Lon drove back to the hospital, wishing above all that he had something
better to report. None of what he had made any sense. It was impossible,
as a matter of fact. Not highly improbably, actually completely and
totally impossible. He didn't care who had said what and that included the
diary that he found in the bus station locker.
From the way that key had been hidden in Heather's purse, Lon thought that all of their real ID's must have been in there and maybe some clues as well pointing to why they had been in that motel faking an affair. That made sense, far more than the way it appeared. Cole having an affair actually made no sense at all. And having one with his niece of all people, well, that was beyond senseless in into just plain sick. Besides, Cole had not been acting lately like a man that was cheating on his wife.
Lon knew all of those signs. In the months leading up to his divorce, Lon's then-wife had catalogued them to him over and over from articles in women's magazines. She told him that if he would admit to it, then they could go to a marriage counselor and work out the problems. Lon denied an affair, although later he wondered if it would have been better to make one up so that Vicki would have thought she was getting the truth. He couldn't tell her what was really going on with some of his odd behavior. It would have been too dangerous for her to know about Manticore and because he couldn't let her know, the bitterness and fighting had escalated and doomed their marriage. Cole and Janice hadn't been acting like that at all. Janice was one woman that would not play the happy wife when she was upset. And she had a highly developed sense of radar for being lied to. That was CIA training in action. She would have found out about an affair quickly and put a violent end to it.
No, it just wasn't adding up. There was something he was missing. That was obvious, he just wished he knew what it was. All he knew for sure was that things were not as they seemed to be. The clerk at the motel had told the truth and the detective wasn't trying to cover up anything, Lon knew that. He also knew what he had found in the bag stuffed into the bus station locker, but that was adding to the confusion rather than sorting it out.
A purple teddy bear, arms outstretched, with the words "I wuv you this much" written on it's belly sat on top of the objects in the backpack. It looked like something you'd win at a carnival or something like that. Wrapped in an old ratty looking blanket were some pictures that looked like they belonged to the "came with the frame" family, except that Heather was in two of them, but an odd looking Heather. In one picture, she was dressed in a ripped halter-top and short-shorts with a really wide belt. Her hair was all done up in these little rolls all over her head, making it look like a pincushion. And even when she was a teenager, she never wore thick black eyeliner like that with sparkles in her other makeup. Under the blanket, Lon found a notebook full of poorly done drawings of people and landscapes and then beneath that was a diary. The diary was purple, covered in sparkles and trimmed in bright pink fake fur.
The diary started about six weeks before. From the way the first entry was, it seemed like she had other diaries and this was just the continuation. Lon started reading the first entry and his stomach dropped. She was talking about how sweet her new boyfriend was and that he was the best kisser ever. He had won her a purple teddy bear at the local fair and she didn't care that he was older. Older men knew how to treat a girl right. None of the "other junk" mattered either. They were in love and love conquered all.
Lon really thought he was going to be sick. This was Heather's handwriting. He flipped through the diary and the handwriting remained consisted though she did use different pens and inks, obviously whatever she could find when she went to start the new entry. Lon knew he had to be missing something. After spending so many years investigating crimes, his nerves were screaming at him that he was missing something crucial, but he couldn't tell what it was. As much as he didn't want to risk his life, he was going to have to confess everything to the person that knew Heather and Cole the best and hope Alicia could see what he couldn't. He pulled into a parking space and took a deep breath. This was going to be ugly.
Inside the hospital, Xander had dismissed the CIA guard now that everyone was here. The cleaner team downstairs had done a proper job and although a few people were not happy about having pieces of clothing forcibly removed from them, there were no free samples of transgenic DNA to be had for the black market. Jhondie had told Xander they would discuss such later. But Xander at least didn't have to worry about Heather's protection. There were enough people in her room that anyone with ill intent would reconsider quickly. Since only one person at a time could be with Janice in the ICU, one or two people had stayed down there and the rest had gravitated into Heather's room.
Jhondie had come in to check on Heather. She shot a glare at Liz and Cameron, who had arrived within an hour of each other, but they just smiled back with infectious sweetness. Jhondie was not happy with those two. They had come in about an hour before and after checking up on Heather, decided they wanted to see Cole. The doctors and nurses in the ICU, after a small request from their chief, hadn't noticed that Janice was staying slightly more than fifteen minutes at a time. She was in fact, in there the whole hour, every hour, and someone else was coming in there with her for ten minutes and then being shooed out. Of course, waiting was simply not an option for the twins.
