S.H.I.E.L.D. Base 'Greenhouse': location classified
Coulson and Garrett both gulped coffee as they watched an Alien-within-Sauer carve into a projection of the Periodic Table. Branch and Coulson had finished drawing the 'opener', but the invisible company was horrified to learn that humans could not read the symbols. A short internal debate, and some prompting from Fitz and Simmons, resolved the matter: the Alien Ghosts offered to make a key.
"So, how many spooks are we talking about?" Garrett gulped his coffee as the young woman crouched to reach the bottom of the projection.
"Six, besides Sauer's own soul," Coulson scowled at the concealing glass, "and from four different species: three called the 'Reis', one M'gama, one Jotun, and one 'Great Root'." Coulson scowled. "I'm worried. They won't let her rest," he motioned at the ex-agent on the other side of the window. "One after another comes out to talk or draw. The body they share has been up for over 24 hours now, and they show no sign of stopping."
"Never expected you to become such a mother hen, Phil," John chuckled. Coulson gave him an odd look and John motioned at Sauer with his coffee mug. "I get you wanting to save Skye. She's cute as heck and amazing with a keyboard. Other than Dissociative Identity Disorder, what does this ugly duckling have?"
"Properly 'Multiple Personality Disorder', John; she now has entire people in her head, not just fractions of her own mind. You should have seen them trying to figure out how to speak Earth languages." John cocked an eyebrow at him, and Coulson smirked. "Remember that fancy energy rifle S.H.I.E.L.D. made out of the Destroyer?"
"The one you used on Prince Loki? Yeah. Why?"
"Guess who managed the engineering? She was a good tech, John. Damn good with her hand to hand, too."
"Hmm. Pity she isn't better looking; she'd be useful if she had more cards to play. Get the spooks out of her, and have her spend some girl time with Skye and May. They'll turn her into half a female at least. She's as bad as the highway between Dallas and Fort Worth: no curves. Can she cook?"
Coulson scowled. John was a sexist pig, and the fault got on his nerves. At least his Neanderthal ways hadn't infected Ward or Triplett; Garrett had trained them both.
Coulson's planned retort was cut off by the entrance of both agents. Ward glanced at Coulson and shook his head.
"It won't help, boss. Agent May might show him the light, but we can't afford to have another agent in traction right now." He gave Coulson a knowing look, and the old man smiled.
"You let that little Asian woman hand you your balls, Ward? Man, you're slippin'," Triplett shook his head at Ward in mock shame.
"Fed them to him with chopsticks, with some Wasabi on the side, Tripp, but he was mind-controlled by Lorelei at the time, so we go easy on him," Coulson said with a wink.
"Lorelei?" Garrett frowned.
"A female Asgardian criminal we encountered a few months ago: a drop-dead gorgeous sorceress with telepathic ability to enslave men. Totally hot and completely evil. You'd like her, John," Coulson said with a laugh.
"Sounds like my kind of girl," the grizzled S.H.I.E.L.D veteran agreed. "So where is your little Sushi chef now?"
"Back where we found this little asset," Coulson nodded at the young woman beyond the glass, "cleaning up."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Sauer's apartment...
"What devilry was that?" Fandral motioned to the conversation across the hall with a thumb-jerk. "This Fury is as serpent-tongued as Loki!"
"Rule Number One of evacuating a civilian population," Agent May said smoothly, "is Make the Civilians Want to Evacuate. Disease frightens more than brute force."
"Good tactics, that," grunted Hogun.
"Aye," agreed Volstagg.
"Where shall they go?" Fandral asked, curious.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. has a top-level medical facility at every base. Our largest is near here; a group the size of this building's population will doubtless be sent to that base," May answered stoically. "They will be well cared for."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
S.H.I.E.L.D. Base 'Greenhouse'
"That should do it," Fitz said, nodding with approval as Eldest/Sauer put the final carving on the Periodic Table. "Thank you, Eldest."
"There are gaps in your knowledge that I cannot repair," Eldest/Sauer said reproachfully. "Not all of the elements are represented here."
Simmons blinked. "These are all of the ones we know..."
"The one Mr. Stark synthesized is not on this chart," Fitz pointed out.
Eldest/Sauer waved impatiently. "Know you not that these elements," she pointed to Uranium and Plutonium, "and several others change shape? Do you know nothing of fire, light, or energy? You do not chart things like thought or will, nor even magic. Where are the magical elements? They are missing completely!"
