Monday, around 7:30pm (sunset)
The van pulls up to the curb in an average upscale residential neighborhood.
"Which one is it?"Darien asks from the passenger seat.
Hobbes searches the street for Monroe's contacts. "Third one down on the left," he replies absently. Finally, he places one man in a landscaper's uniform trimming the bushes in front of the house about two dozen feet from the right side of the van. The man pauses in his work to glance at the van in vague curiosity before returning to his task.
Darien notices his interest in the landscaping employee. "What? What is it?"
He nods once, and then casually turns his gaze to the other side of the street. He barely moves his lips as he replies, "He's one of Monroe's guys."
"What, the gardener?"
"Know any company that has its people out this late in the day?"
Darien concedes the point with a slight shrug. "So where are the others?"
He jerks his head to his left, indicating with his chin another man coming from the rear of the house two doors away from the one he initially pointed out. "There." He pauses as he searches the street, then turns and appraises his partner's condition. "How you feelin'? Think you're up for this?"
Darien stifles his irritation. "Absolutely. May we go? Now?"
He opens his door. "Okay partner, time to dance." He slides off of the seat, closes his door and casually walks around the back of the van to the sidewalk.
By the time Hobbes reaches his side, Darien's opened his door and tentatively stepped down onto the sidewalk. The walking stick/cane is nowhere in evidence, and he holds onto the door with one hand as he tests the strength in his legs. 'Wow, didn't think they'd be this steady,' he muses, thrilled that his strength was returning so quickly. 'And Claire said I'd need that thing for another day or so.' He smiles to himself as Hobbes steps up to him. "So, which one're we talking to first?"
Hobbes nods towards the landscape gardener. "Let's check out the back." He starts towards the side walkway, and Darien gingerly follows. The landscaper continues cutting the bushes for a few more moments before collecting his equipment and walking around the other side of the house.
He dubiously eyes up the two agents as Darien comments in an aside, "Does anyone actually live here? 'Cause it'd really suck if someone on the neighborhood watch called the cops on us now..."
"It's covered," Hobbes absently reassures him. He nods to the landscaper, and as the man approaches, he asks, "Adams?"
The man nods, replying, "Agency?"
"Yah. What've you got?" Hobbes murmurs. Darien leans closer so he can hear what's being discussed.
The man begins to answer, then shoots a questioning glance at the taller agent. "You okay? You look like hell."
"Thanks," Darien replies caustically. "It must be all the sun I've been getting."
"Fawkes..." Hobbes admonishes his partner, and then looks back at Monroe's contact man. "They all there?"
The man nods. "At least Stark is. And three bodyguards. One looks like a medic."
"The assistant," Hobbes verifies. "Any sign of de Fehrn?"
Adams frowns. "Can't be sure, but yeah, I think so."
"You think so?" Darien queries pointedly.
Adams quits chewing on the inside of his cheek, then replies: "Occasionally there's movement in one of the windows, but no one's there. And about fifteen minutes ago, Morris saw a cigarette floating around on the back porch."
Darien and Hobbes exchange knowing looks. "That's him," Hobbes comments.
"So, how does Stark look?" Darien asks with a tiny crooked smile.
"Pretty bad, but the wound's not life-threatening."
The lanky man snaps his fingers in malicious disappointment, and Hobbes shoots him a quelling glance before turning once again to Adams. "What's Morris' twenty?"
Adams gestures with his hand towards the front of the house. "He's the pool guy across the street."
Hobbes nods and starts towards the front of the house, and Darien mutters to himself as he trails the two men, "Doesn't anyone normal live in these neighborhoods?"
Adams precedes the other two men across the immaculate front lawn to his landscaping work van. The side is emblazoned with the company logo 'Lush Landscapers' and a cartoon caricature of a vivacious green thumb wearing a hat and proudly displaying various gardening tools.
He opens the sliding door, places his tool belt in between the front two seats, and gestures for the other two men to follow him as he steps into the back. Once the other two are seated inside, he shuts the door, turns and seats himself in front of a small console. He puts on a pair of headphones, flips a few switches and speaks quietly into a microphone attached to the headgear. "Morris."
