A/N: More underground.

Burying Dirt

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Crematory

Closer.

Moved closer to the family photo. Sarah.

Rapt.

Ellie and Chuck, both young, Mary, Frost, and Stephen, young parents. Stared at Chuck, recognizing the man in the boy, vice-versa.

But: stared at Mary, back to Mary. Fixated. Frost. Assassin, woman, wife, mother.

Ellie looked like her. Chuck too.

But: assassin, woman, wife, mother, Frost...

Ice Queen, assassin, woman...

Chuck and Ellie and Devon and Carina searching the desks, the dressers, the bed. No bookshelf.

Nothing found.

Sarah fixed in place, still.

Ellie's hand on her shoulder. "Have you not seen Mom before?"

"No, never. No photos. Nothing. Just talk. Whispers. Beautiful. Normal. She looks normal."

Ellie leaned toward the photograph, studied it. "She was. And she wasn't. There was something about her. Not a hardness, not a coldness, they were there, available, but never toward us. It was something else, a depth, a feeling of...depths.

"Her...waters...ran deep. And strong — undercurrents under undercurrents. She loved us, I've never doubted that, not really, not even at the times, after they left, when anger and despair made me hate her. She didn't love superficially. Lightly. She was all-in." Ellie paused, her fingers glancing lovingly against the glass as if touching her mother in touching the photograph.

"She loved my dad. Devotedly. I...I have a better sense of that, now: she needed him.

"Not because she was a woman and he was a man, and a woman needs a man to complete her…" Ellie made a disgusted face, waving that nonsense away with her hand, "...but because she was the woman she was, that particular woman, that particular person, with the...history she had.

"And because he was the man he was, that particular man, that particular person, because he loved her the way he did. He needed her too, needed her love and needed to love her. He did."

Ellie frowned and reached up and carefully took the photograph down. Held it in front of her, 90-degree angle.

"I don't know how to explain it. I don't know if they could. But it was real. Other people could see it, feel it between them. A mystery." Another shrug as she turned from the wall. Ellie, tilted head, faced Sarah, photograph in hand. Thoughtful. Studied the photograph again.

The lights flickered. Flickered. Then stabilized.

Blinking, shaking her head, reverie finished, Ellie waved the photograph at Sarah, a request, and Sarah turned, understanding. Ellie slid the photograph into Sarah's backpack, the empty laptop pocket.

Looked at the others, Sarah did, and Ellie zipped her up. "Find anything?"

"No," Carina answered. "Just the photographs. I guess they were expected to burn, — the photographs, I mean." Carina frowned. At herself. Her phrasing. Immediate covering smirk.

Sarah took Chuck's hand. Quick squeeze, quick squeeze back. Like pinching herself: real, he's real. "Alright. Let's check the door at the end of the hall, then we need to go back up. We can stop in the lab and check that door we passed while Ellie takes her notes."

Door — end of the hallway — showers, bathroom. Empty. Slow, echoing drip of water, rusty showerhead, moldy stain on the tile where it dripped, years of dripping.

Return.

Climbed below flickering lights

Up.

ooOoo

Back to the lab.

Carina fished a small notebook out of her backpack's side pocket and gave it to Ellie. Small, miniature-golf score-card pencil. Ellie with Devon, noting names on vials, test tubes. Making note of machines and devices. More whispering, writing.

"Stay with them, Carina. Watch. Chuck and I will check the side door."

Unlocked too.

Short hallway ending in stairs climbing. Up. Door to the left. It too unlocked. Another short hallway, then a large table, larger room. Plates and glasses and silverware on the table. All clean. Enough seating for eight. Shelves on the walls. Extra plates, glasses, cups. Containers of silverware. Condiments.

As if dinner were about to be served, cooking done.

Closer. Dust on the table's plates. The table. The shelved extras. A TV hanging on the wall. Speakers in the corners. Dark screen, silent speakers.

Door out of the dining room. Through it, the kitchen. More dripping water, faucet. Canned goods. Large, commercial refrigerator. Empty. Commercial dishwasher, full, clean dishes. Pots, pans, ladles. Gadgets.

Flicker.

Sarah took the moment. Pulled Chuck to her. "Are you okay, Chuck? The photographs?"

He nodded, tight smile. "Yes, I mean, it's a lot, but I'll sort it when we're above ground. I just hoped we would find something. Don't want to be here on a wasted errand. It's like a furnished tomb."

Sarah gave him a quick kiss. "I know. I don't want to be here either." The dark, the flickering lights. Too much a reminder of her CIA life, the assassin. The assassin's sun a flickering light, darkness her natural environment. Hand on Chuck's cheek, cupped his jaw. "I love you, Chuck. You believe that, right? That I do, that I...can...love you."

He kissed her back. "Yes, Sarah, I do. And, I do you too. You believe that?"

Sarah took a second. "I do. You weren't alone in that bed. C'mon, let's climb those stairs."

