"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
The Iron String
Chapter 8
High above the Earth in geosynchronous orbit, the Hammond's second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Marks, heard the emergency transport signal at the same time his tactical officer did. He didn't have to give the order to transport as Saunders was already manipulating the controls at her fingertips with speed and precision. Bright streaks of light appeared in front of them and Marks prayed they wouldn't be attending the funeral of a fellow officer in the next few days.
Marks held his breath and got to his feet as the light faded. A series of thuds, the unmistakable sound of bodies falling, made him wince internally. Dreading what he might see, he and the bridge crew peered past the controls at the four bodies, three men and one woman, lying on the floor. Addressing the air, Marks said, "Medical to the bridge, stat!"
A gasp drew his attention to the fact that there were two people standing off to one side. A man and a woman, both dressed in shabby clothing, stared at him. The man said, "What was in that bottle, Charlie?"
The woman, Charlie, slowly shook her head. "I gotta get back on my meds, Reggie."
"Me too."
Over his shoulder, Marks said, "Saunders."
The tactical officer again hit her controls and the two homeless people disappeared. With an internal grin, he mulled over the fact that no one would believe their story about being transported to an alien spacecraft. His thoughts were again interrupted as a medical team rushed onto the bridge and immediately began working on their newest patients.
"Colonel Marks? That's Colonel Sheppard. I think the rest are civilians," the white clad medic said over his shoulder.
Marks was saved from making a smartass remark by moaning in four different tones. Then, Sheppard's voice, weakened by his current state, rasped out, "Sonofa*****!"
Sheppard ignored the medic's attempts to keep him in the prone position, rolling to his hands and knees then onto his backside when he couldn't get to his feet. Carefully keeping his face and tone neutral, Marks clasped his hands behind his back. "Welcome aboard, Colonel. I see you've brought guests."
~~O~~
Sheppard rubbed his head, finding a small lump on the back. His fingers came away without blood so it couldn't be too bad. "Thanks for the rescue, Marks. Where's Carter?"
"She's…" he indicated the others with his eyes, "…on a conference call, sir."
Beside Sheppard, Esposito rolled over and sat up, looking relieved that they'd not been killed in the blast…until he realized where he was. "What the ****, Sheppard?! You mean all that crap about space was true?"
"'Fraid so." To the female doctor checking on Aaron and Harper, Sheppard said, "What's their condition?"
The woman shrugged. "Nothing's broken. Bruises, contusions, scrapes, sore ribs, and a sprained wrist for the lady. We'll put everyone under the scanner and keep all of you overnight, just in case."
By now, Harper and Aaron were looking around with intense curiosity, but they didn't say anything. He should've known they would be more accepting when confronted with something outside their experience. From what Sheppard understood about Outcome and its agents, adaptability was a perk. They weren't asking questions, and that seemed like a good thing. At least for now. The questions would undoubtedly come later when they were back on Earth.
Aaron got to his feet, reached down to give Harper a hand up, both shaking their heads when the medics tried to lead them away. With a touch of humor, Sheppard told them, "The doctors here get a little cranky when they don't get their way."
"That means you'll be joining your friends in the medical bay, right, Colonel?"
At the sound of Carter's voice, Sheppard's back straightened as much as it could, and both hands attempted to find each other behind his back. His shoulder hurt from when he'd been thrown to the ground by the blast, though the smile stayed in place. "That's not necessary, Colonel. I'll be…"
Carter interrupted, stating firmly, "In the Infirmary. Want to introduce me to your friends, John?"
"Of course. Colonel Samantha Carter," he pointed to each in turn, "Detective Javier Esposito, NYPD, Aaron Cross and Harper Finley. Everyone, Colonel Carter. My boss."
Carter nodded and shook hands with each, Harper extending her left hand due to the injury to her right wrist. "Welcome aboard the General George Hammond."
Over their shoulders, Carter caught the doctor's eye. The woman gestured and her staff led the civilians down the corridor branching off to the left, the doctor staying behind to wait for Sheppard. When they'd gone, the ship's commander faced Sheppard again. "John?"
As befitted his rank as a full bird Colonel, Sheppard responded in kind to her use of his first name. "We didn't have time to get out of the blast radius, Sam. If you'd entered orbit even a few seconds later, we'd be extra crispy by now."
"So instead of permission, you're looking for forgiveness." Flicking her eyes side to side, she saw what Sheppard saw: The bridge staff hard at work and appearing to pay no attention to their conversation, though they both knew better. "General O'Neill isn't going to like this."
"Couldn't be helped." He paused when his ribs twinged, barely stopping himself from groaning. "The standard NDA?"
"Yes. And make sure they understand the import of breaking that agreement."
"Not a problem. Esposito's ex-Special Forces. I worked with him on an op in Afghanistan. Cross and Finley are former government agents. They won't say a word."