"Yah."
"They're here. What's your sit-rep?"
Darien nudges his partner in the ribs as he murmurs to him, "What is it with this stuff? You guys born experts in spy-speak or is there a class?"
"Shhhh..." Hobbes frowns and makes a cutting gesture with his hand.
"... not much going on in the house for a while now. Wait a minute... one of them's on the phone..." Morris trails off as he furtively raises his binoculars to try and get a better glimpse of the activity inside the house.
The three men in the van wait tensely as the seconds tick away...
Adams is beginning to look worried. "Morris. ...Morris, you there?"
No answer. But just as Adams is opening his mouth to call to his colleague again, Morris' voice whispers through the speaker. "Think I've been made. Breaking contact..." the speaker crackles as he tears off his headgear, grabs his equipment and makes himself scarce.
"What? What happened?" Darien asks in alarm.
Adams removes his headgear and carefully places it down on the console in front of him. "He's removing himself from the area. He'll call me once he's clear."
"Why doesn't he just come in here?"
Hobbes pats his partner on the shoulder. "If he was made, then coming to us would blow our position too. I know this guy; he's top-notch CIA. He'd do anything to keep us from being compromised."
An ironic grin spreads across Darien's face. "Well, he can't be another member of the Bobby Hobbes Anti-Fan Club then."
Hobbes wisely ignores the teasing as he turns his head to look at Adams. "How much did Monroe tell you about this assignment?"
"Enough for me to back you up if you need it," the other man replies firmly as he eyes up Darien's pallid face and stooped posture. "And by the look of things, you're going to need it."
Darien blinks as he decides whether or not he should be taking offense with the comment.
"Right," Hobbes affirms as he loosens his gun in his holster. "Right now, I'll need you to stay here and monitor our situation. If things get hairy, call Monroe for backup if you can before you come in."
"Got it." Adams turns to pick up two tiny microphones/wires. He hands one to Hobbes, who carefully pins it to the inside of his jacket as Darien pipes up with a question.
"Wait a minute. Is there some sort of a plan, or are we just charging in there? Because that would be, you know, suicide..."
Hobbes shakes his head in bemusement, and takes the other wire. "No, we're not 'just charging in there'; and yes, you should know by now that there's always a plan." He pauses as he also assesses Darien's condition. "Still up for this, partner?" He finally pins the wire on the back of the lapel on his friend's jacket.
Darien sighs, trying to mask his exhaustion from himself as much as from the others. "If we're doing this today, then yes."
Knowing that his friend was struggling and failing miserably at cloaking how poorly he's feeling, Bobby still takes Darien's word. "Okay. This's what we do: I'm going to draw their attention while you look for the files."
"That's it?" Darien blinks. "And how are you going to keep their attention on you long enough?"
He opens his mouth to answer, but Darien unintentionally cuts him off. "And what about Arnaud? He might still have the files on him."
"True," Hobbes surrenders the point. "That's why you get this." He pulls out and hands a hypo over with a fresh cartridge of sedative in it. "Anyone sees you," he glares at Darien as his partner opens his mouth to correct him, "you knock 'em out with this. It should put a guy down for a coupla hours or so."
"And what if I'm unable to do that?"
He pulls out his spare gun. "Then use this." He hands it over as Darien's face hardens in recollection of the few disastrous times he's handled a loaded gun. "Anything else?"
"No," Darien shakes his head. "Same schtick? You take front and I take back?"
"Nah, let's switch it. They're probably expecting it the other way. Ready partner? Then let's do this." They lightly slap five before opening the side door and exiting the van.
Hobbes sticks his head in as Darien Quicksilvers near the rear. "Mikes on?"
Adams nods as he throws a switch, and acoustic static is replaced by the echo of Hobbes' voice. They nod, and Hobbes carefully pulls the van door shut as Adams slides on his headphones.
"Still there, partner?" he asks to the air on his left.
"Yeah. Ready when you are," Darien's voice murmurs from a few feet away.
