Scene 4

"Bats," said Jo, gloomily.

"Ah, cheer up," said Carter. "At least they're not vampire bats."

"Any reason to believe they couldn't be vampires?" asked Zane cheerfully.

Both Carter and Jo glared at him. "You really had to bring him?" Carter said in an aside to Jo. She turned her glare onto him.

Kwon's house had been still and quiet. Jo and Zane had met up with Carter at the front door, but there'd been no answer to their knock. They'd walked around to the back of the house and found a barn—a ramshackle, falling-down, decrepit barn that looked perfectly haunted. If it had been Halloween, it would have made a lovely haunted house. But it wasn't Halloween.

"I've been really good about not drawing my weapon tonight," said Jo, plaintively. "Any objections if I just pull it out and hang on to it right now?"

"Aw, come on, Jo. We're just…walking into a barn," said Carter.

"I can't say I like this barn, Carter."

"I'll hold your hand, Jo-jo," whispered Zane. Jo returned her glare to him. He smirked at her and held out his hand. She narrowed her eyes at him and pulled out her gun.

"How about I go first?" she asked Carter.

"Whoa, these bats really spooked you," said Carter, spotting the gun, and stepping back.

"You haven't seen them, so yeah, how about I be the paranoid one right now?" Jo pushed in front of Carter, and kicked open the door to the barn, immediately following it with the standard police issue swivel from side to side. Of course it was pitch dark, because it was night and the barn wasn't lit. But still…better safe than sorry.

"Nothing." She shook her head and stepped carefully into the darkness inside the barn.

"Was it that creepy?" Carter asked Zane, sotto voce.

"I didn't really see it," he answered, honestly. "But yeah, it was definitely weird. Something strange was happening."

Carter shrugged, and then pulled his own gun. He followed Jo into the barn, immediately stepping to one side of the door and doing his own quick scan for danger.

"Do you smell that?" Jo asked.

"Crispy critter?" said Carter.

"That's what it smells like to me."

"That's not good."

"Nope."

Suddenly, a bright light flared to life, illuminating the entire barn. Both Carter and Jo turned to glare at Zane, who was standing next to the light switch. He shrugged.

Jo walked forward. "Clear," she called back, with a sigh, sliding her gun back into its holster at her back.

Carter and Zane joined her, looking down at the black ashy pile in front of her. "Kwon, you think?" asked Carter.

"We'll have to get a DNA profile." Jo poked the pile with her toe, and it crumbled a bit more into a pile of ash. "If there's enough left that we can."

"Check that out," she nodded toward the back wall of the barn. It was basically demolished, but not from the ground. It was as if something had smashed through it at about mid-level, leaving stubs of boards reaching up from the ground and more stubs reaching down from the ceiling. But the gap was big, far too big for a bat of any size—unless unusually large meant truly gigantic.

"Huh," said Zane, "This is odd." He wasn't looking at the wall, but at the debris on the ground.

"What's that?" asked Carter.

"Broken glass. Melted glass, in fact."

"Well, it's a lab, isn't it?" asked Jo.

"Yeah, but…if he was working on bats, and they were actually drones, he should have been a robotics expert. Anything in here should be metal or circuitry or plastics or at most something he'd use for the surface of the bats. A robotics lab shouldn't have glass in it." Zane crouched next to the debris and poked at it. Tentatively, he picked up a piece of glass and sniffed it.

"Anything?" asked Carter.

"Nope." Zane grinned up at Carter. "I'm not Andy, sorry. But you might want to get him out here and run some tests. It'd be interesting to know what chemicals were involved."

Carter sighed. "He's on a date."

"A date?" Jo couldn't help feeling annoyed. She'd been on a date, too, damn it, and she was here. Andy was a robot. And S.A.R.A.H. was a house! How far could they go?

"S.A.R.A.H. took him for a ride up the coast in the smart car. I believe they're at a beach somewhere, a few hours from here."

Jo rolled her eyes. "He's smarter than I give him credit for."

Zane chuckled and stood. "Well, you could collect the pieces and bring them back to GD. We could test them there. But it'd be…" his voice trailed off as he looked at the wall, thoughtfully.

"What is it?" asked Jo.

He shook his head, but didn't otherwise answer. He was frowning. Suddenly he crouched again and began sorting through the debris.

"So, we've got a dead body. An explosion of some kind. And a bunch of missing bats," said Carter.

"That sounds about right," said Jo. "What do you think?"

Zane stood abruptly and began exploring the undamaged areas of the barn.

"I think…I have no idea." Carter shook his head.

Jo bit back a smile. "In that case," she said dryly, "where are we going to start?"

Carter scratched the back of his neck. "We should probably collect…uh, Kwon. And then see if we can figure out how to get the bats back. I'll call Henry for the uh, coroner duties. And then we can talk bats." He shook his head. "Bats," he repeated, as if the concept was too strange to absorb.

"Hey," said Zane abruptly, returning to where Jo and Carter stood. He was looking abstracted, as if his brain was already elsewhere. "I've got to go. I'll catch you later, okay?" He dropped a kiss on Jo's cheek.

Jo's mouth opened, as if she was going to say something, but before she had a chance, he'd turned and gone, as quickly as if a bat was chasing him.

Jo closed her mouth with a snap. "Ooo…kay," she sighed.

Carter patted her shoulder sympathetically. "Not going too well?" he asked tentatively.

"Girl talk?" she asked him skeptically, and then shrugged. "I don't know." She sighed, looking at the door where Zane had disappeared. "Maybe this is just too hard."

"Henry and Grace have figured it out," Carter offered.

"They were married," Jo pointed out. "That's different."

"He's still the same guy," Carter said. "And you're still the same you."

"He's not, though. I mean, he is, but…he's different. We're different." Jo frowned, trying to put her finger on what the difference was.

"Deep down you're the same," Carter insisted.

"Maybe," said Jo, thoughtfully. "But maybe that means we're the same in exactly the same not quite right way."

Carter looked worried, but said nothing more. Jo sighed, and said firmly, "Enough girl talk. Call Henry and let's get this investigation going."