>BLACKBOX LIBRARY
>INSIDE THE FACILITY
>0415...///

The two guards flanked the double doors of the library, heavy doors with slow pneumatic hinges that wheezed when they were pushed or pulled open. The men looked almost like twins, birthed of the same batch of testosterone and patience, the only real difference was their skin tone. They had no name plates, like all the other guards, an anonymous ubiquitous presence. 

They let Laine through, not looking too hard at her as they made a cursory glance at the ID she presented them. The real security check would be her access inside, when she would try to gain access to certain classified materials. 

Queen strolled along, in no real hurry to get to the library but sensed Ava’s urgency to catch up to her colleague. He turned a corner and gestured at the map on the wall, “I think we’re going to find that treasure after all.” 

He glanced down at her, how the coat fit her and bounced against her knees with each step, “That’s not something you see everyday, I like it. Where’d you get that coat?” 

Ava looked down at the coat with a small smile, adjusting the strap of her laptop bag. “I got it at a boutique in an outlet mall in Idaho.” She said, reaching up and taking the beret off her head. “I fell in love with it at the store, but now I’m wondering if it makes me look a little too...Pocket Sized Mary Poppins.” She flushed with a sheepish smile as she looked down at the coat again.

Queen flashed a grin, chuckling at the joke. “Hell, I’m surprised they had more than potato sacks for sale. Nah, Mary Poppins? You’d need the umbrella. It looks cute, I like that you have your own style.” 

He made a little flourish of his hands, straightening out his fleece and flannel jacket. “Don’t judge me by this, gotta be ready in case you know.” 

“I think you look like you fit in here better than I do.” She chuckled, fiddling with the beret. “And thank you, I do still really like it, I...definitely have a style.” She shrugged. “I know it’s a soft and cutesy style, but I like it.”

Queen looked at her askance, then smirked a bit, “I look like I do, huh. Well, I’ll try not to be insulted. You see I gotta dress for the role I’m playing, in this case a chucklehead gun slinger.” 

He stuffed his hands in his pockets as they walked down the corridor towards the two guards. “I think you should dress how you want, it suits you. Everyone has their thing and ain’t no fun to have to adapt to what someone else thinks you should be wearing or just...being.” 

Before they got to the guards, he paused in his stride and looked down at her, “So be soft and cutesy, because God fucking knows it’s rare here.” 

Queen took his ID out and went to the guards, flashing it, “Hello boys. Read any good books lately?” 

The blonde guard muttered, “Smart ass.” 

His pale gaze turned to Ava as she approached and a hint of amusement flickered on his square face. 

The heavyset black guard glanced at the ID and stared at him stone faced, “Just finished [i]Native Son[/i], and you?”

Queen paused and blinked, not expecting an actual answer. “That’s a good one, I read that in college.” 

“Uh-huh,” the black guard said, handing back his ID. “Enjoy your visit.” 

Ava smiled at Queen and took out her ID to show the guard as well. “I haven’t read any good books lately, have any recommendations?” She asked the man.

The hulking man took her ID and looked at it for a long moment, then down at her. “Sure, Miss Try [i]The Great Alone[/i], takes place here in Alaska. It’s a novel a…”

He cut himself off as his partner shot him a look then the big man handed Ava her ID back, “Enjoy your visit.” 

Laine was already in the library, seated at a table with her laptop open. She had several tabs already pulled up with Ipiktok Irniq and his group’s social media. There were the same pictures that had been on the power point plus some shots of a pow-wow where many indigenous people were dressed in native costumes. 

Ava accepted back her ID with a smile. “Thanks! I’ll look it up!” She gave him a little wave as she and Queen stepped into the library. She started to tuck her beret into her pocket when she paused and looked up at Queen.

She grinned and held up the beret in offering. “Want to wear it for awhile? I think you could pull it off.”

Queen strolled into the sprawling library with the rows of stacks and the doors on the side that lead to different labs for electronics, computers, and other fields he had never looked into. At her offer, he grinned and took the soft gray beret. Smoothing back his shoulder length sandy blonde hair, he put it on. He gave it a sassy tilt and gave her a quick pouting pose over his shoulder. 

“What do you think? French Resistance or Madeline?” he tucked his hair behind his ears, the beard incongruous with the feminine hat but he left on his head. 

Ava giggled and tilted her head to the side, as though pondering it. “Yes.” She finally answered with a grin, her bright blue eyes dancing with amusement. The girlish expression somewhat at odds with the dark bags that lingered beneath her eyes. 

She looked away from him and sweeped her eyes around the room until she saw Laine; already at work. She pointed the other woman out to Queen. “There’s our other study buddy, shall we join her?”

Queen waved her forward, “[i]Allons-y[/i]!” 

Laine glanced up as they approached, Ava and shadowing behind her was Queen, wearing her beret. She recalled him from the time THUNDER had come to visit, flamboyant and colorful, with a need for attention. She nodded at him then looked at Ava, “There’s a lab here, you just need to book it. Apparently, even though no one is using it and you’re right here you have to reserve it. Talk to the receptionist at the desk.” 

Ava blinked and frowned. “Seriously?” She sighed and took off her laptop bag, setting it down in a chair next to Laine. “In the middle of a government base in the literal middle of nowhere that doesn’t officially exist and they still make us jump through these hoops.” She muttered as she walked away and head for the bored looking man sitting behind the desk marked “reception”.

As Ava approached it might have been hard for her to even tell if the motionless receptionist was breathing. Even his face was slack and his eyes were staring at the dual-monitor setup that made up his workspace in the corner of the library. His headphones had faint sounds coming from it, but whatever it was it was indiscernible to Ava. The guard’s eyes slid over to watch Ava’s advance, but he quickly perked up and a frantic series of clicking and shuffles of the mouse ensued just as she stepped up to the desk.

