Isolation by Pintail
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"Jason, please don't go." she repeated.

Jason's hand snapped out and grasped her arm. She recoiled slightly with surprise. He didn't let go. His grip was strong - urgent. He turned his head in her direction - almost. He wasn't quite looking at her. His mouth opened slightly. He said nothing.

"Jason?"

Jane's eyes were wide with horror. Brick was rising from his seat.

"Enough. He has nothing to say to you. Good-bye." Jane snapped. She slammed the pedal. The wheels spun on the pavement. Princess stepped back, and Jason's hand slipped weakly from her arm. Mark and Princess stood watching as the car sped away from them. Princess looked down at her arm thoughtfully.

"What just happened?" she whispered.

"I think we've just been brushed off." Mark replied.

"I think it was more than that." she eyed him carefully.

"I don't know. He looked fine to me."

"Mark! He didn't look fine! He didn't answer you!"

"He's pissed at me! Maybe he really doesn't want anything to do with us anymore! You saw him. He ignored us."

"No. No. NO! It was more than that. He was trying to tell me something." she shook her head.

"Princess-"

"Mark, can we check the house?" she pointed to the still open garage.

"We've got no reason to-"

"Please?"

Tiny’s words echoed in his mind. It was time to resolve this, once and for all.

"All right, we go in. But if we don’t find anything, will you let it go?"

"Yes! Come on!" she darted into the garage. "We’ll find something. I know we will."

Jane shook Jason’s shoulder while she drove. "How did you do that?" she screamed at him. She checked the mirror one more time. They weren’t following. She had taken many turns and side roads just to be sure.

"S’okay Lady. They’re gone." Brick offered.

"He shouldn’t be able to move!" she said aloud. "I gave him enough locomotor block to down an horse! I must have forgotten a dose. That’s it. How could I forget? We almost blew it. YOU almost blew it!" she punched Jason’s shoulder. He didn’t respond.

"Where we going?" Brick asked.

"Some place more secure. An old Spectra base Derek used to work at. It’s been abandoned, but I know how to get there and how to activate the security devices. No one will find us there! Wait until you see how big it is Brick! You’ll have your own room!"

"Don’t like big." Brick pouted.

"You don’t know how funny that is." Jane giggled. She felt invigorated. She was feeling confident. "You’re room won’t be too big." She reassured him. "No. It will be right next to our guest’s, however. You’ll keep an eye on him, won’t you Brick?"

"Whatever you say Lady."

Jane hummed to herself. Except for a few minor glitches, everything was going according to plan. The landscape flew past as she pulled unto the express way. It would be a long drive, but well worth it.

"Lady?" Brick asked timidly.

"Yes Brick." Jane looked at him in her mirror.

"Can we stop for ice-cream?" his eyes were round with hope.

Jane laughed. She tossed her hair in the wind. She felt incredibly free.

"Of course we can."

Chief Anderson held the syringe at eye level in front of him. The team was assembled around him. They all looked grim. Mark looked pale, almost ill.

"Why didn’t you investigate this sooner?"

Mark cast a sideways glance at Princess. He deserved an I-told-you-so look, but it never came. She stared straight ahead, unflinching. Chief Anderson didn’t wait for an answer.

"I want all of his regular hang-outs checked – no, monitored. Question Jane Morris’ neighbours, co-workers and anyone else remotely related to her." The Chief pressed a button on his phone, "Have ZARK unit monitor and redirect all Spectra transmissions to me," he said into the speaker. "We will comb the streets until we find Jason." He promised the team.

"You think it’s Spectra?" Keeyop asked.

"No. Not really." The Chief rolled the syringe on his desk. "It doesn’t fit. If they knew Jason’s identity, why go through all the dramatics to kidnap him? They would use the more direct approach, I think."

"And they would probably have figured out the rest of our identities as well." Princess added.

"Maybe. And if so, why take Jason and only Jason." The Chief held up the syringe again. "This is the scary part. If Spectra had access to a drug like this, they wouldn’t waste in on Jason. They would more likely be spraying it like fertiliser on the general populace."

