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Voices in His Head
Sam was African-American, six foot four and two hundred and fifty pounds of bulk and muscle. He had served as an U.S. Navy Seal and if his missions hadn't been off-book, he would be known as a hero. His age and an encounter with a bayonet in Somalia had ended his active military career and he opted for a new beginning.
He found it in the CIA, where he became an expert on global clandestine black ops organizations. It was interesting and challenging but he found the boundaries frustrating. He believed the agency's bureaucracy hampered his ability to make the right kind of decisions. He'd already made one big change, so leaving the CIA wasn't difficult.
What he realized, he had limited options. He couldn't list his skills as bullet points on a resume and his work history was basically one big censored document. He was at loose ends until his long time colleague, Sean Pierce had offered him a job working security.
Sean had made the introductions to Nikita and Michael and Sam reveled in the fact that he knew the answers to the questions they asked. They asked him if he knew how to sweep for bugs, what martial arts he preferred, the kind of cover stories he favored and if he knew of Gogol and what he thought of them.
When he answered their questions without missing a beat, they wanted to know what kind of weapons training he had, if he'd ever been on covert and deep cover missions, if he knew how to set up a safe-house and if he could perform field surgery with a pen knife.
Satisfied with both round one and two, they started up on round three. They wanted to know if he liked children. (He answered yes, but he'd met some parents he despised. Nikita smirked and Michael chuckled in agreement.) They asked if he knew how to say no to a two year old without starting a temper tantrum and he admitted he didn't. Then they asked if he had ever fixed sandwiches with the crust cut off or knew how to make hot cocoa tepid so as not to burn a little one's tongue.
Sam liked them, he knew Michael's background with Naval Intelligence and his role in Division and Nikita was the stuff legends are made of. They liked Sam, but there was one more important person to consult. Emma was the one who would be asking the hard questions.
Michael had retrieved the toddler from her room. She was already grumpy and when she found a stranger talking to her mother, she hid her face in her father's shoulder.
"Emma, this is Sam. Sam this is Emma." Nikita said politely. The little girl peeked out at Sam.
"Hello Emma." Sam smiled at her, but kept his distance. Instead he asked Nikita about the property and the security system they had in place. He asked her about the office they kept in the city and if Shadow Walker was real or just an urban myth.
Little Emma watched stealthily and carefully as the big man talked to her mother. Because he didn't get in her face with endearing sayings and silly questions, she was less out of sorts, and dying to be the center of attention.
"Sam?" Emma said so quietly that they barely heard her. "SAM!" Emma shouted out.
Nikita and Michael looked startled and Sam looked amused. "Emma," the big man said kindly. "Would you like me to read you a story?"
Emma gave him a scrutinizing look. "Wha storeee?" She demanded to know.
Nikita and Michael looked at each other. This could very well be the deal breaker.
Sam cleared his throat and said tentatively. "How about Angelina Ballerina? Your friend Alex said it's your favorite."
Emma's face lit up and she grinned. "Exey wanna be a ball'rina! Okay, you wan some joose?"
Everyone smiled with relief, the interview had been a success.
Sam rarely felt self loathing the way he did when the box truck broadsided their vehicle and ran them off the road. His memories were spotty, but he remembered looking back at Emma who was still strapped in her car seat, wailing with fear at what had just happened.
"Emma, we are okay. We had an accident, but we are all right." He said to her, and that was the last thing he remembered.
He was barely coherent, his thoughts were jumbled and disjointed and he was unable to react when the fight broke out around him. He heard items crashing on the floor, glass breaking, furniture being over turned and when it settled down, he felt another sharp stab in his shoulder and he thought about Emma calling out to him "Sam-man!" before he drifted off into oblivion.
Michael wasn't sure if what was happening was real or just a nightmare, but he knew he would never forget watching Division's doctor use the scalpel to cut into Nikita's abdomen.
"Don't pass out, I need you. Okay place those clamps on either side of the incision." The doctor ordered.
He did exactly as he was told, scared out of his wits to do it, but more terrified not to.
