There was a brilliant light that was shown high above the whitewashed stone buildings of the Mediterranean setting. The deep warm rays of the sun glinted off the clear blue ocean created an effect of a great halo around the island as if god's sight was drawn to it. Some say it was the appeal of the small nation, but no one quite knew much about it. Mostly, because with the nightlife was the draw. Most visitors were passed out and others shunned the brightness of the island paradise to nurse their hangovers.

Nestled amongst the older buildings of the historical district of the town was a striking change of architecture in the form of a tall deco building made of a light brown brick and tinted windows. The coloring and style brought a strange modern contrast to the heat resistant, Spanish architecture around it. Connected on every corner were tall spire like towers with bars implanted on them. The only government building on the island housed the courtroom, jail, morgue, and police station. The day to day administration was held at the central palace where the King conducted the very minor government business.

The front desk officer of the small section of the police headquarters was used to the sight of all sorts of people. Locals complaining about permits and thievery, the tourists brought their own problems. He had dealt with the usual drunken rowdiness, and indecent behavior. Every once in a while an employee of some rich visitor would come to his desk to point out the problem of needing extra security for their employer, who deemed himself or herself too important and vulnerable. At the extreme there was the report of date rape and full on rape, which due to extradition rules meant that if it was between two mainlanders that the process would have to be handled between the accused's own federal investigation branches.

But when looking up, he was surprised to find something he didn't expect. She was petite with a perfect ceaseless posture as straight as a board. She wore a tan tank top and a dark blue blouse that touched her thighs. Her dark hair was curled and in a ponytail. But most striking was a stoic sternness to her beautiful face as she watched him behind tinted aviator sunglasses.

"Can I help you?" The man couldn't explain why, but he felt scared under her gaze.

She reached into the back pocket of her tight blue jeans and pulled out a brown wallet. Inside was a five pointed star pinned to the bottom flap and an ID of a youthful girl smiling above it.

"Sarah Baum … US Marshal." She identified herself. "I'm here investigating the murder of Cameron Reese, a United States Citizen, killed during a Café Shooting the other night." Her voice was deep and dark, he wasn't sure why but he almost felt like it didn't really belong to her.

The man frowned. "We weren't informed that a United States Marshall was coming." He turned toward his woefully outdated computer and began checking records. The green and black aged screen flickered.

"I just got in." Her deep voice had a stern reproach for him. He gulped a little and saw that they did have a Cameron Reese on file that had been murdered, but then realized why that name sounded familiar.

He nodded. "Si, You might have to wait a moment, her fiancé came just before you to see her … he didn't look so good." He gave a sad sigh.

But rather than be deterred by the information, she nodded. "Good, I have a few questions for him as well." She began walking down the hall with an oddly distinctive stride that he couldn't place.

The officer let out a noise of protest. "Please, Senorita … give him a moment." He begged her.

There was something menacing in the way she stopped. Swiftly, she turned back toward the desk. The walk, the stiff upper body and emotionless look in the tinted sunglasses, all of it made him take a step back.

"You think I should?" Her voice lacked anything but a cold disagreement in the rhetorical nature of her question.

His arm pits and forehead began to leak with a strong flop sweat under her unrelenting, frigid gaze. "I'll … I'll send an officer with you." He reached out toward his phone. He nearly wet himself when a slender hand shot out and pressed down on his wrist with a sold grip of a heavy rock.

"Federal business." Her voice was hard as her grip.

He gulped and nodded vigorously. "Right … right." He slowly pulled his hand from under hers. "That way." He pointed down the hall toward the stairs.

She took a step back from the desk, collecting her badge. Then maybe the scariest of all, was when she gave him a perfect and pristine smile of flawlessly white teeth. "Thank you for your time." She turned her head slightly. Her smile melted as she strode away. Leaving the desk officer to excuse himself to the bathroom.

The morgue was in the basement level of the tall deco government building. There was a corridor of off white tile and indistinct empty file rooms were lit by spotlights leading toward the double door at the far end of the very cold hallway. The word morgue was written twice on each frosted glass panel. One was in cursive English and to the right was printed Spanish.

