Chapter Four: Assistant

Even at four in the morning with her head in the toilet she couldn't help thinking of her encounter with the man of the past. Marla wiped her mouth flushing down what had come up feeling her body settle once more. She tied her hair up hoping to make it look fuller. She wondered if she had made any lasting impression on the man called John Harrison. She'd love to ask him more questions, but she doubted Marcus was willing to give her another meeting with the man.

She looked into the mirror noticing she didn't look better or worse from the day before. Marla had spent four days without hearing a word from the admiral. She had finally come to the realization she may never hear from him again. She had spent most of her time attempting to keep down food these days. The pills she took made her nauseous beyond repair.

It was ten in the morning when she got the call. Marcus was on the other side which caused her tone to become less annoyed by the fact that he was enticing her once more.

"Lieutenant McGivers, I'm going to need you to come to the archives once more." He said with some sort of undertone.

"Yes, Sir." She didn't question it.

Marla was at "Section 31" again before she knew it. Somehow she had managed to find herself excited again. John Harrison had proved to be incredibly fascinating and true to the history books. She had once called the superior men and women of the Eugenetics Wars 'better to humankind in every way'. That's what made them dangerous. They were better. Marcus shouldn't have awoken him. He should have let Harrison's dreams remain dreams. Even as selfish as she was to learn more about the history he held in his memories she couldn't possibly fathom the lives that were at stake. One Augment was enough to turn the world to dust.

"I was rather impressed by the way you handled, Harrison, Lieutenant." Marcus seemed sincere. "I was correct in my assumption that you are a highly knowledgeable individual in your field."

"Thank you, Sir." Marla was rather confused as she thought she hadn't handled the man well at all. She had been selfish. She had touched when she should have merely spoke. She may have even provoked him. "Has he said anything more to you?"

"That's precisely why I called you here, Lieutenant." She walked with him as they spoke trying to find reason within the war bent higher up. "It appears that Commander Harrison is only willing to speak to someone who understands him. He asked for you by name. He has requested that you become his assistant. You will be working side by side with Harrison and only Harrison."

Marla wasn't sure how to feel about the words the admiral spoke. After four days of nothing here she was getting exactly what she wanted and what she feared, more time with a super soldier. Fascination and danger were intertwining once more in the lieutenant's mind. She swallowed harshly before beginning to speak.

"Forgive me, Admiral." She said softly before deciding on her response carefully. "But this man is dangerous. I do not think it would be wise to allow myself time alone with him. Especially considering who he is." She was sorry she said the last bit of information. Marcus' expression seemed to contort. She may have imagined him reaching for his weapon.

"Who he is, Lieutenant?" Marla could see she was treading on thin ice. She was revealing too much about her own personal knowledge of the wars.

"A captain." She tried to make herself not seem so intelligent. "When I spoke to him he said my crew. He said it as if he were the captain, the leader. He is responsible for these men and women. Besides," She suppressed a cough. "If you meant to only revive one individual from their cryosleep the captain would be the one awoken first." She couldn't tell if the admiral seemed impressed or not. He simply looked to her as they stopped outside an armored large door.

"Harrison." He said with pride as if the man were his son. Marla was aware Alexander Marcus only had one child. Carol Marcus. Also in Starfleet. "Will not be a problem for you." She felt the lie. Marla knew the admiral didn't believe it. He couldn't. The last door they were to go through had a keypad and an eye scanner. The Admiral held his eye up to the device. Marla sheepishly looked at the six guards standing at attention.

"Excuse me, Admiral, but I don't think you fully comprehend this man." She had to be blunt with him. Her life was on the line. Despite her failing health and her fascination, Marla McGivers did not want to die. Not now. Not ever. "They tore apart countries in days. Killed as many as thirty million people making this world a near waste land."

"This is what you want isn't McGivers?" She could have said no or yes. Both answers would be correct. Instead her lips formed together, closed. "There will be armored guards outside and cameras around you at all times."

"That doesn't matter." She shook her head. "You are only giving him an audience. Feeding into his ego." She felt her heart quicken. She wasn't sure if it was fear or excitement.

"Lieutenant." His voice echoed the hall. It caused her to stiffen. "You will do as I say. You may have been suspended due to your illness, but you are still a member of Starfleet." His voice then lowered slightly. "You will assist Special Agent John Harrison in his work in our weapons department. You will do your best to follow his orders when I am not present. He is making this fleet stronger Lieutenant. And you will assist him in doing so."