Fitz and Simmons exchanged a worried look. Scientific minds did not believe in 'magic'; they thought it superstitious nonsense. Skye had rebuked them more than once on the subject.
"Eldest," Simmons said gently, "what you call 'magic', we call 'science'. It is just how things work together, so we don't chart them. We have found that everything in the universe is made of combinations of the atoms on this chart. Elements combine to form compounds; compounds combine to form mixtures..."
"Are you not more than salts joined by water? What you describe is but the physical body, Sim-mons. If there was another Sim-mons that looked like you, would that Sim-mons be you? And when this body," Eldest/Sauer patted Simmons on the shoulder, "ceases to function, where then will Sim-mons go? And how? My body no longer functions, but Eldest is here now in the Sauer-bearer. Soon Eldest will leave the Sauer-bearer, and grow more, and no longer be Eldest, but something else again. Do your people not know this?"
Fitz crinkled his face up. "That is a different field of study, Eldest..."
"No! Same! If you cannot grasp things without hands, how can you construct the Opener? How can you form the Myst? These things require Magic!" Eldest/Sauer dropped the carving tool she had used. "Words," she said dejectedly, tugging on the sleeve of Sauer's ruined blouse, "like these extra skins, they limit so much. They say much, and yet so little...I would show you, if I could..."
"Show me what?" Jemma asked curiously. "What is wrong with words?"
"They bind, like the extra skins you wear, and they hide things: feelings and meanings and shades. The Reis had not these things: skins to hide bodies, or words to hide thoughts..."
"The Reis did not have skin?" Jemma gave Fitz a helpless glance. He began to shrug but suddenly brightened.
"Eldest...when you say 'skins', you mean clothing. Am I right?" He nodded to Jemma, and the woman's mouth closed down in an 'O'.
"Cloth-thing: yes. Cloth things cover you from the world and each other. Words cover your minds from the world and each other, too."
"Your people, the Reis, you did not speak?" Jemma had finally caught on.
"We could, but often did not. We Touched, and knew each other. All was given in the Touch, whether with the Reis or the Great Roots or the M-gama, or any others that visited the World. We learned with the Touch, and we taught with the Touch, and we healed with the Touch..."
"Can you show me?" Fitz asked eagerly.
Eldest/Sauer closed her mouth and tilted her head to one side. Finally she nodded.
"Speaks-between-Peoples says that most huu-mans do not hear mind-speak, but some may hear the Reis, because we are...how do you say it...loud. We can try," she said encouragingly. "Hold out your hands, thus, and touch your forehead to this one, like so..."
Fitz touched his fingertips to Eldest/Sauer's, and leaned forward a little to touch his forehead to the alien/human hybrid. They stood that way for a full minute, until sweat began to glisten on Fitz's cheeks, before breaking apart. Fitz trembled a little, while Eldest/Sauer shook her head.
"Fitz? Are you alright?" Simmons fretted.
"Fine, fine," Fitz waved his hands. He sounded disappointed. "I'm fine. All I could sense was static."
"Speaks-between-Peoples said it might not work," Eldest/Sauer said apologetically.
"Who is that?" Simmons asked. Eldest/Sauer looked at the young medical officer curiously. "We haven't met anyone with that name."
"You have, but the Reis make descriptive callings. What you call 'names' are confusing to us. You are a healer, but are called Sim-mons. What is a Sim-mons? So the Jotun bearer has a calling that is nonsense to us; we call her Speaks-between-Peoples, because that is what she does."
"Angrboda," said Simmons.
"She was a translator, or a diplomat," Fitz guessed.
"Yes," Eldest/Sauer nodded.
"May I try? The Touch, I mean," Jemma added eagerly.
"Yes," Eldest/Sauer nodded again, smiling.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
In the Observation Room...
"Does anybody besides me think this is a bad idea?" Triplett was suddenly worried.
"It may not work at all, Tripp," Garrett shrugged off his large agent's concerns. "Why worry?"
"No, he's right. Fitz and Simmons are taking a big risk here. They have access to a lot of classified information, and could potentially leak it to an unknown alien life-force." Coulson frowned. "We need to halt this anyway. Sauer needs a break even if the aliens won't give her one."
There was a short knock, and Skye poked her head into the Observation Room.