Pushing the door open the girl still used her cover voice. "John?" She asked, but got no response. "John?" She repeated walking into the freezing room. On both walls were sealed metal cubbies with letter tags. In the middle was a heavy wooden desk, lamp, and computer that was being searched by a man in a black t-shirt and old jeans. He wore a vintage, double breasted, brown coat made of supple leather.

"John?"

"Cameron."

"Yes?"

"Don't ever use her voice again." John Connor didn't look up from the computer as he tacked away at the old key board. Cameron was taken aback by the cold calm anger in his voice.

"I'm sorry" She sounded sincere. The cyborg had thought that if she wore Sarah's clothing that John would be comforted by the familiar sight and smell of his mother. She had thought the same in using her voice. But the effects were opposite to her hopes; he glared at her attire, but had not said anything. But it was the use of her voice that broke the camel's back.

Though she apologized, it did nothing to temper his cold attitude. He showed no intent of remorse in how he addressed her, or regret in his tone. Unplugging a USB device from the computer with his bandaged hand, he moved toward her. "Slot B4" he began searching the wall for the right seal. Still recovering from his harsh words she was cautious about getting in his way, but when she found it in the second row a few feet from her, she walked toward it.

"Here" she waited for him to arrive.

Something had happened to John since the night she nearly lost him. He had changed or rather the toxin that had been injected into his system had changed him. She knew that it was hallucinogenic from what she could analyze from his blood. He never said what he saw, but she was sure that it had something to do with Sarah and Derek. she knew that at some point this was going to happen, had there been toxins or not, John was going to move into a different stage of mourning. But this time he was different, he was angrier, brooding … he was like the man she knew in the future, but pushed to the extreme. Had she been human, she might be scared of what he might do next.

He pulled open the slot and rolled out the slab with a metallic ticking. Inside was a man Cameron had never seen before. He was somewhere between her and John's age, He had been handsome with a youthfully athletic build. She suddenly noticed why John was interested in him, his eyes were glued shut by a blue tinted mucus that had hardened into flakes. There were also blue stains under his nose. The island had to outsource coroners from the mainland and much like the false records of the non-existent corpse of Cameron Reese, the Coroner for the security guard mysteriously found himself delayed.

Reaching into the inner pockets of the Connor family leather coat, John extracted a plastic vile with a cue tip inside. He began swabbing the former security guard's eyes. "Cam, go to the glass cabinet, they took a blood sample from his body, before they froze him." He ordered distractedly. She nodded and strode to the see through drawers. "Montez, Ricardo" John answered her as she turned to ask the question.

The red vile was frosted when Cameron held it up to study. Her brow furrowed when she saw a strange tint of blue. When she magnetized her vision, she saw hints of metallic coloring, a detail someone with a microscope and years of university would've needed to find.

From down the hall the clack of heels paced toward morgue that John and Cameron where in the middle of the pillaging for information. Cameron stuck the blood vile inside her black satin push up bra and lowered her body temperature to accommodate the sample. She paced toward the glass door and pushed it open slightly to see through.

"Who is it?" John asked distractedly.

She squinted. "The woman from the café …" She turned back.

John was in the middle of swabbing the blue mucus under the nose. "The one that Montez was trying to gun down?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Shit!" John placed caps on both plastic tube and pushed them in his inner coat pocket. He looked around a moment and then opened a random morgue drawer. "Get in!" he ordered in a whisper.

"Why?" She asked with a frown.

John gritted his teeth. "Because the last time she saw you, you were dead! Do you really want her to come in here and see a zombie stealing blood?" He hissed.

Cameron tightened her cheek and glared. "It's bad luck in Native American culture for someone to lay where the dead …" she began to protest.

"I don't care what the Indian's say … get in there!" He pulled the white sheet off the slab. Whirling to the sounds of heels nearly to the door she pulled off her sunglasses and handed them to John before lying on the slab. He quickly covered her to the chin with the white sterilized sheet. The youth pushed her inside and was closing the seal as the door opened.

