Chapter 10
The entire room stood stunned around Pete's filthy, comatose body. He laid chest down, the sluggish rise-and-fall of his back letting everyone know he was still alive.
Artie retrained his eyes on the intended target and raised his arm to fire again; Pete's accidental sacrifice only served to strengthen his resolve.
"Artie, STOP!" Claudia dove over to Artie and pushed his arm up, sending the shock-wave into the ceiling. The sounds of pieces of plaster pitter-pattering on the cement floor coincided with the harsh clacking of feet on the iron stairs.
"What the hell was that noi—" Myka rounded the last step and saw Pete sprawled out amid the circle of people. "Oh my God!" She dashed over to him, bumping into Claudia along the way, and knelt down.
A grunt forced its way from Myka's chest as she rolled Pete's massive body over, her sweaty hands not helping her effort. Her hands trembled as she felt his face and then checked his neck pulse with her index and middle fingers. The pulse was thready, but it was present. A small, relieved smile formed on her lips as she cupped his still-warm cheek in her hand.
The relief was fleeting though, and anger quickly rose to take its place. Her head lifted slowly as if she was a woman-shaped balloon being filled with hot, infuriated air. She locked her sights on the two new faces in the room, ready to fire her salvo of righteous justice.
Myka stood up aggressively, eying the men with icy suspicion. "What did you do to him?" She barked, her body rigid.
Aries took a step back. "Don't look at us!" He shouted indignantly. "It was him." A shaky finger pointed directly at Artie. Myka didn't even dignify Aries by acknowledging his plea before hurtling herself in his direction. She wrapped her fingers around his black sweater and pushed him into the adjacent bookcase, sending books and tchotchkes sailing to the floor.
All of the fury and misery, that had materialized after Pete's recent disappearance and subsequent return, was redirected toward this unlucky stranger. Aries could feel the deluge of hatred pouring from her eyes as she inched closer.
"Listen, you son of a bitch," Myka yelled, "my partner is unconscious with you and your freaky-looking friend standing over him. Are you really going to stand there and tell me that you had nothing to do with it?" Aries' mouth opened and closed a couple times with no answer emerging. Myka shook him once, "Now, who are you, and what the HELL are you doing here?"
"Great question." Artie added, walking up to the Fixer with the Tesla raised, and trying to be intimidating. The Fixer, who stood at least a foot-and-a-half taller than Artie, just eyed him with confusion.
Myka gave Aries a stronger shake that caused the back of the bookshelf to clatter loudly against the wall.
"We're here... to help... Pete." He painfully stuttered out. His face had turned a bright red, and a few veins struggled to stay inside the skin of his forehead.
Claudia threw her hands in the air, and spoke slowly, "Okay, I hate to be the sane, rational one here, but everyone needs to just calm the hell down." She turned toward the venomous female agent, "Myka, it's kind of hard for him to explain himself with you blocking his airway, isn't it? And Artie," she spoke to the other agent, "stop trying to be intimidating. It's clearly not working."
Artie cast his signature annoyed look while Myka, without loosening her hold on Aries, looked at her best friend helplessly, knowing that she was right.
With one last look of disgust, Myka shoved Aries back against the bookcase and joined Claudia. Artie begrudgingly lowered his weapon and took a step back as well.
All five of them stood wordlessly, letting the dust settle.
After a narrow of the eyes, and a quick shake of the head, Myka walked over to a dusty sofa and dragged it from the corner to the center of the room.
"Claudia, help me get Pete on here, please." Myka requested, as she slid her arms underneath Pete's armpits.
"I'll keep an eye on our friends here." Artie promised, not taking his eyes off the intruders. Claudia nodded, walked over to Pete, and got a firm grip on his ankles.
She took a deep breath. "Okay. Three, two, one..."
They both stood up with strained moans, and managed to get him a couple of feet off the ground. Several tiny baby steps later, they dropped him on the couch and tried not to inhale the thick cloud that erupted as a result.
Claudia walked back to Artie's side swiftly.
"OK, gentlemen..." She started before stealing the Tesla from Artie's hand and, with a few dexterous spins, pointing it directly at Aries' head. "Now that we're calm, I think it's time you answer Myka's question before I give you a little shocky-shock like Artie did with our good friend Pete here."
"Claudia!" Artie barely spit out before he felt Myka's breath on the side of his face.
"What the hell, Artie!"
"Hey!" Claudia cried, preempting Artie's stuttered excuse. "We've got more important things to do here. Can we focus?" She paused before sighing to herself. "God, I sound just like Artie."
