"These don't really look like footprints," Daisy said, looking down at the three foot roundish indentations in the snow in front of them.
"They really don't," Logan agreed. "But the trail is such a mess from all the people who tried to follow it and get their families back that there's no telling what kind of prints they were in the first place anyway."
"Maybe you were right yesterday. Maybe it's not worth following this trail. It's been a week since the creature went this way…unless this leads to some sort of nest or lair."
"Which would make it worth a try," Logan said.
Daisy found that walking that day caused as much pain as she expected it would. It helped that Logan was talking to her a little now. He wasn't exactly brimming with words or information but they did converse enough to distract her from the pain in her bones. After three hours, the trail suddenly ended."
"It shouldn't end like this," Logan said, stopping at the clear space of snow ahead of them. "Not unless…"
"It can fly," Daisy finished for him.
"Kinda looks that way," Logan agreed.
Before they could even consider the next course of action Daisy's cell phone beeped. "How do I have signal all the way out here?" she said as she pulled it out and checked the message. She had several texts that had all shown up just then. Onw was from Mack telling her the therapy was going well and he missed her. Daisy found herself smiling.
"Good news?" Logan asked.
"Yeah, Mack is okay. He was supposed to update me yesterday but my battery was dead most of the day so I guess he couldn't." Daisy said and then she realized something.
"What?" he asked, seeing the look on her face.
"Before my battery died, I had reception in the village yesterday. An hour ago I checked and I had none," she started to explain.
"So what does that mean except that you can't text people in the woods?"
"We're south of the village right now, right? I saw on the map that there were no other towns or villages for miles south of here. When you drove us in was there anything in the five or ten miles before this village? Any population?" she asked.
"No, there were hardly any houses or signs of people for twenty miles. Why?"
"Cell towers in this terrain are only going to reach a few miles. The village has a tower. We reached the end of its range an hour ago. Someone a few miles South of here has another cell tower with better reception than that whole village can get. Doesn't that seem odd to you?"
"Maybe. Maybe that's the sort of place a robot might come from," he admitted a little skeptically.
"Except you said it was organic too," Daisy said, understanding his skepticism. "I suppose it could be both. It could be a...cyborg beast…"
"I guess so. If it is a cyborg beast I suppose its makers will want to have WiFi and all that stuff. You have any ideas where we look for that tower?"
Daisy smiled. "I can do better than that. I can pinpoint the exact spot."
It wasn't as easy to do this sort of work over a cell phone as it would have been with her laptop but Daisy had chosen her particular phone for this exact reason, just in case she should ever be without a computer. In just a few minutes she had coordinates.
They walked for an hour towards their new destination before stopping to eat some protein bars and make their check in with Coulson. The only thing he expected was a text message with the code word "Fedora" if everything was still a go. However, Coulson might very well reply as if it were a friendly chat and update them on office gossip as he sometimes did. Daisy sent the word Fedora and just seconds later Phil replied with a short text. "Call me ASAP."
"He wants us to call him," Daisy said, putting her phone on speaker and hitting the call button.
"There's been a development Daisy," Phil said when he answered the call. "There's no easy way to tell you this. Calvin Zabo knows about Tahiti somehow. He remembers everything and he is on a plane headed for Siberia right now. It's possible he might be looking for you."
"What?" Daisy said stunned. "How? How does he know? Was there a breach?"
"That's what we're trying to find out," Coulson said. "All we do know is that there was an incident in the city two days ago. We sent some agents to check it out and they recorded footage one of his long melodramatic speeches about the evils of SHIELD and how we erased his memory and stole his daughter. He is using the Hyde formula."
"Did those agents make it out alive?" Daisy asked, the ground around them was beginning to shake as if they were standing next to an unbalanced washing machine.
"I'm only telling you this Daisy as a warning so he won't take you by surprise," Coulson said, ignoring her question. "If you would prefer an extraction rather than continue the mission then I'm giving you that option as well."
"I don't want an extraction," Daisy said, not waiting to hear what Logan thought of the idea. "How many people did my father kill this time?"
"Daisy, if you're going to stay in the field, I need you focused on the mission," Coulson said. "Can you handle that?"
"I can, when you tell me how many," She said firmly.
Phil sighed audibly. "Five, he killed three the night of the incident and two agents. Is Agent Logan there?"
"I'm here Phil," Logan spoke up.
"If Calvin Zabo catches up with you, he needs to be arrested, you are authorized to take more drastic measures if necessary. There is a formula Zabo takes that gives him increased strength and gives him bouts of rage. He won't be easy to arrest. I'm afraid another difficult part of that is going to be helping Daisy to keep her head clear." Coulson said.
"I'll be fine," Daisy said even as the vibrations around them increased.
"Daisy if you need to come in from the field on this one, no one is going to think any less of you," Phil said.
"I don't. I'm fine," She insisted.
"If that changes, if you can't handle the mission, you are under orders to come in, is that understood?" Coulson said.
"Understood," Daisy said.
"Best of luck to you then," Phil said and ended the call.
As soon as the call ended the vibrations around them increased into an actual quake.
"Hey," Logan said, putting a hand on Daisy's shoulder. She didn't really respond. He took her other shoulder firmly and shook her a little. "Hey! You've got to stop that!"
Daisy sucked in a breath and somehow managed to end the quake. There were tears on her face and she was reeling with emotion but she was determined she wouldn't let it control her. "Thanks," she said as the vibrations ended.
"Are you really gonna be able to do this?" Logan asked her. "You never asked Coulson to send new gauntlets and now you've got more stuff to deal with. If you want to sit this one out…?"
"No. No, I can do this. I have to do this."
"Okay. Let's go find that cell tower then."
