Author's Note:
14 Sept 05 - Again, thanks for the feedback! I was not sure if this storyline was going to be too fantastic to apply it to the Joe world. I had two directions in mind and chose this one out of intrigue. This is one hastily written chapter, so there may be some stuff added a bit down the road to flesh out other details. I'll post an update if that occurs.
Thanks!
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Chapter 6
The guards led Doctor Nancy Suarez into the briefing room. Her hands were still cuffed, but the restraints were now in place behind her back instead of in front of her. The guards had followed standard prisoner transportation procedures, much to Flint's liking. It was all the better, in his mind, if it caused her at least some discomfort.
She stood before them, a guard on either side. She was still in blue scrubs from the hospital. Flint looked at her nametag, wondering if that was even her real name. Somehow, he knew it was. As she had said, she had not lied to him or the command team in any of her answers. She had been forthright in saying there were details she could not give, making no bones about the fact.
Hawk was watching her, too. "Remove the cuffs," he ordered the guards.
They complied with the order. Suarez rubbed at sore wrists as the metal bands were removed and her hands were freed.
"Have a seat," Hawk said.
Suarez did so, pulling out one a chair at the head of the table and sliding into it.
"Where do you want me to start?" she asked.
Scarlett keyed up the most recent satellite surveillance photos of the area. "What kind of facility are we talking here?" she asked, pulling up the first image.
"It's a self-contained, secure experimentation lab. Geothermal vents provide turbine power, and the whole facility is deep cored into the mountain, an even fifty levels deep," Suarez said, watching the images scroll. "Events will take place tomorrow morning that will irrevocably change time if we don't destroy the facility's capabilities."
Then she added, "Do your logical brains a favor and don't ask me what happens. I won't answer the question."
Hawk watched the images, as well. "What about armament?"
"Tiny woodland creatures are afraid to go near this thing," Suarez said. "Motion detection systems line its perimeter, along with one hell of an aerial surveillance net. It has a twenty-four-seven rapid assault team to make life hell for whoever ventures into the area. You got a taste of them yesterday. Add in some Dreadnoks for fun, and you have a nasty mix of fire power and bad attitudes."
Hawk turned away from the screen. "For the moment, I'm going to give you some latitude, since you seem to be in the loop as far as this base is concerned."
"Thank you, General," Suarez said.
"Don't thank me just yet. You're only here as a consultant, and on my good graces, at that. I don't think I need to remind you that you're not exactly on the best of terms with us right now. You've had two months to let us know this was happening. Why wait until now?"
"It hasn't been an issue until this week. The facility came into existence four days ago."
Flint was surprised. "And they've built all that?"
"Now you have an idea of the power you're facing," she said. "Cobra's abilities will grow exponentially in the next few weeks until it will be impossible to stop it."
She rubbed at her eyes. Flint noticed for the first time how fatigued she looked.
"I wouldn't go through this much trouble and risk if I didn't think it was worth it," she said to them. "Whether or not you like me is inconsequential."
Hawk studied her for a few seconds, trying to decipher her, just as Flint had the day before in the infirmary. "Proceed."
Suarez stood and approached the screen where the images were playing. "The only way you are going to get in there is a HALO jump at night, around zero-one-hundred, when the security systems fail over to secondary systems for maintenance. The ground access ways will still be tightly guarded. Even God couldn't get close without setting off alarms. But, the aerial alarms will be changing over at that point. We'll slip in unnoticed if we hit the window just right."
"And where are we supposed to land?" Flint asked. "In the compound?"
"As a matter of fact," Suarez said, turning, "yes. It will be a precision jump, but you have a qualified team to do it."
"And they are?" Hawk asked, wary.
"Flint, of course," Suarez continued, "Leatherneck, Scarlett . . . and me."
Hawk actually laughed out loud. "You're HALO qualified?"
Flint shared Hawk's disbelief. High altitude – low opening jumps were dangerous and required endless hours of training.
"More than you could possibly know, General," Suarez answered confidently. "I'm a master jumper. This is child's play to me."
Leatherneck gave a snort. "No master jumper would consider doing a jump like this. A master jumper would know it's risking the team too much."
"Well," she said, "when you know what I know and have been where I have been, you know your limitations. I hate to keep bringing this up, but I'm rather out of my temporal element."
"Sounds more like your temporal lobe," Flint muttered.
"Funny," she said with a quaint smile. "I'm trying to tell you that I have experienced more lifetimes and events than you could possibly imagine. I have the luxury of doing things until I get them right. The fact that I am out of my own time and space makes this a little more interesting."
