Chapter 4

Olive was fascinated by this woman. She moved in shatter paces across the apartment, waiting for that fated ping to tare her away from her life. She had explained the process to Olive. A woman with beehive hair would send her a location where she believed Myka could help. Even with everything Myka had told her, a question burned in the back of her mind. She didn't know this, but Olive had over heard the conversation from the kitchen that night. She heard the clatter of the porcelain mug across the tile. She heard the name Myka whispered to the night and her curiosity was getting the better of her.

Myka was curled up under the comforter on her bed, when Olive woke up. She peered into the bedroom and saw only a tuft of brown curls sticking out of the goose down comforter. Olive shut the door as quietly as she could and sat herself in front of the computer. She felt comfortable here in front of this machine that connected her to the rest of the world.

Anything could be accessed from the internet.

Claudia sat at Artie's desk, cataloguing new artifacts. She was bored out of her skull. She sat in the swivel chair swinging her short red hair in her face and then trying to blow it off without touching it. It had been a slow couple of days. Artie was flustered with the lack of work and took it out on Claudia, ordering her to do tedious jobs around the warehouse. She blinked as the computer screen flashed then cut to black.

She slapped the side of the monitor with no success. A program started spewing techno gargle across the screen. Claudia recognized an outside IP address coded into the program. Someone was hacking into the warehouse.

Claudia began furiously typing on the keyboard in front of her. She bit her lip in concentration. " Oh no you don't! No one can defeat the hacking masta!" she continued trying to find the location of the hack and was being dragged through monitors in Europe. "Come on! Where are you?" Just then the screen went blank. Claudia stared open mouthed at the computer.

Just then Artie shoved the door leading to the warehouse open. He carried a pile of brown folders in front of him.

"NO!"

Artie jumped, almost dropping his pile of folders at Claudia's outburst. "What! What? What?"

"She beat me! We have a hacker in the warehouse system and she got away!" Claudia slammed her fingers on the keyboard.

"Hey, gentle! Gentle!" Artie plopped himself down in the chair next to Claudia. "What do you mean she?" He pushed his tiny glasses further up on his nose.

"Dude, trust me. I know what I am doing. I will find her."

Myka woke to the sound of a familiar voice floating in from the other room. "Olive?" Myka's voice came out in only a whisper clouded by sleep. She stepped into her slippers and walked into the living room. She saw Olive captivated by something on the computer screen. The sounds of a woman crying flitted through the speakers.

"Olive, What are you looking at?" Myka peered over Olive's shoulder.

She tried to cover up the screen before Myka could see, but the sound was still running and three words reached Myka's ears. "I killed Christina." Olive pressed the spaced button, pausing the video. Myka ignored her, her gaze locked on the frozen black and white image of her nightmare.

She broke her gaze and turned toward Olive, who looked like she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "Where did you find this?" Myka left no room for the run around. She wanted an answer and she wanted an answer now.

"I… I kind of overheard you talking to that woman in the kitchen. I was curious."

Helena seemed to have traded one prison for another and this one moved. A blindfold had been tied around her face and her hands were bound in front of her. She heard people whispering around her as she was jostled back and forth. She felt a soft hand caress her cheek and her head snapped back against the seat. The jostling stopped and Helena heard the car door open. Men with rough hands yanked her out of the car and steadied her on her feet. She kept silent as they marched her forward. They pushed her down into a plastic chair.

A woman's voice broke the silence. "Gentle. She is our guest, not our prisoner." She spoke in Helena's native tone.

Helena cringed at the sound of scraping metal against the floor. Someone tugged at her blindfold, loosening it, and letting it fall around her neck. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the filtered light. She was in a warehouse of sorts, with cracked windows and piles of dust on the floor. A young Indian woman sat crossed legged in front of her in an identical plastic chair. She smiled.

"Helena, it's been ages." The woman folded her hands on her lap.

Helena squinted, trying to recognize this woman, who obviously knew her, but was drawing a blank. "I'm sorry…"

The woman laughed, but instead of the pleasant after tone usually associated with a laugh, Helena felt chills run up and down her spine. This woman was empty. "Really, Helena. I'm shocked. You don't recognize me?"

