Title - "Retrieval" Author - Wintersong E-Mail address - wintersong@animatrix.ns.ca Rating – R (language and references to gore and violence) Category – XA Spoilers - none Keywords - none Summary – A spec ops team draws the wrong conclusions when they make assumptions about the injuries of the two agents when they are found at the site of a hidden weapons lab. Their assumptions endanger everyone when the psychological effects of the agents’ exposure to a viral weapon begin to manifest. Disclaimer: Badger, Devon, Cap, Doc, and CJ belong to me. So do all the technical and strategic inaccuracies. Mulder and Scully were more or less kidnapped from 1013. ============================================ Badger said he saw two people run from the building just before he blew it up. Intel said the building was supposed to be empty. The bodies just outside the blast zone pretty much proved that Intel didn’t know jack shit and once again we were smack in the middle of another goatscrew. So what else was new? Just our luck, the bodies were still breathing. Intel decided it would be better if they stayed that way. At least until we figured out who the hell they were and why they were fucking up Intel’s performance stats. No papers, no ID, not even anything in the pockets. “Hey Cap, you better come look at this.” Doc’s voice was quiet, but the grim tone and hard light in his eyes confirmed that whatever it was, I wasn’t going to like it. He waited until I was crouching down beside him before rolling back the cuffs on the janitor-blue coveralls the woman was wearing. I had to clench my jaw to keep from swearing when I saw her wrists. Not rope. Cuffs maybe. Or leather restraints. And something that had made her fight hard enough to ignore the damage she was doing to herself. My eyes slid to the guy next to her. Blue trousers, unbuttoned shirt, white lab coat. Doctor maybe. Or lab technician. “ Her ankles too. Fingernails are torn to shreds and she’s got some real bad bruises across her shoulders.” I didn’t want to ask. I really didn’t want to know. “Did you check...” Doc shifted uneasily, then shook his head. “Do you want me to?” His voice was reluctant. Hell no. But did we need too? I decided we didn’t. It’s not like we could take back any samples that would hold up in court. In the field? In this heat? And it felt...wrong. Like a needless violation. We’d be back on ship in another few hours and... they’d just have to check again, right? For the official record? I shook my head. Doc let out his breath in a quick sigh of relief. Yeah. Real bad-ass soldiers all the way around. Nothing fazes us, no sir. And the day it doesn’t, just shoot me in the head. I tipped my head towards our other body. “What about him?” Doc lifted the man’s arms. No restraint marks, but something had scratched the shit out of his wrists. There were matching scratches along the left side of his neck and they weren’t shrapnel injuries. I flashed back on her torn fingernails before meeting Doc’s eyes. Grimly he tipped her head to the side, then wordlessly spread the man’s right hand out so I could see the knuckles. They were faintly bruised and swollen. I looked back at her jaw. At least one of those bruises had knocked her out. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I could see that it was at least a day old - maybe more. The quiet of a safety being snapped off alerted me to the arrival of the rest of my team. Devon didn’t even bother to pretend he wasn’t contemplating a murder. He just looked back at me calmly and waited for my decision. Cold-eyed support backed him up all the way around. If I gave the okay, it was done. Devon would never loose any sleep over it. Then again...I stared down at her delicate features and the bruises marring that pale skin. Then again...neither would I. The two of them running from the building. Had he been running from the explosions...or chasing her? I sighed. “ Let me know when she’s conscious.” Doc gave a short nod. Devon’s mouth twisted unhappily, but he replaced the safety on the Beretta and secured it. Badger carefully lifted the woman into a fireman’s carry and headed in the direction of the LZ. As for CJ, he knew better than to see if Devon was willing to flip for it. With a grumpy glance at me he yanked the bozo upright and dug his shoulder into the man’s stomach. Even with CJ’s height, Bozo’s legs dangled awkwardly, feet flopping and generally getting in the way. Doc solved the problem by tying them together with a triangular sling bandage. Despite the extra cargo, we made good time to the pick-up point. It was a relief to signal the chopper and a bigger one to hear them talking back. There was no reason to suppose that anyone would be following us, but then, there wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the building either. I would just be happy to be gone. The fact that our excess baggage hadn’t woken up yet was beginning to bother me. There was a reason we had used incendiary explosives. I think all of us were relieved to hear the chopper