On the Ninth Day of Christmas, my I-Man gave to me...
Alex let out an unconscious groan as she rolled over onto her injured side. Thankfully, it was enough of a shock to wake her from the disturbing images that haunted her dreams. Blinking furiously to push back tears and sleep, she carefully twisted back to her original position, loosening the tight pressure on her side. Looking around, it took a moment for her to remember where she was. A glance at the clock told her she'd only slept an hour admist the hours of restless turning, but when she closed her eyes to return to her nightmares, she knew it wasn't going to happen.
With a tired yawn, Alex pushed back the covers of the warm bed and grabbing a nearby sweater slowly made her way out into the hall. It felt as cold and quiet as a morgue. A reminiscent shadow of her dream. With a small shudder, she quickly headed downstairs. There was still an hour before dawn, but there was no sense in disturbing anyone else from their much needed sleep.
If she's been expecting someone else was up she might have not been so startled at the sight that greeted her when she stepped into kitchen. "Darien!"
He stood staring at her like a deer caught in the headlights. Half eaten and still raised to his mouth was an oatmeal cookie, another five clutched tight enough in his other hands that they were beginning to crumble. After a moment he began chewing again, quickly consuming the sugary morsels.
Alex shook her head trying to figure out how he got downstairs, Rachel was supposed to be watching him and he was supposed to be sleeping. She flipped on the light, intent on leading the wayward man back to his bed, but then she noticed the table, covered to its edges with scientific objects, and the Keeper, who's head was half nestled in her arms as she slept half on her work.
"Claire. Keeper!" Alex called, and Claire woke with a start, her pencil falling with a clatter back to the table as she jerked up. "Claire, you alright?" Alex asked, only the slightest trace of concern showing through her gruff voice. She way too tired for this.
"What? Yes." Claire answered drowsily, then asked confused, "What's Darien doing down here? He's supposed to be sleeping."
"So are you," Alex reminded her and stepping forward tugged on Darien's arm to lead him back upstairs, but to her surprised he jerked back. Alarm flashed across his face, but it returned to normal in the next second as he turned away, walking behind the counter to the fridge. He pulled it open scanning the contents with uninterested eyes, then aimlessly began walking about as he proceeded to take every lid off every jar in sight.
The Keeper was on her feet in an instant, motioning to Alex to stray in the doorway in case Darien tried leaving. Claire carefully approached the man who for all appearances was quite consumed with the breadless toaster and completely ignored any other occupant in the room. "Darien?" She questioned softly.
Darien didn't look up but continued pushing and lifting the lever on the toaster. "Keeper," he responded absently as if it were a perfectly good answer to her question.
"Darien, do you know where you are?" The Keeper asked carefully.
At last Darien turned, his hands attracted by something else, as he answered, "Hobbes' sister's." He opened the cupboard and almost methodically began taking everything out, placing the objects on the counter, sometimes looking at something with a bit deeper curiosity.
Stepping up to the counter, Claire tried to reach out to him, "Darien?" but he instinctually backed away from her hand, then just moved to a different cupboard a bit further away.
"What's wrong with him Claire?" Alex demanded, truly worried now. Compared to the blank eyed stair routine yesterday he was far more animate, but seeing him like this, she wasn't sure which was worse.
"Well, I was able to run some tests with what I have here, I can't be sure of coarse, but I think the drug is running its coarse. I think it's designed to prohibit emotion, similar to the way a build up of quicksilver prohibits the higher brain functions, only this is in a completely different area of the brain, and there's a few flaws in the design, obviously. I don't think it suppressed any emotions at all, I think he just can't release them, and right now as the drug is wearing thin his mind's a mess of information that he can't quite fully process."
"Which means what?"
"I means," Rachel said coming up behind Alex. "That he's going to be nothing but a menace!" She frowned as she looked in at her disheveled kitchen. Darien was quickly running out of things to take out of the cupboards, cans and boxes covered the counter and the pots and pans were piled high on the stove.
"Well, yes, that might be one of the side effects." Claire replied ruefully, also frowning.
"Will there be any permanent damage?" Alex questioned.
Claire slowly shook her head. "I don't think so. But to be safe I'll have to wait till it completely runs its coarse before I give him his shot."
"Shot?" Rachel asked, suspicion coloring her voice. "For what, the gland?" But she didn't get an answer as Darien began idly turning the knobs on the stove.
"Darien!" Alex complained, jumping forward to push him away and turn them back before they could start a fire. Darien had instantly jerked away from her touch, and with her still so close he stood as if unable to move further, his body shaking from something other than the cold.
