Shaw beat everyone else to the subway, even Finch, and was pacing the small space outside the subway car when all three of the boys walked in together. Bear ran from where he was, right on Shaw's heels for the better part of the last 20 minutes since she had gotten there, to greet John with excited barks. He scratched him affectionately, if at all a little absently, behind his ears before sending him to go lay down with a single word.
"Do we have anything?", Shaw asked before Finch had even had the chance to sit down at his computer.
"Patience, Ms. Shaw."
She huffed, resuming her pacing while Harold took the broken laptop from Lionel and examined it. He hooked it up to his mainframe in the subway car and shoo'd both John and Fusco away so he could work without them standing anxiously over him; Fusco had to go pick his son up anyways, so he quickly said his goodbyes and made a hasty exit. No doubt, Shaw's tension was bleeding out in to the room and was tangible by them all at this point. John walked out of the car after saying goodbye to his partner and stretched his arms over his head, watching Shaw with a careful eye. She glared at him without stopping when she felt his eyes on her but he (wisely) kept his face neutral.
"Do you want to talk about it?", he finally said. "Or do you just want to wear a hole in the floor?"
Still glaring, she finally slowed. Why hadn't she checked on Root right away?, she knew he would ask. Because she was being selfish, she knew, because she was still mad that Root had drugged her and dragged her to the subway against her will. Was that really a good reason, though? She knew that it wasn't. What it came down to was the tightening in her chest she got whenever she was around Root, or thought about her, or someone brought her up in casual conversation. She knew that lately she had been avoiding the hacker, knew that she had purposefully not checked on her right away because the jokes that Root had been making all morning were actually getting to her. If she had checked on Root right away like she had wanted to, instead of distracting herself by calling John, would things have played out this way? Maybe. But maybe not. And she couldn't shake the fear that this was all her fault.
"What is there to talk about? Samaritan took Root. I need- We need to get her back."
His face remained neutral except for the slightly raised eyebrow, just enough of a change in his expression to let Shaw know he had noticed what she had said. She hated that it felt as if he knew everything she had been thinking without her having to voice it, hated the understanding in his eyes. He moved out of the doorway to lean against the subway car instead, and Bear had dutifully come to sit down next to him. Shaw neglected to expand or explain, however, and groaned before deciding her pent up energy should be put to some actual use (because it was starting to look like she might actually wear that hole in the already worn down floor). She plopped down unceremoniously and pulled out her nano, carefully disassembling it and beginning to clean it. She tried to ignore John's gaze, but could only put so much focus on the weapon.
"What?", she spit in his direction after putting the gun back together and returning it to her borrowed holster. It hadn't taken her long to clean it, but John's eyes still hadn't left her; it was as if he was looking for something, a continuation of her slip up earlier, for her to voice everything brewing inside her chest, and she just couldn't give that to him. She wasn't even sure herself what she was feeling or thinking, so how was she supposed to share those feelings or thoughts with someone else? And even if she could, her guilt wouldn't let her.
John opened his mouth, and Shaw was more than ready for whatever he was about to say, but he was saved by Harold calling for them from his place in front of the computer. Without breaking eye contact with Reese, she got up and headed towards their impromptu leader with a defeated John (and Bear) close behind her.
"All that was on the laptop", Finch began slowly, as if he was confused by what he found, "was a number. The same number. Over and over again. But Ms. Groves didn't put it there. The laptop itself was completely wiped, no data left over whatsoever, but when I integrated it in to my network to check, this number appeared."
He pointed to a monitor on his desk, the one the laptop was hooked up to, where the number mentioned was being generated over and over again, filling the entire screen and showing no signs of stopping.
"Appeared?", Reese repeated, his eyebrows knit together as he watched the number continue.
Shaw knew without thinking who - or what - had put that number there. And she had a pretty good idea of what that number could be.
"The Machine", she said after a beat. The look on Harold's face indicated that he had come to the same conclusion. "The number. It must be a social. Right?"
Harold nodded.
"I was about to run it now. But I figured you would both like to be here to find out who's number the Machine would possibly be giving us now, of all times."
He said it as if he expected it to be a new number for them to try to save, whether it be from someone else or from themselves, but Shaw knew better; Root was the analog interface, the Machine's human link to the world, and she knew that whatever number it was spitting out at this particular moment, on this particular laptop, had to be the person that took Root. Or at least a lead as to where they could begin to look for her.