"It has to be injected…" Princess started to say.

"You get the idea." Anderson cut her off. "No. This whole ordeal seems much too subtle to be Spectra. But we need to cover our bases."

"If Spectra finds out…" Mark said aloud.

"We have to prevent that from happening. And I think we should get started right away."

The team fled the room like it was on fire. There were all anxious to get hunting. Mark stayed behind.

"Chief?"

"Yes Mark?"

"You should know - I really blew this one." He looked at the floor. "First I let him go off like that, and then I ignored the others when they tried to tell me something was wrong. This never should have happened. I let it happen because I was – preoccupied."

"Mark, I can’t lie to you. This is very serious. But by the same token, I didn’t act either. I have as much responsibility as you do. The tension between you two has been obvious for a while, but I thought it would be better to let the two of you work it out. I could have ordered you to go after him right away, but I didn’t. You could have tried to force him to come back as well. I doubt however, that would have been effective. Had I been in your shoes, I might have done the same. All this self-blame however, is a waste of precious time and energy. Postpone your guilt trip." He said sternly.

"Chief…" he raised his eyes.

"Yes?"

"Is that permanent?" Mark pointed at the syringe. There was no colour in his face.

"We don’t know."

Mark was fixated on the object. His guilt was overwhelming. My fault. If only he could go back in time. If only he had listened. Everyone else seemed to have a clue but him.

"Mark!" Chief Anderson snapped him out of his thought. "You have a friend to find!"

"Right!" and with that, Mark ran after his teammates.

Jason’s cheek rested against the cold stone floor. It felt cool against his skin. He was hot and his hair was damp with sweat. He was breathing hard and fast. He wished he could see the floor. A wave of chills swept over him as his body convulsed. He had fallen out of his cot and was lying on the floor. The IV attached to his arm had pulled something over top of his back, but he couldn’t tell what. But then again, he didn’t care.

When was the last time I went swimming? He asked himself. Water. How he longed for water. It was nearby. They splashed it in his face so often. Squirted it in his mouth. It made him gag.

Am I near the ocean? I can smell the salt. He was smelling his own sweat.

I’ve been to the ocean. I’ve been to the arctic.

Jason tried to remember all the places he’d been. Again. He tried to remember how many needles she had given him. Again.

The Chief will want to know. I’m not sure how many. I might have been sleeping. How long?

He thought about his communicator. He knew it was gone. So was any hope he had of being found. They weren’t coming.

You are such an idiot. Why did you have to push Mark so much? Why did you have to say those things about her? They aren’t coming you know.

Why did I act like such an idiot? I’m sorry Mark. I know you try. I just couldn’t let go.

He tried to make a sound. His felt the vibrations in his throat, and he knew he was humming. But he couldn’t hear it. He stopped trying. He was spiraling into a dark despair. The emptiness around him seemed endless, but he felt like he was suffocating. A heavy blanket of darkness was smothering his thoughts and reason. His ideas of escaping had been snuffed out long ago. His hopes of being found and the memories of his friends were fading even as he tried desperately to cling them.

His stomach spasmed. So long without food. She was feeding him with the IV, keeping him alive. He tried to rip it out, but she put it back in. Then she wrapped his arm in something tight. He couldn’t rip the tube, it was too tough. He couldn’t bite the tube.

She won’t let me die!

The stone was cold against his cheek. Jason started counting backwards from 100 again.

Keeyop’s head rested on his folded arms. He was perfectly balanced on the barstool, his head and arms on the counter – fast asleep. Princess began gathering the papers strewn about him. Keeyop had been compiling all the clues he could about Jane Morris. There wasn’t much. She picked up his limp body and carried it up to his room. She tucked him into bed and shut the light. He would be angry in the morning. Angry at himself for having had fallen asleep. He had the benefit of being young, but even Keeyop needed a few hours sleep to keep going. She was tired herself. She went to her own room and examined the dark circles under her eyes in her mirror.

"Eleven days." She pounded the dresser.

