*8*

"Okay, Gray, I'm in the computer system." Alyx's voice wafted out of the phone perfectly clear, considering they were buried at least partially underground. The building was technically still closed, because of the incident the evening before -- the worker who had been injured was going to be just fine and had suffered only a mild concussion. Graywolf had pulled rank on the few officers baby-sitting the building during their morning doughnut break and, after a few promises that would be easily kept since they did not impinge on what they wanted to do, got them inside the building and into the records room. Turned out the bad guys that had appeared upstairs had broken through one of the small ground level -- literally ground level -- windows that lined the upper floor of the room and escaped the same way. It wasn't that the windows had lacked security, but it had been efficiently and expertly bypassed.

"Any luck on your end?" Gray asked as he headed for the adoption records on the lower floor.

"Not yet. Uh, have one of the guys check for a death certificate for the baby." Alyx sounded distracted as she worked on digging through the computer records from the hotel room as planned.

"On it. Fawkes, check the death certificates to see if there's one for the baby," Gray called out to the two men who were looking warily about the room.

Darien nodded and headed for the stairs with Hobbes trailing after him. Hobbes knew just where to go, as he'd found the death certificate for Angela Randall yesterday, right before everything had gone to hell.

"Hold up a second, Fawkes." What had caught his eye was the section of banister that Graywolf had nearly taken a back flip over the day before; it wasn't sitting straight, canted out at a slight angle compared to the sections to either side of it. Walking over to it he ran his hand along it, only to have it fall apart at his touch. The rail coming off in his hand, while the antique hand turned spindles fell; some to hit the floor far below them. "Hot damn."

"Whoa, Hobbes. Thought they were trying to save the place, doubt they'd appreciate you taking a bite out of it," Darien commented as he looked over the shorter man's shoulder and down at the pieces that had impacted with the floor.

"This is the spot Gray nearly went over yesterday. Now, I understand why the kid got hurt. She was too busy saving Gray's ass to realize she was about to be attacked." Hobbes dropped the banister section he held and it landed with a dull thud. He didn't quite understand the meaning of the look that flickered across his partner's features. "What? You'd rather he fell?

Darien shook his head. "Not that. I... I guess it just really hit me that's she's not coming back to the Agency. That Graywolf is her partner now and I'm just her... her boyfriend." He looked over at Bobby hoping for... he wasn't quite sure what. Sympathy? Understanding, maybe?

"Fawkes, it was bound to happen anyway. Even if she had stayed with the Agency, had never left, she'd be gone half the time working for others. Even you saw that coming," Hobbes reminded him as they moved away from the broken balustrade and toward the section they needed.

Darien rubbed the back of his head as they walked. "Yeah, I did, but I figured it'd be me she was coming home to. Not..."

"Graywolf?" Hobbes caught the wince. "Fawkes, I should smack some sense back into that skull of yours." He stopped before the row of file cabinets; his eyes roving across them as he looked for 'R.' "She ain't stepping out on ya. Not beyond what she has to do for work, anyway." Hobbes moved to the correct drawer and slid it open.

"I know that," Darien all but sneered. "Just not part of the plan, man. Not even close."

Hobbes paused his perusal of the files to turn and look at Fawkes. "You had a plan?"

"Well... sort of. We..." There were unexpected shouts from elsewhere in the building and then the sound of the doors on the lower floor being smashed inward was heard by the two men. They glanced at each other and without a single word made their cautious way through the stacks to see what was going on. Gray shouting out a warning and then sounds of a fight were more than enough to make them realize this was not the good guys.

"Fawkes," Hobbes hissed, but Darien was already well on his way to being gone. There were already three of them up here, methodically searching the room for... Bobby had no idea what, but he seriously doubted it was anything good.

Bobby pulled his gun and hid behind the shelves as he watched the guys. They wore black head to toe, weapons, including some brand new AK-47s with laser sights, masks over their faces so that he could make out nothing more than their eyes. They didn't say a word, but moved with a coordination that told Hobbes they had worked together before. He could hear them opening and closing file cabinets, but not randomly, making it obvious they knew what they were looking for and exactly where it was.

