Please note, there's a very brief mention of a *real* tragedy in here, 9/11. It's slightly awkward to mix this kind of reality with the very-much fake stuff, so I just wanted to give a heads-up in case anyone is particularly sensitive regarding that event.
Beneath
Chapter Thirty-Three – Mass Casualty Incident
Jane watched Lucas slide away, an unexpected repeat of Thursday night. She'd been waiting to try to find the right time, to say it without it feeling awkward, without making him feel uncomfortable. But that…that had actually hurt. "I don't want to be your friend?" They'd been working together for almost two months, and sure, they argued sometimes, but they laughed sometimes too. Over time she'd broken down and shared some personal things with him, and he'd done the same with her. What was that if not friendship? She hadn't told anyone else here the things she'd told him. And she would've bet every last dime in her bank account that he hadn't told anyone else here the things he'd eventually told her. Maybe he didn't mean it. Maybe he was just defensive, maybe he didn't trust people after his experiences with his family. When the people you were supposed to trust the most violated that trust, how could you trust anyone else? She'd found it shockingly easy to mistrust every person here after her experiences with SHIELD…and SHIELD certainly had played no formational role with her.
Pushing off to follow the others across the packed snow, she wondered if it could be more than that. It was true that some people just really didn't connect with others well, or at all. One of Jane's college classmates had had Asperger's Syndrome, a kind of mild autism that sometimes made it difficult to interact socially with him, even though she considered him a friend and still kept in touch. Lucas didn't seem to have any difficulty interacting, though. He just seemed aloof; he chose not to interact much of the time.
What had he told her about Erik? "Stop worrying about him?" That's not normal. Who says things like that, when you're legitimately worried about your friend? There was something cold in it that rubbed her the wrong way.
Let this go. You can't fix everything, she told herself in one second. But he doesn't mean it. And everybody needs a friend, whether they admit it or not. She'd appreciated the breather from spending almost every waking moment with Lucas, but she strongly suspected that while she'd been ignoring her suspicions and getting to know more people here, he'd become completely isolated without her. And she'd missed him…sort of. After a few days of not putting up with his moods and combativeness all day, she'd found him remarkably easy to get along with when they caught each other up on their work or had dinner together.
And now this, she thought, glaring at his back. "I don't want to be your friend." As if they were ten years old or something, having some petty childish fight. But they hadn't even been arguing. There was definitely something strange about him. She remembered him wearing that baseball cap, how there'd been something so odd about it, something about the way it made him look.
Jane focused on her breathing, to slow it down now that she'd caught up with the others. The silver-gray of the station, illuminated by distinctive red lights, was coming into clearer view now through the haze of the ice crystals blowing about in the breeze. She spared a quick glance over at Lucas, whose profile she could just make out. She supposed she shouldn't blame him for any oddities. If her father – perish the thought! – had branded some mark into her wrist she'd probably be a little odd, too, she figured. Odder than I already am, she added, smiling as she took in her beautiful but stark surroundings.
/
/
The test did not go well. Loki and Jane launched their bare-bones probe late Monday morning after house mouse duties. Sent off with a slight increase in energy due to Loki's concerns about it having sufficient momentum – since he'd been stuck in Yggdrasil's trunk himself – it had indeed entered the wormhole, according to the data they reviewed that night. But Pathfinder had lost contact with the hollow probe's transmitter almost the instant it was swallowed up. There was no way to know what had happened to it, if it was still inside Yggdrasil, if it had reached Asgard or some other destination, if it floated aimlessly somewhere in space, or if it had been destroyed.
Loki kicked at the gray metal frame of the bed he stood near hard enough to break it, collapsing the bed on one end and causing Jane to jump in surprise. She tried to assure him that they would find the problem and fix it, that probably they needed to find a way to boost the power to the transmitter, that maybe they could reduce the amount of noise in the signal that Pathfinder was picking up, and probably a few more ideas she was ready to rattle off, but Loki stormed out of the jamesway before she could give them voice.
He went straight back to the station and up to his chambers to work on another battery and figure out how to make it more powerful. He vowed to neither eat nor sleep until he was done, and when he was, he would go find Jane and see if he could help somehow with the additional circuit boards she now had to make, and whatever other adjustments needed to take place.
Wednesday was the Mass Casualty Incident drill – which Jane didn't know – and Thursday was house mouse day again. Both would cost several hours. Too much time had passed already. He'd been here too long. He seethed in his room, yanking bits of plastic and wire and metal and random batteries from his desk drawer. He had burned with hatred, back on Asgard. Hatred and that awful longing, a misguided desire to prove himself. He had burned with it and Thor…Thor…after so little time here, so little time with her… "You can't destroy an entire race, Brother!" Can't you? So when you decide to kill them all with your bare hands it's Good and Right, but when I want to do it – cleanly, efficiently, thoroughly – it's Horrible and Wrong. But tell me this, Brother, which of us has more right to end them? Which of us has more right to hate?!
