Chapter 51

-Cambridge, Massachusetts

Peter eased on the brakes as he approached the stop sign, bringing the wagon to a creaking halt. After checking for approaching vehicles from all directions, he let released the brakes and let the old girl roll through the intersection as the deep, bassy rumble emanating from under the hood vibrated something or other behind the dashboard. He made a mental note to spend some time tearing the dash apart to find the culprit, as well as the sources of several other out-of-place noises he'd begun to notice lately.

After idling the wagon about halfway down the block, he applied the brakes again, and slowed to a stop in the middle of Irving Street, across from a gated fence parallel to the sidewalk. Behind the fence, the house he'd come to see stood silent, all its windows dark except for a faint light shining dimly in one of the upper floor windows. He stared at the window, remembering the view to the street from its high vantage point. Was it the hallway light on outside a cracked open bedroom door? Or perhaps there was a night-light left on to soothe some frightened kid's dreams. The old house had always been a bit creaky, groaning and shifting on its foundation, as if it had a life of its own, and it could have only grown worse since they'd it behind. He vaguely remembered having a night-light as a child, the memory made of the same dreamlike substance most of his early childhood memories were made of, more of a single framed image than an actual memory.

His gaze left his old bed room and shifted to the right, past the shaded roof-line and down to the indistinct shape of the backyard garage just visible to side of the house as an indistinct black silhouette. He let off the brake a bit, letting the car pull itself forward until the garage was completely in view.

Theirs was one of the few houses in the neighborhood which had a garage, and after Walter's incarceration he had spent much of his time there, preferring his father's old junk to his mother's watery eyes and alcohol-laced breath. Most of what he'd taught himself of the mechanical workings of things he'd learned in that garage. Until they'd been forced to move out at least, and had found another place in Allston.

Goddamn it, Walter, he thought, trying to pierce the darkness encapsulating it. Had the experiments Walter performed on him been conducted in its cramped confines? His father had left all manner of junk scattered about its interior, leaving barely enough space to walk, much less for a car to be parked. There had been car batteries, he remembered that much clearly. A number of them had been pushed under the bottom shelf of the workbench built into the back wall. They were too heavy to move easily, so he'd left them there to collect dust, assuming they were dead in any case. He wondered if they were still there, if they had been too much of a bother to remove for those that lived there after them.

The front porch light of the house abruptly bloomed to life, casting long shadows across the well-kept front yard toward the street.

Well…that little trip down memory lane was fun while it lasted, Peter said to himself, hitting the gas as the front door opened. He fled the scene, aware that the action had probably made his idling in the street even more conspicuous. Had the current homeowners ever realized their home had been burgled several months ago? It seemed unlikely, as the two of them had been careful not to disturb anything, but he was better off not waiting to find out.

After leaving his old neighborhood behind, Peter navigated without thought as to where he might be going, making random turns whenever he felt the urge to do so. Traffic was light for the most part, giving him ample opportunity to let his mind wander, to the upcoming procedure, but mainly to his father's admitted breach of trust.

Knowing something like that had happened to him, and that he had no memory of it had thrown him for a loop. How could he have forgotten, and what else couldn't he remember, and why? His standing in the world felt shaky, tremulous, like he'd lost his footing and was teetering on the brink.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened to the point of pain, the whites of his knuckles visible in the passing streetlights. Could his mother have known what Walter had been doing? The questioned scourged through him, burning at the single thread of normalcy left of his childhood.

She couldn't have known. He refused to believe it, to even consider the nagging, yet persistent thought in the back of his mind. The nightly ritual at bedtime, her drinking, her constant sadness and sudden tears…there had to be another explanation for them. There had to be. If only he could ask her.

If only he hadn't left her alone.

.

A black mood settled over him as he drove past all his old haunts, his childhood friends' homes, past the high school that he had been convinced had nothing to offer him, killing the time that would otherwise have been spent with Walter. He would have preferred to be on a different continent than his father altogether, but a lonely car ride would have to do. The itch to keep going, to just drive right out of Boston was strong. It would be the easy solution, the one he'd chosen at every opportunity in the past, but not the one he could make now. The roots that he'd laid since his return had found fertile ground, and were already dug in deep, tethering him in place. He couldn't leave…but he could be a better man than his father had been…not that that was terribly difficult at that point.

So instead of leaving town, he just drove…for what seemed like hours, before a familiar red lacquered door in his peripheral vision grabbed his attention while passing through an intersection on the outskirts of Allston. He craned his neck as he drove past, eyes fixed on the sign above the entrance.

Whether it was pure luck, or it had been a subconscious choice on his part, he had driven himself more or less straight to his friend Brian's front door. Making a quick decision, he spun the wheel, executing a sharp u-turn which tested the cruiser's suspension, and pulled into a spot along the curb down not far down the street from the bar's entrance.

Peter killed the engine and sat back in seat, staring out over the steering wheel at the burnished red paint, and the way the overhead light gleamed off the square panels inset in the doors front. A beer sounded like a damn good idea. He glanced down at his phone, checking the time. In spite of the hours it felt like, he'd been gone from the lab for just under ninety minutes. Olivia had said eight in the morning her time, or about two a.m., Boston time. There were still hours that needed wasting. He reached for the door handle.

Diagonally across the street from where he'd parked, the red door opened, and a woman stepped outside. He paused in his motion, recognizing her at once as the bartender Kylie, whom he'd gotten to know intimately a while back. Her blonde hair swung freely on her shoulders as she looked both directions down the sidewalk, her gaze sweeping over the wagon down the street from her. Her eyes didn't linger, and a moment later she turned and started in the direction he remembered her apartment being, which would coincidentally take her past the wagon on the opposite side of the street. She hugged a trendy looking black leather jacket against herself as gust of wind kicked up, streaming her hair out behind her.

Tensing in his seat as she came abreast of him, Peter saw no recognition on her face and relaxed, watching her in the driver's door mirror as she hurried away down the sidewalk. The swinging of her hips coaxed up memories of her sultry laugh and smooth, creamy skin. Who exactly had been using who when their lives had converged briefly? He realized that he hadn't even thought of the girl in weeks, and felt somewhat guilty that there was no shame accompanying the realization. He doubted she would mind. The bartender had made it clear from the beginning that there were to be no strings attached.

Her long hair blowing in the wind as she disappeared from sight could easily be mistaken for Olivia's from a distance, though that was where the similarities between the two women started and ended. Grabbing his phone off the seat next to him, he checked the time again, wondering what Olivia was doing at that moment, in the interim before she was allowed in to see David Robert Jones. Hopefully getting some sleep, he thought, calculating the time difference in Germany.

The wagon's door groaned in protest as Peter pushed it open and climbed out, wincing at the chilly breeze cutting through his light jacket. He hurried across the street toward the entrance, noticing the lack of cacophonous melodies which had been audible from some distance on his last visit.

The door opened in front of him as he reached for the handle, and he stepped back, grabbing the edge of the door and allowing two young women to exit before him. The women's were talking excitedly as they moved past, though one did cast him a curious glance which he returned with a friendly smile.

Peter stepped inside behind them, taking in the sparse crowd of patrons sitting at the L-shaped bar to his left. There was music in the air, but it was of the jukebox variety, with the Irish folk band absent from the small stage against the far wall. He didn't miss the band, despite despising the Journey song playing just loud enough to prevent conversations from being overheard. The mood inside was full of the somber, hushed tones that he'd been missing on his last visit. And precisely what he was looking for at the moment.

He approached the bar, his mind wandering back to the two women who'd exited a moment earlier. Perhaps they'd been expecting the folk band, and the unexpected presence of an older, more weather-beaten crowd had sent them off to a more reassuring locale. The men and few women at the bar were grouped in pairs, shoulders hunched over their drinks, voices low. They looked tired to a man, or woman, weary after a day of being on their feet. No one looked up at his entrance, and he preferred it that way.

The same stool he'd sat in before was open, and he dropped down on it, looking around for a bartender or his friend Brian, whomever he saw first. His throat was dry, and his thoughts were going to need to be greased with a little alcohol if he wanted to move past his preoccupation with the day's revelations.

