Chapter 44 - Take Care: Part II
7:30pm - Outside the Building
Taking a last glance at those who were still standing on the very edge of the roof under the influence of her power, Tamsin smirked and gave them a finger.
After they exited the building, Bo's father scanned the surroundings. He quickly tilted his head at a ferris wheel to their left and suggested, "over there."
"It'll take us a while to get there. I mean, it'll-" Bo murmured.
"I think I could use a couple of hours for a convo with you," the man replied, his eyes soft.
"Okay," Bo murmured as she follow the man while holding Tamsin's hand.
8:00pm - Travelling Carnival
"Crowd and loud noise, two things I hate the most," Tamsin murmured, frowning at a group of people cheering in front of a booth. "Though, I guess it's a good choice for a conversation."
Bo nudged the mumbling Valkyrie gently with a soft smile on her face. Then she turned to her father. "So...how did you-how did you get to the...you know, that building?"
"Long story," the man replied, a look of confusion fleeting across his face. "I didn't know where to start. That man, John, took me there."
"Yeah, long story, don't know where to start. That's pretty much my line," Bo joked.
The man pondered for a while, before he asked, "I'm guessing that you asked a Dola to set up this meeting, right?"
"Mhm," Bo nodded. "I wish she could have arranged this in a sunnier way, you know. Less guns and shi-shtuff."
"Guns? What happened?" Her father asked, concerned.
"Ummm...well, I was at this restaurant she and I-" Bo said, pointing at Tamsin who stood right next to her. She trailed off, realizing that this was the first time her father and Tamsin had met but she hadn't introduced them to each other yet.
"Oh, ummm," she muttered. "Tamsin, my...ummm...dad. Dad, Tamsin."
The other two shared a polite yet somewhat awkward handshake, and Bo continued, "anyway, we were supposed to have dinner there, but she was late-I mean, I got there early so I waited. Then, the weirdest thing happened, like...ummm, a waitress came to me and told me that I was going to die. Then she started counting down like a robot-"
"Someone counted down for your death in front of you?" Tamsin interrupted her. She waved her hands in front of her face and continued, "does she have like...dark eyes and silver hair?"
"Yeah, yeah her hair had been red but it kinda changed to silver, and her eyes were like empty sockets," Bo explained. Then she narrowed her eyes at Tamsin. "You know what type of Fae she was?"
"It was probably a Bean Nighe," Tamsin said, and that earned a nod from Bo's father. "They are the only kind who would deliver death message with a count down."
"A Bean Nighe, gotcha," Bo murmured. "Well, before she finished, she suddenly excused herself and then she disappeared."
"That's rare," her father commented. "However since you are still alive, I'd say that she must have observed something that would prevent you from dying right before you death."
"Ummm yeah, someone walked by-that woman who took me to that building, she came by and knocked off my glass, and the bullet missed me." She paused a bit, frowning. "What type of Fae is that?"
"If she had to use guns, I'd say that she's no Fae," Tamsin said, shrugging.
Bo nodded. "If she's not Fae, how could she have known that-she told me that someone is targeting me."
"Who is targeting you?" Both her father and Tamsin demanded at the same time.
Bo try to recall the name that Root had told her, but too many things had happened to her in the past 2 hours and she couldn't remember what it was. "I...I can't remember."
"We'll figure that out later," Tamsin told her, squeezing her hand gently to comfort her.
Bo smiled at her. She took a deep breath and turned to her father afterwards. "Can we talk about your twin brother? I mean, he's the very reason we are having this meeting in the first place."
The man sighed and looked at the carousel for a while. "I remember...there was a carousel too, and it was just as crowded. It was our 5th birthday. Our parents took to one of these...state fairs, something like that...he was-he had snuck into a place which later caught fire. He died with 12 other kids."
"Wow, that sounds dangerously familiar, don't you think?" Tamsin drawled. She and Bo shared a concerned look, both frowning.
"What do you mean?" The man asked.
"That research center you sent my brother to, got burnt down by fire too. Lots of people died, but my brother apparently got away. Before the fire had started, there was someone at Lab 539. Someone who had disguised himself as a visiting researcher. Someone who looked exactly like you."
