"Hey. I thought you'd be going with Michael to China," Alex was honestly surprised to see Sean waiting for her in the armory. When she had heard that Michael and Nikita were asking for volunteers for a mission in China, she had believed that Sean would tag along. Her boyfriend had been spending more time with Michael lately, so it would've made sense if he had wanted to help and had followed him on the personal mission. Instead, Sean stayed in Division to help her with her investigation into the saboteur- despite the fact that she didn't need a lot of help.
"Yeah, I thought about it. But I'm busy stopping a potential mutiny," Sean shrugged. He and Michael had talked briefly about the operation in China. Michael hadn't expected Sean to go, especially with everything that he was dealing with, and he agreed. It was better if he stayed in Division. Not only was he needed for the investigation into who had left the charge in the server room, but he also had to keep an eye on Alex. Her reactions to the current situation seemed off. He couldn't quite place why, yet it wasn't something he should ignore. Ignoring small problems like that had an ugly habit of snowballing. And things couldn't get worse than they already were.
"Mutiny? Ryan's coming on a little strong, don't you think?" Alex rolled her eyes. She would concede to the fact that planting the charge was sabotage- a disgruntled agent wanted to make their voice heard. But a mutiny was completely far-fetched. No one was going to storm Ops with guns demanding a complete takeover of operations. There would be no violence at all. The agents simply need to be listened to. Talking had never worked in the past, and all they knew as the solution was violence. If the team just learned to listen, then it would all be okay soon.
"He's not the only one," Sean muttered. He didn't exactly mean for Alex to hear him. However, he did want to continue talking about how she had been acting lately. Her fierce determination and unwillingness to back down hadn't changed. Even as she claimed to have healed from her kidnapping, she continued to be on edge and impossible to talk to. And, at times, it was even worse than it ever had been before. Sean desperately needed to get to the bottom of what was wrong. Who knew what could happen if she continued down that path. After all, she had already tried to assassinate one person. What would happen to the next person to cross her.
Glaring at her boyfriend, Alex tried to think if she had heard him right. They were supposed to be checking out the inventory in the armory to see if the explosives the saboteur had used came from Division. Well, she was supposed to be looking into it. Sean was supposed to be either helping Ryan or helping Michael. He instead chose to bother her with even more comments about how she had been acting lately. It just never ended. Everyone kept assuming something was wrong because she was doing things they didn't like. It wasn't fair. And it was really annoying, "What is that supposed to mean?"
"The real reason I didn't go on that op with Michael is I'm worried about you. You have been different ever since South Ossetia," Rather than be discrete, Sean went straight for the heart of the problem. He had talked to Owen and Birkhoff about Amanda's torture chair, but they hadn't been able to tell him anything about it that he hadn't already known. He had hit the same deadend over and over again in his effort to help Alex. It was time for things to change. He didn't care if he set Alex on edge. Maybe then new information would finally come to light.
"The moment that I start showing a little bit of backbone, all of a sudden, Amanda did something to me," Alex nearly shouted at her boyfriend. Why were Sean and Nikita so obsessed with thinking something had happened to her while she had been kidnapped by Amanda. Of course something had happened to her. She had seen one more person die in front of her. That was bound to change anyone. Yet it didn't make Alex so drastically different from before that the team had to think something evil was at play. She was simply sick and tired of watching people die for nothing. They should've been too.
Gently, Sean attempted to near his girlfriend. She at least let him close some of the distance between them, yet it wasn't enough to not feel as though she was keeping him at arm's length. Maybe if he just got her to see things from his point of view, she'd calm down and actually talk to him. She didn't need to be so secretive or defensive with him. He only ever wanted to help her. He could never hurt her, "Look, when we were in that bombed-out hospital looking for Larissa, I saw one of those chairs: the same one that Amanda used on Owen…"
"I told you a million times: I was never in that chair. I was in another room the whole time," Alex snapped. Consistently, Sean brought up the fact that he had seen Amanda's infamous torture chair in that hospital. And consistently, Alex had denied ever being in that chair. Like Birkhoff, she was certain that she would know if she had been tortured with that needle. And unlike Owen, she had all her memories of those terrible few days. Her mind had never been poked or prodded or fucked around with. She was still perfectly herself. If that upset people, then they could fuck off and leave her alone.
