Title: Perchance to Dream
Author: Cat Chester
Rating: T
Paring: Jo/Zane
Disclaimer: Not mine. Please don't sue as all I own are 3 dogs. Actually, you're welcome to the dogs.
Spoilers: Up to Crossing Over
Summary: Following the change in Lupo's behaviour, Zane decides to do some digging but his confrontation is interrupted when the Town in put in peril. Jo and Zane must work together to try and save it.
AN: Yes, I know this update had taken forever. Sorry. If it's any consolation, I'm working on a new fic to fill the gap between now and the Christmas special. I'll hopefully be posting the first part later tonight.
III
Chapter Four
When they arrived at GD, Carter was already waiting for them.
"We need to find out where they are," he said as they ran up to him.
"On it," Zane ran into the building and headed for the security terminal. "Only one other terminal is being used," he said, typing. "And it's... station three in the mainframe. He's trying to hack directly into the mainframe. And he's succeeding," he sounded impressed.
"What do you mean, succeeding?" Jo asked.
"I mean that at the rate these firewalls are falling, in another thirty minutes he'll have full access to all the section five files."
"The we need to hurry. Can we see how many people are in there?" Jo pulled out her gun.
"Whoa, whoa!" Zane stood up. "You can't shoot in there. He's in the mainframe, the room that houses the supercomputer that is the brain of GD. If you take that computer out, it'll take months to get back online."
Jo glared at him. "Fine. We'll use tazers. How many people are we talking about?"
Zane sat back down and logged onto Jo's computer to access the security footage. "Two. One of them is Letterman."
"The janitor?" Jo asked.
"Yep. Looks like this was all his plan."
"No wonder he wasn't home," Jack commented.
"But if he had access, why use Mendoza?" Zane asked.
"Plausible denyability," said Jack. "The Mendoza's probably never saw his face."
"They take the blame, "Jo added, "while he still has access to all the labs and projects in GD."
"It's a good plan," Zane said with a hint of admiration in his voice as he stood up. "Okay, let's do this."
"No, Zane. Carter and I can handle this. I need you to work on waking the town up."
Zane frowned, he'd been enjoying working with her. Unfortunately his brilliant mind couldn't come up a good reason why they would need him so after a brief hesitation he nodded. "Okay."
"Thank you," Jo said sincerely.
Zane nodded and smiled. "Sure. Just... be careful, okay?"
Jo nodded and headed off with Carter to the security office.
"You and Zane looked... cosy," Carter commented when they were out of his ear shot.
"Yeah," Jo couldn't stop the smile that formed on her lips.
"Oh, it's like that, is it?"
Jo shrugged coyly before she grew serious. Her smile faded and she stopped and turned to him. "Am I making a huge mistake?"
Carter put his hand on her shoulder. "I think that's question only you can answer," he said honestly. "Does he make you happy?"
Jo thought about how she felt when she was with him. Sometimes scared, sometimes angry, sometimes frustrated but she always looked forward to seeing him, even when it hurt to be around him.
"Being with him is better than not being with him."
"Then take a chance and see where it goes. If you don't, you'll probably never forgive yourself."
"You're right," she sighed. "Thanks, Carter."
"Any time."
They continued to the security office and armed themselves with tazers and stun guns.
III
Zane had no way of knowing how Letterman managed to put the whole town to sleep. Perhaps he drove around town with the device, or perhaps they managed to boost it's power somehow. Neither way was an option for Zane since the device they had used wasn't up to the job; he would need to rebuild it from scratch first and that alone could take days.
He had come up with two possibilities to deactivate the drug.
The first was radiation. The remote control used omicron radiation to control the drug and it was possible he could reconfigure one of Eureka's satellites to emit a small concentrated burst to wake the town up.
The second option was Doctor Blake's nicotine therapy. He thought he could reconfigure the nanites to neutralise the drug and purge them from the blood stream. Although reconfiguring the nanites would be relatively quick, it would take longer over all, first to produce enough nanites for the whole population and secondly to administer them to everyone.
However, even if the radiation burst worked and everyone woke up, they would still be vulnerable until the drug was cleared from their system. As such he headed to the medical lab first. Before he began he grabbed a bandage and wrapped it around his burnt hand since he didn't have time to heal the injury properly.
Next he reconfigured the nanite programming so it would neutralise the drug and set the computer to produce 1,000 doses. He had no idea how many people lived in Eureka but he figured that was enough to be going on with.
Once that was done he headed to the control room, which housed the computers that looked after Eureka's satellites.
III
Using hand signals, Jo and Carter had organised their plan of attack. Unfortunately it hadn't gone as planned. Letterman and his henchman had been ready for them. Letterman had the advantage of real guns and had pinned Jo and Carter behind one of the desks.