"Guys, Agent Koenig says dinner...well, breakfast...is ready. He made blueberry muffins and everything. Unless you guys just run on coffee..."
"I'm up for some real food," said Tripp wistfully. "I wonder if he has any bacon."
"Just Canadian, sorry," Skye said with a shrug.
"Nothing wrong with Canadian bacon," Ward said with a grin at Skye. "It all goes down the same."
"Great timing, Skye," Coulson chimed in, nodding. "Tell Fitz and Simmons and Eldest/Sauer the news. We may be able to give Sauer a break after all. Oh, and let's see if we can find her some fresh clothes, while we're at it."
"Agent Koenig already has an outfit for her," Skye said over her shoulder.
"Good excuse as any," muttered Coulson, staring worriedly at the Touching pair through the glass.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
A tear ran down Jemma's cheek, and she sniffled.
"Is Sim-mons well?" Eldest/Sauer pulled away and looked concerned. "The Sim-mons makes water from her eyes. Does she have morning-without-dawn, like the Sauer-bearer, because of the Touch?"
"Jemma? Are you alright?" Fitz demanded.
"I'm alright," Simmons sniffled again and reached for a tissue. "I'm fine, Eldest." She gave the alien-within Sauer a wan smile. "What you showed me: it was beautiful. That is why I cry, Eldest. It was beautiful."
"What did you see?" Fitz asked eagerly. "Did you see their world?"
The young scientist shook her head. "Not exactly. Their senses are different from ours, Fitz. Numbers have color, and sound has texture, and magic...magic is a thing...and it has flavor, or a scent. Walking in a meadow there...it wouldn't be the same as here on Earth. It's...different." She smiled up at Eldest/Sauer and sniffled again. "I liked it. It was beautiful. Tears do not always mean sadness."
"Can I try?" Skye stood in the doorway, wide-eyed.
"Yes," Eldest smiled, and reached for the youngest S.H.I.E.L.D. member's hands.
Skye smiled at first, and giggled like a small girl. Her breathing quickened, but suddenly went deeper, and the smile disappeared. Her face twisted, shifting to horror, and quick tears leaked from her closed eyes.
"No," she squeaked. "No! NO!NO!NO!NO!NO!"
The last was torn from her in a shriek, and she fell to the floor sobbing, still grasping Eldest/Sauer's hands. The alien-within-Sauer broke the connection and grabbed the young woman's face.
"Meri Sjó'! See no more! Do not hurt for..."
They were not allowed to finish; Ward burst through the door and grabbed the Alien/Sauer by the shoulders. Pulling 'them' away from Skye, he slammed the young woman's body into the nearest wall and head-butted her.
"Get your damn hands off of her!" he started to bellow...
Their
Eyes
Locked
Eldest/Sauer's eyes opened wide, and her pupils grew until her eyes looked black. Her breath caught, and she slumped to the floor, stunned. Ward's stumbled drunkenly, and his knees buckled; he sagged forward into Eldest/Sauer, still connected.
Chaos erupted.
"Ward!" Fitz screamed and pulled on his arm. "NO, WARD! GET OFF!"
Skye collapsed against the far wall, sobbing quietly, and Jemma rushed to comfort her. Coulson, Garrett, and Triplett surged through the doorway. It took the combined efforts of the four men to separate the two 'Touching' humans in the corner. Sauer's body collapsed in a heap, blankly staring, and gave no response to Fitz's frantic appeals for speech. Ward was slammed unceremoniously into a wall, and then a chair, where he shuddered. Coulson rushed to Skye, who had propped herself up against a wall. Several deep breaths calmed her sobs into hiccups.
"Skye?"
"I'm fine, AC. Just...just scared." She gulped and took another deep breath. "I saw...Eldest's world...big walking trees, like the California Redwoods: so big. And they tasted green...And...and other trees...like oaks and fig trees...and mangos with Spanish Moss, but different colors...and faces...and things like fireflies...in and out and in-between...and singing...I could smell them singing..." she took a shuddering breath and shook her head.
"Skye?" Jemma asked, with an alarmed glance at Coulson. "Is that what frightened you?"
Skye shook her head again and sniffled. "They burned. They burned alive! Things...things came down from space, whale things that attacked New York, and they sucked up the fireflies, and they cut down the trees, and not even for wood...and I tasted fire and heard smoke...and the ship..."
"You saw the ship?" Coulson pressed her shoulders firmly back into the wall. "What else did you see?"