He cleared his throat, put his headphones to rest behind his neck, and smoothed down his black polo, pushing up his aviator prescription lenses and gave his best smile to Ava, “How, uh… how can I help?”

Ava put on a neutral, but polite smile and nodded, placing her hands on the reception desk. She wondered what he had been watching to move so quickly, likely he had just been on YouTube or something instead of focusing on his work and just panicked when he saw her. “Hello, I was just looking to book one of the labs to dissect a small piece of tech.” She said, nodding her head in the direction of the laboratories. “If the labs even have that kind of equipment.”

“Uh, yeah…” The receptionist said, looking between Ava and Queen, his eyes snagging on the beret on Queen’s head. He reached over and retrieved a covered metal cup, sipping whatever his drink of choice was from the straw for a few long moments as he stared at Queen’s beret. “So… yeah? It’s pretty open, I can just schedule you in or something if that’s what you want.”

Queen followed her, stepping silently in the cavernous quiet room, leaving Laine to do her business. Besides the dark haired woman seemed to have no interest in entertaining him. He stood just behind Ava, but his gaze was on the receptionist, the recognition glinting in the blue gray bloodshot eyes. He grinned, reaching up to adjust his beret, giving it a little more jaunty angle. 

“I would like that, yes.” Ava nodded. “Is there a time limit? I honestly don’t know how long I’m going to be in there.” She frowned in thought for a moment. “And I assume that everything I do on those computers will be logged into the library database?”

The receptionist was still staring at Queen staring at him, a quizzical look on his face like an entire dialogue was going on behind his eyes. He slowly peeled his glassy eyes away from Queen to look at Ava, “Huh… oh, yeah, probably. If it’s like transmitted or whatever, emails. I think. Whole place has its own network, so don’t worry about getting snooped on or anything.”

“I use incognito anyway… er, I mean… yeah, for work stuff you know.” He caught himself and cleared his throat a little too long to be normal, drinking deep from his bottle again. “Yeah, just go in there as long as you want. I gotta take your electronics though, no phones or cameras.” 

“Right, of course, I’ll just leave that stuff with my friend over there.” She said, pointing behind her over to Laine. “Uh, also, I don’t know exactly how this place and it’s network works; but I don’t know if incognito would be all that private. That’d be a pretty glaring security hole.” She smiled and tapped her hands on the desk. “So, what do I sign?”

The receptionist shrank back into his chair and stared for a few seconds on his computer, like he’d gotten caught, “Oh, yeah, totally.” He chuckled nervously, pulling a paper ledger inside a three ring binder from inside his desk’s drawers, “Just sign, initial, date and time… both of you.”

Queen ran his tongue behind his teeth, looking again at the receptionist. He thought about his pharmacopeia locked up in his bag for a fleeting moment as he leaned his hand against the desk. He stood next to Ava as she signed the papers, but shook his head, “I’m just here for moral support. She’s the brains and the beauty behind it all.”

He flashed a teasing grin at Ava but locked eyes with the receptionist, noting the dilated pupils and the guilt flushed up his neck and touching his cheeks. Queen shifted his gaze back to Ava, “You got it here, Angel? Or did you need my help?” 

Ava flushed at his compliments, studiously pretending to contemplate the forms while she gathered her wits back to her. “Um, yeah, I’ve got it all covered.” She said, signing her last initial. She finally looked back up at him as she pushed away from the desk. “I’m not going to be doing anything too exciting, just running some diagnostics on a chip I found in the field. I’m sure you have better things you have to do.”

“Do what you need to do, I’ll be hanging around. I’ll come check on you later,” Queen said, reaching into his jacket to take out a pack of Kools, checking inside. “Might step out for a minute.” 

Ava perked up. “Oh, alright, I’d say stay warm but apparently you can just smoke in the hallways.” She said with a shrug. Then she pointed up to her beret. “You can keep borrowing that if you want.”

“Just don’t let anyone catch you, man. I know a few good spots.” The receptionist smiled at Queen.

He reached up to touch the beret, then smiled at Ava, “I will wear it with pride, [i]mon amie[/i].” 

After watching her depart, he glanced at the receptionist, “Yeah? Care to share?”


His sly smile reappeared as he tapped the pack of cigarettes and put one between his lips. 

Queen stepped back, waiting a moment before heading to the door. 

Back at the long table Laine pulled her notes from West Virginia and tabbed over to the case file she was starting for the Inuit cult, it was only a single page so far. As she worked she caught the movement from the corner of her eye, the flouncing coat belonging to Ava. She looked over, tilting her chin up, “Did you get your lab space?” 

“I did.” Ava nodded, sitting down in a chair next to her and looking around to make sure they were alone. Queen was leaving and the receptionist was focusing back on his computers so she let out a breath. “The thing is, everything I do in that lab or anything I find out about the tracking device will be put into the base’s network and logged away.” She said in a soft voice, looking up at Laine with slightly worried eyes. “I don’t know how easy it’d be for someone outside of here to get that info, but we are worried about someone selling us out.” She shook her head and ran her hand nervously over her braided hair. “Maybe I’m just being overly paranoid but...someone had to have put that tracker on Muru and we don’t know if it was before or after the Program picked her up.”

Laine caught the concern in her tone, then held a finger up, “We don’t know but we do know whoever was doing it knows we have the tracker, because it’s not on her anymore, they know about our...friend or at least they know it was deactivated, right? It’s not on, I trust you or our friend saw to that. The information will still be stored, unless you can do your thing and make sure it doesn’t get stored.”

She leaned back and looked up at her, “Look, I’m no computer expert. That’s my brother’s field but I know enough that a place like this might notice any virus or something that deletes files. Unless you think you can be sneakier.” 

