CHAPTER 6: INTEGRATED

I stared openmouthed at Admiral McGee, a mirror expression of Gibbs. He had no hair, his skin was deathly pale, and his face was sunken in. If I didn't know his story, I may well have believed he had come back from the grave. Neither Alexandersen nor Sarah understood what was happening. Admiral McGee clearly wasn't sure what to make of the spectacle either. He looked around at us all with half a smile before focusing back on Gibbs. "Well, come on, Agent Gibbs, I was hoping when I saw you that you'd be able to tell me what the hell was going on."

Gibbs took a moment to respond. "Admiral, I really don't have an answer for you." The shock of seeing the admiral, despite him having died in the show some six years ago, had not abated.

Admiral McGee nodded, although he seemed to be growing frustrated. "I knew you were never a loose-tongued devil, but I always took you to be more grounded than my son." He then looked around at Alexandersen. "This son of a bitch over here, I can't wait to have his badge."

"Uh huh, sure," Alexandersen bit back, entirely unafraid. "Let me know how that works out for you."

"Oh, I will," Admiral McGee responded, his anger mounting. "I see a flash of light, I end up in Bloomington, so I go to the police like any rational person would do. Next thing I know, this genius shows up, shoves me into the back of his car in handcuffs and is taking me to a penitentiary, spouting some nonsense about impersonating an admiral."

"Yeah, it wasn't actually nonsense, though," Alexandersen countered.

"Oh, no, it was complete nonsense," Admiral McGee affirmed. "I am United States Admiral John McGee, and I will be given the respect of that title."

"Yeah, except Admiral John McGee doesn't exist," Alexandersen stated.

"Alright, look, we'll talk about this later," Sarah interjected. "We need to start heading back."

"Oh, okay, sure," Alexandersen said in a mockingly polite tone. "Let me just have a bunch of fake people, a bunch of characters go running around doing whatever they feel like. Nah, man, you all are coming with me back to DC. Homeland Security can sort you out."

"That's not a good idea," Gibbs said warningly.

Alexandersen rounded on him. "Really? Why not?"

"Well, what was your first thought when we told you what was happening?" Sarah asked.

"That y'all were crazy," Alexandersen answered. "Or on a lot of drugs."

"Yeah, and so what do you think will happen if you tell your bosses about it?" I asked.

"You'd be benched," Gibbs answered with certainty. "You'd be submitted for a psych eval, probably lose your badge. That worth it to you?"

Alexandersen scowled at him. Admiral McGee looked between them, not quite sure what to make of this exchange. Alexandersen gave this some thought, and after some intense deliberation with himself, he finally conceded. "Alright, fine," he said sourly. "You all are free to go." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, which he handed to Gibbs. "If anything more than agents and admirals appear, you better give me a call."

Gibbs took the card, nodding as Alexandersen walked over to Admiral McGee. He unlocked the Admiral's handcuffs, and McGee gave him a withering look while massaging his wrists. The Admiral walked over to Gibbs, surveying him with a somewhat confused expression. Alexandersen watched us as we led the Admiral back into our car. Gibbs opened the back door for him, allowing him to climb in while Sarah and I got into the passenger's seat and driver's seat respectively. Gibbs climbed in across from the Admiral, and I gave one last look to Alexandersen as he leaned against the hood of his own car.

I pulled the car around and began the drive back to Veedersburg. Admiral McGee spent a lot of time analyzing Sarah and I. Sarah glanced at him through the rearview mirror every so often, but neither of them said anything.

Gibbs looked the Admiral up and down, examining his Navy uniform. "I take it you're still keeping with your Admiral duties."

Admiral McGee didn't look at him. "I've served the Navy practically my whole life. I'll continue to do so for as long as I'm able." Gibbs nodded, refraining from pursuing the subject. "How is my boy, Special Agent Gibbs?" Admiral McGee asked, looking at Gibbs for the first time. "Last we spoke, he was telling me about your stint in Russia. Shot down inside of a helicopter. Couldn't believe it."

"Yeah," Gibbs said. "There was a lot to it. Tim performed excellently."

"Well good, I'm glad to hear that," Admiral McGee said. Although his tone conveyed something more along the lines of He damn well better have.

The Admiral then continued surveying us. "So, I caught a little bit of your conversation with that agent," he said. "But I still didn't really get a whole lot of answers as to what's happening. Would one of you like to tell me how I got here?"