"The flashlight... I need to be able to see." The doctor waited until the beam of light lit up Nikita's opened abdomen.
"I am going to suction out the amniotic fluid." He took a large oversized syringe and withdrew the fluid. "Okay... I'm going to deliver the first one." He reached in with one hand and maneuvered one tiny head up as if he were gently turning a doorknob and with both hands lifted out a small body. He cradled it face down in the palm of his hand and used his fingers to press and stroke on the baby's back. The small creature resembled an alien covered in slime and squirmed around. It let out a high pitched noise. "Good girl... Michael, it's a girl!" He placed the newborn inside his coat.
"Don't worry about the cord, it'll be okay..." The doctor reached in and found the second minature baby and delivered it in the same way. "You have a son Michael!" He massaged the baby's back and nothing happened. He turned him over and tapped on his chest. The tiny newborn was struggling to take a breath. "Come on little guy..." The baby finally made a sound like a cat mewling and he joined his sister within the confines of her coat.
"Hand me those gauze pads, I need to see where she's bleeding from." Dr. Keller kept working and talking in an optimistic tone.
Michael looked into Nikita's face, she had smudges of soot from the fire on her cheek. "Nikita, they're beautiful." He whispered to her, the words catching in his throat.
The doctor spoke in a harsh tone. "Listen to me... you have to get us back to Division. Their lives depend on it. She needs a blood transfusion. Turn up the heat back here for the babies." He had used a smaller clamp on Nikita's incision and pressed the little babies next to her for warmth. "I'll stay with them and you need to drive like a bat out of hell and get us back to Medical as fast as you can without killing us. Do you understand." He had pulled out a small I.V. bag from his duffel bag and found a place on the van's wall to hang it on.
The fog that had enveloped him was swept away by the doctor's words. "I understand."
Birkhoff groaned. He opened his eyes and squeezed them shut when his pupils were assaulted by the overhead light. He was on his back and laying on his arms, they ached and his hands felt numb. He squinted and opened one eye slowly, then the other and after a few seconds they adjusted and he started to focus.
He tried to pull himself up to a sitting position, but it was impossible, his wrists and ankles were held together with zip ties. The more he struggled to get up, the more they cut into his skin. He rolled over on his stomach and felt the blood rush to his hands, it was painful, but a welcome distraction from the panic that was creeping into him. His instincts told him to fight against his restraints, but he realized he wasn't getting out of this, so he took a deep breath and immediately started coughing and gasping for air. Then he remembered.
He had gone to sub-level three, each of them were searching for Emma in the air vents. They had all taken a floor and with Sonya's ingenious deductive skills at work, they'd narrowed down the most likely places to look. He had searched one vent with little success, having tried to squeeze into it but he couldn't make it past his shoulders. Like the others he had called out to the little girl, but there was no reply only silence. He had moved on to the second vent and unscrewed the bolts that held the grate in place. He stashed the pocket knife back in his pants and peered into the vent.
"Emma? Honey, it's Seymour." He called out when suddenly a blast of noxious air hit him in the face. His eyes immediately started to burn and he couldn't breathe when his lungs filled with the gas. What came next was waking up in his present predicament.
He scooted himself around like an inch worm and saw Sonya, bound like he was, laying about five feet away.
"Jesus... Sonya... Sonya can you hear me?" His voice came out raspy, his throat hurt when he swallowed. He heard a little groan escape from her, but she wasn't coming around easily. Just beyond her he saw another body and guessed it was probably Ryan Fletcher.
A labored groan came from the opposite side of the room. It was deep and distinctly male.
"Hey? Who's here?" He threw the question to the faceless man. "You need to wake up! We got to get out of here."
From somewhere above him he thought he heard something, but he couldn't be sure.
"Who's there? We need some help. We need to get outta here!"
Birkhoff froze on the spot. He knew he wasn't imagining voices in his head, this was real and frightening.
A sad muffled voice was calling out to him. "See-mo! See-mo! I wan my Mah=mee!"
