Law & Order: MCU
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Part Two
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"What is it you people want from me?"
"All in good time. We need to know we can trust you."
"You're not the one handcuffed to a radiator!" Skye shook her arm, the metal bracelet on her wrist illustrating her point.
"I'll take the handcuffs off if you promise not to hit Grant again. He's got a lovely purple bruise forming under his eye now."
"Is that even his real name?"
"Of course it is, Skye. We haven't been lying to you."
"What's your name?"
"Raina. I think we're going to be good friends."
The smile that crossed Raina's face was genuine and it did nothing but make Skye more nervous.
-o-
By one AM, Jemma was fairly certain that sleep was going to be necessary at some point, but Fitz was sitting on her couch, his third empty mug of tea in front of him, file folders spread out on her coffee table. He had been mumbling to himself for the last 20 minutes, ever since Triplett left to pick them up some takeout. Her offers to help Fitz with… whatever it was he was doing had been waved off repeatedly. He was waiting on a call from a friend of his who still worked in the crime lab, having sent several fingerprint scans to them by some sort of super-secret application on his phone that he wouldn't show her. Detective Triplett, before leaving to get them "fuel" as he had termed it, had made her go over and over everything she knew about Skye with him while Fitz had been hard at work on the surfaces of Skye's bedroom.
Jemma realized as she spoke with Triplett, eyes watching Fitz as he delicately lifted fingerprints with careful and steady hands and took pictures with his phone of every inch of Skye's personal space, that there were a lot of things she didn't know about Skye. Skye was her best friend, the person who knew her best, and Simmons couldn't even tell them where she had lived before this apartment other than her van.
Now, sitting on the arm of the couch while Fitz sorted through files, flipping through them so quickly, fingers moving over letters almost faster than she could process the words, Jemma felt a bit useless. She was tired of being the one who fetched his tea. She hadn't gone through years of study to be relegated to the person serving tea. And as Triplett had made a point of explaining to her that they couldn't officially take her case because Skye hadn't disappeared in Brooklyn, but they could help her ready evidence to submit for an official investigation with the correct precinct, it wasn't like she couldn't actually take a peek at one of those police files, right? Because they could already be in trouble for being here. With those files. Her reading a few lines couldn't hurt, right?
Jemma tilted her head, leaning just a little closer to Dr. Fitz, trying to look over his shoulder. The file in his hand wasn't issued from the Brooklyn Police Department. She saw a seal in the corner that made it very clear that particular file was issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She sucked in a quick breath (How had they got their hands on FBI files?) but leaned further to see what he was reading. He quickly closed the file and put it into one pile, then picked up another one. She froze in place, afraid that he had caught her, but it didn't seem like he was paying attention to her at all.
The file now in his hand was about a missing person from Connecticut named Ian Quinn. He had disappeared just as his company had made a huge breakthrough in research into prosthetic limbs. The man had made millions of dollars, then closed all of his accounts and vanished in a matter of days. The running theory had been that he had joined a cult. There had been a beautiful woman on his arm for the week before he disappeared. Most witnesses hadn't been able to agree on what she looked like – just that she was very soft spoken, that she always wore a flower in her hair, and she was constantly talking about the world changing.
His body was found three months later on the other side of the world. He had been crushed under a bookcase during an earthquake. It was hard to prove foul play when Mother Nature had done the dirty work, but his money had never been recovered. Neither was the bulk of his research. That was two years ago. His money was still out there somewhere being used by someone. The FBI was sure of it. They just couldn't prove it. And they had no leads on the woman.
Fitz moved the file to the pile on his right, though Jemma hadn't finished reading through the reports of his injuries. She had a feeling Quinn hadn't actually died in the earthquake. His injuries, the ones she had been able to read through anyway, sounded more like he had been thrown off a three story building than crushed by a falling bookcase. Someone had probably put him there, but she didn't open her mouth to suggest that, just watched as Fitz opened another file.
This one wasn't a missing person's case. Instead, it was an open homicide investigation. It had happened just a few months earlier, not far from where Simmons lived. Arson. This woman was burned alive in a warehouse owned by Lake Lerna Industries. That must have meant something to Fitz because he tapped the name of the company and dug around for another file labeled Zeller. She leaned even closer as he hurriedly flipped it open and read.