Loki slammed his fist down onto the desk, and, not constructed of the solid hardwoods of furniture on Asgard, the desktop split in half, dipping down into a wide V where his hand had landed.
"Do the Frost Giants still live, Father?" He still remembered asking this, as a boy, thinking with pride that perhaps his father had wiped them all out with his bare hands. Do the Frost Giants still live, Father? he asked again now in a mockery of his childish innocence. He had no idea how much damage he'd managed to do before Thor, kind, merciful Thor, had decided to destroy Asgard's only means of reaching all of the other realms. He loves the Frost Giants more than he loves you, Jane. Wouldn't you like to know that? Has he failed to mention it? You should see what they are. What he loves more than you.
Loki began to laugh, a laugh that would have looked like madness, had anyone been there to see it. I should show you what I am beneath all these lies. I should take you with me. Take you to Jotunheim, if anything remains of it. Show you what I've done to all the rest of them. We'll see what happens to your talk of friendship then, won't we?
Hideous, frightening, loathsome, this is what Jane would find them, until he spoke of erasing them from existence, and then, like Thor, she would suddenly feel the need to defend the creatures. Loki hoped that not one Frost Giant was left alive anywhere in the cosmos.
He looked down at his fist, still tightly clenched, pressed into the V of the broken desktop. He lifted it slightly, turned it over, slowly uncurled the fingers that had gone pale as death. He watched as blood returned, the red blood of the Aesir. Lies, all lies. From top to bottom, from inside to out. His gaze shifted to his left hand, in a loose fist pressing down against his leg. At least one Frost Giant still lives.
/
/
Quiet had fallen over Asgard.
Not a metaphorical calm-before-the-storm quiet, but a literal quiet. People whispered, doors were shut carefully or more often not at all, children were sharply scolded for any sort of ruckus, livestock owners who were able employed magic to silence roosters and cattle and sheep and anything else that might make noise. Despite the magic that ensured it would not happen, fear of missing the sounding of a ram's horn was widespread.
When all efforts to resolve the conflict before the deadline had failed, Asgardians stood ready for war. Portals were sealed, Einherjar posted as guards and look-outs, warrior battalions armed and staged at key locations across the realm.
The deadline came. The deadline went. A day passed, and then another day. Nothing happened. Asgard waited in a collective hush.
Odin had not left the throne room in all that time. The throne room, of course, was massive. Sometimes he sat on the throne itself. Other times he paced the long central path leading to it. Other times he brushed past the burnt-orange sheers hanging behind the assembly areas, the sheers that provided privacy to the entrance to his official study and a handful of other small rooms on one side and supply closets and the door to the private wing of the palace on the other. Still other times he held meetings in his study, re-read key passages of texts in his library, or stood at the public entrance to the grand hall, looking out at the largely empty streets leading to the palace.
Asgard would not attack first. Asgard – his foolish sons excluded – did not attack other realms except in its own defense or in defense of a third realm under attack. Thor was coming to understand this, with his sacrifice in the defense of Jotunheim, and although he'd been somewhat disappointed in Thor's suggestion of a preemptive strike against Svartalfheim, he'd understood it, and under other circumstances might even have agreed with it, for Thor was right in a sense; a glance about the city made it instantly clear Asgard was already under attack in a manner of speaking. But such a thing could certainly not be done now, not when Asgard's trustworthiness as protector of the Nine and guarantor of peace was the very thing brought into question.
Loki was another story entirely, Odin thought with a sigh as he again made his way from the throne to the wide public entrance. Loki had sought to bring upon the Jotuns destruction the likes of which not even the Jotuns themselves had ever sought against another. But the object of Loki's wrath, of the hatred that he'd felt in his son as he killed Laufey, that Thor had spoken of when describing their confrontation as Loki corrupted the bifrost, had not been the Frost Giants. Loki hadn't attacked Jotunheim. He'd attacked himself.
Thor didn't understand this, not even Frigga did, and Odin was unwilling to tell her. He hadn't even told her that Loki had deliberately let go of Gungnir, instead letting her believe he'd simply lost his grip, and Thor had gone along with it to spare his mother the pain of what, on Asgard, would be considered the most cowardly of cowardly acts. No one else had seen what Odin saw, the depths of Loki's anger and pain as he lashed out, as he called himself a monster. Odin had wanted to explain, to reassure, to comfort, but he'd never been good with words of that sort, not like Frigga, and the right words hadn't come, and the Sleep had dragged him under. The end, after he'd woken, when Loki had been dangling below a shattered bridge, had come too fast. He should have thought of something better to say, the perfect thing that would have assured Loki that he was not seen as different, much less as a monster, that he was not a war relic, that he was loved…but even now, months later, Odin didn't know what those words were that would have expressed all this, and he doubted Loki would have believed them anyway. At the time, he'd hoped he was conveying love with his eyes even as he spoke a painful truth…but he only had one eye. Maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe it never had been.
