Meanwhile, in Room Twelve, Darien's roughly awakened by the bitter stench of smelling salts. "'Chew!" he sneezes violently, and grimaces as it comes back to him why he passed out in the first place.
He hurt. Everywhere.
'Feels like I got licked by a lightening bolt... again,' he ponders as he groans in agony.
"Now, now, Agent Fawkes," Barnes' voice grates on the lanky man's eardrums. "It does you no good trying to escape that way."
"Who said I was trying?" he grumbles, and then coughs from a dry throat.
"Some water?" he hears that smarmy little guy ask... what was his name? Noble?
He cracks open scarlet eyes, but they can't seem to focus quite right. Someone approaches him carrying something, but everything looks like a TV screen does when the vertical's off: all wavy and weird. It was beginning to make him nauseous.
"Y'know, I might be willing to cooperate more if you stopped zapping me so damned much," he grates out.
"Or, you'd cooperate more knowing that I won't," Barnes counters as he steps up once again with the taser. "A few more jolts from this will kill you, you know."
"And that's supposed to scare me into talking? 'He don't know me very well, do he?'" Darien quips to the disinterested Shop agent on his right.
"Hm. Maybe not," is the thoughtful reply. "Guess we'll just have to switch to another method of questioning." He looks expectantly at his assistant, who nods, sets down the full glass of water he's carrying, and fetches a medium-sized satchel from the other side of the room.
"Whatever it is, it won't work," Darien retorts with a grin. "You see, right now I'm just the tiniest bit psychotic; and I couldn't care less what methods of torture you wanna use on me. 'Cause at this point, I really don't give a god-damn. Go ahead," he gingerly laces his hands behind his neck and cradles his head, ignoring his body's screaming protests to the movement. "Do your worst... or best; 'cause I'd rather kill you than tell you stupid bastards anything at this point." His grin widens ruthlessly as he sees that he's hit somewhat of a nerve.
Barnes' face tightens in anger. He purses his lips as he considers his options. "Well, I guess this means that our 'little playdate' has come to an end then." He motions for his three agents, and they haul Darien roughly out of his chair.
"What, checking out so soon?" he taunts around the searing agony washing over his body.
"No, but you are," Barnes replies grimly. He pulls out his firearm and aims it at Darien's heart...
Suddenly there's a knock on the door.
Barnes frowns in consternation for a moment, and then the look fades into one of anticipation. "She took her sweet time in getting here," he comments over his shoulder to Noble.
The assistant nods, and cautiously approaches the door.
Barnes turns and aims at a spot over Noble's shoulder as the door is opened, while the three Shop agents hustle Darien towards the back of the room.
Before the door is fully opened, Noble is suddenly jerked through the doorway. He begins to shout in surprise and alarm, but his cry ends in a wet gurgle as Barnes sees a flash of steel before the door clicks shut.
"Amandaaaaaa!" he shouts in fury as he opens fire.
As his men release Darien and draw their weapons, the two connecting doors crash open to reveal Adams and Monroe. Their guns flash, and one by one, the Shop agents begin to drop.
Barnes dives for cover beside the bed. He watches an agent of his go down on one knee and draw a bead on Adams, but the man is thrown off balance as one of Monroe's bullets rips into his chest. He seems to crumple to the floor in slow motion as a second Shop agent returns fire at her. She dives for the protection of the connecting wall between the rooms just as Adams leans around his doorsill and shoots the man in the back of the head. The third Shop agent edges towards the front of the room to protect Barnes, and Adams darts into the room as Monroe covers him with another round of shells.
Seemingly oblivious to the gunplay surrounding him, Darien has managed to shakily pull himself up into a crouch. As he leans on the arm of a chair to finish his ascent into verticality, Adams rushes to his side and practically hurls him through the connecting door into Room Thirteen.
"HEY!" Darien begins, but is cut off as Adams slams the door shut.
Meanwhile, the final Shop agent has reached Barnes, and keeps Monroe occupied as he hauls The Director through the front door of the room. Adams drops to one knee and begins to shoot, but is rewarded with empty 'click's. He curses as he rapidly exchanges the empty clip for a full one, and Monroe squeezes off a few shots before her gun is emptied as well.
Adams looks up to draw a bead on his quarry, but they've already escaped through the door. "Shit!" He turns and looks to Monroe, who is half kneeling in the doorway to Room Eleven. "You okay?"
