Chapter 7
After they reached their agreement, Rory escorted her to her room. To her surprise, instead of leading her back to the room she had spent her recovery in, he led her in the opposite direction, to a smaller, less lavishly appointed room.
"So, no more hospital and creepy Dr. Gibbs and Nurse Ratchet?" She walked over to the small, round table in the corner of the room. It was just big enough to allow two chairs to be pushed up under it. There was a neatly folded stack of clothes on its shiny surface.
"Nurse who?" Rory didn't enter the room; he just stood in the open doorway.
"Nurse Ratchet," she picked up the article on top of the stack; it was a plain black tee shirt. Under it was another. "You know, the nurse in the medical area with a really crappy bedside manner. I never did get her name."
Rory snorted, "Nurse Barnet. Yeah, she rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Encourages them to keep their infirmary visits short and infrequent."
"Effective. I know I wanted to get the hell out of there as quick as possible." She held up a black pair of pants and turned back to face him, "black on black? Some kind of uniform?"
"It's the best we could do on short notice. Unless you prefer to continue wearing your current attire?" he indicated her hospital gown she had forgotten she was wearing.
Her face flushed and she reached around to make sure the back wasn't gaping open, exposing her ass to everyone she had passed in the hall.
"I didn't think so. We can find you something more to your liking tomorrow."
"This will do, thank you, Rory." She paused, "for everything. I don't know what Barton had planned for me, but I'm sure I wouldn't have liked it."
She held up her still bandaged hand, "and thank you for stitching me up."
Rory looked down and sighed, "I have conflicting emotions about you, Frankie. I know you aren't responsible for any of what happened to me and you never would have abandoned me if you had known I was still alive. But I'm still angry about it and I often catch myself projecting that anger onto you." He shrugged, "it's not fair to you, but I can't help it."
He raised his head and looked her in the eyes, "Even after all that, I still love you dearly. There isn't any scenario that I can imagine where I wouldn't do anything to keep you from harm."
Frankie's eyes burned; the boy she had raised was still there, but he was all grown up. Despite her misgivings about his involvement with Hydra, she was proud of the man he had become. Crossing the small space, she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tight. This time, he readily hugged her back.
Kissing the top of her head, he pushed her back a little so he could look down into her face. "I'm glad you're here."
She sniffed and wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her bandaged hand, "I'm glad you're alive."
"Now get some sleep. You're going to have a busy day tomorrow."
She nodded, "good night, Rory."
"Good night, Frankie."
After the door shut behind him, Frankie surveyed the room.
"First things first," she muttered to herself and, using the pretense of putting away the extra change of clothes in the dresser, covertly searched the room for a camera. Now that she knew what to look for, it didn't take long to locate it. On the smoke detector installed near the door to room was an LED slightly larger than the other two.
Picking up the remaining set of clothes, she went to the adjoining bathroom and shut the door. Ten minutes of searching revealed no obvious camera, so she allowed herself to relax a little and made use of the shower. The water was deliciously hot even though it stung a couple of her worst wounds. Feeling much better, Frankie dressed in the clean clothes provided and returned to the main room. Turning off the light, she crawled into the bed and turned towards the wall, away from the prying camera.
Though it was late, and she was tired, she lay awake mulling over what she had seen and been told by Rory. Setting aside the fact that she was in a Hydra compound and the cameras watching everyone, something else seemed off about everything; something she couldn't quite put her finger on. She kept turning it over and over in her mind trying to pin down what was bothering her. It was early in the morning before sleep finally claimed her.
The next morning, she was awoken by a knock on her door. Climbing wearily out of the bed, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she opened the door. She had expected Rory but was greeted by a solemn young woman.
"Good morning, Frankie," she held out her hand. "I'm Jeannine. The commander assigned me to escort you around today."
"Um, good morning." Frankie shook the proffered hand. Jeannine was several inches shorter than her and on the plump side, but that may have been just the unflattering beige slacks and white blouse she was wearing. "What time is it?"
"It's almost 8:00. I wanted to make sure I didn't wake you too early since you had a late night." She took in Frankie's tangled hair and sleep-wrinkled clothes and held out a small black case, "here's a couple of things you might appreciate. You know, toothbrush and toothpaste, a hairbrush, deodorant. Things like that. I'll be back in about 20 minutes and take you to the cafeteria for breakfast. Okay?"
Frankie took the bag, "thanks, but I don't have a watch and I haven't seen my phone since I've been here."
"Oh, there's a little battery-operated clock in there. I've already set it for you."
"Looks like you thought of everything. Thanks." She took a step back into her room.
"Oh, it was nothing. We have tons of those kits in the warehouse," Jeannine replied, "just for these kinds of situations."
"This kind of thing happens often?" Frankie was taken aback by the casual statement.
Jeannine blanched. "Oh, no," she hurriedly replied, waving a hand in dismissal. "We just have people coming and going all the time. You know how it is when you travel; you always forget something." Her short laugh was unconvincing.
Frankie nodded as if she understood, "I see."
"Well, I'll let you freshen up and be back in twenty. Okay?"
"Okay," she replied as she shut the door.
That was interesting.