Brandt was kind enough to stay in the waiting room as they casually picked the security code from one of the nurse's heads. When nobody was looking, they both walked in, washing their hands at the sink as if they had done this a hundred times before and not gotten it from the nurse's mind. A nursing assistant questioned their presence and they managed to convince her that they were consultants that Dr. Carter had sent to examine the special patient they had. The assistant had thought it was odd considering how young those two looked, but with all of the strange events and rumors circulating, she could believe them. And they seemed to know what they were talking about and even where the patient was, so she assumed they must be genuine.
She did mention it to the charge nurse though since Marvel liked to know everything that was happening on her ward. Not telling Marvel was pretty much bringing hell and damnation upon ones self. The large black lady was referred to as "Momma" by much of the nursing staff. Even the doctors briefed her. And once she heard about the "consultants", she immediately called for some verification. She had been working with Dr. Carter since before the woman became chief of staff and there was no way the Dr. Carter she knew would have consultants show up and not introduce them to the staff on the ward. Yeah, Marvel had heard the rumors flying around and people were starting to say that Dr. Carter didn't just know them. She was one of them. So what? The woman was a damn fine doctor and had gotten the nurses a nice raise since becoming chief and rumor was that she was working on another one this year. That rumor was far more interesting to Marvel than rumors about Dr. Carter's origins.
When Marvel called, Dr. Carter said that she would be down in a minute. From the tone of her voice, she wasn't terribly surprised at this stunt, but she wasn't happy about it at all. Marvel offered to kick them out, but Dr. Carter just said that she knew Marvel's job was hard enough without subjecting her to those two. Marvel had been through plenty of chiefs before in her twenty-two years in nursing and few would have bothered to handle a problem like this themselves. Marvel was good friends with the union rep for the nurses at the hospital and if the board tried to get rid of Dr. Carter for something silly like a strange blood type, then the Nurse's Union was going to have a say in the matter.
The twins had known that they wouldn't have long with Cole. Ten minutes, max. They got seven. Even with their backs turned, and not even reading the minds of the people near the door, they could feel their aunt's glower when she arrived. Jhondie didn't say a word. She took one hand from her coat pocket and pointed towards the door. They shot Janice a parting smile and quickly scampered out of the ICU. With most of their aunts, they would have tried some begging and pleading, but Jhondie probably had a syringe full of something vile that would make them regret breaking the rules.
Once outside of the ICU, Cameron and Liz tried to protest that they were only in there for a minute and they weren't bothering anyone. Liz pointed out that Brandt had even waited outside so there would be as little disturbance as possible. Jhondie waited as they made their excuses, thinking about Zack and Alicia's patience levels. The fact that these two made it past puberty was nothing short of a miracle.
"All I can say," Jhondie finally said very calmly when they had wound down, "is that next time, you won't hear me coming." She turned on her heel and left them to contemplate the possibilities of her statement. They decided that Heather's room was far safer and headed back upstairs.
Now almost everyone was in and hanging around Heather's room when Lon finally came back from his investigations. Shawna, Cray and Cyra were downstairs, waiting for their turn to stay with Janice and Cole. Cyra had just spent the last hour on the phone with her mother and grandmother, frantically trying to convince them that they did not need to come to New York. The last thing that anyone needed was for those two drama-queens to show up. It was going to be enough of a circus as it was without them screaming to any tabloid that would listen that they had the inside scoop on the family. And then when they tried that, things would get even more complicated when one of Cole's brothers got pissed enough and tossed Mom and/or Grandma off of the roof. Cyra had contemplated the good in that since it would save a lot of future embarrassment, but in the end, it would just make family holidays more tense than usual.
When Lon walked in the room, everyone stared at him hungrily, waiting for some kind of information. Lon swallowed, wondering what he was supposed to say when answers were the one thing he didn't have at all. He glanced at his niece, so frail in the hospital bed and wondered for the thousandth time what she was going to say in explanation over all of this.
"Tell me you got to Ty," Lon finally said to Xander.
"He's out with HRT on maneuvers. They're practicing assaults in the woods, so he's out of cell range and the ones still there don't know exactly where he went. He likes to surprise his people." Xander shrugged. "So that's why he's not responding. My guys are going to find him and let him know what happened."
"What don't you want to tell me?" Alicia asked, correctly reading her brother's expression.
"Is there somewhere else we can talk?" Lon asked Jhondie, knowing that if an explosion were to occur, it would be best to have Heather in another room. Jhondie nodded and led them down the hall to an empty room. Lon followed with Zack, Alicia, Daniel and Xander close behind. Jhondie made sure the nurse intercom was off and then they waited.
