat down at her laptop. Even her back seemed to glare at him. Billy gnashed his teeth and made his way to one of the dirty cots at the back, laid himself down and entertained the idea of sleeping. It never took.