She nods, and moves to rise. The too-sudden movement yanks at the half-healed wound in her leg, and she stifles a curse as she makes her way into the devastated room. She drops her empty clip into her pocket and reloads as she scans the room. She shoots Adams a searching look as she makes her way to the closed door to Room Thirteen. "Fawkes?" she asks him.
"Should be fine," he replies as he kneels and checks the fallen Shop agents for signs of life. Monroe waits for a moment, and he shakes his head. "Dead."
She nods again. "Let's grab Fawkes and get the hell out of here."
"What about..." Adams begins, but is interrupted as shouting suddenly erupts, along with gunfire, from Room Thirteen.
"Fawkes!" Monroe shouts, and bolts for the front door as Adams wrenches at the connecting door. She skids to a stop in a small puddle of blood on the sidewalk in front of the room just in time to see Barnes hastily retreating from the next room that Adams had thrown Darien into. The third Shop agent's shouts of alarm and anger are abruptly cut off by the sound of a heavy object, more than likely a chair, crashing onto him.
"How do you like that, cocksucker!" Darien shouts gleefully. "Doesn't feel so good on the receiving end, does it!"
"Barnes!" Monroe barks as she aims at his heart.
He whirls around and immediately begins shooting at her. She jerks backwards in reaction as she fires her own gun, and she slips on the puddle of blood. She continues to fire as she falls, but the bullets fly wildly, and Barnes keeps shooting as he runs down the sidewalk towards the main street. One of his bullets strikes the gun from her hand as another grazes her shoulder. Monroe grunts as she thumps onto the sidewalk, and shakes her hand to get the feeling back. Her shoulder begins to burn as the blood trickles down her arm, and her leg blares its protest at the overexertion.
Adams yanks at the connecting door, but it's somehow jammed shut.
He throws his shoulder into it a few times, and then karate-kicks it twice before the deadbolt twists enough for the door to crash open. He swiftly draws his gun and scans the room for enemies...
But for the crumpled body of the third agent lying amidst the shattered remains of a desk chair, the room was empty.
No Fawkes.
And no Barnes.
"Adams!" Monroe calls from outside.
He cautiously surveys the room a second time before replying. "Room's clear!"
"Where's Fawkes?"
He makes his way to the open front door. "Gone." He scans the parking lot, and notices a small group of people rushing towards them. "Reinforcements' here," he comments as he kneels down to check her injuries.
12:40pm, Friday afternoon
Darien still can't get his eyes to focus right. Even invisible, his vision is all blurry and wavy, and the floor seems to sway and twist underneath his feet like a boat on choppy water. His stomach gurgles its protest, and he swallows against the bile attempting to rise into his mouth.
"Not now," he states in a firm voice to his roiling tummy.
It ignores him, like everything else in his life does.
Shut your pie-hole, Fawkes. Go invisible like the good little rat you are, and... maybe... you'll get a shot. If you don't screw up and disappoint us. Which you'll somehow manage to do anyway.
"You shut up," he mutters to the voices in his head. "I'll deal with you later, Charlie-boy. Right now we need to worry about Amy."
Why? What'd she ever do for you?
"Let me know I wasn't alone," he replies as he opens yet another connecting door. He absently notes that he's moved through three rooms with no sign of either MacKenna or Barnes.
"Gotta be coming to the end of this place soon," he comments to a wall sconce beside the door. He limps through the room and places his hand on the knob of the next door, but hesitates when he hears voices. He places his ear to the door to better hear what's being said on the other side.
12:42pm, Friday afternoon
After making sure that Monroe was all right, Hobbes leaves her in Claire's masterful care. The Official orders all of the men to fan out in teams of two and search the area in a two-block radius starting from the motel, but Hobbes sets off on his own search path.
"Bobby..." Claire stops him. He twists around on his heel, eager to go find his friend.
"What?"
She holds out the case, and his face brightens in understanding. "Thanks, Keep. I've got it from here." He spins around and rapidly strides down the sidewalk, following the almost unnoticeable trail of blood on a hunch. The Official and Eberts watch him go, their unease apparent in their posture and expressions.
"Be careful, Robert," Eberts calls out.
The stocky agent waves absently over his shoulder, his attention already hyperfocused on the task at hand as he lowers his thermal-vision goggles over his eyes.
