Gaea

Chapter 10

by Baybelletrist

Secure guest quarters, Level 8, BETA Mountain

7/30/2098, 0828

Niko turned to look at Gaea. The young woman stood in the middle of the sparsely furnished guest room, staring wide-eyed about her.

"The bathroom is through that way," Niko said, hiding a smile. "There's a small kitchen. It's nothing fancy, but if you cook you can use it for simple things. I don't know how long you'll be here... Do you have a change of clothes? There's a small laundry machine tucked away in the bathroom."

Gaea nodded.

"How about that meal?" Niko continued. "Or do you want to have a shower first?"

The girl shrugged, looking at the floor. Niko studied her for a moment. "Tell you what," she said. "I'll have GV call down for a food tray, and you can eat when you feel hungry. A delivery bot will bring the tray, so you don't have to worry about anyone's seeing you." She pointed at the comm unit. "If you need me, or Ranger Gooseman, you can press the Call button any time and ask GV for one of us. He'll be listening for a page from this unit. Don't speak to anyone but one of my team, Commander Walsh, or GV. If the comm pings, don't answer; we won't be contacting you that way. You're tagged in the entry logs for BETA Mountain as a visiting scientist from Andor, so it's important that no one see you. Is there anything you need?"

"No," Gaea mumbled. "Thanks."

"All right," Niko said quietly. "I have to go report in, and then I need a change of clothes myself. Take your time. Catch up on your sleep, too, if you like. One of us will come and knock if we need to talk to you. All right?"

Gaea nodded again, her eyes glancing off Niko's face like small stones skipping along the surface of a pond.

Niko smiled. "I'll see you later," she said gently. She glanced over her shoulder as the door slid shut behind her. Gaea hadn't moved. Standing with bowed head in the center of the room and clutching her bag, she looked very small.

Commander Walsh leaned back in his seat as Niko's recording ended. Silence settled over his office.

"Sir—" Goose started, and was cut off by the commander's raised hand.

"Owen?" Walsh said quietly.

"It's hard to say, Joseph," Nagata answered. "Her profile fits the one which Greer Latham proposed for his project. But without hard evidence, we cannot proceed much further."

Walsh pinched the bridge of his nose, then dropped his hand with a sigh. "We'll need a full genetic workup," he said heavily. "Niko, good work with that interview. You got a good range of her abilities on record."

"Thank you, sir."

"And you've obviously established a rapport with her, Gooseman. I understand you're the one who convinced her to come here." At Goose's stiff nod, Walsh nodded in turn. "Well done. Thank you."

"Sir," Goose said, "she's only here because we promised to protect her."

"I'm aware of that, Ranger Gooseman," Walsh answered. "She herself is the best physical evidence we have. BETA is not going to misplace her."

Goose's jaw clenched.

"Gooseman, Niko, you will escort Gaea to the Medical Lab for genetic testing," Walsh continued. "They'll be expecting you at 1100. Doc, you'll continue sifting through the BETA databases for documentary evidence. Zachary, I want you to work with one of our legal AIs to comb the legal codes. If there's a loophole for these people to squirm through, I want to know about it. We have to be two steps ahead of them all the way, or this investigation will go nowhere. Any questions?"

"Yeah," Doc said. "Can we go start?"

Walsh gave him a look that Niko easily interpreted: I don't want to know, and you are not going to tell me. Doc assumed a look of uncomprehending innocence, and Walsh rolled his eyes upwards for patience and folded his hands on his desk.

"Dismissed."

Niko fell into step with Goose as he headed down the hall. "We've got more than an hour before they're expecting us," she said. "I had time to shower but not to get anything to eat. Could we stop in the lounge?"

"Sure."

They walked in silence down the corridors. Niko sneaked a glance at her teammate, worried at the tight muscles around his eyes. She frowned slightly—and then blinked, startled, as she found his eyes fixed on her.

"Well?" he asked dryly. Niko blushed.

"Shane..." she began, but trailed off, unsure how to go on. He looked away, and the silence loomed up between them again. Niko worked up her nerve again.

"What's wrong, Shane?"

He gave her a guarded glance. The wariness in his look struck her through, and she sighed.

"You know if you need to talk about anything, I'm here to listen," she said quietly. They rounded a corner and walked down the hall to the lounge door. Niko paused outside. "I'll be right back," she said, and turned to go in.

His hand on her arm stopped her. She looked over her shoulder at him.

"Thanks," he said, voice pitched for her ears only. In a louder tone, he added, "Nah, you don't have to eat on the run. I'll spot you lunch."

She smiled and stepped to the door.

"...So I said to him, mister, you better just be happy to see me!"

Niko nearly choked on her fruit juice as she burst out laughing.

Goose assumed an expression of deep gloom. "Naturally... it was a gun in his pocket."

Niko kept laughing, shaking her head. "How do you get yourself into these situations, Goose?" she teased.

"Hey, lady, you know what they say," he replied with the familiar cocky grin. She finished with him: "No guts, no glory!"

Smiling, Niko stood, picking up the tray holding the remnants of her meal. "Well..." she said, trying to keep the smile. "Guess we'd better go. We've only got about twenty more minutes."

He stood, that shadow she'd seen earlier flitting across his face. "Yeah," he said heavily. He waited while she took her tray to the recycler; when she turned back, she saw him watching her, and color rose to her cheeks.

Stop that, Niko, she told herself firmly, and by the time she reached his side, her face no longer felt warm.

She stopped before him and looked questioningly up at him.

"Let's go," he said.

Goose stepped through the door of Gaea's guest room and stopped in his tracks. Niko nearly ran into him.

