Chapter Title: The New Man

Author: Sam

Story: Speed Trap: 07 of 23

Series: SpeedBurn: 09

Setting: Wednesday, January 19, 2005. New York City.

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Joe looked up as he slowly made his way across the lab and up the stairs to the supervisor's office. He could have moved much faster, but he feared another painful attack. They happened less frequently now, but the injured man didn't want to push his luck. As it was, he shouldn't have come to work so soon; Agent Gideon would throw a fit if she knew.

The agent had been sitting by his bedside when he'd awoken in the hospital and had to introduce herself two times before he'd finally understood. That first bitter woman had abandoned his case, replaced by the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Ivana. This woman didn't fit the stereotype of a federal agent, mainly because she had to be about twenty pounds or so overweight . . . feds usually trained rigorously and couldn't maintain a high weight. Her show of compassion also made her seem in the wrong profession. He had to admit that after two weeks of neglect it was nice to have contact with a caring human being. The entire confusing ordeal became a little easier to handle.

Unlike the first agent, who'd simply dumped him on the apartment stoop with a sleeping bag and an envelope containing about two weeks worth of food money, Ivana willingly tried to explain things. The first woman had told him, "You're name is Joe Avery. We'll work out the rest later. Someone will be assigned to you. Don't leave before that." The new agent had gone into a little depth, apparently still shocked by the harsh treatment he'd been subjected to.

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"Look, I'm not normally in the program, Joe . . . that's who you're supposed to be now: Joe Avery. I'm a profiler. I have no idea why Fredericks gave me this assignment but I'll do my best for you until I can get you assigned a real case worker."

Ivana had smiled reassuringly at him, and Joe, stuck in a hospital bed with another damned IV tube in his arm, merely nodded, not bothering to talk around the tubes trailing down from the oxygen nose prongs. Ivana only paused a moment before continuing and Joe had been content, for awhile, to listen and gather data.

"Okay. From what I've read, you've got an amazing background in science. So I'll make a recommendation that you go work for a laboratory of some sort. I see you're from New York so we'll try to keep you away from there; we can't have you recognized." The woman flipped through her paperwork, ignoring the beeps and whirs of the machinery monitoring Joe's vital signs. She finally settled on a particular page and frowned, "Well, this won't be too easy . . . you have a few identifying marks. The chest and back scarring are the main ones . . . and the appendectomy scar . . ."

"What scar? I've never had any surgeries before now." His tone had been just a little curt but she seemed not to care, frowning at the discrepancies between what he said and what her file told her.

"Maybe they did it while you were still out." That quieted the man and she continued, "What about other tattoos? There's only one listed here." She looked up from her papers into the brown eyes of the man she was interrogating.

"No tattoos, either. I've got no identifying marks people would recognize, Agent."

She frowned. "So, this tattoo across your shoulder is nothing?"

Growing frustrated with her doubt, he had whipped back the blanket, uncaring that he lay totally nude underneath due to the Foley catheter in his penis. "Look," his hand played over the right side of his abdomen, "no scar. See?" And he groaned as he lifted his body enough to display a clean shoulder blade on first the left, then with some effort and an odd rocking motion, on the right. "No tattoos. Are you sure you've got the right person?" He did little to hide his anger. If he had been put through this hell for nothing . . .

Ivana merely frowned then looked him straight in the eye, apparently at a loss as to what to do with a victim who didn't quite match his identifiers. She reached over and tugged the blankets back over the injured patient without a word. Finally, after flipping through her papers once more, she seemed to make a sudden discovery and lifted a photograph from the file. With a flick, she turned it to face him displaying the face of the man; he could easily have been looking in a mirror, rather than at a picture. "So, someone gave me the wrong stats."

He couldn't deny the resemblance but something nagged at his medicated brain. Before he could form another question, the agent went on in a firm voice.

"I'll interview you and see what kind of placement you should have based on a profile." The decision to use her regular professional skills seemed to sit well with her and she suddenly became confident and no-nonsense.

Joe hadn't protested.

It had taken several long hours of questions and answers: about his past, about his preferences, about his work, but finally the profiler seemed happy with her results. She stood up stretching out aching muscles then nodded to him. "I'll return tomorrow, Joe."

"Wait!" Joe's stern command had not been lost on the woman. She slowly turned to the patient, frowning, obviously not appreciating being ordered around. Joe tried to soften his tone while he pled for answers.

"Why am I here? What do they think I know? Who's after me?"

Genuine surprise registered on the pretty features of the federal agent. "You don't remember the shooting?"

Waving a hand in dismissal, Joe shook his head. "Of course I remember being shot. But why would it land me in the program? It was a kidnapping case, not some smuggling…" and he fell silent. Had they stumbled onto something far more sinister than a missing boy and his murdered father? What the hell had happened after he'd been shot, anyway? "How about H?"

"H?" the reference had seemed to confuse her momentarily and Ivana pushed the ever escaping wisps of hair back from her face, towards the professional-looking bun she seemed to habitually wear. "I . . ." the agent shook her head in confusion before letting annoyance color her tones. "I'll ask, Joe. Your file doesn't say anything about a kidnapping."

Confusion washed over Joe at that fact but exhaustion followed closely after, and he suddenly couldn't concentrate. It was frustrating that the medical staff had decided to put him on that PCA pump: it automatically released doses of narcotic pain medications into his IV on a computerized schedule. It was great for controlling the searing pain in his heart but shit for helping him keep his thoughts organized or for having a normal conversation.

