Chapter 21- A Glimmer in the Dark
Fitz stared at the floor, eyes ringed with red and slightly swollen because he couldn't stop himself from rubbing them in exhaustion no matter how many times Simmons admonished him and warned he was likely to catch an eye infection. His desk was a mess with scribbled notes, scone crumbs, used tea bags, and a half cup of cold, bitter tea. He realized he should maybe tidy up for the visitors, but he didn't have an ounce of energy left. For the moment, he was just enjoying the momentary break and resolved to micronap and pretend he was actually listening.
Rick stood casually by the lab doors and took in the weary scientists. It wasn't lost on him how much time and energy they had spent on trying to figure out the relevance of the data sticks and their contents. He had to say he was impressed with the tenacity of Agent Simmons and her perpetual cheerfulness relative to Fitz who seemed to have gone into hibernation mode since he, Coulson, and Ward came to check on their progress, although he thought there was something to be said about just not giving a damn no matter who was present.
"So tell me the foray into the cesspool that was Atlanta netted us some valuable intel." Coulson said hopefully. "I'd hate to think we had to burn a good amount of tactical gear for nothing." The look on his face was somewhat stern because he wasn't kidding. There was just no getting the stench out of the fabric no matter what they used. Even if they did, pretty much everyone made it clear they had no interest in wearing the tainted items and would rather risk getting shot.
"Well, yes and perhaps." Simmons replied meekly. "They were doing some fabulous research into using virus vectors to cure certain types of cancers with quite remarkable results I must say. Although the trials were only in the very early preliminary stages, it certainly looked promising."
"Good to know…" Coulson stated with slight irritation in his voice. "But unless this whatever it is we're looking for is a cancer it doesn't really help." He paused and cocked his head slightly. "It's not, is it?" The truth was, he wasn't really sure what they were looking for anymore.
"Doesn't seem so." Fitz piped up as he languidly stretched and yawned. "Besides, cancers don't spread through biting and even the most aggressive types don't kill within minutes."
"Right." Simmons agreed with a tight nod. "I'm fairly certain we are looking for a virus here as Rick stated the doctor told him it was. It's the only thing that would make sense given the method and rapid transmission we're seeing in the population."
"But we did find these." Fitz said pulling up a folder of videos on his computer for them all to see. "Some of these aren't clearly labeled, but Rick, you told us the doctor showed you a video of a person. Cold you look through these and see if you recognize it?"
Rick gave a light, noncommittal shrug as he crossed the room to take a chair next to him. "Sure, but it was a while ago and like I said, I'm no scientist so I didn't know what I was looking at. But hell, let's give it a shot. Can't hurt I suppose."
"Ok, then." He smiled nervously as he hastily tried to clean the rubbish from his desk so he would at least have a clean space to work. "I'll let you get at it. So you just push this button here and…"
Rick looked up at him with a mildly offended expression. "Yeah, I know how to use a computer. Hasn't been that long."
Ward didn't even try to hide his amusement as he sniggered at Fitz's snafu. "Yeah, Fitz. Give the guy some credit. He can drop a walker at 100 yards with a handgun. I think he can manage the whole point and click thing."
"Thank you, Agent Ward." He hissed with acid in his voice. "I was merely trying to be helpful and considerate. Something you might try sometime."
"You two play nice with each other. Am I going to have to put you both in time out?" Coulson asked playfully with a slow shake of his head. "Sometimes it feels like I'm running a preschool here."
Fitz brushed past Ward on his way to the trashcan to throw out his garbage and muttered in a dangerously low voice, "Just remember you're in my sandbox right now. I can make things very, very bad for you if I had a mind to. A gun that's an ounce too heavy will be the least of your worries."
"Really?" Ward scoffed but nodded approvingly. "You're finally growing a pair. It's a good look for you, really." He leaned down a little closer and with a glint in his eye he added, "Too bad Simmons doesn't ever see them. Or does she?"
