A/N: Thank you pallysAramisRios for reviewing!
Chapter 32: If Wishes Were Puppies
Picard exited the local tea shop he frequented every Sunday morning, his newspaper folded up under one arm. It had been a drizzly morning but the skies were clearing up. He turned down the side alley, slowing his pace as he came upon a dirty stray dog sitting on a heap of sodden cardboards. It was an Irish Setter, too beautiful a breed to be on the streets.
"Hello, girl," Picard greeted and dug out a biscuit wrapped in a napkin he was saving for later. He offered it to the dog, who snatched it hungrily out of his palm and chomped down. "I'm afraid that's all I have," he said regretfully and started on his way again. But then he was struck from behind and he pitched forward onto his hands and knees, his hat flying off his head. The dog barked furiously. Picard swayed as he tried to get up, tried to meet his attacker, but he was struck again and everything went black.
He woke to a pounding head and aching back, tied to a hard plastic chair in a dark, cold, industrial building. Blinking in pain and confusion, Picard lifted his head and craned it around. The man standing before him was a shock to see.
"Quincy," he breathed.
"Bet you never thought you'd see me again."
Picard yanked against his bonds, but the plastic zip ties were firm. "What do you want?" he asked stiffly.
"Do you really have to ask?" Quincy said. He bent his knees to bring himself down to eye level, expression seething. "You took everything from me."
"I took an artifact," Picard argued. "I had to."
Quincy straightened. "Yes, the pious 'Warehouse' and its agents, thinking they know best for the world."
"The artifact was too powerful; it was going to get out of control—it was already starting to."
"I could have stopped!" Quincy snapped. "I could have handed it over to be locked away like you wanted. But no, you had to reverse every wish that it had made come true."
"It was necessary," Picard replied. "The energy had grown too powerful and had to be neutralized. Which, unfortunately, meant reversing the wishes." He paused, then added, "I'm sorry about Melanie."
"I don't believe you," Quincy said with razor scorn. "You swooped in, took your precious artifact, and left, without a single thought to what would happen to the people left behind. You destroyed my life!"
Picard regarded the man with resignation. "And now you want revenge?"
A mad glint entered Quincy's eyes. "You like artifacts so much, I thought it fitting to find some to use here today."
He turned and walked over to a small side table holding some artifacts Picard hadn't noticed at first. But he recognized the item Quincy picked up—Shirō Ishii's Medal, a torture device that simulated drowning.
"Quincy, don't do this," Picard beseeched.
Quincy ignored him. Eyes gleaming with ravenous hunger for vengeance, he lifted the medal toward Picard, who gasped as his lungs spasmed with the sensation of filling with water.
Raffi swiveled back and forth in the office chair in the Warehouse terminal. Jean-Luc was late. He'd wanted to go over some operations updates, but Raffi had been waiting for nearly an hour. It wasn't like him. She pulled out her phone to call his cell, but it went straight to voicemail. She tried his Farnsworth next. Still no answer.
She straightened in her seat. Now she was getting a bad feeling. "Hey, Enoch," she called into the air.
The hologram shimmered into place. "Yes?"
"Can you tap into traffic cameras in town and see where Jean-Luc is? He's late."
"Certainly." Enoch's eyes started flickering blue as he ran the computer processes.
"Do you check up on us like this?" Soji spoke up.
"Of course not. And I'm only 'checking up' because he's an hour late." She turned to Rios for help. "That's not like him."
Rios shrugged in agreement.
Enoch's eyes cleared. "I'm afraid there are no cameras in the vicinity of the tea shop he patronizes, but I took the liberty of tracking his Farnsworth and he is still in town."
"Where in town?" Raffi asked.
"Outside the tea shop."
"Outside it? Not inside?"
Enoch nodded. "Yes, outside."
Rios set his book aside. "Is he moving?"
"No."
Raffi arched her brows at her partner.
"Yeah, let's go," Rios said.
Soji and Elnor wordlessly tagged along as they drove into town to look around. Raffi ducked into the tea shop just to make sure Picard wasn't still in there, but he wasn't, and the server confirmed he had left at his normal time over an hour ago. She headed back outside.
"He's not here," she said, gut clenching anxiously.
"Over here," Soji called from the mouth of the nearby alley. "I think that's his hat."
They hurried down the alley and found a dog lying on the ground, JL's beret between its paws. Raffi bent down and snatched it up, then whipped her gaze up and down the alley in search of a body. But there wasn't one.
Elnor peered into the single dumpster, then leaned in to retrieve something. He pulled out Picard's cell and Farnsworth. "This isn't good, is it," he said needlessly.
"I can't believe he's been kidnapped again," Raffi muttered.
"He wasn't kidnapped the first time," Soji put in.
