The Complications of Life
Chapter Two
By: Nightelfcrawler
Disclaimer: I do not own, merely covet adoringly.
Authors' note: This is a re-telling of the movie-verse, given that do not assume any of it happened the same way. I'm writing from scratch with all new secrets. And while certain characters have been included, do not assume end results.
Warnings: Contains a background of slash relationships.
She was awoken to the feeling of white-hot pain slamming into the base of her skull. Before she could stop herself, a groan escaped her throat. Almost immediately, a flurry of noise slammed into her head from all around her, before a gentle hand was pushing on her shoulder, forcing her back down onto the table. She hadn't even realized she'd tried to sit up, but as the world righted itself, her head cleared a little bit to make out the words being spoken. "Easy there, Agent Parks. Don't try to get up."
Deciding that was a good idea, she didn't protest as she was gently pushed back down. Groaning again, she managed to squeeze an eye open, feeling as if she was fighting through a thick layer of sleep to do so. "What…the hell…"
The medic hovering over her was a middle-aged man wearing army fatigues, who appeared stressed over the current situation judging from the bags underneath his eyes. "You've had a shock to your system, just lay still." He leaned closer, examining her as he peered into her eyes, checking for reflexes. The pin-light he was using was far too bright for her taste, and she quickly shut her eyes, only to have the lid pried open as he peered into them again. "How are you feeling?"
"Like someone's drilling a hole in my brain." She grimaced, grateful once he finally dropped her lid, allowing her to shut her eyes once more. "What the hell happened?"
"We're not entirely sure." The medic's words were carefully guarded, and she immediately knew that was a lie. They knew more than they wanted to tell her, never a good sign. "What do you last remember?"
She fought to think on it. Her brain felt sluggish, slow, as if she was coming down or just getting over the flu. She came back with flashes of memories, images of a red light and sparking panels, but the rest felt hazy. "I was… investigating a…" She hesitated, squinting up at him warily.
"I have the required clearance, Agent Parks." The medic assured her, giving a tired smile. "And believe me, if you had been awake for the last 48 hours, you wouldn't hesitate in telling me everything."
Alexis blinked. "I've been out that long?"
"A little longer, actually. They had to bring you back here before anyone could figure out what was wrong with you."
"And…?" She said slowly, pushing past the fog in her head to try and remember why she was here in the first place.
"And…" the medic said slowly, hooking something up to an IV next to her. "…Let's just say E.T. ain't that friendly."
Alexis felt as if electricity were suddenly flooding her veins. Immediately everything came back to her in one flash of memory. The red light, the eye, the pain… "Holy…" She muttered, lifting a hand to clutch her suddenly pounding head. No wonder she felt like crap, that alien… if that's what it was, had hit her with something. "What happened?"
"We're not completely sure." The medic said, this time sounding more convincing. "We found you collapsed on the floor of what they think is probably a control room… and they found something else there too."
She felt a strange feeling of anxiety, as the red glowing eye flashed before her inner eye again. She suppressed a shudder, and instead elected to push herself onto one elbow, squinting around. She was in a small room with just her bed, but she could see out the door to a busy hallway beyond. "I'm back at HQ?"
"Military installation, actually." The medic clarified, stopping to take her blood pressure, pumping air into the band after wrapping it about her upper bicep. "Like I said, you were out of it for a while."
She lightly rubbed the back of her head, expecting to find a large lump or something worse, but was surprised to find nothing hurt. It wasn't even tender back there. So why the pounding headache? "What did they find?" She asked suddenly, shifting her gaze over to the medic.
The man avoided looking at her, listening intently in his stethoscope instead, pretending as if he'd not heard her. But Alexis was very good at noticing intricacies, and spotted the slight cringe in his face. He was definitely hiding something from her. She waited in silence while he finished, then jotted down some notes on his sheet before turning back to her, with a slightly guilty look. "I'm sorry.. I'm not authorized to say anything. Agent Banachek asked to debrief you once you felt up to it."
"I'm allowed to go then?"
"I'd like you to remain here, to be honest." The medic said, frowning a bit. "But Agent Banachek was firm about speaking to you once you're awake, so as long as you feel up to it, you're allowed to leave. But as I'm sure he'll tell you, you're not to leave the base."