Ava pursed her lips for a moment, as though considering it, before shaking her head. “No, no, not worth it.” She said, sitting up straight and rubbing her hands over her face. “We already have targets on us, if I do anything with their system that’ll...well it won’t lead to anything good.” She grimaced. “I mean I’m literally the only person signed in to the lab, it wouldn’t be hard to trace that.” She sighed. “Alright, I trust your judgement.” 

She reached into her pocket and passed over her phone to Laine. “Can you watch this for me? Phones aren’t allowed in the lab.” She frowned. “Which sucks, because I want to listen to music while I’m working.” She furrowed her eyebrows. “Though I do have my headphones in my bag and a bluetooth connector…” She mumbled, mostly to herself before nodding slightly. “Yeah I can make that work. It’s not a camera or anything.”

Laine nodded, a slight smile on her lips as Ava made her decision. She took her phone and put it in her briefcase, “I’ll take good care of it, and if you can find one, I suggest getting an MP3 player. No camera, no internet, just music. You can take it anywhere sensitive.” 

“Like a Walkman?” She asked with a smile. “I don’t know if anyone makes those anymore.” She grinned teasingly.

“Something like that, only rather than mixtapes, it’s playlists,” she said, “If you need it, I still have mine. Might not be to your taste but it’s better than silence.” 

“I think it’ll be okay, I have to bring in a USB to copy what I find anyway.” She said with a shrug as she stood up and moved over to her laptop bag. She fished around, pulling out her headphones; large over the ear numbers with a gold band and the earmuffs decorated with deep blue flowers. She looped them over the back of her neck, fetched the USB and the bluetooth connector from a pocket inside the bag; before suddenly pausing as her hand brushed against something inside one of the interior pockets.

“Oh, um,” Ava flushed with embarrassment as she turned to Laine again. “So, I don’t know if this is a good time but I, uh, have a gift for you.”

Laine turned back in her chair as Ava started to leave then looked up, “A gift?” 

She smiled sheepishly and nodded. “Yeah, I got it for you awhile ago because you got me that big stuffed cat,” She explained as she pulled out a small rectangular box, wrapped in black paper and sealed with a red sticker that looked like a wax seal. “I still have it by the way, I use it to sleep when...well, when I’m alone.” She fiddled with the box and held it out to Laine. “Anyway, I bought it back at that safe house where we had that BBQ, then I got home, wrapped it and stuck it in my bag so I wouldn’t forget about it the next time we got activated.” Ava’s cheeks turned redder. “But...then I forgot about it until I was at the airport and had to empty out my bag in the TSA line and rediscovered it...and kind of forgot about it again until now.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry, there was...a lot going on.”

Laine grinned a little, “Doesn’t snuggle quite the same as the strong arms of a mountain man, does it?”

Taking the box, she unwrapped it and her brows rose with surprise, the black and white moth with the skull-like marking made famous by Silence of the Lambs. “This is great, thank you,” Laine said, taking it out and pinning it to the lapel of her jacket. “I like it, how’s it look?” 

Ava beamed, pleased to see Laine enjoyed the gift. “It looks great!” She said, with a bright girlish smile. 

It took on a more somber edge after a moment. “And, think of it as a thank you for everything you did for me back in Idaho. Not just getting my medication quicker, but also being there while I was dealing with not having it. It means a lot to me, it really does so...Thank you.”

Laine reached out and gave Ava’s coat hem a tug, “You don’t need to thank me for that, we’re a team. We’re friends, you know.” 

Ava looked at her and smiled warmly. “Yeah, we are.” 

She held out her arms. “So, do we hug now?”

An amused half smile crossed her face as she stood up, now several inches taller than the redhead. Laine gave her a hug, and said, “I hope we don’t get some security guard’s hopes up.” 

She pulled back, giving her a pat on the shoulder, “Go do your thing, see where that thing came from.” 

Ava accepted the hug happily, laughing softly at Laine’s joke about the security guards. After the other woman pulled back, she nodded. “Right, go do what I do best, which is nerd shit.” She smiled and walked over to the receptionist desk with the deactivated tracking device in hand.

>0805...///

Donnelley had made sure that Dave got his rifle, leading him to the armory and reassuring him that TRIDENT wouldn’t be a problem so long as he and THUNDER were around. He’d left Dave to mull over the decision of mounting an under barrel grenade launcher on the bottom of what he’d get for the low price of a hundred. He walked the empty halls of the BLACKBOX and tried not to think of the prison in Iraq, flinching at every echoing noise and eyeing every door he passed. When he finally got to the doorway of the Library, he offered out his ID badge and was waved on. It didn’t take long to find Laine and he snickered at the sight of the receptionist, staring at his computer screen with the vacancy of a man who was higher than giraffe nuts.

He plopped down in the chair next to Laine, giving her his smirk though she was knee deep in whatever she was reading, “Hey, cutie,” he said, trying to get her attention, “You come here often?”

Laine was typing when Donnelley came up, she heard him but kept her focus on the screen. She was unable to keep the smile that threatened from showing and as soon as she finished the sentence, she turned to look at him.

“Yes, actually all the time,” she said, “I spend my days in the library when other girls have cheerleading practice and student council. Shouldn’t you be smoking in the boy’s room?”

Laine’s eyes glimmered, seeing for a moment that young punk from Dalhart. Donnelley chuckled and he rested his back against the table, “Just finished doin’ that, actually. That was after I skateboarded in the no skateboards zone. I might look like a bad boy, but I’ve got a heart of gold if you break through the tough exterior.”

She licked lips lightly and raised a brow, “Oh, that’s too bad I was looking for a real asshole. Maybe one of those Wetwork guys. Just a meat hammer on a body.”

Under the table she kicked his foot, swinging her leg back. Donnelley let out a quiet laugh, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, “You know I used to be one of them. Left after I heard you were comin’ on.”