"I knew someone was on to me," Letterman taunted them. "As soon as I saw Fargo had been moved I knew someone here was still awake. But not for long."
Jo and Carter shared a worried look and Jo chanced a peek around the side of the desk.
"He has a remote control thingy," she hissed at Carter.
"Then we have to take it out before he puts us to sleep. You're a better shot so I'll draw his fire."
Jo nodded her understanding. She only had a tazer but it would have to do.
Carter stood up and darted to the next desk. Shots rang out in his wake and Jo took aim and fired at the cylinder still in Lettermans hand. The shot hit the target and letterman screamed and dropped the device as it sparked. Jo took cover behind the desk again before he had time to shoot at her.
Jo could hear him shuffling about and risked another glance. He had picked up the device but it looked burned out. In a rage he threw it down again.
"You'll pay for that," he shouted.
"Yeah? Come over here and say that!" Jo smiled, pleased with herself.
"So," Carter asked. "You do realise that this de-cloaking thing won't work on your friends, right? It has to be on the other side with them in order to get them back to this dimension."
Letterman laughed. I never needed the device, only it's schematics, which they very helpfully sent me before they cloaked. It's the de-cloaking technology that my clients can't master."
"So you let them cloak themselves knowing they couldn't get back?"
"Of course. If I don't have to pay their fees, that's more money for me!"
"You sick bastard," Jo chimed in.
Letterman laughed again. "They're mercenaries, they're used to being screwed over."
She could hear him as be began whispering with his henchman and looked over to Carter. He had the same idea and while they were both talking Carter and Jo rushed them, firing their tazers. Thankfully GD tazers had more than one shot per gun.
Jo's tazer hit the henchman in the leg but he appeared to be wearing some kind of body armour which blocked the shock. Letterman managed to duck behind a pillar and get off a few rounds before Carter could fire and when the henchman began firing again Carter and Jo were forced to duck for cover once more.
As she lay behind one of the servers she couldn't help but think how angry Zane was going to be when he realised the precious super computer had been shot up.
Jo heard footsteps and saw that both men were running for the exit. Keeping low, Carter and Jo followed them. They saw them separate and head in opposite directions so Carter and Jo paused inside the door.
"It could be a trap," Carter said.
Jo shook her head. "The footsteps echoed into the distance. It's probably divide and conquer. I'll go left, you go right and we'll hunt these suckers down."
Carter nodded. "Be careful."
"You too."
III
Zane had just finished repairing the drug's control device and was leaving Dr Pollacks lab when he heard the footsteps running towards him. He had a fraction of a second to take everything in and decide on a plan of action.
First of all he noticed the person running towards him wasn't Jo or Carter. Next Zane saw the gun in his hand and finally he saw that same gun being raised.
Zane considered reaching for his own gun but since he'd left it in the satellite control room, it would be slightly tricky. He was completely exposed, standing in the middle of the hallway and there was no where he could hide. He had no choice but to try and get back to Pollacks lab, even though it was some distance away. He turned and ran.
When the pain flared in his side he knew he'd been hit. Hell, he'd been expecting it and he tried his best not to damage the equipment he was carrying as he fell.
He heard Jo shout but he couldn't make sense of what she was saying. He heard a barrage of shots being fired and was glad when he looked up to see it was Jo firing at the intruder, not the intruder at him.
The man ran past Zane and easily dodged Zane's attempt to trip him up. Seconds later Jo paused beside him, steadied her gun and let out another 4 shots and the sound of running abruptly stopped.
Jo knelt down beside Zane.
"Let me see," she ordered, pulling his hand away from his side. He was surprised to note that she had no difficulty overpowering him, even though he tried to keep his arm there. At least she had grabbed his good hand and not the burned one.
He saw the blood drain from her face.
"That bad, huh?" he asked, trying to keep things light.
"We need to get you to the infirmary," she said, trying to help him to his feet.
"No, I have to get to
the roof."
"You need treatment. Waking the town up will have to wait."
"Jo, if I don't wake someone up, there's not going to be anyone to treat me. Now, help me or don't, I have to get to the roof."
With little other options, Jo collected the bag he was carrying and helped him up to the rooftop.
Once there Zane collapsed to the ground, exhausted, but he knew he couldn't rest yet, he opened the bag and pulled the device out.
Jo couldn't believe he was still working. The amount of blood he was losing... She cut that thought off before she could take it to it's logical conclusion. The only way to save him was to help him and speed up whatever the hell it was that he was doing.
"What can I do?" she asked.
Zane looked up and smiled. He would have looked excited if he wasn't so pale.
"Open the junction box on that dish," he handed her a cable. "Then plug this into the program interface."
Jo did as he asked and Zane began typing into a netbook.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Realigning the dish," he said, distracted.
