AN: Been some time and I gotta admit I'm feeling a bit demotivated right now, cause there's just nothing new to go on, so I'm not like "on the jazz" anymore. I mean, when I first started writing, HT was all new to me, now it already feels old and boring. But the story's in my head (kinda) and it wants to be written, so I sat down for 5hrs yesterday and picked it up. Picked my mood up, as well. So here you go, but I want to apologize in advance to everybody who might feel offended by something in the chapter (you will know what it is when you get there). I want to make it very clear that despite my nationality I am not a nazi, racist, skinhead or whatever terms you might associate with race-sensitive issues, I strictly wrote this because I needed a reason for Winston to stay where he's at and for Chance to go where he's going and nothing else came to mind.
Tl;dr: Sorry it took so long, hope you still follow. I'm not a racist, so don't hate on me. I still own nothing and all the rights on Human Target are reserved to Fox.
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"I think as he's regaining a higher level of consciousness, he starts to feel the pain his body is in and that actually helps him become more alert. He'll still be pretty zoned out, though, so don't expect him to recognize you, or make any sense at all." the doctor said as she led them to the back room. So they grouped around Guerrero and it felt more like waiting for someone's last words than a sign of improvement, but he did look a bit better, Winston found. The doctor stepped to his side and placed a hand on his good shoulder.
"Don't do that. Touching a sleeping, confused Guerrero can be fatal." Chance advised.
"Oh, alright." and the doc retrieved her hand. "Guerrero? Guerrero, can you hear me? It's me, O'Leary. Chance and Winston are here, too. Guerrero! Open your eyes. NOW!" she ordered in a military tone of voice. For almost a minute nothing happened and the doc came again:
"C'mon Guerrero, you can sleep all you want later, but you need to let us know you're as tough as you like to pretend. Maybe you can help us decide who's going to kick your ass first?" she teased.
After a few seconds Guerrero's eyes actually started to open, ever so slowly and they didn't open all the way, but at least he was looking at them.
At this moment Chance wanted to tell him so many things, but he knew that now was not the time and he didn't even know if Guerrero wanted him there, so he remained silent.
"Hey there. Are you with us, Guerrero? You're in my clinic, you were shot, do you remember any of that? You don't need to talk, just let us know if you're following me at all, okay?" It took Guerrero a long time to process these information, but in the end realization dawned on his face. He swallowed a few times and opened his mouth.
"Cait-lin" he whispered. Chance and Winston looked at the doctor at the other side of the bed with raised eyebrows. She just shrugged.
"That's not my name. Told you he'd be pretty muzzy. Guerrero, can you tell me how many fingers you see?" she held up two fingers in front of him. Guerrero frowned, then simply shook his head a little. That was the wrong thing to do. He closed his eyes as a wave of dizziness and bright colours overtook him. The doc waited until she thought he'd be somewhat perceptive again and wanted to ask another question when Chance suddenly intervened.
"Guerrero, who's Caitlin? Was she with you? She the one who tricked you? Or is she your client?" The doc looked like she was about to kick his butt from the opposite side of the bed, but Chance had at least provoked some kind of answer from Guerrero:
"Pr'tec' 'er." He didn't look at Chance, but there was a definite Guerrero-like demand in his mumbled whisper.
"We need to protect Caitlin? Who is she, is she connected to Cybot-"
"E-NOUGH with your grilling, there're more important things right now. Guerrero, do you know what your birthday is?" That earned the doctor a half-hearted glare from her patient. He was the only one who knew it, so how would she know he was telling the truth, anyway?
"Alright, alright, but do you also know what day it is?" No glare this time.
"Or do you remember what time of day it was when you called Winston?"
Guerrero closed his eyes in advance this time and gave the tiniest nod.
"Good. Do you remember anything after that?" No reaction.
"Guerrero? Do you remember what happened next? Guerrero?" He didn't answer or show that he had heard her at all.
"Guerrero?" The doc sighed. "He's out again. I can't really estimate how bad his head injury affects him, because he used up his attention range for your little interrogation." She sounded angry and frustrated. "But, on the upper side, if this Caitlin isn't just a creation of his jumbled brain, remembering her is quite the achievement, so at least we know he's not totally fucked up."
The doctor's choice of words made the two men realize how tired she had to be. Besieging her house was one thing, but expecting her to take care of Guerrero twenty-four-seven was a lot to ask for and they knew that.
"So what is your name?" Winston offered to break the awkward silence. The doctor smiled at him wearily.
"It's Fallyn. And since there's nothing I can do for Guerrero right now and he seems to be hanging in there alright, Fallyn is going to catch some zzzs, so if you'll excuse me. Wake me, if anything changes. And I mean anything." She quickly checked Guerrero's pulse and then left the two men alone with their unconscious comrade. They were quite tired, too, actually, but Chance's mind was racing.
"Caitlin's either the real victim in this or she's in danger because of what happened in the alley. We need to find her. I think Guerrero was working for her."
"Yeeeaaah, a last name would've been helpful…"
"You a cop or what?" Chance slipped out of the room and after half a minute came back with his laptop already swung open. He sat down on the free bed and waited for the internet connection.
"What, you're setting up here?"