"Explain," Hawk ordered.
"This is a one-shot deal for me. No game element. I have to play under your rules, not mine. I don't get the replay option in this time and space."
Scarlett gave a curious look. "You're mortal," she said, the idea dawning.
Suarez said nothing in reply, but her silence confirmed the fact.
"Welcome to our world, lady," Flint said, feeling no sympathy toward the woman. He wanted to tell her just how mortals feel when death came knocking, how it felt when a bullet pierced the body. He wanted to tell her how it felt to watch a friend dying.
"Oh, it's been so warm so far," she said. "I'm feeling the love already. Especially that part where you had me handcuffed."
"Enough," Hawk said, intervening in the developing battle between Flint and Suarez. "Let's get to some productive information before I have both of you locked up."
Suarez continued to look at Flint. He felt his blood beginning to boil, but he had been given a command by a general. He finally looked at the images screen, breaking eye contact with her.
"One weakness Cobra has always had," Suarez said, moving on, "is the inherent need for escape. The higher echelons of its command make it a habit to have an alternate route to get out in the event they're attacked. This base," she said, pointing at the screen, "is no exception."
She asked for the image to be enlarged. She pointed to a small outbuilding in the northeast quadrant of the compound. "Inside this shed is a shaft that leads down to a storage area on level forty-two."
Leatherneck closed his eyes. "Please tell me there's an elevator," he pleaded.
"As a matter of fact, there is," she said. "However," she continued.
"There's always a 'however'," the marine grumbled.
"Where we need to go is eight floors below that."
Flint did a quick calculation in his head. Ninety-six feet was a long way to go.
"There's a service ladder not too far away from the shaft," she said. "We'll use that to get down the rest of the way."
Scarlett looked at Suarez. "And what is it exactly we're going there to do?"
"Two targets," Suarez answered. "Cobra has installed a high capacity generation plant and a device we like to call the 'golden egg'. Now, to take out the generation plant is just a question of planting some charges in some strategic spots and pushing the button. The egg, however, is a little more complicated. The egg is the big concern."
Suarez said, walking a swath of the room. "It's a temporal processor that is allowing the future to mingle with the past, which is what has caused this whole mess in the first place."
Hawk opened the briefing folder. "You mentioned to Flint there is an enemy of ours in the future that is feeding Cobra technology. Who is this enemy?"
"General," Suarez said, seeming tired of the question, "as much as I want to, I can't tell you. The timeline has already been corrupted enough. For you to know more will be disastrous."
"What about Cobra? Does Cobra know who this future enemy is?" Hawk asked.
"Not exactly," she said. "Cobra is drinking up what is being provided to it. They see the enemy as nothing more than a steppingstone at this point, something it thinks it can control. They're pouncing on an opportunity and putting it to immediate use. The future is feeding the past to put things in motion. And don't kid yourselves. The future knows exactly what it is doing, and it's doing it well. It's laying the groundwork to take over the world."
Bill spoke for the first time at the briefing. "I don't mean to ask the obvious, but if there's an installation down in that mountain, where's all the dirt from the excavation?"
Flint paused. It was a damned good question that no one had bothered to ask.
"The egg took care of it," Suarez answered, as though that should have made sense to everyone.
"Come again?" the cowboy said with drawl.
"Somewhere, in time, there is a big mound of historic mountain piled in the middle of nowhere. The future can put it anywhere it pleases to get the job done."
Scarlett smiled, as though the idea was funny in some way. "The egg is a portal?"
"It's many things," Suarez said, "but yes, it's mostly a portal. It opens a gateway along time's path, allowing specific destinations. The originator can make a connection between one place and another, allowing – for lack of a better description – two-way traffic."
"How does that work?" Scarlett pursued.
Suarez rolled her eyes in frustration. "Now we're back to the classified portion of our show." She looked to those in the room. "In any case, it's how those Ravens showed up and jumped you."
Bill removed the toothpick from his lips. "And the Strikers?"
She gave a thoughtful look, trying to find a safe description. "I guess you could say we have a little more sophisticated a system than the egg." She smiled. "We can hide what we send. Calling it cloaking or stealth, we can at least limit detection of our movement to human witnesses. If no one had seen them, you would never have known they were there."
Suarez sat down in her chair once more and folded her hands on the table. "Look, I can't make this any simpler. We need to get in there and take care of this little problem before it becomes a big one. Let's get this team assembled, I'll give you the target, and away we jump."
Hawk tapped his pen on the table, hitting one end, sliding his fingers down until it hit the bottom. He flipped the pen several times, repeating the process.