With a growl of frustration, Alex emphatically stated. "It's me Fawkes, Alex."
"Alex," he repeated, his breathing easing a bit and the shaking subsiding as he added, "Monroe."
Claire came up beside him, asking quietly, "Do you know who I am?"
Darien looked at her. "Claire. Keeper. The." He looked over at Rachel. "Rachel. Hobbes." Then he looked around him at the cans and started naming then by contents. "Green beans, chili, apricot halves..."
Alex felt her exhaustion creep in that much further. She asked, "How long is this going to last?"
"Who knows," Claire responded more intent in watching her kept as he moved past them, now naming everything in sight, but in Latin. She had no idea he knew Latin. The Keeper shook her head trying to clear the sleep away. "At most a day, the drug should be out of his system by then."
"Great," Rachel grumbled from the doorway.
The rest of then didn't get any more sleep as they spent their time just trying to keep their charge out of trouble. At least he wasn't reacting to their touch any more, but neither was he willing to sit still, even when they occupied his hands with various objects. Rachel had offered to tie him down, but Claire was adamant in her protest and the idea was quickly dropped.
Not long after, a steady trail of snow began to fall, the flakes growing heavier and the ground thicker with the cold white substance as the day dawned. There wasn't enough wind to declare it a blizzard, but the sheer amount of snow falling would makes things that much harder.
None of them wanted to venture out into the winter wonderland, but the Agency members were worried about their missing coworker and Rachel was growing ever persistent that they go brake her brother out.
"I still think we should leave him," Rachel stated referring to Darien. Between the three of them they had almost managed to get Darien dressed in suitable outside clothes. She deftly tied his boot, and slapped at his hand as it reached for the laces.
"No." Darien protested, reaching for the laces once again, but suddenly found his hands filled as Alex deposited a nearby umbrella in them. It worked to hold his attention long enough for Rachel to tie the other boot, but knocked both women back as he opened the umbrella in their faces, throwing himself off balance as well.
Claire was behind him and firmly took the umbrella away. He made sounds of protest, but his attention was once again diverted and with nimble fingers he'd undone Alex's boots. "We can't leave him alone, and I don't trust anyone else," Claire stated with perhaps a bit more force than necessary.
Alex grunted, leaning over to retire her boot for the third time that morning. "Is he going to remember any of this later? Because I'm seriously thinking of knocking him out."
"Alex! You can't-" Claire began angrily, but Rachel suddenly waived them all quiet.
"What was that?"
Monroe, still annoyed from the shoelaces was about to tell the girl she was as paranoid as her brother, but then she heard it too. A soft noise at the side of the house. They all sat frozen, listening for something more to tell them if it was just an animal or something else. All, except that is, for Darien. Oblivious to the need for silence, he pulled himself to his feet and headed directly for the door.
"Wait! Darien!" The three females hissed reaching out to pull him back but he was a second quicker and had the door open before they could stop him. Between the falling clumps of snow, they could see the shadows of men ahead of them, and the sound of a couple bullets rang out to greet them. All three females instinctually dove aside for cover, but Darien just continued walking out into the snow.
"Dame it!" Alex bit out, pulling out her gun as she ran outside after him, shooting blindly towards the shadows to force them back. She could see Darien walking to the edge of the clearing, he'd disappear inside the trees in a few more seconds. She sprinted to catch up but her attention had been so focused on keeping track of Darien that she hadn't noticed the bits of snow freezing to the air in front of her till she ran right into it. An invisible fist connected with her jaw, the sudden force knocking her back onto the growing bank of snow.
Monroe blinked back the sting of tears, and looked up, but through her cloudy vision it was harder to make out exactly where Arnaud was. Then, suddenly, he let out an angry cry when two balls of snow struck him chest and head, marking his spot as well as momentarily blinding him. Alex looked quickly behind her at Claire and Rachel even as they threw another two balls of the hard packed white stuff, forcing the Swiss-German to curse and stumble off balanced.
In the next instant gunfire opened up around them and Claire and Rachel were forced to back around the corner. Alex fried most of what was left of her clip into the forest where she knew the Chrysali were hidden and kicked up at the figure she could now see.
Arnaud grunted with pain and fell heavily into the snow, indenting it with his body. Alex was on him the next instant. They didn't have the firepower to take on all of them, but if she could kill Arnaud for Fawkes, she would.