He reached the entry, really a long series of open porticos, designed to be easily adjusted depending on the palace's needs. Today they were all open to view in both directions: Odin could see out and his subjects could see in. Asgard has nothing to hide. Asgard has nothing to fear. It was an illusion, however. Thick layers of magic took the place of heavy doors, magic that permitted nothing through save air, and even that was purified as it passed through. Only Odin and five others he'd designated – Thor, Frigga, Senior Strategy Advisor Tyr, First Einherjar Hergils, and Chief Palace Einherjar Jolgeir, who'd had the thankless task of keeping watch over the Odinsons in their childhood and youth, long before attaining his current position – could come and go freely. Anyone else had to be granted verbal permission to enter by one of these six. Neither physical weapons nor bursts of magic lobbed at the throne room could penetrate the shielding.
Odin watched over his kingdom as darkness approached and muted city lights came on. Teams of women had the responsibility of quickly snuffing them out should a horn sound. At the foot of the obsidian stairs to the palace, Thor stood talking with his closest friends, and after a few minutes he looked up, saw Odin, and gestured for his friends to follow him up the stairs. He had spent his time since the crossing of the deadline rotating among the battalions and checking their readiness, greeting the Einherjar and ensuring they had not spotted even the most insignificant thing that they might have dismissed as the product of an overactive imagination, and flying over Asgard in grid patterns he and Tyr had determined. Neither of them had had a moment's rest and Odin suspected the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif had not either, though it was impossible to tell from the determination in their faces and in their brisk steps as they approached.
"Father," Thor said in greeting. Odin nodded, and Thor spoke the name of each of his friends and bade them enter.
"Rise," he told them after they all went to a knee as was custom in the throne room, even with the throne itself far in the distance. "All is quiet?"
"Too quiet, All-Father," Sif said.
"We are ready for whatever comes, Your Majesty," Fandral asserted. "But we are beginning to wonder when it will come," he added in a quieter voice.
"Do you think it could all be a bluff?" Thor asked, not truly believing it was possible even as he asked, but having begun to question it regardless.
"No," Odin murmured, completely still except for the slight movement of his lips and a ruffling of his hair in the light breeze as he kept watch over his realm.
"Then why do they not attack?" Volstagg asked.
"They wait for our vigilance to wane," Hogun said.
"Then we will disappoint them," Sif said, lifting her blade up to the torchlight that had just come on and inspecting it for imperfections yet again.
"A noble intention," Odin said, his gaze still locked out in the distance. "But no one can maintain this level of vigilance indefinitely."
"Heimdall can," Thor asserted. "He'll give us the warning we need to be prepared."
Odin exhaled deeply and let his attention drift from the city lights, whose path along the streets he'd been tracing. Regardless of how all this ended, he suspected that by the time it did Thor would have finally fully mastered a valuable lesson about overconfidence. He was king. Even to Thor, to his own son and heir, he was king. All of Asgard looked to him for leadership and courage and stability. For confidence. There were some things he simply could not say aloud. Some fears he could not voice. Thor would have to discover those things himself.
Odin turned to face him and put a hand on his shoulder. The lesson would likely be painful; lessons in overconfidence usually were. "I'm retiring to my chambers for dinner and some rest. We all must know and respect our limits while we still have that luxury. Get yourselves something to eat before you go out again," he said, stepping back from the group. "And work with Tyr to set up a schedule of shifts for our battalions. They'll have to sleep eventually, and I don't want them doing it all at once."
The five friends answered in a chorus of "Yes, All-Father" and one "Yes, Father," then stood in awkward silence as Odin left. Jolgeir then appeared from outside unnoticed, as he tended to do, another elite palace Einherjar at his side.
"Any change, Jolgeir?" Thor asked.
"None, my prince. We're simply making our evening rounds before we change to the night shift," he answered, gesturing the other man along his way; he took to the right and began walking the perimeter of the throne room in the direction of the private wing.
Thor nodded, and had an idea. "When you're done, can you meet us in the kitchens? We have to put the warriors on shifts of some sort as well, perhaps you can help."
Jolgeir nodded thoughtfully. "I suspect it isn't quite the same, but I would be honored to be of any assistance I can."
"Thank you, old friend," Thor said, his face lifting into a half-smile. "You have always been there when I needed you."
"Even when you didn't want me there," the Chief Palace Einherjar said with a light laugh.
"Off with you," Thor said, waving a hand out toward the throne room; with a chuckle Jolgeir headed off to the left in the direction of the offices.
Volstagg laughed as well, but it quickly became awkward and it died away. "Ah, Thor, I'm always in favor of a fine raid on a kitchen, but…shouldn't we get back out there? Wherever the attack comes, whenever it comes, it won't be in here."