as it zipped in over the treeline. Even if it did mean we would all probably be spending the next few days in quarantine. Devon was confirming visual sighting of the helicopter with Intel and passing along a request from Doc for the ship’s surgeon to be ready for our two guests when the signal suddenly crackled violently and died. “Dev?” He frowned, checked, then shook his head slightly,” It’s not the radio.” Doc breathed a soft “ Oh damn” and instinctively we all turned our heads toward the chopper. Then we started running. It wasn’t rational, it wasn’t even logical. It was trained reflexes and professional paranoia. Until we knew what the fuck had happened to one bloody heavy warship of the US Navy, none of us were standing anywhere someone could get a clear shot at us. We’d have all made it under cover too if I’d thought to cut Bozo’s feet off. Somehow, Doc’s bandage had worked it’s way loose and one flailing foot got twisted in behind CJ’s knee. I heard him cry out and turned just in time to see them both go down in a tangle of limbs. Which is why I was looking right at the helicopter when it blew up. I vaguely remember wondering how the hell someone had managed to smuggle that much high explosive onto a US military helicopter. Then we were running again, this time for our rally point. I didn’t even bother to look for Badger. Not much point when you are racing through dense jungle. Besides, he’d be hell and gone to do an advance point check on the rendezvous site. Wherever he was, Devon would be bringing up the rear for Doc and our sleeping beauty. CJ was limping along, doing the same for me. I should have known that somehow I’d end up carting Bozo. Four hours, 57 bug bites, a dislocated shoulder and 14 bruises later we stomped into rendezvous point Alpha and threw Bozo at Doc’s feet. Badger blinked astonished eyes at our disheveled appearance and wordlessly surrendered his cup of coffee. Breathing in the warm aroma I considered the possibility that maybe I was willing to let Bozo live afterall. Doc was fingering the duct tape we’d wrapped around him to hold arms and legs together. “Trouble?” CJ just grunted resentfully. Of course, it was his shoulder I’d had to pull back into place when Bozo went into convulsions and knocked them both over the edge of a thirty foot drop-off. My ear still hurt from catching the edge of his boot upside the head. I swear, I’ll cut his feet off yet. “Convulsions, hallucinations. He started yelling about two hours ago.” Which is why we’d duct taped his mouth shut. “He never regained consciousness.” The team was silent. They knew as well as I did what those symptoms meant. Whoever the hell Bozo was, he’d been exposed to the virus we’d been sent to destroy. And now, so had we. Devon stabbed the knife he’d been sharpening into the ground beside him.”We’re fucked” Yep. That about covered it. Doc finished untrussing our human turkey and aimed his first aid kit in my direction. “What happened to your face?” “Bozo bounced us off a tree.” Badger started to snicker, then decided that silence was the better part of survival. He had just poured himself a replacement cup of coffee when Bozo let out a shriek that had all of us leaping to our feet and grabbing for our weapons. “Jesus Christ!” Badger sucked in two quick breaths – either to slow his heart rate or to clear the coffee he’d aspirated. Devon rapidly flipped his knife end over end the way he does when he’s unsettled while CJ just clutched his shoulder and muttered “Not again.” Doc grabbed his kit, then looked at it with a betrayed expression as he realized there wasn’t anything in it he could use. Meanwhile the man on the ground twisted himself up onto his knees and screamed as if all the demons of hell were coming to get him. For all I knew, they were. The tendons on his neck were distended and even from where I was standing I could see the beat of his pulse in his neck. At this rate, we wouldn’t have to shoot him. His heart would explode first. His eyes were wide and bulging, but whatever he was seeing, it sure wasn’t us. Then he just fell over. Curled himself into a fetal ball and cried as though he’d seen his four year old child blown apart by a hand grenade. Except instead of staring glassily at the carnage or trying futilely to hold the pieces together, he slammed clenched fists repeatedly into the ground and moaned. Badger cursed steadily under his breath while Doc headed off to throw up in the bushes. I seriously considered joining him. Just in time to save what was left of my breakfast, every muscle in his body spasmed convulsively and his body arched itself off the ground. His mouth gaped like a fish breathing air as he tried to suck in and scream out at the same time. For an agonizing endless second his body just hung there. Then he collapsed. No one moved. All I could hear was the rapid-fire breathing of five freaked out spec ops soldiers and the nerve- wracking whine of a thousand mosquitoes. Then something- a bird probably- cackled insanely off in the distance. Everyone