More gunfire distracted her, and Arnaud pushed her off, scrambling to his feet, but before he could get too far, Rachel had come from behind the other corner of the house and tackled him to the ground again. "Damn he's cold!" She bit out but punched at the place where his head should be and was gratified as the invisible body in her hands slumped to unconsciousness.
A bit confused, Alex rolled to her feet. Her face screamed bloody murder and she rose a hand to determine exactly why, but Claire pushed it back down again, joining them. "Stop that," The woman easily chastised, then took Alex's chin in her hand turning it this way and that like someone might with a child, to see if there was any damage to the frostbitten areas.
Annoyed, Alex mumbled, "What happened?" They could still hear the exchange of gunfire, but it was all on the other side of the house and after a few more minutes finally broke off.
"Sounds like back up arrived," The Keeper replied, then told her, "Nothing's damaged, don't touch it!"
Alex was quick to comply but looking around at the silent forest regretfully told them, "Darien's gone. Who knows where he'll head in his state."
"We need to find Darien."
"No." They both looked sharply at Rachel. She was kneeling in the snow, staring at Arnaud as he slowly appeared in the form of freezing snow crystals. "I don't care what you do, but the QFM want one of these glands, right? Then I'm giving them a gland." She looked up at them, her eyes fueled with anger. "I'm getting my brother back!"
Just then someone came around the corner, but Alex quickly recognized the face and lowered her gun. "Jake, who's with you?"
"Ah, Jack, Jeff, Jim, and ah...well, Jed's coming," He replied, eyes widening slightly as he realized there was an invisible person under the forming snowman on the ground.
"That's it?" Alex complained, but Claire quickly questioned, "What about Chrysalis?"
Jake shook his head, "They retreated, but I doubt they'll stay gone for long."
The woman quickly agreed and commissioning Jake's help carried their invisible prisoner to meet with the others.
The personal the Agency sent were younger than Alex would have liked, but they seemed to handle themselves well enough. Claire had wanted to go after Fawkes now before he got too far, but it already seemed like an underestimated task and Rachel wouldn't be swayed into waiting any longer. They settled on sending just one agent to try and follow the slim trail.
"Well, if we wait for Jed, he's got..." Jeff trailed off as a black van pulled into the driveway. A substantial amount of barking was coming with within.
"What the hell?" Alex asked, walking up to the side door as it parked.
Jed was stepping out from the driver's side a look of alarm on his face as he saw Monroe reach for the handle. "No, wait!" But it was already too late, and as the door cracked open, it suddenly slid the entire way and a pile of loose dogs of various sizes came pouring out. Nine of them in total, all excitedly barking over each other and racing around in circles as their feet.
"What is this?!" She didn't really get an answer as the dogs bound around excitedly trying to jump on people till quite suddenly they took off into the trees like a herd of deer. They could hear the echoes of the dogs' barking for several minutes, the whole time getting further and further away.
Joe had tried calling the dogs back, but none of them came, and Claire looked at the forlorn agent saying drolly, "Let me guess. The Official's definition of back up?"
"Well, they're not fully trained yet," Jed told her ruefully.
Thirty minutes later, Arnaud was awake and in a slight panic as Rachel pinned him inside the telephone booth at the FQM meet spot. "You will dial the number and we will talk to them," Rachel stated, emphasizing each 'will' by further pressing the gun against Arnaud's invisible head.
"You're crazy!" Arnaud bit out. They'd put a coat on him and right now, Rachel was using it to hold him against the inside wall tight enough that he could feel the air literally being pushed out of him. The snow still crystallized to him was quickly flaking off in his struggles to be free of her. She didn't care and just pressed harder, then kneed him hard in the stomach.
"Ya, so?" Rachel growled out, then repeated. "Put in the code."
Arnaud murmured something unintelligible, but a moment later, the buttons on the phone depressed.
Alex watched from outside with some admiration, reminded once again of the passion she'd seen in Hobbes on the rare occasions, usually while being protective of Claire for some reason or another.
"We should have stayed to look for Darien," Claire suddenly said from beside her. Alex looked at her, feeling not so different. Claire glanced over at the woman in guilt and sighed, answering herself. "But Rachel would get herself killed on her own. And Bobby..."
"They're both important," Alex stated, fully understanding Claire's internal argument. Then added for both their sakes, "I'm sure Darien couldn't have traveled far, there's a chance Jeff might find him before we get back."