The blond woman wore a sun dress made of thin material accented by sparkling embroidery. Her light silvery blond hair was in a tight bun. Though her Spanish face was thoroughly beautiful it seemed somewhat marred by the aristocratic nose that looked like a bird's beak.

"Hello …" She offered in a gently mournful inflection. There was a strange local flavor to her fluid musical voice.

John cleared his throat and did his best to play the meek mourning loved one, but he just couldn't. Had it been a couple of days ago, he wouldn't have to try. Now his anger dominated almost anything, it was something that could be felt as seen in his expression. An after effect of the poisoning, or maybe it was just something that evolved from the sorrow.

Before he could answer, she made a frightened noise at the sight of the man in the open drawer. He wanted to face palm at the idiotic feat of not closing it before she got inside. She studied him closely.

"Is that him?"

John nodded. "Yeah …" He growled. She looked up and tilted her head in surprise.

"Did you open this?" She asked gently.

At first he was going to tell the story of how there was a lab technician that just left. But John knew he couldn't carry that story in his state of mind. "I wanted to see him." He said with a vengeful cut under his voice. Had John got the chance to ever catch up with the man responsible for his mother and uncles death's he would want to see him on a slab like this, dead and frozen … like his mother and Derek. Forever a corpse, put there by John's vengeance.

"I can understand." She nodded. "When my mother died ..." She trailed off, wandering toward the desk away from the bodies.

"You lost yours too?" He asked.

She nodded distractedly. "You can't imagine how long I wished it was more than just child birth that had taken her, I wish there was someone to blame for it, other than my younger brother." She sighed sadly.

John watched her. "Does it ever go away?" He asked the old veteran of the feelings he was only now experiencing.

She smiled sadly. "No … but one day you'll find that right someone and it'll hurt so much less." She nodded gazing off in the distance. John could almost see the face of the man that she had been dancing with the other night on the far wall she was looking too.

The youth nodded and drew his gaze toward the seal that Cameron was inside. The woman had been right, Cameron had been there for him since the beginning. The hurt had gone on and on, but, it was blunted in her presence. Much like that night on the balcony his companion had always been there to pull him back into the light from the shadows that he had grown too fond of in the aftermath. Till the night of the Catacombs he was starting to remember the taste of a laugh on his lips and the feeling of life in his lungs with her innocent mission to try everything in the festival around them.

"I'm sorry …" She said with a sad smile as he walked toward her. "Here I am gloating about being a bride tonight, while you've just lost yours." She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"It's fine …" He nodded.

She sighed. "No, it's not … it shouldn't have happened. Such a delicate flower." She seemed emotional.

John snorted. "Delicate …" he chuckled. "You didn't really know her." He smiled with a shake of his head.

The woman laughed. "You're probably right, if she lived the way she danced. Then there was such life and humanity in a fiery soul." She eulogized.

John kept a straight face, looking away. "Yeah … humanity." He nodded. "It's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Cameron." He said it loud enough to give his companion inside the cubby some amusement.

Maybe there was too much amusement, because behind him there was a noise of cluttering from a slab. The blond woman made a sudden gasp and her eyes widened. John sighed without turning around, he cursed himself again for trying to joke with Cameron who had too much of a blunted sense of humor. She had probably mistaken his comment as some sort of signal to come out.

The woman began to back away, mouth open in a muted scream. John cursed under his breath and held his arms out, a defensive motion to calm her down. "Look …" John began to talk slowly. "I can totally explain this." The fact was that he could and she wouldn't believe him. Or he could lie and she'd get the wrong impression about all of it.

Luckily he didn't have too, because an ice cold hand took a harsh grip against the leather of his coat. John turned and was shocked frozen by the sight of the naked appearance of Ricardo Montez's reanimated corpse.

"What the fu …"

The dead man took an iron grip on John's coat and threw him forward. He tried to find his feet but it wasn't in time before he fell over the table. He crashed head first into the roller chair that gave way under his weight and landed with an unceremonious thud on his forehead. He sat up and heard the confused throb of his head, the slamming of steel giving way, and the scream of the bride to be. John reached his feet, feeling wobbly as he surveyed the scene. The naked dead man had cornered the woman his arms outstretched toward her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to wish him away.