Her father paused in shock. "Are you saying that-" he stopped abruptly, immediately shaking his head in disbelief. "No, that's not possible. He died in that fire. I-I saw it."
"You saw it? Like...you saw his body?" Tamsin asked, frowning.
"No, of course not. I was only 5. They wouldn't allow me to go into the morgue. My...my father identified the body," the man told them.
"So, you didn't actually see the body," Bo murmured.
"No," the man shook his head. "I had a glance of the inside of the morgue, I think. My dad was crying, and there was this...this burnt body in front of him. The body still had this...little pendant on him."
He reached into his collar and showed Bo the pendant he was wearing. It was round, with some sort of winged animal in the middle. "He had a same one. It was supposed to keep off the evil spirits," he said. "I think my dad identified his body by that."
"Anyone could have ripped that off and put it on someone else," Tamsin suggested. "Otherwise how could we explain the guy in Lab 539? He must have escaped somehow, and made everyone think that he died."
"Why? Why would he do that? He was only 5 years old. It's just not possible. He couldn't even have survived on his own."
"Well, maybe he didn't have to," Bo said. "Just like my brother, maybe someone took him away."
"It just...can't be," the man murmured. "We held his funeral. We buried him. We visited his grave every year. How could he-he's still alive? For all these years?"
"Well, we need to find him," Tamsin said. "Do you have any ideas about where he might be?"
- Meanwhile Somewhere in the City -
"I wish one day you could understand that nighttime isn't walking time," Finch mumbled as he walked along the sidewalk with Bear.
The dog made some soft snorting sounds as if he was complaining.
Finch was about to say something, but a ringing payphone across the street interrupted him. He quickly limped across the street and picked it up.
"India, Tango, Hotel, Alpha, Charlie, Alpha," the Machine read with a bland tone, changing between different voices.
Finch paused. He glanced at the street camera to his right in reflex, right before the Machine hung up.
"Ithaca..." he murmured, frowning.
He took out his phone. Before he dialed, it rang and he picked it up.
"Harold, the Machine spoke to me again," Root's voice came, confused. "She's repeating the same word-"
"Ithaca," Finch interrupted her. They both paused before the man said, "maybe we haven't finished what the Machine wants us to do. Maybe arranging the meeting isn't the final answer."
"Then we'll have to look into this Ithaca more."
8:20pm - Travelling Carnival
"We've got company," Tamsin whispered while pretending that she was very interested in some colorful cotton candy. "Bitch and her minions in black, ten o'clock."
"Anybody feels like some Haunted House?" Bo's father suggested as he quickly shoved both women into the haunted house
8:25pm - Haunted House
Tamsin rolled her eyes at one of the clowns mannequin who suddenly appeared in front of them with a scary laugh. She shoved it back to the wall, before she snuck behind a pursuer and dragged behind a row of statues.
Before he could warn the others, she cast doubt on him. "Think you can just follow us around like that? I don't think so. Who are you people?"
"I...what…?" the man stuttered.
"Who are you?" Tamsin repeated with a low voice.
"The...Samaritan..." the man mumbled, a proud look on his face.
"Yes, the Samaritan!" Bo nearly yelled. "That woman, Root. She said something about it too. Who the hell is this Samaritan?"
"It's the...new world," the man replied. "A better future."
Bo impatiently grabbed his arm and pushed her charms through. "Why don't you tell me why you are after us, hmmm?"
"Must...eliminate," the man stuttered.
"Eliminate whom?" Bo pursued.
"Father...daughter," the man mumbled, his voice dreamy. "Must eliminate…."
"Why?"
"Can't let them...into Ithaca…."
"What the hell is Ithaca?"
"Ithaca is...Ithaca," the man replied hesitantly. He mumbled the same sentence over and over, before he blacked out because he had had too much Fae power infused into him.
"Fucking humans," Tamsin hissed as she kicked the man's legs.
"Whoa, so they are trying to eliminate us, because they can't let us into Ithaca?" Bo frowned. "Wait, I think I've seen that name somewhere, like...today. Isn't that building we were at called Ithaca Corp or something? "
"But, we've already been there, why are they still after us?" Tamsin frowned.