Laine glanced over her shoulder at the cameras up at the corners of the room then at him. Her green eyes gleamed but she kept a neutral expression. “Is that right? Giving up the bad boys club for little old me?” 

She chuckled, then turned her to her computer, but paused still looking at her screen. “I’ve been looking through the database, found a few things from Canada that seem relevant.” 

“Yeah?” Donnelley turned around, now seriously interested. Canada was only next door, and the Native tribes were here long before the borders were, “What about?”

Laine pulled up a tab with scanned images of old reports and journal pages, cobbled together with written transcripts and interpretations. She pulled one journal page written in longhand, the date at the top [i]Septembre 15, 1923[/i]. The writing was in French but below the image was a translation. 

“This one here, written by a fur trapper in the Yukon. Translation describes an incident at a frozen lake, he was trapping for beaver and ice fishing when he was set upon by a sudden blizzard. He describes strange sounds in the wind, howls he insisted were not of wolves or nor calls of elk. There’s another one here, from around the same time, this time from the Klondike, I guess some miner still trying to dig for gold in 1926. Another reference to something called, “Wind Walker”, he writes that the men he hired to help dig spoke of it with ‘fear, almost reverence.’ After one night they had two miners disappear, the rest were said to be ‘full of fear and superstition, speaking the word ‘Itha-kwa’ and  demanding they leave the area. As we had not seen as much as a grain of <gold> dust, I decided it was best to depart.’” 

Laine looked over at Donnelley, “It goes on to say the native workers left and nothing was ever heard of from the two men missing. Considering the attitude of whites at the time, I doubt it was ever looked into. Hell, they won’t even look into missing indigenous people now. But there are some reports from the RCMP that include references to missing hikers, hunters and references to freak storms and the indigenous religious groups.” 

She raised her arms over her head, stretching until her spine popped, the ribbed sweater hugging her curves until she dropped her arms. “I’m starving. Anyway, there’s a lot of information here, I’m sorting it onto a spreadsheet. Years, places, mentions of Wind-Walker, Ithaqua, unusual weather reports, or anything similar that lines up with missing persons. It’s different yet I sense strong similarities to West Virginia. Not that it’ll do us any good.” 

“You’re sayin’ we got some Wind-Walker on our hands?” Donnelley shook his head, agreeing with Laine about their case in West Virginia. The last bit though, “What does that mean? We’re goin’ back after this.”

“It sounds like it,” Laine said, “If it means shamanistic cults or an actual thing, we’ll find out I suppose. I have some ideas but I’ll wait for the information from SIREN.” 

She looked at him, her green eyes on his blue and stayed silent for a moment before sighing heavily, “Foster pulled us off. They sent someone else in there, it’s bullshit but he said we compromised ourselves, our covers were blown. The Russians, I guess. He didn’t tell you?” 

Donnelley frowned something dark and turned away from Laine as his lip began to quiver, threatening to peel back like an angry street dog. He drew in a breath that seemed to have a hard time getting in and blew it out, growling, “No. No, he did not.” He rubbed his face over and cleared his throat, “We were close. Laine, we were fuckin’ close, we were onto something and they give the [i]fuckin’[/i] case away?”

Laine reached up, daring to give him a quick touch on his sleeve when  he turned away. She drew back, her hands in her lap when he spoke. “I wasn’t happy about it and I let him know, I was told in so many words there was nothing I could do about it and to say nothing more. I got my case files together so they could be handed over. I wasn’t even able to talk to the other team, to give them anything that wasn’t covered, to warn them of what we experienced.”

She felt the frustration bubble up from that meeting, then she looked at him, “Do you think it’s because we were getting close? Like you said, you thought he didn’t want you looking too close to things in Iraq?” 

Donnelley opened his lips to say something, but he didn’t want that to be true. Not Foster. Or, at least, he didn't want it to be happening to him. To them. He sighed and shook his head, “Don't do that, Laine. Get me thinkin’. We got a job to do here in Alaska, let’s just get it done.” He said, his anger deflated and billowing out of him. He looked at her and chanced a small smile, hoping to change the subject, “How long you been at this now? You’re hungry, we could go to the mess. How’s that for a date?”

Laine looked at him, she knew he had been with Foster a long time, the photo of Sobel and Donnelley, Foster had been there. She wanted to push along that path of thinking, it had been nagging at her since the meeting but seeing him push back, she left it alone. At his question, she looked at the time on her computer, “It’s been about four hours, I think I saw Dave go to the lab so Ava’s taken care of.”

She met his eyes and returned the small secretive smile, “I could go for some food, and coffee. Anything with caffeine. It’s 8 am, maybe they have waffles?” 

“Bring some back for Ava and Dave if they haven’t eaten yet.” Donnelley smiled, standing up and stretching, a series of rattling pops from his back and shoulder. With no windows and a hell of a lot of feet underground, it was hard to tell the time, “Already 8? Goddamn. Four hours, guess Queen was wrong, I’d better bother him about my money.”

He nodded towards the door outside the Library and almost offered his hand out for her to hold before he remembered where they were. It had been a long time since he’d sat down and had a meal alone with someone he liked. Or liked in the way he liked Laine. The last one was her apartment, but the romantic stylings of a classified government compound in a network of mine shafts would have to do for now. Since no one else seemed to care beyond dirty looks, he put a cigarette between his lips and sparked the tip as they walked the halls. His stomach growled, and he had to wonder when the last time he ate was, “This place makes me want to take a trip to California. Los Angeles.” He smiled.

Laine glanced over at him, a hint of a smile on her lips as he lit his cigarette. She surreptitiously studied his face, the handsome features and the scars. Her eyes gleamed with a hint of mischief that did not show on her calm expression. “That does sound like fun, nice and warm. Ocean breeze,” she said, “Tacos at the boardwalk. Maybe a tour.” 

She looked up, noticing another camera and muttered, “I wonder how good their audio is.” 