Fitz rolled his eyes as he walked away. "Grow up, Ward." He decided to dispose of his trash in the galley just to give him more time away from the lab and the people it contained. He never really could fully comprehend Grant Ward. One minute he was all buddy-buddy and the next he was snarky and almost sadistic. He seemed to know all the wrong things to say at just the right moment like it was all a game to him, a way of maintaining power and to keep him in his place assuming he didn't serve some hidden purpose at the moment. He hated feeling used and manipulated by his own teammate. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
"Whoah." Daryl growled as Fitz ran smack into him.
He was so wrapped up in his thoughts he wasn't paying attention to where he was going and as he bent down to retrieve a few items he dropped, he stammered "I'm sorry. I should be looking where I'm going."
Daryl casually chewed on a bit of beef jerky as watched Fitz clean up. "Seems like you're in a hurry." He observed knowingly. "Where's the fire?"
"There isn't one. If there was, an alarm would sound and lights…" he glanced up and realized Daryl looked about as disappointed as Rick did. "But, then again you probably knew that." He sighed deeply. He blamed his extreme fatigue for apparently repeatedly implying the survivors were uneducated hicks who didn't know how fire safety systems and computers worked and he hung his head in exasperated defeat.
Although Daryl was almost used to people assuming the worst of him be it his motivations or intelligence, he never got the sense that Fitz was one of those people and he liked to think that he was very good at reading others so he let the unintentional sleight slide and he offered his hand to help him up. "You guys were up pretty late. Find anything?" When he noted the confusion on Fitz's face he flatly noted "I don't sleep much. Habit, I guess."
Even though Fitz thought it slightly creepy Daryl was spying on them in the lab in the wee hours of the morning, he was even more disturbed by the fact that no one in SHIELD seemed to notice him doing it. May usually had the night watch and absolutely nothing got by her. "Ever thought about working for SHIELD?" He asked half laughing and accepting the help up. "You and Hawkeye would make quite a team."
"Not really my thing." Daryl admitted. He never held a regular time clock punching job in his life and there was no way he was going to run around in some skintight leathery getup doing the bidding of others.
"Just as well I guess." He admitted darkly. "Your talents would be well utilized here, but I just don't see you and Agent Ward getting along."
Daryl gave a light chuckle and ripped another bit from his stick of jerky. "Kinda seems like a dick. I'd keep an eye on him."
"What do you mean?" Fitz asked, his blue eyes wide and innocent. "He's been with the team since day one. I mean, the man has flaws but…"
Daryl thoughtfully chewed the salty, fibrous strip as he watched the house of cards in Fitz's eyes collapse under the weight of ever increasing doubt. "Hey, I could be wrong." He mumbled. "You know him better than me, but I probably ain't. All I'm sayin' is I've seen men like him before. People'll turn on friends and family when they got somethin' to gain and he's lookin' for somethin'."
"And what are you and your lot looking for?" He asked quietly. It just wasn't in his nature to see the worst in people despite his personal penchant for gloominess.
"As I said," he grumbled as he shook his head, "I could be wrong." He didn't want to start a war with anyone, least of all Fitz because in a way he almost envied him. They guy had a group of people that cared enough about him to risk life and limb even when there was a good chance he was already dead. He had a steady source of supplies, and a safe place to lay his head every night. All in all it was a semi-charmed life as far as he could see. But what Fitz couldn't, or perhaps wouldn't allow himself, to see was that not everyone was what they seemed to be and he hoped in the end it wouldn't be his undoing. "'Sides, we'll be out of your hair in a bit."
"Why?" He asked a little scared for what awaited them outside the safety of the bus. "Where're you going?"
"Meet up with the rest of our group. We were supposed to be there days ago. If we don't show, they'll assume something happened and move on." He enjoyed the relative safety and comfort of the bus as well as any of them, but really, life for him was no different there or outside as he preferred to be independent. Danger was just around the corner no matter what and he wanted to be in control of his own fate as much as possible.
"There's more of you?" He asked surprised. "How many more?" He simply couldn't imagine taking on any more people. As it was, the bus was packed to capacity and they were quickly running out of supplies.
"Nothin' you need to worry 'bout." Daryl assured him as he sauntered away with hardly a backward glance. "We'll take care of ours. You just work on that cure 'cause ain't none of this worth a damn without it."