It was an unexpected shout from Fawkes that discouraged him from spying on the men any longer to see what they were after. Gun still drawn and at the ready, he made his way back to the stairs, intending to head down and save his partner's ass yet again, only to get spotted crossing the open expanse between the stacks and the metal staircase.

The guy didn't even do the courtesy of giving him a warning, just aimed and fired. Hobbes dove into a controlled roll and ended up where he needed to be, at the top of the stairs. He took a second to fire off a couple rounds, which caused his assailant to dive behind some shelving and give Hobbes a chance to clatter down the stairs at top speed. Another shot was fired, one that whizzed by his head to impact on the railing and ricochet off into the room, that encouraged him to bypass the lower half of the staircase and simply leap the rail to land in a crouch on the wood of the floor below. He was up and heading for the sounds of a fight even as the guys upstairs took another round of poorly aimed potshots at him.

Darien had gone down the stairs with a silence that was learned from years of combined cat-burglary and sneaking about for the Agency. He followed the sounds of a struggle to find Graywolf up against three guys and another on the floor taking an unscheduled nap. Darien had to give him credit, Gray could fight, but three on one just wasn't very fair. "Hey!" Darien shouted and was successful enough to get two of the assailants to spin about and look for him. It was the gun firing, in the wrong direction, thankfully, that made him realize that whoever these guys were they were damn serious about this.

There was downside to his effort at helping Graywolf, in that his shout distracted him as well and allowed bad guy number three to get a decent enough hold on Gray and a gun jammed securely into his ribs.

"Where's the girl?" The voice was perfectly clear even through the mask hiding his features.

"What girl?" Graywolf asked, feigning confusion, as he tried to relax and not fight the forearm pressed tightly against his throat and threatening to cut off his air. The guy was quite a bit shorter than him and was making him, literally, bend over backwards to keep the hold tight.

Darien just about lost control over the Quicksilver at the words. What the devil could they want with Alyx? He moved carefully, not wanting to give away his position or risk injury to Graywolf, though he did have to wonder why he was shot at without so much as a by your leave while Gray was captured and questioned.

"You were warned to stay away from this." The man's voice was rough with anger. "Where is the girl?"

Suspecting things were about to go from bad to really, really crappy Darien charged the two guys that were still warily watching for him and bowled them over. That earned him a single shot fired in his direction by the guy holding Gray, but gave the agent the chance to collapse his legs, going to one knee, and elbow the man hard enough to double him over and release his hold. Gray then spun about, grabbed the man by the throat with one hand, the gun hand with the other, crushing it, until the gun was released to fall to the floor. Gray then stood upright, astonishingly quickly for his size, and shoved the stranger into the nearest upright object - a set of shelves hard enough to rock them. Boxes and other stray items fell to the floor with the force of it.

"Who sent you?" Gray snarled. "Who do you work for?"

The guys Darien had knocked about were swiftly regaining their senses and, based on the gunfire upstairs, Hobbes was doing his share of causing trouble. Darien dropped the Quicksilver and moved up beside Graywolf. "Retreat may be in order, my friend."

If Gray was at all startled by Darien's sudden appearance he didn't show it. He did, however, make it plain he wasn't quite ready to leave yet. "Who sent you?" he asked again as he pulled the guy away and slammed him into the shelving a second time; this time hard enough to earn a yelp of pain from the mystery man. Gray needed to know, wouldn't take the risk that Sil could end up harmed because he wasn't willing to stay long enough to get the information.

It was the voices that crackled out of the radio the guy wore that changed his mind. "Mission objective one complete." Followed a moment later by, "Good, move to objective two. Eliminate those here, we'll find the girl later."

"Fawkes!" Hobbes shouted as he came around the corner firing at the two who had swung their weapons on Graywolf and Fawkes. "Now might be a good time to disappear."

"On it." Darien lashed out with a fist and put the man in Gray's hold out for a midmorning nap. Ignoring the glare Gray leveled at him, Darien set a hand on the man's shoulder and spoke softly. "I'll explain later."

Gray dropped the guy as the Quicksilver flowed over him. "What the hell?" Surprise was far too mild a term for what was currently shooting through his mind.

Tugging on Gray's arm to shock him out of the stunned immobility he'd fallen into, the two men moved in Hobbes' direction and Darien added Bobby to the little Quicksilver show. "Get us the hell out of here, Hobbes."

