Reason: Angie Harper and Ham Tyler's quarters
As the unholy echo of her own voice died, Angie waited. She waited to see a shadow fall across her like it did that first day. She waited for a hand to reach down and drag her to her feet. When she raised her head and squinted in the sun, she saw he was gone.
Focus. Be still. Be quiet. Breathe. What happens, happens. You deal with it.
She took a quick look around to see who might have witnessed her outburst. Nobody she could see, but she knew they were there, some of them, watching and wondering what was up. They'd know soon enough. Better not to give them anything else to wonder about. She fought a renewed wave of nausea at the realization that had been forced on her and got to her feet.
Focus, goddammit. There was more at stake here than someone she didn't want to see walk away. There had to be, because if there wasn't then everything she'd done that made her feel filthy, and might just eventually make her clean, didn't mean a thing. Isn't that what she'd thrown in Tyler's face that night when he was the only one she could trust to help her? He never let her down. Even if he'd heard more than he wanted to just now, and believed just that one wrong thing, at least he'd never lied to her.
She wanted to go back to Julie and Donovan and Robert, to take back her wild explosion, but she figured that would look desperate. This wasn't a time to look desperate. Even though she knew they were wrong she also knew that if she wanted them to believe her she had to come up with something worth believing in. Something that would cancel out three photographs and three people who had no choice but to doubt her.
She went to her quarters as they'd told her to do, and pulled out one of her notebooks. Computers were her thing, but computers were at a premium and had to be devoted to important, immediate things like running biological data. Brainstorming, whether in solitude or with others, had to rely on old-fashioned note taking. Angie sat at the table and stared out at the water for a few minutes, then began to write furiously. Numbers, bullet points, crossed out and refined. When she finally put down the pen the quiet in the room couldn't overcome the noise in her head. It was the wrong kind of quiet, an empty quiet.
She'd gotten up off her knees on her own, and come back here and reasoned some things down on paper on her own, things that could make a difference even now that all bets were off. She knew that was a good thing, but not good enough to keep her from reaching for the towel that hung on a nearby chair and pressing her face into it to breathe in the scent of gun oil and leather.
Resolution: the kitchen/briefing room
It was Donovan who broke the silence first. "I think it's possible these pictures might be worth less than a thousand words."
"I just wish we had more than her word to go on. It just all adds up to something different than what she said." Robert sounded less determined than in the beginning, but nobody could disagree.
"I wish we did too, but I think Mike is right," Julie offered. "Maybe everything that's happening has us adding more to what's there… maybe Tyler could share a little more of what he knows?"
Donovan snorted. "Yeah, and maybe Diana will march in here and surrender. Look like I told Julie last night, Tyler and his friend Farber aren't known for being too trusting and as long as I've known about them I have never heard of them being taken in by an infiltrator. Especially not a woman posing as a computer geek."
Finally Robert agreed. "I'm no expert in interrogation, but when Tyler told Angie that Peterson was still alive… that didn't look like the face of someone caught in a lie."
Julie nodded. "I noticed it too, but I'm no expert either."
Donovan spoke up then. "None of us are. Tyler's the expert, and something tells me he didn't walk out because he believed in Robert's scenario."
"I was wondering about that myself. It's not for me to figure out whatever's between the two of them; they keep that a very closed book."
"Well it ain't no romance novel. More like Ripley's Believe It Or Not," Donovan muttered under his breath.
Julie shot him a disapproving look and changed the subject. "I suggest we consider the issue settled. Mike, you should meet up with Martin again and tell him it was a false alarm."
Another matter remained to be discussed… the risk of David Peterson crossing paths with Angie at the library. Her sudden resignation was out of the question… as Donovan put it, "Nobody resigns from the Visitor payroll, they just get transferred to the menu." And her connection with Todd complicated things; none of them knew enough about Visitor customs to be sure he wouldn't go looking for her. Willie could be consulted on that score.
"Maybe it's time to cut this whole library thing short," Julie suggested. "In spite of all of Angie and Willie's work all we've learned is basically how much we haven't learned."
"If only there was some way to get to the source," Robert mused, "just get the whole biophysics operation's project information and data in one swoop." Julie and Donovan stared at him. "Okay, okay, and maybe Diana will march in here and surrender. But something has to happen, even if it doesn't advance our biological research. That new Visitor Youth Program can't be allowed to get underway."
"Why don't we all take a day to think about it and get together tomorrow to consider whatever we come up with? Make sure Tyler and Chris are included, and Angie, Maggie and Willie. For now, someone should tell Angie she's in the clear."
"I'll do it," Donovan volunteered, gathering up the photos from the table. "After all, I'm the one who brought in exhibits a, b, and c."