"What about egress? How do we get our people out of there?"
"Take out the generation plant and you take out their ability to see you coming. You'll be looking at standard ground armaments, not the heavy-duty toys in use right now. It'll be a fair fight, at least, getting out."
"You're very confident about this, aren't you?" he asked.
"I have to be," she said. "It's your lives and my job."
Hawk leaned back in his chair and continued to play with the pen as he sized up Suarez. No one spoke while he weighed the options.
The Joe commander turned to Flint. "You seem to be the center of attention in all this. What do you think?"
Flint considered his answer with caution. He looked to Suarez. Her dark brown eyes pierced him. His anger had died down, but his mind was still racing, trying to piece together what he knew and what he felt.
"I think," he said, carefully, still looking at her, "that this is insane."
He saw her head drop in disappointment.
"But," he said, "I also can't ignore what I've seen and what I know."
Hawk was not pleased with the vague answer. "I need a final decision, Flint. Is this a go for you or not?"
Flint broke his watch of Suarez and looked at his commander. "I'll go, but I'm not willing to ask anyone else to do the same. If this is a game, I want to minimize the risk."
Leatherneck leaned in to the table and craned to get a good look at Flint. "That's not the way it works, Flint. I'm in on this mission, whether you like it or not."
"Same here. Count me in, too," Scarlett added. Flint noticed a decidedly challenging tone in her voice, as if to say to Suarez that the Joes were a team, that the doctor was an outsider, and – mostly – that she did not believe Suarez's intentions.
Flint closed his eyes at the loyalty of his friends, his comrades. They had been through hell together, most of the time with him in the lead. As an organization, they were expected to go above and beyond the demands of the regular military. They were the final bastion of defense, specifically organized to combat Cobra and its operations.
When his eyes opened, he took in Hawk's countenance. The man was waiting for an answer.
"I guess we're going to pay another visit to Cobra," Flint said.
At first, Hawk gave no indication. The whole idea seemed so fantastic, so full of fancy that it read like a book of fiction when Flint had filed a report for them. He knew the general could call the whole thing off, but something told Flint he would not. They had seen unorthodox technology from Cobra before – technology that would have had the spook organizations of the government salivating had the Joes seen fit to share some of it. Cobra spared no expense in experimentation and development. There was no reason for it to worry about money – it had deep corporate ties to research and development firms that networked the world, shrouding the evil empire in the glow of benevolent business practices.
Hawk gave a nod of affirmation at Flint's decision. "Then you have a go." He addressed Suarez directly. "It's against my better judgment to allow it, but you're going with them. You're going to be watched closely. You so much as step out of line once – jeopardize the lives of my people in any way – and they are authorized to shoot you where you stand. Do I make myself clear?"
Suarez smile, looking amused at the prospect. "Perfectly, General."
Leatherneck addressed Hawk. "General, if it's all the same to you, I'd like to pull my recon units out of the area if we're going to take care of this ourselves."
"Agreed," Hawk said. "Have them hold position as observers. If it heats up, have them call for immediate evac and get them out of there."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Let's hit those racks, people," Hawk said. "We'll brief at twenty-one hundred. You take off at the zero hour tonight."
They stood from the briefing table, making their way toward the door. Flint caught up with Suarez before she could leave the room with the others. He hooked his hand around her arm. She had more muscle than he expected. Her bicep flexed in reaction to his grasp.
"Looks like you and I are partners," he said quietly.
"Wouldn't have it any other way," she said in kind as they stepped out of the briefing room.
The mission preparation area was in a building adjacent to the command center. They stepped outside for the short walk. Scarlett and Leatherneck walked ahead, giving the doctor and Flint some room. Suarez craned her head back, washing her face in sunlight.
"What are you doing?" Flint asked, not giving her a moment to stop.
Her eyelids closed for the briefest moment. "Enjoying what you take for granted."
He pulled her along the walkway, in no mood to be baited into conversation. "Move it," he ordered gruffly.
She sighed tiredly. "You need to slow down sometime, Flint. If you don't, you're going to look back on life and regret that you didn't take the time."
"My life was just fine until you . . . " He stopped, thinking better of completing the sentence.
"Until I what?" she pressed.
"Nothing."
"No, really – until I what?"
The anger he had managed to corral earlier broke loose. "Until you did what you say you did."
"You mean the nudge that gave her the bullet instead of you?"
He did not answer, but she must have been able to tell from the look on his face that she had hit the right chord. His neck felt flush and hot with emotion.
"I never said I nudged it, Flint. You assumed I did."