"See to it." Pointing a finger at him, Carter went to Marks' side saying over her shoulder, "He's all yours, Doc."
His smile turned up one side of his mouth. "Yes, ma'am."
Anxious to get going, the doctor tapped Sheppard on the shoulder, her arm sweeping through the air in an after you gesture. Without even a word of protest, he began walking, slowly until the doctor came alongside.
~~O~~
Lying in the hospital bed and doing his best to remain unaffected by his surroundings, Esposito kept his ears tuned to what people were doing and saying. It was like being dropped in a country where he didn't understand the language. To his right, Harper and Aaron were talking quietly with Sheppard. They thought he was asleep and he let them continue with that belief.
When Sheppard told them about space and traveling to other planets, in the back of his mind, one small part of him had believed every word. The rest of him tried to convince him that he really was asleep and this was all a dream. A weird, intense, freaky, lock-the-door-and-throw-away-the-key crazy dream.
"Stop pretending, Javi, and come join us." Esposito opened his eyes to find Aaron standing at his bedside with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. "We've got something you're gonna want to see."
He sat up on the side of the bed and got to his feet. Aaron, Harper and Sheppard were grouped around a table, a monitor showing video taken with thermal imaging. Aaron tapped the keyboard and the video blurred and changed to a normal view of the building they'd only escaped with their lives because of the advanced tech the US government just happened to have in their possession. Esposito wanted to know everything, but he also didn't want to know anything. With a nonchalance he didn't feel, the detective stood behind his companions watching the fire department swarming around the three alarm fire that still raged. He could see SWAT, police and even a few wearing vests with the initials HLS. Homeland Security.
Something caught his eye. "Stop! Back it up a little…there. Now zoom in on that area." He pointed at the upper left of the display. Beckett, Castle, Gates and a few others were standing close together. In the foreground was Esposito's car now just a burned out shell. From the looks on their faces, they already knew he hadn't been in the car when it when up and were waiting to find out if the building was clear. Of course that would have to wait until the fire was out. Digging his cell from his back pocket, he rubbed a thumb over the keys. "I gotta make a call. Let them know I'm okay."
"Cell signals are blocked." Sheppard took him into an office and explained how to work the comm. "Just be careful what you say."
The door closed behind Sheppard and Esposito dialed a number he knew by heart. It was answered on the first ring.
"Beckett."
"Hey boss."
On the screen, he saw Beckett speaking to the others. "Espo! Where the hell are you? We thought you were dead."
Even though she couldn't see him, Esposito's expression showed guilt. "Can't say. How's Ryan?"
A sigh came through the phone. "Awake and annoyed that the doctors won't let him leave yet."
He paused, trying to decide how best to ask the next question. "Has he been experiencing any strange symptoms?"
"Such as?"
"Sensitivity to light, sound, that kind of thing."
The Beckett on the monitor scowled. "Not that I'm aware of. Why?" She took a few steps away from the others, her voice lowering to a whisper. "Javi, your car is a burned out hulk. There's nothing left of it. What's going on? Are you into something that'll get you killed?"
Sheppard came to the door. It was time to wrap this up for now. "Can't say. Uh, listen, Kate, I gotta go. Talk to you soon." And before Beckett could ask more questions he couldn't answer, or worse, put Castle on the line, Esposito disconnected the call.
Aaron widened the view again so they were looking at the scene from above. He was about to ask what next when Aaron stopped the video and zoomed in on a street view of the crowd. With a few taps, the blurred image came into focus on a mid-thirtyish man with dark hair, slightly hunched, observing the scene without expression. Esposito's take on the man was that he seldom smiled, if at all, and that he would be a formidable adversary.
There was something about the set of Aaron's posture. He knew this man, and that knowledge had come at a price, but for whom, there was only one way to find out. "You know him, Cross?"
"Yes. He doesn't look the same, but I'm certain that's Outcome 3."
Harper, her right wrist encased in a black brace, nodded at the screen. "I know him too, but as Peter Boyd. The shape of his skull is identical though he's had reconstructive surgery."
Aaron's voice lacked expression and that told Esposito that the incident had been traumatic for the man. "I thought he'd been killed when a drone took out the cabin in Alaska."
Though he hid it well, Esposito still saw Aaron's reaction to the name Harper mentioned. Filing that information away until later, he said, "We going back to, uh…" he gestured at the screen, indicating Earth, "…soon? Beckett says Ryan's awake and not experiencing any weird side-effects from Trance. At least not yet."
His friends had barely met Ryan, yet they were doing the best they could to save his life as if they'd known each other for years instead of hours. Wasn't that unusual. Esposito had known he could trust Aaron and Sheppard within minutes of their meeting in Fayzabad. The op they'd worked together hadn't gone like clockwork, but it had gotten the job done. The three of them had been celebrating with cold beers and pulao with naan when a CIA operative giving his name as Matteen Nazari had taken Aaron for a private talk. Esposito hadn't seen him again until just a few days ago.