Helena studied this woman again, and felt a memory fleeting at the back of her mind. "I… I don't remember."

"HA!" The woman doubled over with laughter. "Has time changed me that much? I thought you would remember my face as I lay dyeing in the bazaar. I was knocked out of time and you left me there."

Helena's breath caught in her throat. "Lily…"

"Spot on."

They tortured her with memories. Myka recognized the pen as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's pen, the one he used to write Sherlock Holmes. When clicked open, it would expose a person's inner-most truths for the person holding the pen. Myka watched Helena react to the hallucinations presented to her, the death of her daughter and the love of the woman she killed. She paused when it was her name that Helena shouted to the Regent. Her vision clouded with silent tears. She pulled one of her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knee. Myka felt a presence behind her and quickly wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. Olive stood silently behind her, hands clasped in front of her nervously.

"You mad at me?" Olive stared at the floor, feet shuffling like a child waiting for the wrist slap.

Myka glanced over her shoulder, "No. No, I'm not mad at you. You're sure we can't be traced?"

Olive blew out a sigh of relief. "I'm sure. I copied all the files on Helena G. Wells and shut down the hack before they had a chance to get a lock. As far as they know, the hack came from somewhere in Europe." Olive pulled up a chair from the kitchen table next to the desk. "Who is she?"

Myka pressed the button on the computer monitor and it faded to black. "No one."

"Myka!" Olive grabbed her arm as she tried to walk away. "Can't you just talk to me? You are hurting, I can see it…"

Myka pulled away from Olive's grip. "It doesn't concern you."

Olive let Myka walk into the kitchen, not wanting to anger her mentor any further. She was about to follow, when a ping sounded from the computer.

Helena seemed frozen in place as she listened to Lily explain how she was even alive. She had woken up days after the attack in the bazaar on a cot in a temple of the sick. Her wound had been bound and a compound of potent herbs had cleansed it. Lily waited for Helena to return, to look for her, but she never came. After many months, she found Warehouse 2 and convinced the agents at the time to bronze her, setting the debronze on a timer for the day before Helena and Lily were to travel back in time. She thought she could stop them from making that terrible mistake. The trigger mechanism failed, leaving her bronzed for a century more then planned, waiting for Warehouse 2 to reawaken. Lily remembered the ground shaking and the bronzing machine coming to life again and tearing her away from her waking slumber. She remembered sand pouring on top of her from every direction and she feared that she had just replaced one grave for another. She found an escape hatch and made her way towards the sunlight.

No matter how many times this person said she was Lily, Helena sensed something was missing. This woman seemed fractured, like she was out of touch with the world around her. Her body seemed vacant at times, her eyes windows to nothing and it terrified Helena.

She interrupted Lily's trail of thought. "What do you want with me?"

"Helena! Really I'm shocked, after everything we've been through together!" Lily grasped Helena's hand in her own, holding it in place. "I want you to join me, of course."

"Join you?" Helena snatched her hand out of Lily's, her skin prickled from her touch. "In doing what?"

"In taking down the warehouse." Lily spoke in a matter of fact voice, brushing her black hair out of her face.

"Taking down the warehouse? Are you mad?"

Lily's eyes narrowed, to barely more than slits. "I'm mad? What about you and you're 'destroy the world' bit? I'm mad. You have reached into that darkness. I've seen it. If I'm mad, then you are a bloody head-case."

Artie accepted things as they were. Myka didn't want to come back to the Warehouse, he accepted that, and didn't pursue her with Pete and Claudia after her departure. Of course he missed her, and he wished more than anything he could talk her into returning. He knew he was partially responsible for her leaving. He knew he was hard on her during those few weeks, H.G. Wells was reinstated to agent status, but he still cared for her. If only he had shown her that, instead of burying it under his hatred for the intruder. He noticed the way they stole glances at each other when they were in his presence, careful not to share their affection to the public eye. It didn't matter. He knew.