Claudia refocused her attention on Aries, who was again staring afraid down the barrel of the Tesla. He took a deep breath and, hands raised, offered his previous explanation more calmly, "We're here to help Pete, to fix him. Or at least he is." He pointed a thumb at the Fixer.
"It's true. So, if maybe you could put down the gu—" The Fixer made the mistake of taking a large step forward, and Claudia, in a moment of panic, unleashed the power of the Tesla, engulfing the Fixer's gray and black frame in a field of blue. The electricity coiled rapidly around his appendages and then rushed into the safety of the ground. The gun sputtered out the last of its energy before dying completely. Claudia let the Tesla drop to her side when she saw the Fixer's unenervated black eyes staring back at her.
"Ouch." He deadpanned, smoke rising from his dark tuxedo.
Claudia didn't resist when the Fixer walked toward her and took the now-dead Tesla from her. "You can believe me or not. Either way..." He crushed the Tesla in his hand. The sound of breaking glass and crunching metal, muffled by cold skin, made Claudia's insides churn. "I am here. And I am not leaving until I fix Pete. You can help me or you can point some more guns at me." He threw the remains of the Tesla to the ground; a single metallic chink cut the moment of silence between the two sentences. "And see how that works out for you."
Claudia broke her eyes away from his; the others couldn't do the same.
"What are you?" Artie half-whispered.
The Fixer regarded Artie with a careless glance. "Does it matter?"
Myka stomped up to him, not as frightened of him as everyone else. "Why? What's in it for you?"
"Nothing. It's just... what I do." The Fixer stepped back near Aries and took control of the situation. "If you want answers, you'll have to sit down, shut up, and stop attacking my for-lack-of-a-better-word 'companion'. Understand?" Claudia and Artie both assented right away, and sat down diligently awaiting further instruction.
Myka crossed her arms and cocked her neck to the side. She sat sharply and raised an eyebrow at the tall, tuxedoed intruder. "Fine. But I can't promise I won't do that last one."
Irene Frederic opened the door to her home quickly and shut again just as fast. She carried a brown grocery bag filled to the brim with various vegetables and noodles. Not that she needed to eat anything. She mostly kept cooking as a hobby, and eating was relegated to that category as well. One of the perks (or curses depending on who you ask) of being the Warehouse's caretaker was the fact that you can never expire from starvation or dehydration, as well as common workplace hazards like getting shot or falling off of a building. In short, she was as immortal as the Warehouse itself. If it died, she died. And she couldn't die unless it died.
When she agreed to be the caretaker of the second incarnation of the American Warehouse in 1914, she hadn't realized that she would outlive her husband, her son, her entire family, all of her friends.
Now, the Warehouse was her friend; the Warehouse was her family. Those two sentences were the only ones she still dwelled on. The others, she'd learned, were not healthy to brood over. She'd sacrificed her life for this institution, and she didn't regret it, or so she told herself. Though she'd been the caretaker for exactly one hundred and nine years, the feelings still poked at her from time to time.
She set the bag on the counter, began preparations for the lovely stir-fry, and went over the days events in her head.
The trip to her office was a short one. Just a quick check-up on the Warehouse and a peek to see if there were any pings. There weren't.
The slump of this winter wasn't much more significant than any other slump in the Warehouse's history, but she could tell that Artie and his team were getting restless. His face, on the Farnsworth whenever he would tell her about the day's fruitless attempts at finding a potential artifact, was always drained. The search for these mystical items gave him a reason to feel alive, and during slumps like these, that reason vanished. The Warehouse and his car we're the only things keeping him alive, and perhaps his agents.
She'd just begun slicing the red bell pepper when she felt a strange vibe. She stopped her hand and rested the knife on the counter. Tap, taptap, tap, taptaptap, taptap, tap, tap.
She left the food on the counter and calmly made her way to the hallway near the kitchen. Tap, taptaptap, tap, taptap.
She immediately locked her vision on the third door on the left, directly across from her bedroom. Taptap, taptaptap, tap, tap, taptap.
Her hand lingered on the gold knob for a fraction of a second before she let her weight turn the knob and open the door.
The tapping stopped as she entered the completely blank room. The only furnishing in the room was a perfectly centered desk with an antique typewriter resting on top. She breathed deeply and then made her way to the desk.
The sheet of paper was old and yellowed and only held two lines on its withering pulp. The first paragraph was long dried while the second was wet and newly typed.
Pete Lattimer, Aug. 23, 2011, 3:35 PM, Leena's Bed And Breakfast
Sean O'Reilly, Dec. 16, 2023, 2:34 PM, K29ZZZ N. American grid.