"So nothing happened?" Extremely suspicious, Sean questioned. He was beginning to believe that even if Alex swore to have never been in that chair, she still could've been tortured in it; she just didn't know. She hadn't known the layout of the hospital despite trying to escape from it hours earlier. And a bunch of other little details about Larissa, Amanda, and the soldiers didn't match up either. That could've been explained away by her adrenaline and fear. But the gaps in her memory were too large. There was a chance that whatever had happened, she might not know about it. Alex could've been just as clueless as the rest of the team.
"The only thing that happened is that I didn't save Larissa," Bitterly, Alex turned her back on Sean. He opened his mouth to say something, then immediately shut it. Words weren't going to cut it. No matter what he said, she'd always shove him away and deny anything had happened. He shouldn't waste so much time just asking questions. If he really wanted to know what happened in South Ossetia, then he needed to do some investigating. Sean didn't want to go behind Alex's back like that. But he had no other choice. He had to look into that hospital and into Larissa, and determine for himself what had happened.
The operation in China didn't go as well as Michael and Nikita had hoped. They had managed to find agents willing to help Michael, they had snuck into the high security building, and they had grabbed the device that The Shop wanted, but all their good fortune ended there. The plan eventually derailed, and a firefight broke out. They did their best to shoot back and escape with the biotech. However, the surprise and amount of guards were too much. They barely made it out with the device. And they didn't make it out with all of their men.
Jason, a friend Michael had made in Division, took a bullet for him. He didn't survive his injuries. Michael and Nikita were able to bring him home- well, back to Division. He would never have his chance to be free and go home. He would always be trapped in Division. Going on that mission had been his choice. No one had forced him to follow Michael and Nikita. However, the two knew that his death was on their hands. If they hadn't gone poking, he would've still been alive. And, one day, he would've been free.
Michael's new hand was more bittersweet than promising then. It couldn't be regarded without thinking about what it had cost. The same could be said for the biotech that they had stolen. As Birkhoff confirmed that it was legitimate, it was constantly regarded with wary eyes. The device was no longer a promise for something better, but a bitter reminder of what kind of world they lived in. Everything good could eventually be twisted. Birkhoff felt like he was repeating himself on that front, "Well, it's real. It's exactly what The Shop told us it would be. That doesn't mean that it can't be twisted into something horrible and nightmare-inducing."
"What about the Chinese? Did you scrub our footprints?" Nikita wondered. The Chinese were not too thrilled about the theft. If they tracked it down to Division, more deaths would ensue. Getting Michael a new hand wasn't supposed to be so dangerous. It was only supposed to help him. After Jason's death, however, it just felt so pointless. On the other hand, not going through with it then would mean that Jason had died for nothing. There was a high price attached to that hand- more than they thought they would've paid. Yet it was too late to back out then. They simply had to pray that it didn't get any worse.
"I got three teams on it," Nodding, Michael assured his wife. Jason had been his mistake. He was going to ensure that there was no more. The theft of the device- the prion- wouldn't link back to Division. No one else was going to die in his plight for a better prosthetic. The loss of Jason had been more than enough, and it was going to weigh on Michael's shoulders for the rest of his life. A part of him felt as though he shouldn't even bother with a new hand anymore. But if he did, then Jason's sacrifice would've been meaningless. Michael couldn't let that happen. He couldn't let his friend die for nothing. He had to push forward.
"Well done. I understand you were successful," The Shop computer chimed in. Birkhoff startled at the sudden appearance of the fake Heidecker again, and cursed under his breath about how much he hated the tech. For Shadowwalker to say that he hated a piece of technology, then it was truly something to be wary of- killchips were on that list, after all. The Shop in real life definitely wasn't as cool as the one in the books. The real one seemed to lead to a lot more destruction, and probably had a lot more evil plans up their sleeves.