"Things. People. Things that are people. Children," Skye croaked, her eyes filling with tears again. "There are children on the ship, AC."
"Hostages?"
Skye shook her head and sniffled again. "Soldiers, some of them, like the Lost Children in Africa. The rest are," she choked for a moment, before finishing in a whisper, "food."
Agent Koenig had joined the fray, and he knelt at Sauer's side, opposite Fitz. Gradually the alien within the woman began to respond, and she raised a shaking hand to touch Agent Koenig on the face.
"Different...but same like Coul-son and Fitz-son..."
He put a hand on the hand that touched his face. "Yes," he said simply, "I am Adam Koenig."
"And you have many brothers."
"Yes."
"Does anything grow here, Ad-om Koe-nig?" She looked sad. "Anything besides stone and metal?"
"Yes. I call it the Greenhouse for that reason," he put a hand under her armpit and gave Fitz a knowing glance. "Help me get her up, Agent Fitz."
"That was bloody stupid, Ward!" Garrett fumed. He drew his hand back as if to slap the younger agent, but changed his mind. "What were you thinking?"
"I have half a mind to kick your ass, Ward!" Triplett barked. "What the hell?"
"That thing was hurting Skye!" Ward finally thundered. "What do you think I was thinking? I had to get it off of her!"
"Sky isn't hurt, Ward," Coulson said, finally leaving the young hacker's side to sternly confront the Specialist. "She was overwhelmed and frightened; that's all. She saw the planet most of these aliens were from, and then she saw their last moments. Probably the last thing Eldest saw as Thanos killed him and the rest of their kind. And while we're on the topic," Coulson's voice pitched deep with anger, "that thing is still a human being! That thing is Miss Sauer, one of the best damn armaments techs S.H.I.E.L.D. ever produced, and right now that thing has the only inside look at the intergalactic army pointed at our planet!"
Garrett looked around the room. "And...it's missing."
Coulson swiftly scanned the room. "Fitz is gone, too."
Skye blew her nose. "Fitz and Agent Koenig helped her out of the room," she volunteered. "She looked kind of mind-blown, AC."
Coulson glared down at Ward. "I wonder why. Ward, I get that you're new to team work, and I appreciate that you're protective of your team-mates. But you have to start processing more before acting! You just head-butted a demonstrating telepath, something we were certain never existed! I swear, Ward: if the aliens within Sauer shut down because of your interference, you will sit out the invasion inside of Blonsky's CrioTube!"
Loki chose that moment to materialize.
"Strong words, Agent Coulson," he smiled with cold approval, "but then, I have come to expect nothing less."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
The Greenhouse's Orchard...
Sauer's body sat on the ground, her feet bare to the earth, and her head tilted back to stare up through the tree branches at the stars overhead, but neither Fitz nor Koenig could tell which alien looked out through the half-lidded eyes. The young woman's hands slowly caressed the grass, brushing off the dirt from a recent, frantic digging done with bare fingers in tough loam. Three leafy twigs stood, each in a mound of loose dirt, a stone's throw away from where she sat.
"Will it rain soon?" One of the aliens (no-one could tell which one) asked.
"We have an irrigation system here," Agent Koenig answered. A blank look prompted him to explain irrigation, until the alien nodded.
"Can you irrigate me? The Sauer-bearer feels a drought," it said wistfully.
Koenig nodded. "I'll get some water," he said. Pausing a moment, he pulled out a small stun gun. "If Ward tries anything stupid, use this," he cautioned the Fitz in low tones.
Aghast, the scientist took the weapon like it was an unclean thing. "But...Ward is my frie..."
"He wasn't a friend to her," Koenig said sternly. "You need to be that now. Look sharp, lad. I'll be back."
Koenig left, and Fitz stuck the stun-gun into his belt. He glanced around the orchard, and seeing no-one, walked over to sit by Alien/Sauer.
"Eldest?"
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
The Interrogation Room
Everyone shouted in alarm, and the men simultaneously reached for their side-arms, only to find them ripped from their hands by an unseen force. The guns flew to the opposite wall and parked themselves on it, as if hung there deliberately. Ward, Triplett, and Garrett surged to their feet, only to meet Coulson roaring:
"STAND DOWN!"
"We do not have time for such nonsense, children," Loki tsked the group. The twitchy pair of Security agents was suddenly restrained to the nearest wall, while Garrett merely held up his hands in mock surrender.