The second man's name awakened memories within her that she'd thought long gone. She lifted up her arm to check her small, golden watch. 11:24 AM. She still had time.
She was about to leave the room when Pete's name caught her eye. The first time she'd used this artifact's prediction, it had been one of the worst mistakes of her life. This time she wouldn't be so careless.
Her face remained a solid nothing as she left the room, her apartment, and Chicago, and made her way to her oldest friend and family member: the Warehouse.
Pain was the first thing Pete registered as he slowly regained consciousness. His deep muscles shouted their agony outward, covering his entire body in an exhausted ache. He didn't want to open his eyes, let alone sit up, but he eventually had to do both.
"Thanks for the welcome back gift, Artie." He looked around. Everyone was gathered on the other side of the office, presumably discussing Pete's situation. Artie and Aries were seated directly opposite each other, the former not for a second breaking his death glare to the latter. Apparently, during Pete's nice, little nap, Artie had swallowed whatever ill feelings he had toward Aries, and held them in his chest, which was angrily puffed out and pushed almost violently against his crossed arms. Pete's eyes wandered. Everyone seemed to be in the huddle. Everyone except Myka.
Myka wasn't looking at him, but a subtle twitch of the eye let Pete know that she knew he was awake. She sat in a chair a few feet away, her legs and arms crossed tightly, so much so that Pete could make out a weak tremble as it moved up her arms. The fierce look was gone, but it was replaced by a dry unease. Her head was turned toward the group, that was discussing something about the physics of time travel.
"Hey, Myka," he spoke with a vaguely drunk man's slur. There was no joking tone or even a heavily emotional one. Just an everyday greeting. Like they'd bumped into each other in an empty break room, and were forced to exchange awkward words.
She faced him. Her mouth was slightly ajar like she was about reply with a 'hey,' but no sound came out. Her eyes were beet red, and her lips puffy. It was no secret what she'd gone upstairs to do, but Pete chose not to acknowledge it. Pete smiled at her sadly before laying back down on the sofa that had been dragged into the middle of the room. It smelled old, like clothes rotting in a cedar closet. It brought back unpleasant memories of Grandma's house in the dead of winter, and her dragging multiple old coats out for him to suffocate in. He coughed as if on cue.
"Hey." Myka spoke back, almost ten minutes later. Pete craned his head to the side. Her eyes were somewhere else.
"Pete's up!" Claudia shouted. "Come on. Get your ass over here. We've got important stuff to discuss."
He didn't even try to get up, but at another one of Claudia's polite urgings he sat up again, while unfortunately catching a whiff of his own foul stench on the way up. "I need a shower first." He spoke.
Claudia walked over, leaving the others to continue their conversation. "I figured, and I grabbed you another suit from your room."
My room? He thought, before he remembered that if an agent disappeared under mysterious circumstances, his or her belongings were stored in a clone room in the Warehouse. "Thanks," he said, while standing up fully, and taking the neatly folded pile of clothes.
"Shower's upstairs." She told him, pointing to the spiral stairs.
"I know." He responded, while making his way up.
He was at the last iron stair when Artie yelled, "Be careful in there. The shower gets a little... shocky sometimes."
Fantastic, Pete thought, sighing away the worry. He'd had enough shocks for the day. But I need this very, very badly. He caught another blast of the awful odor emanating from his underarm region and elsewhere.
What used to be Artie's quarters was now apparently turned into more storage for files and other relics from the kingdom of the office. Old tables, extra chairs, empty cabinets.
A small nook was reserved for Artie's hammock which he probably still used often, and next to that was the door to the bathroom. Pete kicked open the door softly, and flipped the light switch. The light hummed and flickered to life, illuminating the room in a sickening yellow light. He remembered this room from years of inventory potty breaks. It filled him with a subdued feeling of disgust, but also a strange at-home feeling. Must have been like his Uncle Jerry always said, nothing said 'home' like a familiar bathroom.
The walls were composed of the same red brick as the office and the rest of the Warehouse 'watchtower'. Vinyl tiles, which probably hadn't been updated since the early eighties, sat loosely over the cement floor along with a faded purple mat. The toilet, that Myka always refused to sit down on before dousing it in sanitizer and covering it in layers upon layers of toilet paper, eyed Pete evilly from the far corner.
Pete walked up to the mirror and almost gasped. He looked like he'd been working a pottery wheel in a hurricane. His hair was dirty and stuck up in odd places. The shirt that had been white at journey's start was, at it's best spots, a light yellow, and at it's worst, a dark, crusty brown.
