24.
Hurley Stands - The View From The Temple – Aren't You A Little Womanly To Be a Stormtrooper – Ellis Has A Plan
Thomas Mittelwerk was a thin, hatchet-faced man with slicked back dark hair, a full head shorter than Hurley. As the man stepped off the boat, the bland, cold eyes skimmed over Hurley in a casual dismissal – the island's protector striking him as obviously uninteresting and not worth more than a basic acknowledgment. Then they hooded underneath a pale, gnarled brow, in an unreadable way that was more familiar – and less hateful – in Ben.
Hurley flushed – in shame or anger, he couldn't quite tell – and stood up from the old tree he had been sitting on. He narrowed his eyes as the doctor murmured instructions to the small coterie of assistants he'd brought with him – only a couple of the Korean guards, three white coated men and one women. Mittelwerk brought a crew for basic caution, it was clear he felt no fear. "You're not welcome here." Hurley's voice came out flat and a little too quiet – he'd managed to avoid putting his fear of the invaders in his voice, but couldn't manage any power. Mittelwerk gave him a pointed, amused glance. "This isn't any place for you." That was better. Firm.
The glance turned into a smirk. "Hugo Reyes. I was here long before your birth and I will be here after your death. Please spare me the local mysticism; I found it incalculably boring the first time." He knotted pale hands together and gave Hurley a longer appraisal.
The flush deepened, now definitely anger. "My friends call me Hurley. You can stick with Mr. Reyes, in the words, 'Mr. Reyes, I'm sorry I'm a smug jerk, now I'm going to take all my other little jerks and get back on my stupid boat and get the hell out of here. Right after I let Penny and her kid go.'"
Mittelwerk's face contorted into something that vaguely resembled a smile and took a clipboard from one of his assistants, thudding it once against his leg. "Mr. Reyes – may I sit?" He dropped onto Hurley's dead tree seat without waiting for an answer, then brought his face up to look into Hurley's again. "My assessment of you is quick – apparently insultingly quick – but I stand by it. Our conversation will not interest me long; I have a schedule to keep today, one I have been waiting a very long time to execute properly. You do not interest me. You have in mere moments amused me more than my employer, who disguises his bravado and dull mind with delusions of power." He marked something down on his clipboard and tossed it back to the assistant, who turned and jogged up the beach towards another knot of invaders. "It's a compliment of a sort, though one I'm sure is lost here. So – to your point. We are already finished. There is nothing to say, no negotiation. Within the half hour, my schedule will execute and we will observe the results."
He snapped his fingers at the guards, who went to the beached vessel and began to haul a long crate out of it. Hurley could read the word gasmaske stamped along its side and thought to himself that it was a dumb way to spell 'gas mask' before it struck him it was probably some European version of the word.
"You get those from a World War II re-enactor?"
Mittelwerk arched an eyebrow.
"The Nazis lost, you know, and everyone thinks they're the biggest dickbags in history."
"But the legacy of science lives on."
"Science? What stupid science is this?" Hurley's face wrenched, disgusted.
"The science of survival. The continuation of the species. We have overcome a thousand bottlenecks in our history, and grown stronger each time." The eyes lidded, lips quirking slightly. "I could advise several texts on the matter, including Richard Evans' seminal works discussing the value of the collection of Nazi science. Before your face twists so again, I advise him as a historian, not some ridiculous anti-Semite. The foolishness of the scientific community under the regime was their narrow focus; this ridiculous insistence on genetic markers rather than accepting and understanding the glory of the diversity they had on hand." He shrugged. "Of course, this is moot."
"At least you're being all equal and crap about being a dick."
"Egalitarian." The face looked away from him, towards the boat, and then down towards his watch.
Oh no you don't, jerkass, only Ben gets to correct me because he knows better to get all snooty about it. Hurley felt his anger grow cold enough to make him dizzy and he put a hand out to steady himself. It wasn't anger screwing up his head and stomach. Ah crap. His mouth moved before he could think. "You're not as smart, as prepared, as finished as you think. This island is bigger than you, your tiny little fake scientist dinky, and on every level is way bigger than what crap you've got on that boat. You came here to look down on me; on everyone on this island." He pulled in a deep breath and stood up straight, glowering down at his boogeyman, then rolled with what his gut told him to say. "You are full of wrong, and you're gonna see it first hand. And then, little guy?" He stabbed out a pointing finger.
"You can go get screwed."
. . .
If he were going to be honest – an often fruitless exercise, he would easily confess – Ben could elucidate in long, florid monologues about how much he disliked the temple. He'd disliked it in his youth; the strange Cambodian structure striking some frayed and unnamed nerve deep in his gut. The architecture was strange, he'd thought. The mazelike interior unnerving – true enough. It smelled oddly. Realizing now in his later years so many more and thorough reasons why he actually disliked it fulfilled that instinct with something more like lurching nausea.
Bernard saw the same tranquil, blank expression on Ben's face as every other day ending in 'y,' mostly to ensure that the one time he might have actually shown an identifiable emotion, it didn't get read as fear of the invaders.
...Although if he were going to be honest, the dots of the distant boats hit that same frightened nerve. If honesty were his thing. Ben told himself irritatedly this was not going to be the day to wholly take up a new methodology and instead let himself be led through the temple to check on safety precautions.
. . .
"Think we look alright?" Bernard glanced at Ben. "It's short notice, but with the current tunnel maps, I think we'll be fine if they come inland."
Frankly, I'd like a few M2 Browning machine guns and maybe a moat just in the remote chance, he didn't reply. "For what we have to work with, the situation looks good." Ben quirked an eyebrow for emphasis. "It may actually be moot; I haven't seen many signs of them going too far inland."