Sheppard nodded. "The doc wants us to stay overnight. I can convince Carter to give the okay."
While Sheppard worked on securing their release, Esposito ignored the quiet talk going on between Harper and Aaron, taking this time to process the fact that everything that Sheppard had told him was true. This brought him to Aaron's confessions about the program he and Harper had been involved in. If one was true, that logically led to the conclusion that both stories were true in spite of the absence of empirical evidence. And because Aaron's story was the more believable to begin with…his head began to throb, fatigue washing over him.
He hid a yawn and returned to his bed where he lay down with a groan as a medic came to his side to check on him. He refused pain meds, and in a few minutes, he was asleep.
~~O~~
With his friends looking over his shoulder, Aaron watched as the man he knew as Outcome 3 pushed his way through the crowd gawking at the first responders putting out the fire. His thoughts went back to the day in Alaska when the drone took out the cabin. He'd been as certain as he could be that his host had been killed. But the face on the monitor told another story, bringing with it a name: Peter Boyd. Was it just a coincidence that Marta's former live-in boyfriend shared that same name?
He doubted it.
Marta hadn't gone into specifics about her relationship with Boyd, just that they'd parted on less than amicable terms eight months or so before the wet team-and Aaron-had shown up at her home. She hadn't described Boyd, said what his business was or indicated that he'd been a part of Outcome. After all that happened to and between them over the years, he didn't believe that she would've left that part out. The only logical conclusion was that she didn't know. Now that Aaron knew of the existence of more than one doctor with the skills and knowledge to viral someone off the chems, he reasoned that each doctor had been assigned to care for specific participants to create a division of knowledge. If Marta didn't know the faces and designations of another's charges, they couldn't be compromised if she were captured and tortured for intel.
Outcome 3, Peter Boyd, or whatever name he was going by now, pushed his way through the crowd, walked past the cops guarding the perimeter and disappeared. Another figure followed him, the face obscured by a hood pulled low in front. Aaron saw that it was woman as she separated from the crowd. Something about her seemed familiar, but he couldn't place it.
A few minutes later, a car backed up and drove away. Even without the zoom, he could see that the license tag was covered. The make, model year and color of the vehicle didn't help either as it was one of the most popular in the state. Still, Aaron set the system to track it. He also used the single frame of Boyd's face to run his facial recognition program. Hopefully they'd have a better idea of where he went from here, and who his companion was.
Behind him, he heard Esposito return to the hospital bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
Poor guy. Between them, Aaron and Sheppard had shaken Esposito's world view of what was and wasn't possible. Aaron wasn't worried about him though. Esposito was resilient and more than a little familiar with a non-disclosure agreement.
Aaron inserted the thumb drive he'd taken from the computer in the destroyed lab into the port on his left. He hadn't been able to download the entirety of the database, but hopefully there was enough for the doctors to analyze and formulate a cure for Trance. Just in case, he opened the file and quick scanned the contents. There was very little there that they didn't already know or at least suspect. But Aaron wasn't a doctor, though he did have a great deal of medical knowledge stuffed into his brain during training. Nothing that would help with this aside from the part about blood types.
Aaron rubbed a hand down his face to clear out the cobwebs. Didn't work. The injuries he sustained were taking their toll on his body. "With the advanced tech your people have, maybe they can find a cure. But the problem is we're not certain exactly how many people have used it and didn't report it. With the scant information we do have, there's no way to know what the long-term effects will be."
Leaning on the desk, Sheppard pointed at the thumb drive. "Give that to the docs. They'll figure it out."
Without responding, first Aaron then Harper and lastly, Sheppard, returned to their hospital beds, and just like Esposito, they were asleep within moments.
Carter came into the Infirmary a short time later, the doctor greeting her at the entrance. "This is why we keep people over night."
"How long will they be out?"
"No telling. How they came away with minor injuries and no concussions is beyond me." She sighed and crossed her arms. "They got lucky."
Carter snorted. "They won't see it that way."
"As long as they stay put for another twelve hours or so, I don't care."
Nodding, Carter started away. "When Sheppard wakes up, send him to my office. He and I need to have a long talk."
~~O~~
Sitting in the front passenger seat of Sherry's car, Outcome 3, once known as Peter Boyd and now going by the name Michael Blanchard, stared out the window watching the people going about their daily lives as though nothing were different. And for them, nothing was. At least not yet. Once he set the next phase of his plan into motion, it would cause an international incident that would go down in history. And no one would be able to trace it to him because he didn't really exist. Hadn't existed legally since the day he joined Outcome.
When Byer approached him with the offer, it hadn't been a difficult decision to make. He had no family and no close friends. Nothing to set him apart from every other working stiff in his native country. Before the program meds, he'd done okay in the smarts department. Physically, he'd been average for his height, weight and age. After…the things he could do filled him with the drive to do and be more. It was as if nothing could touch him.