"And you were gonna hug Myka looking..." Pete paused, taking in his unsavory scent. "...and smelling... like this?" Pete whispered to himself. In disgust, he pulled the shirt off, letting it drop the the floor unceremoniously. For good measure, he stripped off his pants, underwear, shoes, and socks as well. He balanced the pile of clean clothes on the edge of the sink and turned to his next destination.
The shower was obscured by a skimpy, white plastic curtain. It occurred to Pete that he'd never actually seen the inside of the shower; but, given the state of the sink, which was more rusty than it was clean, he feared that it wouldn't be anything fancy.
"Here goes nothing." He pulled back the curtain, the sound of metal rings scraping across a metal pole invading his ears. He half-expected a crazed serial killer to pounce on him as he did.
The shower looked exactly as he'd imagined it. Like a World War II-era, rusty submarine-looking death trap, with a head that he was surprised could still spout water without breaking off. There were two identical gate valves, one red and one blue, jutting from two ancient, brown copper pipes. Pete cautiously turned the one he hoped would bring hot water. The pipes emitted some frightening banging noises; and, after a few seconds, glorious hot water sputtered out of the deformed shower head. Pete briefly wondered what kinds of grossness had accumulated in the plumbing over the years, but as soon as he entered the stream of steaming heaven, he forgot all else.
Over the course of the nearly thirty minute shower, numerous different thoughts jumped around his brain.
He wondered what had become of the Detective who'd interrogated him and the surly officer who'd arrested him so many years, yet only a day ago. He thought about the FBI agents that he'd disappeared in front of.
That must have had some repercussions. Hell, he might have even made it on the Warehouse's radar for that little magic act. Did younger Artie investigate it? Or maybe some of his team, whose names he couldn't recall? He'd left his wallet in 1976. If a Warehouse team had investigated Pete's case, it would be kept in some folder deep in the dusty recesses of Artie's office. What a trip that would be for Artie and the others, Pete pulling his wallet out of a folder from fifty years ago. The thought brought a smile to Pete's face.
Artie's last words before everything went crazy with angry words and Teslas had moved Pete a bit.
The old team, back together.
It felt like he was on a normal case just yesterday, searching for another wing-nut with a magic weapon. He'd had Myka, Artie, Claudia, and Leena behind him and he'd felt invincible. Then he was whisked away into the great churning river of time, and he almost lost his mind. But now he was back. Twelve years later for everyone else, and on uncertain terms with Myka, but he was still back. And about to embark on another case, this time to solve his own crazy problem. How, he had no idea, and the thought of attempting to figure it out was daunting; but with his team, and a couple new additions, there was hope.
The Fixer was either a God-send or Pete's worst nightmare. If Pete's timeline wasn't corrected, the cold protector would be forced to remove him from existence by locking him in one of those mirror cells... forever.
The thought terrified him, but he tried to reason that it wouldn't be so bad. He said that eventually I'd go crazy, right? Well, that's not so bad. Maybe I'd imagine a new world.
He laughed outwardly, but deep inside he cradled a terrible fear. He didn't want to lose everything and everyone he loved to madness. Thankfully, the Fixer didn't seem to particularly like that option, and with someone as powerful as that on Pete's side, the odds were in his favor.
And then there was Aries... Pete had no idea where he fit into all of this. Mrs. Frederic knew Aries and apparently trusted him, and normally that would be enough to earn Pete's trust as well, but he had a gut-feeling that there was something off-key about the quietly abrasive man.
Pete knew that Aries had a personal stake in coming to his "rescue", but he'd remained vague in the mirror prison, where he hadn't exactly been tight-lipped about anything else. Pete could put together that something bad happened in Aries' past, and Mrs. Frederic gave him this opportunity to use Pete to correct it; but, according to Aries himself, the Regents probably would not have allowed him to succeed.
Pete's eyebrows crinkled with frustration. If that was true, then why did they allow Aries to nearly hijack him? He considered this fact for a fraction longer. Maybe Mrs. Frederick more than just trusted him, maybe they were actually friends, or perhaps more than friends!
The thought sent shivers through Pete despite the nearly scalding water. He had never even imagined her as a person who had friends, let alone lovers. The fact that she once had husband was even more unbelievable.
Pete decided that was going to stick with the 'friends' label. The way Aries spoke about her wasn't indicative of a sexual relationship, or even really a friendship, but there weren't many other explanations.