"There are some really big holes and nothing is exactly making sense," Lon began hesitantly. He had been less nervous last year making a presentation directly to the director of the FBI. "What I know for sure is that they were checked into the motel under an assumed name with fake ID's and that they had been there for a week. It appeared that they were about to leave when the shooting occurred."
Now for the ugly part. "For some reason," he continued, "they were putting on a show as if they were...they were acting...I know this is wrong, but..."
"Lon!" both Alicia and Xander yelled at the same time. "Just say it," Alicia added.
"Witnesses state that they were at the motel conducting an affair," Lon blurted. "They were seen acting in a licentious manner towards each other on more than one occasion and there was also another woman involved. This morning, this other woman got drunk, broke into the room, called Cole a cheating bastard and then opened fire. Heather was able to return fire and fatally wounded the shooter on the scene." As he looked at the disbelieving stares, he wanted to remind them there was no reason to kill the messenger.
"Cole and Heather?" Alicia questioned, the edges of her mouth twitching upward in a grin of absolute horror. "No, that wouldn't happen. End of story. I *know* you found evidence to show that one or more of the witnesses were lying, correct?"
Lon looked so miserable for a moment that in any other situation, it would have been hysterical. "I found this," he said, handing over the backpack. "It was in a bus station locker."
Everyone in the room was more confused then ever at seeing the contents of the bag. Alicia and Zack had no idea who the people in the picture were and even as a teenager, Heather never went around looking like such trailer trash. Alicia opened up the diary and began scanning the pages, becoming visibly ill the more pages she flipped through as Zack read over her shoulder.
"This..." she managed to get out, wanting to say that it was a forgery despite the fact it was so perfectly Heather's handwriting. Whoever had written this even managed to duplicate the way Heather wrote the letter 's' with it slumping forward, touching the letters in front.
"This is a relief," Zack finished for her. Alicia looked up at her husband in absolute shock. He smiled slightly at his wife. "If this was real, then I would have to undo all of Jhondie's hard work." It was rare that he managed to totally render Alicia speechless and in a different situation, he would enjoy it. But this diary was not right. One didn't spend years on the run from the government and not be able to tell real personal writings from faked ones. If he hadn't been able to, then he would have believed his other brothers and sisters to have been captured a dozen times over.
"That is her handwriting," Alicia said.
"I know," Zack replied. "But ignore the words and just listen to it." He took the diary from her and began to read an entry. "September 22nd. Sunrise at the beach totally rules! I know, I know, how overdone, but still, when he had that bottle of wine out there, I totally melted. And he didn't mind me getting all melty if you know what I mean, ha ha. He is the absolute bestest in the world and I don't care about *her*. It's her fault that she let him get away from her. Of course he's going to want me more. She's a yucky old lady and I'm hot & fresh."
At that point Daniel started laughing so hard that Zack couldn't continue. "I see what you mean," he finally snickered out. "That's not Heather."
Alicia looked relived as well. "She didn't sound quite that...silly girly even when she was fifteen. She certainly doesn't speak like that now." The others finally realized what Heather's parents and brother meant. It had been a very long time since Heather came close to sounding like the silly teenager that had written that diary.
"You never found any real ID?" Xander asked. Lon shook his head. "Cole hadn't mentioned lately being on a major assignment, but sometimes I just don't know with him. I'll check with some people and see."
"That still doesn't explain why Heather was involved," Alicia mused. "How often does the military stoop to a joint effort with civilian outfits?"
Xander nodded, knowing what she meant. They had to deal with a lot of that crap back at Manticore. "The military will tolerate the CIA and the NSA if they have to. But it's hell even trying to get them to consider the BATF or FBI or an organization of that nature."
"Which leads us back to waiting for one of them to wake up and explain what was going on," Zack said firmly. Speculations were just going to take them in circles and waste time and resources. They had to focus on the top priority and that was Heather and Cole's safety while they were in the hospital.
Justin had been able to handle all of the reporters and news agencies. Nobody had thought twice about him being there considering that the original expose on transgenics and Manticore had been a "Truth" exclusive. Justin had talked to Mike and told him that right now he would get hurt if he tried to demand an interview or a statement. And getting in to see the injured would cause his lifespan to be greatly reduced. Mike said he wanted some exclusives once the crisis was over, and that seemed more than fair. The important thing was that there wasn't going to be a media frenzy over all of this, no matter how many news sharks were in the water, since they couldn't get any access into the hospital. Making sure that Heather and Cole recovered, that was what was important.