"Yes, Sir." She breathed in.

"You will not breathe a word of this to the outside world. Understood?" She nodded as the man spoke. "This is kept here. You will continue reporting until I say you are done." She heard his undertone was almost sarcastic at the last word. The man was graciously aware of her condition. "I don't know why Harrison picked you, but you are the one he picked."

"Because of my knowledge I imagine, Admiral. Isn't that why you called me here to speak to him?" Marcus didn't respond. He merely told her someone would come to retrieve her when her time was up.

The admiral rushed off in a huff. Marla attempted to breathe hoping she would find some relief from the admiral's absence. Instead she found only a swelling feeling in the pit of her stomach as she watched the doors slid open. The guards remained at the door. She imagined Marcus didn't want them seeing what exactly was going on behind those doors.

She walked into the dimly lit work room. She saw various tables set up as work stations sprawled out with weapons of every shape and size scattered on them. She watched the red sparks come from the center of the room. In the middle laid a work in progress. It was a photon torpedo, white and pristine. She saw it unmistakably being worked on by the Augment.

"Marcus certainly has you busy, Agent Harrison." She watched his head pop out of the grey torpedo pod. Goggles were plastered across his face. He shut off his tool lifting his goggles off slowly. Harrison studied her. "I was surprised you requested me as an assistant." His eyes went back down to his work.

"You are quite knowledgeable as a historian and with weaponry, Lieutenant." Harrison stated clearly. "It would be a sin to use anyone else. Your skill set is a unique combination." He glanced over Marla for a moment letting his eyes settle again on her eyes.

"I am here for your assistance." She let a smile spread, but it seemed fake. She felt like she was imprisoned with Harrison. She merely had to wait it out. Was she to be killed by the building disease in her body or at the hands of her superior to her? Be it Marcus or Harrison or both.

"Yes." He said softly. "I suppose you are." He pushed his goggles back down his face squeezing himself back into the pod and back to his work. The room was dark and smelt wet. The red lights weren't satisfying her. She noticed how the man was doing his best to modify the interior. Curiosity could have overcome her, but she found the smaller weapons more intriguing.

She aimlessly explored the lab peering at the tables. She recognized several weapons and parts. She looked at where he worked each time before she touched them, but he didn't seem to have his focus on her. That was something that scared Marla. If he needed to have her here why wasn't he using her to his advantage? She checked the corners for the small cameras. The guards still were outside the room. She stared at the door hoping they would materialize. Marla knew they weren't coming, but she could find come hope.

"You're modifying the interior." Her voice squeaked. She hated that he may have heard her terror. The words she spoke were a statement and fact. Photon torpedoes were often considered essential to a starship. However Marla knew that they suffered many downfalls. She looked to the side of the pod noticing the fuel container had been removed.

"I am improving." She could hear his voice echo over the reaming of sparks and sharp grizzly saws. "Correcting their work." She nodded once deciding to peer over his plans. The blue prints toward the work he needed were detailed in small neat print. Despite being an intellectual warrior his hand writing was nearly unreadable. She could read some words. His ideas were vast and assured.

"What makes you certain you can make these torpedoes impervious to sensors?" Her finger tips traced the blue lines outlining the shape of the torpedo. She lifted the thin sheet of paper seeing a second layer. Her eyes widened at the new words. "Oh." She smiled at the words 'inner casing' that highlighted exactly how Harrison's modifications would be incorporated.

She marveled at Harrison's design not caring that he didn't seem to need her help in that moment. Eventually Harrison came out of his case pulling at the goggles from his head and tossing aside his tools. She saw his eyes fall to the plans in front of her. Harrison took a step beside her looking over her shoulder casting his shadow to her. She closed her eyes trying to make an attempt to breathe and not listen to the blood pumping loudly from fear of the man.

"Did you," She took a pause to compose herself and clear her throat. She could still taste the bile from her sickness. "Arm yourselves with these sorts of weapons in the wars? I haven't heard of weapons of this magnitude being used."

She didn't see his face when she spoke. His body quickly passed her moving around the work station with his blue print to another one. That table held various phasers from different parts in time. He picked up a bulky looking black cased phaser. The thing was nearly as large as Harrison's torso looking dense yet he easily picked it up with on hand.