Donnelley looked at one of the cameras as they passed under it, wondering about the audio and if they had any. He wondered then why Laine asked, “What about- oh. Oh!” He perked up, hoping they were on the same page. That familiar temptation of mischief tugging his sleeve to forget all pretense of decency and secrecy. He chuckled sheepishly, “You meant it like that right? Sorry.”

Laine gave him a blank stare, then said in a hushed tone, “Sir, I would never think anything along those lines. What kind of woman do you take me for?”

“My apologies, Doctor. I didn’t mean to insinuate anythin’ by the comment, ‘specially not such a beautiful lady as yerself.” He played up his drawl and smiled at her, stepping over and playfully budging her, “But I think we both know how we are when nobody’s lookin’.”

“I been scopin’ places out, by the by, little reconnaissance.” He winked, taking another drag and blowing it out at a passing camera, “Waffles first, gotta take care of my team. I am a provider, if nothin’ else.”

Unable to keep a straight face, she pressed her lips together tight, the laughter that threatened suppressed. She smiled a bit, giving him a little sideways glance. “You do take care of your team,” she agreed, “With all their needs.” 

Laine put her hands against her hips, turning away from him to one of the maps on the wall, “The cafeteria should be around the corner. This place really is huge, you could really get lost…”

She turned to meet his eyes holding his gaze for a moment, then turned the corner to find the sign that pointed to the mess hall.  

...///

“What the fuck?” Ava whispered to herself, leaning forward in her chair as she intently studied the small circuit board under view of her magnifying goggles. She was carefully pulling apart the shell of the pill shaped device, using a set of very fine tweezers to move the delicate components around. It was so small and delicate that Ava was afraid her breath would send the pieces scattering; thankfully there were plenty metal trays available for her to work in. 

Her headphones were firmly placed on her ears, the steady lo-fi beats of Plastic Patina she had playing on a background computer providing a level of noise that allowed her to focus in the otherwise silent lab. Per regulations, she was dressed in a lab coat though it was meant for someone a size larger than her and so she had to roll up the cuffs of the sleeves. Over the course of her work, she felt more and more strands of her hair come loose from her braid but she ignored it in favor of the mystery of the device in front of her. 

She laid out the components of the tracker and looked them over with a critical eye, her frown deepening as she studied the intricate and delicate circuitry before her. 

Ava shook her head, leaning back and moving the goggles up to the top of her head. She pushed herself on the wheeling chair she sat in toward the desk behind her, where a number of computer monitors were busily processing information from the tracking device and comparing it to data that was already on file. Given the fact she was in a highly classified government facility, it was a lot of information to sift through. 

She scribbled down a few notes on a notebook she swiped from Laine, muttering to herself in the quiet lab, “Definitely foreign make, but the scale is too small...” She jotted down a few preliminary observations and then pushed herself back to the table with the tracking device and her tools.

This was the rhythm she found herself in, moving back and forth between the two tables; alternating between studying the physical tracker and then turning back to the monitors to see what was found and adding a bit more information she had gleaned from her inspection.

The hours passed, unnoticed to her as she became completely consumed in the enigma laid out before her. 

After four or so hours, she found herself focused intently on her notebook, her hair half falling out of her braid as she furiously wrote down a complex mathematical formula based on what she discovered. At least three pages were filled with the numbers and symbols; only to be crossed out with a giant ‘X’. 

“...That can’t be right.” She murmured, studying her latest equation and then comparing it to the ones she had previously crossed out. “There’s no way...I have to be getting this wrong somewhere.” She said, putting her elbows on the table and her fingers to her temples as she glared down in thought at the formulas.

"Gettin' what wrong?" 

Dave spoke loudly enough to be heard over the headphones. He was leaning in the corner, arms crossed, watching over her while she worked. He'd been there about 10 minutes, hanging back until she reached a stopping point, content to simply watch her at work. There was an intensity to her when she was engrossed in a problem, one that was at odds with her usual attitude, and he found that it appealed to him in a different way than her usual cute, upbeat persona.

She was still cute, of course. The oversized lab coat and wild hair was a good look on her, especially when paired with the way she scrunched up her nose when she was concentrating. 

"Whatcha thinkin', sugar?" He walked over to her, making sure to keep clear of the delicate components. 

Ava saw movement from the corner of her eye and sat bolt upright, turning and quickly calming down when she saw Dave. She pressed one hand to her chest and lowered her headphones down to rest around her neck with the other. “Dave, you scared me half to death.” She said, breathing out a relieved sigh. “What are you doing here?” She asked with a confused frown. 

"Sorry." He gave her a crooked grin and put an arm over her shoulders. "Just checkin' on ya. Guy let me in, I just gave him a mean look and put the Oakleys on. Think Ghost might be onto somethin’."

“Oh, well, thank you.” She said, leaning against his chest and patting the hand of the arm resting over her shoulder. “How long have I been working?” She asked before peering at the clock on one of the computer monitors. She straightened when she saw the time. “Holy shit it’s 8 already!? I’ve been at this for four hours!?” She leaned against Dave, partially stunned. “I didn’t even notice, I was so wrapped up in this,” She lifted her hands and waved them over her work station. “Weirdness.”

"What's weird about it?" He rubbed her shoulders as she leaned against him. "I mean I don't know the first thing 'bout any of this, but if you wanna talk, maybe it'll help ya think through it?" 

“Oh man, where do I start?” Ava sighed, turning to look down at her notes. “Okay,” She said, spinning around in her chair to look up at Dave. “First of all, the tracking device is definitely of foreign make, could be China or Russia, I don’t know because there are no production markings on it.” She said with a deep frown. “I have taken that thing apart and looked it over four times, but there are no manufacturing labels or numbers or anything anywhere outside or inside so I don’t know who or what made it.”