Thor nodded. "I know. But we'll do as Father said. Go on to the kitchens; I'll go find Tyr and ask him to join us."
/
/
"Hey, what's up with you and all your scrounging around for stuff?"
Jane looked up from the box of wiring and copper plating odds and ends she was indeed scrounging around in. Wright had entered the Science Lab and was striding over to his desk, which was right next to the minimally-organized supply shelf she'd pulled the box from. He sat down to log onto his computer.
"I'm, uh, making a few upgrades to one of the devices I brought out here. Trying to, anyway." She put the box back on the shelf and stood; Wright's monitor caught her eye. "Is that your blog?" She knew Selby and Wright had started a joint blog for Wright's two sisters, both of whom were elementary school teachers who were teaching some science lessons through the South Pole experience. He'd asked at one point if she wanted to join it, too, but at that time she'd been avoiding everyone but Lucas.
"Yeah, one of the classes sent in some more questions. Thought I'd try to hammer out some answers. Wanna see?"
"Sure," Jane said, and came to watch over his shoulder as he slowly scrolled through the questions the kids submitted, third-graders this time. "Polar bears?" she read with a laugh.
"They're eight, Jane, give 'em a break. So they've got the wrong Pole."
"Hey," she said, swatting his shoulder with the back of her hand. "I wasn't making fun. It's great they're asking."
"Yeah, well, somebody asked last month, too. That and penguins. We get a lot of penguin questions."
"Mm-hm, makes sense. Right Pole, a liiiiiiittle too far from the water." Jane smiled as Wright scrolled up through the blog. Wouldn't it be nice to see a penguin, she thought, suddenly keenly missing the absence of signs of life here beyond the fifty residents for the first time. The closest we've got is that one in the Arts and Crafts Room, and it went missing. "Hey, stop," she suddenly said, something in a photo that went past grabbing her attention.
"What, this? It's from the sunset party."
"Yeah…hey, I'm sorry, Wright, but can you please take that picture down?" Jane asked, staring at the face in profile near the left edge of the frame.
"What? Why?"
"Um, it's…kind of hard to explain I guess, but Lucas is in it, and he really doesn't like having his picture taken. He's got family problems, and…it's personal, but he doesn't want his family to know where he is. Can you just take that one down? I'm sure you have some others, right?"
Wright looked up at her skeptically. "Family problems, huh? I'm not surprised he's got some sort of problems."
"Wright…"
"All right, all right, fine, I'll take it down. Although I highly doubt his family's going to stumble across this blog followed by precisely thirty-two people, twenty-two of them pre-teens. Hey, listen, you need any help with those upgrades?"
"What?"
"The upgrades, to one of your DIY-projects out there at the DSL. You need any help? I'm pretty good with-"
Jane and Wright both jumped at the blaring of the station's fire alarm. It was the week designated for the MCI drill, Wednesday, as it turned out, so both knew what this was. Their conversation was forgotten as they wished each other good luck and hurried out into the corridor with everyone else in the area, both down to their own rooms to get into their cold-weather gear.
The fire alarm fell silent before she reached her room. "The fire alarm has sounded in the elevated station, level one, B3 lounge," Rodrigo announced from Comms over the all-call loudspeakers, then repeated the same message. As Jane reached her room and started yanking on Carhartts and a sweater – and wondering why she had to even though she wasn't going to have to go outside – the fire alarm sounded again, alternating with Rodrigo's message, which next came in over the radio she now had clipped to the Carhartts.
Jane rushed on to the emergency equipment storage area and got into her bunker gear – light brown jacket and pants with reflective trim – the red flash hood which was similar to her balaclava but left more of the face exposed, the big black boots with yellow steel toes, and yellow helmet. Jane got her arms through the straps of the harness holding the air bottle to her back on with the help of fellow Fire Team member Su-Ji, and once she had it all cinched up she returned the favor. She grabbed a small emergency radio to clip to her jacket, a mask, a flashlight, a fire extinguisher, and an ax and took off toward the announced muster point in the gym across from the B3 lounge, Su-Ji close behind her.
When she reached the gym out of breath from the extra weight and reported to Gary, the Fire Team Leader, the area was already full of activity. The "Hasty Team" first responders were directing others to appropriate staging areas and Trauma Team members were arriving with first aid equipment and stretchers for the expected casualties.
"Comms, this is Gary, Fire Team is standing by with seven team members now present," Gary said into his station radio. He directed two firefighters in for the primary search, then turned to Jane and Su-Ji. "Foster, Lee, you're up."