"Good plan." Heading for the door the three men successfully avoided the majority of the team that was scattered throughout the building. It was one smart-ass who happened to be wearing, not thermals by the looks of them, but what appeared to be night vision goggles that had to be set damn weird who spotted them. He only got off a couple of shots before Darien slammed into him into a wall, ripped the goggles off his head, and smashed them into the floor. Bobby then took care of putting him out cold.

Finally outside, they spotted the four dark toned SUVs, with the blacked out windows and no visible plates that just screamed military. They started to head past them, the Quicksilver falling away from Hobbes and Gray, both of whom had their guns drawn and at the ready, but Darien paused, the Quicksilver flaking away from him as well, to reveal him standing by one of the SUVs.

"Fawkes, ever hear the term clean getaway?" Hobbes asked with some impatience.

"Yep, but I had a thought -- scary as that sounds." He wandered over to one of the SUVs and set a hand atop it. The Quicksilver flowed, covering the vehicle amazingly fast. He was a least slightly motivated and figured if they couldn't find their cars right away it would keep them from following them.

"Fawkes, you nut." Hobbes dashed towards their rental. "Good work." He got it started as Darien moved onto the next SUV in the row. It was nice of the bad guys to park their vehicles so near each other. Just a bit closer and he could probably manage to do two at once, but they were just out of reach of each other.

Graywolf watched all this in complete amazement. "Shil-loh-beesh-ligaii?" When Darien glanced at him in confusion he repeated in English, "Quicksilver?"

"Yeah, long story that I," Four of the gun toting, black wearing annoyances burst out the front door just as Darien started on the last vehicle, "don't have time to go into." As he ducked behind the vehicle he noticed that it was going a lot slower than the rest had and he had one hell of a headache building that was... eerily familiar.

"Move your ass, Fawkes," Hobbes shouted, as he pulled the SUV up and took a couple shots at the bad guys, making them dive for cover behind some bushes that, from the sound of it, just happened to be covered in thorns.

Graywolf bolted for the SUV, firing off a couple rounds of his own to give Fawkes enough time to finish making the last vehicle disappear. He noted the decided lack of police presence that had been there when they arrived. Whoever they were, they had enough pull to get this place turned into a ghost town while they did their dirty little deeds. "Hobbes, we were set up."

"Looks that way, don't it?" Hobbes took another shot, just to keep the bad guys on their best behavior only to have them fire back this time. Shots twanging off the side of the rental. "Shit."

Darien yanked open the rear door and slid in. The headache was doing a damn good job at making him cranky -- now was not when he needed Alyx's little trick to wear off. He rolled down the window just enough to set his hand on the roof and let the Quicksilver flow again. "Go Hobbes!"

Bobby didn't argue and sped away without a second glance. Shots impacted against the rear of the SUV, but he didn't even consider slowing down. By the time they hit the road, and the early morning traffic, their vehicle was gone from sight, which made driving an interesting challenge, one Bobby was more than a match for. It was still odd to realize others couldn't see him as they sped down the road at, he glanced down at the speedometer forgetting that he couldn't see it at the moment and guessed they were cruising at about 60 on this 40 mile per hour road. Dodging the other drivers, he estimated the time until they would be visible and planned accordingly. Intending to pull over in some shopping mall parking lot or the like and see if their friends just happened to drive by.

Gray was doing his best to not freak completely, but it was almost too much to handle. Only Sil could Quicksilver, right? So he had thought anyway, but Fawkes was doing it as well and Gray couldn't help but wonder if the man also had some of Sil's other abilities. Why hadn't she told him about this facet of Fawkes' 'talents,' especially since he'd been assuming the worst about the man? Why... about quite a few things at this point.

It was a grunt of pain from the rear that drew his attention from the mindless circling of his thoughts. "Fawkes?"

Darien wasn't able to answer. As soon as he'd successfully made the car disappear his head had exploded in pain. It made him double over and put his hands to the back of his neck, curling up as the muscle spasms and petite mal seizures took over control of his body. When it had finally passed he just lay there shaking in terror. He really, really wanted to check his wrist 'cause unless he'd gone completely insane, he was going... completely insane.