"'Kay. Wait for my signal, then move on in."
"And what would the signal be?"
"You'll know when you hear it," he replies with a malicious grin as he peeks around the rear corner of the van at Stark's house.
"Oooh-kaaaay," Darien mumbles to himself as his friend quickly scoots across the street to the cover of some shrubs by a mailbox. Still invisible, he saunters down the opposite side of the street from Stark's house. As he comes even with it, he checks for oncoming cars before crossing the road to the front lawn.
He walks up to the front door and cautiously checks to see if any of Stark's men are inside wearing thermal-vision sunglasses. He waits for a few moments, and then jumps as the sounds of gunfire shatter the tranquil afternoon air. Suddenly, the front door is wrenched open. Two men burst out of the house in pursuit of Hobbes, who's come around from the back of the house in a dead run. He spies the men, and darts back and forth on the street in order to make himself harder to hit. One of the goons skids to a halt and takes aim at the middle of Hobbes' back as the other continues the chase.
Before he can fire though, there's the sound of a hypo hissing as it injects some of the sedative into his neck. The man swats at the mosquito ('?'), then blacks out on the sidewalk with a puzzled look on his face.
"That, was the signal." Darien looks up from the man to see Hobbes wrest open his van door and leap inside.
The van roars to life, and he thrusts it into gear as he floors the gas pedal. The tires scream as the other Chrysalis agent (the medic) halts in the middle of the street to take aim...
But he has to dive out of the way as the van bears down on him.
Meanwhile, a still Quicksilvered Darien is cautiously entering the house. He hears enraged voices coming from the living room/kitchen area near the back porch to his left. He peeks around the corner of the living room from the hall, and spies an apoplectic Stark bellowing at de Fehrn and Brute (the Big Guy).
'Nice outfit,' Darien thinks acidly to himself as he notices that de Fehrn's visible: wearing rumpled slacks, a polo shirt and long overcoat with loafers.
"How the hell did he find us!" Stark shouts at Brute.
"More to the point... where's Fawkes?" de Fehrn interjects calmly.
Stark stills as he considers the doctor's comment, and Brute reaches into his coat pocket for his sunglasses. A distressed look washes over his face as he realizes that he doesn't have them.
de Fehrn notices his reaction, and sighs impatiently as he shakes his head. "Don't worry, I can see him without those," he reassures Stark. "It'll be easier if I remove..." he reaches up to his eyes to take out his contact lenses, but is interrupted.
"That's not necessary," Stark waves a hand. "The latest information has Fawkes and MacKenna both in comas. They're effectively out of the game... for now."
"And what are we going to do with her?" de Fehrn queries as he readjusts the lens in his left eye.
Stark motions for Brute to leave the room, and the man walks to the sliding door. He opens it as the one conscious agent (the medic) enters the room from the front of the house. He's dragging the other man, and hauls him onto another couch on the far side of the living room.
"Keep an eye out," Stark orders the two men. "Agent Hobbes was likely a distraction for others to enter the house." The two nod, and Brute walks out onto the back porch as the medic begins searching the interior for intruders.
Darien moves closer as Stark lowers his voice. The man looks extremely pale, and has an IV inserted into his arm with a bag hung above his head. He's comfortably situated on an elegant Victorian couch with his shirt removed, revealing a sleeveless white undershirt. The top of his arm (where the ball meets the socket in his shoulder) is generously wrapped, with the affected arm securely resting in a sling.
Once the two agents are out of earshot, he turns and continues his conversation with de Fehrn. "Borden and his misfits have her stowed somewhere in their building, so we have a couple of options. We can either go in and get her,"
de Fehrn sighs melodramatically. "Not again," he mutters dismally.
"... or," Stark continues with a pointed glare at the interruption, "We can wait and see if The Keeper is able to bring her around; and MacKenna will return to us as soon as she's able."
"Unless they've somehow managed to convince her that it's in her best interest to stay with them," de Fehrn counters.
He shakes his head. "Not while Barnes and his men think she's alive. They'll do anything to get her back, and Borden knows that. To preserve his precious Agency, he'll make sure MacKenna's away from there as expediently as possible."
