"Agent Danvers."
"Ma'am."
Alex nodded at the agents greeting her as she passed them by. They looked her in the eyes, and Alex recognized the same loyalty and trust that she often saw in the field. It touched her that her team could look past her disability, and still saw her as their superior.
She felt Maggie's arm rest on her back, and knew that the detective felt uncomfortable. She was probably nervous – Alex was nervous too. But mostly, she was just glad to get back on her feet again.
"Milo." Alex greeted a man as she guided Maggie into the Engineering department – a large room that looked similar to Alex's lab, but much more crammed with all sorts of devices and machines that Maggie didn't recognize.
She didn't have time to dwell on it, however, as the guy looked up from the computer screen he'd been studying, and nodded politely. "Alex."
Maggie had never seen the man before, but she noticed how familiar he and Alex seemed. They must work together a lot, she figured. Because the first thing Alex did was move towards him and lean over to take a look at the computer screen herself.
Always micromanaging.
"What's the latest?" Alex asked, as she tried to make sense of the words flitting over the screen.
Milo sighed. "We won't know for sure until we test it. And we were going to test it on another subject first. But – seeing how impatient you are, I guess we'll have to wing it."
"Wing it?" Maggie piped up from her position near the door. Milo looked up to face her, and his face stretched into a smile. "Don't worry, detective. I'll make sure to leave your girlfriend in one piece. Well, two pieces."
Maggie's eyes narrowed. Just because Alex had been making jokes about it didn't make it okay for him. It was a huge deal of trauma, it had to be. So she tensed up, and opened her mouth to snap at him, when Alex interjected quickly. "Ha. Good one."
Maggie glanced at Alex, and saw that the agent had moved towards an examination table in the center of the room, jumping to sit on top of it. There was a smile on her face, so at least that meant that she hadn't been offended.
She had to remember that the guy probably knew Alex far longer than she did. Instead, she settled on staying back and not getting in their way as they continued their conversation about bugs, neurological transmitters, impulses and other terminology that went over her head, clutching the trash bag with the case files she'd brought to the DEO in her hands.
Milo nodded at something Alex had said, and turned back to his screen. "So, it's a two-part operation. First the implant, then the attachment of the transmitters and the prosthetic itself." He wheeled himself closer to Alex on his rolling chair. "Can you take your pants off?"
"Yeah, of course." Alex said, moving down to unbutton her jeans. Maggie was now absolutely torn between staying and leaving. She was sure that Alex could handle it – seeing as how she already appeared an expert on the procedure itself - but she didn't want to leave her alone either.
Her dilemma was answered when Alex looked up at her. "Babe, could you help me with my pants?"
Maggie cleared her throat quickly. "Sure."
She walked towards Alex and gently eased her out of her pants, folding them up and putting them beside her on the table. As she turned to walk back to her spot near the door, she felt Alex grabbing her hand. A silent plea. Stay with me, hold my hand.
Maggie complied.
Milo sighed. "I paged the rest of the team, they should be here in 15 minutes, at the latest."
"How long is it going to take?" Alex asked, as Maggie felt her squeeze her hand. Maggie gave a quiet squeeze back, to indicate that she was there if she needed anything.
"Both phases combined, I'd say we're looking at about four hours. Inserting and attaching is one thing, but we need to monitor and test closely to ensure that everything is installed correctly."
"If you get this right, you're a genius, Milo."
The man laughed. "Always happy to be of service. Do you want to see it before we begin?"
Alex nodded quickly. He opened up a panel in the wall with a code pressed into a nearby keypad. As the panel moved away, both women stared at the object in front of them.
It was nearly identical to a real severed leg. The skin looked completely realistic, and seemed adapted to Alex's skin tone and shape. Milo grabbed it from its casing, and walked towards them, to show the leg in comparison to the other.
Maggie could barely tell the difference.
"Unbreakable titanium." Milo showed, as he knocked on it. "Completely water and damage resistant. And we're able to close the feedback loop, so it'll work like an actual leg. It'll tell you when it's cold, hot, when it's feeling pressure. The only thing it can't feel is pain."