Three hours had now passed. And without medical attention their search to rescue Root may turn in to a recovery mission sooner rather than later.
With deft fingers, Finch entered the number into his interface. Shaw held her breath, unsure of what to expect but fully aware that this was their best - if not only - lead on where Root was, or what had happened. The search took only a few seconds, but it felt like hours, days, weeks to Shaw as she stood with one hand on the back of Harold's chair and the other clenching and unclenching in a fist at her side.
The name that belonged to the number popped up on Harold's screen at the same moment that Shaw released her breath, and everyone in the room stared at it in disbelief for several seconds before any of them dared to speak. It was John who broke the silence, his usual blank expression replaced by a scowl.
"Martine."
Finch worked tirelessly to find them a lead, and his efforts finally bore fruit just after midnight. Five hours had now passed since Shaw received Root's last transmission.
("Shaw", she had said pointedly for the sixth time, trying to be heard over the gunfire coming from Shaw's end of the line. The ex-agent had heard her the first time, of course, but was preoccupied with the Czeck mob members across the warehouse from her doing their best to keep her at bay. "Shaw, I don't know if you can hear me, but I've got to go dark for a while. Maybe 30 minutes, if that. I think my location's been compromised somehow."
That made Shaw pay attention. Root sounded worried, and she could actually hear the way the hacker was chewing on her bottom lip nervously. Root closed the link before Shaw could reply, however, beginning the radio silence that prompted her to call John after she had taken the metaphorical garbage out.)
Both John and Shaw were in the common space outside the subway car when Harold emerged. Reese was playing fetch with Bear, sending him after a piece of PVC pipe that he kept sending spinning end over end to a far corner of the room. Sameen had resumed her pacing.
"I can't find Martine", Finch said, and both sets of eyes snapped to him instantly. Though, if each of them were honest, they had been expecting as much. "I assume she knows we would be looking for her, and has gone to ground to avoid detection."
"Smartest things she's done yet", Shaw muttered under her breath.
"But I did find something. A group of what appears to be Samaritan agents robbed a walk-in clinic shortly after Ms. Groves was taken, but quite a ways north of where the two of you were operating."
"It's not a coincidence", John said, voice gravely from the misuse of the past few hours. "Chances are whoever took Root rendezvoused with those agents up north, and took her to a different location. There's no way they kept her in the city. They know we'll be looking everywhere for her."
"I have the address, and several known safe houses that Decima has been known to use in the immediate vicinity. I'll stay here to assist you in any way I can. I've decided to keep Detective Fusco out of this - he'll be busy covering for Mr. Reese, no doubt - but if you two encounter any problems, Ms. Morgan is in the northern part of the city today and would be more than happy to help if needed."
Shaw smirked and looked at John, who had suddenly become very interested in the piece of PVC in his hand. Harold turned to head back to his computer, but she cleared her throat to get his attention.
"What did they take?" Harold looked at her blankly, so she clarified. "From the clinic. What did those Decima agents take?"
He walked to his desk, and Shaw followed, and was rewarded with an itemized print out of everything they had taken.
Most of the items on the list actually brought Shaw some semblance of relief - gauze, bandages, forceps of various sizes, antibiotics, saline and several suture kits. It would appear is if they had some intentions of providing medical care to Root, which eased some of the mysterious tension in Shaw's chest. Even without the blood she probably desperately needed, and the pain killers they would have been smart to grab, if they acted quickly they could at least give Root a chance of surviving the immediate onslaught of her injuries.
What good is she if they can't bargain her?, she reasoned with herself, then felt sick that the thought had crossed her mind at all. Root was more than a bargaining piece. She couldn't forget that, especially now. Someone had to remember that, and in times like the ones they had come in to, someone had to remember how much a single life was worth.
Certainly more than just a bargaining piece.
The tension returned ten-fold as she continued reading, however - there were 3 vials of an unnamed amphetamine, and 3 of a barbiturate, along with a box of syringes, missing from the store.
"Did you read this?", Shaw asked, her voice shaky, and the sympathetic look on Harold's face told her that he did. "They are going to torture her. Just like Control did."