They had found nothing. After eleven days of running themselves ragged, they had no leads, no clues, nothing. Princess climbed into her bed. It hadn’t been slept in for two days. She shut her eyes. She could still see him, standing in her doorway that night. The bruises on his face from his fight with Mark. The defeated look in his eyes. She could have stopped him. Convinced him to stay. Eleven days and Jason was still missing.

"Please don’t be dead." She prayed.

She thought about Mark. He was in the worst shape. He slept less than anyone and worked twice as hard. She knew he blamed himself. Maybe she did too? Just a little? At the same time, her heart was aching with pity for him. She could see the anguish he was going through. He barely spoke to her, but she knew. He was waiting for forgiveness, but she couldn’t give it to him. It wasn’t hers to give.

"Oh Mark. We’ve got to find him."

She threw back the covers and went to her computer terminal. No chance of sleep tonight She had to keep trying. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. She looked terrible. She wondered how long they could keep this up.

A damp, cold cloth dabbed Jason’s forehead. He could hear voices speaking quietly around him. There was a constant familiar hum – the sound of jet engines. He opened his eyes. He was back aboard the Phoenix, his friends stood around him looking concerned.

"Welcome back to the living!" Tiny smiled.

Jason looked from face to face, unbelieving.

"I found you! I found the hideout!" Keeyop beamed.

"Shhhh." Princess held her finger to her lips. She returned to the task of wiping Jason’s forehead. "It’s alright now. We found you and we’re taking you home."

Jason felt himself responding to her soothing tones. The tension in his body ebbed, his defenses coming down. Her touch was calming, intoxicating, and then … stimulating.

"There’s really only one thing left to take care of." Mark’s stern face floated above him. "Let’s talk about that discipline problem of yours."

Mark lifted his hand. The needle he held was larger than life. Jason tried to resist. Tiny held his arms. The sharp point buried itself in Jason’s shoulder. He cried out. He was struck on the back of the head and fell out of his seat unto the floor. The stone floor.

"Quit moving!" Brick yelled at him. He picked Jason up off the floor and tossed him back on the cot.

Jane lifted the steaming kettle off the huge stove. The kitchen was designed to feed hundreds of Spectran soldiers and she felt lost in it. She had cleaned a small portion of it for everyday use. The rest of the kitchen was covered in a thin layer of dust. The whole base was covered in dust and decay. She hadn’t anticipated this. She missed her cosy little kitchen, with it’s hanging herbs and sunlit windows. This place was dark and cold. There were few windows, and the floors were stone or concrete. She missed her bay windows and plush carpet. The base had been built at the foot of a mountain and made to resemble an abandoned resort. It was surrounded on either side by dense forest, and a huge stretch of dried, cracked earth lay in front of it. Probably an old riverbed she guessed. The majority of the compound lay hidden deep within the mountain, but Jane hadn’t bothered to explore that part of it. She had moved into the rooms that made up the surface exterior of the base. One of the wings of the resort had collapsed the wing she had planned to occupy. She was forced to use some of the less attractive but still standing areas to live in. She missed her neighbourhood. She missed her home.

"Anything else tonight Lady?" Brick appeared in the doorway.

"Yes. Give him another bath alright?"

"Again?" Brick couldn’t hide his distaste.

Jane didn’t answer. She just gave him the stare down until he bowed his head and left the room. She sat at a small table and sipped her tea. Things weren’t working out as expected. Jason was reacting to her treatments. He had started producing antibodies to the locomotor block she used to paralyse him. She should have noticed it earlier; it had almost cost her everything. She shivered, thinking of the close call that they had when they ran into his friends. His immune system was fighting the drug, and his body was paying for it. Shortly after they had arrived, he spiked a fever that wouldn’t quit. She stopped giving him the paralytic, relying on the other treatments and Brick to keep him under control. He had regained some of his movement, but the fever was back again leaving him weak as a kitten.

She had envisioned it being much more satisfying than this. She had hoped to enjoy his torture, but the treatments left him almost unreactive. He just lay there. To make things worse, she had to use IV drips just to keep him from wasting away because he couldn’t keep anything down. She was stuck here, in this awful place taking care of a man she despised. The revenge she had planned so carefully was turning out to be less than sweet.