The headaches and seizures weren't something he'd ever forget and if this wasn't it, if it wasn't the madness, then he was ... He was in trouble no matter what. "Hobbes, hurry."

Alyx spent a couple minutes dialing and redialing Gray's number before giving up. She then tried both Bobby's and Darien's without success. The mechanical voice coming out of her phone insisting they were out of service. Jammed was more likely the cause, which meant they were in trouble and she had no way to help them, not from here, and even if she managed to get there, it would already be too late. Whatever was occurring they could handle on their own, she knew that, believed that, but that didn't make the not knowing any easier.

Graywolf may have been chosen as her protector as much as her partner, but she did her fair share of protecting as well and she'd do her damnedest to keep him from getting hurt, just as had for both Bobby and Darien when she'd worked with them. She groaned aloud, practically collapsing in the chair as she allowed herself one moment of unrestrained worry and... fear.

Getting up from the table, her back reduced to a dull burning thanks to the pain pills, she moved to the bed and took up a lotus position. She might not be able to get them on a phone, but she could still find them and a least make sure they were okay.

Calming herself took a bit longer than she liked; having all three men in potential trouble bothered her, and she had trouble pushing it aside and relaxing enough so that she could make contact with at least one of them. It took several minutes, but she finally had success and chose Darien to seek out first; her connection with him by far the strongest of the three. The trick here was to not search for him, but to just let it happen and, depending on how distracted he was, the link would either be very light with only vague impressions or quite strong where she could very nearly get a visual of what was going on. Him echoing what was happening back through to her.

She'd learned over the months since regaining her abilities that it didn't matter where he was, she could find him, could feel him, even when separated by half the world. Distance dulled the connection, but it was always there. Darien wasn't the only one, with Bobby and Graywolf there was a much milder connection, and with her family -- her kids and Mikey especially -- it was as strong or stronger than the one with Darien. Neither she nor Mikey really understood this odd extension of her abilities, though they had a few theories.

Unsure how much time had passed, she finally found Darien and from him Bobby and Graywolf, who were very close by. They were all radiating a combination of confusion, fear, and irritation, and they were so focused on the matter at hand that her connection was fairly poor, but it was a relief to know they were all okay -- for now.

She just wished she could do something, but at this distance she couldn't actually talk to any of them, just monitor. Made her wish Cowan was along, they had been able to boost each other's abilities on occasion. It was an interesting side effect of that they had exploited effectively on several missions already.

Gray's sudden anger combined with Darien's -- surprising -- calmness shocked her back out of her stray musings. The full gamut of emotions was coming from the three men. Anger, fear, confusion, amusement, relief and then, suddenly, pain, mild at first, but building quickly. She knew it was Darien and found herself caught, focused solely on him as the pain and then his fear slipped upwards several notches.

She was still trapped there when the first mind blinding pain struck him. She came back to herself a few minutes later lying on her side on the bed... on her right side. Struggling to sit up, she discovered she'd closed the connection -- as much as she ever could, anyway -- to Darien in a self-defensive reaction, but she had gotten more than enough to be truly frightened for him. That... pain. There was only one thing that did that to him. The gland. But... and this caused her to become even more confused and concerned ... Claire had cured him, he'd not had a single madness symptom since the day he'd been given the suicide gene with a shot of counteragent; not a problem, not even a blip on the madness radar. Yet, what she had felt -- and she had been in his head during pre-madness seizures previously -- had been so close to a toxin reaction that she couldn't think of what else it could possibly be.

Her head aching nearly as much as her back she checked her internal time clock and figured she'd been out cold for about 10 minutes. "Damn it," she muttered. Couldn't they have just one mission go something vaguely resembling smoothly? Focusing on Graywolf - she was not willing to risk another black out by touching Darien's mind - she found them far closer than she expected, already in the parking lot. There was the unmistakable aura of concern coming off Gray, oddly focused more on herself than on Darien.

Sliding off the bed she moved through the adjoining door and into the other room. She was standing in the hall when they came around the corner, both men supporting Darien who was whimpering in pain and fear.

"Bed," she ordered, even as they moved that way on their own. About halfway there, Darien went to another set of seizures, which caused them to unintentionally drop him on the bed. She climbed on the bed with him and tried to ease the pain until he finally relaxed, panting, moaning and very nearly unconscious. "Get the Keeper on the phone, now."