The door leading to the kitchen opened, and he smiled as his old friend walked out, a heavy beer keg dangling from one hand. He didn't notice Peter right away as he crouched behind the bar, going about switching out the empty keg at the taps several stools away. He was efficient at his task, which took less than a minute in Peter's estimation. As he rose to his feet, their eyes met, and he let out a great belly laugh, which swiveled the heads of everyone in the bar in their direction.

"Bishop!" Brian said, heaving the finished keg over one broad shoulder with ease. He moved back toward the kitchen, holding up his index finger. "Hold on." He pulled open the kitchen door tossed the keg through the doorway in bowling ball fashion. There was a loud a crash and an exclamation from inside the kitchen, and several glances from the other patrons which he ignored as he turned back to Peter, speaking at a much lower volume. "Where the hell you been?" he hissed. "I thought you'd skipped town weeks ago."

"Not yet, man." Peter replied, keeping his voice low as he eyed the labels on the beer tap handles. He was getting thirstier by the minute. "And not anytime too soon. How's business?"

Brian followed his gaze, and walked over to the taps. "Business is good." he said, grabbing a glass from under the bar. "People always want a drink." He pulled one of the tap levers and tilted the glass expertly as he filled it with a golden-brown looking brew, and then handing it to him across the bar. Raising his eyebrows, Peter sniffed at the glass, taking in its hoppy odor. "You'll like it, I swear. Brewed it myself."

"Is that a fact?" he replied, and took a deep swallow. The beer wasn't bad, not all skunky, with a pleasant, almost fruity aftertaste. "Not bad, not bad at all." He took another drink, and then glanced over at the empty stage. "Where's the band?"

Brian snorted and shook his head. "I got tired of that shit, so they only play a few nights a week now." he said. "I need some peace and quiet occasionally." He leaned over the bar on his elbows. "What have you been up to, man? I haven't heard from you in a while. Not since you were a no-show awhile back."

Peter frowned. "A no-show?" he said, the glass pausing halfway to his mouth. "What are you talking about?"

"A few weeks ago. You called about a job and then left me high and dry. I tried calling you back but your phone was off."

He was talking about the night he'd been abducted, Peter realized after a confused moment. Shit. He'd just ended the call with Brian when the killer had surprised him in the lab. His phone had been destroyed in the blast from the man's concussion weapon…thing. "Oh, yeah...about that..." he started as a man further down the bar called for a drink and Brian moved away, fulfilling his order quickly. "Something came up..." he said after his friend was back before him. "Sorry for not getting back to you, man…I just got caught up in…stuff."

"Well, you still need a job?" Brian said, pulling a rag from his shoulder and wiping at a smudge on the bar top.

"No." Peter shook his head. "I'm good."

"Really?" he said. "Cause you sounded like you needed to get out of town in a hurry."

Shrugging, Peter took another sip of his beer. "Yeah. Things just…worked themselves out." he said, and then chuckled. "Technically, I'm kinda working right now."

"This is working?" Brian said as one of the customers further down the bar got his attention. "Sounds like my kinda job. I'll be right back." He moved off, taking the fellow's order.

He watched his friend at work through the mirror opposite the bar for a while, sipping at his beer. The man loved his job, and it showed in the easy rapport he had with his customers, the pride he took in ownership as he made judicious use of the rag to keep the bar spotless as he worked his way down the line of waiting patrons.

Peter turned away from his friend, regarding himself in the mirror as he gulped down another large swallow, nearly draining the glass. He glanced around at the other people in the bar, feeling strangely disconnected from them all, as if they were almost another species entirely, including his old friend. It was not a feeling he was used to, or enjoyed, but it lingered nonetheless.

How many of them had been abused, electrocuted by their insane fathers? And abuse was what it was at its most basic level. In addition, he was going to be interfacing with a dead man, brain to brain in a few short hours…what could he possibly have in common with any of them?

He drained his glass, and then ran his fingers through the condensation, smearing away the wetness, seeing Olivia's face in the faint reflection.

Was this how she felt all the time? Like she was an outsider from the rest of humanity? Her closed off nature, her self-imposed isolation took on a new light. She had been doing the job far longer than him, and the feeling had to have only grown more intense after becoming Walter's guinea pig with John Scott, and all the insane things they'd seen since then, without even taking into account her ordeal with her stepfather.

And yet she somehow still found a way to care for people…for the civilians, day after day. He stared down into the bottom of his glass at the foamy remains, brooding over his apparent inability to do the same while Brian finished his rounds.

"You ready for another?" he said, grabbing his empty glass, and wiping the bar down where it had been sitting.

Peter glanced over at the clock above the door to the kitchen. It was getting late, and he had no idea how long it would take his father to…prep him…or whatever he had to do to get ready for the procedure. "Nah…I should probably get back…" he said, slipping off the stool. He pulled a ten from his wallet and slapped it down on the bar. "Thanks for the beer, man."

"Hey, your money's no good with me, Bishop." Brian said, pushing the bill back at him.

Holding his hands up, Peter stepped back from the bar, grinning at his friends insistence. "Take it, man." he said. "I'm sure I owe you for something."

"In that case, you might as well hand over your wallet." he quipped, throwing the rag back over his shoulder. "You take care, Peter. Try to stay out of trouble…for once."

"I always do…" Peter smirked over his shoulder, heading toward the exit. He pushed through it and moved out to the sidewalk, looking up and down the street for any other pedestrians. There were none.

He stood still for a moment, hands in his jacket pockets, listening to the night and its sounds, the city, engines revving in the distance, the occasional honks. He felt better. Somewhat. A little. Enough to tolerate his father's presence again, at least until the next great revelation, where he would no doubt admit to doing something else horrendous.

But that was for later. Now was for pulling himself together. It was just a dead guy, after all. What was the worst that could happen?

Quite a lot, actually. A small, niggling voice answered from the back of his mind. This is Walter we're talking about.

Shaking his head, Peter ignored the voice. Either way he'd already committed. Olivia was depending on them, on him, though she didn't know it. Turning thought into motion, he started across the street, angling toward the wagon.

It was time to do his part, and hope like hell his father knew what he was doing.


Olivia came awake with a start, staring upwards at an unfamiliar ceiling as her phone ushered in the new day. It was not her bed she felt beneath her, and it was not her bedroom. She froze for instant, pushing the fog of sleep away, opening her eyes wide, as memories of the night before came flooding back to her in a rush of sequential realizations.

Germany...

David Robert Jones...

...Lucas!

She sat upright as what had happened at his apartment returned in all its embarrassing glory. Oh my god, I almost… Falling back on the pillow, she hid her face under her hands, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. What the hell was I thinking? Clearly, there had been no thought involved, or she wouldn't have allowed things to progress as far as they had.

Maybe he wouldn't be at the prison. She pushed her hair out of her face, and gazed over at the blinds covering the room's only window. No. Of course he would be there. He was her access, after all. With a sigh, she pushed the matter to back of her mind. It was in the past, what was done was done, and it was too late to do anything about it now.

Her phone continued its uninterrupted toning on the night stand next to the bed, and she twisted on the sheets, reaching for it, fumbling for it in her haste. Olivia pulled the phone to her and lay back, holding it up as she turned off the alarm and checked her messages. There was a single missed call from Astrid, along with a more recent text from Lucas as well.

Throwing back the sheets, Olivia moved to the window and pushed the blinds aside, blinking at the sudden brightness. The sun was just starting to clear the horizon, casting reflections off the distant Main winding through the landscape to the southeast. The sky was cast in a vivid, pink-orange hue, the color of cantaloupe, as if had been painted on the blue back drop of the heavens by some old master. Admiring the serenity of the vision, she watched the sun rise, and with it, the city coming alive beneath her until it was well above the horizon, and the image began to disperse, fading into an endless sea of blue.

We're going to save a man's life today, she promised herself, letting the blinds drop back in place and returning her attention to her phone, and the text from Lucas.