John reacted at the word 'torture', knowing all too well what that particular method could result in the hacker's already weakened heart. Shaw was too busy reading the words over and over, too much anger and something else making her legs feel filled with concrete. He slipped his suit jacket back on and picked up his guns before grabbing Shaw's own leather jacket and weapons off of the cot and shoving them roughly in to her hands, still clutching the list from the clinic. He was already half-way up the stairs leading to the street when she pocketed the paper, slipped her own jacket and holster on, and followed behind him.
They drove in relative silence to the small clinic, Shaw not trusting herself to speak and John too afraid of what she would say if confronted with how she'd been acting. He turned the radio on at some point, the volume low, and the droning on of the NPR host was the only sound that accompanied them.
The police tape was still set up around the outside of the clinic when they arrived, going on six hours since Root had been taken, with just one beat cop guarding the outside. John got them inside with ease (and Shaw was glad that at least one their cover identities was useful - not that it matters now, but in no situation was her being a make-up counter girl ever going to help them with a number), but there wasn't much to find - the store itself hadn't sustained any damage, just a few shelves and cabinets in disarray where the agents were probably searching for the things they intended to steal. They performed a quick sweep of the area but there weren't any clues left behind, so they decided to head back to the car and begin sweeping the safe houses.
There were three in the area that Harold had identified; he had said that he was tracking Decima's known safe houses for some time, in the event they needed to 'get in contact' with them somehow. Shaw and Reese were both a little jilted that Finch had been keeping this little side project from them, but at a time like this they could do nothing short of thank him for the information. One of the safe houses was almost 20 miles north of the clinic, and since there were no reports of the burglars having a vehicle they ruled it out. However, the other two - one two miles east and one two miles south - each seemed equally as promising. John reluctantly agreed to split up, only persuaded when Shaw went off on a tangent of completely nonsensical-seeming medical jargon speculating the extent and severity of Root's possibly still untreated injuries. As he headed south, he handed her a few extra magazines and - to Shaw's chagrin - two grenades.
"Be careful, Shaw", he said. "But not too careful."
The house Shaw had chosen was just shy of two miles east of the clinic, in a nice suburban neighborhood where all the houses had white picket fences and colorful flowers in their small front yards. Shaw grimaced, uncomfortable with the happy faces that greeted her as the sun rose, and walked a little faster to the house itself. It was a robin blue two story with white shutters and blooming flowers in the pots on the small front porch - a picture fucking perfect place for Decima agents to hide, she thought.
Deciding that kicking in the front door with the eyes of watchful neighbors on her was not the best way to get in, she slowly walked around the side of the house and found the back door. It was locked, but picked easily, and she drew her nano as she slipped in. Though the outside of the house was cheery and well-kept, the inside was a completely different story - there was minimal furniture (if milk crates and broken mismatched chairs could really be called furniture) and take out boxes littering almost every surface and much of the floor. There was also a loaded M9 next to the sink in the kitchen, which she slid in to her waistband as she crept through. Her own gun drawn and leveled, she cleared the quiet first story without finding much other than more take out boxes and a John Wayne movie playing on the small television in the living room. As she begin to ascend the stairs, she noticed the shower running - the agent watching the house was taking a shower, with no one else there to keep point. Amateur hour, she thought, remembering all of the times her and Cole or John or even Root herself had to alternate in a location in order to always have someone standing sentry.
Shaw cleared every room but the bathroom, all of which were furnished much like the rooms downstairs. Finally, she made her way to the bathroom and opened the door. She whistled, loudly to get the attention of whoever it was in the shower. The agent, a chubby middle-aged man with the longer hairs from his comb over stuck to the side of his face , obviously shocked, pulled back the curtain and made to reach for the weapon sitting on the back of the toilet. Shaw was ready to take the shot - kneecaps, of course - but didn't have to. The man slipped, one foot on either side of the wall of the tub, and met the cold porcelain with his very exposed genitals. She laughed and let her weapon fall to her side as she walked over to remove the magazine of the gun on the toilet.
It didn't take long to drag the agent to the adjoining bedroom and zip-tie him to a chair (she also took the liberty of throwing a towel over him, not waiting to be distracted by his doughy body as she tried to extract information from him). She checked his mouth (which he fought at first, earning him several introductions with the butt of her gun until he let her check) for cyanide capsules, not wanting to risk losing the only lead they've got to something other than her own bullets.