Moving into action, John leapt onto the desk and used the high ground to propel himself into the air. Like the first time he met Montez he used his large upper body to his advantage driving the man into the wall away from the Castellan woman. He grabbed ahold of the dead man's head and slammed it against the wall, pinning him there for a moment.

"Run!" he snarled to the woman, who had slid to the floor in shock for a moment. "Run!" He repeated louder. The woman, startled by the voice took off, though something told John that she wasn't going to get help at all. Distracted for a moment, he lost track of his opponent, who broke out of his grip and slammed a fist into John's rib. The shot loosened John enough for the naked man to hit him across the face. He fell backwards as the rabid man marched on him.

Suddenly a petite hand snatched the dead man from the neck like a dog with a chew toy. Cameron threw him with an easy pivot. He flew across the room like a rag doll smashing into the far wall, leaving a spider webbing of cracks through the drywall on impact. John turned from the girl standing in front of him defensively to where he had sealed her in, to find the steel cover bent and hanging from a single hinge.

The dead man, as if not feeling the strangulation from the cyborg or the body shattering impact of being thrown against a bricked wall, stood up. Cameron didn't flinch or move in readiness when he charged at her. All it took was the force of an open palm that landed right in the center of the man's face. He flew several feet in the air and landed with a heavy, dead slam against the polished floor. He didn't get up again.

Cameron seemed almost casual when she approached John on the floor. She offered him a hand, to which he took. He was pulled to his feet alarmingly easy by the girl with the strength to stop an eighteen wheeler. She stood in his personal space as they looked on the remains of Ricardo Montez, whose nose was completely caved into his skull. Bones and cartilage impaled in the front of his brain.

John sighed and shook his head. "Had him where I wanted him." He panted distractedly.

"I'm sure." Cameron nodded staring at her first zombie.

The light of the late afternoon cast an amber color across the orange tile of the small two story Cabana. A comforting breeze flooded through the open back porch doors rustling the forest of fake foliage posted through-out the comfortably quiet temporary home.

Sitting in the shadows that had gathered in the corner of the cabana away from any sort of light was the brooding silhouette of John Connor. He was slumped in the red leather chair, elbow propped rigidly against the arm rest, his bandaged fist balled underneath his nose. He stared blankly into the empty living room, his mind a thousand miles away.

From down the spiral staircase, Cameron padded barefoot across the decorated patterns of blue and white on the tile steps. She paused a moment watching the man she loved stew in the juices of dangerous emotions that had unleashed everything Sarah ever taught him in pursuit of the person who had nearly broke him. Cameron watched him go from vulnerable, trapped in the ruins of his defenses to over building them, poring almost a second wall of concrete around himself. She wondered if he might be putting so much into the pursuit of this Voodoo priest knowing that for the moment, the pursuit of vengeance and justice for Sarah and Derek is out of their hands. She began to think what would have happened if she had hit the Voodoo priest, if his technology hadn't disabled her targeting systems, would John have been cured of this anger? She thought of Jordon Cowen and the effect on John … and knew better.

Her lover didn't seem to notice as she strode across his sight line. She gave him a moment before barging in on his inner thoughts. When she finally reached him, she held the blood sample. John blinked finally and slowly lifted his dark emerald eyes to her face, his expression was the question.

"Nanites"

John sat up a little taller in the seat. "Nanites?" He frowned hard, it was obviously not something he was not expecting in a hundred guesses. He took the vile from her and stood. "Are you serious?" He asked walking toward the porch.

She followed him to the light where he lifted it up and checked. "Yes … I had suspected it when I first saw the blood sample. But then when Ricardo Montez attacked you, it was almost obvious." She watched him look in vain for the microscopic machines.

"He wasn't after me." John corrected distractedly. "What do you know about them?" he turned toward her.

"They're microscopic machines that are commanded by a more powerful epicenter of control, an AI chip, or they're programed with certain orders. I have them inside me as well." She watched John seem more interested than squeamish at the thought.