So, Mrs. Frederic, friend of Aries, genuinely concerned for his happiness, went around the Regents' back with information about my future whereabouts, which she obtained who-the-hell knows how, and gave it to Aries. Unfortunately for him, this crazy Fixer foiled his plans, and now here we all are.
The explanation looked good on paper, but Pete's guts told him that there was something else, another variable in the equation, something that Aries neglected to mention. Pete stuck his head into the torrent of liquid, and let that thought fall to the wayside. He inched his head out slowly, letting the water cover his face.
Then, of course, there was whatever problem Artie had with Aries.
Ugh. Pete rubbed the sore area on his chest where the bolt of electricity struck him. Coincidentally, it had hit him directly on top of his cursed scar. He let his hand drop to his side.
Whatever appalling act Aries committed during his tenure at the Warehouse really affected Artie. It must have been pretty horrible for it to have elicited that strong of a reaction from him after such a long time. It was as if Aries was a lesser James MacPherson. Though their beef with each other wasn't really relevant to Pete's problem, curiosity still gnawed at him. That story would be worth a listen.
The unanswered questions made his shower a bit less pleasant, so he let all thoughts slip away, along with the escaping condensation beyond the shower curtain. He grabbed the bar of wrinkled, dry soap that Pete was absolutely sure was used by Nikola Tesla himself and began scrubbing furiously. Dirt had clung to him from 1976, the mid-nineties, and fifty years in the future; he desperately needed it to disappear along with that God-awful stink.
After a while, Pete's feet and hands began to shrivel up, and he had a bit of trouble breathing in all of that steam, but he felt like a new man.
The vibe cut through his shower euphoria with a cold, dry blade.
This one was different from the constant ill feeling that clung to him like the Spine of the Saracen. This one was urgent and borderline painful.
Pete stopped the water, did a quick sweep with a towel, and got dressed immediately. He abandoned the jacket, shirt, and tie, and opted instead for the t-shirt/pants combo he'd been sporting since his little desert excursion.
He rummaged through his old pants pockets and fished out his cell phone. Patting down the rest of the pockets, he found something he didn't remember having on him. He could feel a small cylinder-shaped object through the thin, black linen. He pulled out the small vial containing the artifact bullet that had once occupied its throne in between Pete's aorta and pulmonary arteries. The corner of his mouth lifted up, and he put the little day-ruining nugget in the pocket of his new pants. Good luck charm, he thought, amused.
Upon entering the cluttered upstairs room, Pete decided to search the drawers of the empty dresser near Artie's hammock, hoping that Artie was paranoid enough to... "Aha!" He shouted, happily. The drawers were indeed empty, except of course for the dusty, infrequently-used Sig Sauer pistol. Pete kissed the barrel, silently thanking Artie.
He raced down the steps, the feeling of inescapable catastrophe unyielding against his tired mind.
The group was sitting and standing in a circle near the filled chalkboard. They all looked up at Pete
as he rounded the last few stairs. He was breathing heavily and had an upset, almost terrified, look on his face.
"Are you alright, Pete?" Claudia asked, with a worried look that was complemented and reinforced by equal looks around the circle.
Pete rapidly examined the office for anything that shouted 'catastrophe.' His run slowed to an unbalanced walk as he neared the circle. No one had seen the pistol in his hands, so he decided to hide it in his pants, not wanting to alarm anyone. "Yeah, uh, I'm fine." He replied, beads of leftover shower water and sweat tickling their way down his forehead.
"You sure?" She asked. "Because I can easily have Artie put you down for another nap if you're not feeling too well." She took Pete's look of horror as an answer. "No? Well, then sit down, sweetheart, we have work to do." Claudia had become a bit more like Artie in the past twelve years, it seemed. With her it's-for-your-own-good tone and sarcastic demeanor, Pete thought he was seeing double.
The vibe was still beating, like an aching heart, in the back of his head. Something was amiss, Pete just didn't know what.
Pete surveyed the group. Myka, Claudia, and Artie were all comfortably sitting down, while the Fixer and Aries stood uncomfortably a few feet away, spaced just a bit farther apart than the rest of the group. There was a tension in the air. Something had gone down while he was out, Pete surmised. The mistrust formed an invisible bubble around Pete's aged team. A thick, impenetrable fortress. Regardless, Pete was glad they at least tolerated each other for his sake.
"Did you do any follow up on the man who shot Pete? He must be connected somehow." Aries spoke, earning him, perhaps undeservedly so, a few glares from the other half of the circle.