shuddered as if suddenly awakening to the fact that we really were awake and – oh look - no one was standing guard. CJ grabbed his rifle and headed for a perimeter sweep. Devon sauntered over to grab a cup of coffee before joining him. His face was unreadable, but his hand was shaking when he lifted the coffee pot. I pretended not to notice. Badger and Doc were still staring down at the boneless body sprawled on the jungle floor. For a split second I thought he was dead, then I noticed Doc had his hand wrapped around his wrist, counting his pulse. Funny, I should have seen that first off. Badger looked up at me. God knows what he saw in my face, but all he asked was the question I’d been asking since CJ got knocked off that cliff. “Who the hell is Scully?” Ten minutes for rest, repair and refueling, then we were off again. It was a good bet there’d be trackers on our trail immediately, if not sooner. Cutting communications and blowing up the chopper before we were on it pretty much meant we had something someone wanted back. Alive. I’d go long odds it wasn’t Bravo team. It might have been a screw-up, but we’d probably live longer if we assumed the bad guys knew what they were doing. Bozo started convulsing again. Not as bad as before, but bad enough that we had to duct-tape him again. We also had to wrap him in CJ’s spare clothes to keep the shiny silver from giving us away from the air. Considering the extra clothes, he’s lucky he didn’t die of heat exhaustion. Orphan Annie had it a bit easier. The coveralls she was wearing were a good two sizes too big and dark enough to get by. Still,it was hot, it was humid, and there was no way we were getting enough water into them. Of course, we’d get all the water we needed tomorrow-we just wouldn’t be drinking any of it. We needed to move fast. The bastards knew we were in the area. Worse, while our initial rally point was known only to the team, I had a real bad feeling the bad guys might have our actual mission specs. If so, they knew our secondary rally points and alternate pick-up areas. We needed to get out of Dodge and we had to do it while keeping ourselves isolated from contact with anyone-military or civilian. Another four days and we’d know if we were all infected. Until then, we were under self-imposed quarantine. Our best bet was downriver. The current was fast, but not so fast that a well made raft couldn’t navigate it. We’d be running a real risk of being spotted from the air, but we had to take to water sometime. If they didn’t have dogs now, they might have them soon enough. So Devon and CJ were laying a false scent trail upstream while Badger and I got to play Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. All of us laid a nice obvious trail into the river, then we split up. Devon and CJ would exit on the other side soon enough that it didn’t look obvious, but not so far up that the trackers would miss it. The rest of us floated downstream for a nice comfortable distance. Then we found a rocky landing spot and proceeded to NOT leave any obvious footprints. There wasn’t much we could do about our new scent trail, but hopefully, by the time anyone found anything, we’d be long gone. Of course, we’d also leave a rotting animal corpse in a convenient location. If the dogs let out a howl, their handlers might just think they’d tracked lunch. It would be faster without the raft, but I just couldn’t see it, not hauling two unconscious civilians. Besides, this would make it easier to stick together. With the possibility of any of us getting sick, we needed to stay together at all costs. Even at the risk of increasing our visibility. There was a good chance we wouldn’t all make it to a preset rally point if we got separated. God knows who could stumble over the bodies. We couldn’t take the chance. It was close to dark when Devon and CJ came floating back down the river. The raft was just about finished and Doc had succeeded in getting another half pint of water into his patients. Frankly, I was just hoping they’d wake up soon. I wasn’t looking forward to finding out their kidneys still worked the hard way. Getting pissed on is a hell of a way to start the day. Without a full moon, we weren’t going anywhere. There was just enough reflected light coming off the cloud cover to keep us from tripping over our own feet. We might have taken a shot going down river with the night goggles, but the clouds boded well for a thunderstorm by daylight. Not only would that take care of any enemy air support, but it beat floating fat and stupid down the river and wondering if the bad guys had night vision too. Not to mention a nice ambush site. Much as I wanted to push it, get us outside the search perimeter, I had to give serious weight to the fact that the bad guys probably knew exactly who and what they were chasing. They would know exactly how fast we could move if we wanted to and they wouldn’t underestimate us. Which meant that exhausting ourselves in an effort to put distance between us was probably less