Beta: KJay99 Edited by: Potentialslayer1
The room was in complete silence, it had been the entire time. Vanessa finally shook her head before she turned to her husband in asking, "Artie, what's going on here? What did Helena just do?"
The man stared off towards his two fallen agents. He had lost his voice when seeing Myka's heart stop. Losing an agent had always been his worst fear, not that he would ever admit it aloud.
"Artie," Vanessa came again, but spoke more delicately, "I don't know what just happened, but one thing is for certain, we haven't lost them yet."
With a small gulp that sufficed in bringing back his speech, Artie stated softly, "Christ's Crucifixion Nail," as if that had explained everything.
Vanessa stared at him blankly for a few seconds, waiting for him to elaborate, and then finally said, "You know Artie, I say this time and time again; I don't actually live in your head."
"Oh," He pealed his eyes off from the two young women to look to his wife, "ah, it's one of the nails that were used to secure Christ to the cross."
"What? Really?" She was legitimately surprised by the grotesque origins of the artefact, being a Catholic herself and knowing the crucifixion story all too well. "Well, what does it do then?"
"See after Jesus died it gained a power, we are assuming all three nails did, but we don't know where the other two are…. But, it's the whole deal like that verse says about Jesus dying for peoples sins, taking away suffering, clean slate in heaven…."
"He was delivered over to death for our sins and then was raised to life to put us right with God. By faith in this, then, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. Romans 4:25 verse 5 through 2," Vanessa recited as if she had just gone through catechism yesterday.
"Heh, right," He smirked towards her. "So the nail now has the ability to take ones pain and transfer it to a sacrificing other."
"Just like Jesus did for his followers," She said in understanding.
"Right," the old man nodded.
Vanessa let it all sink in for a moment before she said, "So now, Helena is taking Myka's injuries as her own, including her radioactive qualities. But then Helena will just be sending out radiation to her anyway…."
"Right!" Artie shouted, all too excitedly as he thrust up his finger. "She's a genius."
"Who's a genius?"
"HG" he answered quickly while he rummaged through his bag. "All we have to do is give HG the cure, which will stop the radiation."
"But we can't even get it to her to administer it, never mind the fact that the antidote is still not set as of yet."
Artie pulled out a small stone sun dial, "Yes, not without the one and only true Chronometer."
"Ah, yes, your Cone of Silence," Vanessa smiled.
"My what?" Artie snapped his head to her.
"Cone of Silence," she repeated, "It makes that energy bubble that speeds up time inside of it, but if you're outside you can't really tell what's going on inside. So it's like the cone of silence but not in real time."
"what?" Artie asked again in complete confusion to the whole cone thing.
"Get Smart."
"Smart? You always tell me that I'm too smart for my own good."
Vanessa sighs, "Never mind. Okay, so with your Cone… Chronometer, you are going to…?" she then clued in, "Oh! You are going to put the cure and the EMF Canceller inside of it. They both need time, and…"
"...I'm going to give it to them," Artie said while spurting out the other room to fetch the cure in Caesar's Goblet. He hastened back in like a whirlwind to set the Goblet next to the EMF Canceller on the night stand. Artie gave the Canceller a tug back away from the energy field, for that it was dangerously close to falling back inside of its confinements.
The man then looked to the Chronometer in his hand that was white granite. He placed his finger on the XXII and slid it along the stone to the I; Giving himself an hour. An energy dome formed around him instantaneously. It was small, coming about a metre off from his body. He then stepped away from the bed, moving part of the time differential field that was encompassing part of Myka's head and shoulders, off from her. He also made certain that it still overlapped with the girls' radiation shield, so that the EMF Canceller could still search for the proper frequency, once again.
Artie sighed and glanced to the small watch on his wrist, not looking forward to the hour that he was about to spend waiting for the two objects to run their course, in the time differential field. He then glimpsed up to his wife who appeared to be frozen, motionless, outside of his capsule. He sighed at the still woman; she looked as if she were a beautiful photograph encompassing tranquility itself, which one may see hung up in a museum or a fancy art gallery. Even in the middle of chaos, the woman always seemed at peace, which could kick Artie's stubborn grumpiness at the door, leaving him without stammering words as he always found himself in awe of her.