A car would be waiting at her disposal outside the hotel, and he would meet her at the prison. The text was short and to the point, the way she preferred, and with no mention of events from the night before, also the way she preferred.

Astrid's call had come much earlier, not long after Olivia had fallen asleep the night before. She must have been more inebriated than she'd thought to have slept through it, as was evidenced by what she had almost let happen in Lucas's apartment.

Pulling the night-shirt over her head, she moved to the bathroom and twisted on the water in the shower, turning the heat all the way up. As she waited for the water to heat up, she sat down on the edge of the bed, returning Astrid's call.

The junior agent answered on the second ring. "Olivia?"

Olivia frowned at her assistant's low voice, quieter than was normal for her. "Astrid? What's wrong?" she said, the thought that the worst might have occurred during the night sending a spark of anxiety shooting down her spine. "Is it Loeb?"

"No…he's hanging in there."

"Thank god…I thought he might not have made it through the night." she said, staring at herself in the mirror above the dresser. She looked like hell, with dark rings under her eyes and tangled hair. "Sorry I missed your call, what did you need?"

"Have you talked to Peter?" Astrid asked, her voice remaining quiet.

"Yeah…he called me earlier." Olivia said, feeling a touch of uneasiness. "…Why?"

"Did he tell you about Walter's procedure?" She heard a door close in the background as the other woman spoke, and guessed that she had either left the lab or gone into the office, or possibly the restroom.

"Not in any detail…just that he thought it might work." she said, getting to her feet. Something in the junior agent's voice set her alarm bells ringing. "What is it?"

"Walter….he's going to wire their brains together."

The words took a moment to collate, and she pulled the phone from her ear as if that might speed up the process. "He's what?" she said a moment later. "Wire their brains together? You mean Peter's and Joseph Smith's?"

"Yeah…"

"Peter…Peter's not getting in the tank, is he?" Olivia asked, putting a hand to her forehead as the memories of her excursion inside it loomed large, coming to forefront of her thoughts. The darkness, the sense of being bodiless, just a mind floating in nothingness, and then there had been the connection itself, the merger, and being sucked into it, unable to resist. She had known John, and it had still been terrifying. She couldn't imagine what it might be like with a total stranger. "Like I did with John?" she said. It didn't make sense to her, as Smith was dead and he had no consciousness to merge with.

"No. No tank involved," Astrid said, "but I'm worried anyway, Olivia…it looks really dangerous. There's a lot of electricity involved."

"…And Peter's okay with this?" she said, utterly shocked that he was willing to do it, for someone he didn't even know no less, and confused at the same time as to why he hadn't told her any of it when he had called before.

Astrid took a moment to reply. "Well, he wasn't exactly thrilled about it, but yeah. I guess...he…"

"He what, Astrid?" Olivia said, when the other woman didn't finish.

"Nothing." she said quickly. "I…I just thought you should be aware of what was going on back here…that's all."

Olivia was silent for a moment, pacing the narrow space in front of the bed. "Well…if he's willing to go through with it, then…" She stopped at the window, pulling aside the blinds again. The sun was rising steadily, and a light blanket of fog was now visible, obscuring the more distant parts of the city. "Astrid, we…we don't have any choice. This is our only chance to save Agent Loeb." she said, checking the time on her watch. "I've got about an hour before I need to be at the prison. I'll call you back when I get there."

Ending the call, she tossed her phone on the bedspread and stared down it for a moment, a feeling of disquiet dampening her optimism as she pushed her hair back from her face. Steam was beginning to drift through the open bathroom door, and Olivia moved toward it, stripping off the rest of her clothes as she went. The water was scalding hot, and she lowered the temperature just a bit before stepping into its relaxing embrace with a sharp intake of breath, and then a sigh of contentment.

Spinning in a circle under the curtain of heat, her mind kept returning to the phone call with Astrid, replaying the conversation. The junior agent had sound fairly scared by whatever they were doing back at the lab. It was strange, Peter had done his best to convince her not go through with doing something similar before, with John, when all he knew of her was that she'd blackmailed him.

Olivia, I can't sit back and watch him kill you, or turn you into a vegetable… Not when I can stop it.

And then later, he'd spoken the words that still haunted her.

I hope your guy is worth it.

He'd been right. John had not been worth it, in hindsight, and she was still paying the price of her actions, still purging the remains of his consciousness from her head. Now, he was about to do the same as she had, or near enough. And for a man he'd never met, no less.

Olivia stared down, letting the water stream down her face, torn by conflicting emotions as she watched it pool on the shower floor and funnel down the grate. She was the one who should be taking the risks…not them. It should have been her…but, at the same time, there was an unmistakable sense of relief that someone else had stepped up next to her. Someone else with whom she could share the burden. It was just a shock that it had been Peter.

Something else he'd said to her once came to mind, sitting next to her on the bench in Harvard Yard.

You've been so together with everything that's going on… I've been starting to develop an inferiority complex.

Maybe she was rubbing off on him, and wouldn't that be something. Her lips curved into a wide smile as she reached for the shampoo.


Peter struggled to relax back in the chair as his father loomed over him, tightening the straps around his wrists. His eyes shifted to Astrid, who was watching with no small amount of concern as Walter then pressed his head back into the foam cushion, securing him in place with another strap around his forehead.

"Is this really necessary?" he said, not at all enjoying the feel of the restraints. They brought him back to the table he'd woken up on. Arms tied at his sides, head strapped down. The agony of the killer's mind-reading machine. His breath quickened, as he went back there, back to that dark place, wires shoved up his nose, the taste of blood in his mouth.

"I'm afraid so." Walter said, giving the strap around his forehead another jerk. "Just try and relax, son."

"Just relax!" Peter said, trying to get his breathing under control. "That's easy for you to say, Walter! You're not the one being strapped to a chair, which I might add, looks and feels like something out of an odontophobiac's worst nightmare, all so I can mind-meld with a dead man!"

"Stop being such a ninny, Peter!" his father replied, grabbing a handful of electrode leads from the table set up next to his chair and the Joseph Smith's water trough. "I really don't remember you being this way as a boy. Oh...and that chair was top of the line in its day." He leaned over him again, his touch surprisingly gentle as began taping electrodes in ring around his forehead.

Inhaling a deep gulp of air, he let it out slowly through his nose, relaxing his jaw, which was beginning to ache from the force with which his teeth were clamped together. Take it easy...it's just Walter... The thought was only slightly more comforting than being on the table again.

Over the last few weeks, he'd been doing his best to forget the ordeal of his abduction and subsequent torture, but he still occasionally woke up in a cold sweat, dreaming of being on that table again, and how the pain had broken his will. That the killer was dead by Olivia's hand was only a slight comfort. In his dreams, she showed up at the graveyard too late, or not at all.

"What's to stop the same thing that happened earlier with the light bulb from happening again?" Astrid asked, chewing on her thumbnail.

"Yes, Walter. What is stopping that from happening again?" Peter said, straining to following his father's movements as he moved around the chair to begin attaching the electrodes to his other side.

Lifting his hands, Walter shrugged, and leaned close to him again. "Your noggin is no incandescent bulb, son." he said, rapping him sharply on the top of his head. "And in any case, yours is much too dense."

"That's excellent, Walter. Very reassuring..." he replied, rolling his eyes toward the corpse to his left as Walter attached the last of the electrodes. The dead man appeared to be relaxing in the trough next him, or would have, if it weren't for the bundle of wires trailing from his shaved head and the bullet-hole above his eyes.

Walter looked over his handiwork, eyes narrowing has he double-checked the connections. "I believe we are ready..." he said with a satisfied nod, and waved a hand in Astrid's direction. "My dear, would you mind assisting? We'll need an interlocutor for our dead friend here."

Astrid swallowed, and then stepped closer to the trough, gazing down at the body with a worried frown. "Whatever I can do to help..." she said, and then spun back toward him. "Are you are about this?"

"Sure...I'm really looking forward to it, actually." Peter said through a forced grin. "Nothing like mind-melding with a dead guy. I hear it's a good time."