She held up a finger. “But, it’s definitely not American. The circuitry is so intricate and advanced for something so small, it’s leagues and bounds away from what the NSA or the CIA have for prototypes. You can forget about finding anything like it on the civilian market either.”

Dave sniffed, then nodded. "Right," he said. "So uh...Aliens, ya think?" 

Ava had her mouth open, clearly about to continue on with her explanation; when Dave’s response gave her pause and she stared up at him. “...I want to say ‘no’ but I honestly don’t think we can rule it out.” She picked up her notebook and showed him the equation she was working on. “It would certainly explain the battery power and the frequency range if my math is right.”

He nodded again. "I don't see why it wouldn't be. Smarter'n me for sure. Got a lot of brain in that pretty head." He grinned. "I'd trust that math." 

Ava flushed but smiled as she nudged him with her elbow. “Oh stop, I’m not smarter than you.” She said with a bashful chuckle. “You can turn fertilizer into an explosive compound without blowing yourself up. Anyone that can do that is a certified genius in my book.” She smiled up at him. “Plus you know how to survive in the wilderness and that’s just practical.”

Dave laughed, rubbing his side as though she had dealt a serious blow. "If ya say so," he said. "That's mostly stubbornness, an' not eatin' the wrong mushrooms." 

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Think there's time to grab a bite? Gotta eat to keep that brain turnin'. Guard said I couldn't just bring ya food." 

“Mm, I guess.” She said, looking around her workstations with a bit of a frown; almost a pout. She reached over and picked up her notebook, holding it to her chest. “I’m taking this though.”

Dave met her frown with one of his own.  "Take it, but no workin' while we eat. Okay? Been a while since I seen ya, and besides, you need to give that mind a break."

He put a finger on her chin and gently made her look at him. "Yer gonna eat with me, not just around me. Otherwise you'll burn yourself out." 

Ava frowned up at him, tapping her finger gently on the back of the notebook. She sighed and dropped her head forward slightly. “You’re right. I’ll keep it with me, but I won’t work on it.” She looked back up at him. “I’ve missed you too.”

His frown became a smile in an instant, and after a quick glance around the lab he planted a gentle, lingering kiss on her lips. 

"C'mon, sugar. Let's get this stuff packed up for a bit and see 'bout that food situation. Just lemme know what I can't touch." 

She smiled from the kiss, her heart doing a happy flutter as he pulled away. “Thanks Dave, I can get it taken care of, but you can keep me company while I clean up.” She said, standing up from her chair and setting down the notebook. As she stood she winced and gave herself a big stretch, until a few pops sounded from her back. “Yeah, that feels like about four hours of nonstop work.”

"Toldja," he said, stepping back so she had room to work. "I'll give you a shoulder rub later, help get them kinks out." 

Laine held a cup carrier of four coffees as she strolled back through the labyrinth of passages, Donnelley beside her with takeaway boxes of waffles and sausage links with little cups of syrup and a couple of fruit cups on the side. It reminded her of the cafeteria at Quantico only with less variety but the cost of shipping was pricey. 

She glanced at the redhead beside her, "I've been thinking about the freak storms. I'm going to see if I can find any official weather records that corroborate the eyewitness accounts. And do you remember the reports of a shimmer appearing in Blackriver before contact? I wonder if there's anything like that here. I haven't found anything so far but the blizzards could fill that harbinger of bad things coming niche."

Laine sighed, turning a corner as the library came into view. "I'm glad I backed up my notes, the more I read about the involvement of native tribes the more I think about the books and such we found in Clyde's cabin and other ideas that I was working on."

“Something wicked this way comes.” Donnelley clucked his tongue. It was the old motto that hung above the door to THUNDER’s squad bay in the Program HQ, buried in the dirt and rocks under the CIA. A warning for those dabbling in things they shouldn’t. It was a warning, and a threat. With the omens of freak storms and missing hikers hitting close to home and giving way to scuttlebutt among the QRF, well... it meant different things now. “I’m trying not to obsess over West Virginia and Iraq, but… you know. Let’s just take an hour to eat our waffles with Ava and then we’ll be free to play with our red string and corkboard.” He smiled.

“ID- oh. It’s you guys.” One of the guards said, waving them through and going back to leaning against the wall.

The door opened for them and they stepped back into the Library. The hum of the servers and computer towers filled their ears, the smell of cleaning agents and UV light purging bacteria while the library room was empty of it’s only two occupants. Now that they returned, the UV lights were off, a smell of ozone tainting the air and making Donnelley’s arm hair stand on end. He’d never liked that smell after Somalia. The frown on his face turned into a smile when he saw Dave and Ava, and he nodded to one of the tables, “Room service.” He called out to them.

Laine accepted the break from talking about work, trying to relax her mind as they entered the library. She caught his expression, the furrowed brow but had no chance to ask before they were outside the lab. 

Holding the coffee up, she peered through the glass at them, they seemed so at ease and unafraid to stand close to each other. She had kept a foot at least between herself and Donnelley, making sure not to smile too much at him while they had got their breakfast at the cafeteria.

"I brought life," Laine added, holding up the large coffees. 

Dave beamed, releasing Ava and steering her towards the others. 

"Coffee sounds like a damn fine idea," he said. "If y'all brought food I'm definitely puttin' ya on my Christmas list, cuz I'm  starvin'." 

“Hope waffles’n sausages’re good enough for you.” Donnelley smirked as he set down the boxes and placed the plastic silverware next to each. Each set individually packaged with a napkin, fork, spoon, and knife. He laid a hand on his empty stomach as he sat, all his power dedicated to not immediately demolishing his food without the others’ company, “‘Bout now, it’s good enough for me, tell ya what.”