Alex nodded. "So, I won't have to take it off?"
"I'd still advise to take it off once in a while, but in theory you should be able to keep it on for everything, yes."
Alex glanced sideways towards Maggie, but frowned when she saw tears in Maggie's eyes. She squeezed her hand again. "Hey, are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah…" Maggie quickly dabbed at her cheeks. "Sorry, I'm just…"
Alex smiled. "… Emotional that I'm getting another leg?"
"God, you're the one sitting here and I'm making it all about me." Maggie shook her head, but Alex was having none of it. "No, hey, this is important for you too, of course this is about you. But be happy, okay? I finally won't have to hop around the apartment anymore."
Maggie laughed through her tears, and bit her lips as Alex leaned forward to kiss her. "This is good, babe. This is fixing things."
She doubted their trauma could be wiped away with a new leg, but Maggie understood where Alex was coming from. If she didn't have to look down at the empty space where her foot once had been, it was the first step forward for her.
"I'll be able to go home tonight, right?" Alex said carefully, not wanting to get disappointed. Milo looked up from his screen once again. "That depends on the tests, Alex. If something's wrong with the implant or the prosthetic itself and the connection has issues, then we'll have to keep you here until we have everything greenlit."
Alex turned to Maggie again. "Hey, why don't you work on your thing, okay? Get some more insights. You don't have to stay here to see them do it, and I'll be under anyway."
Maggie bit her lip again, looking uncertain. "Are you sure?"
"Positive. Now go, you'd better have made some progress once I wake up. Then maybe we can finally go out for dinner again."
The detective nodded, and gave Alex a goodbye kiss. The agent looked her in the eyes. "You can use my lab, if you want. I'll tell them to keep you posted. And nobody else will disturb you unless it's an emergency."
After that, Maggie turned around, the trash bag in her arms, and made her way out of the room, to Alex's lab on the other side of the corridor. It felt comforting knowing that she was only going to be a mere 25 feet away from Alex, just in case something happened. But in the meantime, the familiar surroundings of Alex's workplace, where she herself had spent countless hours watching in awe how her smart girlfriend worked and researched, where she'd bent her over her own desk and made love to her, were helping to soothe her nervousness.
6 days left.
She started by walking over to the screen on the wall, and frosting the glass around her to make it opaque. The less anybody knew about what she was doing, the better. After that, she got to work.
She started with the profiles of the women, based on what she knew from the case file.
The first murder had been Brittany Armstrong, a 41-year old nurse. Married, with two children. Last seen exiting the hospital after her shift, earlier that day.
The second one was Caroline Woodson, 22. She was a stripper, performing in a bar in one of the rougher neighborhoods of National City. Her stage name was Dakota, and she was a patron favorite, taken in the middle of her shift when she went outside to smoke.
The third victim was Ella Sands, 17. The only underage victim. It hit Maggie like a punch to the gut. The girl was a model student, straight A's, and was well on her way to a full ride to the university of her choice. She'd had a bright future. All ripped away when she never showed up to pick her little brother up after school.
The last woman was Florence Bates, a 39-year old event manager at a hotel in the financial district. She was a lesbian, and had left behind her wife of 3 years. She was notably the only one that had been taken out of her routine – she was at a restaurant with her wife to celebrate their upcoming anniversary. According to the testimony of the spouse, Florence had seen someone she recognized at the entrance, and had walked up to say hello. The wife hadn't suspected anything odd, but when she didn't return after a few minutes, she found her wife had completely vanished.
Maggie put all of their photos up on the opaque glass of the lab, and stepped back. All four of them couldn't be more different. Yet there had to be a physical link between them that would lead to the killer.
Her police instincts told her to go after the last case – it was the one where the killer had stopped, so something had to have happened there. The fact that the victim apparently recognized someone also raised a red flag in her mind.
But with the case being five years old, Maggie doubted she would get anything from the spouse. The woman had probably moved on already, maybe even remarried. Revisiting that would be entirely too painful for the little information she would receive.
She grabbed a marker from Alex's supply, and added two names to the list – Ian and Joan Hayes.
