Chapter Four

When Jaime began to wake up from the light anesthesia Sam had given her before implanting the GPS, she was not where she thought she'd be. The two faces looking down at her were not Steve and Sam's. Instead, she saw Oscar and Rudy. I'm hallucinating, she told herself. It's the anesthetic.

She was wrong; it was real. Jaime found she was lying on a blanket on a cold cement floor, her two missing collegues beside her in a cell that had probably at one time been built for a single prisoner. Rudy was checking her pulse.

"She's coming around," he told Oscar.

Oscar leaned over the blanket and tried to fake a smile. "Welcome back, Babe."

Dammit, Jaime thought, as her brain drifted in and out of the fog, were they finished implanting the device? Does it even work? And what happened to Steve and Sam? She knew that Steve would fight with everything he had before he'd have let them take her, so chances were he was hurt - or worse.

"Where...are...we?" she asked weakly.

Oscar answered while Rudy continued to check her over. "Remember New Destiny? You and Steve retrieved those modules for me."

"Yeah...and?"

"Some of their security tapes survived the explosions, and they wanted to get their hands on whatever gave the two of you the ability to penetrate their security systems."

"Great." Jaime tried to focus her bionic ear on the sounds surrounding them, but she was still so dizzy. "Where are the guards?"

"End of the hall, and it's a long hallway," Rudy told her. "They can't hear us if we talk softly, and we'll hear their boots if they're headed our way."

"The NSB was called; they're looking for us."

Oscar knew what that meant; so did Rudy. "I figured as much," Oscar said.

"But so are Steve and Sam." Jaime added.

"Together?" Rudy found that hard to believe.

"Yup. I set 'em straight. She closed her eyes as the world began spinning again. "God, I'm dizzy."

Rudy patted her hand. "You rest for now, Honey." As he pulled his hand away, he looked down at her ring finger. A wedding ring? "Oscar...," he whispered.

Oscar saw what Rudy saw and smiled in spite of their peril. "Well, I'll be damned..."

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At the same time, Steve and Sam were attempting recoveries of their own. Jaime had been right: Steve would've fought to the death to protect her, but he and Sam had both been attacked from behind, at virtually the same instant, and neither one saw it coming. When Steve woke up, he was lying on the floor with the worst headache he'd ever had. Sam, still unconscious, was draped across the table where they had been working on Jaime. Jaime! Steve looked around frantically but already knew it was useless. His wife was gone. He shook Sam lightly, trying to rouse him.

"Sam - wake up."

"Huh? What the...oh no."

"They took Jaime." Steve told him. "The GPS - will it work?"

"We weren't done yet, but the device is on, so maybe we'll get lucky."

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"Well, look who finally decided to join the party," the guard remarked. Without thinking about it, Rudy and Oscar moved in front of Jaime, shielding her somewhat from the gaze of their captors.

"The two of us can get you whatever it is you need," Oscar told the guard. "Why don't you let her go? One less person to have to watch, after all."

The guard laughed. "But, we do need her. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to tell you what you're going to be doing for us; let you think about it for tonight. You, Doctor, are going to take your creation here apart for our cameras, piece by piece."

"Like hell I will!"

"Oh, you will. If you don't, you'll have to stand by while we do it, and I can guarantee you there'll be a lot more mess - and pain - involved if we have to do your job. She'll do a lot less suffering if you take care of it for us. You can think about it for tonight. I'll be back for the two of you at sunrise." The guard left, turning off the lights in the corridor and the cell as he went.

"I can't do it," Rudy said.

Jaime was trembling violently. "He didn't say anything about putting me back together, did he?" The men couldn't answer her. "Or anesthesia either..."

Oscar muttered a long string of expletives under his breath. "I must be here so I can't send the OSI in for a rescue."

"NSB's taking care of that, remember?" Rudy reminded him.

"Rescue - " Jaime thought out loud. "Rudy, when they grabbed me, Steve and Sam were in the middle of putting your GPS implant in my ear. Is there any way for you to tell if it's working?"

Rudy shook his head. "Well, at least there's some hope," Jaime added. She gathered her courage and looked directly into Rudy's eyes. "Rudy, if they don't find us, and this happens tomorrow, you'd probably be doing me one last favor if..." Jaime couldn't go on, collapsing into silent tears as both men moved to try and comfort her.

They couldn't see the sun coming up from inside their cell, but the three scared but resigned prisoners had been unable to sleep and were all awake when the boots came noisily down the hall the next morning. Rudy looked at Jaime, panic and regret filling his heart. Jaime touched his face. "It's a favor for me. Remember that, ok?" She and Rudy were quickly dragged down the hallway into a storage area that had become a makeshift lab/operating room.

A guard held each of Rudy's arms firmly as Jaime was strapped to the table. "Can't you at least give her something, put her out first?" Rudy pleaded.

"But she'd miss all the fun!" one of the guards said cruelly. They shoved Rudy toward the table and uncovered a tray of somewhat primitive surgical instruments. "Cameras on? Good. Ok, Doc - it's your show."

Rudy's eyes met Jaime's for a split second, and said everything they both needed to say without any words, then Jaime closed her eyes. Please, Rudy, she begged silently. Better you than them...

Rudy reluctantly made his first cuts, and Jaime's world went dark.