"You do?"

"Yes, my chip recognizes damage to my outer layers of flesh and dispatches the Nanites in my blood to repair that damage. I would equate it to the cells in your body. Though these Nanites are quite primitive compared to mine."

"How come when Ellison was hunting for Cromartie, the FBI labs didn't pick up on anything?" He asked.

"Nanites are the size of blood cells and are camouflage within the blood, to any FBI lab they'd only read it as synthetic." She explained.

"So say if these Nanites were programed to follow a glowing rod and wiring on the ceiling?" John quirked an eyebrow.

"More to the point they were reprogramed to control brain function. If they were programmed to carry information that someone should be killed, and this target was in close proximity they would trigger."

John frowned. "But the man was dead." He protested.

"The Nanites aren't." She corrected.

"So … Cyborg Zombie?"

Cameron paused. "Yes …" She nodded unsurely. "Cyborg Zombie." She reached into her pocket.

John tossed the vile up and snatched it out of the air, a frown of trouble all over his features. "If it's that easy to take control someone's brain …" he trailed off.

"It's not." Cameron assured, holding the tube with a blue cue-tip. "The Nanites were mixed into an airborne powder." She gave him a poignant look.

The youth gave a clear of his throat, setting the blood vile on the desk mounted by his laptop. "Like the one that I inhaled." He replied. Cameron tightened her cheek as John dropped into the office chair at the living room desk.

"The powder enters your blood stream and attacks the part of your brain that carries all the things that you push to the back of your head."

"And brings them to the forefront in looped fast forward." He finished for her.

His cyborg companion nodded. "With your brain in disarray, the Nanites implant and you have no choice but to obey." She replied.

There was quiet lull. "Then what did he want me to do?" John asked, flexing his fractured hand in thick bandages. Seeing the worry deep inside, Cameron walked forward and touched his hand gently.

"You'll never know …" She reassured him. "The Nanites have a small window to stick, if you fought them as hard as you did, then, they would've rejected you." He reached out and held her hand. Leaning down he rubbed his cheek against the top of it, seemingly relieved at the news.

Swiveling around in his chair, he brought his laptop from screensaver. Cameron saw that there had been a running a program that she didn't have chance to see the details of. John brought up a search engine that didn't quite look like a website from the internet.

He pulled out from under the desk and moved Cameron in front of him. "Type in the chemical formula for the toxin." He compelled her. She blinked at him, not understanding what he was getting at. But she did as he told her. Her fingers moved over the keyboard quickly, filling the blank space with an equation of numbers and letters in a formula format. When she was done she tapped enter.

"What is this?" She squinted. The screen turned blue, a great loading wheel turning slowly as the program analyzed the information.

John leaned back. "Remember when we installed all those roving back doors in several university archives?" He asked.

"Yes"

"Well, I created a search program that links all of their archives together." He motioned his head to the computer. "Whatever we type in there, it'll give us everything that six of the biggest libraries in the country have on anything related to it." He leaned back and placed his hands behind his head, looking quite pleased with himself.

His computer screen blipped and information began streaming in segments. He gave her hip a light kiss, before gently moving her out of the way, so he could read the text. Cameron took her place at the right side of his chair, her hand resting on the back.

"Azul Medinoche …" She read aloud.

"The Blue Midnight." John translated. "Yeah, I heard of this before … back when Mom and I were hiking in Central America." He said skimming through the information as he scrolled. "The Mayans used to use it for coming of age rituals so that a boy could conquer his worst fears and face them in battle." John seemed to be looking for something in general as he scrolled down. "There's several international bans on the selling or trade of the flower in most countries." He stopped and began reading.

"Why?"

"The effects are extreme. A little will make you anxious, a good dose will give you hallucinations … but a lot will push you to …"

"Cardiac arrest." Both John and Cameron traded knowing looks. He nodded in conformation, his eyes narrowing into a glare at the flashes of memories.

"The flower it's self is not illegal in the country of origin, it's used for cultural ceremonies … vision quests and alike." The young man leaned back and tugged his chin in thought.