Breakfast in the cafeteria was equally interesting. At such a late hour, there were only a handful of people in the area. Oddly, even though Jeannine informed her that everyone knew she had been personally recruited by the Commander, nobody peppered her with questions. Quite the opposite, in fact. The few people she was introduced to went out of their way to avoid asking questions and answered her questions warily, if at all.
Sitting at their table speaking in a quiet tone, Jeannine explained how all the projects that the facility was working on were segregated. Each team worked as an autonomous group, answering only to the Commander. Only three people knew the details of every project: The Commander, his lieutenant, Percy Adams, and the head of security, Ms. Jones. Frankie would be meeting Adams and Jones during the morning.
Jeannine also explained that Adams would be the one to assign her to a team and that she would probably be paired with a more senior member who would act as her mentor for several weeks.
"What team are you on?" Frankie asked.
"I'm on Dr. DeGorge's team," she answered, blushing when she said the name of the doctor.
"Wait, I think I kind of met him last night," Frankie recalled the exchange between Rory and the man. "Robotics, right?"
The other woman nodded, "yes, but I'm not allowed to talk about anything we're working on outside of the team."
"Why not?"
Jeannine raised her eyebrows at the question and leaned towards Frankie across the table, "because they are always trying to infiltrate us to ferret out our secrets."
"They?"
This earned her an eye roll. "SHIELD and the Avengers," she said in an exaggerated whisper. "Don't you know that most of their fancy gear and technology was stolen from us?"
Ok, I'll bite, Frankie thought and leaned in also. "No! Really?"
"Of course!" her companion scoffed. "You don't think a pampered, rich, megalomaniac like Tony Stark really built his first Iron Man suit in a cave, do you? That's just the cover story. He wasn't being held hostage; he was out there selling weapons to terrorists in exchange for a prototype suit stolen from a Hydra research facility."
"I never thought much about it," she admitted.
Jeannine leaned back in her chair with a huff, "of course not. That's the problem! Nobody bothers to question the shit they are fed every day by the press. SHIELD controls the press, so they control the flow of information. But things are starting to change. With all the cell phones, cameras, and internet, it's getting harder for them to cover their asses. People are starting to question the intentions of these so-called heroes."
That is something Frankie could understand after being caught in the collateral damage of Hawkeye's vigilante rampage in New York. She nodded, "true, but don't you worry about some of Hydra's methods?"
Jeannine slapped the table, "haven't you been listening? Shield controls the media so you can't trust anything you hear or see from it."
Wow, she's really drank the cool aid. "I guess I'll just have to judge for myself."
Nodding her head with satisfaction, Jeannine urged, "just try to keep an open mind. We are not the bad guys here." She motioned at the mostly empty plate in front of Frankie, "if you're done, we should get going. Ms. Jones wants to meet you before I take you to see Mr. Adams."
"Yeah, I'm done. Let's go."
Frankie began to realize how vast the underground complex was as her guide led her through the warren of corridors. Most of the people they encountered greeted Jeannine with nods and smiles, a couple of them stopping to chat amiably for a few moments before allowing them to continue their way.
After the second stop, she asked, "does everybody know each other here?"
Jeannine shrugged, "there's only a couple hundred of us here and we see each other every day."
Frankie stopped, "wait. Do all of you live down here?"
"Of course, we do. If we commuted every day, SHIELD might be able to follow one of us and find this facility," she explained as if Frankie was a slow child before turning to continue down the corridor.
Frankie grabbed her by the arm to stop her, "no, wait. When's the last time you've been outside?"
Jeannine chewed on her lower lip as she thought. "I went with team to test one of our designs about six months ago. Other than that, I've been down here since I got here just over a year ago. Why?"
"So how do you know what's going on out there?"
Jeannine's face darkened as she understood what Frankie was getting at. "You think we're being kept in the dark? You think we are as clueless about what's going on as those sheeple up there?" She jabbed a finger towards the ceiling and raised her voice. "We're some of the best and brightest that the scientific world has to offer, and you think we're idiots?"
Frankie held up her hands and took a step back, "no, that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that you guys are pretty much cut off down here, so how do you keep up with what's going on in the world?"
But Jeannine wasn't ready to back down. "We may be secluded down here, but we aren't cut off. We have our phones, computers, and televisions. We still get the internet. We can watch the news and talk to our families. Hydra isn't keeping us in the dark. They're keeping us safe."
Frankie wasn't buying it, though. Her distrust of institutions, government, superhero, or other, drove her to question their intentions. Hell, she questioned everyone's intentions. In her experience, nobody did anything for altruistic reasons. Everyone, everything, had an agenda and their actions were always in service of that agenda. But she wasn't helping herself by alienating her only acquaintance here.
"I'm sorry, Jeannine. I guess I'm a little paranoid, given my recent encounters with the so-called good guys."
The other woman visibly calmed herself and took a deep breath before smiling sheepishly, "I'm sorry, too. I may have over-reacted just a bit."
Just a bit? You think? "Look, I'll keep an open mind about this place, but I'm going to ask questions. I think you would understand that."
"Of course. Like I said, I over-reacted."
As they continued down the corridor, Frankie wondered if everyone she met was going to be so prickly about her questions. She was going to have to take a softer approach.