"Can we even trust her to come back?"
"Where else can she go?" comes the smug reply. "We have the only complete set of records on her experiment, and she won't last more than a few days out on her own." He pats a small zippered date book sitting on his lap. "She's already admitted as much to us, and we've offered her the best chance for her freedom so far. She has no choice but to remain under our... 'protection'."
'Not if I can help it,' Darien ponders darkly to himself. He eyes up the date book, and figures that it's large enough to hold a few floppies or mini CDs with the research information on them. 'Now, how to get it?'
His answer comes in the form of Hobbes' van suddenly squealing to a halt in front of the house, just as Adams assaults Brute on the back porch. The sliding glass door shatters as Brute is flung through it. The medic hurtles down the stairs towards Adams, who squeezes off a few shots at the man before diving out the broken door and bolting for the line of bushes separating Stark's yard from the next house's. The Chrysalis agent peeks around the corner of the kitchen doorway, and seeing that the way is clear, then tears off after Adams with his gun drawn.
Meanwhile, de Fehrn has helped Stark off of the floor by the couch, and is bending over to retrieve the planner when Darien jams the hypo into his neck.
"Not so fast, you bastard," he murmurs as he injects a double dose of the sedative into de Fehrn's bloodstream. The mercenary wheels around swinging a fist, and clips him across the jaw. He falters back a step before crashing the butt of the hypo down on de Fehrn's face. There's a wet snap as the man's nose is shattered, then a thud as he collapses to the floor, unconscious.
Darien seizes and Quicksilvers the planner, and then whirls around to spot Stark aiming a pistol at his head. He's wearing thermal sunglasses.
"Shi...!" Darien grunts as he dives for cover. Stark squeezes the trigger, and a bullet whizzes by a hair from his invisible cheek. He clumsily rolls to his feet and lurches at the other man. With one hand, he grabs Stark's injured arm and drives the hypo into the skin directly under his collarbone beside the bandage. He squeezes the trigger, and before Stark can finish hissing the epithet on his lips, the man collapses to the floor, out cold.
Darien staggers and leans on the nearest secure object, (which happens to be the doorway leading from the living room into the front hall) as he tries to get his breath back. His lungs heave for oxygen, and he notices little sparks dancing in his field of vision.
The moment passes, and he takes a tentative step away from the doorsill. The Quicksilver falls away from him, revealing a blanched face and body shivering in shock. He stumbles towards where he dropped the planner, scoops it up and un-zippers it a little to scan the contents. Inside are three small disks in protective plastic cases labeled 'A.E. Daniels, file DOD032493'. In an almost imperceptible scrawl on the lower right-hand corners of the disks are the letters 're: swrb'.
He sighs in relief, zippers the planner shut (without actually reading the writing on the disks), and carefully tucks it in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He grabs the arm of a chair to pull himself up, and notices that his legs have gone 'on strike'. With the surge of adrenaline wearing off, he realizes that he should have taken Claire's advice more to heart than he's done.
His head jerks up at the sound of the front door crashing open. He drops the hypo and shakily draws Hobbes' gun...
As Hobbes bursts into the room.
He sweeps the room with his eyes and firearm, and drops the barrel to the floor as he spies Darien crouched near de Fehrn's limp form.
"Whoa, partner!" he exclaims as he stares down the barrel of his spare gun into his partner's desperate and almost senseless eyes. "Backup's arrived!"
Darien blinks and shakes his head as he drops the gun. "Sorry. Kinda jumpy," he mutters as he once again attempts to marshal enough energy to stand.
Hobbes notices his friend's dilemma, and hastens to help him up. "Nice job, partner," he comments in approval. "Got the goods?"
Darien grasps the proffered arm and allows the shorter man to haul him up. "Yeah, in my coat. Let's get the hell outta here."
Hobbes nods. "Adams is waiting in the van."
He steadies Darien as he stumbles halfway to the door. "What happened to that medic guy? ..." the exhausted man frowns.