The very sound of Aries' voice made Artie's face crinkle up in disgust. He replied with obvious disdain, "Of course, we did. Many times. He practically disappeared from the face of the Earth. And I haven't had any pings relating to the Jesse James gun since. Not even a whisper."
Claudia chimed in, "Well, is there anything you two can remember?" She looked at both Pete and Myka. "You were the only ones who saw him."
Myka, who was sipping a bottle of water and seemed to be a bit more emotionally stable than before, chimed in, "Um, I just remember running up to roof, and seeing them standing there. And then he shot Pete." Her head fell. When she finally lifted it, she saw everyone was still looking at her. She shook her head quickly and ran a hand through her hair. "Uh. Black clothes, black mask. He was tall, maybe six-one. He definitely used the artifact."
"The same description as every other witness of the preceding thirty-five incidents, which occurred over a period of twenty-five years." Artie added. "Which had led us to believe that the same person was committing the bank robberies. The man always hit at least two banks in the same city, in the same week. He never took any money. And he always shot someone. Which as we know results in some pretty volatile side-effects." His eyes drifted toward the ceiling, deep in reverie. "If I recall correctly, the first person he shot that week was an elderly man..."
"Landon Freed." Myka interjected. "He received a bullet to the foot. Died two minutes later from severe dehydration."
"... Yes." Artie continued. "The second was a teenaged girl..."
"Erika Schneider. She received a bullet to the arm, and an hour later a flesh-eating fungus took it off."
"Thank you, Myka..." Artie chipped, a bit annoyed. He paused and then looked at Pete. "And then you got shot in the heart and two months later got sent through time."
"Quite the artifact..." Aries spoke.
"Indeed." Artie spoke, biting down his anger. "Doing inventory for a couple months afterwards. Being around all of those artifacts. Something must have changed the bullet's properties. It could have been anything. We may never know what." He paused. "Okay. Myka you can finish summarizing the case for me, seeing as you remember much more than I do."
"Well, Pete and I eventually found out that the gun must have been like a drug to anyone that used it. It willed them to hurt and kill people, or commit crimes. It created this... darkness within them." Myka spoke, not remembering this case fondly. "So, knowing that, we figured out that the pseudo-robber liked to strike the biggest, most used banks in each city he'd traveled to. He hit the most populated bank first, so we staked out his next most likely choice, and we found him. Chased him to the roof of that hotel, and the rest... you know..." She trailed off.
Silence encased them as they each remembered the day from their individual points of view.
Pete's head lifted. He'd remembered something. "He knew my name." Everyone looked in his direction. "He knew my name, and talked to me like he knew me." The realization left looks of shock plastered on everyone's, except Aries' and the Fixer's, faces.
Myka piped up, angrily, "Why didn't you tell us that before, Pete?"
Claudia and Artie expressed similar points of view, but Pete only had eyes for Myka at that moment.
"I forgot about it. It didn't seem too important, you know, because of the bullet in my chest!" He replied, his voice rising.
"Everything is important. Even the littlest details. They will probably save your ass. Isn't that what working here was supposed to teach you? Guess it flew right over your head. Big surprise!" Myka cut deeply, with a small flourish of the hands.
"I'm sorry we can't all have your photographic freak-memory!"
"Oh, that's very nice, Pete."
"Yeah. You know what isn't nice? Getting punched in the face." He accented with a point to his cheek.
Myka raised an eyebrow. "Well, maybe if you weren't such an ass, I wouldn't have to punch you. And believe me, I'm considering doing it again."
"Well, I'm right here. Come at me, bro." He baited, arrogantly.
Myka stood up. "No thanks. In fact, I'm going to go in the opposite direction." She collected her coat from the back of her chair, and walked toward the office door. "Goodbye, everyone, and merry Christmas."
Pete watched the door open and Myka disappear beyond it into the umbilicus.
Pete's head dropped, "Crap." He admonished himself. "Myka!" He yelled as he walked toward the door.
The door hissed open a second time, and Myka walked through again. She and Pete made eye contact and the previous vibe hit him in full force.
"Pete." She whispered, with a look of terror on her face. Then, she lifted her hands up.
"Myka, What are you..." Pete tried to ask before two agents, a man and a woman, barged in behind Myka, guns raised.
"Alright, no one move." The male agent ordered. He was black, tall, and intimidating, his voice cold and dark. In contrast to his partner, who was pale and blonde, shorter but perhaps more muscular than Myka or Claudia. They held their guns in the group's general direction, their eyes shifting from person to person.
Myka and Pete backed up slowly toward Artie and the others. Pete held her close, ready to throw himself in front of their bullets if necessary.