12:46pm Friday afternoon
Darien listens to the conversation on the other side of the door. Amy sounds terrified. His emotions surge in response, and he begins to turn the knob of the connecting door.
But the main door to the room opens, and Hobbes' profile is backlit from the brilliant sun outside. His gun sweeps the room in tandem with his gaze, and he freezes when he spies Darien's Quicksilvered outline in the room.
"Fawkes, what the hell're you doing?" he calls out, but is cut short when his partner rapidly strides across the room and clamps an invisible hand over his mouth. He shivers at the subzero touch, and automatically bats Darien's arm away.
"Shhhhhhh," Darien hisses in his ear. "You'll spook them."
"Fawkes," he begins in a normal voice, but he sees the hand come closer to his face. "Fawkes," he murmurs, "What's going on here? Why'd you run off like..."
"Amy's next door," is the whispered response. "With Barnes. And his dillhole assistant, I think," he finishes with a grimace.
"She can deal," he replies tersely. "Right now you got some medicine coming." He pulls out the case with the blocker and counteragent from the inside of his jacket with one hand as he snags his partner's arm with the other hand, encased in a glove. "Y'know, this'll go a whole lot quicker if you dropped the see-through act."
Darien shakes off Hobbes' tightening grip. "Robert, this isn't the time! Did you hear what I said? Amy's in the..."
"Next room with Barnes and his dillhole assistant, I know," he paraphrases. "And you can help her if you let me give you these shots." He tries to catch his arm again, but Darien backs away a few steps.
"You can't stop me, Robert," he purrs menacingly.
Hobbes draws his gun and aims it at his partner's chest. "Don't make me do this Darien."
The Quicksilver falls away, showing Darien with a feral grin on his face. He hunches his head and shoulders as he steps up to Hobbes and leans into the barrel of the gun. "Go ahead, finish what he started," he murmurs. "He was getting ready to shoot me anyway when Amy knocked on the door."
Hobbes hesitates, and runs his gaze assessingly over the taller man. "Jesus, Fawkes, what did that bastard do to you?" he breathes as he notices the sorry state of Darien's singed and ripped shirt.
"I believe its called torture, my friend. Feels worse than it looks, so I hope you'll understand why I'm not in much of a touchy-feely mood," he grins mirthlessly before turning serious. "Look, Amy risked her life to save me. I owe her, Bobby. Let me repay the favor; then you can give me those shots. Whatta ya say?" He looks over the rims of his ruined sunglasses at his partner, and Hobbes slowly drops his gun before holstering it.
He shakes his head. "Someday Fawkes, I'm gonna decide that shooting you is better than doing what you want."
"C'mon, you like seeing me this nuts," is the smooth response. "It's nice to have someone crazier than you; gives you some spice and variety in your day."
"I want spice and variety, I'll get it in my diet," Hobbes retorts. "As for insanity, you just keep getting your shots, and let me be the expert there." He checks the rounds in his gun, closes it up and looks evenly at his friend. "What's the plan?"
Darien straightens and claps Hobbes on the shoulder. "Awright. We know Amy nailed the little guy..." he trails off as he tries to recall the Shop assistant's name.
"Noble," Hobbes interjects.
"Noble, right," Darien nods, and continues. "She hurt the little guy bad from what I saw, so we've only got Barnesie to worry about. I say we kick the front door in and gun the bastard down."
"That's original," Hobbes mutters.
"What?"
"I ain't giving you a gun the way you are now," he replies.
Darien smiles as he pulls out a Glock tucked in the waistband of his pants at the small of his back. At Hobbes' dismayed look, he elaborates. "Swiped it from the guy I clobbered with the chair," his grin widens.
Hobbes sighs as he turns around. "I really need a vacation."
12:40pm, Friday afternoon
The front door to the room jerks as Hobbes and Darien assault it.
Barnes flicks his gaze at it to see if the dresser that he slid in front of it's holding.
With each resounding blow, the already battered piece of furniture shudders, and he knows that it's a matter of seconds before the whole thing collapses in on itself. He returns his attention to the terrified woman in front of him.
His eyes are cold and filled with malice. His gun points unwaveringly at her heart.
"Go ahead, let's get this over with," she growls.
"Oh no, I have something much more enjoyable in store for you," he replies with a shark-like grin.
Her eyebrows furrow, and then a slow, feral smile spreads across her face. "We're almost through with the final phase of the experiment, aren't we?"