effective than staying lost long enough for them to widen the search perimeter. That, and finding a good place to go to dig in. “Bozo finally shut up?” Devon was flipping his knife again. I glanced down at the man in question. “Yeah, about two hours ago.” Flip. Smack. Flip. Smack. That habit of his was going to drive me crazy someday. I sighed with relief when he finally sheathed the damn thing and started to turn away. Then I nearly gave myself whiplash when Devon froze. My hand was going for my automatic before my brain caught up with the fact that Devon wasn’t going for his. I followed his gaze back to the other side of the camp. We were being watched. Human eyes don’t gleam in the darkness. We couldn’t actually make out her features, but she was watching us. God knows how long she had been crouched there. Her head darted back and forth, and I suspected she was trying to make out our faces. “Badger?” “Yeah?” “A little light please.” I asked softly, trying not to startle her too badly. The quiet snap of a glow stick had her jerking her head in Badger’s direction. I could see the gleam as he shook his hand rapidly, then the soft blue glow of the light stick threw back some of the darkness. Pure animal suspicion glared back at us as she twisted her head continuously as if somehow aware that there were a couple of us still unaccounted for. I was just about to explain what had happened when she caught sight of Bozo. I swear, I thought she was going to bolt. A brief flash of sheer terror crossed her face before closing in on itself. I wasn’t sure if Devon was tensing in preparation to run her down or to pound the crap out of Bozo. Either way, the situation was getting out of control. “He’s not going anywhere. Just relax. Everything will be fine. We’re not going to hurt you” No reaction. “Can you tell me your name?’ Another suspicious glare, then watchful silence. Well this was going well. Unfortunately, neither Devon nor I did cute and cuddly real well. We also didn’t have much luck looking harmless. Hard to do when you’re armed, male, and built like bloody linebackers. I suppose the war paint didn’t help either. Badger meanwhile had gotten down on his hands and knees and was slowly shoving a packaged MRE in her direction. Surprisingly, she didn’t reach for it-not even after Badger grinned at her engagingly. Badger, on the other hand, just oozes cuteness. He looks so damn young. He can be covered in blood and gore and the bad guys still look surprised when he slits their throats. Our little field mouse just took one look at Devon and I and judged him by the company he was keeping. Guess I can’t fault her for that logic. I murmured low voiced instructions to Devon, then waited patiently as he headed off to collect Doc. Unfortunately, CJ would be spending the night up a tree. She’d already seen the three of us, and Doc would need to keep an eye on both of them. CJ got to be our ace in the hole. He was going to be thrilled. Bravo team can be damn quiet when we want to be. Even so, her head was already turned before Doc stepped within reach of the light from the glow- stick. He hesitated briefly, then decided to handle the easy part first. Stepping over to Bozo, he checked him over carefully, managed to get another cup of water down his throat and although he left the duct tape off his mouth, he kept his hands and feet secure. She never took her eyes off him. For all that she was focused on Doc, she must have retained some awareness of the rest of us, because when Devon finally rejoined us, she suddenly broke for the tree to her right. The speed of the movement wasn’t the brightest move on her part considering how spinal our reflexes get, but no one got shot. The move put her closer to Bozo, but it also kept all four of us in sight. We were in for a long night. When she wouldn’t let Doc near enough to check on her pulse or temperature, I considered forcing the issue. However, as long as she was staying close to camp, Doc strongly recommended that we keep this from degenerating into personal warfare. Considering the looks we were getting, I wasn’t sure that it wasn’t already, but he pointed out that at least she was drinking the water we gave her. Badger discovered that if we pushed it close to her, then backed off, she’d leave the safety of her tree trunk long enough to grab it. She would only drink it after we also gave some to Bozo so I suspect she was waiting for us to poison or drug her. But she drank it. Doc was worried about her mental state if we simply grabbed her. We wouldn’t have any choice but to tie her up if it went that far. And considering the injuries to her wrists and ankles his concern was probably valid. I really didn’t want to be the one to push her over the edge. Especially since we would still have to carry her out. At least we’d be on the raft for most of the next day. If we could lure her on board, it wasn’t likely she’d leap off in the middle of the river. But it was a very long night. Bozo had lapsed into a deep enough sleep that Doc was