Kyle and Bebe Zeller had disappeared just after grad school. The couple didn't have anyone but each other. No family. Not very many friends by the look of the statements. They didn't own a house or a car. No credit cards. Just a lot of student loans and degrees in various computer fields. And just after Kyle got a very well-paying job with Lake Lerna Industries, his wife of all of three weeks had vanished. No trace. He was a suspect in her disappearance, but the police hadn't been able to find anything concrete. Kyle vanished about a month later. They were both found dead, twin brain aneurisms, a few weeks ago. But they had been missing for over a year. Longer than any of the other people Fitz had been looking into.
Jemma let out a slow breath when he flicked the paper in his hands with his fingertips. "Fitz? Did you find something? Something that can help us find Skye?"
He didn't answer her at first, just moved both of those files into the pile to his right. Jemma gathered that those were the important ones, the ones that might have a link to Skye disappearing. "I'm no' suppose' ta let you look at tha files," he told her by way of explanation.
"I know. You could get in trouble," she agreed, leaning back to put a little more space between them.
"Trip," Fitz said with a sigh, his eyes on the table, "he's tha one who'll get in trouble. He's no' technically my partner."
"What do you mean? I don't understand. He said you were his partner. You said he was your partner." She slid down the arm of the couch and onto the cushion, tucking her feet beneath her. He shifted to give her more room.
"I'm no' a detective yet. I'm still a lab tech. Jus' with a weapons permit. Ye have ta take an exam to be ranked as a detective. I'm still jus' an officer. Trip, he vouched for me, he go' me permission ta work with him until I take tha exam." Fitz was quiet for a moment, his fingers playing with the edge of another folder. "His last partner died in a mugging." He shook his head. "Solved other people's murders everyday, and he go' mugged on his way home ta his kid. The chief wanted ta give Trip a new partner, but he told her he would only work with me."
Jemma smiled at that. "He must see something in you, the makings of a great detective. Like Sherlock Holmes? I mean, you've read through about a dozen of those files and you haven't stopped to take notes once. That's… I take notes on everything. I take notes on my notes."
"I have a good memory," he said, a smile starting to crawl its way across his face as well. "Alrigh'," he turned to face her, hands slapping onto his knees. "I have a theory. It's crazy. And normally, ye don' really put out a theory wi' this little evidence."
"Well, neither of us are normal detectives, so tell me quick before Triplett gets back and makes everything proper." She tried to turn her words into a joke, but she set her shoulders and prepared herself for the worst.
Fitz chuckled. He was glad Triplett had been the one to get the takeout. Normally, he would be asleep now, or using this time to catch up on his studying of proper procedures, but he was, despite being here because a woman was missing, very comfortable sitting on the couch with Jemma Simmons and reading through case files. Something about her helped him focus. Maybe it was the fact that when they got there, she let them get right to work. Or maybe it was the way she had welcomed them with endless cups of tea, or because she didn't act like a lot of the women they had interviewed in the past – not excusing herself to change her clothes or brush her hair or apply an extra coat of lipstick. Maybe it was the way she watched him, like he had the missing pieces of the puzzle she was trying to work out. He hoped he did.
"Okay, so… up until Skye moved in with ye, she fit a very specific profile. She had no family, friends, no paper trail ta her name, living out o' her van – "
"She was the kind of person who wouldn't be missed," Jemma cut in quietly, her shoulders dropping a tad. "If she disappeared, no one would notice."
"Yes, but," Fitz held one hand out as though about to pat her comfortingly, then thought better of it, pulling it back to himself, "then she moved in with ye, an' ye leave a fingerprint. Ye have a paper trail, a steady job, a lease, family and friends. Ye brought Skye inta tha light, so ta speak. Now, she doesnae fit tha profile. Whoever is goin' after these people, it isnae just because they willnae be missed. They needed her."
"So you do think she was abducted? Even though there isn't really any evidence of anyone else having been here?"
"Yes." Fitz nodded hurriedly.
"You said these people, how many are there?"
"At least a dozen, I think." He allowed that to sink in, watched Jemma take a sharp breath, one hand coming up to cover her mouth.
"That's horrible."
"Yeah, these three," Fitz gestured to the files he had placed on the top of the pile, "tha ones ye were pretendin' not ta read over my shoulder," he added, trying to lighten the heaviness of what he was telling her, though he wasn't sure that would work, "they all have links ta the same company. There were rumors from tha homeless population fer a while, a few people with conspiracy theories, about a cult upstate that was gatherin' members with promises about a changin' world, and tha's the same thing tha' people said about tha woman who was seen with Ian Quinn right before he vanished. He was lookin' inta buyin' Lake Lerna Industries right before."