"Great secret base you have here, Phil," he said dryly. "Someone you know?"
"Prince Loki of Asgard, you have already met the rest of my staff. The tall dark agent you have restrained is security officer Antoine Triplett, and this is my friend John Garrett."
"Is he, now," Loki said, bemused.
"Is this the same guy that invaded New York?" Garrett demanded.
"Yep. Stabbed me and left me for dead," Coulson nodded.
"But you made a marvelous recovery. Old news, children, on to business," Loki said sternly. He glared at Ward, who continued to struggle at his invisible bonds. "Relax, boy. You are only making things more difficult."
Agent Triplett looked at the Dark Prince curiously, and took a breath. Two seconds later he slipped free from the wall, stretching his arms.
"Chinese finger-trap," he said to the incredulous Garrett. He turned to his companion. "Relax, Ward. It only holds if you fight it."
Loki raised an eyebrow at him. "Bright lad," he nodded approvingly. "Correction: it holds if you fight me." A shuddering breath from the corner attracted Loki's attention, and he twitched his head at the still-crouching women. "Domestic problems, Agent Coulson?"
"Bad day," Coulson shrugged.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
The Orchard
"I am Angrboda again, Fitz-son." She smiled weakly. "Eldest confers with the remainders of its kind."
"The remainders?"
"M'Gama, Shoot, and the Great-Root have left this house," she explained, patting her chest. "The company was...dismayed...at the things they saw when they Touched the Ward. They are pacifists, you see: unaccustomed to war. And Ward is..." she paused, looking for the right words.
"A soldier?"
She shook her head slowly. "A killer. Soldiers serve a country or even a world. Ward is loyal to a man, not a country or its leader, and he deals death for that man," she explained, "and without feeling, like another recent...acquaintance."
"Ward works for Coulson; we all work for S.H.I.E.L.D..." Fitz stammered to explain, but Angrboda/Sauer shook her head.
"You are a bright lad, Fitz-son. You need to open your eyes," the alien woman chided him. Picking up a spare stick, she bent over and drew in the bare dirt between them. "Know you this creature?"
Fitz cocked his head and frowned. "Aye, it is a snake from Greek myth. We call it a Hydra."
Angrboda/Sauer sighed and leaned her head back against the tree. "Mayhaps t'will be enough," she murmured. "It were important; I know not why."
"Angrboda," Fitz looked around and found they were still alone, "can you tell me what happened to Skye?"
Angrboda/Sauer frowned. "I like not her name; she is not cloud-minded, but truly a Meri Sjó', just unaware of her own strength." The woman thought for a moment. "She is...different...from the rest of you. When Eldest Touched her, she saw its world..."
"But that's wonderful!" Fitz exclaimed.
"And she watched it die," Angrboda/Sauer shook her head strongly. "T'was a foolish venture: Touching a dead telepath. The last moments are always shared first, and none of ours were pleasant. Thanos polluted all, and Meri Sjó' saw it from their viewpoint, with her own fears attached. The Reis do not fear death..."
"But humans do," Fitz nodded, comprehending. He bit his bottom lip. "Will she be alright?"
"She should speak with Eldest again, but I deem she shall heal." Angrboda/Sauer paused a moment. "You and the Simmons-dottir: you do not believe in magic?"
"The spooky mumbo-jumbo stuff charlatans use to trick people out of their money? Nae," Fitz said firmly. "I don't. There's always a logical explanation to everything: some sleight-of-hand or set-up behind the trick, or a science we just don' understand yet."
She raised her eyebrows in a very-human expression. "How then do you explain Mjolnir?"
Fitz shrugged. "Thor's Hammer is an artificially intelligent machine, capable of self propulsion and limited communications. We have computers that do the same things."
"What if I told you that Mjolnir's intelligence was not artificial? That she was formed from the core of a dying star, and that stars are alive, and intelligent, and have souls?"
"But...but only people have souls..."
"Lad," Angrboda/Sauer chided him, "the universe is a large place, filled with all sorts of people. Not all people look like humans, but all people have souls."
"I...I ne'er thought of it that way," Fitz confessed. "So, when you say 'magic', you mean things done..."
"By the mind, or the mind working through other objects, aye." Her tired face brightened. "May I show you?"
Fitz smiled. "Aye, I would like that," he said eagerly.
"Hold out your hand."
TBC