Cameron stared at the computer screen. "The dew points in the flower's granulated form that I found in Ricardo and your systems, suggests that they were freshly ground as of a week ago." She suggested to a deeply in thought John.

"Well he couldn't have gotten past costumes with a big bushel on him without a hazmat suit … it's possible that he had it shipped to him." He minimized the search and went back to the program that Cameron didn't get to see the first time.

"What is this?" She saw at least fifty files filled with information.

"While I was waiting for you in the Morgue, I hacked into the Island's federal network and download anything might be useful. Police reports, Business Permits … and Custom's inventory." He pulled up a forest of names and numbers on a long spread sheet. "Cam, go get the phone book … look up all the flower shops in the area." He began reading the first several lines.

"There are three … "Angelica's roses, Hernández bouquets, and Florencio Para Arriba" Cameron listed off. Her companion swiveled his chair to face her, his eyebrow quirked in confusion and amusement at the accent she spoke with.

"I don't sleep."

"I'd say." He said giving her a sly inappropriate smirk. Though it had been a crack at their nocturnal activities and their multiple occurrences in succession, Cameron thought it was nice to see the coy grin on his face as he went back to the laptop. He began typing, and as he progressed the list began to shorten greatly.

"What are you looking for?"

He sighed thoughtfully. "If our Voodoo friend is having his mountain flowers shipped here, then all I have to do is find a manifest of imports from the country of origin to the flower, and then cross reference our flower shops." He explained.

"But the flower is illegal here."

"True … but do you think that the common dock worker is going to know the difference between Azul Medinotche and your run of the mill blue flower? Hell, we had to look up the compound just to find it." He worked on a sub-window for a moment longer, before the computer began inventory on its own.

With a few moments to spare, he looked out over the ocean longingly. Cameron tilted her head when he began to smirk sadly.

"Hey, do you remember that one mission to that big college in Alabama?" as he spoke, his gaze was snared far away.

"I do." She nodded.

"We enrolled you for like a month undercover?"

"Yes, I pledged to Kappa Beta Delta. An evangelical sorority house. "

"Only you, the most sophisticated killing machine in existence could end up with the bible thumpers and sexual repressed."

"I liked their house."

"Mom got so mad …" he laughed.

"No, Sarah was annoyed, she became furious when you snuck into the sorority house so that I could give you the layout of the archives and fell asleep. They called her, saying that they caught me in bed with a strange boy."

"Yeah, well you were the one that crawled in with me."

"I had to keep up appearances."

"Sure …" John smirked. "Man … she read us the riot act and then decided that it would be better if she went undercover with you as the house mother. The mother of the future … world's greatest fighter, mentor to a bunch of super hormonal southern belles." He laughed. "You remember that wardrobe that she had to wear? Those fuzzy pull over v-neck cardigans, matching preppy skirts and satin bows in her hair?"

"She had to lead the breakfast, lunch, and dinner prayers … and council us in the ways of our misguiding sins." She watched John chuckle. "She used to describe to me in detail how she was going to murder all of us."

"Yeah … then when Derek and I finally got into that damn archive room, and planted the backdoor. Derek tripped the alarm and we had to split up. I picked you up inside the church, but mom missed the signal. Derek had to go get her, while we led the police to the boondocks."

"Yes, He ran up to Sarah in the middle of the open air Easter Service. She was so happy to get away from everyone there that she tossed her Easter bonnet and kissed Derek full on the lips in view of the entire congregation. I believe they rode off together on a stolen Harley."

John began to laugh, laugh harder than she had seen him laugh before. She smiled and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder as he wiped away a tear of regret and longing for the past. When he was done, he caught her eye and he smiled sadly. For all the bluster and hard words for her earlier in the day, he was happy to have at least kept one thing from those unknown happy days that could remember them with him.

When he finally got back to the computer there was a single name on several manifests from a certain country.

