Nome, Alaska
2 days later—
"There she is, winking at us."
Jane looks up at the blurred infrared images of Ceti Alpha 7654.4 on the monitor. She throws back another few aspirin while Aaron sits back smugly in his seat. The last forty eight hours have been a blur of data collection, headaches, arguing, mind numbing searches through physics and astronomy journals—anything to find more proof relating to their current predicament.
Ever the skeptic, the thorny technician will concede to potential electromagnetic phenomena being the root cause of their mess, though he argues (and Jane grants), that what generates it is debatable. This poses yet another problem. As Jane explains to Darcy, one potential theory suggests that solar storms from the sun bombard an area with charged particles which could disrupt electronic equipment—and therefore, many of a telescope's components. However, this would have greater effect at higher latitudes, (outside of Earth's atmosphere). Once again, it doesn't quite mesh with her findings.
And of course, Ceti Apha is much further away than Earth's sun, and currently showing up perfectly on screen. On her six or seventh cup of coffee, Jane is so jittery and frustrated she is tempted to clout the sanctimonious expression right off Aaron's face. She doesn't need another reminder that nothing accepted in the scientific community explains what she's seeing. Stars don't just disappear. Mysterious weather patterns shouldn't erupt without a cause. Jane is no meteorologist or climatologist, and thus, she's well aware she's treading on dangerous territory between her known field and conjecture.
"I still stick to my original theory," Darcy announces. Both Jane and Aaron look up.
The intern shrugs. "There's a wormhole. After all, there has been no shortage of them lately."
Even Aaron can't dismiss that truth, and Jane bites back her overly technical response about there being an infinite number of wormholes all around them at any given time, too small to support travel—
But she smiles anyway and dives back into another journal. Once more, she becomes lost in graphs, elegant mathematical equations and wonder about the mysterious nature of the universe. Hours pass before she looks up and see a post-it note stuck on the table before her.
"A and I left for food. Will be back," she reads. Suppressing her kneejerk reaction of feeling left out, Jane throws the journal down. She was so absorbed in her reading that she didn't even hear the pair leave. That couldn't be healthy.
The physicist pushes her chair over to the computer console and wakes up the screen. The Ublureak telescope is working like a champ, mapping the far reaches of space for her. She scans the numbers. There's nothing unusual about any of it, but then again, weather patterns have normalized again too. Still, there is something science can't pin down, and that is gut instinct. It's screaming at Jane that something major is happening.
"If you're not a wormhole, what are you?" Jane mutters out loud to herself. She knows that particular anomaly backwards and forwards. Once the stuff of fringe science and quacks, since Earth's introduction to the princes of Asgard, the reality of the Einstein–Rosen bridge is accepted and studied now at major universities. Of course, she was years ahead of most researchers before her work was "borrowed"—but she pushes her bitterness out of her mind. Whatever this is, it's different. And potentially, the ramifications are just as significant.
An ominous red warning light flickers on overhead with a simultaneous warning box appearing on all the monitors around her. Instinctively, Jane jumps in her seat, praying that she didn't touch something to break a three hundred million dollar telescope.
She takes a breath. Heartbeat pounding, Jane leans forward and reads the message. WARNING: TEMPERATURE CHANGE BELOW TELESCOPE OPERATIONAL PERAMETERS. CLOSING ROOF IN 5…4…3…2…
A beat later, the massive dome shuts overhead. Jane runs over to look at the telescope's last captures of Ceti Alpha. It's gone, erased from the sky like it never was, just at the time of the temperature change was detected. She glances at those numbers.
"Oh my God," she whispers, seeing the drop. Thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit to sixty-five below zero in under a minute?
She doesn't need an advanced degree in meteorology to know that shift extreme is impossible, and yet her earlier trepidation is being replacing by growing excitement. Logic says that such a dramatic change shouldn't happen, and yet she has proof to the contrary. Whether the scientific community accepts those same results is another story.
She turns back to the last captured images of Ceti Alpha. While the star isn't visible, Jane suddenly realizes she has been looking at this all wrong. It's not about what's missing, it's about what's there instead.
Space isn't just a blank canvas. Something must occupy it.
Her fingers fly on the keyboard as she analyzes the images in the non-visible frequencies. Suddenly, the "blank" Ceti Alpha image was alight with color. Jane forces herself to take another deep breath. She switches back to the visible spectrum and zooms in. Way in.
"Oh God," she whispers. "It's been there all along."
She selects the images and asks the computer to scan for matching star patterns. After a minute, it comes back with "no results found."
Even unmapped, Jane knows what she is looking at. A foreign star system, somehow—impossibly, even—is intersecting with theirs.
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Riding the high of her discovery, Jane goes through images—hundreds of them—and finds the same faint glimmer of unknown heavens staring back at her. Even the pictures from Keck 1 reveal the same anomaly.
Lacking a massive hole in the sky, the question still remains—how is it happening? She has an idea, but just then, Aaron and Darcy enter the control room en route to the kitchen, each bearing a bag of groceries. In her excitement, Jane launches into her findings without paying heed to the tight-lipped expression of her intern. Aaron listens and nods when she shows him the proof. He asks for more data, which Jane is all too happy to show.
"So," she concludes, following a lengthy technical monologue, "I think this is evidence of a space time warp. The weather phenomenon is just a result of a high low pressure system in a transition zone."
The technician's brow rises. "So is this what I think you're saying?" The words come out slowly, and pitched higher at the end.
"Yes!" Jane grins. "It's a compression of the fabric of space."
Aaron looks at his watch. "Shoot, I had a phone meeting with the university trustees. Excuse me."
