Part 6 - Infected

Chapter 114 - Wild Goose Chase

Two days had passed since Miles had taken the helicopter blade to the face, and he was healing slowly. It was likely he would never be able to see out that eye again, but he'd get used to it. He was wondering what Gwen would think when she saw him, but was interrupted as the door to his ward exploded open. Null stormed in looking so angry he might have made Hitler look like a child having the best day of their life.

"You. Fucking. Bastard."

"Where's Zero?"

"I don't care about Zero! You left Michael with that psychopath!"

"I took a helicopter in the face!"

"Maybe I should finish the fucking job and get rid of the other eye!"

"Null, I had no choice. If I didn't leave, Liam would have killed me."

"Then you should have let him! You should have dived on in there and set Michael free! It's what you've done for thirty goddamn years, so why should now be different!?"

"Why do you care so much?"

"He was my best friend, and you left him!"

Null made to strangle Miles, but Zero arrived just in time to drag him away.

"Null! Stop it!"

"Let go of me! I'll kill you, you webbed freak!"

A couple of security guards arrived and Null realised how hopeless it would be to try and kill Miles now. He turned and left, slamming the door. The security guards ran after him. Zero sighed.

"Are you alright?" She asked.

"I've had plenty of people try and do that. Can I ask, what's the deal with him and Michael?"

"Michael has been his best friend for a lot of years. For a couple he was his only friend."

"What about you?"

"Me and Null have…had our differences, let's just say."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to talk about it, and he wouldn't forgive me for doing so."

"Right."

"I'm sorry about Teresa."

"Yeah. She was a good friend."

Gwen had been trying to figure the co-ordinates out relentlessly. She had confirmed what Grace had said about the areas in all worlds of Bastria being wasteland, meaning Max hadn't renovated them yet. She'd even gone out to the place in a couple of them but to no avail. She stared down at the numbers and letters: '11.3733° N, 142.5917° E'. She started to have an idea, but was interrupted by Stanley jogging into the office. He looked panicked.

"What's up?" She asked.

"Teresa is dead and Miles was hit with a spinning helicopter rotor."

Gwen stood up.

"What the…where is he?"

"Medical ward in the INTF headquarters."

Gwen didn't bother with her spider suit. She threw on a leather jacket Miles had given her a long time ago. Technically it wasn't the original; that had been destroyed along with the rest of Premis. It was a copy Max had made for her. Miles had painted the original for her about a month before they officially started dating. Gwen slapped on a watch and jumped first to Minus One, then to Minus Zero.

Miles was asleep when she entered. His right eye was completely bandaged, as well as a sizeable amount of that side of his head. She pulled up a chair and sat down, taking his hand gently. He squeezed it; clearly he wasn't actually asleep and had just been pretending.

"Hey." She whispered.

"Hey." He answered, opening his left eye.

"I don't know how long it's been. I only just heard."

"Two days. You missed the drama. Null tried to strangle me."

"Why?"

"Because I left Michael behind. There was nothing I could have done."

"Of course not. You took a helicopter to the face."

"Liam also kicked me in the nuts pretty hard, so if we ever want to have another kid and can't, that might be why."

She chuckled.

"One dead, one who hates her mother's guts, and a God. I think we've done more than our fare share of work to maintaining the human population."

"I meant to say this: Charlotte did drugs once."

"Who told you that?"

"Null."

"Was this before, during or after his trying to strangle you?"

"Before. We were at each other's throats, though."

"I'll admit I'm not surprised. Peer pressure is dangerous."

"What if she's done it again?"

"Null wrote the fan-fiction; he declares what's canon and what isn't. That means if he says it happened once, it only happened once."

Miles nodded. There was a pause, then he said:

"Teresa's dead."

"I know. I always had a feeling she'd go down fighting. It was her life, and I'm pretty sure that's how she'd have wanted to go."

"Like a Klingon."

"Sure. Minus the forehead ridges."

There was another pause, then Gwen said:

"I love you, Miles, no matter how many eyes you have."

She had a feeling it was something niggling away at the back of his mind.

"I love you too."

"If you get glasses I can call you three eyes."