"A chance," Claire murmured, her eyes scanning the surrounding edges as if miraculously their missing companions would show. She frowned. Alex turned to follow her gaze, wondering if the five Chrysali might have tracked them here. Off to the side within the trees were seven pairs of beady black eyes watching them. It was the stupid pigeons, she realized with a start. Those same pigeons that had follow her and Bobby, she'd swear it!
"Alex," Claire murmured, surprise lighting her voice.
"Ya?"
"Those pigeons. They all have the exact same coloring on them."
Alex had to suppress her shiver. Claire was right. She didn't know why she hadn't noticed it before. Frowning with suspicion, she picked up a rock and tossed it at the offending poultry. They scattered instantly, but settled not so far away, just simply a little more out of projectile range.
Hobbes had his arms hugged tightly around himself for warmth. It had gotten a lot colder out and the falling snow was a deluge of wetness that stuck to anything and everything.
Rena glanced at him and politely inquired if he wanted to go back inside, but Hobbes shook his head. "It's not that cold." Then he quickly suppressed the shiver. He really shouldn't be this cold, he realized, but put it off, telling himself stubbornly that it'd pass. Rena frowned in concern but didn't say anything and continued the tour.
When they'd offered to show him around the compound to give him a chance to stretch his legs, Bobby had jumped at the chance. Not only was he tired of the confines of his room, but he wanted to get a layout of the place and hopefully pick up more information. He almost shuddered again, but not from the cold. Last night had been 'too' much information! Still, he had managed to sort a bit of it out from their jumbled science jargon.
Most of the layout had been easy to memorize. It'd been set up quite logically in fact, not something you find every day. The court where they were now was bordered by a stone wall, the outside of which was layered with grounding and trees to make it look like the compound was quite literally part of the surrounding mountain while providing cover from the ferocity of nature. Beyond that, Bobby knew was the perimeter, the real security, but it was deftly hidden within the trees so you wouldn't expect it till you'd stumbled across it, if you made it that far. He hoped coming from inside the compound would give him the slight edge of surprise, he's find out soon enough. He didn't plan to stay here much longer.
Rena was explaining some of the surrounding foliage to a patiently listening Hobbes when Pierre came running up. "Rena." He stated, then motioned to the two watching guards with a nod of his head to indicate the tour was over and Hobbes was to be escorted back to his room.
"What's going on?" Bobby immediately questioned, easily sensing the tension and excitement in Pierre's voice.
The Frenchman gave Hobbes a sidelong look then changed his mind and motioned now for Hobbes and Rena to both follow him. "Our scopes have picked up something interesting, and there's a woman on the phone who claims she has a gland for trade. She wants to trade it for you," He said nodding briefly to Hobbes.
The small hairs on the back of Hobbes' neck rose in alarm. Yet the information Pierre just gave didn't quite make sense, at least not until Hobbes got a good look of who was on their monitors. "Rachel!" He said in surprise before he realized it. She looked severely pissed off, and was holding a gun looking more than ready to use it. That was something Bobby had never thought he'd ever see again.
"Ah...your sister!" Pointy Nose stated grinning from the revelation.
Regrettably, Pierre had led them into the main lab where the eight scientists were conversing quite excitedly around the monitors. There were several monitors, all showing slightly different pictures, the screens flickering slightly, and the view shifting from time to time, sometimes more swiftly and at radical angles than Hobbes thought possible for a camera to move.
"But your partner's-" Baldy began.
"No where in sight, how amusing," Red Beard finished.
"Of coarse not!" Hobbes exclaimed, to think his sister would trade Fawkes for him...while, maybe not so unrealistic a thought, but he'd never do it, and she knew that. Hobbes just hoped whereever Fawkes was that he was safe. Bobby motioned to the frame that showed the telephone booth the clearest. "She's talking about Arnaud, he's in the jacket, ya know?"
All 10 Canadian's leaned in staring at the screen in amazement as if they'd put serious thought towards Rachel threatening a jacket and only just now thought there was someone in it. Bobby frowned even more confused by these people, they were after the gland, were they not? Then Lazy Eye suddenly exclaimed, "Invisibility! I was right!"
"But all our tests proved otherwise," Large Ears murmured, then eerily all eight scientists laughed.
"I'd suppose it'd have to produce a type of liquid-" Button Nose began still chuckling.
"Yes, something to coat the person-"
"And bend the light around them-"
"Can probably coat other objects as well," Beady Eyes added and once again the scientists laughed with a hearty nature.
Bobby Hobbes shivered, then demanded irrationally, "You mean you guys didn't even know?! What the Hell did you want the gland for then?"