Artie and Claudia both stood up from their chairs. "Toby, Rylee... What are you guys doing?" Claudia demanded, incredulously.
The agent named Rylee seemed conflicted with the situation, but regardless, she said, "Sorry, Claud. Just following orders."
"Orders!" Artie shouted, stepping forward. "I am your boss, you follow my orders. Put down those guns now!" They did not yield.
Pete gathered that these two agents were in the current line-up of the Warehouse's merry band of thieves. Mrs. Frederic sure knows how to pick 'em, Pete thought. They looked like two terminators, beautiful and deadly.
"Who's orders?" Claudia asked worriedly.
"Mine." Said a tame yet stern voice. Pete recognized it immediately. Mrs. Frederic heels clicked on the cement as she entered from the umbilicus behind her agents. She hadn't aged a day since he last saw her, and she still had the same elegant grandmotherly fashion sense.
"And mine." Another voice spoke, a man's. None other than Adwin Kosan, head Regent, stepped in and took a place beside Frederic. Unlike his quiet companion, Kosan had visibly aged, a few wrinkles showing themselves in the areas around his eyes and mouth, but he still retained that air of terrifying mystery.
Artie and Claudia were both speechless. How could the Regents order their own agents against them?
Their silent question was answered. "Him." Frederic pointed daintily. "In the tuxedo."
The armed agents both trained their weapons at the Fixer's forehead. "Come toward us with your hands up." Toby commanded.
The Fixer made a lopsided smile, and then vanished. The agents were taken aback for a split second before they noticed that the Fixer had reappeared next to Pete. The grey man pushed Myka away and grabbed Pete's arm roughly. "I think it's time we left." He said.
Pete expected to be whisked away from his team to some unknown destination yet again. But instead he had to cover his ears.
The Fixer crouched down, cluched his head, and began screaming. The sound was almost inhuman in that it seemed to contain multiple voices rather than simply one. After a second, the strange screaming halted, and he tumbled onto his back side. His arms and legs twitched uncontrollably, his eyes darted every which way, and foam started to gush violently from his mouth. He was having a seizure.
Pete knelt next to him. "What the hell are you doing to him!" Pete bellowed at the two Regents. They just stared down with indifferent faces. The Warehouse agents, however, had lowered their guns, shocked.
"Shouldn't we call an ambulance or something?" Rylee asked, but it might as well have been rhetorical.
Suddenly, a beeping noise erupted from Artie's desktop computer. A map of the Warehouse had pulled itself up, and was registering an increasing number of artifact disturbances around the office. Static storms began to light up the Warehouse outside the window, catching everyone's attention.
Artie rushed over to the computer and checked static and negative energy levels. The results were foreboding.
"Mrs. Frederic," He started, surprisingly calm, "you better stop whatever you're doing to him or we're going to have a lot of trouble on our hands."
"I can't." She said simply.
"What do you mean, you can't?" Pete scoffed, trying to hold the Fixer's arms down. He'd started to flail.
"Well, you better figure something out." Artie didn't look up from the screen. "And fast."
No one said anything.
"Uh. Now... now... NOW!" Artie screamed as a bolt of electricity sprung up and shattered one of the glass windows.
Everyone jumped back as the bolt remained for a second, buzzed harshly, and then vanished. The office lights and warehouse lights began to flicker out one by one. The event gave Pete an idea.
"ARTIE, SHOCK HIM!" Pete bellowed above the roar of the Warehouse.
"I can't. He crushed the Tesla!" Artie yelled back.
"Don't you have a spare or something?" Pete looked at the terminators. "What about you guys?"
Toby was released from his trance. "Uh. Yeah." He put the pistol away and pulled out his shiny new Tesla. He aimed and fired directly at the seizing man, illuminating the dark room in a ghostly blue glow. The Fixer jumped up a bit, but was otherwise unaffected.
"Was that full power?" Pete asked. Toby nodded grimly.
Pete huffed, "I guess we'll have to do this the old fashioned way..." He bent over, grabbed the Fixer's lapel and aimed a knuckled punch directly at his temple, intent on knocking him out. The punch connected and Pete immediately shot up clutching his fist. His mouth was soundlessly wide open before he shouted, "oh.. my.. GOD!"
It was like he'd punched the cement wall all over again, and unfortunately it was all for nothing. The Fixer thrashed around seemingly unfazed by either of the men's attempts at rendering him unconscious.
"What the hell is that guy made of... steel?"