"I might get a monocle; then it's just two eyes."

Gwen chuckled and brushed some strands of his hair away from his good eye. She had an idea and pulled out the envelope with the co-ordinates. Miles frowned as he looked at it.

"What's this?"

"Co-ordinates for where Max might be, or at least a clue. The problem is the places in Bastria are just wasteland. I've gone out in a couple of worlds and nothing."

"Pass it here."

Miles squinted at it.

"Suddenly one of those random facts I have in my head comes in useful. Back on Earth, these were the co-ords for the Challenger Deep."

"The deepest part of the ocean? And why do you have them memorised?"

"There was an old Legion facility there in a couple of dimensions. Just something you pick up."

"There must be loads of Challenger Deeps, though. Max duplicated some stuff."

"Most of the requests came through us, and I only remember a request for one Challenger Deep so unless you got any?"

"Not that I remember."

"I think he put Challenger Deep in a world called Highwater. Home to some old tribe who worshipped the ocean, I think."

"I'll look into it."

They sat in silence for a moment until Gwen sighed.

"I should probably go. Will you be alright?"

"Other than the weird dreams I keep having, yeah."

"What sort of weird dreams?"

"I had one last night about you cheating on me with Ganke, but I'm guessing that was just my brain being stupid."

Gwen raised her eyebrows, wondering if he was indirectly accusing her.

"Why would I cheat on you for Ganke? He's your friend, not mine. Anyway, he's not my type."

"I wasn't being serious. I thought it was kinda funny actually."

She sighed and kissed him.

"The only person I'd ever cheat on you with is you."

"That makes no sense."

"Makes more sense than me screwing Ganke, so…"

"Fair enough."

"See you around, I guess. Get better soon and all that."

"Thanks. Good luck finding Max."

"I might need it."

Gwen gave the Ares pilot, who had just dropped her off at a research facility, a thumbs up. A researcher met her.

"Mrs Stacy: welcome to Challenger Outpost."

"Thanks." She replied, offering her hand which the researcher shook.

"Right this way. We've got something interesting that just popped up."

This peaked her interest, and she followed them into the heart of the facility. They pointed to a screen showing a video feed of the bottom of the Challenger Deep. It seemed to be taken from a submarine, and the vessel was staring at a stone obelisk.

"This is live?" She asked.

"Yes. The thing just popped up on sonar out of nowhere."

Gwen looked at the obelisk carefully. Red symbols were engraved in its surface. She pulled out her phone and snapped a photo then payed closer attention to what the markings might mean. The Greek letter 'Alpha' appeared twice, stretched next to a series of dots. Above both were more dots that were bunched together with curly brackets.

"Anyone got a notepad and pen?"

Another researcher handed her an iPad and a stylus; on the former was a white screen. She wrote down how many dots there were. The sequence was: 4, 0, small line, 7, 4, 8, 4, Alpha 14, large line, 7, 3, short line, 9, 8, 5, 7, Alpha 23. Suddenly, the feed began to glitch, then died completely.

"What happened?" Asked the researcher who had greeted Gwen.

"I don't know. I can't get anything!"

Gwen ignored the fuss over the submarine and tried to figure it out. Her gut, and her spider sense, told her it was more co-ordinates but she couldn't quite put it together. Unless…using Alpha and its corresponding dots represented a letter? In that case Alpha 14 was N and Alpha 23 was W. The small lines likely meant a decimal point, and large lines showed the start of a new sequence. '40.7484° N, 73.9857° W'. Gwen typed it into an old Google Earth. It started zooming in: North America, USA, east coast, New York, the Empire State Building. Interesting. She never thought Max had any care for it, especially as it was only reconstructed once in Arachnia.

Gwen was disappointed when she reached the Empire State Building. She stared up at it, starting to wonder where Max was leading her. At the very top of the spire, there seemed to be a plaque that was never there before. She climbed up the side and let out a groan. There was no obvious code. Instead, there was a message that read: 'forever watching over William's Fort'. Below was an odd symbol.

"What the hell does that mean?" She asked out loud.

Crossovers in this Chapter

Technically there weren't any, but we'll say the SCP Foundation since Liam's an SCP.