"That's the spirit, son!" Walter threw over his shoulder as he climbed the steps to the raised floor. He raised one fist upward, grabbing the rail with the other. "The thrill of scientific discovery! It's quite the rush!"

"Peter..." Astrid said, putting a hand on her hip.

"Look...I understand your concern..." he said, trying to turn his head toward her. The strap didn't allow it, so he settled for a sideways glance instead. "But like Walter said, of the two of us, it'll probably work easiest for me."

Their eyes met for a moment, and then she shrugged her acceptance. "All right, it's your funeral."

"Thanks for the show of confidence..." Peter responded dryly.

His father looked down on them over the table of equipment he'd set up for the procedure. "Ye of little faith, Aphid." he said, flipping the toggle on the lab power supply. The equipment came to life with the hum of electricity and he smiled, running his gaze over the jumble of devices. "The only funeral taking place will be for Mr. Smith." He paused, glancing over at the isolation chamber, then added as an afterthought. "And...I suppose for Mr. Loeb too, if this doesn't work, and we are unable to communicate with this, Mr. Jones...hmm...that's a lot of misters to throw around..." he muttered, then shook his head. "In any event, we are nearing the threshold where his neural pathways will have degraded beyond any of our attempts at recovery. Olivia had better phone soon."

"It's call, Walter. Nobody says phone anymore." Peter said, rolling his eyes toward his father. "So are we gonna test this first, or what?"

Walter held up a finger. "Oh yes...first let me..." He bent over the equipment, turning dials and making adjustments for several minutes, before looking up again. "I believe we're ready..." he said, and reached for the large knob with which he could fine-tune the power being fed to Smith's corpse. "We'll start slowly, with minimal amperage."

Peter tensed, holding his breath and squeezing the arms of the chair, not sure what to expect as his father slowly twisted the knob.

"Do you hear anything?" Astrid said, cupping one elbow and nibbling on her fingernail nervously.

"I think we gotta ask him a question first." he replied, glancing over at the body. It wasn't vibrating as it had before, with the light bulb. The sight was something of a relief. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

"I...see." she said, stepping closer.

"All right...are we ready to see how this works?" Walker said, clapping his hands eagerly. His face was bright with excitement, appearing almost gleeful as looked down on them. "When I say go, you Astro, will ask Mr. Smith a question. I will then flip the switch, which will then stimulate our naked friend's brain...and Peter, you will hear his response. Any questions?"

Astrid glanced up at Walter. "Uh...yeah, what should I ask him?"

"Anything you like, my dear." his father replied, and then glanced at Peter, wringing his hands together. "It's only a dry run, and son… I should apologize in advance. I'm afraid this…well, I shouldn't frighten you."

"No…" Peter said, trying to hide his uneasiness. "Wouldn't want to do that, would we?" Despite his stated intentions, his father's words had struck a nerve, sending up a cloud of anxiety. His heart began to pounding in his ears like a gong as Walter began the countdown.

"Three, two, one…go!"

Peter watched with nervous anticipation as Astrid leaned in close to Smith's head. "What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?" she said, and then flinched back as Walter toggled on the power.

There was the hum of electricity from the power supply, and then a flare of pain where the electrodes were attached on his forehead and temples. His back arched, stretching his eyes wide open as he felt a burning sort of pressure that almost seemed as if it were deep inside his head. The sensation was quite unpleasant. Biting down against the pain, he gasped, falling back in the chair as the pain receded, and the hum of electricity with it.

"Well?" Walter asked. "Anything?"

Peter cast a glare his way. "Did I hear anything? No." he said with a groan, trying catch his breath. "Nothing. I'm not sure what you're expecting, Walter, but-"

"Three, two, one…go!" his father said again, before he could express his doubts about the whole thing.

"What's your favorite color?" Astrid said to the corpse.

The pain at his temples was worse on the next go round, the burning in his head more intense as he braced himself against it, trying to fight his way through until his father shut it down again. Next to him in the trough, Joseph Smith's body jerked against the electric current, sending the mountain of fresh ice on his abdomen cascading into the water. Almost as soon as it started, the pain retreated and he relaxed, letting his muscles go slack. Breathing hard, he rolled his eyes toward his father, who was gazing down eagerly, head bobbing with anticipation.

"Nope...still nothing, Walter." he said, trying to shake his head. The strap held him tight, and he glared up at it hatefully. "Just more extreme discomfort."

"Is this going to work?" Astrid said, looking up at his father. From her tone, it was clear what she thought their chances were. Before anyone could answer, her phone rang in her pocket. The ringing was loud, like a warning bell pronouncing their doom. Peter followed her hand as she pulled it from her pocket. She checked the display and then looked up, eyes worried. "It's Olivia." she confirmed. "I think we're out of time."


Olivia met Lucas and the warden, Johan Lennox in the prison lobby upon her arrival. The two men were standing near the entrance's security checkpoint talking, sharing a quite laugh as she stepped inside prison's entrance. They turned toward her as she approached, Lucas with a slightly nervous looking half-smile, and the warden with a stern frown. She half thought the look might be a permanent fixture for the latter.

"Morning..." Lucas said, his gaze boring into hers for a moment longer than propriety allowed. "Sleep well?"

"Yeah..." she said, pressing her lips into a thin smile, and then turning to other man. "Mr. Lennox? Is everything ready? Do we still have deal?"

"Ms. Dunham." the warden said, dropping a single nod in her direction. His hands were clasped behind his back in stately manner, as befitting his position. "The only remaining issue is your signature." He extended a hand toward the checkpoint. "This way please."

Olivia glanced at Lucas, who motioned for her take the lead. They retraced the same route they'd taken before, through the labyrinth of corridors and down the elevator to the bowels of the facility, where high value prisoners such as Jones were confined.

At the final checkpoint, the warden reached into his suit jacket and produced a folded sheet of paper and a pen. He passed them both to her without comment, then watched with lidded eyes as she ran her eyes over the what was written. The document was more or less as she expected, what she had proposed. She was never there, and was in no way representing her government. Her signature went on the line where indicated without a second thought.

She passed the paper and pen back wordlessly, and he slipped them back into his pocket without mention. Then he motioned again for her to follow him, fingers beckoning. Olivia stepped through gate, and glanced back at Lucas, who had moved to follow her.

"I'm sorry, my old friend." Mr. Lennox said, stopping him with an outstretched palm. "You have not signed anything."

Lucas stepped back with an amused expression, as if he wasn't surprised by his being omitted. It wasn't really his business, after all. "I...guess I'll just wait here." he grinned, then caught her eye with another intense look. "Good luck, Olivia. We'll talk afterward."

Olivia nodded, but had no reply for him. There wasn't really anything to say. What had happened in his apartment had been an unfortunate mistake, a what could have been in another lifetime, or in another universe. But not there. Not then.

"I need to make one phone call, Mr. Lennox." she said, pulling out her phone and dialing Astrid as she trailed the warden down a long corridor.

Holding the phone up to her ear, Olivia waited for the junior agent pick up. It rang once, twice, three times without an answer, and she frowned as a stray thought that something might have happened flitted across her awareness, sending a shiver of uneasiness through her.

"Hello?" Astrid's voice came over line after the fourth ring.

"Hey...they're taking me to see Jones now." she said, following after the warden down a dim corridor. "Everything okay there?"

"Yeah...so far at least." Astrid replied, her unease clearly heard. "You guys, they're taking her in right now." she said away from the phone.

Olivia heard another voice in background then, Walter's she thought. "No! We're not ready yet." And then Peter's voice following after his father's. "No, no, no, tell her that she's gotta stall!"

"Did you hear that?" Astrid asked her. "The procedure's not working yet, Olivia. You're gonna have to stall."

"I'll do what I can." Olivia said as they approached a steel door at the end of the corridor, with a uniformed prison guard standing watch adjacent to it. The warden stopped in front of it and turned back to her, chin outstretched, waiting expectantly. "But I've only got fourteen minutes, Astrid. You've got to hurry." she told the other woman and ended the call, dropping the phone back in her pocket.