Jane nodded, and it was like SHIELD's hastily-arranged fire training program all over again. She felt a rush of excitement race up her spine along with a sudden shot of adrenaline. It was all a drill, and although unlike in her fire training there wouldn't be any actual fire, still she wanted to do well, and there would be smoke and poor visibility…and Lucas, probably trying to make her life difficult. She and Sue did a quick buddy check on their gear, then pulled on their masks. Jane stepped into the hall, took an experimental breath, felt her lungs fill with air from the bottle on her back, and reached for the doorknob.
/
/
Loki and the other two victims helped Zeke move out of the lounge items the station wouldn't want to see actually damaged, like the flat-screen TV they'd watched Miracle on last week, then helped him set up an entire false wall along one side of the lounge. Zeke had rigged it with wiring and blinking red lights to vaguely simulate an electrical fire, "just for the heck of it," he'd said. Apparently Zeke, unlike Loki, didn't have anything better to do with his time. Loki shook his head and did what Zeke told him to do like the good little Midgardian assistant he was pretending to be. The final bit of preparation was for Zeke to turn on the smoke machine, a black metal box about the size of the toaster in the galley, then mutter under his breath when it took a couple of minutes to kick in. Loki had hoped to have a chance to examine how the thing worked, but Zeke had kept him too busy.
Zeke then left for Comms, one floor directly overhead, from which he would serve as "Incident Commander," while Loki and his fellow victims got into position on the floor and waited, Loki right behind a chair, not far from the "fire." Loki crossed his ankles and placed his hands over his chest, drumming his fingers there in annoyed boredom. A few seconds later the fire alarm sounded – an obnoxious overly loud raucous noise, familiar from a few false alarms – and then a message that seemed to repeat ad nauseum. And all Loki could do was lay there on the floor and listen. At least the floor wasn't terribly dirty. He knew, because he'd vacuumed it on Monday.
"This is a drill. This is a drill. All personnel not directly involved in the drill may stand down at this time," Zeke announced over the station's speakers.
And good thing it's a drill, Loki thought with a dark smile, since I've been lying here several minutes and no one has yet come to rescue me. He sighed. How ridiculous.
He heard noises at the door, then it opened and he heard two male voices, saying aloud as though reading from a script that there was too much smoke for them to go in, they'd have to wait for the Fire Team. Loki smiled at that, because that meant Jane. Even if he was now largely avoiding her, there was no reason he shouldn't take what enjoyment he could get from this, and he expected to get a number of good laughs at her expense from the whole experience.
Then, afterward, they would finish up the work necessary to try again to get the transmitter to work after entering – and exiting – Yggdrasil. He had already finished the battery; now that he knew how to reshape the original materials into their new structure it had taken him only a day, even with modifying it slightly to increase its power, partly through Midgardian technology and partly with an added wisp of magic. Jane's work on another set of circuit boards was going more quickly, too, and she had expected to be finished this afternoon. Of course, she hadn't known her work would be interrupted. She had e-mailed her Australian friend for permission to use one of his experimental filters on Pathfinder to help it focus in on the transmitter's signal, and Loki had already approved the e-mail, and, just before the start of preparations for the MCI drill, he'd also approved Young-Soo's response to Jane with his agreement. If Young-Soo hadn't agreed, Loki would have agreed for him; it was easily enough done.
After what seemed an interminably long time – given that he was supposed to be lying here helpless, dying of smoke inhalation – the door opened again, and, unfortunately again for himself if this were real, the two men began their search on the left side of the room. That meant they wouldn't find him or the source of the fire quickly.
"Ow!" one of his fellow victims called. Loki suspected he'd been kicked accidentally by men who couldn't see him lying on the ground. That began a flurry of radio communication, and then – if Loki stretched the limits of his vision to see through the smoke – one firefighter was helping the victim up and to the door, before rushing back in to continue the search with his partner. By then the second victim had already been found, but this one was in more serious condition and the firefighters called for a spine board just after two more firefighters entered and began moving quickly through the room to the right. Two short firefighters. Loki grinned and watched them from the floor. They spotted the "fire," communicated their discovery, and sprayed their chemical fire suppressant on it.
"You think that's supposed to be out?" a woman's voice said; Loki recognized it as Su-Ji Lee's, the woman working at MAPO, although it was muffled by her mask.
"I don't know. The light's still- wait, it stopped blinking. Okay, I think that's supposed to mean it's out," Jane said.
"Secondary search?"
"Right. Let's do it from the ground."
Both women got down to the floor on their hands and knees and started to crawl around. They called out to ask if anyone (anyone being him) could hear them, and Loki tracked their positions by their voices; the smoke machine was still going full force and visibility had dropped so much even Loki could only make out the vague outline of their bulky shapes, so he gave up trying and relied on his ears. Su-Ji, he realized, was going to find him first, and he slowly, silently bent his knees and drew his feet back toward him along the floor, because what would be the fun in that?
He heard Jane approach toward his head and silently extended his legs out again. Once back in position he closed his eyes, which was a good decision, as it turned out.