"This," He said examining the weapon. "Was a heavily powered first attempt humanity made at creating a phased weapon." Marla knew this weapon. Her father had declared it one of his favorites of the old style guns.

"The draw back was its heft." She saw Harrison maneuver his fingers over the crevasses as she finished his thought. "And that it often back fired causing a massive explosion. The nickname was the suicide gun." The shooter would often become a living bomb with bones and guts acting as projectiles that would cause massive damage.

"A savage weapon created in a savage time." She knew the time period. It was during the reign of the first Augment, designed by German engineers. They meant to cause as much damage as possible. He placed the weapon with a clunk to the table.

"Did it work?" There were zero accounts of the weapon successfully ending the lives of Augments. However once in the superior beings' hands, those less superior took the greater loss. The Augments were merely severely burned by the blast. There was a beautiful painting of one such soldier bursting into flames from that time period.

"You know what it did, Lieutenant." She had hoped to hear the tales from the man's mouth, but he didn't seem to speak of it.

"I'd like to hear it from the mouth of a man who was there." She wanted to know despite how intimidating he appeared. Despite how aware she was that he could break her at any moment. "I want to hear your tales of carnage."

His eyes rose from his weapons to her. They almost seemed unemotional yet she saw a hint of his feeling in his raised brow. He was intrigued by her. So Harrison humored her with stories. He told of himself fighting in the first battles of the Eugenetics Wars. He spoke of his attempts to obtain weapons from his creators. Harrison mentioned weapons of all kinds in his stories. He spoke of bravery amongst his men when he found his comrades.

"Friends can only be found in times of war." He looked to Marla with a little excitement in his eyes. The pale piercing blue glittered at the memories of war. "Trust is built on the battlefield."

"You found your crew in the most dangerous days, the ending days." She knew maybe speaking about his comrades would be a benefit or a horrible mistake. She watched him closely to see which he would choose to give her. His eyes averted from her once more as he looked to a smaller rounder weapon, a less dangerous one from what Marla knew.

"Formed from the ashes of what we had created." Eventually humanity had made a bitter come back after four long years of being ruled. "My crew followed me as we became condemned, the last of our kind." Records of who was lost and who was killed of these superior beings were not well kept. Hundreds of beings had been created, now only seventy three remained.

"You fled for self-preservation." The red head concluded. Harrison didn't seem to judge her by the statement only stare carefully at her with eyebrows knitted together. "A courageous act is to know when your war is lost."

"We did not lose." He said flatly tilting his head very slightly. "We were used. They used what we had made against us, our weapons, our empires, our people." Empires. She let the word settle in her mind.

"Your crew," She made it very clear that she had them in her mind. It was why Harrison was doing all this. She knew that. "Is supremely loyal to you. Just as you are to them."

"There is no such loyalty today." Harrison pointed out her current predicament quite abruptly. "He tosses you to me like a sacrificial lamb." His eyes matched those of a wolf readying to slaughter the lamb. She quivered slightly. It was painful how close Marla seemed to be to death and how much more she wanted to know before it.

"It's no matter to Marcus." Her voice was almost a whisper. She couldn't look at Harrison any longer. Her eyes went to the dark padded floor. "I am to die either way. Why should I die without a purpose?"

She had been thinking of the whys behind Marcus' decision to appease Commander Harrison since she walked in. It was clear to her the more she spoke with Harrison. It was a game. A game she was merely a pawn in. Harrison and Marcus were the only players. However Marla was willing to play her own game.

"I know what he means to do." She said it so clearly.

"And what is that Lieutenant?" The intrigue in his voice was clear. Her eyes were on him before the words left her mouth.

"He means to watch you kill me." She could see his body stiffen at the words. "No guards means he does not wish for my safety, yet they are outside to reassure me. Weapons are here for your choosing, but you wouldn't use them, not when you can prove just how truly superior you are." His strength would kill her better than any weapon could. "They may come if I scream, but you will be too fast for them to respond." She snapped her eyes back at him moving toward him. The echo of her heels followed. "I am dying. You would so very easily shatter me. Putting me as one of the only things between you and your escape is so very tempting." She was an arm's length from him. "Marcus means to witness how savage you truly are."