To the stairs. Ellie, Devon, Carina out of the lab, standing in the hallway, foot of the stairs. Ellie scribbling in the notebook.

Carina trying to get Morgan to answer the walkie-talkie. No answer. Buzz and static. Shook it in frustration. Buzz. Static.

"Morgan? Morgan? Shit. Damn things. What was in there?" Pointed to the door with her shoulder.

"Dining room. Kitchen. Nothing of interest." Chuck shrugged his answer.

"Let's go up." Sarah started up the stairs.

"Sarah?" Ellie's voice rose, squeaked a little. Everyone stopped.

"What?"

"On the floor. Blood, I think. Old but drops of blood." Brown spots on the rough concrete. Carina knelt, scratched a spot. Sniffed it. "Not sure, but I think she's right."

Grip tightened on the gun. Looked at the floor.

To the top. A heavy door, metal. Once more, open.

Chuck held it open. Everyone entered.

It was a large room with a number of stretchers in it, piled off to one side. In the wall opposite was a large, circular metal door. Around it gauges and handles. Prominent temperature gauge.

Below the door was a metal table on wheels.

Ellie spoke. "Oh, no."

"Ellie?"

"Sarah, that's a crematory. Crematorium, you know…" As if possessed, Ellie walked to the door and pulled the metal handle. It swung back with a long, low squeak. Inside, dark, a musty, unidentifiable odor. Not pleasant. Faint reminder, burned hair.

Ellie turned on her flashlight. The light shone in. A metal mesh platform a few inches above the solid metal bottom. Ash and debris thick beneath the mesh, like the build-up in the bottom of a grill, extinguished coals.

Devon joined Ellie. "Yeah, El, you're right." He reached inside, arm between the mesh platform and the floor. Came out with a fistful of dust, ash.

Opened his hand. "Not awesome. Not, not awesome."

"What is it, Devon?"

"Bone, human bone, I'm almost sure. They were burning folks here, bodies here." Flicker.

Ellie stepped closer. "Hey, what's that?" She shined the light in again but angled it to the far end of the mesh platform.

Devon looked. "Books?"

He leaned inside, pulled himself up, stretched. A moment later, out, his shirt ashy. In his hands were two notebooks and a small manilla envelope. The notebooks were black, each held closed with an elastic band. Handed the books to Ellie after she put her flashlight down.

Looked at the envelope.

Devon read. "CIA Mission Log: Mary Bartowski." Glanced up at Sarah. "What is this?"

"Sometimes agents keep a log. Some do it by video instead of writing. I'm guessing it's video." Devon handed it to Sarah.

Ellie spoke, notebooks open, one on top of another. Turning pages. "These notebooks. One is Dad's. The other belonged to the woman, that woman, the one who joined Omaha. Notes on the drugs…" Ellie flipped pages. "The ones we saw…" She looked up at Devon. "A soup of scopolamine, triple Amytal, other things. Molding and remolding the lobus occipitalis. Injections at the base of the skull."

She shut the notebook. Opened the other. More flipping. Pages. "She showed up, the woman...Dad and Mom resisted...Forced, somehow...Fights, arguments...Jesus, what a mess. Patients, 'volunteers', dying, going crazy...A guard...a guard?...killed by a patient. Dead patients cremated here, the guard too…"

She shut the book and her eyes, tears trailing. "Mom. Dad. What did you do?"

Ellie fell against Devon. Chuck took the notebooks, turned Carina around, and put them in her backpack. "We found what we came for, although maybe we'll wish we hadn't."

"Nothing else in there, Devon?"

Shook his head. "Nothing else. Should we take some of...the ash?"

Sarah took the disc out of the envelope. Handed the envelope to Devon, slipped the disc in the side pocket her backpack.

Devon reached in the crematory and scooped ash into the envelope, then closed it, making a face.

"Got it."

"Why are these things here? The notebooks, the log? In the crematory?" Carina.

Chuck answered. "Maybe because they wouldn't burn? Even if the rest of the place did, that…" he nodded toward the crematory, '...that is designed to withstand massive heat, contain massive heat."

The lights flickered. Went out.

Total darkness. Total. All around them, alive, malignant. Swallowed them.

Gasps. Flashlights, gun lights, on. "Maybe they'll come back on. But let's not wait. Follow me."

Sarah led them.

Up.

ooOoo

Up.

Top of the stairs.

Lights flickered on. Sudden. In the light, there, five armed men. Guns out, spread around the room. Two by the opposite door stepped aside.

Deep voice from the antechamber, approaching. "Agent Walker, you have led me on quite a chase. But it is about to end. You and Agent Miller. Put your guns down."

Langston Graham.

Tall. Grey suit. Not-nice smile, victor's smile, rubbing his hands together.

A/N: Tune in next time for Chapter Twenty-Nine, "Facts of Hard Record". Heading toward the end of our little experiment. Thoughts?