Mosaic

"The most recent victim has been identified as Ian Foster, a commander in the city's Silver Guardians force. Mr Foster was found in his home after neighbours became anxious about his welfare. With confirmation that Mr Foster was, indeed, a victim of this virus, that brings the official number of victims to more than two hundred and fifty in just the last three days. Unfortunately, at this point we have no way of knowing how many more people, like Mr Foster, simply went home to die.

"City authorities are urging people not to panic, while a spokesman for Biolab said they were doing all they could to find a cure, but so far those efforts have been in vain. This is Mandi Ohlin, reporting for..."

Nadira reached out and clicked the television off, shaking her head. "It's not getting any better."

Jen, who'd been watching the news report with her in the breakroom of the Biolab headquarters, shrugged. "I don't think we were expecting it to." She sighed. "I'm not looking forward to telling Eric about Ian Foster."

"They were close?" Nadira asked.

Jen nodded, grimacing. "He was one of the command team in the SGs and someone Eric knew before that."

"I'm sorry."

Jen responded with a bleak smile. "This just feels unreal." Picking up the crutches -- Ven had been able to heal the majority of her injuries, but the ankle was beyond the future tech available, so Jen had to make do with a twenty-first century cast and crutches -- she struggled to her feet. "C'mon -- we need to give Wes and Trip the latest news."

Nadira nodded. "Jen -- do you think we can do this?"

Jen wanted to reassure the other woman, but the words didn't seem to want to come. "I don't know," she finally admitted honestly.

~*~

Staying in the Collins' family mansion for the duration of this mission had its pros and cons, Al decided. On the plus side it meant that the Silverhills authorities didn't notice the sudden influx of people and ask questions as to how they'd been able to breach the quarantine restrictions. On the other hand, it made avoiding certain people difficult, and when Lucas walked out onto the sun terrace, Al knew he'd failed dismally on that score.

He knew what Lucas wanted to talk to him about before the other man had even opened his mouth. He knew, roles reversed, exactly the questions he'd have been asking Lucas. The trouble was, knowing the questions didn't make finding the answers any easier.

"You still haven't spoken to Eric." Lucas was direct and to the point.

Al winced. "No, I haven't."

"Al, time is running out. Our time limit is Friday -- today's Monday..."

"I know that," Al answered quietly. He thought about the state Eric had been in on Saturday morning. Though Kimberly had said nothing to put him off, Al had judged then was not going to be the best time to try it -- and the situation hadn't improved, at least not in Al's estimation.

"The kids have drawn a complete blank so far, this is our last hope and it's got to be today," said Lucas. The expression on his face told Al that Lucas disliked having to make that order. "Otherwise we're not going to have time to act on anything he can tell us."

"I know that," Al repeated. "It's..."

"Al, I know that Eric's not 'well'," Lucas cut in, frustration ripe in his voice as he moved to lean on the terrace's balustrade. "I've had Ven's report on his physical health and her assessment of his mental health -- it isn't going to get any better any time soon." The head of Covert Operations' shoulders sagged and he turned to face Al fully. "He's my friend; Kim's my friend. But we have got to do this otherwise..."

"Boom," Al completed, shaking his head. "I know."

"Paul Miller's arriving in fifteen minutes to take Rob and me up to SGHQ to help run security; the Myers' house is on the way, he can drop you off," Lucas offered.

Something about Lucas' tone told Al that wasn't an offer he could refuse.

~*~

Zaskin yawned. The scientist in him was amazed and astounded by the set up his captor had provided him with. A bank of computers with up to the minute specifications for data processing; the latest versions of every scope and meter he could use; as much bench and work space as any scientist could ever wish for; every last letter of his DNA masking research. The problem was, the human being in him completely rebelled at what his captor was asking him to do.

At the centre of the set up -- which looked as though it was in some converted factory, to judge from the size -- was a stasis couch -- definitely future tech, given that Zaskin's experiments with attempting to create stasis fields began and ended with one failed attempt at preserving a bunch of grapes, and he knew no-one had got beyond that, in the twenty-first century, at any rate -- on which was lying a member of Time Force. It wasn't someone Zaskin had personally met before, but he knew who it was. Knew without having to be told. There could only be one person it was on that couch: Alex Collins.