Jemma nodded, following everything he was saying so far. She had managed to get that from the files that she wasn't supposed to be reading.
"She was goin' on an' on about corruption, about tryin' ta find her place in tha world. Him clearin' out his accounts an' givin' them his money would fit fer a cult. But the way he died? Tha' was no earthquake." He ran a hand through his hair. "There was a woman burned in a warehouse owned by tha same company. No positive ID on her, but she matches tha description of a homeless woman named Debbie who tried ta report her friend Gibson missin'. She said he was taken by a man fer this cult. Her friend Gibson though, he had a long history o' breaking' an' enterin'." He shook his head. "Tha police have been lookin' fer a cult, but I think tha's a mistake. This other couple that went missin'? They both had a lot of the same skills tha' Skye has. Between tha two of 'em, they could do jus' about anythin' with a computer. No discussion of a cult wi' them, but tha same company again. Jus' weeks after they turn up dead, Skye goes missin'?"
"Not a coincidence," Jemma agreed, nodding her head as well. "But all of these people, they're dead?"
"Well, those four, yeah." Fitz shifted in his seat, and he gave in, reaching out, placing a hand on one of her arms. "We'll find her before tha' happens, yeah?" He swept his thumb back and forth over the fabric of her pajama top.
"Aren't detectives not supposed to make promises like that?" She asked him with a sad smile.
"Like ye said, we're no' like normal detectives, right?" He squeezed her arm reassuringly. "Also, I'm very stubborn. I donnae give up. I get tha feeling you donnae either."
"Right… Does that mean you're going to let me help?" Her eyes brightened slightly. She wanted to be useful. She wanted to do something.
"Here," Fitz picked up a file from one of the piles and handed it to her, his fingers holding fast to it when she eagerly attempted to take it from him, "but when Trip gets back, I gave you nothin'."
"Got it."
He released the file and picked up one for himself. They read in silence for a few moments.
It felt strangely domestic, and Jemma had to remind herself not to lean into his side and curl up next to him. Fitz was not her boyfriend. He was a police officer. She had just met him! And he was here because he was going to help her find Skye. The pages she was reading were not some sort of mystery novel. This was real life.
Her eyes ran over the reports in front of her about a woman, a con artist who had never been caught. She sounded like some sort of urban legend. She was credited for a few dozen different crimes that all ran the gamut of illegal. Check fraud, identity theft, burglary, grand theft auto, there was even stolen artwork credited to this woman. There were so many different descriptions of her too. The only things that were consistent were that she was pretty, that she always seemed to get what she wanted, and she had a thing for plant life. There were several aliases attributed to her – Regina, Larenn, Rose, Reanne, Kiralyne, Raina, Fleur, Malkia, Lily, and Regine. No last names attached to any of them though.
Jemma skimmed through a witness account of this woman convincing a man to give her his car. How on earth had she managed to do that? With a smile and a wink? When Jemma reached the witness's description of her, there was more oh, she's very pretty, but I don't really know specific features… I remember she was wearing a dark blue dress with lots of little white flowers on it, a flower pinned in her hair too… when I complimented her, she said everyone likes flowers.
"Fitz. The woman in this file. She's… she's a professional con artist it sounds like? She has so many names…" Jemma pushed the folder into his direction, spreading the pages across both of their laps. "Look at how these people described her – no one knows exactly what she looks like, or no one wants to say, but they all say she's beautiful and that she loves flowers. She even wears them in her hair. Like the woman last seen with Ian Quinn?"
"What are some of her aliases?" Fitz asked, leaning across her to grab a folder from the other side of the table as though something had just occurred to him.
"Erm… Regina, Larenn, Rose, Reanne – "
"Raina?"
"Yes. How did you know that?"
Fitz hurriedly flipped through pages. "There was a woman, foster mother o' Donnie Gill an' Seth Dormer. Tha kids were brilliant, but had a lot o' attitude problems. Didn't want ta have anything ta do with tha other students at their school… where is it?" He placed the file on top of the one Jemma had open to scan through pages. Jemma tried to follow along, but she wasn't sure exactly what he was looking for. "Here," he told her, pointing to a statement in the file, "she told tha police tha' Donnie an' Seth were both approached abou' an internship, but she couldnae remember the name o' the company. The woman who came ta talk with 'em was named Raina, but she couldnae remember her last name. They never found any o' the paperwork the woman showed tha kids fer tha intership in tha house."