"I think I see…" Loki flinched as a hand in rough gloves came down on his head, one finger over an eyelid. "Sue! Got one. Fire Team Lead, this is Jane. I've found a third victim. Will advise." Loki could hear Su-Ji, or "Sue" as most people seemed to call her, coming back toward his feet.
"Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?" she asked through her breathing mask.
Loki lay there still, trying not to laugh as he pretended to be unconscious. He could almost imagine he was a boy again, playing games like this. He wondered if Jane could tell who he was. Well, who she thought he was.
"Stop grinning. Unconscious people don't grin like that."
Hm. Apparently she does. His eyes popped open and he was gratified to see her startle back; she'd been hovering very close over his face. "I'm unable to breathe," he told her calmly.
"Then how are you talking?"
"I need air."
"It's not my job to get you air. It's my job to get you out of here before you die from smoke inhalation."
"If I'm not breathing, I'm not inhaling any smoke."
"That means you're already…will you shut up?"
"Both of you shut up. If he's not breathing, we need to get him out of here ASAP. We need to call for assistance."
Loki shot her a venomous look that she couldn't see. That wouldn't do at all. He wanted to see Jane try to get him out of here, and had requested to play one of the unconscious victims just for that reason. "I think my heart just stopped beating." He closed his eyes again.
"No time. I can do this. Here, help me get this under him."
Loki wanted to look but kept his eyes closed. He was supposed to be near death, after all. Su-Ji came around to where Jane was and he felt hands on his shoulders and under his arms, hands that began tugging the top half of his body slightly upward.
"He's heavier than he looks," Su-Ji said; Jane answered with no more than a grunt.
Unidentifiable sounds came from above his head, and suddenly he felt himself lurching further up and forward as something cinched tight over his chest and under his arms. His eyes reflexively opened, and he saw that the "something" was some kind of sturdy plastic in a tubular shape. Before he could think further about it he was being dragged along the floor. Out of defensive instinct he reached for the plastic sling to pull it off, but Su-Ji, who was still at his level – Jane was now standing – smacked at his hands with her gloved ones.
"You're supposed to be unconscious, remember?"
He glared at her and she glared back, this time close enough to see it.
"Comms, Fire Team. Evacuating unresponsive victim."
Loki rolled his eyes and let himself go completely limp. His head fell backward but he kept his eyes open to see Jane struggling to keep dragging him around another chair and toward the door. She was definitely struggling, breathing heavily and straining backward. If he were to suddenly decrease his body's weight, she would go flying backward in a heap. Tempting, but he would surely pay for it with forfeited magic. And, he had to admit, he was impressed. He never would have imagined she could do this. He closed his eyes again and started to hum one of the tunes from Miracle.
He began to hear other voices and realized Jane was pulling him out of the room. Su-Ji was reporting on his condition to someone; Jane was nearby panting for breath. Loki grimaced as hands were suddenly all over him, easing a spine collar onto his neck and sliding him onto the rigid spine board – the entertainment portion of this exercise was over. He felt the straps cinch and pull tight over his chest and waist and legs; he grit his teeth to force himself to tolerate the restraints. It was even more difficult than he'd expected. He was supposed to keep his eyes closed, to play unconscious, but neither his play-acting ability nor the "integrity of the exercise," as Zeke kept referring to it, were his concern. He needed to constantly remind himself where he was, and more importantly, where he was not. Not on Asgard, not tied to rocks, not waiting for a drip from a serpent's fang, not anywhere else where he was actually in any danger. Ancient history, he reminded himself, noting also how flimsy the restraints were; freeing himself would require no effort at all.
He was lifted onto a stretcher, and once there, tested that assumption just because he could – with a sharp but small movement of one leg he snapped the restraint there and no one noticed. He looked up and saw Jane watching him, holding her helmet in her hand. Had she seen? "Well done, Jane Foster," he said, swallowing heavily at the end.
She looked at him with odd confusion, and if she intended to say anything else she never got the chance. The trauma team was whisking him away to Club Med for play-acted medical evaluation.
/
/
"Thanks, Gary," Jane said, relinquishing her air cylinder to the Fire Team Leader, who'd offered to get everyone's bottle refilled for them. She stretched her back, glad to have some of the extra weight gone. Now that her portion of the drill was over, the adrenaline rush was also over and she felt tired from the exertion in the thin air. Her gloves were already stuffed into one pocket, her sling rolled back up into the other pocket. She yanked the red flash hood off and ran her hands over her hair to smooth it down; it was damp with sweat and the station's air felt refreshingly cool on it. She caught Sue's eye and the two started to laugh. Jane stuck out her hand and Sue shook it.
"Jane," a voice from behind her said; she turned to see Austin, one of her fellow Fire Team members. "Good trick with the tubing thing." He held up his hand for a high-five.