She slowed her walking pace. He obliged the change, wanting to know more and needing to put some distance between them and his teammates.
"If not you, then who?"
"Something far bigger than you or I. We're cogs in the wheel, Flint. The difference is that I know what the whole machine looks like while you're just realizing you're a part of it."
"I didn't ask for this."
"You chose to become a part of this team. Of all the things in the world you could have become, you chose to be a warrior. Yes, you did ask for this. Every time you've engaged the enemy, you've known it could happen. Well," she said with finality, "it's happened, only not to you. That's something you have to learn to accept. People get hurt in wars. Sometimes, they die."
He stopped abruptly, halting her forward progress. Flint glared at her, his heart pumping hard.
"You're telling me she's going to die?"
"No. I'm telling you there's a possibility she will. The truth of the matter is we're all going to die some day. It's just a matter of when."
Out of his periphery, he saw Leatherneck and Scarlett stop and wait for him, concerned looks on their faces. Flint clenched his jaw, the urge once again to pounce on Suarez building. She stood her ground, looking up at him, seemingly firm in her words.
"For your sake, you better hope it's not her time," he warned quietly.
With that, he urged her with purpose toward the preparation building.
The preparation building was a combination of jump hangar and barracks. A fully functional briefing room had been installed, with stations linked to live information fed to it by the command center. The floor of the hangar area was pristine. The paint shined and was diligently maintained by its staff. Flint felt pride every time he walked in there to see such efficiency and dedication from the soldiers whose job it was to send mission teams in harm's way. The Joe operational logo was embossed in the center of the floor. He had always made it a habit to avoid stepping on it, feeling it was something sacred to which he belonged.
Riggers were working on the opposite side of the hangar, repacking chutes, carefully aligning the cords in order. Flint trusted them implicitly, having yet to experience a problem with their practices. They were professionals and damned good at what they did. They had saved the lives of three pilots a day earlier, though he knew the riggers would never get the recognition they deserved. The pilots had ejected, and their chutes had worked perfectly, bringing the jet jockeys safely to the ground.
Flint glanced at Suarez. She was drinking in the scene. He had to wonder how new all this was to her. He had been trying to piece together what she knew and had actually experienced. She had been so cryptic that it was hard to know.
Still, he could see a sense of wonder in her eyes, as though she was seeing it all for the first time. Her eyes were alert, looking at every detail. He saw her look up at the high ceiling, saw her noting the exits to the hangar. His hand gripped her arm tighter, to let her know not to try to escape. She flexed her bicep again in rebellion.
They followed Scarlett and Leatherneck to the barracks area. The air was cooler there as they passed through the secure doors to the rooms that lay beyond them. Even with winter coming upon them, the facilities tended to bake in the hot afternoon sun, raising the temperatures in some of the buildings to summer levels.
He led Suarez down the hall to one of the bunk rooms and entered with her. He let go of her arm, allowing her freedom of movement as he closed the door. He turned on the light switch. A small lamp glowed at the far side of the room, drowning it in a soft yellow glow.
The rooms were small and functional. A bed on either side, a closet, two nightstands and a small coffee maker were the only amenities.
She turned toward him. "So, we're bunk mates, too?"
"Until this mission is over, you don't leave my sight," he said, removing his cap. He hung it on the rack by the door.
She sat down on the bed on the far side of the room, leaning up against the wall and digging her heels into the bed for support. She pulled out the pack of cigarettes from her pocket.
"There's no smoking in here," he said.
She pulled a stick out of the pack and offered it to him. "Have one with me."
It had been years since he had smoked. When he had first enlisted, it was habit. The missions came and went, with victories celebrated at bars with liquor and nicotine. He had quit when age started affecting his ability to keep up with recruits. The smoking habit went by the wayside in an effort to stem the tide of stamina loss and what was the beginning of arthritis in his left knee. Growing older was hell sometimes.
He took the cigarette and sat opposite her on his own bunk. Likewise, he leaned against the wall, watching her. She lit up, looking like she thoroughly enjoyed it. She flipped him her lighter.
He cupped his hand around the end of the smoke as he lit the flame. It was an old habit coming to life again. The taste of the menthol sank into his body like an old friend as he deeply inhaled the first offering. Flint blew out the first lungful of smoke, feeling a shameful satisfaction in how it felt. He tossed the lighter back to her.
"She does have a good chance, you know," she said, bringing the cigarette to her lips again. "Doc's good."
"Well," he said, looking for something in which to tip his ash, "you better hope so."
"Hey, this is not my fault. I'm here to help you."