~*~

Kimberly was almost relieved to see Al walking up the path towards the front porch. While she appreciated his reticence and the consideration he was showing both her and Eric, two full days of utterly compliant Eric Myers was more than wrong. She'd tried to get through to him, talking herself hoarse in the process, but nothing she'd said made the slightest bit of difference. He responded to questions as necessary, but that was it.

And Kimberly wasn't entirely sure she could take much more.

She headed for the front door. Eric had to have heard her, but he made no effort to ask what was going on. Kimberly sighed and shook her head. Lucas is pretty sure Al can get through to Eric and get answers; I just hope he really can...

She opened the door just as Al reached it. "Hi," she said, trying to give him a smile in greeting. She got the feeling, from his answering expression, she didn't really achieve it.

"I have to try and talk to him this morning," he answered.

Kimberly nodded. Exactly what she'd expected. "All right."

~*~

Ben sat beside the bed, one of Taylor's hands gently held in his own. This was like some bad dream. How could everything come crashing down in so short a space of time?

It had taken coming up here and being shown Taylor's comatose form before he'd truly believed what Jenny Deslaurier had been telling him. And now he was here, he could practically see Taylor slipping away from him.

We've already lost our son, Ben found himself thinking. Please, Taylor, don't let me lose you, too.

~*~

Al watched from the doorway of the small sitting room as Eric sat listlessly in the chair. Even now he was here, he still toyed with the idea of leaving sleeping dogs to lie -- Eric looked so defeated and vulnerable that any sort of interrogation was going to feel like kicking a wounded puppy. The trouble was, they needed the information Eric might have from his time in The Master's 'care'.

Al sighed. He couldn't afford not to do this -- they couldn't afford this not happening.

"I know there's someone there," Eric stated dully. "Blind, not deaf -- I can hear you breathing."

And so it begins. "It's Al Drake," he said, walking into the room. Without his eyes to deceive him, Eric was almost bound to recognise Al's voice as being Alex Collins' -- in fact, in the tumult and chaos of the escape from the TOI, Eric had recognised him, but there had been no time then for any clarifications and nor had there been since. Given that Eric's present condition was at least partially due to Alex's political manoeuvrings, Al hoped the familiar voice would tap Eric's anger. Tap his anger and find the real Eric.

"Oh." No sign of recognition to Eric's response. No sign of anything, in fact.

Al sighed as he came to a halt in the middle of the room. Part of him wanted to try physical intimidation, but Eric was unintimidatable as a general rule, and the blindness made the idea even more redundant, so Al was left standing, feeling awkward. "You know who I used to be?"

"I'm not dumb." But the tone was flat and disinterested.

"I'm surprised you can be so calm about it," said Al, hoping this at least would provoke some sort of reaction. "I'd have thought you'd be about ready to strangle me."

"What good would it do?" That really wasn't an Eric Myers sentiment -- not in Al's experience. "Besides. You're there, I'm here."

"Yeah, so, and?" Al shot back. "Since when did you start letting yourself be limited?"

"I'm blind."

"No, you're not," Al retorted. "You just can't see."

"Same difference." Still Eric's voice remained monotone and lifeless.

Al shook his head. "Uh-uh. One says 'I can't do something' the other says 'I still have four senses working and a mind that knows how to use 'em'."

~*~

The scene Jen found in the research lab was both unsurprising and frustrating. Wes and Trip were both up to the eyeballs in research and papers, but where Trip had taken periodic breaks, Wes had barely moved from the lab since Jen had got there from the hospital two days earlier. In fact, as she and Nadira entered the lab, Wes didn't even look up from his work.

"What's the news?" Trip asked. Nadira answered with the latest casualty figures and Trip cursed. "Damnit."

Wes still didn't move.

Jen gritted her teeth. Enough was enough. "Wes -- time we had a talk."

~*~

Eric twitched. For a second, Al thought he might have broken through. "So?"

Time to call out the big guns. "The Eric Myers I knew wasn't a quitter."

But if Al had thought that was going to provoke a pride backlash, he was wrong. "Then you didn't know me very well."

Al folded his arms. "Oh, this ought to be good. What've you ever quit at?"

"I quit school."

"Not through your own choice," Al countered. "Someone planted stolen exam papers in your locker."

Eric seemed to ignore him. "I quit the Marines."