"Your fourteen minutes starts right now, Ms. Dunham." Mr. Lennox said, glancing down at his watch. "I suggest you use the time wisely."

There was heavy clank as the door's lock was disengaged, and then the guard pulled it open smoothly, holding it back out of the way for her. Olivia stepped through the doorway, taking in the drab interior of the holding room, painted concrete block walls, and the single light suspended over a table in the center of the space. Seated on one side of the table was the man she recognized from the Interpol file that Broyles had shown. His hands were cuffed and secured to the table in front of him, a fact which belied the way they were clasped together, thumbs twiddling idly, as if it were a matter of no consequence.

"What a pleasure this is." David Robert Jones said with a cultured accent as she moved inside the room. He spoke with an odd sort of drawl, enunciating each word fully in wet, raspy tone.

Olivia studied him for a moment, detecting veiled humor beneath his words, an undercurrent of amusement, with her, with the situation perhaps. Or maybe it was just the arrogance she'd intuited from his picture, a deep-seated belief of his superiority over others, that he was always the smartest person in the room. It was not a quality she particularly enjoyed in others.

She crossed over to the table and sat down across from him, letting her displeasure show. "We have your Mr. Smith in custody." she said coldly, removing her phone from her pocket and placing it on the table in front her. "You will not speak with him directly. You will ask me the one question that you want answered. I will relay that question to an agent back in the States, who will talk to Mr. Smith. I will then relay Smith's response to you. Then you will tell me how to save Agent Loeb. That is how it's going to work. Do you understand?"

Mr. Jones sat back, arching an eyebrow with amusement. "You're very serious, do you know that?" he said, quirking his lips. He tilted his head to one side studying her as she had him. "Your friend's life hangs in the balance...is that it? And you want me to save him. I gathered as much from your note."

Olivia leaned closer to him. "Tell me something, Mr. Jones." she said in low tone. "Why not ask for your freedom, or...or extradition? You must know that you have the leverage here. Yet all you want is the answer to one question?"

"You make two assumptions Ms. Dunham, both incorrect." he replied. "The first is that there is nothing more valuable than my freedom. The second, is that I am responsible for the infection of Agent Loeb."

"Your note implied you had some knowledge of Agent Loeb's condition." she said, pulling back from him slightly. "Why would you if you couldn't deliver?"

"Having knowledge does not always equate with guilt." Jones said, eyes twinkling. "As an agent of the FBI, I'm quite sure you are aware of this."

Olivia glanced down at her phone, feeling time slowly slipping away from her. "So...if you're not the one responsible for infecting Agent Loeb, then who is?" she asked.

Jones shrugged, frowning at the question. "Perhaps the same people responsible for bringing us together." he speculated. "What if...someone wanted information from the both of us? ...You see?" he said softly. One of his eyelids fluttered, an involuntary muscle twitch. "Perhaps they've orchestrated all of this." He eyes darted around the holding cell furtively, and then he leaned closer, speaking in a conspiratorial tone. "What if you and I...both of us, at this very moment, were being manipulated."

"By whom?" she said. "...And what would they want?" His words struck a chord in her, one she'd already considered when she'd learned of Loeb's connection with Joseph Smith. It was a grand web of manipulation all right, but who exactly was pulling the strings remained to be seen.

"You've not been doing this very long, have you?" he said in a low voice, and then flashed a condescending smile. "There are very few things in life that surprise me anymore, Ms. Dunham. And yet, I confess, I am confused." he said musingly. "If it is so urgent to save the life of your friend, then tell me, why haven't we gotten on with it?"

Yes, why haven't we gotten on with it? Olivia thought, and glanced down at her phone again, trying to will it to come to life. Ring goddamnit! She looked back up at Jones. He was watching her with a certain amount of pleasure, a knowing smiling, his thumbs twiddling idly again as they had been when she'd entered. A wild lock of hair escaped from its confines behind her ear and she tucked it back in place, searching for a way to sidestep his question.

Before she could so much as open her mouth, the phone rang, vibrating on the table in front of her.


Peter tried to lean forward, forgetting for in instant that he was strapped in place as Astrid relayed Olivia's message. The straps held him tight, and he gave them a final tug before relaxing, keeping his gaze on the curly-haired junior agent.

"What do you mean we only have fourteen minutes?" he said, choosing to ignore the restraints. "Starting right now?"

"That's what Agent Dunham said." Astrid said with a nod. "That's all they were going to allow her."

Fourteen was such an arbitrary number, it smacked of some old custom or tradition, probably dating back decades, if not centuries. It was just their luck to run into a stickler for following the rules. "Walter, did you hear that?" he said, shifting his eyes to the raised section of the lab floor where his father had been working.

He was gone.

"Walter?" Peter called, and then glanced over at Astrid. "Where'd he go?"

The junior agent looked around the lab, moved over the office and stuck her head in the door. "He was here just a moment ago..." she said, looking back at him. "Walter...?"

Gene's mooing from across the lab drew their attention, and a moment later Walter strolled out of the small storage room next to the cow's stall with a small cup or bowl grasped in one hand. He hurried toward them, taking the steps two at time down to the lab floor. From up close, Peter could see that it was in fact a coffee cup, and in addition, the plunger of a syringe sticking out over the rim.

"I think I know your problem, Peter." his father said, setting the cup on a table. "You think too much. It's a family curse. Your own brain function is interfering with the process. You need to be a passive receiver." Walter pulled a small syringe from the bowl, its barrel filled with a clear liquid, and handed it to Astrid. "This is a sedative, son. It will numb your higher brain function." He pulled a length of rubber tubing from his lab coat, and went about tying it around Peter's bicep in preparation for a shot. "I've mixed it with a euphoria inhibitor, which will clear the high from your system in a matter of minutes." When the tube was tied off, he pulled another syringe from his coat pocket, much larger than the first, with a wide barrel and an evil-looking needle, that he passed to Astrid, swapping her for the smaller. "If I tell you to, stick this in his chest..." he said, jabbing a finger under Peter's sternum, who was staring in shock at the needle. "Right here. Beneath the breast bone."

The touch to his chest woke Peter from his stupor. "Whoa, whoa, whoa...what is that?" he said as his father held up the smaller syringe, tapping out the air bubbles.

"Adrenaline..."

"Why, Walter?" Peter said, staring at the syringe in Astrid's hands with trepidation. His restrained state, being helpless to stop his father from having his mad way with him had set a panic loose in chest, his heart jumping. He turned his attention to the smaller syringe. "Are...are you planning on stopping my heart? Walter, what are you giving me?"

"Nothing for you to worry about, son..." his father muttered, stabbing the syringe into his arm. "It's perfectly harmless." Before Peter could protest, Walter depressed the plunger, sending the syringe's contents into his bloodstream.

He could feel the drugs moving up his arm then, a vein of white-hot fire that burned from the inside out. The fire reached his shoulder, then it was in his chest, arching his back, forcing a long, continuous groan from his lips. The drugs continued their journey higher...up into his neck, muscles there taut from the strain, before finally blooming in his cortex, a muted supernova of relaxed pleasure that saturated his being, stretching his eyes wide open and curling is lips into a ecstatic grin as all his problems and preoccupations melted away. The feeling was orgasmic in nature, with waves of pleasure sprinkling over him, to which the only possible reaction was to laugh.

And laugh he did. Unhindered and unburdened by any outside influences he laughed, at the woman in front of him, her dark skin complimented well by her green sweater, at the man next to him, his white coat appeared to glow with an inner light. Their faces wavered before him, like the shimmering of a heat wave. Was it hot? He couldn't tell. His body felt…strange, disconnected, the pleasure beginning to fade to numbness.

Sweet…Astrid... His thoughts were slow, one after the other, divided into increments and then divided again. Walter…? He struggled to recall what the words, what the names meant to him.