"Ten to one the company is Lake Lerna Industries," Jemma said quietly. "You said these kids were brilliant, what happened to them?"
"They ran away. At least, tha's wha' tha investigators decided."
"They ever turn up?"
"No' yet."
Jemma leaned back on the couch, letting her eyes fall shut as she thought. "We have to find out more about this company. All we know is that they're connected to a lot of missing people, one of whom died in their empty warehouse, and one of whom wanted to purchase the company."
"Do ye remember if Skye ever mentioned them? Ever worked fer them?"
"I don't think so. She takes on a lot of little jobs though. A woman once hired her to break into her husband's email because she was convinced he was cheating on her with someone he met online." Jemma laughed, opening her eyes again to stare at the ceiling. "I don't even know how people know Skye can do things like that. This woman quite literally walked up to us while we were having lunch at a café one day and offered to pay her to get into her husband's email. Who does that?"
"Did Skye do it?"
"For fifty dollars, she did about five minutes worth of work, on the woman's cell phone." Jemma rolled her head to the side so she could see Fitz again. His brow was furrowed and he was watching her intently. "What?"
"Wha' was his name?" His tone was insistent.
"What?"
"What was his name, Jemma? Do ye remember?" He placed one hand next to her head on the back of the couch and leaned closer. "Yer righ' ta be suspicious. Normal people donnae walk up ta strangers in a café an' ask them ta do things like tha'."
"She said one of her friends had recommended Skye, that she recognized her."
"Do ye remember tha name?"
"Yes. Jasper Sitwell. He works for Furious Pharmaceuticals. Same as me."
-o-
When Jemma let Detective Triplett in with the cold takeout he was intent on apologizing for, he didn't even get a word out because his eyes were drawn to the huge white board Jemma had pulled into the middle of the room. Jemma hurried back to Fitz's side, adding the word "Raina" with a little crown to the middle. Her name was written just above the words Lake Lerna Industries. Lines connected the company to several of the missing people. Each of the missing people had special skills listed next to them.
Triplett whistled at the list of deceased on one side of the board and possible suspects on the other.
"You two have been busy."
"Fitz found a connection. Something is definitely going on with this company." Jemma smiled broadly at the other man, who was scratching the back of his neck with a dry erase marker, an equally wide smile on his own face.
"Well, Jemma had a lot o' input. She put quite a bit o' it together."
Triplett raised an eyebrow. If he wasn't so interested in the amount of information up on that board, he would have been worried about how comfortable Fitz and Dr. Simmons were standing in front of said board listing a bunch of potential victims and their murderers. "Should I leave you two alone for a little while longer? Can I come back and you can have the whole thing solved so all I have to do is present it to the chief?"
"Erm – you might want to hold off on that," Jemma told him. "There's a problem."
"What kind of problem?" Triplett resignedly dropped the food onto her kitchen counter. He popped open a container and bit into a spring roll. He didn't care if it was cold. He was starving. And tired of tea. At the sight of the spring roll, Fitz bounded over to his side and grabbed one as well.
"A few of these people," Jemma gestured to their list of victims, "their bodies were found in Brooklyn, and all of their deaths were ruled accidental, though I'm fairly certain this one was poisoned and this one had no history of drug use before he overdosed and this woman here, she was obviously strangled, but her death was ruled a suicide and – "
Triplett's head was starting to spin at the information.
"Jemma." Fitz held a container out to her as he said her name, and she crossed the room to take it from him gratefully, halting in her recap.
"The point," she said with a nod of thanks to Fitz, "is that the same police officer was the first responder in every single one of the Brooklyn cases that we think are related." She grabbed chopsticks from the bag and took a bite of noodles.
"You let her look at the files, didn't you?" Triplett deadpanned.
"That would be wrong," Fitz answered in the same tone, decisively shoving the rest of the spring roll into his mouth so he couldn't say anything else.
Triplett sighed, leaning back on the counter. If they couldn't take the case to the police, it wasn't going to matter that a civilian had helped. At least, that was what he told himself. "Who is it?"