Ian had stuck his nose where it didn't belong, that much was sure. But why did Joan get disposed of? What had she seen that the killer deemed too dangerous?
She went to the computer in the corner. Usually, with a case like this, the NCPD analysts would run background checks on all of the victims to see what connected them. But it was grasping at straws – the connection could go anywhere from having gone to the same kindergarten class, to seeing each other at a party one time, to sharing the same hairdresser. It was a needle in a haystack.
That's where the good old fashioned detective work came in. The part Maggie was good at. Getting information by waving a picture and a 20 dollar bill around in front of the right people's faces.
Okay. Now that she had the profiles, she needed to dive in deeper.
She started off with what she did know – the crime scenes.
She printed out a map of National City, four different times. One for each victim.
Using markers and drawing lines, she got to work on each victim's residence, place where they were presumably taken, and dump site, hoping to see a pattern emerge. But at first glance, there didn't seem to be anything connecting them.
As she stepped back to try and get a new idea, her eyes landed on the two other case files. The Magh'rah, and the unknown predator-drugging case.
If Ian had thought that the cases were connected, that would mean that the Magh'rah was responsible for the murders, and also for the drugging of that woman.
The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. The Magh'rah could shapeshift, which explained why none of the disappearances ever got noticed. If he'd morphed into somebody they knew and trusted, of course they would go along without a problem.
It would also explain why the drugged woman didn't remember anything about her night. After all, he'd done the same to Alice the night she and Finley had been at the cabin. Wipe their memory from the day before, and have them wake up somewhere else.
Had he been practicing before he moved on to the real work?
Immediately, a plan started forming in her mind. As painful as it was, and as much as she dreaded it…
She had to go interrogate the Magh'rah.
She knew that he was being detained at a DEO black site, but she doubted it was this one.
Though conveniently, she was in the right place to find out. The only thing she had to do was get into the mainframe, and search the records of alien detention.
Of course, she didn't have the clearance level to access it.
But Alex did.
She logged onto Alex's computer, and saw to her frustration that she needed a keycard to get access to the terminal.
She locked the door behind her, and slipped back into the engineering lab.
Her stomach jumped at the sight in front of her. As much as Alex had smiled about it earlier, it was hard to see her lying on the table, sedated and unmoving, as five people were swarmed around her, drilling holes in her knee and monitoring a screen on the wall that showed a miniature camera feed.
Maggie tried not to make any noise as she walked towards Alex's discarded clothes, folded neatly on a tray. The man from earlier – Milo – noticed her, as he nodded. "Everything's going smoothly, detective."
"Great. Thank you." Maggie smiled weakly, as she finally fished Alex's keycard out of her jacket, and ran back out of the room. She feared that they would ask questions, but given the focused state that they were in, she knew she'd gotten away with it the second she was back outside.
Logging on to Alex's computer was a breeze, and seeing as how Alex had the highest clearance level on site, she had access to every single DEO mission and piece of intel they had. Though she had better things to do than browse.
She cross-references the detention records with the date of the night in Montana, and found the alien quickly. He was held at a site labeled DX0.
It took her all of five minutes to get the location of that specific site. It was about sixty miles away from National City, in the middle of the desert. She knew that she'd never make it back on time without Alex growing suspicious, or being disappointed and worried about Maggie not being there when she woke up.
But fortunately, Maggie had a back-up plan. One that involved another white lie. And another Danvers sister.
She reached for her phone, and dialed Kara's number, running out of Alex's lab and closing the door behind her. The only thing she'd need from Kara was a ride, and her clearance level, so that the guards wouldn't ask questions.
If she could pretend that she needed closure with the Magh'rah, and get five minutes alone with him…
"Hey Kar? It's Maggie. I need you, can you meet me at the DEO?"
After a confirmation and an ETA from Kara, Maggie hung up the phone, glancing at the door separating her from Alex.
If all it took for them to finally close the scariest chapter of their lives was another confrontation with the alien that had caused all of her nightmares and fear, well…
Then Maggie wasn't backing down.