From the way that key had been hidden in Heather's purse, Lon thought that all of their real ID's must have been in there and maybe some clues as well pointing to why they had been in that motel faking an affair. That made sense, far more than the way it appeared. Cole having an affair actually made no sense at all. And having one with his niece of all people, well, that was beyond senseless in into just plain sick. Besides, Cole had not been acting lately like a man that was cheating on his wife.
Lon knew all of those signs. In the months leading up to his divorce, Lon's then-wife had catalogued them to him over and over from articles in women's magazines. She told him that if he would admit to it, then they could go to a marriage counselor and work out the problems. Lon denied an affair, although later he wondered if it would have been better to make one up so that Vicki would have thought she was getting the truth. He couldn't tell her what was really going on with some of his odd behavior. It would have been too dangerous for her to know about Manticore and because he couldn't let her know, the bitterness and fighting had escalated and doomed their marriage. Cole and Janice hadn't been acting like that at all. Janice was one woman that would not play the happy wife when she was upset. And she had a highly developed sense of radar for being lied to. That was CIA training in action. She would have found out about an affair quickly and put a violent end to it.
No, it just wasn't adding up. There was something he was missing. That was obvious, he just wished he knew what it was. All he knew for sure was that things were not as they seemed to be. The clerk at the motel had told the truth and the detective wasn't trying to cover up anything, Lon knew that. He also knew what he had found in the bag stuffed into the bus station locker, but that was adding to the confusion rather than sorting it out.
A purple teddy bear, arms outstretched, with the words "I wuv you this much" written on it's belly sat on top of the objects in the backpack. It looked like something you'd win at a carnival or something like that. Wrapped in an old ratty looking blanket were some pictures that looked like they belonged to the "came with the frame" family, except that Heather was in two of them, but an odd looking Heather. In one picture, she was dressed in a ripped halter-top and short-shorts with a really wide belt. Her hair was all done up in these little rolls all over her head, making it look like a pincushion. And even when she was a teenager, she never wore thick black eyeliner like that with sparkles in her other makeup. Under the blanket, Lon found a notebook full of poorly done drawings of people and landscapes and then beneath that was a diary. The diary was purple, covered in sparkles and trimmed in bright pink fake fur.
The diary started about six weeks before. From the way the first entry was, it seemed like she had other diaries and this was just the continuation. Lon started reading the first entry and his stomach dropped. She was talking about how sweet her new boyfriend was and that he was the best kisser ever. He had won her a purple teddy bear at the local fair and she didn't care that he was older. Older men knew how to treat a girl right. None of the "other junk" mattered either. They were in love and love conquered all.
Lon really thought he was going to be sick. This was Heather's handwriting. He flipped through the diary and the handwriting remained consisted though she did use different pens and inks, obviously whatever she could find when she went to start the new entry. Lon knew he had to be missing something. After spending so many years investigating crimes, his nerves were screaming at him that he was missing something crucial, but he couldn't tell what it was. As much as he didn't want to risk his life, he was going to have to confess everything to the person that knew Heather and Cole the best and hope Alicia could see what he couldn't. He pulled into a parking space and took a deep breath. This was going to be ugly.
Inside the hospital, Xander had dismissed the CIA guard now that everyone was here. The cleaner team downstairs had done a proper job and although a few people were not happy about having pieces of clothing forcibly removed from them, there were no free samples of transgenic DNA to be had for the black market. Jhondie had told Xander they would discuss such later. But Xander at least didn't have to worry about Heather's protection. There were enough people in her room that anyone with ill intent would reconsider quickly. Since only one person at a time could be with Janice in the ICU, one or two people had stayed down there and the rest had gravitated into Heather's room.
Jhondie had come in to check on Heather. She shot a glare at Liz and Cameron, who had arrived within an hour of each other, but they just smiled back with infectious sweetness. Jhondie was not happy with those two. They had come in about an hour before and after checking up on Heather, decided they wanted to see Cole. The doctors and nurses in the ICU, after a small request from their chief, hadn't noticed that Janice was staying slightly more than fifteen minutes at a time. She was in fact, in there the whole hour, every hour, and someone else was coming in there with her for ten minutes and then being shooed out. Of course, waiting was simply not an option for the twins.