"Where is she?", she said as soon as his eyes regained some focused. He looked up at her, confused, so she pressed the cool muzzle of her gun against his right knee. "Tall, brown hair, talks to herself a lot. I've been worried sick about her. Now. Where is she?"
The man set his jaw, as Shaw almost wished that he would, and she didn't hesitate to pull the trigger. He cried out in agony as the blood began to run down his bare leg, but still refused to answer. Shaw tilted her head to the side with a little smile and slowly moved the muzzle to the same place on his opposite knee.
"Now that you know I won't hesitate to shoot you, would you please tell me where my friend is?" Her words were honey sweet, but the fire in her eyes betrayed her. She pressed the muzzle down just a little harder in to his pale skin, causing him to gasp.
"I don't- I don't know!", he finally spit out, realizing that it was useless to resist if he had any desire to make it out of the safe house alive. "They came here late last night to get the supplies we stole and took off. She was in the car with them, I know that, and they had a doctor with them. At gunpoint! He was crying, and called out to us to help him! But that's all I know! I swear!"
"And she was alive?"
She pressed down even harder, urging him to answer in a timely manner.
"Yes! Yes, God, she was alive!"
He began to sob, mumbling about his wife and kid or some other nonsense that Shaw could not have cared less about at the moment. Keeping the muzzle pressed firmly to his knee, she used her free hand to open up a comm link with John. She was met with gunfire, and smirked to herself as she waited for a pause.
"Having fun?", she asked with amusement she did not feel.
"Not exactly." More gunfire, the distinct sounds of bodies dropping. Silence. "They didn't know anything here."
"I win, then. Root is alive. Or at least was when they brought her here and picked up the supplies they stole from the store."
"And Martine?"
"I'm working on it. I'll get back to you."
John barely had time to get in a 'don't kill him' before Shaw closed the link.
She turned her attention back to the Decima agent, still sobbing in the chair.
"Was Martine with them?", Shaw began. The man's eyes opened wide, and he shook his head violently.
"I- I can't! You don't understand. They'll kill me! They'll kill my wife, they'll kill my daughter, they'll kill-"
"Whatever you think they'll do to you", she interrupted, pressing the muzzle down harder still so that she knew it was hurting him, "is not nearly as bad as the fucking hell I will personally rain down on you and every single person you have ever met if you don't answer my fucking question."
He just sobbed and shook his head again, so Shaw pulled the trigger without flinching. He cried out, worse than the first time, just as Harold open up a link to her.
"Ms. Shaw!", his worried voice came through her earpiece a little tinny. "Please remember that we don't kill people! I believe this interrogation has gone on long enough!"
Shaw didn't respond. What was there for her to say? She slowly moved the towel from the agent's waist, dropping it in a heap on the floor next to the chair, and steadily aimed her gun at his package.
"I'm not going to ask you again", she said quietly, still ignoring Finch and his protests. "Was. Martine. Here?"
A long moment passed - all three of them held their breath as they waited on the action of the others. She tightened her finger ever so slightly on the trigger, ready to pull it once her internal countdown reached zero, but the agent finally acquiesced round abouts the number '3'.
"My phone!", he stuttered out. Finch muttered 'thank god' before closing the link without another word to Shaw herself. "She was here. And she put her number in my phone in case something happened. She- she said it was her personal cellphone!"
Suddenly everything moved in double time and Shaw was racing towards the bureau where the man indicated his cell to be. Without hesitating she selected Martine's name in his contacts, and pressed the phone up to her ear with her free hand - the one holding her nano was still aimed at the man, this time at his head.
There was so much background noises that Shaw could barely make out Martine's words at first - she had to finally drop her aim on the agent for the first time since she found him in the shower, and cup the hand still holding her weapon over her other ear and strain to hear her.
"I believe I have something you want", Martine said immediately, and Shaw could hear the smirk. She knew Shaw would call. She knew all of this would happen. And it did nothing but fill Shaw's chest with fire.
"Yeah. I believe you do."
She said nothing for a long time, the indiscernible noises behind her the only thing coming through the line. Shaw cleared her throat, annoyed, yet Martine still said nothing.
"I want to know she's still alive, Martine." There was a chuckle at that, as smug as the Decima agent herself. "I want to talk to Root."
Martine tsked, and Shaw could make out some movement over the still overtly-loud line. She had been put on speaker, she noticed, and now the background noise was coming through much clearer than it had been before.
It was Root screaming.