He shakes his head in bemusement. "You always were too smart for your own good," is the smug reply.
Her smile disappears. "So what now?"
He shrugs. "Transport you to our facility here in San Diego; and, the rest depends on you."
"How so?"
"If you show willingness to cooperate, my superiors might be able to secure you a permanent position within our organization."
"Sounds like fun. There's just one problem."
He frowns. "What?"
The door shudders again as it begins to splinter from the force of the blows.
The savage grin reappears, and her green eyes glitter in anticipation. "You'll be dead before your backup arrives." Her body tenses as she prepares to leap at him.
His finger tenses on the trigger. "I don't think so," he replies smugly.
She continues to grin as she rushes towards him.
'Oh well,' he mentally shrugs. 'Now or later, it won't make much of a difference.' He pulls the trigger on his gun, and is rewarded with an empty 'click'. His eyes widen in disbelief, and he vainly squeezes the trigger three more times before MacKenna is upon him. She bowls him over with the force of her charge, and she clips him twice in the face as they go down. He tries to ward off her fists, and abruptly her fingers slide around his throat. Her thumbs find his Adam's apple, and she squeezes with every ounce of strength in her body.
Realizing that he has moments before his air supply runs out, he repeatedly rams the butt of his gun into the side of her head.
She grunts, blinks, and grins even more fiercely. She plops her rear down on his chest... hard... and the rest of the air in Barnes' lungs is forcefully expelled. As he lies momentarily stunned, she pins his arms down with her knees, re-centers her thumbs on his windpipe, and throttles him with all her might.
"Bye-bye, Barnesie," she grits out between clenched teeth. "Die quick and rot." The half-healed bullet wound in her right arm is screaming from the strain, and she can feel the strength ebbing from that hand.
She bites her lip and tries to ignore the pain as she ekes every last ounce of energy into strangling the life out of him. Her efforts are rewarded, as the man's movements become sluggish and uncoordinated before his eyes unfocus and his body goes completely limp.
Just then, the door splinters as Darien and Hobbes' feet crash against it.
MacKenna doesn't seem to notice it, or even to care.
"Again. Ready? One... two... three!" Hobbes' voice commands, and the door finally crashes open. The two agents rush in. Hobbes quickly scans the room with his gun at the ready, and Darien's reddened gaze immediately fixes on MacKenna and Barnes on the other side of the room. He straightens up and grins savagely as he notes that Barnes is unconscious and moments away from death.
"That's my girl," he murmurs with pride.
"Amy, NO!" Hobbes rushes over and tries to pull her off of the Director, but he can't seem to make her hands budge. So he attempts to reason with her. "Amy, this can't be the only way. You're not a murderer."
Green eyes raging with all of the pain and horror of the past eight years turn to him. "I am what they made me," she pants.
"You are what you want to be," he returns fiercely. "Don't sink down to his level; you'll become just like him!"
Her stormy eyes begin to clear. "I'm not like him. I'm not like anybody. He can't do this to anyone else; I won't let him."
"Killing him's not the answer," is the heated reply. "It won't matter how many Barnes' you kill; there're a hundred more like him just waiting for the chance to take you down."
His reasoning begins to sink in, and her hands relax. The fierce sparkle in her eyes fades, and she looks at him dully. "But... I'm so tired. I-I don't think I can run anymore."
Unnoticed by the two, Darien's stepped up behind his partner. He kneels down beside them and casually glances at Barnes. 'Damn, bastard's still breathing,' he absently notes. He rests his hand on MacKenna's arm, which gains her attention. He gently runs a finger down to her hand and traces her fingers, leaving a tiny trail of sparks that raises the hairs on her arm.
"You're the one with the magic fingers, remember?" he hints. "What better way to get your revenge than to use their own experiment on 'em?"
She blinks, and frowns. The repeated blows to her head are taking their toll.
In the corner, Noble groans as he begins to rouse.
"Bobby, why don't you check on him; I've got it here," Darien suggests smoothly. His face is unreadable as he gazes intently at MacKenna.
Hobbes hesitates as he weighs his options: ignore the assistant and risk any number of nasty confrontations, or briefly attend to the injured man while leaving his QS-meshuggenahed partner unattended with an equally unstable chick...
Not very good choices, my friend.
"Don't kill him," he warns as he rises and crosses the room.