"Peter Kaminsky," Jemma told him. "He's responsible for the very thin files on five of those missing people, including Dr. Streiten."
"Is that name supposed to mean something to me?"
"Dr. Streiten used to work for a highly successful chemical company, but he was recruited by Lake Lerna Industries and never heard from again until his body was fished out of the river." Jemma pointed to the middle of the board. "It all seems to go back to that company. But the company also doesn't seem to exist. You google it, and there's nothing anywhere. At least, not so far."
"Alright…" Triplett chewed thoughtfully, skimming the information on the board. "If it all goes back to the company, who's the queen in the middle?"
"I told ye he would get it," Fitz remarked around a mouthful of food, gently elbowing Jemma in the side. She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Raina. Tha's tha alias she seems ta use most often. We donnae know her real name, where she's from, or wha' she wants, but she pops up all over these cases."
"I think I've met her," Jemma added in a small voice. "In a café. She asked Skye to get into her cheating husband's email. The witnesses are right. She's very pretty. Dark skin. Curly hair. Large eyes. Soft voice. She seemed so nice… but she was very insistent that her husband was cheating."
"Jasper Sitwell. He's an executive a' tha company where Jemma works."
"But I tried to find any mention of him having a wife in the company's social calendar, and I can't find anything. I think she's after him too."
"Then we need to get to him first," Triplett said. "Find out what it is these people are really after." Triplett grabbed the tray of chicken and broccoli and read while he ate. "You're sure all of these people are connected to Skye being missing?"
"Yesh." Fitz spoke around a mouthful of food and swallowed before he continued. "No' sure wha' their endgame is, but look a' these people." He gestured to the skills alongside many of the victims. "Genius level IQs, thieves, hackers, even a former weapons dealer. Most of 'em only las' a few months before they wind up dead though."
"We can't let anyone else end up like that," Jemma cut in. "We have to stop them."
"We?" Triplett turned around and looked at the two of them. Fitz was staring at Jemma with the expression of a lovesick puppy while she watched him with bated breath. The guy hadn't even known her for a full 24 hours and he had it bad. "There's something you two haven't thought of."
"We know Jemma isnae a cop, but I think we're goin' ta need her help. We donnae know how many Kaminskys are out there."
"That's not what I meant." Triplett calmly took another bite of his chicken, chewing thoroughly and swallowing before he went on. "Did either of you stop to consider that Skye might not be a victim?"
Fitz didn't answer, but Jemma was quick to defend her friend.
"That's ridiculous. Skye isn't a criminal."
Triplett stared at her in disbelief.
"Well, yes, technically, she is a criminal. I'm sure a lot of her activities are very illegal. But Skye wouldn't kill people!" When Jemma turned to Fitz for support, he picked at the food in his hands instead, not saying anything. "You can't possibly think that!"
"She left everything behind and the only sign of a struggle is her broken necklace. Nothing else is out of place. How do you know she didn't just pick up and get out? Maybe you were the original target, not Sitwell. Maybe she couldn't get to you – "
"She had an entire year to get to me. And it's not like she befriended me. I approached her at the diner. I'm the one who asked her to stay," she protested. Triplett had to be wrong. "And what would they even need me for? It's not like I'm some criminal mastermind!"
"Maybe it's something yer company is manufacturin'." Fitz wanted them to stop focusing on whether or not Skye was actually a victim. The point here was that whoever these people were, they wanted something. "They work on anythin' dangerous?"
"It's a pharmaceutical company, everything could be dangerous. Anything not administered in the proper dosage, anything that's in its testing stages, I'm sure there are probably classified contracts too. It could be anything." Jemma shrugged, her eyes still hard and angry. "And I probably wouldn't have access to anything important. Right now, I'm mostly working on data entry. Everything's coded. There's no real information that I would have."
"But Skye could have got you access," Triplett pressed. "She could have hacked her way in, used you to get whatever it was they need."
Jemma shook her head, but her eyes opened wider and she gasped. "Sitwell's the executive in charge of our branch though. If they had access to him, they wouldn't need anybody else. He should have clearance to access everything in the company." Her knees buckled slightly and Fitz grabbed her arm, leading her to a chair. "He literally has every document, every study, at his fingertips. But it would all have to be accessed from his office. It's a closed network."
"We jus' need ta get inta his office then, get access to his files?" Fitz left his hand on Jemma's shoulder, not quite willing to let her go just yet.