"It's a lot to explain," I told him.

"I heard that," the Admiral said with slight aggravation. "Try me, I'm a smart guy. I can keep up."

"Okay, you ever heard the multiverse theory?" Sarah asked.

Admiral McGee's mouth split into a skeptical smile. "Yeah, sure," he said. "On one of Tim's games." He said this with cold condescension, as if such things as video games were objects of greatest shame.

"Well, turns out it's not a video game," Sarah said shortly. "You left your universe and came to ours. Lucky us."

Admiral McGee cracked a smile at this, Sarah's cold sarcasm not lost on him. I knew Sarah had never actually watched a full episode. She'd only caught a bit here and there that I was watching on occasion. She had no idea how Admiral McGee was portrayed in the series. It was interesting to me that she had already taken such a strong disliking to him. Throughout the rest of the drive home, Gibbs and Admiral McGee had idle discussion. I noticed that Gibbs made no mention of the Admiral having passed away in their universe. We pulled back into our house, and Gibbs helped the Admiral out of his seat. The Admiral was weak, walking slowly and requiring support from surrounding objects to make his way to our door.

I opened the door and allowed everyone to file in. I gave a furtive nod to Gibbs, but he didn't so much as glance at me as he walked through. Sarah, having not noticed this, gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before walking in as well. The Admiral nodded, although it didn't seem he could do much more than this as he stumbled in. When we arrived into the kitchen, we found Luca reading a book at our kitchen table while Sloane was watching TV in the living room. They both looked around when we walked in, and Sloane got up to walk over and meet us. She spotted the Admiral as he came in, and she looked quite perplexed. She glanced at Gibbs who whispered in her ear, "Admiral John McGee."

Sloane's eyes slowly widened as she processed this, but she quickly smoothed out her expression as she shook hands with the Admiral. Luca waved awkwardly, and the Admiral sat down roughly at the kitchen table. We had hardly had time to consider what to do for dinner when a portal opened in our living room. We all looked around, and while most of us regarded this with little acknowledgement, Admiral McGee looked on in stupefied shock. I figured he would have shot to his feet if he had had the energy. Theas stepped out of the portal just as it closed, and he looked around at us.

"I see you all have been busy," he said to us. He did a headcount before spotting Admiral McGee. In reference to his astonished expression, Theas said, "I take it some explanation would be...oh."

Theas's face fell as he took in the Admiral's deteriorated appearance. Admiral McGee scoffed. "Yeah, cancer's a really interesting dance partner. Sure gives me a run for my money."

Theas composed himself, and he said, "Gosh, I'm sorry. I sometimes forget that illnesses are a thing."

He typed on his wristwatch before pointing it at the Admiral. Blue light washed over Admiral McGee, and he let out a sharp moan. The effect was instantaneous. Color flooded his complexion. His posture eased and he sat up taller. His very molecules seemed to liven up as the cancer inside him died. Admiral McGee looked down at himself as though he had been reborn. One would think he didn't recognize himself by the awestruck expression he had when looking at his hands. It took almost a minute, but when he looked back up at Theas, his eyes swelling with tears, he had lost all ability to speak.

Theas gave a passive nod, as though he had done as much as picked up a pen the Admiral dropped.

"Alright, listen," Theas said to the room at large. "I said there was more I wanted to talk to you about, so now's the time we get into it." We all listened, waiting in anticipation. "The Universal Keepers have been investigating the cause of what's happening. The short story is, it's going to take longer than we thought to solve the problem, mostly because we don't know what the problem is."

"Well, how do Anomalies usually happen?" Luca asked.

"Most of the time it's just because somebody's powers got out of control," Theas explained. "But when that happens, it leaves traces. It leaves behind something we can track back to the person that did it and we can shut it down that way. That's not what's happening here. I've looked over the Anomalies for the last century, and there's nothing like what's happening now."

"So, you have no idea who's causing this," Admiral McGee summarized.

Theas thought about this. "I don't think it's so much a matter of who," he stated. "I think it's a what. I think a device did this. What, why, or how is still anybody's guess, but we're still in the beginning stages of the investigation. We'll turn up more eventually."

"Alright, so is that it?" Gibbs asked.

"Not at all," Theas answered. "I'm sure some of you have realized by now that you're in a bit of a precarious situation." I glanced around at everybody and saw that Gibbs, Sloane, Luca, and the Admiral were all equally likely to hit Theas. Theas was not phased by this. "Since this deal isn't going to get wrapped up in the next few hours, you're all going to be stuck here for a while."