With a sigh, Alexis nodded. The medic left, allowing her to get out of the bed and dress in the fatigues left nearby the foot of her bed. Once she had changed out of the medical garment and into her clothing, she slowly walked out of the hospital ward, soldiers directing her to where she needed to go. Despite being told she was at a military base, though she noted she hadn't been told where yet, she found it peculiar that there were no windows, no natural light. She surmised therefore that she was beneath ground somewhere at a more top secret facility. There were a lot of personnel down here making the corridors rather crowded. She finally made her way to the end of the corridor where a large 5 was imprinted on the wall, and entered the room at the end where two guards were standing watch. The moment she entered, Banachek looked her way from where he'd been conversing with some soldiers, pulling away from them and quickly coming to greet her. "Alexis." He said softly, taking her elbow with one hand, his other grabbing her shoulder as he stared down at her with clear obvious concern in his eyes. This wasn't normal, as he usually wore a calm composed professional face even in front of his top employee. "I'm so glad you're awake. How are you feeling?"
"Like shit, Tom." She replied, smiling faintly. "But everything seems to be working fine."
He visibly relaxed, sighing slightly as he ran a hand through his short hair. Alexis studied him carefully as he walked to the wall and grabbed a coffee pot, pouring a cup for each of them. "You have no idea how glad I am to hear that. You had everyone here very worried for a while."
Alexis took the coffee as he offered it to her, sipping it and making a face. Military coffee. Ugh. It tasted about as bad as it could get. She held the mug idly as she watched the flurry of activity in the room next to them. "So what the hell's going on?"
"We made a huge discovery." Banachek said, holding the coffee tightly without sipping it, probably knowing how bad it was himself. "I can't tell you, Parks… this whole thing is out of control."
"So lay it down for me."
"All right. They ran diagnostics on that craft, turns out it definitely is a spaceship of some kind, badly damaged obviously. The engines were buried under the sand, but they're so shredded we're not sure we can salvage much from them. The rest of the ship seems to just be storage or living areas, but the biggest discovery…" He hesitated, staring across at her with a distant expression before he spoke softly. "We found a live alien in the same room as you. It's in extremely bad shape, and to be honest we're not even sure how to help it. But it's completely unlike anything we've ever seen before."
Alexis hadn't even realized that she was gripping the coffee mug so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. Hanging on every word Banachek spoke, her head spun wildly as she realized how large scale this was. "Will it live?" She asked quickly, feeling strange that her concern was the first thing on her mind.
"We're not sure. We've got mechanics working on it now, but…"
"Wait… mechanics?" She blurted out, interrupting him abruptly.
"Yes." Banachek said with a sigh. "Our alien appears to be a non-biological life form…"
She blinked, the eye coming back to her memory. "A mechanical life form." She murmured.
"That's right. I imagine you got a good look at it before it knocked you out." Banachek said, fixing her with a firm stare.
"I got an inkling." She muttered. "It must have walloped me upside the head or something…"
Banachek looked across the table at her, but said nothing. Instead, he rose back up and gestured. "Well, come have a look and see what you think."
In silence, she rose to follow him back outside. They only walked a few feet before stopping in front of a massive iron door. Banachek slid a card and a smaller security door opened, and together they walked into the room beyond. It was a small viewing room with a narrow glass window that looked into an enormous hanger of sorts. Several people were crowded in there already, but as they entered conversation fell silent. Banachek walked forward, leaning close to the wall to see through the window, and Alexis followed suit.
What she saw stole the words from her throat before she could utter them.
Laying on the ground, strapped down with chains binding what passed for arms and legs, was an enormous robot.
It was unlike any robot she could have possibly imagined. Sleek silver was scored black with scorch marks, wiring pouring out of broken joints, and it appeared to be entirely missing a limb or two, which she noticed were off to the side on a large table. It's arm was as thick as a cement pillar, it's entire body nearly the length of the room. Thin panels jutted out from it's back, one jagged and torn, the other bent and dented. It's head was massive, and tilted towards the window. The glowing red light that she remembered was gone, vacant unlit glass stared back at her from unlit eyes. It appeared to be wearing a helmet of sorts, fitted with a mask-like mouthpiece over it's face, giving it a distinctly sinister look. It was unmoving, and looked virtually dead, chained down as it was, but it was very distinctly a humanoid shape. Alexis felt a shiver run down her spine and held it inside as she stared on the alien's form.