Florencio Para Arriba was not the oldest flower shop on the island, but it was by far the most popular. One of the many appeals of the shop was its selection, ranging far and wide, with the most exotic arrangements to be found. These factors were exactly why Florencio Para Arriba was easily the culprit amongst all the rest of the flower shops in the area to be carrying the midnight flower. Located in the heart of the business district, there was a strange lull in the evening that came with a large ceremony that drew much of the local population to the historical district.

John and Cameron considered themselves lucky as they walked casually toward the glass building in the corner of the large stone plaza. There was a gushing ivory fountain of white stone echoing through the silence in the center of commerce. On the large tinted glass window was the name of the flower boutique in big gold lettering. The reflections of exotic flowers were pressed up against the smoky glass.

"Closed"

John glowered as his companion read the sign aloud. He sighed and turned to her, to which she responded to his silent question with an uncharacteristic shrug. He smirked bitterly and reached into his pocket. "Not for long." He muttered pulling out Sarah's Lock picking kit. He had mourned the loss of his somewhere in the iced wilderness of New York, but had found Sarah's to be an acceptable replacement. He knelt in front of the covered glass door and unzipped the pouch. John observed the lock, tying to pick the right combination of tools.

SHRUNK!

There was a loud clatter from inside. His eyes shot up to find the petite hand of his partner gripping the door handle were she turned it effortlessly. He stood and watched his Cyborg protector blink as she waited for him.

"Or we could do that …"

She opened the door and strode inside. John gave her a moment before following, only to see that she had stopped several paces. Both investigators came face to face with a collection of four men in white security polo shirts shadowed in the diming light of the evening. Two were armed with black night sticks and all of them seemed to be crying blue mucus from their tear ducts.

Cameron turned to John. "Right place?"

"Right place." John confirmed.

The cyborg strode forward, enticing the first unarmed man to make a move. He made no noise, but looked fierce as he rushed in attack. Cameron side stepped the man's line of assault and close-lined him mid stride. Catching his neck on the stalwart forearm, he hacked and choked all the way to the floor. The machine grabbed him by the hem of the shirt and flung him over rows of bouquets of flowers and tables of potted plants. He landed on another security guard, both going down to the chorus of the high pitched breaking of clay pots.

Two of the other guards seemed to fearlessly move to assault Cameron while she was preoccupied. Her show of strength seemed to be ineffective to their inhibitions. Somewhere in the back of John's mind he knew that Cameron was safe from fists and batons. But he didn't care, because he was going to join in this fight whither what they could do hurt her or not.

John took three momentum building strides and kicked a metal insecticide can straight into the gut of the lead man. While falling to his knees, a line of drool dripping from his mouth, his back up raised his night stick to strike. John ducked his horizontal swing and hit him with a powerful upper cut. Both man and club landed in a forest of lilies. Getting up slowly during the second bought, the first guard leapt at John. In one fluid movement, using the man's momentum against him, John caught the guard mid-air and judo threw him over head.

CRASH!

The Security guard burst through the tinted glass, landing with a sickening thud on the white cobble stone street. Hearing the grunt from the lilies, John picked up the fallen night stick and slammed it across the last security guards face who was struggling to find his feet. The spray of blood, and two front molars wasn't enough though. Filled with a fiery rage that had been inside him since long before coming to the island, but set to kinder inside him after the incident in the catacombs. John dropped to a knee, taking ahold of them man's collar, and began to pummel the guard's face with the night stick.

"John …"

He felt a restraining hand take a hold of his wrist and pull him back to standing. He whirled, ready to strike. But he stopped when he saw Cameron watching him without fear, whither it was because she knew he couldn't hurt her or if she knew he wouldn't, he wasn't sure. She flicked her hard gaze to the baton. He followed only to feel his chest heaving and the shaking of someone who just lost control. Through those brown eyes he also realized that he could've killed the man bleeding from every hole in his face.

"You got him." Her voice was a perfect deadpan. She walked away and did not address the craze in her lover's eyes.

He looked down at his hand. "Yeah … I got him." He sighed. He threw away the baton and tried not the show the fear he felt of himself in that moment.