He tried to warn Myka of her venomous ways, but he had no leeway in matters of the heart. He leaned over his desk, staring at the folders piled there but not really taking anything in. He enjoyed waking up early and getting to the warehouse before everyone else. The silence calmed him. His meditation was quickly destroyed by Pete and Claudia's argument ripping through the now open door. Artie sighed as the door was slammed behind them. Another day.

"Yeah… But he didn't know the really hot chick was a cylon. So it's not really his fault!" Pete motioned erratically with his hands, trying to prove his point.

"No! Baltar is an asshole, who just needs to die! He destroyed the whole human race and then continues to follow the orders of the cylon in his head. Clearly he is just a crazy asshole!" Claudia put her foot down, leaving no room for Pete to defend himself.

"Language! Language!" Artie broke through the conversation.

Claudia and Pete backed down offering a quiet apology before settling in their places.

"So what's the big to do?" Pete sat in one of the swivel chairs and proceeded to spin in circles.

"Well…" Artie stopped when a woman in a pink dress suit and beehive hair walked through the door. "Mrs. Frederic."

"Artie, Pete, Claudia." She nodded a hello to each of them.

"Hey Mrs. F!" Claudia smiled at the visitor.

"News from the bosses?" Pete waited hoping, she brought news of their lost friend.

"Nothing on Ms. Bering." She lied, her face never changing its expression. "H.G. Wells has escaped."

"What!" Artie got to his feet, his face turning a light shade of purple. "How did this happen!"

Claudia cringed at Artie's rage. It made her stomach uneasy.

Mrs. Frederic handed him a flash drive, which he plugged into the computer with more force than was necessary. A video file opened, showing a fuzzy feed of a concrete cell. They watched as H.G. stumbled to her feet. The chains that bound her hands dragged across the floor. Then the feed cut out as another loud boom erupted from somewhere off screen.

"What was that?" Pete pointed to the screen.

"It seems to me that an insurgency group stormed the facility two days ago and freed H.G. Wells, for what purpose I do not know." Mrs. Frederic's heels clicked as she walked toward them.

Artie's face turned a deeper shade of purple. "Two days! Two days, she's been out there and you decide to tell us now!"

Mrs. Frederic set her infamous stare upon him. "I tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. Not any sooner. I am bringing you into the search. H. G. Wells was fitted with a tracking device in the base of her neck, but as of yet it has not been located. Whoever has her is blocking our signal."

Artie slumped down in his chair running his fingers through his unruly hair and pushing his glasses back onto his nose. There was no arguing with Mrs. Frederic, Artie learned this a long time ago and accepted it. He sighed. "Where did her signal cut out?"

Helena knew of the tracking device in the base of her neck. She remembered the incision made under her hairline and the sharp pain of the tiny robot being fused to her skin. She figured something was wrong with it, otherwise the facility would be crawling with agents by now. Lily seemed to trust her and she wanted to keep it that way. If anything she would be able to gain information and return to serve her penance. She would not betray them again.

Lily showed her around their operation, which consisted of a few dozen muscled men, a small science lab testing the artifacts they had already acquired, and an armory filled with guns. Helena eyed the armory cautiously, keeping a silent record of her surroundings. Lily turned, leaning in to kiss Helena, who swiftly glanced to the side, leaving room for only a peck on the cheek.

Lily paused, her brow creased in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"Non… nothing." Helena shrieked as she was thrown to the floor. She pushed herself up on her elbows and saw the ground littered with bodies.

Lily lay next to her rubbing her head where it made contact with the floor. The sound of gunfire could be heard from outside the facility. Lily's eyes burned with rage. "What did you do?"

Only Claudia would know how to find a needle in a haystack, especially when that needle fought so hard to be hidden. She could crack this she knew it, but with everyone breathing down her neck for the past 24 hours, she felt like everything she did was wrong. She found inconsistencies in the signal strength and whatever was keeping it hidden.

Artie tapped his fingers on the desk impatiently. "Anything?"

Claudia spun around in her chair and fixed him with a frustrated glare. "Well so far I've got it narrowed down to the United States." She put up her hands in defense. "Hey, at least it's not in Canada eh"

Artie glared in silence.