A loud noise echoed from somewhere close by, interrupting his pleasant musings and his gaze drifted lazily in front of him, searching for the source. That his head was incapable of following his eyes should have been a grave concern to him, but it was not.

Shapes moved beyond the man and woman in front of him, quickly resolving into another man and another woman. Were they having a party? He liked parties. The man was familiar. Agent…Broyles…what's…doing…here? The dark skin on his bald head reflected the overhead lighting, and Peter stared at it, fascinated, the shine bringing forth another round of laughter.

What is going on in here? An outraged voice said from close by. Broyles. He was speaking. His voice was distant, obscured, like Peter was hearing it from underwater.

Was he underwater? Wasn't he in the lab? His confused thoughts were interrupted by another voice, unfamiliar, and full of panic.

Mitchell! A woman's shape flitted across his field of view, and then was gone.

He tried to follow the movement, but the view to his right was off limits, his head frozen in place. Why was his head frozen? Had it been Olivia? Was Olivia in the lab again? He missed her. Pretty…Olivia…Olivia… Did she like parties? Who was Mitchell? The name seemed familiar, as if he should know it.

The man in white stepped in front of him, his face zooming in close. Did he want a kiss? Where was Olivia?

Peter. The man in white was speaking. To him. The man's name was Walter. He was his father. His Dad. Peter, can you hear me?

This can't possibly be scientific. Another voice. Broyles again? Yes.

Peter, look at me. His father's voice. There was a hand on his cheek, gentle, encouraging. Yes. His father. He used to make pancakes, shaped like whales. His mother laughed at them.

"Daddy?" Peter answered the voice.

His father's face pulled back, growing smaller in his vision. Hmmm. His voice said. I think we're ready.


Olivia picked up her phone, holding back an incredibly strong urge snatch it up and demand to know what the hell was taking so long. Didn't they realize time was flying by? There was less than ten minutes of the fourteen left.

"Hello." she said instead, feeling a surge of pride at maintaining her poise.

"Go. Quick." Astrid's voice was urgent.

She looked across the table at David Robert Jones, who was gazing at her with eyebrows raised in anticipation. "Go ahead." Olivia told him. "Ask your question."

"Ask my friend Joe…where does the gentleman live?" he replied.

"Mr. Jones would like to know…where does the gentleman live?" she said to Astrid. "That's his question."

Instead of hearing the junior agents reply, Olivia heard a series trill beeps from close by, and then a woman's scream rang out, heard clearly over the line, followed by Walter's voice, giving out frantic orders from the sound of him. It sounded like pure chaos.

Clearly, something had just gone wrong. From all the beeping and whistles she'd heard, it sounded like Loeb's vitals machine. She hoped to god she was wrong, though the only other cause for the ruckus was Peter, and whatever Walter was doing to him with the procedure. Either option was unacceptable.

"I'll call you back." Astrid said a moment later, and then the line went dead.

Olivia pulled the phone away from her ear slowly, staring at its display as worry began gnawing away at her. Struggling to maintain a calm demeanor, she swallowed, and then set the phone back down on the table.

"Is there a problem?" Jones said, glancing down at the phone, and then lifting his gaze to hers, eyeing her shrewdly.

"My phone doesn't get the best reception in prison isolation cells." she shrugged, feigning indifference. She gave herself a mental pat on the back for coming up with the simple, but reasonable lie. Peter would have been proud of her.

Jones lifted an eyebrow, regarding her in silence. "You do have Mr. Smith…do you not?" he asked after a moment had passed.

Ignoring the query, Olivia leaned closer, clasping her hands together. "I'm curious, Mr. Jones…" she said. "Why do you think Joseph Smith would be willing to cooperate with you after you had him arrested?"

From his broad grin, he seemed to find her question amusing. "Oh…the people I work with are loyal to the end." he said, and then paused, his eyes sharpening, the humor in them falling away. Or maybe it had never been there to begin with. "Can you say the same, Agent Dunham?" She detected something in his voice, a hint of some knowledge, something pertinent to herself.

Before she could ponder this curiosity, her phone rang again. She grabbed it up quickly, no longer caring if she appeared impatient or desperate.

"Hello."

"Okay." Astrid said, her voice sounding breathless. "We're trying again."

Olivia stared across the table at Jones and waited.


Peter watched the hurried movements of the others with a distant, distracted sort of fascination, his normally agile mind having trouble making the connections between what was happening around him, and how it all related to his current circumstance, strapped to a chair as he was.

The woman, Astrid, marked by her green sweater off this left was staring at him with worried eyes as his father rushed past him, moving off to his right. Directly in front of him was the dark shape of Agent Broyles, watching it all wordlessly with a grim countenance. What was the rush? Why were they all staring at him? Was there something in his teeth?

He cracked a smile at the thought, and heard his father's voice again, off to his right. It was a countdown. Three, two, one…blast off! Peter grinned. He liked rockets, spaceships, the shuttles. The Challenger was his favorite, always had been, or was it…no it had been Atlantis…

"Where does the gentleman live?" Astrid was speaking from close by.

The gentleman…?

The word was just registering when the pain enveloped him once more, forcing his teeth together, and clearing his head of the drug induced haze with extreme prejudice. His back arched off the chair, muscles straining against the surge. The burning sensation he'd felt before returned, though less intense than it had been. He wasn't about to complain as the pain receded.

Falling back in the chair, Peter gasped as all his muscles turned to jelly at once. He was definitely going to be sore in the morning. He noticed Agent Broyles standing in not far away, watching the procedure, and wondered when he'd arrived. The man looked less than happy at what he was seeing.

"Did you hear anything, Peter?" Astrid said, leaning over him. She had her phone up to her ear, waiting anxiously for his reply.

"No…not really." he panted, catching his breath. There had been that flash, but it had just been whiteness. It was probably nothing.

"We're going to have to increase the voltage…" Walter said from the raised floor. "I'm sorry son. Three, two, one…go!" he repeated the countdown.

"Where does the gentleman live?" Astrid said.

The pain hit him again, it was worse, but he was ready for it, already tensing in anticipation. "Uh...no, nothing." he grunted through the spasms. At the moment his father cut the power, there was a flash of white, obscuring his vision for just instant.

"Agent Dunham, it's not working." Astrid said, and then winced at Olivia's reply.

On the next attempt, the pain at his temples was even more intense, but it was just on the surface of his skin. Deeper inside, the burning pressure was almost entirely gone, as if there had been a barrier which was no longer present. He saw the white flash again, only it lingered, and then solidified into a hazy image.

It was a blank sheet of paper, or perhaps an envelope, he couldn't be sure. The white surface was clean, unmarred by any print or handwriting. The image flickered in his inner eye, scattering and reforming. When it solidified once more, it was no longer blank. There was a string of...letters, he thought, but couldn't quite make them out, there was something odd about them, like they were distorted somehow, almost fuzzy in places.

"I need some paper, paper, give me some paper!" he said through the pain, looking between Astrid and Broyles, who were closest to him. "Quick, quick! I think I see something!" Broyles grabbed a pad of paper from a nearby table along with a marker and rushed to his side. "Untie my hand." he said to Astrid. When she reached for his right hand, he shook her off. "No. The other one, quickly! I can still see it!"

"Wait a sec, hold on…" Astrid said into the phone, slipping the strap from his left hand.

Peter grabbed the paper and marker from Broyles and closed his eyes, trying to recreate the image in his mind's eye.

"What is that?" Astrid frowned when he'd finished.

Opening his eyes again, he stared down at his handiwork. "I...I have no idea." he said after a moment. The image in his mind was fading quickly, but he was sure that it was what he'd seen.

He had drawn a number of vertical lines, all parallel, with one larger space near the middle separating them in to two groups. Two words? He gazed at the lines for a moment, then looked up as Walter approached.

"Walter, what is this?" he said.

"How should I know?" Walter said, removing the strap from around his head. "You saw it, not me…"

"What is it?" Peter said again, frustrated at his inability to make sense of it. It was different than it had been, incomplete. He handed the pad of paper to his father and stretched his neck, grateful to be free of the strap. "Do you see it? It's there…it's just…missing something."