"From what we can tell…" Banachek was saying quietly. "…it's badly damaged. The engineers tell me that there's still a solid energy source coming from it, so we don't think it's dead, but it was leaking a lot of liquid on the whole ride back. They managed to stop that, and are trying to figure out how it works." He glanced over at her, watching as her bright green eyes studied the silent figure, watching as yellow-suited technicians scrambled to and fro, trying to figure it out.
"Has it woken up yet?" She wondered aloud, unable to tear her eyes from it.
"Not that we know of. It hasn't moved since we found it with you."
She frowned slightly. So they didn't know what she'd seen then. She found herself staying quiet and not revealing what she knew, which was uncharacteristic for her. But something about this situation bothered her, as if there was something still that Banachek wasn't telling her. She stared intently at it, marveling suddenly at how amazing the construction was. It was all sleek lines and smooth curves, at least where it wasn't damaged. It was clearly a magnificent piece of machinery, and she couldn't help but feel wonder as she gazed down it's sleek form. "So what now?" She asked softly.
"Well, we're going to see what we can do to get it conscious." Banachek replied. "Until then, I'm afraid I can't let you leave the base. Since you were involved, we're going to have to go through standard debriefing protocols. We're waiting for some of the experts to arrive from Washington first, so take some time to unwind and relax. I'll let you know when they get here. We've assigned you a room, so you can avoid the barracks." He turned and lightly put a hand on her shoulder. "Get some rest. You'll need it."
Alexis decided that would be the best idea, and let herself be shown to the room. She wasn't feeling particularly hungry, but accepted a meal just the same, closing the door and laying down on the bed with a drained sigh. She felt sore all over, but oddly enough she didn't feel tired. She supposed sleeping for 48 hours straight was the explanation, and so she lay there with one arm under her head, staring at the ceiling, letting the last few days events filter through her head. It felt like a dream, but yet she felt oddly awake and lucid. She rubbed her eyes, feeling an ache starting there, as if she'd been staring at a computer too long.
Abruptly she paused. All of a sudden, she'd just gotten a wash of strange sensations filtering through her mind. Disorientation, confusion and pain.
She sat up abruptly, feeling an odd sensation of detachment, and the sudden sensation that she was in two places at once, as the feelings grew oddly stronger. A powerful wash of fear flooded through her, followed with reoccurring sensations of intense agony.
But as she sat there, eyes wide, she became distinctly aware that she herself was in absolutely no pain. She felt fine, better than fine actually. The headache had abruptly vanished, and as she sat there wondering over the strong sensations of disorientation and confusion, white-hot agony slashed through her head.
But the pain was not her own.
She doubled over, grabbing her head, overwhelmed against the sudden influx of emotions and feelings. Her mind was telling her she was in absolute agony, her whole body on fire, pain racing down her body, but she FELT none of it. Confusion, disorientation, fear and anger tickled her mind in a massive influx of thoughts, all at once.
"Attention all levels, code red."
Alexis squinted up through tears at the PA system, wondering what was going on to signal a full-on high-level alert. Her mind was awash with too much sensations and images to piece together what was going on, and she struggled to find her bed, collapsing back on it as her head spun wildly before blackness swallowed her back up.
When she next awoke, the feelings were gone and she felt calm and peaceful. Rolling over she glanced at the clock mounted on the wall, but the numbers meant nothing to her still groggy mind. Instead, she flipped onto her back, staring up at the concrete ceiling, trying to sort through whether she wanted to get up, or lay here a while longer. After laying there for a time, she glanced at the numbers again, and sighed, rolling out of bed and getting up. It was quiet out in the hallways, only a few soldiers roaming about. Alexis made her way to the holding room, pouring coffee before she used the card that Banachek had given her to enter the viewing room. It was quiet inside, no one was there at this time of night. She stepped over to the wall, and peered through the window. The robot was in the same place on the floor, still chained to the ground. However, as she studied it, she realized that it's head was not in the same position it had been before. It was pointed straight up at the ceiling this time, not slumped to the side. Curious, Alexis stared intently at the robot, absently sipping the coffee as she noticed that the mechanics had been obviously attempting to re-attach its severed leg. She sighed, pulling up a chair and sitting as she watched it until she finished her coffee. She rose and walked back out, giving the robot one final glance as she exited the room and walked into the mess hall for breakfast.