Ava’s face brightened when she looked up and saw Laine and Donnelley outside the propped open glass door. At the sight of coffee and food containers she perked up even more. “They have waffles here?” She asked in surprise, then jumped as Dave looped his arm over her shoulders and started to guide her out of the lab. “Wait, wait, I have to take off the coat and stuff or I’ll get food on it.”

She ducked out from underneath Dave’s arm and darted over to a coat rack on the wall with a few other lab coats as well as her original coat. She took off the magnifying goggles and the lab coat, just hanging them both on the hook as she intended to come back after eating. 

She turned back around, smoothing away some of the wrinkles of her dusky rose colored sweater dress. It went nicely with the dark denim vest she wore with the white embroidered flowers, the thick grey winter leggings beneath the dress and the light grey hiking boots on her feet.

Completing the look was a soft beige belt with a silver ring where the holster with her glock 26 was currently riding. 

Ava smiled at Dave, taking out the ribbon holding her failing braid and combing out her hair as she headed for the door. She turned to Laine, practically trotting up to her in her eagerness to claim one of the coffees. “Thanks Laine, I need the fuel; that tracking device is turning into a bigger problem than I originally thought.”

Laine had led them out to a table in the library, one not occupied with computer monitors but simply for reading. There Donnelley lay out the styrofoam to go boxes full of breakfast. She sent the coffees down, pulling out a plastic bag of sugars and a half pint of milk still cool from the refrigerator. 

She picked up one of the fruit cups, sliced pears it said on the foil label, and took a seat with her tray of waffles. 

“Want to talk about what you’ve found?” she asked, though giving Donnelley a look, it wasn’t the cases so it didn’t count. “I know nothing about electronics but maybe just saying it out loud can sometimes help when you’re stuck.” 

Laine poured one of the little cups of syrup on her waffles, they had become a little soft from the trapped steam in the clamshell but at least they were still warm. 

Donnelley sipped at his coffee and gave Laine a look. Talking about work after doing it for four hours straight wasn’t something he wanted to be doing. He cleared his throat and quirked a brow at Laine, but then he conceded, not wanting conflict for breakfast either. He turned to Ava, “Maybe it’s aliens.” He joked.

"See? That's what I said!" Dave's tone was a good deal more serious. He lowered his voice. "We got weird ass wizards, an' extra-dimensional monsters, all sorts of shit. And Russians, man." 

Laine rolled her eyes and jabbed a plastic fork into one of the sausage links, then made eye contact with Donnelley. He was hiding a smirk and he playfully knocked his boot against her’s under the table.

Ava popped open her container, her focus shifting entirely to the waffles. Now that food was in front of her, her stomach began to growl with hunger. “I can’t believe they have waffles here.” She said, pulling her hair back and working on tying it up with the ribbon that once held her braid. “You are all my favorite people right now.” She said, finishing tying up her hair and dragging over one of the coffees as well as the sugars and the milk. 

Ava paused, working on sweetening her coffee before looking back up to Laine. “Oh right, the tracking device.” She looked around at their table. “It’s...probably not aliens. The implications of it are actually a little scarier than aliens.”

“How’s that?” Donnelley bit off half a sausage and quirked his brow at Ava’s statement.

She frowned, taking a sip of her coffee and putting her thoughts into order. “I already told Dave some of this, but the tracker is definitely not American made. Could be China or Russia, but it’s nothing the NSA or CIA have even for prototypes. I can’t pinpoint where it was made exactly because there are no manufacturing markings, logos or numbers anywhere on it.” 

She leaned back in her chair, coffee in hand and the frown deepening along with the crease between her brow. “What’s more is how small it is. It’s about the size of a pill or a tic tac, but it’s so...scarily efficient.” She shook her head and took another sip of her coffee. “I was working on figuring out what the range of the frequency that tracker emitted would be and how much power its battery has...But my math has to be wrong. I misread the diagnostics or something because what I keep coming up with doesn’t make sense.”

Donnelley cut his waffles into fourths and shoved one in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a few long seconds before swallowing hard and washing it down with a bit of coffee. He sat back for a second and rolled his jaw, thinking why they needed Muru so much. And who [i]they[/i] were. The GRU? Tadjbegskye Bratva? And the possibility that Renko was just giving them everything they wanted to hear so he could earn their trust…

“What’d Renko say about it?” He asked Laine.

Laine finished a waffle as Ava spoke, hardly tasting it as she focused on the possible meaning behind the technology. It was out of her wheelhouse but the strangeness was something they had all witnessed to a degree. She looked up at Donnelley, then shook her head. 

“He didn’t say much about the tracker, only that he found it on her and he gave it to me when he gave us Muru. It had been deactivated, so he must have done it. I assume so, because they never found us with her after. I didn’t think to ask, just gave it to Ava.”

Laine took a sip of her coffee and thought for a moment, “I would put money on it having some sort of tech or...magic, for lack of a better word, that the Russians used with Muru.”

She looked at all of them in turn, then leaned forward, “Renko told me how GRU stole children from an orphanage in Kherson, Ukraine. They experiment on them, they turn them into whatever Muru is. She’s not...alive, in a sense. Where her heart beat should be, it sounded like broken glass falling...anyway, the tracker. You say you’ve never seen anything like this from the US? Then what if it’s Russian, Renko seemed to be familiar enough with it to turn it off. What if one of ours...”

Laine looked at Donnelley, shaking her head slightly about returning to the subject that he had not wanted to pursue.  “You know we feel like there’s a leak, maybe this is part of it. If it’s even Russian, but that’s all I can figure.” 

“Great.” Donnelley shook his head, forking another sausage into his mouth, “Another Cold War. We were due for one anyway. So, Renko knew his way around it. Why don’t we ask him next time we’re not in bumfuck, Alaska?  Anyone got his number?”

“I’m assuming that he did,” Laine said, setting down her coffee, “I’m sorry I didn’t think to ask what he knew about the tracker, it was sort of out of my depth.” 