Then, he met Marta. Falling in love made him feel empowered and weak at the same time. As the months went by and the time for him to begin fulfilling his part of the contract with Byer neared, he dreaded the day when he would have to leave her. After they had spent the weekend touring Napa Valley sampling the different wines and even buying a few bottles to take home, on the plane ride back to Maryland, she'd asked him to move in with her.
Boyd had been proud of himself for not betraying his shock and embarrassment. While he'd been working out how to break up with her, Marta's thoughts had taken an entirely different track, and before he could stop himself, he said yes. They had spent their first night as a co-habiting couple curled up on the couch watching a documentary on Bigfoot and eating cold pizza with a bottle of the wine they brought back.
For the next six months, he'd been happier than at any other time of his life. It wasn't long before he began entertaining the idea of starting a family with Marta. The one thing that caused him to hesitate was the fact that neither of them had any idea what the other did for a living. Boyd knew she was virologist doing research of a highly classified nature. On the other side of that coin was his work with Outcome. From the start, he had intimated that he worked in international finance, a job that involved lots of overseas travel. He'd been injured on a mission to Moldavia, and told her it happened while he was rock climbing with a client. Which was only partially true.
"Michael? We're here."
Looking over at Sherry, he forced a smile. "Are you sure I'm not putting you out?"
"No. My roommate's gonna be gone for three months. You can use her room 'till you can find another place." She turned off the engine and reached into the back seat for her purse.
His cultured accent made a stark contrast to her Brooklyn. Yet another thing that set them apart. "That's generous of you, Sherry, but I'll only be in New York another couple of weeks."
They got out of the car and he followed her to the shabby second floor apartment. "Oh, that's too bad. I like workin' for you."
"Oh?"
She carried her purse through a door left ajar. When she came out, she'd changed into a uniform. "You're the first boss I had that didn't gimme grief about somethin'. You pay better too. Guess that's over now."
"Perhaps. I have money set aside. More than enough to help us get back on our feet. It's just a matter of finding the right venue to begin again. Do you have Internet access?"
Sherry's eyes lit up. "Yeah. Wi-Fi. My laptop's in the desk. I don't have a printer or nothin'. When I need to print somethin' I go down to the library."
Standing in the middle of the living room floor, Boyd took in his surroundings. Like the outside of the building, the inside needed work. The furniture was old and mismatched, though the room was neat as a pin. Attempts had been made to create a cozy environment though. A crocheted blanket lay over the back of the couch, framed movie posters hung on the walls and lush house plants sat amongst cheap knick-knacks and dog-eared fashion magazines.
"Make yourself at home. Haven't been to the store so there's not much in the 'fridge. I gotta work at the diner tonight. Be home around midnight. Want I should bring you a sandwich or somethin'?"
The thought of eating anything caused his stomach to heave. Forcing the bile down, he again managed a smile. "That's not necessary. If I get hungry I'll go out."
"Guess I should give you a key then, just in case." Going into the kitchen, Sherry came back with two keys attached to a small LED flashlight keychain. "The square one's for the door downstairs and the other is for the front door."
Taking a pad from the end table, she scribbled on the top page. "Here's my cell number, if you need anything."
"Thank you again."
She waved away his gratitude. "It'll be nice havin' someone to talk to. Rosa's been doin' a semester at one o' them fancy British schools. She's wicked smart. Me, I just barely graduated from high school. What about you? You're a doctor, right?"
"You could say that. Though most of my knowledge comes from on-the-job training and reading." A moment of awkwardness came to join them. "Sherry, if you could do anything you wanted to, if money weren't a consideration, what would you do?"
One side of her mouth turned up in an ironic smile. "You mean 'sides waitin' tables and workin' as a drug mule?"
"I'm serious."
Looking down at her feet, she shrugged. "Once thought I'd like to be a dancer, but I kinda got two left feet." Gesturing at the plants, she said, "Maybe open a flower shop or even a bakery. I make a mean apple cobbler. And I been told my chocolate lava cake could turn a sinner into a true believer."
The last was accompanied by her hands folding as if in prayer, startling a laugh out of him. "Then I'll have to persuade you to make it for me."
"Well, you can never go wrong with chocolate." Giving him a shy smile, she zipped the front of her jacket. "I gotta go. See ya."
"Good night."
When the door closed behind her, Boyd locked the deadbolts, all three, then went into the bedroom where he would be sleeping for the next few weeks. They'd stopped on the way so he could buy clothes. He undressed and took a long hot shower.
Later, while rubbing his wet hair with a towel, he went to the window to stare up at the sky. Somewhere up there, someone was watching, waiting. Biding their time. And when they came for him, he would be ready.
TBC