She ate, though with lack of enthusiasm. Poking at the rather rubbery eggs, rubbing her eyes. Something abruptly dropped on top of her eggs, and she groaned as she fished her contact lens out of the mess of ketchup. "Great." She grumbled, dunking it in her water glass and taking her napkin to carefully wipe ketchup off.
"Tough luck."
She grimaced, knowing that voice. She glanced up to see Reginald Simmons hovering over her. Her eyes narrowed in dislike. "Simmons."
"Heard you had some 'excitement'." He mocked, shrugging his shoulders at the word, much to her irritation. "At least you look fine."
"It takes more than a bonk on the head to put me out of commission." She bit out, glaring at him with distaste.
To her surprise, his brows lifted mockingly. "Bonk on the head? That's a nice way to put it." He grinned smugly at her. "Banachek wants you, when you're done playing with your food." He chuckled, walking away, leaving her wishing she could bore holes into his back.
Wait a sec…
She slowly turned her gaze back to the contact in her palm, then up again. A strange sensation flooded her, as she reached up and plucked the other contact out of her eye, and blinked to clear her vision.
Well now that was odd.
She could see better WITHOUT the contacts.
For the first time, Alexis began to get a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, as several dots began to slowly connect themselves.
Therefore, Tom Banachek was taken aback when Alexis slammed her fists down onto the desk, leaning across his desk to look him straight in the eyes. "Just what exactly are you hiding from me?"
Banachek blinked slowly, lowering the paper in his hand to stare back at her, studying her expression carefully before he sighed. "Sit." He gestured to the chair across from her. Alexis did as he asked, her bright green eyes staring at him with an intensity of a fox watching a chicken. "I take it Simmons couldn't keep his mouth shut?"
"That's part of it." She admitted slowly. "He dropped a hint."
Banachek sighed. "I really need to reign him in. He's becoming a problem."
"No shit." Alexis leaned forward. "So what the hell is going on here, Tom? What aren't you telling me?"
He sighed, rubbing his temple a moment before looking across the desk at her, serious cop-face in place. "When we found you, we weren't certain what caused you to lose consciousness. You had no physical injuries, and there was no indication that you'd inhaled anything toxic." Alexis frowned, but didn't interrupt him. "We took you back here to run tests after we discovered the alien was in the same room." He trailed off slowly, and Alexis could almost feel the 'but' hanging in the air. "We ran scans on you… At first we didn't find anything." He closed his eyes then slowly opened them staring across at her. "But then they discovered some kind of foreign metal in your bloodstream, and we figured that the alien must have injected you with something. Now, what that is we can't quite figure out. Anytime we remove blood from you, there doesn't seem to be any of the metal alloy, yet it's clearly detected in your blood stream. From what the medics have figured, it doesn't seem to be harming you… but we have absolutely no idea what this thing injected you with. For all we know, it could be toxic or dangerous at a later time, or it could have merely been a defense mechanism. The fact remains, we won't know until we get it conscious, and even then there's no telling it will understand us or be able to communicate." Alexis sat there, considering Banachek's words. Oddly enough, she didn't feel alarmed knowing that the alien had shot her up with something. It answered a lot of questions, actually. It explained why the medic was reluctant to speak with her further, and Simmon's teasing, and the lack of injury despite the splitting headache. She was a rational person, and preferred explanations. Knowing that she had some helped ease her anxiety, despite the fact most people might have found their anxiety doubled. Banachek was watching her intently. "Are you ok with this?"
"Yeah." She replied finally, looking up at him, and fingering the contacts in her pocket, her green eyes able to see him clearly, and in fact much sharper than she'd ever been able to see with the contacts. It was as if they were obsolete for her. "It explains a lot, actually. So what's going to happen to me then?"