As soon as he leaves, Darcy drops her grocery bag and pulls Jane into the bathroom. The physicist gives her a baffled look.
"What are you doing?"Jane questions.
Darcy's voice is low and forceful. "There are no cameras in here." At Jane's baffled expression, Darcy shakes her head. "I'll get to that another time," she continues. "But for the time being, we're in trouble."
"What are you talking about?"
"You. Just. Told. Him. Everything!" the intern exclaims, accentuating every word as she speaks it. "And knowing you're track record, Dr. Foster, you're probably right!"
Jane's head is swimming. "Darcy, seriously—"
"It all started with me wanting to give this guy my number while we were out. Don't give me that look—it's lonely here for those of us without alien friends."
Jane sighs and puts her hands on her hips. "Where is this story going?"
"Look," Darcy interrupts, "Instead of a number, this guy—bagging groceries, no less—tells me he is actually an observatory technician working on his post-doc from University of Alaska. This place was his baby. He claims he was inexplicably fired the day before we showed up here, and, get this—" Darcy leans forward and her voice quiets conspiratorially, "he's never heard of Aaron. Coincidence? I don't think so."
Jane frowns. "So what? Aaron is a replacement."
"From where?" Darcy argues. "Who has that kind of reach to throw a fully trained lackey into an observatory to spy on us?"
"There are probably dozens of qualified grad students willing to take this post, none of them being spies."
"In Nome? Yeah, I bet. Think about it, Foster."
"Darcy," Jane opens the bathroom door and steps out, "I'm a sucker for good conspiracy theory as much as anyone, and I'm sorry you didn't get the guy's number, but this is silly. I have things to do."
As she turns away, Darcy latches onto her sweater and pulls her back. Digging into her oversized coat, the intern pulls out a gray t-shirt.
"How did I know you would want more proof? This was in Aaron's back seat. I grabbed it when he wasn't looking."
Jane reluctantly takes it. "Great, you're a klepto now too?"
"Look, Foster."
So she does. Her eyes widen as she sees an embroidered patch over the right chest baring the insignia she hoped to never see again as long as she lived. The unspoken name hangs in the air between them.
Jane pales. "No." she shakes her head. "NO. They left me alone. I gave up my research, I moved here…I did everything SHIELD wanted of me." Tears begin to well in the corner of her eyes, which she blinks away rapidly. She drops the t-shirt to the ground like it's burned her.
Darcy gives her a tight, sad smile. "You did everything except stop searching." She puts on hands on Jane's shoulders and speaks slowly to her, as though convincing a child.
"We can leave. You have what you need to publish, right?"
Jane nods tensely.
"Ok. Just get your coat and laptop."
They move silently, quickly gathering papers and their few possessions marking their stay. Darcy lingers at one of the terminals, looking intently at something the screen. They hear the door slam downstairs. Aaron is returning.
"Darcy, c'mon!" Jane says quietly, a messenger bag with her laptop and journals slung over her shoulder. Darcy clicks something on the mouse and shoves a flash drive into her pocket. When she looks up at Jane, her eyes widen. Jane turns, only to smack right into the chest of a strange man in a suit. Another agent appears at his shoulder with Aaron in tow. He stares at the floor, unable to meet their betrayed looks.
The man closest to Jane frowns. "Dr. Foster, we meet again."
Darcy steps forward, attracting the attention of both agents. "Yeah, hi. Remember me? Still waiting on my ipod, you thieves."
They exchange a dismissive look before one of them motions towards the door. "Dr. Foster, you need to come with us."
Jane has a death grip on her bag. "NO! Don't you touch me!" she hisses, backing away. "I'm not going anywhere with you people ever again!"
The SHIELD agent glances at his partner, then back at her. "Don't force our hand, Dr. Foster. This will be much easier if you cooperate."
A string of profanities hurls out of her mouth, and she can tell the agents are surprised. They exchange another quick look. Instinctively, she backs away.
"Very well, Dr. Foster," one of them says. She sees handcuffs glint in the light as the agent closest to her approaches.
Darcy yells some obscene battle cry and comes charging at him, barreling the SHIELD agent right over. "Run, Jane!" she shouts. Jane doesn't need to be asked twice. She bolts past the other shocked agent and Aaron and speeds down the stairs, taking three at a time.
She's almost to her car when she hears the second agent breathing hard behind her. Shots ring out, pinging off the grill of her jeep. She stops dead and turns, her heart pounding.
"What is so important that you're willing to kill for it?" she screams at him. The agent moves toward her, gun raised. Upon seeing her terrified expression, he lowers the gun.
"Are you willing to cooperate, Dr. Foster?"
She never thought it was real, but her life really did flash before her eyes. Childhood, studying in the university, laughing with Darcy and Erik, long nights staring at the heavens, the taste of Thor's kiss...
All the memories converge into this moment.
"Not with you," she responds, her tone firm. Despite everything, it's an honest answer.
He shakes his head and raises the gun again. "This could have ended differently."
Jane looks at the agent like he's spoken in tongues. They aren't willing to kill her, are they? And yet she sees the man's finger on the trigger.
She looks desperately up, seeing nothing but the glittering stars. "Thor!" she cries out. "Thor! Pleas—"
Something burns in her shoulder, and Jane slumps lifelessly to the ground.
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A/N Annnnnd the plot moves forward. I feel like I'm manipulating a huge chessboard of pieces, but I refuse to take an easy way out. Our heroine has to figure more things out before our favorite Asgard prince steps in. Hope you guys are still with me.
The scientific jargon mentioned is real, but any mistakes are mine. Lastly, thanks so much to those who have read and reviewed. Please continue to let me know your thoughts. I'll put the next chapter up faster, I promise. :)