"Thanks," Jane said, high-fiving him back. Of course, she'd hardly come up with it herself; her instructor had taught it to her and even provided the sling. To Austin's left, behind him, she saw Mari disappear into the Arts and Crafts Room. She'd barely caught the movement, but she thought she'd seen Mari wipe at her eyes. "See you tomorrow morning for the debriefing?"
Austin nodded and moved on to high-five the next person; Jane slipped past him and down the hall to check on Mari, whom she found sitting at one of the crafts tables, elbows resting on the table, head in hands.
"Hey, you okay?" Jane asked, hesitating at the door. She didn't know Mari that well, but it wasn't like Mari, or anyone else, had her closest friends here with her instead.
Mari stood up and gave a small smile. "Yeah, sorry. This whole thing just got to me a little. I mean, I know it's all fake and everything, but…"
"Do you want to talk about it? We're all done out there."
"There's not so much to tell. I guess that's the problem, actually. That sounds weird…" Mari took a deep breath and shoved her hands in the pockets of her Carhartts.
"No, go ahead," Jane said, leading Mari back over to the table. They both sat down, and Jane opened up her jacket for a little more relief from the heat.
"It's so stupid. It's just…I was on vacation during 9/11. Covered in suntan lotion in the Bahamas. My last hurrah after my internship before starting my new job in lower Manhattan. Then, two days after I empty out my desk, it gets smashed up by some kind of creatures chasing each other through the office. And it's just…I don't know how to explain it, but…I feel like I should've been there. My mother says it's 'survivors' guilt' but I didn't survive anything, you know? I wasn't even there. This is the closest I've come to a real disaster."
Jane empathized with Mari and tried to comfort her as best she could, mostly by sharing a somewhat sanitized version of how she, too, had "missed" that disaster. Jane certainly understood the strange form of guilt. SHIELD's luring her away infuriated her, that she'd been kept from trying to do something to help Erik, hadn't even known Erik had been in trouble until it was all over. Realistically, she knew there was nothing she could've done anyway. Once Loki took over Erik's mind, no science was involved that she understood, and hitting him over the head would certainly never have occurred to her. And if she'd been there, maybe Loki would've taken over her mind, too. She shuddered at the thought and gave Mari another hug, this one more for herself than for Mari.
The two parted, and Jane headed to the emergency equipment storage room to put back everything she'd taken, but she couldn't get Loki and what he'd done to Erik out of her mind. Loki and what he'd done to Thor. Loki and whatever exactly he'd done to Jotunheim. Loki and what he'd done to his other brother. Loki and what he'd done to those people in Stuttgart. Loki and what he'd done to the people in Manhattan, what he'd tried to do to the entire planet.
Something about it was bothering her, but she couldn't put her finger on it, and it was giving her a headache, bad enough that she missed the hanger she was trying to put her safety gear jacket on and had to pick it up from the floor.
She wandered back to her room and leaned against her closed door for a moment before stepping out of the Carhartts and sweater and thermal socks, getting down to a T-shirt, an old blue and white checkered flannel, and jeans, and slipping on sneakers.
She thought back to the end of the drill – the end of her part of it, anyway. Lucas had looked uncomfortable on the back board. Anyone would be, she supposed, but he'd been uncomfortable enough that he'd actually managed to pop open one of the clasps on his restraints, deliberately, it had appeared. Maybe he had a phobia about it or something. Then again, given the glimpse she'd had of his father's bizarre cruelty, maybe he had a more rational reason to dislike being in that position.
Jane let her eyelids flutter closed for a moment. That wasn't a line of thought she wanted to let her imagination pursue.
Loki had been giving some pompous speech about freeing people from freedom when he'd used his tesseract-powered magic wand to rob Erik of his freedom. It was the one thing he'd told her about the whole ordeal, and the only reason she knew anything Loki had said when he'd first come through that unstable portal. SHIELD had given her all the video of it they had, in the hopes it would aid her analysis, but they had no audio, no transcript. She'd watched it again and again – not just the part they wanted her to watch again and again, the opening of the portal, but the part when Loki had touched that thing, almost gently, to Erik's chest, and how he'd stiffened for a moment, perhaps in fear or pain or shock, and then been lost to Loki's will. She'd watched it and wished so badly she could somehow undo it and spare Erik what was to come, because he hadn't been the same since. She'd watched it so much she could picture it as clearly as though she'd been there.
Except she couldn't, she realized.
She could picture Erik and his awful moment of fear, but not Loki.
And then she realized she couldn't picture Loki at all. She'd seen plenty of other footage. Of him in Stuttgart. Of him on board SHIELD's flying fortress. Poorer quality images of him in New York. She could clearly picture that strange cylindrical cell he'd been in, but when she tried to remember him inside it all she got was more pounding in her head.