Brandt was kind enough to stay in the waiting room as they casually picked the security code from one of the nurse's heads. When nobody was looking, they both walked in, washing their hands at the sink as if they had done this a hundred times before and not gotten it from the nurse's mind. A nursing assistant questioned their presence and they managed to convince her that they were consultants that Dr. Carter had sent to examine the special patient they had. The assistant had thought it was odd considering how young those two looked, but with all of the strange events and rumors circulating, she could believe them. And they seemed to know what they were talking about and even where the patient was, so she assumed they must be genuine.
She did mention it to the charge nurse though since Marvel liked to know everything that was happening on her ward. Not telling Marvel was pretty much bringing hell and damnation upon ones self. The large black lady was referred to as "Momma" by much of the nursing staff. Even the doctors briefed her. And once she heard about the "consultants", she immediately called for some verification. She had been working with Dr. Carter since before the woman became chief of staff and there was no way the Dr. Carter she knew would have consultants show up and not introduce them to the staff on the ward. Yeah, Marvel had heard the rumors flying around and people were starting to say that Dr. Carter didn't just know them. She was one of them. So what? The woman was a damn fine doctor and had gotten the nurses a nice raise since becoming chief and rumor was that she was working on another one this year. That rumor was far more interesting to Marvel than rumors about Dr. Carter's origins.
When Marvel called, Dr. Carter said that she would be down in a minute. From the tone of her voice, she wasn't terribly surprised at this stunt, but she wasn't happy about it at all. Marvel offered to kick them out, but Dr. Carter just said that she knew Marvel's job was hard enough without subjecting her to those two. Marvel had been through plenty of chiefs before in her twenty-two years in nursing and few would have bothered to handle a problem like this themselves. Marvel was good friends with the union rep for the nurses at the hospital and if the board tried to get rid of Dr. Carter for something silly like a strange blood type, then the Nurse's Union was going to have a say in the matter.
The twins had known that they wouldn't have long with Cole. Ten minutes, max. They got seven. Even with their backs turned, and not even reading the minds of the people near the door, they could feel their aunt's glower when she arrived. Jhondie didn't say a word. She took one hand from her coat pocket and pointed towards the door. They shot Janice a parting smile and quickly scampered out of the ICU. With most of their aunts, they would have tried some begging and pleading, but Jhondie probably had a syringe full of something vile that would make them regret breaking the rules.
Once outside of the ICU, Cameron and Liz tried to protest that they were only in there for a minute and they weren't bothering anyone. Liz pointed out that Brandt had even waited outside so there would be as little disturbance as possible. Jhondie waited as they made their excuses, thinking about Zack and Alicia's patience levels. The fact that these two made it past puberty was nothing short of a miracle.
"All I can say," Jhondie finally said very calmly when they had wound down, "is that next time, you won't hear me coming." She turned on her heel and left them to contemplate the possibilities of her statement. They decided that Heather's room was far safer and headed back upstairs.
Now almost everyone was in and hanging around Heather's room when Lon finally came back from his investigations. Shawna, Cray and Cyra were downstairs, waiting for their turn to stay with Janice and Cole. Cyra had just spent the last hour on the phone with her mother and grandmother, frantically trying to convince them that they did not need to come to New York. The last thing that anyone needed was for those two drama-queens to show up. It was going to be enough of a circus as it was without them screaming to any tabloid that would listen that they had the inside scoop on the family. And then when they tried that, things would get even more complicated when one of Cole's brothers got pissed enough and tossed Mom and/or Grandma off of the roof. Cyra had contemplated the good in that since it would save a lot of future embarrassment, but in the end, it would just make family holidays more tense than usual.
When Lon walked in the room, everyone stared at him hungrily, waiting for some kind of information. Lon swallowed, wondering what he was supposed to say when answers were the one thing he didn't have at all. He glanced at his niece, so frail in the hospital bed and wondered for the thousandth time what she was going to say in explanation over all of this.
"Tell me you got to Ty," Lon finally said to Xander.
"He's out with HRT on maneuvers. They're practicing assaults in the woods, so he's out of cell range and the ones still there don't know exactly where he went. He likes to surprise his people." Xander shrugged. "So that's why he's not responding. My guys are going to find him and let him know what happened."
"What don't you want to tell me?" Alicia asked, correctly reading her brother's expression.
"Is there somewhere else we can talk?" Lon asked Jhondie, knowing that if an explosion were to occur, it would be best to have Heather in another room. Jhondie nodded and led them down the hall to an empty room. Lon followed with Zack, Alicia, Daniel and Xander close behind. Jhondie made sure the nurse intercom was off and then they waited.