"This is all your fault," he countered, turning over a coffee mug on the bed stand. He flicked the ash into the bottom of the cup. She found the same by her bed, pulling the cup onto the blanket.
"Seems that way, I suppose. But you're angry with me for the wrong reasons. It's definitely not my fault you're in love with her."
He tried to carry himself smoothly, but she caught him off-guard. He froze for a split-second at her words.
"She's a good soldier and a friend. I admire her," he said, trying to dodge the issue.
"Why deny it?" Suarez asked, shrugging. "Human emotions are the damnedest things sometimes, more powerful than any rulebook ever invented."
He felt as though he were in the tight confines of a confessional with Suarez. He wondered just how much she knew, or if she was just observant.
"I saw a close friend of mine get shot in the back," he said. "I care what happens to my team."
"Not as much as you care about her," Suarez said knowingly.
He was in no mood to debate the finer points of his inner feelings for Allison with Suarez. "Even if I did, there are rules about it."
Suarez pursed her lips, as though trying to stifle a comment. She took another drag on her cigarette. "How are you feeling, anyway? You look a hell of a lot better than last night."
"Warmer," he said, honestly.
"You had me a little worried."
"I find that hard to believe," he said, tipping off another ash.
"I really am a medical doctor," she protested. "Who do you think put the chest tube in her in the ER?" She straightened her legs, laying them flat. "I do care about patients. I care what I have to do in my job, and I care about what happens to her."
"I still don't get this," he said, agitated. "Exactly what do you do? I hear you saying you're a doctor, then you're a qualified HALO jumper, and God knows what else. What's the matter – couldn't find a profession you liked?"
"You could say I have, or had, a lot of time on my hands to learn. You get certain luxuries, almost unlimited time to learn what you want to learn, do what you want to do."
"And then?"
"Then you have to do your job. Sometimes, it's very simple. Other times," she said, "it's a little more difficult."
"Like now?"
"Yeah, like now," she said, crushing out her cigarette in the bottom of the mug. She reached into the pack and pulled out another. She clamped it between her fingers but did not light it. "The stakes are higher, both for those involved and for me."
Flint listened to her intently, growing more at ease with her, much to his chagrin. There was something very disarming about her, about the way she talked with him that had him feeling like an emotional yo-yo.
"With the stipulation of knowing future events, tell me about the Cyclops unit," he said, adjusting his legs to a more comfortable position.
She shrugged, considering what she could tell him. "We go backward to go forward. We do whatever it takes to stay with the master timeline."
"How did all this start?"
"An idea, a wish come true. Pretty soon, it was being abused. It needed enforcement and boundaries. Fortunately, there was a way to record the original timeline before it became corrupted and protect it from alteration. We had a reference for the way things were supposed to be. It's our guideline when we intervene."
"And Cyclops as a mascot?"
She smiled as she lit up the cigarette in her hand. "Mythical icon of what we do. It's a good story. You should look it up sometime."
"How many are on your team?"
"Classified, but I can tell you we're a tight group, just like yours. We have camaraderie, and we mourn our losses." Her face suddenly dropped. She looked down at her cigarette, rolling it between her fingers. "And that," she said, her voice plagued with the smallest quiver, "never gets easier, no matter when you are."
Even over his waning ire, Flint could see her unspoken pain. It was the first time he had seen her look unnerved and uncomfortable talking about a topic. He could practically see the memories whirling in her mind and identified with her pain.
"What happened?" he asked gently, a sharp contrast to most of his communication with her to that point. He genuinely wanted to know.
She shook her head slightly. "Same shit, different timeline," she said quietly, smoking again.
Silence drifted between them. His thoughts trailed off to Allison and what it was like to see her hit, to know she was dying as she clutched his hand. He had been right there, only now realizing what Suarez had told him was true. The bullet could easily have hit either one of them. It had been a simple twist of fate, one that had been intentionally initiated.
He picked up the mug off the bed and put it on the night stand again, laying down as he did so. Suarez followed suit, laying on her back, hands folded on her abdomen with smoke from the cigarette between her fingers rising in a wispy strand toward the ceiling.
He closed his eyes, smelling the burning tobacco and paper of her last cigarette as he felt himself drifting off to a weary sleep. The guards would watch the door, and he would not have to restlessly keep an eye on Suarez. There would be time for more questions, he said to himself. When all this was over, he would learn more from her, to figure out just what it was that was so bad and had caused all of them so much anguish.
He fell off to sleep, hearing only the quiet rush of air through the ventilation system and one last crush of Suarez's cigarette in the mug before she, too, took the time to rest.