"Okay… not funny." Claudia turned back to the computer. "Her signal cut out on the road right outside the facility. It seems that whoever took her is using a specialized firewall program, it shouldn't take more then a few hours to crack. That is if everyone could go away…" Artie nodded not quiet comprehending her meaning. Claudia shrugged her shoulders. "Meaning you... Shoo." She all but shoved him towards the door.

"Alright! Alright! I'm going!"

Claudia sighed as the weight was lifted off her shoulders.

Claudia jumped as her computer let out a triumphant ping. She had fallen asleep and lines from the keyboard were engraved into her face. She rubbed her cheek to regain feeling. She glanced up at the clock, it was two in the morning. Shaking the sleep from her eyes, she turned towards her work. A tiny red dot blinked on the screen, Claudia raised her hands in a sleepy victory and grabbed the Farnsworth off the desk.

Myka walked out into gunfire. She ducked behind her car and pulled Olive down beside her. "Stay here." Olive opened her mouth in protest. "No arguments." Myka turned and crept towards the other parked vehicles, lined in a perfect row.

A man lay dead on the gravel, two gunshot wounds to the chest. His blood stained the pebbles beneath him. Myka cringed as she lifted his jacket with her finger and thumb. His gun was still in his holster. Myka took it, caressing the cold steel in her grip.

She slinked towards the run down warehouse, peering around the corner before moving forward. She paused. More dead bodies. Swallowing, she shoved open the side door. Darkness invaded her sight. She heard distant shouts followed by gunfire. She pulled the flashlight off her keychain and held it level with her gun.

Olive stayed hidden behind the car, flinching after each shot. She froze when she heard the crunch of gravel under booted feet. She peered over the hood of the car and saw a girl, around her age, sneaking up to the warehouse clutching what looked to be a small ray gun in front of her. She looked uncertain of what she was doing. She watched the doors of the warehouse spring open and two men ran out. One of them she recognized as the man from the hospital. The man in front sprayed wild gunfire into the air trying to frighten away his pursuer. Unbeknownst to him, one of the stray bullets hit the girl standing not to far from them. Olive saw her crumple to the ground.

Pete, she remembered his name, yelled "Claudia!" and shot the insurgent through the kneecap. He shrieked and cursed at Pete, telling him he would remember this, he would come after him. Pete swung the butt of his gun and caught the man right under the chin, knocking him out cold.

Olive ran from her hiding spot and slid to her knees in front of Claudia. A hot red stain seeped through her t-shirt. Olive ripped off her scarf and applied pressure to the wound. Claudia gasped, her eyes glistened with lost tears. Her eyelids fluttered for a second before closing.

"Hey! Hey!" Stay with me!" Claudia, look at me!" Olive tried to keep her awake. She slapped Claudia's cheek and her eyes opened again.

Pete slid down next to her. "Oh god, Claudia…" He glanced at Olive. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

Olive sighed, keeping her focus on the porcelain doll that lay before her. "Later. We have to get her to the hospital now!"

Pete and Olive carried Claudia to the car. Olive sat in the back with her, keeping pressure on the wound as Pete floored the accelerator.

Helena felt the tiny piece of metal tare through her torso as she ran away. She turned to see Lily pointing a gun towards her, smoke rising from the barrel. Lily jumped as the front doors of the warehouse burst open, her attention no longer on her former lover.

Helena stumbled, clutching her stomach, trying to get as far away from the bullets as possible. She entered a dark subsection of the warehouse leaving a trail of blood behind her. She slumped against the concrete wall, her mind swimming. She saw a small light floating towards her and she was ready. She hoped they would kill her quickly. Put her out of her misery.

She jumped when soft hands cupped her chin. She remembered this touch, but her mind was quickly fading.

"Helena!" The familiar voice snapped her to attention.

"Myka? You're alive…" Helena's smiled and tried to smooth the curls from Myka's face. She gasped as pain rippled through her body and fell into Myka's arms.

Myka couldn't think, her nostrils clogged with the smell of lavender. Helena was silent, but Myka could feel the soft flutter of her heart beneath her fingertips. She felt it falter for only a moment. "No. Helena you are not going to die on me!" She felt a sticky substance coat her palm and brought it to the light, Helena's life dripped from her hand.