The botany shop was made of mostly glass. There was an uncomfortable humidity to the green house designed business that seemed to get worse as they moved inward. The collection of plants that over hung from the ceiling and strewn along the walls, seemed to give the shop the appearance of a natural overgrowth … a jungle of the exotic, rather than a place of business. John took one side of a large serenity fountain, ringed with rocks.

"Cam …" John whispered to his partner. She stopped midstride and turned toward him. He pointed downward toward the pool. Inside was a collection of algae at the rim, and the floating corpse of a Japanese Koi fish, below in the shimmering water were the collection of bones from the rest of its brethren.

"What happened?"

"They ate each other."

"Why …?"

The young man drew his colt from his back hip. "The owner wasn't here to feed them." He motioned his weapon toward a back office entrance enclosed by vines. Cameron nodded and casually stalked forward toward it, while John disappeared into the tangle of plants. Her foot plowed through wooden office door with a splintering crash, when she stepped inside, both hands were armed with twin Glock pistols. A second later, John flew from the breach in a timed two pronged assault.

But what they found was an empty office, there were several manila folders on top of a desk covering several large blue paper rolls. Cameron took a large sweep with her arms, looking like search lights of death. On the other side of the spacious office were empty plastic containers filled with green stems. On a small kitchenette counter was a cutting board with a meat tenderizer, and a chopping knife, stained blue.

"He's gone …" Cameron announced.

Her partner nodded grimly. "Yeah …" He holstered his weapon. She followed suit, turning toward the kitchenette. Neither needed to say what the other was going to do, it was unneeded.

The blue prints were the first thing that John studied moving the files aside. They were the outlines of the big cathedral down in the historical district, but John saw that they were thin and flimsy. His eyes narrowed as he realized that they were only part of a larger piece of parchment. Pulling them up, he saw a much thicker schematic of some sort of tunnel system.

"The Catacombs …" John said aloud thoughtfully. Dropping the cathedral plans again, he studied it a moment, before it hit him. He pressed the thinner paper, against the thicker lines of the Catacombs.

"It looks like he cut his toxin here …" Cameron called from behind him.

"Well … it looks like the Catacombs, are a networked under the church." He reported back.

The cyborg was crouching staring at an empty container. "What is he doing with them?" She asked.

Shaking his head, John looked at a large lobby. "I don't know … But it looks like the room where I fought him, is directly under the main chapel." He traced his finger of the outline. He flashed back to the cavern underneath, suddenly remembering the clear wiring in the frame of the ceiling. The Voodoo alter that he had thrown Janelle through was actually directly were the alter should be in the cathedral. "He's recreating the church." He said to himself thoughtfully.

"John …" Cameron called. In front of her was a trough of dirt, several mushrooms, began appearing above the dirt. She began digging through the soil with the stained kitchen knife.

"Don't" John went back to the papers, opening a file. "Leave him in there for the police." He said with a disconnected coldness.

"Him?" She asked, but after looking at the mushrooms again. It dawned on her with the memories of the fish, just who was under the soil. "Oh" She took a step back. Walking back toward John, she watched him pour through files, eyes skimming the content. "What are they?" she asked.

"Recites … transaction records …" He listed off. "For a state wedding …" He stopped mid-sentence. Cameron followed his eyes sight toward a billboard in front of the desk. Pinned to it was a picture of a family. There was a handsome man, with blond hair and peach skin, in his arms where two cute children. A little girl in a pure white confirmation dress, her hair was in long silver blond tresses covered by a lacy veil. Next to her was a darker skinned boy with a bowl cut of straight black hair. Each member of the trio was marked by their beak like aristocratic nose. He took the picture off the board and stared at it.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Cam …" He didn't seem to hear her. "When you were over there, what did you find?" He put down the picture of the family, and began flipping through the file again.

She frowned. "Three smuggling cases were filled with flower stems, there were four others that had nothing but trace peddles inside." She reported as John flipped toward a page inside.

"The bride bought at least two hundred flowers from this shop." He held the file out to her. As Cameron looked through it, John looked over the blue prints, tracing the outline of the chapel again.

"I know what he's planning to do." He picked up the kitchen knife and slammed it down on the center.