Too tired to protest, too weak to fight the drugs, Joe had merely watched as Ivana walked from the room, file in hand.

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With a sigh, Joe climbed the stairs, not rushing as he thought about the results of that and the subsequent two interviews. Ivana hadn't been able to find anything out yet and her funds were almost as limited as his own. She'd had to get him placed quickly. It seemed in the rush the program misunderstood her references and placed him in a crime lab in New York, not some neat little university research program out in Boondock, America. Ivana's hope for keeping him from being recognized, or endangered, wasn't coming off well at all.

The sound of the office door opening above him made the dark-haired man pause and glance up. He stood, waiting patiently as Detective Taylor and a woman he hadn't met yet came towards him. Silently he joined them as they walked down the stairs back to the lab level, listening as Mac introduced him to Detective Stella Bonasera.

Joe held out his hand to the lovely woman, feeling his glasses slip down his nose at his sudden movement. In annoyance, he pushed them back up, wondering why the hell he had to have glasses anyway; he had perfect vision. Anyone who looked through the lenses would see right away that the glasses were an affectation not a necessity. He felt like Clark Kent, posing as some stupid hick while the real man waited inside, thinly disguised behind a pair of wire-rimmed lenses that wouldn't even fool Jimmy Olsen. Stella smiled at him and he merely nodded back, once more pushing the annoying glasses into place.

In a friendly voice Stella greeted him, but Joe could see the wariness in her eyes. He remembered his childhood in Syracuse, and later his teen years in the City itself. Wariness was a normal attitude for New Yorkers so he didn't take offense, merely listened to the melodic voice. It sounded nice; nothing like . . . well, it was nice.

"Hello, Joe. Welcome to the crime lab. Where'd you transfer from?"

Clever how she tried to probe him for information without being too blatant; with so obvious, yet so normal, a question no one could accuse her of interrogation. He smiled gently and decided to give her his own version of his history since the Feds had failed to give him one. If they wanted him to play nice, they'd have to give him something more than a terse: "Hurry up and wait". "I'm not really transferring, per say, Detective."

"Call me Stella."

The man nodded, pushed his glasses up, and went on knowing that both detectives were listening attentively. "I had a bad run-in down south and decided to relocate. I tried Maine, but that didn't work for me so I came back to the city." That should take care of questions about the tan he still sported despite the grayish tinge from illness. Fortunately, the truth wouldn't be hard to remember either.

Mac interrupted with, "this is the DNA lab, Joe. Jane, this is Joe Avery, our new tech. Joe, Jane Parsons."

Smiling, offering his hand, Joe was soothed by the British tech's easy manner. Mac was a strict one, had already mentioned that he'd be expected to wear business professional clothes or a jumpsuit until he could acquire them. Stella was welcoming, yet wary. But Jane was all smiles and warmth. He could get to like that.

With a nod, Joe let himself be led from the room, noticing that most of the labs sported active techs scurrying about. The next lab over, however, remained empty of people, and so Mac skipped over it, simply stating "that's trace." Curiosity led Joe to stare after them, back towards the lab that interested him most, and a curious Stella called him back to the matter at hand.

"Are you familiar with crime labs, Joe?"

Joe looked at her and thought about how to answer that question. As a protected witness he wasn't supposed to give away his identity, but without an actual cover story he didn't have much else to go on. Once again he decided to rely on truth. "Yeah, I've worked in one before. I was a crime tech years ago . . . too many years ago, maybe."

That elicited a laugh from a passing brunette in a jumpsuit like his. She had sleepy looking brown eyes, olive toned skin, and a walk that screamed "sex". He couldn't help letting his eyes linger, a genuine smile tugging at his lips. "Sounds like you liked it," she said.

Nodding Joe held out his hand. "Hey, I'm Joe . . . Joe Avery."

With a laugh that could curl toes the petite woman responded, "Aiden Burn. Nice to meet you, Joe-Joe Avery. Welcome to the lab. Are you a new investigator? We can use the help." Her smile made his heart ache in a totally different way than the bullet that had pierced it four months before, and the teasing tones elicited a different sort of smile from the man: a sleepy, almost contented looking smile . . . a smile that had girls cooing ever since he'd learned how appealing they found him.

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"He's our new tech," Mac's voice cut across the flirtatious looks and banter. Aiden was perfectly free to do what she wanted, with whomever she wanted, on her own time. But right now, on lab time, she flirted with a guy that Mac couldn't trust. He determined that he'd have to clear Joe or get rid of him as soon as possible; he cared too much about his staff to let some possible criminal wreak havoc with them. His tone must have displayed his displeasure, because it drew a startled glance from Stella and a puzzled one from Aiden. With a forced smile Mac tried to ease the situation. "We've still got the entire lab and the morgue to cover, Aiden, if you'll excuse us?"

With that he began walking again, leading Joe and Stella towards the elevator, determined to see how the man reacted to the morgue. He knew a body lay out from a case Danny worked. The ex-Marine made a mental note to review the case with Danny after he finished showing Joe the lab. Meanwhile, Mac wouldd see just how his new tech handled watching an autopsy . . . if Mac was lucky Joe Avery would ask his case worker for an immediate transfer out of criminalistics.

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Continued in Chapter Eight: A Little Hint