Repair: the motor pool
Tyler finished reassembling the Harley's motor and gathered up the worn parts he'd replaced, dumping them in a nearby barrel. He emptied the dirty oil and discarded coolant into various containers (they'd be useful for other purposes), then cleaned off his tools and put them back in the tool bag. He stretched the kinks that had gathered in his back after being hunched over and crouched next to the bike for the past hour or so, wiped his hands as best he could on the rag hanging from his back pocket, and checked his watch. Enough time, he figured, one way or another. Enough time for Parrish, Donovan, and Maxwell to have decided that an admittedly bizarre set of coincidences were in fact just that, and not an indication of espionage and conspiracy. Enough time to determine that Ham Tyler hadn't been taken in by the wiles of a shrewd, Visitor-aligned temptress planted under the dashboard of a broken down shitbox in the middle of nowhere. He hoped so, anyway, because if they had the bad sense to think of questioning him on what they suspected Angie might have asked him about that might have been remotely useful to the lizards… well, he supposed he could choke back the "none of your fucking business" long enough to tell them "Nothing." Which would, of course, be the truth. Angie wasn't inclined to discuss the details of rebellion or politics or anything else "intelligence-related" outside the confines of the rebel meetings. She was especially not inclined to discuss them when she was alone with him. Of course any questions directed to him from the Big 3 that might address those kinds of conversations… that's where "none of your fucking business" would come in handy.
As for the scene after he'd walked out... it was better to leave things lying for a while. He'd heard her screaming his name (shit, they probably heard her on the Mother Ship) but he wasn't about to give anyone in the compound more of a show than they'd already seen. What was discussed and asked and answered in private would filter out among the general population soon enough, and it was for damn sure that the less professional of them (most of 'em, no matter how well they fought) would find it a cure for boredom and frustration. They'd already seen Angie screaming her lungs out that "she didn't know", and that kind of hysterical denial of guilt would be just what the uninitiated would expect from someone who's busted and guilty. Seeing them both together, and learning later it was just after the interrogation, would just get the trash talkers going on about who was getting whose stories straight, or who was applying a little extra "persuasion" to the distracted-by-hormones but otherwise influential Fixer… all manner of crap was possible. It was hard enough to herd these cats without a whole mess of social commentary and gossip getting them stirred up.
He hoped enough time had passed for Angie to get a grip on herself. He wasn't stupid, he knew the shit she'd just heard and what she'd had to talk about (that even he hadn't heard in detail before now) tore up some pretty deep wounds. It was written all over her, and was a major reason he'd gotten up and left. As much as he knew the doubts were unfounded Tyler also knew what the drill was in this situation… the questions have to be asked and answered. This was a war ("Resistance" sounded a lot nobler, but the same rules applied) and nothing could be left to trust. He had to admit he was impressed by how they'd handled it: short, sweet, and to the point. Do you now or have you ever, where and why and how. And Angie had done pretty well, up till the end anyway. She was a beginner, and had gotten blindsided and lost her focus. The worst thing that could happen was for her to start freaking out like an amateur spy who'd been caught and was scrambling for escape. Okay, it was possible the others, being beginners themselves, wouldn't read it that way. But he'd seen that kind of thing happen too often not to know that freaking out wasn't always read as a sign of outraged innocence.
So when he'd risked a glance, much against his better judgment, he'd caught Angie on her knees wearing the same look she'd had the day he and Farber first found her. Bewildered, terrified, and wondering what the fuck had happened. He remembered hearing a phrase once that described the looks on the faces of refugees of bombing in Cambodia… "buried in chaos." That's where she was now, and he knew what she thought she needed: for him to go to her where she was, to tend to the personal fallout that was burying her in chaos. She thought she needed hugs and kisses, that physical connection, to make it all better. The details of war rendered personal fallout irrelevant and right now it was those details that she had to stand up to on her own, like she'd learned to stand up to them while he was in Mexico. Anything else would weaken her in the long run, and weakness was fatal.
You self-righteous liar… you know what you wanted to do. You wanted to go to her and pick her up off the ground and set the both of you on this bike and get the fuck outta Dodge. And when you'd dropped her at the cabin with a three-day supply of books and bubble bath and bunny rabbit jammies you'd come back and find that "Sometimes there's claws" skank lizard asshole and nail his hide to the nearest wall. If there wasn't a wall you'd build one, then nail his hide to it. Then you'd find that species-traitor Daniel and do the same to him, for Maggie. Finally a quick phone call to the lizard library to give 'em an "anonymous tip" that their collaborator was feeding information to the Resistance, so David Fucking Peterson could then be eaten up for real the way learning the truth about him was eating up Angie inside. And then you'd turn your back on the whole mess and go back to the cabin and wait for all of them to blow each other the fuck up, and when the dust settled it would finally be well and truly quiet. Forever.
All at once Tyler found himself fighting the urge to race to the middle of the compound and bellow, "HEY YOU AMATEUR ASSHOLES, I QUIT!!" as loud as he could.
Instead he tipped his head back, sucked in a deep breath, and blew it out in a harsh explosion. No surprise, it wasn't nearly as satisfying as usual. He checked his watch again. Hour and a half. That should be enough time.
There'd be hell to pay when he showed up in their quarters once she figured out he'd left her alone on purpose, screaming on her knees in the middle of her own hell. He didn't mind. It was good for her. He'd stand back and let her rage and cry but he would stand back, either way, for now.
Later, once the details of war had been settled, he'd dig her out of the chaos with his bare hands.