"Obviously, it's missing horizontal lines." Walter said, tapping a finger against his chin. He glanced around at all of them. "There's literature on this. Misrepresentation of horizontal space in unilateral brain damage."

"I don't understand." Peter said, taking the paper back from him.

"It's just conjecture, of course." his father explained. "But the bullet may have destroyed that part of the brain that helps process horizontal lines." He put a hand on Peter's shoulder. "I'm afraid you're going to have to fill in the blanks, son."

Excellent… Peter thought. No pressure at all. He stared at the lines he'd drawn again, trying to summon up the image of them in his mind once more.

Yes, there had been that distortion…but not everywhere. Not all of the lines had had that strange fuzziness, some had been complete, and were clearly letters in hindsight. If he could just…fit them all together coherently somehow…

"We don't have it yet." Astrid said into her phone suddenly. "I…I don't think it's working…"

Peter shook his head, denying the statement, and gripped the marker once more. It was working…he knew what he had to do. It was just a matter of connecting the dots.


Olivia listened to the faint voices through her phone as they discussed the results of the procedure back in the lab. From what she could tell, Peter had seen or heard something, but was struggling to interpret it.

Why was nothing ever easy? she thought, looking away from David Robert Jones's mocking eyes. He obviously knew that something was wrong, and seemed to enjoy watching her sweat. The bastard.

The cell door opened behind her, and a voice spoke in German, informing her that the time was up. Olivia glanced back at the door way. It was a guard, not Lennox. "One more minute, please!" she said in German. "I need the answer now, Astrid!" she told her assistant, ignoring the guards reply.

"I…we…don't have it yet." she replied. "I…I don't think it's working."

The guard continued to speak behind her, his voice growing more insistent, volume rising with every repeated request for her to leave the cell.

Jones stared over her shoulder at the guard. "He seems rather irritated with you." he said mildly.

"Astrid, please." Olivia said, shooting Jones a glare across the table. "I have no time."

"I know…" the junior agent said. "You have to hold on. I'm sorry."

Jones began making tick-tocking, tapping his thumbs together and swaying his head in time to the beat. She had to restrain herself from reaching across the table and beating the smug look off his face. More voices were heard outside the cell, and then footsteps approached from behind. Her time was up. They were going to remove her by force, if it became necessary.

It was going to be necessary. She was determined to stay until the last possible moment. They were going to have to carry her out.

"Astrid, please…" she said as the footsteps stopped behind her chair. "You have to hurry!"

Two pairs of hands grabbed her then, gripping her under the arms and lifting her none-too gently from her chair. Olivia only offered up a token resistance to their man-handling of her, after all, the men were only doing their job.

"Goddamnit, Astrid, I have no time!" she said as they half-dragged, half-shoved her toward the door of the cell. "I need the answer right now, Astrid! Please!"

They reached the door, and Olivia lunged forward suddenly, back into the cell. The unexpected resistance granted herself a few more precious moments as the men lost their hold for a moment. They recovered quickly, grabbing her again and hauling her back, their grips on her arms tighter, digging into her biceps painfully as they jerked her roughly back to toward the door. In the midst of her renewed struggle, she finally heard Astrid's soft voice, barely audible over the scuffle with the guards as they reached the door again.

"Little Hill?"

"Little Hill!" Olivia relayed the reply to Jones with a shout. She ripped free of one of the guards' grip, grabbing the doorframe on her way past and stopping her progress for a moment.

Jones was staring down at his hands and shaking his head sadly, almost as if he were disappointed in her. At her words, he looked up, his face surprised and pleased. "Three parts mebendazole." he said. "Two parts thermophilic hydrolase. A syringe, injected directly into the parasite. Good luck, Ms. Dunham."

Breathing hard from the struggle, Olivia let go of the door frame, allowing the angry guards to usher her out of the cell. Once they were in the corridor outside, she shook them off, straightening her jacket and giving them a look of warning. The men backed off from her glare, and she spun away from them, putting the phone back to her ear.

"Are you there, Olivia? Olivia?" Astrid was saying. "Was that the right answer?"

"Yeah, I'm here. That was it, Astrid…now write this down." Olivia said, marching toward the gated security checkpoint at the other end of the passage. "Three parts mebendazole. Two parts thermophilic hydrolase. Inject with a syringe directly into the parasite." She listened as the other woman repeated the formula, and then gave instructions for her to call back with the results and ended the call.

Lucas was waiting for her on the other side of the checkpoint, seated at one of the chairs, staring down at the floor with his elbows on his knees. He looked up as the gate slid open, and rose to his feet.

"How'd it go?" he said, moving to meet her. "You get what you wanted?"

Olivia snorted softly, tossing her hair back on her shoulders as they moved away from the checkpoint. "Success..." she said. "Jones gave us the information we needed. Now we just have to see if it works." She glanced up and down the corridor. "Where's your friend? I'd like to thank him."

"Use the word, friend, loosely Olivia." Lucas said with a grin as they started toward the elevator. "I thanked him for you. He's still thinking about how I'm going to repay him."

She smiled and glanced up at him. "I want to thank you too, Lucas." she said as they reached elevator lobby. She stopped him with a touch to his coat sleeve. "Without you doing this for me…well, you saved a man's life." Loeb's recovery wasn't quite a sure thing yet, but for some reason she felt certain that Jones's formula would work.

"Eh...it's all in a day's work." he said easily, almost self-mockingly. "C'mon, let's get out of here." He reached for the elevator call button. The doors slid open immediately, and he motioned her inside. "After you, Agent Dunham."

Olivia brushed past him, eager to leave the bleakness of the prison behind.

.

The ride to the airport was dreary, the perfect sunrise she had witnessed on her waking long gone, with the blue sky giving way to thick clouds and pouring rain. The swiping of the windshield wipers created an odd counterpoint to the thwacking of the tires moving over the grooves in the pavement beneath her. There was a rhythm to it, hypnotic almost, though that could have been her exhaustion rearing its head. The few hours of sleep she'd had at the hotel were not cutting it. She intended to sleep the entire flight home.

Lucas shifted on the seat next to her and Olivia glanced over at him, then returned her attention to the view outside. Through the water streaming down the window, she observed the city sliding past them, the other vehicles on the highway, the Main as they crossed over its wide expanse. She saw them all, but didn't really see them.

Her thoughts were inward, racing, organizing the puzzle pieces of the larger mystery, trying see the shape of things, to find a corner she could start with. Sure, they had saved Agent Loeb's life, as Astrid's recent call had informed her, but the purpose of the whole charade, if charade it had been, the why of it, was still as transparent as mud.

David Robert Jones's insinuation that they were being manipulated had rung true to her in the cell with him, and it still did after more contemplation. The questions were still who, though, and why. The obvious choice was Jones himself being the puppeteer, but for what purpose? To get an answer to his question? Surely there were easier ways, and she had almost failed in any case. Why not just have his lawyer, or whoever was serving as his legal representation, contact Joseph Smith directly? And then there was the question itself, and the answer. She assumed they were code words or phrases of some sort, but without any context to go along with them, both were meaningless.

Maybe he just really wanted to meet you, Olivia said to herself, irritated at her failure to comprehend any of it. That idea was joke. She'd never even heard of the man before the case, and saw no reason why he could have any interest in her as person. There was nothing special about her.

The wide structures of the Frankfurt Airport appeared on the horizon, and she watched them draw closer, chewing on her lower lip. Something else Jones had said ate away at her, creating doubts and second guesses in the back of her mind. Was he referring to John when he'd been talking about loyalty? Or was referring to someone else? Another mole? Maybe he was just fucking with her.

"What's on your mind, Olivia?" Lucas said suddenly from beside her. "I know that look, I've seen you do crossword puzzles."

Olivia smiled and glanced over at him, choosing her words carefully. "When I was in there with Jones, he asked me a question about loyalty." she said, looking back out the window. "And there was…something about the way he said it…it felt like he knew something."

"Like what?"