worried he was slipping into a coma. According to the symptoms we’d been given, he should have been burning with fever and bleeding from the eyes by now. It was a good sign that maybe we were in the clear as far as the virus went, but it left us totally without a clue as to what was actually wrong with him and what to do about it. Meanwhile, our field mouse seemed to be getting worse. She’d go through phases where she’d glare at us, muttering to herself and pacing back and forth in front of her tree. She had it down to a science. Two steps to the left, turn, four steps to the right, then back to center. The whole time she’d be jerking her hands and muttering like that crazy woman that Jody Foster played a few years back. What was her name? Nell? Then she would sink back into a crouch and glare. It was beginning to weird me out. Ordinarily we would have slept in staggered two hour periods. We’ve done it in rain, snow and behind enemy lines more times than I can count. Simple logic-you sleep or you make mistakes and someone dies. It’s not a problem. It’s not easy – and I doubt we’ll have anything approaching normal sleep patterns ever again – but we do it. I don’t know if any of us slept that night. Between Bozo’s earlier screams, Mouse’s feral glares and the fear that had us cataloguing every ache, itch and sneeze for possible symptoms, our nerves were so raw I swear to God, any wildlife unlucky enough to move at the wrong time was going to an instant death. Of everything, it was Mouse that did the most damage. Something about her fear had us all on edge. We’re used to being glared at. Prisoners glare. It’s an occupational hazard. It’s familiar. So is the fear. Christ, even on our own turf we get sidelong looks and speculation. It’s not like anyone actually expects us to go postal, but it’s a bone deep recognition of the damage we could do if we did. Something about this was different. We get different reactions from women. There are the ones who get hot just because we carry guns. Great for a Saturday night, but not too bright and pretty damn pathetic after a while. Most of us run the other way once we get over the novelty. There are the ones who come to us because they think that we’d be scary in bed...and there are those who run in the opposite direction because they think we’d be scary in bed. And those are just the ones that we meet in the bars. There are the wives and the girlfriends. The serious ones anyway. They always seem to be riding the knife edge of any emotion. There’s no downtime. When we’re gone-they’re scared. When we’re home, they’re making up for lost time, trying to sort out family dynamics that shifted while we were gone, or feeling guilty as hell for being human and angry. There are parts of our souls that never leave the darkness. They can’t follow...and we don’t like to share. Finally there are the victims. The ones that flinch if you move too fast, talk too loud or touch her when she wasn’t expecting it. Sometimes they are simply the women you meet...sometimes they are the ones we are sent to rescue. It’s an impersonal fear. A general terror based on our size, our guns, our sex. But none of us knew what to make of Mouse. She was...wrong. That’s the best way to describe it. She crouched by her tree and glared her hatred. And if that was it, that would have made sense. Some of the women we have rescued have been...hurt...pretty bad. They curl up into balls and glare a heartbreaking combination of terror and pleading that generally makes me want to go out and kill someone. Occasionally, Devon has. Like any injured animal, they will turn on you if you get too close, push them too far. Something was hovering just outside my reach. Something about the way she was moving, the way she was watching us. Something beyond the way she was watching us as though we were her own personal nightmares brought to life. That, I realized suddenly, was it. Her fear didn’t seem personal...but her hatred was. We were the enemy. Even the most damaged of the victims we had rescued looked at us with either hope or hopelessness. Usually some degree of hope that we were not there to hurt her. She may not have believed it, been too afraid to trust it, but there was uncertainty. Mouse had none. She was fully prepared to take us all to Hell if she could possibly do it. My sudden intake of breath startled Devon, who had been sitting quietly and brooding in Mouse’s general direction. His eyes were bleak and his words showed that he must have been following a similar chain of thought. “I think she’d kill us all if we gave her the chance.” Would a woman so recently abused have this much directed hatred? This lack of any sense of self preservation? Would she be so far gone that everyone was the enemy? Was it the fact that we were military? Was she that insane? And what in God’s name did she think we were going to do with her that she’d rather die in a kamikaze attack than take a chance and make a run for it? We watched her watch us for the rest of the night. A very long night.