"Guerrero might wake up again and say something more. And besides one of us should always keep an eye on him in case his condition worsens. Look at that, the Cybotechs webpage. So we have six "C.s" working there. Two of them are men according to the pictures, so Caitlin could be one of those four." Chance pointed out four faces at the employees page. Winston skipped through their qualifications.
"Yeah, I think she's merely a secretary, she wouldn't know about secret high-tech stuff." he said to one C. Goldsmith.
"I'm not so sure, secretaries have a tendency to be snooping around. What about her, her assignment says "Alternative research administration". Sounds obscure enough."
"Yeah, and look, there's a substitute for her listed next to her, so she's on holiday or something. Or she fled the country."
"You know what I'm thinking?"
"Hmmm, let me guess. Their full names won't come to us via the internet, so we'll have to come to them. You're planning to pay Cybotechs Headquarters a visit."
"I'm going to visit Cybotechs."
"That's what I just- never mind. And how you plan on doing that if you don't want to leave Guerrero's side?" Chance looked up to Winston with his best puppy eyes impression.
"Ooooooooooh no. No, no, no NOOO. Chance you're not going there alone. Some hours ago you needed to sit down in the middle of the street, 'cause you were too weak to run and now you want to roam around a highly secured building? What if you need to make a quick escape? Besides, am I supposed to just sit here waiting until Guerrero stoops to come around?"
"You know what? You're right."
That went just a liiiittle to easy for Winston's experience, but he played the game:
"I. KNOW."
"You do it and I stay here."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Have you looked at the employees' photos?"
"Yes?"
"Aaaaaaaaand?" Chance half-heartedly glanced back at the photos, then shrugged. Winston put on a duuuh-face as he pointed out the obvious:
"Their black-guy quota is drifting towards zero."
"Winston, now's not the time to sulk over narrow-minded prejudice-"
"That's not the point. The point is that if I went in there I'd stand out like the literal black sheep."
"Oh. Right. Well, looks like it's gotta be me then, after all." Chance said in a jaunty voice.
"You planned this whole conversation from the beginning, didn't you."
Chance shrugged and grinned up to his friend: "Sorry, black guy."
###
"How's it going?" came Winston's voice over Chance's earpiece.
"Winston, you asked that five minutes ago. It won't go well, if people here catch me mumbling to myself, besides you can hear what's going on anyway. How's it going on your end?" Winston didn't need to know that he was currently alone in the building.
"Oh, ya know, I'm having this terribly interesting chat with Guerrero about your kamikaze tendencies…" Winston replied dryly as he glanced at the still figure of an unconscious Guerrero. Chance chose to ignore this comment. He needed to concentrate anyway to avoid all the security cameras in the building.
Getting inside had actually been easier than he'd expected. All he had to do was to wait for the cleaning crew to leave the building at eight and arrange a little "accident" with the chemicals in their van. Then he walked calmly towards the cleaners and informed them that their van was smoking like an Indian signal fire. When the night watchman also came running to survey the commotion, Chance slipped through the front entrance door and hid under the counter in the foyer. When the watchman came back several minutes later, Chance had already erased his own entrance from the foyer camera's memory card. The guard never knew what hit him, but it was in fact the butt of Chance's gun. He quickly stripped him and put on not only the uniform, but also the bunch of key cards, the torch and the gun he had been carrying. So far so good.
Now he was strolling around the fourth floor, looking for something like a storage room. He didn't need to be invisible, since he was the "watchman" making sure that all the rooms were empty and all the doors secured; he just didn't want to show the cameras his visage.
"Bingo." he let Winston know as he opened yet another door and found himself in administration paradise. With a proficient eye he sorted out the file cabinet interesting to him and started skimming through the employees' files.
"Give me those last names again, will ya."
"'Kay. We have a Burton, a Goldsmith, a Sanchez and my favourite: Leutheuser-Forbes." Winston heard a few seconds of paper rustling, then Chance's voice once more:
"Looks like we're looking for Caitlin Burton."
Winston flashed into action as he scanned the name in the police databases. Then he gave the description to several hospitals and morgues and after a few minutes had good news to declare:
"Chance, looks like we could still be in the game. She hasn't been reported missing, and no Jane Doe fitting her description ended up in the morgue in the last forty-eight hours. No one under this name in the hospitals and no records of her anywhere."
"Address?"
"Chance, you're not going there. God knows what evil-doers might've already paid her a visit. You're not up to it. You come back here and I can go."
"The address is listed in the file, you know."
Winston groaned. "Chance, you really want me to Aunt-Linda you? 'Cause that's how far I'm willing to go to stop you from going to Burton's house alone."
"You wouldn't!" Chance said as he entered another hallway.
"Try me."
"There's a light at the end of the tunnel, Winston."
"Oh yeah? And what would that be?"
"You know, like a light in a room. Someone's still here. Or again."
"Chance, absolutely DON'T go there. We got what we wanted. Now make like a tree and leave."
"Winston, I'm the night watchman, I need to check what's going on. Besides this way I can get some new information."
"No, you're not and no, you won't!" But Winston heard Chance turn a door knob. To him it was the sound of Chance getting into trouble. He expected a brief conversation and then a maybe not-so-brief fight, but he didn't expect Chance's surprised exclamation:
"Caitlin Burton?"