"Uh, excuse me?" Sloane interjected. "How does that work?"

"As we've quite clearly seen, our previous occupations don't hold a lot of weight here," Admiral McGee said, somewhat disdainfully.

"And so we arrive at my point," Theas stated. "I've talked it over with my supervisor, and she agreed that it would be necessary to provide you all assistance in establishing yourselves."

"Oh," Luca said, sounding as though many of his sources of stress had been alleviated.

"How so?" Gibbs asked.

"Well, the short version is, we're offering you all jobs," Theas announced.

The six of us looked around at each other and it didn't seem that any of us had quite registered this. Sarah was the first to respond. "A job doing what?"

"Well, massive Anomalous situations like this are rare," Theas explained. "But smaller Anomalies are actually quite common. The Universal Keepers have quite a job of making sure everything gets cleaned up."

"Okay, and what's that got to do with us?" Admiral McGee asked, as though even this line of questioning was an offense to everything he stood for.

"It's actually quite simple," Theas stated. "You do work for us, we give you ample compensation to help you establish yourselves here."

"What, like hunting down Anomalies?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing dangerous," Theas assured us. "It's more manual labor than anything else. But there's more. Since we figure you all are as anxious to get back home as anyone, we thought we'd employ you to help us research the cause of your displacement and how to fix it. For that, it seems most efficient to split you all into two groups." We all listened, and while Theas had our attention, none of us were quite sure what to make of this pronouncement. "We'll do it this way," Theas continued. "There will be the Anomaly Response Team, led by Gibbs and consisting of Jack and Sarah. Then, there will be the Research and Investigation Team, led by Luca and consisting of Jacqueline and John."

"Uh, what?" Luca said, certain he had misheard. "Led by me?"

"We've done in-depth analysis of all of your personalities, skills, and accomplishments throughout your whole lives and made the decision based on who was most capable," Theas stated. "Luca, you're the smartest one here. I'm here to tell you you're the right guy for this."

Luca gawked at Theas. He had quite plainly never had this kind of acknowledgement in his whole life. Sloane was beaming at him, and while the Admiral didn't show much emotion to this, it did not appear he had any intention of contesting it.

"So, are you taking them back to your headquarters?" Gibbs asked.

"No," Theas answered. "No, we'll be providing all of the equipment they'll be needing to work right here."

"Uh," Sarah said, as she and I exchanged looks. "How's that going to work?"

"Well," Theas said with a certain twinkle in his eye, "I hope you don't mind, but I've made some modifications to your basement."

Sarah and I looked at each other again. "We don't have a basement," I informed Theas.

Theas smiled at us, and he pointed to a door off of the kitchen that had absolutely not been there when we left this morning. Sarah and I moved slowly towards the door, jaws hanging open, and she stood behind me while I placed my hand on the doorknob. My breathing was slow and deep, and I turned the door handle and opened the door. Gibbs, Sloane, Luca, and Admiral McGee all rose to their feet, watching as the door revealed a set of stairs going down. Sarah and I descended the stairs, and when we saw what was at the bottom, our faces tumbled into shock.

It was plainly a research lab, but that was all I could describe. There were about a hundred different machines in here, most of which I had never dreamed of. On the opposite end of the room was a set of windows that shone bright with sunlight, despite the fact that this should have been entirely impossible since we were apparently underground. Luca was the first one to meet us in the lab, and he took in a sharp breath of surprise.

"I figured you'd feel at home in here," Theas said as he watched Luca with a grin.

Sloane, who wasn't as versed in physical sciences as Luca, was still flabbergasted at the sight of the lab. Admiral McGee looked around at the lab in awe, and he said under his breath, "Tim should be here to see this."

Sarah looked around at Theas and said, "How in the world did you do this?"

"I didn't in this world," Theas answered. "It's like I said, we have access to all of the technology in the multiverse, and we're not afraid to utilize it."

We all continued to explore the lab and all of its various amenities. Luca immediately went to a computer terminal and started typing furiously on it. I didn't even know where to begin to figure out how these machines worked.

"If you go further back, there are amenities for housing and recreation during your off time. This is where the Research and Investigation Team will do their work," Theas explained. He then turned to Sarah, Gibbs, and I. "Anomaly Response Team, are you ready for your first assignment?"