"Yeah, you think he's gonna say that now?" she rejoined.
Elnor held up the devices. "Um, these and cameras are the only methods of tracking his whereabouts, aren't they? And they're not available…"
Rios canted his head at the dog. "But we do have a witness."
Soji raised her eyebrows. "What good does the dog do?"
"There's an artifact we can use to read its mind," he replied. He crouched down and held out his hand. "Come here, boy."
The dog stood up and bounded over, tail wagging.
"My apologies, girl," Rios said, stroking her russet fur. "Let's get back to the Warehouse."
The dog was easy to coax back to the SUV and into the back of the cab, and Rios texted Dahj on the drive back to the mountain. When they returned to the main office, she was waiting for them with Mr. Mental and Coco's Fezzes.
"Who gets the honor?" Dahj asked.
"I'll do it," Rios answered first.
Raffi took the fezzes and held them at the ready as Rios clucked his tongue to draw the dog over. Then he knelt down to the animal's eye level, and Raffi carefully put the fezzes on both of their heads at the same time. Rios immediately went into a trance, while the Irish Setter continued to sit there, tongue lolling.
"What's happening?" Soji asked in a hushed voice.
"Mr. Mental was a performance artist who used the fezzes to read Coco's mind," Raffi explained. "The animal would go into the audience and someone would show it something with numbers, and then it would go back to Mr. Mental who would recite them. But one day someone in the audience took Coco's fez off, and it jolted Mr. Mental's brain so badly, he was never the same. So we have to be very careful using these."
"This sounds quite risky," Elnor commented.
"Kind of," Raffi agreed. "But it's Jean-Luc."
There wasn't anything she and Rios wouldn't do for him.
The rest of them stood there, waiting. It was a ridiculous image, Rios and the dog sitting on the floor staring at each other with red caps and tassels. Soji pulled out her cell phone to snap a picture. Raffi shot her a look for that.
"What? Agnes would love it," the girl responded.
Raffi rolled her eyes. If it wasn't for Jean-Luc being missing, she would have found this more amusing too.
And then the worst happened—the ferret emerged from behind the desk, and the dog yipped and bolted after it. Squealing, the ferret scurried down the stairs into the storage room, the dog hot on its tail.
"No!" Raffi yelled.
Rios went utterly limp where he sat, chin slumping to his chest.
"Stop that dog!" Raffi shouted to everyone, including the holos. "Don't let the fez fall off!"
They all scrambled after the two animals, squeals and barking echoing through the Warehouse. Emmett appeared to block their path, but the ferret darted between shelving units, and the dog skittered after it.
"Stop!" Raffi cried desperately as they all gave chase through the aisles. Every time she caught a glimpse of the red Irish Setter, her heart would lurch into her throat until she saw the fez was still on the dog's head. If it fell off…
Enoch finally came out of nowhere and scooped up his ferret. "Mr. Quiggles, you poor thing!" he exclaimed.
The dog came to a stop at his feet, tail wagging as she barked at the ferret. Raffi clambered to a stop as well and grabbed the dog by the scruff of its neck, her other hand clamping down on the fez to keep it in place. Soji hurried over to help usher the animal back up to the office. They steered the dog back in front of Rios.
"Sit," Raffi said sharply.
The dog plopped down and tilted her head.
"Okay, fezzes off at the same time," Raffi instructed Soji, who moved over to Rios. "One, two, three."
They removed the hats simultaneously, and Raffi held her breath.
Rios blinked and lifted his head. "I've got the license plate of the van Jean-Luc was thrown into."
"Good, that's good," Raffi said, eyeing him in concern. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." He stood up, only to sway unsteadily, his eyelids fluttering rapidly. Raffi surged forward to grab his arm.
"Are you sure?" she pressed.
Rios's brows furrowed. "What happened?"
"Uh, the dog went after the ferret," Soji answered. "But the fez didn't fall off! So, there's no brain damage, right?"
Rios stared at her for a moment, then exhaled heavily and ran his hands over his hair. "No brain damage, but extended time wearing the fezzes comes with other side effects." He looked at the dog and sighed. "Guess we're stuck with her now."
"What do you mean?" Elnor asked.
Raffi cursed under her breath. "Crap, you're mentally linked permanently."
Rios nodded. "Seems so."
Soji's brows rose sharply. "That's cool."
"We'll deal with this later," Rios said, moving away to grab a scrap piece of paper and pencil. "Here's the license plate."
"On it," Soji said, going to the computer with it. Within a few clicks, she'd traced the plate to a rental company and hacked the database for the identity of the person who'd recently rented it. "Quincy de Lancie," she relayed. "Pulling up the van's GPS…got it!"