Banachek sighed. "We're not sure yet. We're still waiting for the analysis team to get here. Apparently they're stuck behind red tape at the moment, but I'm told they'll be here by the end of the week. Until then, I'm afraid you're going to have to stay on base, and we can't put you back on duty. We want to make sure you're not compromised in any manner."
Alexis nodded. It was standard protocol, and to be honest she was slightly disturbed that she knew she HAD in fact been compromised, and wasn't speaking up about it. But somehow telling him that somehow her poor vision had completely healed to be better than average wasn't too alarming. It did leave her curious however. "These metal fragments, do they know what they are?"
"No… we can't get a microscope to read them. It's as if the moment we withdraw your blood, they're gone. Any sample we take comes out null."
Interesting…
"I'm sorry about the restrictions, but until we know more we can't let you return to duty. I hope you understand."
"I do." Alexis rose slowly. "If you could at least send someone to get a few of my things, my computer, some clothes, some books, I'd appreciate it."
"No problem. I'll have Simmons go fetch them." She grimaced and shot Banachek a look. "Ok, someone else then." He smiled. "If you notice anything out of the ordinary, anything at all no matter how small, I want you to let someone know. Either myself or the doctor."
"Yes sir." Alexis murmured, feeling that knowing guilt eating at her from within. "Is there anywhere above base I can go to get some air?"
"There's an outdoor picnic area, but it's not much I'm afraid."
"That's fine." She smiled and bid him farewell, desperate to just see the sun or stars, even for a minute. Being below ground was entirely too claustrophobic. She found the elevator to the surface, and after a long silent trip emerged in a small courtyard atop a simple concrete building amidst a bunch of others. There was a table, a small umbrella to keep the sun off, and endless desert on the other side of the base in every direction. Alexis squinted against the sun, stepping to the edge of the building where wire fence kept anyone from jumping off either to escape or something more sinister. Desert was in every direction, as far as the eye could see, no break in the horizon. Alexis had been to most desert bases, but she knew instinctively that this was not Edwards or Nellis. This was something else… and she had a sneaking suspicion she knew where, judging from the scorching hot temperatures all around her. The heat rippled off the sand creating waves of watery illusion all around the base. She leaned against the fence, scanning the horizon idly, just glad to be outside. She'd never felt claustrophobic before, but somehow she'd felt very small and hopeless being encased in the underground base. It felt so much better to be out here, as if the sky was swallowing her into it's welcoming embrace. The blue extended as far as she could stretch her fingers, horizon to horizon of unbroken endless sky.
Her heart fluttered wildly, causing her to lean heavily against the fence as a strange rush of exhilaration flooded through her. Her head spun abruptly, and she had to clutch onto the wire for support. The soldier who had accompanied her up here walked over quickly. "Ma'm? Are you ok?"
"Uh…" She groaned, grabbing her head and sinking down onto the hot cement bench as her knees felt shaky. "Yeah… Yeah I'm fine, just the heat I think. Just give me a moment." The guard backed off obligingly, and as she sat there gulping breaths of hot air, the feeling slowly eased. It hadn't been a bad feeling per say, but it had been a rush of overwhelming urge to simply lose herself in the sky. She'd often had feelings like that, wishing to free herself from her boring job, take off and go on a road trip, but she'd NEVER enjoyed flying before, and the thought of soaring into the open blue sky suddenly had overwhelmed her. It wasn't like she avoided planes, they were a necessity in her job, but this… She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling her heart pounding hard beneath her palm. The feeling eased a bit more, pulling back, leaving her feeling a bit more normal.
It was then that she felt the tickling sense of curiosity in the back of her head. It wasn't like anything she'd felt before… she didn't know why she would feel curious, she should be worried about why she'd just reacted like that, but instead she felt that nagging sense of wonder in the back of her head. As she directed her thoughts to trying to figure it out, abruptly it was gone, and in that moment a flood of something else entirely filled her.
Pain. Fear. Confusion.
She squeezed her eyes shut as the feelings rushed through her in a sudden rush. It was the same as it had been the night before! It was almost as if she was witnessing someone else's'…
Someone else's' feelings!