"There are some really big holes and nothing is exactly making sense," Lon began hesitantly. He had been less nervous last year making a presentation directly to the director of the FBI. "What I know for sure is that they were checked into the motel under an assumed name with fake ID's and that they had been there for a week. It appeared that they were about to leave when the shooting occurred."
Now for the ugly part. "For some reason," he continued, "they were putting on a show as if they were...they were acting...I know this is wrong, but..."
"Lon!" both Alicia and Xander yelled at the same time. "Just say it," Alicia added.
"Witnesses state that they were at the motel conducting an affair," Lon blurted. "They were seen acting in a licentious manner towards each other on more than one occasion and there was also another woman involved. This morning, this other woman got drunk, broke into the room, called Cole a cheating bastard and then opened fire. Heather was able to return fire and fatally wounded the shooter on the scene." As he looked at the disbelieving stares, he wanted to remind them there was no reason to kill the messenger.
"Cole and Heather?" Alicia questioned, the edges of her mouth twitching upward in a grin of absolute horror. "No, that wouldn't happen. End of story. I *know* you found evidence to show that one or more of the witnesses were lying, correct?"
Lon looked so miserable for a moment that in any other situation, it would have been hysterical. "I found this," he said, handing over the backpack. "It was in a bus station locker."
Everyone in the room was more confused then ever at seeing the contents of the bag. Alicia and Zack had no idea who the people in the picture were and even as a teenager, Heather never went around looking like such trailer trash. Alicia opened up the diary and began scanning the pages, becoming visibly ill the more pages she flipped through as Zack read over her shoulder.
"This..." she managed to get out, wanting to say that it was a forgery despite the fact it was so perfectly Heather's handwriting. Whoever had written this even managed to duplicate the way Heather wrote the letter 's' with it slumping forward, touching the letters in front.
"This is a relief," Zack finished for her. Alicia looked up at her husband in absolute shock. He smiled slightly at his wife. "If this was real, then I would have to undo all of Jhondie's hard work." It was rare that he managed to totally render Alicia speechless and in a different situation, he would enjoy it. But this diary was not right. One didn't spend years on the run from the government and not be able to tell real personal writings from faked ones. If he hadn't been able to, then he would have believed his other brothers and sisters to have been captured a dozen times over.
"That is her handwriting," Alicia said.
"I know," Zack replied. "But ignore the words and just listen to it." He took the diary from her and began to read an entry. "September 22nd. Sunrise at the beach totally rules! I know, I know, how overdone, but still, when he had that bottle of wine out there, I totally melted. And he didn't mind me getting all melty if you know what I mean, ha ha. He is the absolute bestest in the world and I don't care about *her*. It's her fault that she let him get away from her. Of course he's going to want me more. She's a yucky old lady and I'm hot & fresh."
At that point Daniel started laughing so hard that Zack couldn't continue. "I see what you mean," he finally snickered out. "That's not Heather."
Alicia looked relived as well. "She didn't sound quite that...silly girly even when she was fifteen. She certainly doesn't speak like that now." The others finally realized what Heather's parents and brother meant. It had been a very long time since Heather came close to sounding like the silly teenager that had written that diary.
"You never found any real ID?" Xander asked. Lon shook his head. "Cole hadn't mentioned lately being on a major assignment, but sometimes I just don't know with him. I'll check with some people and see."
"That still doesn't explain why Heather was involved," Alicia mused. "How often does the military stoop to a joint effort with civilian outfits?"
Xander nodded, knowing what she meant. They had to deal with a lot of that crap back at Manticore. "The military will tolerate the CIA and the NSA if they have to. But it's hell even trying to get them to consider the BATF or FBI or an organization of that nature."
"Which leads us back to waiting for one of them to wake up and explain what was going on," Zack said firmly. Speculations were just going to take them in circles and waste time and resources. They had to focus on the top priority and that was Heather and Cole's safety while they were in the hospital.
Justin had been able to handle all of the reporters and news agencies. Nobody had thought twice about him being there considering that the original expose on transgenics and Manticore had been a "Truth" exclusive. Justin had talked to Mike and told him that right now he would get hurt if he tried to demand an interview or a statement. And getting in to see the injured would cause his lifespan to be greatly reduced. Mike said he wanted some exclusives once the crisis was over, and that seemed more than fair. The important thing was that there wasn't going to be a media frenzy over all of this, no matter how many news sharks were in the water, since they couldn't get any access into the hospital. Making sure that Heather and Cole recovered, that was what was important.