"On it, kid." Hobbes already had his phone out and to his ear. Speed dial had it uses.

Alyx gave Darien the once over, starting by checking his monitor tattoo and finding it completely green. "What the hell happened?" She just barely kept her voice below a shout.

"We were attacked. He... he Quicksilvered us so we could get away." Gray answered, his voice tight. He was confused and angry... with her and knew he would be of little use in this situation. He had no idea what was wrong with Fawkes and, most likely, had no way to help fix it, but he could do everything possible to keep all of them safe. "I'm going to head out and make sure they didn't follow us."

Hobbes nodded. "Good idea. Stay in contact."

"Sil..." Gray didn't know what to say. She had proclaimed trust, yet hadn't told him about Fawkes, and that hurt far more than he thought possible, and he knew she could see it in his eyes. Turning away he headed back out towards the parking lot to watch for their attackers, on the off chance one of them had managed to follow them all the way here.

Darien regained consciousness and was surprised to find Alyx leaning over him looking worried. "Ouch." His voice was rough with pain and tightly reined in fear. "What's happening?"

"Not sure, bub, but I need you to relax and not fight the pain, so I can figure out what's going on." Alyx spoke softly, betting his sight and hearing would be hypersensitive at the moment. "Can you tell me what you did? How much Quicksilver did you use?"

"Uh, okay." Darien did his best to try to remember, but his head hurt horribly and made it more than a little difficult. "The three of us, some cars... I think that's it." He raised his right hand and looked at his wrist. He was shocked to see nothing but emerald scales before him.

"Bobby, define 'some cars' for me, please?" Alyx requested, as Hobbes paced, rubbing the top of his head with worry while waiting for the Keeper to get her act together and her butt into the Keep where the info she needed to access was stored.

"Five SUVs," Hobbes told her and watched her eyes widen. He handed the phone to her. "Keep wants to talk to you."

"Alyx, how is he?" Claire sounded flustered more than anything else.

"Monitor is green and he's exhibiting no overt madness symptoms. No bloodshot or red eyes, however, he is having petite mal seizures and has the headache from hell." Alyx could hear Claire tapping keys on her keyboard as Alyx relayed the information. "Claire, has anything like this happened before?"

"No. What has he been doing? Was he drugged?" Claire rattled off in hopes of getting more information of use.

"Quicksilvering a bunch of cars," Alyx told her and then had a thought. "Claire, did you ever get around to the duration experiments?"

"No, we haven't had the time." Claire's voice trailed off, her mind obviously running over the same possible conclusion that Alyx had come to. "Have him try and Quicksilver."

"All right." Alyx passed the phone to Bobby and then met Darien's scared eyes. "I need you to Quicksilver your hand for me."

Darien actually began to quake in fear. He wanted no part of ever dealing with the madness again and was damn near phobic on the issue at this point. "Alyx, I..."

"Do you trust me?" she asked him very quietly.

"Yes," he got out past his fear.

"Then do this, please." She took one of his hands in her own. "I'll be here, and I promise you it'll be all right."

Darien swallowed hard and closed his eyes for a long moment, he'd done many things based on his trust in her and she'd never truly let him down. So how could he not believe her now? Raising his other hand, so that she would see, he convinced the Quicksilver to flow, but it came slow and took actual effort and concentration on his part. Concentration that was torn to shreds as his head exploded in pain again causing him to black out even as his body shook and writhed in pain.

Alyx had gone along for the ride, but pulled away just before he passed out and maintained her own consciousness. She held him until the convulsions eased and his body relaxed. She set fingers to his throat and found his pulse quite elevated and he was now flushed, but not feverish. While very similar to the nasty side effects of the madness there were differences.

"That was stupid, kid," Hobbes complained, and then explained what had happened to Claire. He yanked the phone away from his ear at the Keeper's excited shouting. "I think it's for you."

Alyx took the phone from him cautiously, she really didn't need Claire shouting in her ear. "Keep, theoretically here, could an overuse reaction cause symptoms similar to the madness?"