Turning to face him, she shook her head slowly. "Something about my partner betraying the Bureau...I don't know." She shrugged and then relaxed back in her seat, too exhausted to think about it anymore. "Maybe he was just messing with me." she said.

Lucas was silent for a moment. "You know…" he started, "I have other means of gathering information about Mr. Jones, if you'd like me to use them." She looked over at him, her eyes narrowing on his. "Just say yes, Olivia. It'll give me an excuse to call you again."

Olivia flashed him a smile, but took a moment to reply. "I…I'll let you know…" she said, breaking the eye contact. "I...can't make any promises, Lucas. Technically, Jones isn't even a suspect on any of the cases I'm working. If that changes…" She let the words hang there, let him make with them what he would. They were not the words he wanted to hear, but they were all she could give him.

They were at the airport minutes later, the driver pulling the car up to the curb in front of the departures entrance. The tinted glass doors were calling out to her. She was a bit surprised at how much she missed Boston, even though she'd been gone less than twenty-four hours. What all had she missed back at the lab? She pushed open her door and climbed out of the car.

Lucas went to grab her baggage from the trunk, and she met him at the rear of the car, pulling the suitcase handle gently, but firmly from his grasp. She would be making the last leg of the journey alone. He stared down at the suitcase, his face glum as the realization of what her relieving him of it meant. There was a deep-rooted sadness in his eyes, a loneliness that was eating away at him, but she couldn't acknowledge it, had no words to ease it.

They had taken different paths. Their lives had intersected twice now…maybe they would a third time, maybe they wouldn't. She didn't know. There was no way to predict the future, or at least no way Walter had ever told her of. It was time to say goodbye.

Stepping close to him, she pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, barely brushing up against his skin. "Thank you, Lucas." she whispered against him, and then pulled away, stepping back from him. "For everything." She looked back at the entrance longingly, and tilted her head in its direction. "I have to go now."

Lucas nodded, the muscles of his cheek quivering with whatever emotion he was holding at bay. He swallowed and then looked up at her. "I...I'll see you around Olivia." he grinned, summoning up a false bravado that never reached above nose. "Who knows, maybe I'll send you another card."

"Yeah…I'd like that." Olivia said, taking a step back from him. "Goodbye, Lucas."

Without waiting for a reply, she turned and walked quickly to the entrance, pulling the suitcase behind her. In the glass door's tinted reflection, she could see him watching her departure, could see the sag of his shoulders as the bravado fell away and only his loneliness remained.

She pulled open the door, shifting the reflection to different view.

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Hurrying through Boston General's main entrance, Olivia looked around for any of the others. The main lobby was busy with patients and families, but not with anyone she recognized, and she gingerly made her way through the crowd to the information desk, where she gave the graying woman behind the desk Loeb's name and received his room number on the third floor in return.

According to Broyles, whom she'd spoken with on the flight, Loeb had stayed at the lab for several more hours under Walter's watchful eye before he allowed the agent to be transferred back to the hospital for surgery.

Stepping off the elevator, her stomach growled loudly as she followed the room number signs toward Loeb's room. Agent Broyles stepped out of the room ahead of her as she approached, and started down the corridor away from her.

"Sir!" she called, getting his attention. He stopped, and turned back to her, a hint of surprise crossing his normally expressionless face. "How is he? Is he awake?" she said, nodding toward the room he'd just left.

"He's good, just woke up." Broyles replied, glancing through the open door. Olivia followed his gaze, and saw Samantha Loeb, standing next to the bed, leaning over her husband. "The doctor here removed that…thing from his chest. Walter made sure he saved it for him."

Olivia grinned, picturing that awkward conversation. "I'll bet he did." she said. "But what about answers?" she asked. "The question Jones asked Smith. And the response he got, little hill? What does that even mean?" She shook her head, feeling the same frustration she'd felt on the ride back to the airport with Lucas. "We know that Agent Loeb was infected, but we don't know by whom, or why. Jones says it wasn't him…we don't know anything."

"You have a problem, Agent Dunham." Broyles said, stepping in close, his voice low. "You're not easily satisfied. You want everything, and you want it now. In your mind, somehow a small victory is no victory at all." He paused, studying her face, and then went on. "What you did was save a man's life, but that doesn't land for you."

"Sir, I didn't-" she started, trying get to a word in her defense in edgewise.

"I would tell you to snap the hell out of it." he said. "To stop whining about what you can't know, can't control, can't change. I would tell you to get some sleep while you can, because tomorrow, we'll do this all over again, and guess what, you'll have a million new answers and a million and one new questions..."

There was a pause then, and Olivia looked away, feeling her face growing red under his diatribe. Was he angry at her? For what?

"I would tell you those things…" Broyles continued. "But I won't, because your dissatisfaction…is what makes you so damn good. Someone I'm proud to say I work with." He flashed her smile, a real smile, which she ever only seen once, maybe twice before. It lasted only a moment before disappearing as if it had never been.

Feeling foolish, she glanced up at him contritely. "Thank you, sir."

"Now go get some sleep while you can." he said, the beginnings of another smile forming on his lips for an instant. "I'll be expecting you at the office tomorrow."

Olivia nodded, and he hurried away from her, heading back in the direction of the elevators. As he neared the turn in the corridor, Peter Bishop strolled around the corner, arms swing freely by his side. He nodded at their superior as they passed each other, then catching sight of her a moment later, grinned broadly, his eyes lighting up as he approached.

Olivia let her gaze roam up and down him as he drew near, taking in his appearance, still in his baggy pants and untucked shirt and hoodie. He looked tired, with dark rings under his eyes, and her breath caught at the sight of several welts on his forehead just below his hair line. She recognized them, knew them very well from her own experiences in Walter's lab. Still, he appeared no worse for wear, and that was what mattered.

"Hey." he said, crossing over to her. "How you feeling?"

"I should be asking you that, Peter." she said, finding his grin contagious. "Good job today...or I guess it was last night. I'm still a bit out of sorts, time-wise."

"Thank you." he said, shrugging modestly. "You too."

"Hey, you hungry?" she asked, the idea coming to her suddenly, most likely spurred by the earlier growling from her stomach. She hadn't eaten anything since grabbing a bagel from the Frankfurt Airport before her flight. That she wanted to catch up with all that she missed, including the procedure he'd endured, was just an added bonus.

Peter hesitated, then shook his head. "...After everything I saw today…no, not at all." Olivia smiled uncomfortably and looked down, heat suffusing her cheeks. It hadn't occurred to her that he might refuse. "But I am thirsty." he said, smiling wide again. "Really, really, thirsty."

"Huh...me too." Olivia chuckled. She could work with drinks. Fries would be available.

He grinned, and then nodded over her shoulder. "Hey...look at that." he said. His voice had an odd quality to it that she'd never heard before.

Curious, she followed his gaze, turning to the open door behind her. Samantha Loeb was seated in chair next to her husband's bed, running a hand over his shoulder in a loving manner. It was a tender moment, and Peter's acknowledgment of it surprised her. She'd always thought him a rather cynical man...maybe she'd been underestimated him.

"Yeah, look at that." she said, catching Peter's eye, and then brushing past him toward the elevators. Talking to Loeb about the case he'd been working, about Jones, could wait until later.

"Hey...hold up..." Peter said, hurrying after her. "Where are you going?"

Olivia slowed her pace, allowing him to catch up. "I'm gonna go have a drink, and maybe some fries." she said, and then gave him sideways glance. "You coming too?"

Smiling like the Chesire cat, he nodded. "I like your style, Dunham." he said, giving her nudge with his elbow. "You got a place in mind?"

"Of course."

"Excellent." Peter said "You want me to drive?"

"Are you driving the wagon?" she asked, stepping to the side for a tech pushing an empty patient bed.

"Uh huh."

"Then no." she said, smiling sweetly. "I'll be doing the driving."

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Hi there. :)

This is the end of 1x07. Hopefully it was interesting to read and not too long and plodding. The next chapter will take place directly after this one...

Thanks for reading and have a nice day! :D