"Down and out in the back yard," Hobbes reassures him. "Let's get you back to The Keep, partner. You look like crap."
"Feel worse," he mumbles in exhaustion as they leave the eerily silent house.
Tuesday 9:30 am
The Official and Eberts enter Claire's lab. She's busy typing on her computer, with Hobbes sitting beside her avidly reading what was on the screen. Darien, whose color has improved once again, is still curled up asleep under a fuzzy blanket on the reclined demented dentist's chair.
His bed, as well as all of the monitoring equipment, had been moved to Lab Four with MacKenna the night before.
At the sound of the lab door sliding open, Claire turns her head and raises her index finger to her lips with a sidewise dip of her head towards the sleeping man. The Official and Eberts stride over to her and Hobbes, and He quietly asks, "So?"
Hobbes glances up briefly at them before turning back to the computer screen. "This's some pretty messed up stuff here, Boss," he comments absently as he continues poring over MacKenna's case files.
The Official leans over his shoulder to squint more closely at the screen. "Finding what you need, Doctor?"
She smiles, her relief evidently fighting with her scientific interest in the information. "Yes, thank goodness." She returns her gaze to the document as she strains to keep her voice lowered so as not to wake Darien. "What they were doing here is extraordinary! With Amanda and a few others they were actually able to neurologically, 'rewire' them..."
"For what purpose?" Eberts queries as he cranes his head to look at the computer. In doing so, he accidentally bumps The Official's elbow. He whips His head around to glare at His errant assistant, and the chagrined man blushes as he backs away a step.
Unaware of the interaction between them, Claire responds while continuing to scroll through the open document. "It's difficult to explain, but..." she trails off, thinking furiously on how to word what she was going to say next in a way that the others would understand.
But before she can continue, Hobbes pipes up. "You ever hear of something called Reiki?"
The other two men's faces go blank, and Claire continues. "It's a holistic approach to healing and improving the functioning of the body. It involves the practitioner attempting to cleanse energy pathways in the patient partly with the use of crystals at key focal points..."
"Crystals..." The Official grunts in derision, as she continues uninterrupted.
"... as well as with a form of meditation in order to focus his or her own energies into the hands, so that he or she can heal, in a fashion, the blocked pathways in the patient."
Hobbes grins conspiratorially. "Sounds like a lotta Eastern mysticism hoowah, don't it?"
"Hm," The Official agrees, still trying to read the document on the screen.
"Well, quite a few people swear by it," Claire interjects. "And it seems the scientists at The Shop found some merit in these claims, because they've been working on adapting this technique for use in subversive operations and interrogation proceedings."
"There were subjects other than Miss MacKenna?" Eberts pipes up.
She nods. "Many others. Unfortunately, most of them died from complications after the third phase of the experiment. The survivors have been trained to focus their energies into mainly their hands, which has enabled them to do some pretty remarkable things."
Hobbes breaks in with vigor. "Get this: it doesn't say who, but two of them were able to start fires. Not big ones, but if they were near something flammable, they could torch it. Pretty cool, huh?"
"How many are left?" The Official asks.
"As far as I can tell, all of them were in the complex when Arnaud blew it up," she replies softly. "There's reference of a few being moved a few years ago, but no mention of any specific locations, and a brief afternote stating that the subjects were, 'deactivated', soon after transition."
Hobbes snorts softly. "No loose ends, now."
"Do you have the necessary information to help her now?" He asks brusquely.
She nods again. "I needed some additional medical supplies, so I ordered them through a colleague of mine able to get them at a discount."
"Did you clear this through..." He snaps, but she cuts Him off.
"Through Eberts? Yes, and we can afford it." The frost in her voice indicates that she's a bit testier than usual with His penny-pinchiness. "And now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to check on her."
She abruptly rises from her chair, and The Official and Eberts hastily backpedal in order to let her pass. She snatches MacKenna's chart from a stand beside the lab door as she stalks out of the room. Hobbes continues to read MacKenna's computer files, of which he never took his eyes from for the entire conversation. Darien's still sleeping on his chair, with a soft snore escaping from his nostrils every few seconds or so.