Bernard turned to regard him thoughtfully. "That's interesting."
"Or bad. I'm hedging on bad; as prisoners we could mount an escape."
"You think they're not looking for prisoners."
Ben's formless nerve twinged again, this time fleeting something across his face before he reined it in. Bernard grabbed his arm and pulled him into a side corridor away from some wandering islanders. "Son, you looked scared. That's not something I think I've seen before."
"You weren't meant to." The words came out clipped; he closed his eyes and centered himself. "I can't stop thinking about the Purge." The grip on his arm tightened. "Do not tell the rest that. Do not let them realize any fear from me." He opened his eyes and glared at Bernard, who looked steadily back at him.
"Rose would point out that being scared is sometimes the first start to mounting an actual defense."
Ben's lips pursed. "If what we face is what I fear, defense is beside the point."
"So what's the option?"
The word formed in Ben's mind, tinted with far less bitter than he'd believed possible. His face turned contemplative at that. "Hope."
. . .
Penelope Hume bounced Charlie on her knee, mind still marking every step. At approximately every sixth hour, a guard came to physically check on her. Always large, always blank, always with a hand on a blackjack he kept on his belt. She glowered at him, the guard stared wordlessly back. He would stomp away again, and then the next visitor would bring a plate of food. She kept Charlie fed and content, but she wagered she was dining well enough on pure anger.
At the second hour after her last check in, there was a brief scuttling outside her door and her head jerked up. Something different was happening. She curled her arm comfortingly around her fussing son and then gently pushed him further behind her on the bed. There was a small, laughably harmless footstool at hand and she grabbed it anyway – small chance better than none, she reckoned, and tensed when the door rattled and then opened again.
She raised her arms to strike and then froze at the sight of the olive-faced woman in a lab coat. "Hi," the visitor chirped. "Looking for Princess Leia, plus one, are you the droids we're looking for?" She craned her head around to wink at the little boy. "Think so!" She stuck out her hand, Penelope shook it out of startled instinct once she'd lowered the footstool. "Kyra. Doc Ellis is wandering around a floor below. We work for Hurley."
"How the bloody did you get here?"
"Same way I get anywhere; we walked in."
Penelope leaned out into the corridor and looked both ways. "Security is that bad?"
"They're serene; they think nobody'd try and they're not looking twice at anyone that looks like they might belong. It's lazy, not exactly bad. I could give you a dissertation about how it works but now's not a great time. Your kid'll complicate it a bit so now we're going to have to be a lot more subtle." Kyra thumbed down the left hallway. "Med bays are a floor down, cargo appears to be below that with some sort of crazy launch elevator in it. Ellis – he's our island doc – is shitting the proverbial brick. Sorry. Language."
"Desmond says far worse, much to my dismay. We're carrying a plague." Penelope hauled Charlie up to her shoulder and followed Kyra out. "I know. Any plans?"
"Kinda hoping the doc comes up with something."
. . .
I don't have a plan. Albert Ellis milled past a group of researchers examining a display that cycled projected bacterial growth. None of them spared him a second glance, especially after he did his best to examine the data display with a properly disinterested rub of his chin. He hoped they wouldn't spot the beads of sweat on his forehead. I count five different cylinders on the launch platform below. Once it goes up to the deck, the platform springloads and catapults it towards the island. They've calculated for wind variances, weight, impact. Once it hits, the high pressure canisters rupture and the thing spreads like blazes across the island. Simple, almost elegant. I think I want to vomit.
He spotted Kyra in a space near the hallway, jerking a thumb at him. He turned, pretended to make a note on one of the checklist clipboards – there seemed to be a hundred of them at every data center in the vast laboratory – and wandered out of the room with as much confidence as he could fake.
"Woman, how do you do this as a job?" he hissed when he joined her.
"I drink. A fucking lot. You come up with a plan?"
"I don't have shi- a pleasure to meet you, miss." He nodded cordially at the blonde woman and her son, leaning quietly behind a pile of crates taken from the island. "Pardon that."
Penelope nodded a greeting back. "Pretty understandable, Doctor, given circumstances." She gestured a free hand at the room. "You've had time to assess what we're dealing with."
"Yes ma'am. It's a simple setup, unfortunately. Hard to counter." He outlined what he'd seen, skimming over the profiles of the airborne septicemic plague he'd seen on several of the workstations.
Kyra mulled it over. "No point in getting into the computers, you say they're locked on schedule." She looked at Penelope. "We're not going to get the canisters off the platform. We can't evacuate the island. Fuck."
Ellis froze as something struck him. Kyra glanced at him, concerned, and he raised a hand to forestall questions. Something was right there.
Oh God, sweet Lord in His merciful Heaven, could something that simple possibly work?
The researchers were in their own haze. Security didn't care. They felt safe, locked on course. Who cared about the small stuff?
"Stay right here," he said, his face tight with possibility. He slid through the room, nodded to another researcher with a 'we absolutely know each other but not quite sure from where, so we'll just nod and spare each other any awkwardness' touch of friendliness and went to a bay of camera feeds that looked into the hold and its deadly cargo below. It was virtually empty – a guard was visible through the external door into the hallway. Inside, a couple of uncomfortable-looking engineers... and some spare canisters. He toggled a camera control, noted temperature checks and air quality alerts on a sheet as another researcher walked by, and bit his lip. No other surprises visible. He made his way back and jerked his thumb at Kyra.
"You and I need to get downstairs."
Kyra looked at him, eyes wide. "You got a plan?"
"I have got a simple fuckin' plan."
She hugged him.