The man then looked to the two agents that lay right next to him. The metallic smell of blood was strong as he let his eyes settle on Myka; wrapped in HG's arms as her injuries transferred to the Victorian. He sighed heavily before slinking to rest against the nightstand as he waited; hating every second of it. He could be patient, but it was hard when he didn't have something else to preoccupy his rapidly processing mind.
It was coming up on three minutes, according to Vanessa's watch, when Artie's shield went down. "okay, we can get to them now. The Canceler is calibrated," Artie waved the doctor over.
"Has it been an hour already?" she asked while she rushed over with a syringe in hand.
"No, fifty two minutes, I cut it short as soon as the radiation shield showed a hole." Vanessa grabbed up the goblet and filled the needle up with the antidote. "That should be ready right?" Artie gestured to the medication she had in hand.
"Yes, it should be good," she said with confidence whilst he led her in close to the bed where she was quick to administer HG with the cure. Vanessa was then fast to snatch up the stitching supplies that the Brit had half-hazardously discarded on the bed, to suture HG's now bloodied leg. "Artie!" She said while she stitched.
"Huh?" the man grunted.
"The fang," was all she said.
"Oh, right," The man reached over to Myka's neck and gave the tooth the slightest tug, where it slid free without so much as a fuss. Then with one swift motion he pushed it into HG's neck, where it again, slid in nicely, like it was begging to be put there in the first place.
When Artie looked up from the girls, he muttered after noticing the size of the radiation shield, "It's shrinking."
Vanessa looked up and smirked, "good. It's working faster than I had thought it would."
"Yeah, by this rate it will be gone in less than twenty minutes."
Just then a thunderous crash came which trembled the ground; knocking Vanessa into Artie. "What was that?" The startled woman gasped after her husband had stabilized her.
"Arial Bomb," Williams said stoically from the doorway, "Seems the Russians are good on their word."
"You knew they were going to attack?" Vanessa asked.
"We figured, yes Ma'am. Captain had us disobey orders to infiltrate their base in Turkey. The Regents said it would start a war if we did, but she, along with the rest of us, united in the decision to go ahead anyway."
"Turkey?" Artie asked in shock. "But how…."
"The Key of the Secret Garden," the brawny Brit answered Artie's unfinished question as to how he and HG had gotten back to Crete and inside The Labyrinth in the blink of an eye.
"The key of portals and passageways," Artie mumbled to himself.
HG's second in command nodded, "They had it within their possession."
"Wait!" Vanessa interjected, "You disobeyed orders and now we are going to get bombed to death?"
"No Ma'am; contingency plan in place."
"And that would be?" She asked with her hands to her hips.
The sound of a fighter jet then flew by, shaking the building. "A few JAS 29 Gripens," Williams smiled.
"Ah!" Artie pulled Vanessa out of the radiation field, as the EMF Canceler failed them once again. The Doctor sighed in annoyance towards the faulty artefact, but knew that she could do little more for the girls, medical wise, at that point. She also knew that she could get back to them when the field dissipated completely.
Artie's attention went back to Williams, "Gripen you say? So the Swedish are assisting us?"
"The Czechs actually."
Another bomb fell dangerously close to them as it shattered the glass of the room's window. Vanessa had to turn into Artie to hinder a few shards from impacting her face.
"Well that's my cue. I have an abled body crew that should be here soon," The acting-captain said, still in a calm tone, before making hast out the door.
"Artie," Vanessa looked to him with panic in her eyes, "What do we do? Do we evacuate?"
The man looked around almost franticly before an idea came to him. "No," he simply said before he ran out into the common room with both Jinks and John still lying unconsciously on the two sofas. "Follow my lead," He yelled over his shoulder to Vanessa as she rushed to him.
~oOo~
Outside, speedily approaching was an enemy Turkish F-16 Falcon. It aimed directly at the Warehouse's Greek Head Quarter building before taking a clear shot. A missile flew straight through the hotel, in a great explosion.