"How?" Triplett took a seat on the couch now, elbows on his knees, his tray of food forgotten on the table. "We can't just walk in and question him. You can't walk in at all. We need you in the crime lab tomorrow. Or today. Make sure everything you had your friend look into doesn't stay in the system if we don't know who we can trust. If we're doing this, we don't trust anyone outside of this room, you guys got it?"
They both nodded their heads.
"Okay." Triplett nodded. "Then we're doing this. Did your friend ever call back with any matches on the prints?"
"Yeah. We go' one tha' flagged. A missing kid. Disappeared from his family home in Wyoming when he was fifteen after tryin' ta burn the house down with his brother inside. Name's Grant Ward."
"Jesus." Triplett breathed into his hands.
"Tha' was almost fifteen years ago. He hasnae been seen since. Family's never heard anythin' from him. He's the longes' missing connected to tha case. If he tried ta burn his brother alive at fifteen, who knows wha' he's capable o' now?"
Jemma's hands were shaking, so she crossed her arms, trying to hide it from them.
"One of us can stay with you until morning," Triplett offered.
She shook her head. "I'm all right. If they wanted me, they had plenty of time to get me." She took a breath. "I think I have a way to get one of you into Sitwell's office though."
-o-
Skye rubbed her wrist distractedly and eyed the can of soda that had been offered to her.
"I'm not thirsty."
Raina smiled at her, sliding into a seat at the table, keeping her face open and kind. She had always been good at this. Skye was going to do what she wanted her to do. It was only a matter of time.
"I am sorry about the cuffs. But as I said, we had to be sure you weren't going to get violent."
"Right. Wouldn't want me to do any permanent damage to your face," Skye snapped at her, but she kept her hands close, not lunging for Raina like she wanted to. She wanted to know exactly what these people wanted from her, exactly how much danger she was in, before she tried anything drastic. She'd been in trouble plenty of times, but she'd never been kidnapped by a bunch of crazy people before.
"I do happen to like my face," Raina agreed, her smile turning into a sly smirk. "What do you know about the work your roommate does?"
"Nothing. Science was never my thing."
"Well, allow me to explain a few things. The company she works for, they develop drugs to heal the sick."
Skye rolled her eyes as Raina spoke, but she didn't say anything.
"Your roommate, she's pretty low level right now, but she's on the fast track to be great. One day, she could cure Alzheimer's. Parkinson's. Different kinds of cancer. She's very smart. A genius, really."
Skye curled her fingers into her palms, nails biting into her skin.
"We wanted Dr. Simmons, but she was a little harder for us to get to. She's not as willing to meet new people." Raina blinked slowly at Skye's discomfort. "I don't mean to imply that you are… easy to get to." She allowed the words to settle into the air around them and Skye sat up straighter in her seat, reaching forward and popping open the top of the can of soda.
"Yeah… you aren't doing a great job at buttering me up. Just tell me what it is you really want."
"We want to change the world, Skye. And we want you to help us."
"How am I supposed to do that?"
"There is a drug in development. Our intel indicates that it was intended as a treatment for Multiple Sclerosis, but the drug did something unexpected. It didn't target and block the proper pain receptors when tested. It targeted and eliminated all pain receptors. We want it."
"Why?"
"Skye, can you not imagine what the world would be like if no one experienced pain? There would be no wars of retaliation, no heartbroken girlfriends plotting revenge, and if violence was necessary to halt any kind of crimes, those in law enforcement would be much more efficient if they didn't have to stop their jobs from a punch to the gut. There would be no nightmares to keep you up at night, no more wondering why your foster parents didn't want to keep you. Everything would be beautiful."
Skye shook her head. "That's crazy. We need pain. It's important. It helps us push through."
"We don't need pain. We've been conditioned to believe that pain makes us appreciate the good. It just gets in the way." Raina cocked her head to one side, reaching up to adjust the red rose she had tucked into her hair. "But if you believe pain is the great motivator, I have another proposition for you." She paused, waiting for Skye's eyes to meet hers. "You help us get this drug. You find where the samples are being stored, or hack in and get us the chemical formula, and we won't hurt the budding science genius Dr. Jemma Simmons."
Skye swallowed down the rest of the can of soda in quick gulps. She had been very careful in her life to never have anyone close enough that could be used against her.
"I'm going to need a computer," she whispered. "And I'm going to have a few conditions."
-o-