"It's possible, I suppose. We've never considered this..." Claire paused running ideas through her mind. "Well, the gland can only secrete so much at a time, even if it does constantly produce..."

"Has he been doing any long term Quicksilvering, or does he tend towards short duration out of habit?" Alyx asked and got nearly identical answers of "short term" from both ends of the phone.

"That might be it." Alyx could hear the glee in Claire's voice. "I'll have to run tests, but he'll probably be fine in a day or so. Like anything else it takes practice and pushing his limits to improve. He..." Claire actually laughed softly. "He pulled a muscle, so to speak."

"Kid?" Hobbes asked at her grin.

"He just overdid the Quicksilver a bit. He, uh..." She tried to think of how to say this without making Bobby want to tease Darien for the next few weeks. "The gland does not hold an endless supply of Quicksilver and he found his current limit, the hard way. Kinda like really pulling a muscle, the gland reacted by causing pain, and because of where it is and how it's wired into Darien head he gets..."

"Seizures and nasty headaches." Hobbes held out his hand. "Give over the phone. You try and get him comfortable while I get the low down from the Keep."

Alyx did so willingly enough, curling about Darien and trying to get him as comfortable as possible while the gland continued to make its unhappiness known. *Gray? Are we clear?*

It took him a minute before responding. *We appear to be.* They had parked their vehicle behind some bushes that separated sections of the parking lot so that it was not readily visible from the road and the few SUVs that had matched those owned by the enemy, had driven right by without even slowing, but he knew they were still in danger.

*Gray ... Come back to the room, please.* Alyx could feel his unhappiness and wanted to do whatever she could to correct things. *Please, we'll explain everything.*

*All right,* he acquiesced. He might as well try to understand what was going on before there were even more problems. Ignoring the elevator, he took the stairs two at a time until he reached the correct floor, wanting to burn off some of his... excess emotions before facing her. He was in the room moments later. "How is he?"

"Miserable, but should survive." Hobbes closed the phone and put it back in his pocket. "Keep says no meds 'til the seizures have passed. Said you'd know what to give him."

Alyx nodded. Darien had woken up a couple of times only to pass out again when the next set of seizures hit him. "Gray, Darien is even more highly classified than me." The man in question was currently lying curled on his side, his head in her lap, allowing her to run her fingers through his hair, as she tried to comfort him through the waves of pain that were finally starting to ease. "I wasn't hiding anything, just following orders." When he did nothing but stare at her blankly she sighed. "Have you heard the rumors about the Invisible Man Project?"

He nodded. "Those have been floating about for a few years, but there's no proof. I thought it was you for a time, but was told differently by Cavanaugh."

Hobbes sat down on the other bed and motioned at Darien's prone form. "You're looking at him." Graywolf whipped his head about to eye Hobbes with suspicion. "Yep, that there is 17 mil of the government's budget lying there, and who might have very well saved both your ass and mine this morning." Hobbes rubbed the top of his head with one hand. "Speaking of that, why the hell were they shooting at us?"

"You heard the radio, we were in the way." Graywolf turned to look over at his partner who for all the world appeared to be doing nothing more than staring intently at the man in her arms, but Gray knew she was paying very close attention to every word they said. "And that they wanted the girl."

Alyx raised her head slowly to meet the concerned green eyes of her partner.

"Those were our guys, Special Forces or black ops, maybe. Someone pulled some big strings to drag them into this." Hobbes pushed himself to his feet and began to pace. "What were they after?"

"The records," Alyx answered. Hobbes looked at her in confusion. "The computer system went down before y'all got attacked. They were wiping the records. The info we're looking for." Hobbes stopped his pacing to lean back against the bureau. "That means we're on the right track."

"And it means we're in just as deep as I thought we'd be," Darien muttered, and then rolled over onto his back, with a groan, to look at their partners. "They're protecting something and are willing to kill us for it."

"Us, yes. Sil? Not yet anyway. They wanted her alive, I think." Gray wasn't entirely sure how he knew that. Knew that the questions as to her whereabouts didn't involve eliminating her as well.

"Crap," Hobbes growled in an undertone. "It could mean whoever is pulling the strings knows her value and not Fawkes'"

Darien chuckled in irony. "Seventeen mil just ain't worth what it used to be, is it?"