Bo licked her lips. "Well..." she suggested, "the sole purpose of us meeting in that building, is that we were gonna talk about my...uncle, so maybe they are really here to stop us from finding him?"
"But, why? What does that have anything to do with them?" Bo's father murmured.
"We'll figure that out later," Tamsin told him before she shoved him and Bo towards the exit. "Let's get out of here first."
- Meanwhile Somewhere in the City -
"I thought we have already accomplished the mission already," Reese asked as he tossed a ball to the wall. He watched it bounce towards the dog before bear happily fetch it for him.
"Apparently, we haven't," Root countered.
"We sent the father and the daughter to the target building, both alive. Isn't that what this mission was about?"
"We thought that was it," Finch explained. "It appears that it is not, though."
He put a few pictures up on the whiteboard. "So, let's rethink this mission. What did we miss?"
"Isn't that obvious?" Root taunted. "She keeps hinting us with the word Ithaca. It must have something to do with that."
"Haven't we sent them to the building with that name?" Reese asked.
"You certainly have," Finch murmured as he typed something into his computer. "However, we..." he trailed off, staring at lines of texts rolling on the screen.
A moment later, stacks of electronic files and documents started to pop out on his screen. Among them, he first noticed a map with a marker on its lower left side.
"Interesting," he murmured. "It looks like that building isn't the only thing that is named after Ithaca. There is also a city in New York names Ithaca."
"Okay, a city, great," Reese hummed. "I guess we can go through maybe two hundred thousand people and a few thousand buildings and who knows what we are looking for."
"It's a start-" Finch suddenly stopped talking as he pulled out a video feed that had just appeared. "Well, good news, Mr. Reese. It seems that the Machine knows what to look for."
"Doesn't she always?" Root teased. She glanced at the video, and murmured, "what's so special about this video?"
"It's a footage from Ithaca city hospital," Finch said after he decoded the source of the file. "It shows that...approximately a year ago, someone got admitted into the ER in critical condition and they were about to resuscitate him…."
"The patient is a relative number maybe? Or maybe one of the doctors? Nurses?" Reese proposed.
"Let me pull their data out and-" Finch mumbled, typing. "Okay, so the patient has no ID, and they listed him as Patient Unknown in their database...well-"
He trailed off after a glance at the patient's files. He stared at the screen, before he rushed to the whiteboard and looked at Bo's father's photo very closely.
Running back to his computer, he printed out a copy of that patient's file, and pinned it to the board. "Now," he said as he pointed at the two photos with two identical faces, "how is this possible?"
"Why isn't it possible, Finch?" Reese asked after he examined the pictures. "He got admitted to the hospital, and then they fixed him. That's why he's alive and healthy now."
"Except that..." Root said, reading the files. "This guy here has been in a deep coma since he got into the hospital. He never left there, and now he's lying in one of the patient rooms on the 7th floor."
"That's not possible, Root," Reese hummed. "We've seen him today, remember? He's definitely not in a coma."
"Well then," Finch said. "How could you have met a coma patient today? According to the hospital records and cameras, he never left the room."
The other two pondered the question, before they both said at the same time, "twins?"
Root then paused there, listening to the message coming through her earpiece.
"We need to hurry," she told them. "Decima is heading to that hospital right now."
8:45pm - Outside the Travelling Carnival
Bo, her father and Tamsin left the carnival since there were too many agents looking for them. On their way out, they grabbed a few and interrogated them, but none of them had provided useful information.
They eventually decided to go back to the clubhouse so they could come up with a plan. They had just walked a few blocks, before they were stopped by a car that was pulled right in front of them.
"Get in," Root told them after she popped the doors open. "We don't have much time. I'll explain later."
11:30pm - Ithaca City Hospital
After a long, bumpy drive, and a brief explanation of the purpose of the trip, they arrived at the hospital.
Everything seemed normal, except that they found a nurse who had been knocked out and stuffed in an unused janitor's room with her badge gone.
They rushed upstairs to the 7th floor and headed down the hallway towards room 714. On the way, they saw a nurse coming out from the room with a tray in her hand.