When he put the netbook down he picked up the device and began attaching it to another box. Jo noticed the device had been hastily repaired and it's casing was still open. Be began plugging wires from the device into the box then more wires from the box to an areal.
"The satellite can't produce the requited radiation," he explained. "I'm running the signal through an amplifier and to the areal. The dish will relay the signal from the areal to the satellite which I've aligned to reflect the signal back to the town. Help me up?"
Jo helped him to his feet and they shuffled around to the front of the dish. Zane turned the device on and left it and the amplifier on the ground as he pointed the aerial at the concave dish.
"Come on," he said under his breath, willing the repaired device to hold out. "Come on."
Jo held her breath. It felt like an eternity but in reality it was probably only seconds before the device sparked and burst into flames. Zane collapsed against her, his strength finally giving out.
"Was that enough?" She asked, holding him up. She noticed he was trembling.
Zane looked worried. "It better be."
"Then let's get you to the infirmary."
"That's probably a good idea," he agreed and together they made their way back into the building.
When they arrived at the Medical Lab, Carter was already waiting there.
"What happened?" he asked, rushing over to help her with Zane.
"I said she looked fat," Zane quipped, though it didn't lighten anyone's mood.
They lowered him onto a bed as Jo explained that he'd been shot by the Letterman.
"I prefer my version," Zane said, gritting his teeth against the pain.
"Call Allison," Jo ordered as she ran to the supply cabinet. "Get her down here."
"Is she awake?" Jack asked, pulling his PDA out.
"God, I hope so," Zane groaned.
"What happened?" he asked them.
"Long story," Zane said, sounding tired. "I'll let Jo explain."
Jack placed the call and looked down at Zane. His eyes were now closed and there was so much blood that Jack was doubtful than he could survive this. Jo finally returned with a tube of super glue.
"You're going to glue him?" Jack asked.
"It's faster than stitches," she said as she emptied two tubes of glue into the wound tract.
As Allison's phone continued to ring, Jack began to lose hope but finally she picked up.
"Hello?" she sounded very sleepy.
"Allison, it's Carter. Too much has happened to go into detail but Zane has been shot. I need you to come to GD right now. It's bad, Allison. Really bad."
"I'm on my way," she said, casting her tiredness off, something she'd become adept at in medical school.
III
When Jack stopped by the infirmary he found Jo still sitting beside Zane's bed, holding his hand.
"How is he?" Jack asked Allison.
"He'll live," she said quietly. "But he's exhausted. It was a close thing. If he'd lost any more blood..."
"Let's not go down that route," Jack suggested. "How's Jo doing?"
"Okay. She aggravated her own surgical wound but too nothing serious. Right now she needs to rest and recover but she wont listen to me."
"Yeah, well I don't think that's going to happen any time soon," Jack sympathised, his expression saying he understood just how suborn Jo could be.
"How about you? What did the DOD have to say?"
"They've finished debriefing me but with both suspects now dead, I think the trail has gone cold."
"So we'll never find out who the buyer was then?"
"I doubt it, he's covered his tracks well. We'll keep looking, of course, but no one seems very hopeful. How's the drug analysis coming?"
"Fine. Zane did a lot of the work for me. A lot of people are reporting very strange and hyper realistic dreams but I don't think there'll be any more serious or long term side effects. I've started a rota for administering the nanobots Zane reprogrammed to the rest of the town."
"The DOD is looking at ways to remove the drug from the water reservoir and in the mean time they're bringing in bottled water."
Just then the doors opened and the army officer who had debriefed him, Major Timson, entered and headed towards Jo. Jack moved to intercept him.
"Can't this wait?" he asked.
"I've already waited as long as I can, Sheriff. I cant delay this any longer." Though not backing down, the Major did look sympathetic as he glanced at Jo.
"It's okay, Carter," Jo said from Zane's bedside, though she didn't move. "He's just doing his job."
"Just give us a second, will you?"
The Major nodded and stepped a few paces away as Carter went to stand beside Jo.
"You sure you're up to this?" he asked. He had never seen Jo look as vulnerable as she did right now.
"No," she answered honestly. "If something happens to him while I'm gone..." She looked up at Jack. "I only just got him back, I can't lose him again."
"You wont. I promise." Jack put a hand on her shoulder. "I'll stay here until you get back."
"Thank you," she smiled. She stood up with one last longing look at Zane's sleeping form. As she turned away she smoothed her hair back and Jack saw her expression change from concerned girlfriend to professional soldier.
He smiled reassuringly at her. That was his Jo, strong, tough and always professional. That didn't stop Jack from wishing that she didn't have to be those things though. She'd had a rough ride since they'd changed things and he wanted her to find some personal happiness again. She deserved it.
"I'll be back," she said with a curt nod before she turned and headed over to the Major.