They looked at him in surprised, a small frown appearing on Thin Lips' face as he said, "We explained it yesterday, weren't you listening?" All the scientists suddenly looked like overgrown children as they inherited small looks of injured pride.
Hobbes squired, visibly flinching, and with a look of pain hesitantly replied, "Explain it again...please?"
Like the flip of a coin they were more then willing to oblige, but to Hobbes' great relief Pierre raised a hand forestalling them and explained it himself. "The little information we had on the gland suggested that it had more to do with brain activity. Apparently we were wrong, but in any case, They've discovered that the properties in the make up of the gland allowed for certain, control, in multi-tasking and an output of brain activity that could be picked up by radio wave."
There was a small pause as Bobby sorted that out, it still didn't make much sense, yet every time one of the scientists opened his mouth to say something Pierre would just raise a hand and continued on. "That combined with the limited cloning technology we've improved on, we found a way to combine the two. The pigeons for example, are cloned, but without the gland makeup we inserted in them would just be as good as a corpse, the original pigeon now controls the rest and we can read it's brain activities in such a way to produce an image. They're the perfect spies."
This time Pointy Nose did interrupt, an excited gleam in his eyes. "It's far from perfect, but we've already got the clones in status for the new subject-"
"They should be ready by noon tomorrow-"
"But they'll be no good if we can't link to the subject at that point-"
"Still, with a real gland, the biosynthetic material should take as if it's-"
"Part of itself, yes, yes-"
This time Bobby interrupted, angrily stating, "You're talking about Fawkes aren't you!"
They seemed hesitant to answer, but Rena caught all of their attentions saying quietly, "Looks like a fight's breaking out." On the screens, a few of the angles, the pigeons, drastically moved, but settled down again, and they could see the fire fight that broke out around the telephone booth. Bobby tensed, worried as he watched his sister struggle with her captive in the surprise of the moment. Watched as Arnaud succeeded in getting away, the five Chrysali showering the Agency people with bullets, providing the Swiss Bastard cover. But he didn't bother holding back the small sigh of relief as he watched Rachel skid back to the others, safely finding cover. Then he almost grinned as he spotted Claire among the Agency ranks but frowned instead.
Rena didn't help the situation as she made the comment, "Agent Fawkes doesn't seem to be among either party. I think they lost him."
Darien stared numbly at his hands. His head throbbed with one of the worst headaches he'd ever had, it was ten times worse than any hangover and marginally as bad as the QSM attacks, except those only lasted a few minutes. This wasn't giving any indication of fading any time soon.
He was sitting on a snow-covered log with his sore head resting in his hands and his elbows propped on his knees. Around him the heavily falling snow was quickly adding inches of the insidious substance to the ground, effectively covering any traces of where he might have come from. Darien looked up and around the white-coated forest with chilled and dry eyes, a lost expression on his face. "How on Earth did I get here?" He mumbled softly. He tried to remember, vague memories surfacing, but it hurt to try and make any sense of them.
He was in that state, perfectly content to let himself just sit and freeze there when the sharp sounds of barking pierced his eardrums, driving the headache home. Groaning, his frozen hands moved to cover his defenseless ears, vainly wishing the noise would stop. Unfortunately, it only got closer.
Squinting, he peered forebodingly in the direction the sharp barking was coming from. A minute later dogs piled out of the trees to crowd around him, a couple howling in their joy of a successful find. Darien felt like he was going to die and wished the dogs would just hurry it up and kill him already.
Yet, if he'd been able to think straight he would have realized that none of the canines were growling at him as he expected, in fact they seemed quite happy. All Darien could register was the pain all their barking was causing and realizing they weren't doing anything more, he waved at them in vain. "Go away! Leave me alone!" He wined, lacking the strength to do much more.
The dogs thought it was an invite to play and tried to catch and lick his waving hands, then they just went for the face. "Argh!" Darien stood up trying to get away, but he soon realized his feet wouldn't hold him and instead he fell forward into the pile of dogs. They continued licking at his face even as he lay there in the snow, too tired and confused to want to move.
If the dogs wont do it, then maybe the cold will, Darien glumly thought to himself, and exhausted fell into a half-sleep, only partially aware of the blanket of warmth that contentedly settled in around him. It was a literal dog pile.
...Nine Dogs a Running
Eight Wacky Scientists
Seven Pigeons Watching
Six Oatmeal Cookies
Five Chrysali
Four Balls of Snow
Three Missing Disks
Two Foreign Spies
And Arnaud in a Telephone Booth