Fitz quickly disposed of his garbage and almost ran back to the lab. Much to his relief, Ward found somewhere else to be in the interim because he honestly didn't know how he would have dealt with him. When he entered the room, Rick was nearly expressionless as always, but Simmons was nearly bursting at the seams. "Fitz!" She nearly cried. "TS-19!"
"Beg your pardon?" He asked politely, utterly confused.
"File TS-19! Rick spotted it as the same video he was shown. Can you believe it? Come, have a look. It's really quite amazing." She bubbled in excitement as she cued it up. "The test subject was reportedly bitten by a walker. As you see, the cortical areas are the first to shut down followed by the subcortical structures as one would expect during the course of a non-violent death." She narrated dispassionately. "But wait for it….there!" She grew more animated as she jabbed a slender finger at the brainstem as a small, smoldering firestorm of light sparked and grew steadily. "See it lighting up again? And now the subcortical areas reanimate, but the cortices never do." She bit her lip and lowered her voice a bit because she wasn't sure how he would react to the meaning of it all. "Fitz, it's the proof we were looking for. The walkers only have the most rudimentary of life support systems activated in order to function. The cortical areas, the place where memories are stored and thoughts take place are gone. They're alive but no longer human. They're merely reactionary as are amoeba or a salamander."
"So…so they don't know they're suffering?" He asked hopefully. The nightmare of Ward callously plowing them down had haunted him for many nights and every time he looked at Shaun he wondered who he was and what memories his diseased brain held.
"It doesn't seem so." She replied in a compassionate tone. "Furthermore, they don't seem to recognize pain or fear from what Rick and Ward have told me. In fact, I would rate them similar to mobile plants in terms of what they are capable of processing. Quite deadly plants, but vegetation all the same."
"That seems a bit harsh." He frowned distastefully. "Would you say the same of a child born with anencephaly? No," he challenged, "you'd still say it was a human even though it was incapable of processing things like fear or even sensory information like bright light."
"I'm not saying they aren't human," she sighed in exasperation, "what I am saying is that they aren't capable of the experiencing the life they had before they died. They can't appreciate the meaning of their existence in any measurable way the same as simple multicellular organisms react to noxious stimuli without any real understanding. Fitz, be rational!" She pleaded.
He wanted to yell his frustrations, but he kept his wits about him and instead held up his hand to motion for her to pause while he calmed himself enough to respond. "I can appreciate what you're telling me," he began in a measured voice, "but I shouldn't be the one who has to remind you that the brain is still largely a mystery. We don't, point in fact, know exactly how it works and we haven't run any experiments to know what they may or may not feel. And because we can't know these things for certain, we can't be wrong in treating them as though they were human and not some unfeeling cluster of cells."
"If this is a public discussion, can I add my two cents?" Rick asked quietly. Without waiting for an invitation to continue, he sighed as he scratched his stubble and said, "I've already made it clear I'm not a doctor so if you say they can't feel the way we do then I'm inclined to take you at your word. Now I'm no preacher or philosopher either, but I know what feels right and Fitz has a point. Maybe they don't think or feel anything, but maybe they're still just enough like us that we should be humane when we can. Not for them, but for us." He looked to Simmons and his eyes were filled with unexpected passion which nearly took her breath away. "'Cause if we lose sight of that, don't it make us just as dead and unfeeling as them?"
"Of course," she replied breathlessly, "I want to be clear that at no point was I ever advocating otherwise. I just wanted to offer some scientific insight into the process that makes them what they are. Unfortunately, science only says what is…."
"It's up to people to decide what it means." Fitz joined in with a small smile. It was an old adage common to all sciences and being on the same page with his partner again soothed his soul. They had disagreed many times before, but they always came back together because they both understood that the only way forward and toward the truth was through scientific exploration and inquiry. "Ok then," he began to summarize running a finger along his lips, "so we know the process and we sort of know the cause. What we don't know is how to stop it."
"Actually," Simmons smiled as bright as the sun about to go supernova, "I think we might. It's quite a long shot, but I think it just might work."