Jane went over to her desk and powered up her laptop, grabbing her full water bottle in the meantime and gulping down half the contents. "Jane Foster. Jane Foster." The words clanged about her mind as though she were standing right underneath church bells. That was Lucas, just now, she remembered. "Jane Foster, Erik Selvig, Darcy…" That was Thor. Thor called us by our full names. He didn't know Darcy's last name…
Jane felt herself getting dizzy from the intensity of the headache. If this keeps up I'll have to go to Club Med. But they're probably still busy with the drill…Lucas is there… She navigated to the folder where she kept all of the video files SHIELD had sent. Her finger hovered over the mouse ready to open the one titled "Arrival," but when the folder opened it was empty. She stared at it for a few seconds, closed it, opened it again, still empty. She wasn't thinking very clearly through the headache, and it took a moment for her to realize that however she'd managed to lose those files, it didn't really matter, because plenty of video could be found online. Not that one, of course, but the Stuttgart incident had been captured on personal video devices. She glanced at the time on the lower right of her computer screen; the satellite window was still open.
Streamed videos didn't work well here and were discouraged, but all she needed was the still images visible in the search results, anyway. In YouTube she typed in "Stuttgart" and "kneel." In the first image he was too small, too dark. The second image had her riveted. Her throat tightened; her breaths were loud and shallow. He wore heavy ornate layered clothing, and a gold helmet with two enormous horns. The helmet obscured much of his head, part of his face. An image of Lucas in his baseball cap came to mind.
And then it all came back. Loki on the helicarrier. Loki when he took Erik. When he hadn't had that helmet on.
Jane jumped back from her computer as though it could burn her, knocking over the chair she'd been sitting on and not even noticing it. Loki's image – severe and alien and terrifying – melded into one much more familiar, one much closer. In growing fear battling with disbelief she glanced at her door. The one without even the simplest of locks on it. This can't be right, she told herself even as she looked back at the computer screen. I'm imagining this. It can't be right. It can't be right.
Lucas's face stared back at her from the screen, ordering people to kneel.
/
/
"Thor, wait!" Sif called from inside.
Thor paused to turn, just outside the portico, only two steps down what was the equivalent of about three flights of stairs to ground level.
"I'm coming with you. But you have to let me out."
"You may come through," he said immediately, adding a quick apology. "I keep forgetting. But you don't need to come with me. Go, get something to eat. Rest for a while."
"Is the prince of Asgard exempt from the rules?" she asked, the two of them now side-by-side.
"Rules?"
"You're impossible. No one walks around outside alone. Remember now?" she prodded, eyebrows raised toward her hairline.
Thor laughed. "Sif, I hardly think I need-"
"Choose your next words very carefully," Sif said in a mock-threatening tone, eyes narrowing sharply.
Thor gave her a pointed look and extended an arm out in invitation. She started making her way down the stairs and Thor followed. "Anyone to watch over me when I have Mjolnir," he finished, hefting the hammer and easily tossing it high into the air.
Sif rolled her eyes and at Thor. "You always did treat rules like they were option-"
Thor missed whatever Sif said next and realized he no longer felt the ground beneath his feet. He couldn't hear anything and couldn't see anything. He held out his hand but Mjolnir wouldn't return to it. Horrific pain suddenly shot up his back, then something hit his head and he was too stunned to move. An instant later sound came roaring back, ringing and clanging, more like an echo of a sound than a sound itself. Thor's eyes shot open, but it took a moment to make sense of what he saw: the darkening sky at an odd slant with the horizon, unfamiliar with upside-down landmarks. He felt with his hands at his side to try to figure out where he was, and through a fog that tightly gripped at his thoughts he eventually realized that the cold angled stone underneath him was the stairs to the palace, and he was lying at an awkward angle on them, his head lower than his feet. Though it made his stomach lurch, he forced his head upward to try to see what had happened.
There was Sif, unmoving, face down on the stairs, one arm at an unnatural angle, her body a little higher up than him, a little closer to the entrance to the throne room.
He tore his eyes away from her and followed the stairs upward. On the other side of the porticos, everything was black. He could see nothing. The fog's grip on him loosened. The layers of shielding let purified air pass in and out, but nothing else. A terrible noise. A massive rush of air. Everything black on the inside. Thor's eyes went wide and he began struggling against his own uncooperative body to push himself up.
An explosion. From inside the throne room.
The Gjallarhorn sounded, clear and low, mournful.
We are at war.
/
Hmmm, and there you have it. Some of it, anyway. I would love to hear from you. I hope you enjoyed it. ;-)
Excerpt for Ch. 34, "Panic" (Jane POV):
Confident, relaxed, calm. He doesn't know.
"That was fast," he said, falling into step beside her as she continued down the corridor.
"Yeah, Rodrigo was busy. They're still in there going over the drill. I guess they have to get ready for tomorrow's debriefing." See? Easy. Nothing to worry about. Just Lucas. Grad student. Assistant.