The nurse seemed to be in a hurry, and she didn't even tell them that the visiting hours were over when she passed by them.
Root and Reese exchanged a concerned look, and the man immediately went to follow the nurse. The rest of them entered room 714 before anyone noticed them.
Root was the first one who noticed that the alarm of the machines had been turned off. She rushed to the bedside and yanked the covers away from the patient. One glance at the lifeless face, she knew this was who they had come for. She checked his pulse, but there was none.
She closed her eyes and straightened her body, letting out a deep, heavy sigh. Turning around, she shook her head at the other three.
"Shit!" Tamsin curses as she went to check it herself. The patient, who looked almost exactly like Bo's father, had passed away with no visible trauma.
Bo clenched her hands. "Who are these people?!" She growled at Root, beyond frustrated. "What's going on?"
Root tilted her head and gave Bo a sad smile. "They came for him," she told the brunette. "We tried to stop them, but it didn't work."
"Yeah, I can see that," Bo replied as she glanced at her dead uncle. "Why are they after him? And, who are you? How did you know that they were after me?"
"We just...know things," Root told her.
Bo huffed, about to pursue the answer, but Reese came in. He tossed a nurse badge at Root, and said, "that nurse-"
"-stole the real nurse's badge and pretended to be one, of course," Root grunted. She took a deep breath, and turned to Bo. "It was very nice meeting you, but we have to go. Once we know anything, we will inform you."
With that, they left the room, leaving the other three in there.
12:15am - Outside the Hospital
Bo and Tamsin tried to find Root and Reese, but they were long gone.
The three of them left the hospital after having found nothing useful there. They walked along the street, each with a heavy heart.
They stopped at a busy intersection, and waited for the green light.
"I have to go," Bo's father eventually said.
Bo gaped at him. "Yeah," she murmured after a few seconds of silence. "Yeah, of course."
"It's...ummm...very nice to see you again, Bo," the man said sincerely. "I wish I could have more time."
"Yeah," Bo hummed.
The man held Tamsin and Bo's hands in his and squeezed them firmly. "Take care, okay?"
"You too, Sir," Tamsin replied simply.
He gave them a warm smile, before he headed to the other side of the street.
Bo watched him walking through the headlights of the cars, and suddenly she had the strength to say, "hey dad!"
The man turned around, standing still in the middle. The pedestrian light had turned red, and the cars started to honk at him impatiently, yet he didn't move at all.
"I know that...you are a busy man, but...maybe we could see you this Thanksgiving or something?" Bo asked him. She paused briefly, before she added, "I mean, it doesn't have to be Thanksgiving, you know…."
"I'll try to make it this Thanksgiving," the man said with a firm voice. He nodded at her with a smile, before he headed to the bus stop down the road.
- A Few Days Later -
Tamsin had just gotten her coffee when a coworker came over to her and handed her a sealed large envelope.
"What is it?" She asked him after finding no address or sender's name on it.
The man shrugged. "Someone just dropped this off for you."
"Who?" Tamsin frowned.
"A detective...detective Riley from NYPD, I believe."
"Sure, thanks," Tamsin told him. Who the hell is detective Riley? She wondered while opening the envelop.
One glance at the content, she had to put down her mug and go into an empty interrogation room.
She closed the blinds and locked the door, before she called Bo.
"Remember your dead uncle?" She asked the brunette in a hasty whisper.
"Yeah, of course I do. Why are you whispering?" The brunette asked.
"Well, remember we said that we might never figure out how we are gonna find your brother and shit?"
"Yeah…?"
"Maybe we aren't that clueless in the end," Tamsin told her. "Someone dropped off something at the precinct for me. A bunch of diaries."
"Diaries? Whose?"
"Sabio," Tamsin told her. "That name rings a bell?"
"Yeah," Bo replied after a long pause. "Yeah, of course. That's the name my brother gave himself when he was at Lab 539."
A/N: Took me forever to write this chapter. Hope everyone enjoy it. For the next few chaps, I probably would have Bo and Tamsin work on some side cases while trying to figure out the whereabouts of her brother.