Dave was listening intently to the conversation, glossing over the technical aspects. He swallowed hard, drained a third of his coffee, then frowned.

"I like Renko, but I don't think I trust him," he said, gesturing with his fork for emphasis. "I'm tryin', but you gotta figure that if he turned this thing off without breakin' it, he's gotta have some level of experience with it. Tells me it's probably some Russian spy shit."

He thought for another moment, shrugged, then shoved another bite of waffle into his mouth. "Kinda gotta wonder why he didn't just tell us what was up with it in the first place though, right?" 

“If you’re playin’ the long con, you don’t give up everythin’ you know at once. He’s either tryin’ to make his value to us last and not attract attention to himself or,” Donnelley shrugged, his brows raising with it, “He’s givin’ us the fuckin’ run-around and playin’ at defectin’.”

Laine thumbed the plastic tab on the lid of her coffee cup, “When I interview subjects, they often try playing hold back information, like you said, to keep themselves valuable. He’s likely doing that as that is the only currency that is worth anything. I don’t think he’s giving us the run around not like you mean, I don’t get a sense of that. He came to us for help, I think he genuinely cares about those children. Everyone has their limit of what their conscience will allow, he mentioned he was still a Russian patriot in his way, he just hated what was happening to them. What would he gain by risking taking Muru from Americans to give her to other Americans? He gave her to us for a reason. We didn’t have much time to sit and discuss, I have no evidence to back it up. It’s just my feeling about the situation. The real question is who put that tracker on her and when.”

"Maybe nobody did?" Dave thought for a moment. "I mean, we only got his word that it was actually on her, right? Maybe he gave it to us to kinda… Tell us somethin' without actually sayin' it? Like a hint." 

Donnelley stabbed his fork into his waffles and slapped the table, gesturing with his open hand Dave’s way, “You. Now you’re thinkin’ like a fuckin’ spy.” Donnelley grabbed his fork again, “He nabs the kid, but did any of you know if there was actually anybody comin’ to take her back? He has this tracker and hands it off to you, spins a story, and sends you on your way.”

“I wanna sit down with this guy, it’s a little bit suspect he only ever shows his face when the one guy in the CIA ain’t there.” He shook his head, taking a little bite out of a sausage and looking at Dave, and then the others, “So, a hint, maybe. For what? Showin’ off the cool toys the Russians have?”

“...We know about it now.” Ava said, setting down her fork on her half eaten breakfast, her expression pursed with thought after eating and quietly considering the conversation happening around her. “We have a piece of their tech now, if we really wanted to we can figure out just how it works and if we know how it works we can either duplicate it or we can find ways to counter it, maybe even turn it against them.”

“Big risk. Big [i]gift.[/i] Good Intel, maybe this guy’s alright.” Donnelley finished off his sausages and spoke around a mouthful of it, “[i]Maybe.[/i]”

Laine crossed her arms, looking over at Donnelley, “To your question about ‘if we knew that there was anyone to take her back’, we were going off what Foster told us. That we were going to meet a Program team to pick her up and then go pick up a van. We got there, she was gone. A drone picked us up at our meeting with Renko, we left and when we got to where we got the van we were greeted at gunpoint. Yet, they let us go.”

She uncrossed her arms, holding her hands out in a questioning gesture, “Maybe we got told some bullshit. Maybe someone is using us just as much as Renko might be. What do you think, super spy?”

Donnelley froze in place, eyes playing over Laine’s face as she spoke. When she was done, he slowly set down his fork and there was a trace of a growing smirk, though none of its humor reached his eyes. He scoffed once, closing his box of half-eaten food and wiped down his chest of nonexistent crumbs. “I think there’s a lot of things we need to [i]verify[/i] before we trust a foreign agent, Doctor.” He spoke softly, collected, but in a way that sounded like being collected took some work. He fixed Laine with a stare that lasted almost too long before turning to Ava with a smile, “Good job so far with the tracker.”

He rose, grabbing up his box of food and retrieving his pack of cigarettes, lifting one out with his teeth, “I need a smoke.”

Laine looked at Donnelley and said aloud as he was stepping away, “We never did find out what happened to the team that was holding Muru for us to pick up. I guess that’s need to know?” 

Donnelley snorted, that smirk showing up again before he turned for the door, saying over his shrugging shoulder as he walked, “I dunno, maybe.”

Ava blinked and furrowed her eyebrows in confusion at the shift in the air around the table, the rising tension culminating in Donnelley leaving. She glanced over to Dave in bemusement before calling out to Donnelley, “Uh, thank you for the breakfast!”

Laine watched him leave, wanting a cigarette herself but she would not follow him out the door. She took her fruit cup and a spork and stuck it in her jacket pocket, taking the remnants of the breakfast to toss in the trash. When she came back she looked at Ava and Dave, “I’m sorry about that. It just struck a nerve, I should have waited for a better moment.”

She looked at Ava, “You’ve done amazing work, I need to catch up.” 

Ava flushed and smiled slightly. “Thank you, I’ve still got a lot of it to do, but I’ll keep working at it.” She looked at her half eaten breakfast. “...I’m gonna finish this, I’ll be in that lab for awhile and I’ll need it.”

Dave reached over beneath the table and gave her leg a companionable squeeze. 

"I'll getcha more when ya need it," he said. "I'm probably gonna go to the gym, see if I can find some trigger time somewhere… Maybe Ghost is bored and will want to spin me up a bit." He grinned. "Pretty sure I'm his favorite student. But I'll hang out for a bit and keep ya company if you like." 

Ava smiled at him. “I’d like that.”

Laine left them to head back to her table, pulling her jacket off to hang on her chair and sat down, looking at the computer screen. With a deep sigh, she went back to work digging through cases, trying to focus just on the incident they were working on.