"You were requested to not re-enlist or be medically discharged. Hardly counts as quitting." A frown crossed Eric's face, presumably as he wondered how Al knew that. "When Hawking sent me on that mission to get you to stay in Silverhills, I got the full fact file. So name me one time where you really, honestly just flat out gave up, Eric. Just one." Silence. "I thought not." Eric opened his mouth to say something. "Uh-uh. You know something, Eric? One thing became very apparent reading that fact file: The more often you were told you couldn't do something, that it wasn't possible or that you couldn't do it, the more you gunned for it, the harder you tried and the more people you proved wrong."

"Shut up." Finally, reaction.

"Make me," said Al. "You proved 'em wrong in school. You proved 'em wrong in Landstuhl -- you know, you weren't supposed to make it to the hospital, that was how sick you were thanks to Zafar bel Abis. The doc at the scene didn't reckon you'd make it as far as the nearest town never mind Germany, but you did. You made it to Germany and you survived. You proved him and every other medic in the place wrong."

"Shut up." More reaction, this time through gritted teeth.

"Make me," Al repeated. "Get out of that chair and shut me up. It's the only way I will." Eric twitched again, but it was still not enough. Al grimaced. "Someone else you proved wrong," he continued. "That's David Porter. You know he didn't want to hire you -- he didn't figure you'd amount to anything as an SG -- but he was overruled and you'd proved him wrong inside your first week. You proved your Frank Peterson wrong, too..."

That finally did it. Al barely had time to take in the fact that Eric was moving before the other man had caught him with an unerring full tackle.

~*~

"Why is there no progress?" demanded Zaskin's captor as he entered the laboratory.

So far, Zaskin hadn't been able to confirm the identity of his captor. Despite the familiarity of the voice, each and every time the man appeared, his face was shrouded, denying Zaskin the ability to recognise him.

"There's no progress," Zaskin answered, "because I can't do what you're asking me to do."

"You can!" snapped his captor. "I know you can -- the history banks show you've done it."

"Not what you're asking me to do," Zaskin retorted. "You're asking me not to just mask someone's DNA, you're asking me to physically change it."

"But I know you can do it!" insisted his captor, slamming a fist down on a convenient workbench.

"I've never done it," Zaskin replied, equally insistent. "And more to the point, what you're asking me to do is ethically wrong. I refuse to experiment on someone without their consent."

"Oh Doctor," drawled his captor, "don't play that card with me. You'd sell your ethics to the highest bidder. And right now, that's me. If you don't do this, I will kill you."

~*~

Al landed on the floor, Eric poised over him.

"Shut the hell up and leave me the fuck alone," Eric yelled, his voice ragged and strained.

"No can do," Al retorted. "Do you know what's going on? Do you even care that in five days time, unless we find The Master, the whole future will be changed? Billions of people wiped out in one stroke."

"Of course I care."

"Then help, damn it! Get off your butt and contribute."

"I can't."

"Bullshit." With a surge, Al pushed Eric off his chest, and before the other man could react, reversed their positions. "Think about this. You've just crossed this room and knocked me on my butt. Still think you 'can't' do things?"

"Bastard!"

Al found himself being bodily flung across the room. He landed with a thud, banging his head against the floor. For a second, he expected more retribution, but when none came, he risked sitting up and found Eric likewise sitting up, arms loosely wrapped around his knees.

"You really are a cold, manipulating son of a bitch," Eric stated, but even that flat statement had more life to it than any of his earlier comments.

Al judged it to be an improvement. "Old habits, I guess."

Eric snorted. "Real old habits." He sighed. "You had a reason for doing this I figure?"

~*~

Alice ran her fingers through her hair. "There's got to be something here."

She, and the rest of the Vengeance Rangers, were once again tearing apart the Northlands Collective site -- this time, in one of the warehouses that hadn't been, apparently, part of Frax's base of operations, though according to Paul Jones, it was where Frax had held him prisoner. Unfortunately, as with everything else they'd tried so far, the warehouse was a complete dead end.

"It's completely clean, Ali," Namir observed. "Not even any trash. It's one hundred percent empty and not so much as a footprint in the dust to give us a clue."

"Back to square one?" asked Lexia.

"Looks like it," Alice groaned. "Rick -- can you get a scan of this whole Northlands site. I don't care whether or not we think the warehouse or whatever was or wasn't a part of Frax's base -- let's completely eliminate the site from things."

"You got it, Ali," Rick answered.