Rios pointed to the Irish Setter. "Wait here for me."
The dog whined and promptly went to curl up under the desk near the warm computer, and the rest of them once again rushed out to save their boss.
Picard choked and gasped as Quincy let up on the medal again, giving him a chance to breathe between bouts of drowning.
"Is this- what Melanie- would want you- to be doing?" Picard forced out between gasps.
"You don't get to say her name," Quincy snapped. "You killed her!"
Picard shook his head sadly. "Cancer killed her."
"Not after I wished for her to be cured, and she was. But that was undone when you took the dog tags."
"You took your wishes too far," Picard rejoined, bristling with righteous indignation over being painted the villain in this tragic tale. "It's your fault it came to what it did!"
Snarling, Quincy activated the medal again, and Picard choked and spluttered on water gushing into his lungs. But it ended abruptly when the sound of a door getting bashed in caused Quincy to lower the artifact.
"Jean-Luc?" Raffi's voice echoed through the building.
He closed his eyes in sheer relief; his friends had found him.
Quincy's cheeks puffed red with fury, and he turned to the table to snatch up another artifact. Picard coughed weakly as the man waved the prayer censer and immediately transformed into a sapient smoke cloud. The smoke billowed out through the air, rushing around the Warehouse agents as they arrived.
"What the hell—"
"I can't see!"
"JL!"
"It's Edward Lowe's Prayer Censer!" he called back.
"Shit," someone uttered in the thickening smoke. The brume would keep them trapped until they, too, completely disappeared in it.
"I got this," Soji's voice rang out.
Picard thought he could see a vague form toss something through the air. There was an explosion, and purple goo splattered everywhere, including Picard—and the smoke. The fog retreated and turned back into Quincy, now covered in neutralizing glop, as were the artifacts he was holding. He dropped them and ran the opposite direction.
Elnor started to give chase, but Picard yelled,
"Let him go!"
Raffi hurried over and dropped down behind him. "Are you all right?" She cut through the zip ties, freeing him.
"I'll live," he replied. The effects of the medal had been reversed when it was neutralized as well. He rubbed at his bruised wrists as he got out of that horrible chair.
Raffi straightened and crossed her arms. "What was it this time?"
He just sighed and went to pick up the medal and censer.
"JL…"
"It's our job to protect people from artifacts," he interrupted. "But Warehouse agents have always considered their job done once the artifact is retrieved. They rarely give thought to the damage left in its wake." He looked at Soji before going on. "Fifteen years ago, Quincy de Lancie found the Bataan Death March Dog Tags. They belonged to a World War II vet named John Giltoy. On a death march, his friend Roy Schrop became deathly ill and the Japanese wanted to leave him for dead, but Giltoy kept telling him he could do it, over and over for twenty miles." Picard paused in respect for the magnitude of the memory. "He wished so hard that it came true, and their dog tags became imbued with his desire to help his best friend. The dog tags then granted any wish made for someone the user loved. Quincy used them to cure his fiancée of cancer. But then he kept wishing for things for her—a job promotion, wealth…and bad things to happen to her rivals. By the time we got to the dog tags, they had to be neutralized to reverse the more horrible effects. Which, unfortunately, reversed all of them."
"Including his fiancée being cured of cancer," Raffi finished.
He nodded.
"You know we're going to have to put an APB out for his arrest," Rios said.
"I know." He hadn't told them to let Quincy go so he could escape forever. Selfishly, perhaps, Picard just hadn't wanted his loved ones to hear such heinous things about his past. Not that they didn't already know there was darkness there.
They returned to the Warehouse with the artifacts. Picard was worn out and needed a warm bath and change of clothes, but he stopped in his tracks when he spotted the stray dog from the alley lounging in the office.
"Someone explain," he said.
"The dog witnessed your abduction, so we used the fezzes to find out what she saw," Raffi answered. "But there was a…hiccup. And now she has to stay."
Picard sighed. This was the Warehouse, not a zoo.
"What should we name her?" Soji wondered.
"She has a name," Rios spoke up. "It's Sirena." He whistled and patted his leg, and the dog bounded up and over to him. "Come on, let's get us both cleaned up."
They left, Raffi and Elnor following after them.
"Soji," Picard called.
She paused at the doorway and looked back.
"I'm sorry," he said, not for the first time. "For what happened to you and Dahj. Even though it turned out all right in the end, you never should have had to go through it."
Soji shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe we all need to take better care out there." She roved her gaze around the room. "This place is amazing and intimidating and powerful, and some of that can wear off on us. We have to make sure we don't lose our humanity in this work."
Picard gave her a soft smile and nodded. It was easy to become detached from the world, and subsequently, what made them human.
So it was a good thing they had each other to keep themselves honest.