The Warehouse had begun to shake, imperceptibly at first, but by then it was noticeable. Everyone in the room was clutching the wall or piece of furniture nearest them in an attempt to stabilize themselves. Artie went back to the computer and opened a window that contained a digital seismic readout. "We're at about a three-point-five. Once it reaches a six, the positive reaction sustains itself and we won't be able to stop it. I'm gonna have to flush the entire Warehouse."
"Are you sure Artie? That's a lot of clean up." Claudia yelled above the rumble.
Instead of answering, Artie shakily made his way to a clear don't-break-this-unless-there's-an-emergency type case next to the balcony door. He pressed his thumb to an electric pad underneath the case and waited. The ground movement made it hard for him to get a good read, but eventually the sliding door opened with a beep.
The case contained nothing but a large, ominous purple button.
Artie breathed for a moment and looked back at the computer screen... 5.1.
Just as he was about to lower his fist to drench the entire Warehouse in neutralizer, the shaking stopped. His attention returned to the computer screen. 3.6... 2.1... 0.9... 0.0.
The lights faded back on and the static discharge ceased. Everyone looked around before returning to a stable standing position.
Myka slackened her grip on the heavy leather chair, turned her head to Pete, and gasped, "PETE, LOOK OUT!"
Pete twisted around in just enough time to see the Fixer's fist as it collided with his cheek. He flew back into the brick wall, creating many cracks and sending dust outward.
The terminator-like Warehouse agents were not even a match for the Fixer's sheer speed and strength as he knocked their raised guns out of their hands, and blasted them both out of the way with one sweep of his arms.
As the fog left Pete's head he got a glimpse of the Fixer's eyes. They looked absolutely empty. Whatever jovial life had existed within him was gone and replaced by something cold, calculating, and strong. Pete tried to get up, but the pain of at least three broken ribs shocked him into submission.
Frederic and Kosan looked unafraid as they sealed and locked the door behind them. They took defensive positions, daring the Fixer to try to get through them. The agents would be no problem, but the door and this entire office was strong enough to withstand a high-powered explosion from mere feet away. The Fixer wouldn't be able to break through. Seeing this, the Fixer turned to his right, and bounded past Aries, Claudia and the others. In one great leap, he dove through the shattered window, over the balcony, and into the Warehouse below.
He fell fifty feet to the cement, resulting in a loud bang that was powerful enough to shake the office. Artie, Kosan, and Frederic raced to the balcony and located him. The Fixer ran faster than any normal human being, but a trail of powerful static discharge followed him like a white, glowing beacon. He ran straight into the belly of the Warehouse.
"He's going for the back door." Kosan affirmed. "We have to stop him."
Artie started prepping the zip line. "I don't know if this will be fast enough to catch him. If you take how fast he's going and the max speed of the zip line, we'll fall behind at a rate of about one and a half meters per second, not to mention the massive head start he got, and plus the..." Artie spoke, his volume going from normal to mumbled by the end. He was pretty much talking to himself.
Mrs. Frederic walked calmly back inside, stood in front of the neutralizer button, and pressed it lightly.
A second after, thousands of sprinkler nozzles descended from the ceiling and activated one after the other, like a rapid-fire machine gun, spraying the purple liquid into every crevice in the Warehouse.
Artie stopped his fiddling with the coordinate system, and looked out into the Warehouse's depths. Just past the zeppelin, a brilliant flash of light shone for a moment and then extinguished. The ghostly echoes of an agonized scream flooded back to their ears.
Artie's mouth was half-opened in awe. "Or that... Uh. Th- th- that works also." He pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.
Frederic made her way back out to the balcony with self-satisfied yet serious smile on her face. "Let's go collect the Fixer, shall we?"
A/N:
This was a pretty action-packed chapter, right? And it was the longest chapter of the story so far, right? That deserves at least one review, right?
Leave anything! Even if it's just "Loved it" or "Hated it." The review count going another tick higher always ups my self-esteem.
A few things:
The next chapter will answer a lot of questions, so stay tuned (or whatever the internet equivalent of that expression is)!
The alliteration "pieces of plaster pitter-pattering" was completely unintentional. I decided to leave it in for your enjoyment. Another thing to consider when deciding to write a review. :)
I'm going to space the updates evenly so that the final chapters fall after the premiere of the fourth season (whenever that may be), so that throngs of people rushing back to the fandom afterward will be able to see the story. Whether they're discovering it for the first time or rediscovering it.
And, last but not least, I love you. And thanks for sticking with me so far. I know it sucks to have to read the story over and over again. I know because I've had to do it many times myself. But, hey, at least it's not boring, right?