Darien smiles beatifically. "Nope, just the next best thing." He gently guides MacKenna off of Barnes and helps her sit down on the floor beside the unconscious man. He slides a supportive arm around her shoulders as he murmurs suggestions in her ear.
Hobbes uneasily glances over his shoulder at the two experimentals. It's like he's turning his back on two savage predators, even though one of them he considers his best friend. He checks the knife wounds on Noble's throat and upper torso; none of them seem life threatening, although the man has lost quite a lot of blood. The assistant stirs, mumbling incoherently in his distress.
'Hm, must still think Amy's got 'im,' Hobbes wonders. He glances around his immediate vicinity, snags the corner of a bed sheet and rips it into strips to begin bandaging the worst of the cuts. Noble mutters and stirs for a few more moments before lapsing back into unconsciousness.
On a hunch, Hobbes pulls out his handcuffs and carefully secures the assistant's hands behind his back. He then turns to check on his partner.
He's still seated, with his arms in a light embrace around MacKenna's shoulders. She's slumped against him, and he's resting his chin gently on the top of her head as he readjusts his legs to a more comfortable position in a loose semicircle around her. Hobbes edges around to get a frontal view of them, and Darien's now-silver eyes snap open to glare a warning at him. He's struck with the parallel image of an animal protecting its young. Or an injured mate.
Then he notices the muzzle of the Glock his partner swiped from the Shop agent he'd nailed with the chair, and it was pointed right at his heart.
'Better step easy with this,' he thinks as he slowly hunkers down and shows his empty hands in a peaceful gesture. "How you doin', partner?" he asks softly.
"She's exhausted. I need to get her out of here."
"Why don't you let Claire take a look at her?"
"No. No more doctors. She's been through enough." He protectively gathers her closer to him, and she murmurs incoherently at the movement. "Shhhhhh," he soothes as he smoothes the hair back from her face and softly kisses the top of her head. She subsides and reverts to a state of semi-consciousness.
"Fawkes," Hobbes presses. "She most likely has a concussion. Look at the blood on her head," he urges.
"Saw it. I've got it under control, Robert," is the steely response.
"Darien, you know what it's like to have a concussion. If you let her fall asleep now, she could slip into a coma," Hobbes argues. "You don't want that to happen, do you?"
"I'm okay," her voice drifts out faintly from the confines of Darien's arms. MacKenna shifts, and Darien reluctantly loosens his hold on her so she can sit up straight. Her face is gray, and her body shivers imperceptibly, but her gaze is lucid as she looks at Hobbes.
"Can you stand?" he asks.
"No, that last one took everything I had," she replies with a strange note in her voice. She stares emptily at Barnes' immobile form.
Hobbes' stomach clenches as he's suddenly filled with dread from what her comment infers. The fresh blood staining the entire front of her shirt didn't help that feeling at all, either. "What do you mean by that?"
"Darien had the right idea," she replies. "Best revenge is to use their own experiment on 'em."
"I don't follow."
"She 'pushed' Barnes," Darien answers smugly.
"How do you know it worked?"
"I ordered him to wake up, and he did," she returns. "When I was done, I told him to pass out again for a few hours or so, and so..." she weakly waves at the prone Director.
"Seizures?"
"Oh, yeah," her eyelids flutter as she struggles to retain awareness. "You didn't notice?"
He glances at Noble, who's also still out cold. "Was kinda busy patching him up," he nods at the man.
She follows his gaze, and smiles unrepentantly. "She slices, she dices..."
"...And she juliennes," Darien echoes her grin with pride.
"'But when the wit began to wheeze, And wine had warm'd the politician, Cur'd yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician.'" Her voice fades over the course of the quote as consciousness finally slips away, and her head lolls against Darien's shoulder.
"Hmmm," he thinks aloud, and then smiles beatifically as he places it. "Prior."
His levity fades as he hears voices approaching the front door to the room. "Time to makes ourselves scarce," he states grimly as he rises with MacKenna cradled in his arms.
They both begin to Quicksilver, and Hobbes absently notes that once again there are no sparks between the two. Must have something to do with how charged up she is. Or isn't.
Before Darien can realize that he's turned his back on Hobbes, he flinches as his neck is suddenly pricked by a hypo's needle. The rapid-acting sedative overwhelms him before he can take two steps towards the door, and his legs fold under him. His last conscious effort is to pitch MacKenna's limp form onto the safety of the bed as his partner catches and eases him the rest of the way to the floor.