"Nope." she said "Not much fun at all."

She put her cup down and walked to his cell. It was a small corner room far from her own. Brick was still preparing the water for the bath. The hallway was barely lit, and condensation dripped from the ceiling. Jane peeked her head in. He was lying face up on his cot; one arm folded on his chest, the other hanging in mid-air supported by the IV line. Jason was covered in a film of sweat, but his skin shivered. He was staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Are you even alive?" she asked him

No response.

Jane hugged herself. In this light, he looked a little like Derek did. Those last days. Nothing left but a shell of a man. Each breath was ragged and drawn. He had stopped responding to her touch at that point. Some of the other scientists said that Derek was brain dead. She lost him soon after that. Jane took a few steps into Jason’s cell. She wanted to touch him. Would he respond? Why did she want him to? He looked terrible. She reached out with her hand.

"Everything okay, Lady?"

Jane pulled her hand tightly to her chest.

"Yes. Yes Brick, thank-you. Are you going to bath him now?"

"With soap." He had forgotten that a few times.

"Use cold water alright?"

"Cold water. And soap."

"Yes, and soap."

"Then what?"

"That’s a good question." She mused. "Then what?"

The entire building was dark except for one light near the top floor. The streets below were fairly quiet. A taxicab rolled past, parting a small puddle with its tires. Chief Anderson stood under a lamppost sipping strong coffee from a paper cup. Steam rose from the hot liquid. He stared up at the lit window. It was his office. It waited for his return. He had decided to take a walk and get some fresh air after he realised he had been holed up in that office for over twenty hours. The coffee was just an excuse to give the trip some purpose. He looked up at the moon hanging in the starlit sky. On nights like these he couldn’t help but wonder what his life would have been like if he had not joined Galaxy Security. He could picture himself in a nice quiet home, someplace in the hills. A nice nine-to-five job, maybe teaching in a university somewhere. Maybe a wife, maybe even a family. He half smiled. That kind of life would never be fulfilling for him. There would be so many potentials that were never lived up to, so many ideas never followed through. Chief Anderson was not the sort to sit back and watch the world go by. His own personal drive, his ambition and perfectionism, these things had led him down this path. He would not be ungrateful. Still, there were times when he felt a little lonely. His age was beginning to catch up to him and with each passing year a family seemed more and more improbable. His throat tightened. He had a different kind of family. A family that was in desperate need of his help right now. He tossed the empty cup into a nearby trash can. Time to get back to work.

The elevator doors parted and Chief Anderson stepped out. He recognised the man standing stiffly outside his office door.

"Major Kingsley." He greeted the man.

"Sir." Kingsley saluted as Anderson approached.

The Chief sighed. He had long ago given up trying to convince Major Kingsley to drop the formal military routine. They had been colleagues for years and Anderson thought of Kingsley as his equal. He always felt somewhat uncomfortable by the cold salutes his old friend used to greet him.

"Major, what are you doing up at this-"

"Chief, I thought you’d want to see this right away." He held a file out for Anderson to read. "The ZARK unit intercepted this transmission. It’s been encrypted with a fairly out of date Spectran code and was sent on a relatively unsecured channel."

Anderson took the file without mentioning the interruption. He knew his friend well enough to know this was serious. The fact that Major Kingsley delivered it in person was proof in itself.

"I think one of your boys is in trouble, Chief."

The letters seemed larger than life. The uncoded transmission had been highlighted in red.

Attention Spectra. Ex-agent DM-399RJ sending verification code gamma-4883-red-332x. Direct communication with high commander Zoltar requested. Propose negotiations for the delivery of secured G-force operative, second in command. Send response on this frequency within 24 h. Details of meeting place to follow receipt of verification code belonging to high commander Zoltar. End transmission.

"Did you…"

"We’ve got a positive trace. The co-ordinates have already been uploaded to the Phoenix. That’s the good news. The bad news is that if we were able to get a trace this easily, you can be damn sure Spectra did too."

The Chief tapped his wrist communicator.

"G-force! Assemble immediately! Code red."

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