"We have the prion. When do I get my hand?" Michael snapped at the computer. No more games, no more delays, no more deaths. He was getting his hand, and he was going to make The Shop pay for all they had done to the children in Kosovo and to Jason. The computer didn't hesitate before letting Michael know when and where he would be getting what he was owed: it would be that night on the fourteenth floor of the Bremmer Building in Buffalo, New York. They delivered the package, and The Shop would attach the hand on-site
While Michael and Nikita immediately prepared to leave for Buffalo, Birkhoff attempted to stop them. The two couldn't keep walking into danger. They seriously needed to stop and think, "Attach it on-site? That means there's gonna be a team of Shop surgeons waiting to do the deed right there. And you're gonna walk into that? A manned Shop facility? Walk in and stick around. I don't care how cutting-edge they are, it's gonna take hours, and I really don't want to think about what these guys can do with time on their hands."
"Hey, Nerd, can you rig an explosive to this canister? If Michael's gonna be under the knife, they're gonna be under the gun," Nikita agreed with Birkhoff's concerns about The Shop. But rather than rant about them, she was going to ensure none of them came to fruition. Her husband was getting a better prosthetic, and The Shop wasn't getting any satisfaction in torturing them. She could make a deal that came with a catch too. The Shop wouldn't have all the power. Nikita was clinging to some as well.
Alex and Sean worked in silence as they checked the inventory for anything the saboteurs could've stolen. Besides taking a moment to help Michael and Nikita when they had returned from China with a fallen agent's body, the two worked non-stop. Sean tried to start another conversation, but Alex kept her back to him. That simply further cemented in his mind that he needed to investigate what had happened in South Ossetia rather than just ask about it. Unfortunately, with the investigation into the mutiny, he didn't know when he'd have time. There were constant roadblocks in their way setting them back, "This row's clean. It's all here."
"Same here. The explosives are all accounted for," Alex replied to Sean. Whoever had set the charge had covered their tracks well. Obviously, they had used the very training they had picked up in Division to then turn against it- exactly like what Nikita had done. The team shouldn't have been surprised that something like that was occurring. The rogues had been such an indomitable force for so long, of course they would be the inspiration for when others wanted to dissent. After all, Nikita had once fought for the truth, and that was all the agents wanted then.
"Hold up. This one looks like it's been re-wrapped," Sean stopped Alex from closing the case full of explosives. Not everything was exactly as it seemed. There was something slightly off about one of the bricks of C4. Rather than dismiss it, Sean grabbed it and studied it. He had been right about it being re-wrapped. It had been opened and used before, "It's modeling clay. These guys took almost half a brick. That means they have more than enough explosive left. We have to make sure they never use it."
Before leaving the armory, Sean texted Ryan to meet in his office. The small charge in the server room had definitely not been made from half a brick of C4. There were more explosives out there waiting to be used- waiting to hurt so many people. The mystery of the saboteur couldn't go on forever. Sean and Alex needed to end it then. Though, it did take Alex a moment to catch up to Sean as he rushed to Ryan. For half a second, it almost seemed as though she wasn't on the same page as him. But Sean quickly shook that thought away to focus on the danger at hand and working with Ryan to fix it, "I got your text. Any luck on finding who it is?"
"Not yet. I don't like being one step behind. There's got to be a way to bait them, to lure them out," Sean informed Ryan what he had been thinking since he noticed how much C4 had been taken. If they kept following clues that led them down blind alleyways, they'd never know who was trying to mutiny- not before it was too late. They needed to lure the saboteurs out and ruin their plans before they could ever begin. The team had to stop being reactionary and just act. That tactic had worked for them in the past, and it would work again.
"What are you gonna do?" Ryan wondered. He absolutely agreed with Sean. With that amount of explosives in play, they needed to change their course of action. But what exactly could they do to draw out the mutinous agents. They'd be extremely cautious and on red alert. They had to have known that they were being hunted by then, and there was a chance that they were going to lay low for a long while. The team would have to have a pretty ingenious plan to be able to trick the saboteurs. And hopefully it'd be one they could execute before more and worse explosives went off.
"I'm not sure yet. I'll think of something," Sean admitted. He had absolutely no idea how he was going to draw out scared and secretive Division agents, nor did he know how exactly he was going to figure out what was wrong with Alex. But he was determined to find all the answers he needed soon. Making assumptions and stumbling around in the dark had only led to more pain and confusion. The team was trying their best to put an end to that, but to little success. They needed a change. After some time, Sean was sure to think of what that could be. He had to. He had a feeling that lives depended on it.