She could almost feel the heat radiate off his body. She saw him raise his chin slightly. For a moment she thought he would comply with Marcus' thought process. He almost seemed to nod at her final words. She meant to move away from him. To step away from John Harrison in fear. She wasn't sure why her foot stumbled forward. She nearly fell at the dizziness, but she caught herself on the table. The floor spun growing closer and further away. If he was to end her, now would be the time. She saw a larger set of boots approach her from under the table. They focused in and out of her vision.

"Sit." She looked up to see his eyes shift toward a location. His hands were behind his back. Marla didn't allow her eyes to follow his. She was attempting to regain her proper vision. "There." She finally saw what he was motioning toward. A bed in the corner was set up, one that would only fit the man's tall length and width and nothing more.

She made her way there painfully aware that Harrison was following her. When she sat the mattress squeaked. It had been perfectly made before her body had caused the sheets to wrinkle. Sitting felt good. She let out a stable sigh. Harrison watched her in that moment almost studying her.

"I wish you had something better to admire, Agent Harrison." Her voice almost laughed as she attempted to break his gaze from her. She flicked her lashes unable to deduce whether the Augment was being a tactician or a man. "I'm not much to look at in my condition."

Marla McGivers had been drastically losing weight as her disease worsened. Nearly fifty pounds had drained off of her frame. Once she had been a voluptuous. Now she was a stick with breasts. Her bones in her wrists were showing. She rubbed her fingers across the fabric to feel her ribcage. The skin was becoming thinner on her body to the point where she could feel the simplest of touches. She had even begun to move her head more carefully as to not allow her hair to fall from atop the mass she had created.

"Your condition is more of a concern to Admiral Marcus then it is to me." He admitted examining her from head to toe. "You are quite convenient to his cause. A sickly woman who's death no one will question. One who provides the knowledge he desires and the assistance I require."

"I'm certainly made for both of your conveniences." Her words were strongly spoken with bitter sarcasm. His brow creased very slightly, only for a moment. "The fascination with weaponry keeps me here. The draw to your history feeds my appetite." She wanted to say one more thing, but thought better of it. She didn't want to tell him his character had always drawn her into the history of the 20th century. "Does it not serve me right for entering the den of a beast?" She looked down almost ashamed with herself. She had fallen into this rabbit hole. There was no way of bringing herself back up. It terrified her that she wanted to stay there. She loved the mess she created.

"I promise you, you will not die by my hands."

She was surprised to hear the words come from his lips. Marla looked up to make sure there wasn't a hideous smile plastered on his face to show he was about to break the promise he had just made. His face was masked with certainty. He studied her face as well. She wondered what he saw there. Did he see that she was fearful of death? That it was breathing down her neck every step she took. Did he see that she was a corpse waiting for burial?

"I," She wasn't sure what to say next, but she said what she felt. "I'm not sure if that would be best." His smooth features creased once more. She was making the superior man utterly confused. Marla let herself smile. "My supposed death will be one where I suffer from the inside. I have been fighting this death for months now." She could recall that they had at first given her weeks after the overexposure to radiation. "To have you kill me," She swallowed trying to debate her words. "Would be a disgrace if I did not fight you as I am fighting now. You do what you need to, Harrison, but do not expect me to die without combat."

That's when she heard it. A soft chuckle vibrated in his throat yet his lips remained closed. Marla nodded closing her eyes in a moment. She liked the way his laugh sounded. She wondered if it was to be the last thing she would hear. She clenched her fists ready for him to try. She knew he wouldn't. The next words spoke her thoughts.

"If I was to attempt to kill you, Lieutenant, you would not feel it. It would be quick and painless." She battered her eyes open as he smiled. "But I will not kill you. Not because you are a woman. I have killed many women in my life time. They are just as dangerous as men. Sometimes even more so." She wondered if his words were to match his gaze of her now, slow and steady.

"I will not kill you because you are useful to me. I requested your presence for a reason. You are intelligent and you understand my purpose. Marcus may have his game, but I have mine." He made sure the last word was heard by the young woman. "And I am sure you will have yours." She found herself impossibly fascinated by the last comment. She was playing her game now in choosing to fight. Marla knew the Augments enough to know what they admired, but she also knew she was tired of suffering. "It will be a hardship if you choose to die, but considering what you have just told me I imagine you will wish to continue to assist me in my duties."

She nodded her head able to make that deal with Harrison. She would help him as long as she had breath left in her. She knew that people like Harrison could break their promises, but she also knew when they were loyal to a cause they remained that way for their lifetime. Marla liked to believe Harrison could be loyal to his word.