"There is one other person we can talk to," JJ put in as Rick went to do the scan. "And that's Shawn."

"Frax jemmied around with his memories," Alice pointed out. "What he knows is probably iffy at best."

"Iffy's better than nothing right at this minute," John replied.

"Wasn't he planning on quitting Silverhills when he came out of the cast?" Lexia queried.

"He did," JJ agreed. "He moved to somewhere back East -- but I have a contact number for him."

"All right." Alice ran her fingers through her hair again. "All right. Nam, you and I are going to help Rick with his scan. John, Lex, JJ -- head back to JJ's apartment. JJ..."

"I'll call Shawn when we get back," JJ completed.

~*~

Al sighed. "We're trying to find The Master -- but the kids are drawing blanks faster than empty bottles at a pill-poppers convention."

"You think I know something," Eric surmised.

"We know you were interrogated," Al agreed, clambering to his feet and making for the couch, even as he noted that Eric didn't bother moving from his spot on the floor.

"It wasn't by The Master," Eric answered. "I'm fairly sure of that."

"You're probably right."

"And there wasn't a whole lot of moustache twirling going on."

"That figures."

"In fact I've blocked most of it -- the interrogation techniques were...brutal." Al saw a fine tremor travel through Eric's hunched form. "But I do remember the main question they kept asking me."

~*~

Without waiting to see if Wes would move, Jen started for the lab door. When he didn't move, Jen paused.

"Wesley Alexander Collins -- we are going to have a talk," she snapped.

There was a scraping of a chair as Wes stood up. "All right," he muttered. "But it's gotta be quick."

Jen's mouth compressed into a thin line, but she said nothing as she led Wes into a currently empty office.

"What do you want?" Wes asked as he closed the door behind them.

"I want to know why you're working yourself to death," Jen answered, perching on the desk, glad to be off the crutches again.

"Because we've got a deadline," Wes retorted. "We have to find a cure to this virus and find The Master by Friday."

"I know that," said Jen. "That still doesn't explain why you're not taking any care of yourself." Wes said nothing. "You're not stopping to eat...you're barely stopping to sleep -- and even when you do that, you're not going home."

"This is important."

"So are you."

"This is something I can do...the only thing I can do," Wes snapped, rounding on Jen. "I couldn't protect you. I couldn't protect Lexia. I couldn't protect dad -- all I can do is try and find a cure for this virus...and I'm doing just a bang up job of that, aren't I?" he continued, his voice rising. "Two hundred and fifty people are dead -- Jesus...and you want me to take care of myself? Damnit -- there isn't time for that." He slammed his fist down on the desk, knocking one of Jen's crutches flying as he did so.

"And if you're so damn tired that you miss something?" Jen cut in. "What then? What happens to the victims of the virus then? Wes you're not Superman. You can't protect everyone."

"Well I should be!" Wes yelled. "What the hell good is it if I can't keep my own family safe?"

~*~

Al waited for Eric to collect himself.

"The guy -- Chisholm -- kept asking me about one of Michael Zaskin's projects. The DNA masking that lets Kim use Jen's morpher. I know jack shit about the science behind it -- couldn't answer the questions."

There was a long pause. Al wondered if that was it and guessed, from the way Eric was frowning, there was more.

"Remember one other thing," Eric continued eventually. "Something Chisholm said. I was loopy and out of it, so it mightn't even have been that but...The Master's main base isn't in Silverhills."

Al blinked slowly. That was something that no-one had considered. "What?"

Eric gave a sort of sigh/groan. "I'm not sure. I don't know if I was hallucinating, or dreaming or if it actually happened." He drew his knees up tighter to his chest, as if presenting a smaller target for abuse. "I think Chisholm said that I ought to be interested in The Master's base. That it was somewhere I'd shed blood."

"Somewhere you shed blood?" Al echoed, not quite able to suppress a shudder at the thought. He almost didn't want to ask the next question. "Where would that be?"

"Assuming I didn't hallucinate it, there's only two places it could be." Eric snorted softly. "And I don't know where either of them are, exactly." There was a pause. "One's in Kosovo someplace. The other's between here and Malibu."

"Zafar bel Abis' base," Al realised.

Eric nodded. "If it's either of 'em, it would be the one here in California." There was another pause. "Kim can tell you where it is for sure -- she was conscious when she went there."

TO BE CONTINUED...