"Goose?" she asked his back.

Silently he moved aside to let her pass. She entered the room and glanced around. The place seemed echoingly empty.

"She must be resting," Niko said experimentally, but even as the words passed her lips she knew they weren't true. She glanced sidelong at Goose. A muscle jumped in his jaw. She wasn't sure she had ever seen him look so grim.

"She's gone," he answered flatly. "I can smell traces of the gas they used."

"Shane—" she started.

"No, Niko," he cut her off, and strode to the window. "Just—please—" The words seemed dragged out of him. "Can you tell me how they got in?"

She walked slowly to the center of the room, where Gaea had been standing the last time Niko saw her. As she knelt to lay one hand on the floor and touched her fingers to her badge, she heard Goose opening a link to Commander Walsh on his wrist comm.

She saw—

Gaea's tired, pale face, body curled, defensive even in sleep... The hiss of gas, a canister rolling across the floor... Men in breathers, faces hidden, Gaea limp in their hands...

The door sliding shut on the silent, empty room.

Niko sighed and opened her eyes. Goose stood by the window, watching her.

"I called it in," he told her in a dead voice.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

"I know."

The halls of BETA Mountain resounded with the clatter of booted feet. The search encompassed every storage room, every gloomy back hallway—and he knew, as surely as he knew his name, that it was too late, all of it.

Gaea's bag between his feet, Goose sat unspeaking on the sofa where, Niko said, Gaea had been sleeping when they had come to take her away. Niko herself stood behind him, radiating concern. In the corner Doc and his tweakers worked to extract a usable image from the video records as Zachary leaned against the wall, arms folded and face set in grim lines.

"Here," Goose heard Doc say. "I think we got something."

Goose looked over. Doc had brought the image up on the comm terminal screen. The team watched as Gaea looked around herself, as Niko spoke to her and then left the room. The young woman stood unmoving for painful minutes before turning to go into the bathroom, taking her bag with her. Doc fast forwarded the image to the moment when Gaea emerged again, damp hair neatly braided and wearing a different set of clothes. She wandered into the bedroom but emerged moments later, face unreadable but body language uneasy. At last she settled onto the sofa, curled up with the strap of her bag clutched in her hands, and fell asleep almost immediately.

Doc moved the image ahead again. "We're still trying to figure out how they got in here," he announced. "Everyone who came and went from BETA Mountain this morning had all the right security codes. No incidents, no problems, nothing out of the ordinary at all."

Goose watched as onscreen the door slid open a crack—and the image froze and then broke up into random pixels.

"Damn!" Doc swore. "Pathfinder, get in there and clean that up."

"Okey dokey, Doc-i-chokey," the program chirped, and vanished into the terminal. Zach gave Doc an incredulous look. The hacker only shrugged.

After what seemed to Goose an interminable wait, Pathfinder emerged from the screen. "That's the best I can do, Boss," it squeaked. Through the static on the terminal screen shadowy figures moved from the doorway to Gaea's side, lifted her, and carried her out. Moments after the door shut the interference abruptly cleared.

"How'd they get her out without a fight?" Zach wondered aloud.

"Gas," Niko said from behind Goose. "I saw it in my vision. They just opened the door a crack, rolled it in, and waited for it to do its work. They wore breathers. I couldn't see their faces."

Zachary scowled furiously. "Who the hell do these people think they are?" he spat. "They come waltzing into BETA Mountain like they own the place and carry off one of the most important prisoners we've ever had, and our security system can't even get a look at their faces."

Goose stared down at his hands and tried not to move. Behind him he heard Niko draw in her breath.

"I'm heading back to work," Doc said, his normally pleasant face set in a dark frown. "I have a serious desire to nail these guys to the wall." He shut down his CDU and clipped it to his belt

Zach straightened. "I'm right with you, Doc." Both of them glanced over at Goose.

Just keep it together, Gooseman, he told himself coldly. He kept his eyes lowered to hide the rage that simmered there.

Admit it to yourself, asshole. It's not just anger. It's guilt.

Niko shifted her weight, almost imperceptibly, and he heard the soft rustle of fabric. She must have made some signal, because Zach quirked a brow, and he and Doc left the room.

Behind him Niko stood utterly still. Silence stole over the room, and he heard the rhythm of her breathing and his own. Her scent drifted slowly into his nostrils, worry and sadness mingled with the unique fragrance that was Niko. He heard her indrawn breath and stood abruptly before she could speak.

"I gotta go," he said roughly, and he turned away and strode out the door and away from her, taking his rage with him.

I'm sorry, Niko. I can't.

Shane Gooseman's quarters

7/31/2098, 0348

Goose jerked awake and half upright in bed, gasping for breath. Who—what woke me? he thought fuzzily, and then it hit him.

Oh, no...

He put his hands over his face, seeing the images again:

A small, windowless room. A narrow bed. A rough hand shaking her out of the beginnings of a dream.

Gaea, wake up. Get out of bed. Now!

The floor cold on her bare, stumbling feet, the draft in the brightly lit hallway unpleasantly cool on her skin through the thin fabric of the shapeless nightgown.

An examination table. Impersonal hands, instruments, humiliation and impotent rage.

The seat of a chair, cold metal. The bite of a needle in the crook of her elbow. And a voice, waking fear and loathing in the pit of her belly.

You've been very bad, Gaea. I'm going to help you get better.

Goose sat unmoving for a long time before sleep claimed him again.

Gaea - Chapter 10

From Betamountain.org

Gaea

Chapter 10

by Baybelletrist