Participants:
| Scene Title | Agent Varlane |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Magnes proves his worth and Len finally lets the cat out of the bag. |
| Date | July 31, 2009 |
Fort Hero: Infimary
Fort Hero's infirmary is another incongruous clash between modern and antique. In out-of-the-way corners, bits of old machinery has been shoved — but so much else is shiny and new, or the next best thing to it. The various rooms, from patient beds to an ICU to an operating room and various labs are equipped with top-of-the-line instrumentation. There are some things the base doesn't have, but it has the infrastructure to practically qualify as a hospital in its own right. However, not even the pervasive use of antiseptics in this wing can quite get rid of the scent of damp stone.
It's 3am, very early on the 31st, and the first thing anyone lurking around Fort Hero this late will hear is the sudden bang of doors being kicked open. Magnes, bloody and with an older woman's body hanging over his shoulder, who seems to have a rather large chunk of her chest exploded, and no heart to be found, is flying rather quickly down the hall and into the infirmary. He lays the bloody corpse on a bed, breathing heavily as he holds the left side of his ribs, obviously wounded himself. "Someone help her! Don't we have healers? Come on!" he yells at everyone around, hoping someone can work a miracle as he continues to hold his own bleeding in, which is ironically making things worse for himself, but hopefully diverting attention from himself so they can focus on Ashley.
Veronica is actually on the cot on the other side of the curtain and jumps up, gun in hand quickly as an instinct. She pushes the curtain shut and harnesses the gun. "Magnes! What happened to you?" She's only got one good arm. She takes one look at the woman's body and shakes her head. "Magnes, she's gone. Gone, there's nothing you can do for her. Stand still. Sit." She points to the cot she was just lying on, laying in wait for the healer that runs the infirmary and apparently never shows up and doesn't answer his cell phone. She grabs a clean cloth from a nearby shelf. "Take off your shirt. We need to stop the bleeding. Hold this." She then fumbles in her pocket for her cell phone, dials Len's number. "Magnes is in here with an injury and some woman he brought here… she's dead."
Magnes quickly removes his jacket and shirt after taking a seat on the bed, looking over at the woman briefly before quickly averting his eyes to his wound. It's a bad wound, going in one end and exiting the other. The blood seems to be straining to stay inside of him, which appears to make the wound almost bloat with pressure. "It's getting worse, I'm trying to hold the blood in, it hurts so bad…"
"Internal bleeding is still bleeding, bud," Veronica says and grabs another cloth, dropping it beside him. "This will hurt," she adds, picking up a rubbing alcohol bottle and unscrewing it with her teeth. She spits out the cap and pours some first on the entrance wound, then the exit, sloshing over the bloody skin. Tossing the bottle back onto the nearby counter, she picks up the cloths. "Hold one on each side, all right?" she places the cloth over the exit wound, then guides his hand to put pressure on it, and then the front. "Let me call some of the medics. Hold those tight. I don't… might stop trying on the 'trying' thing, it might make it worse if the physics aren't right?" she suggests. She heads to the phone directory on the wall: In Case of Emergency! And picks up the house phone to start punching in the numbers of the medics' sleeping quarters.
"…containment and cleanup in the infirmary. Wake the doc." The cowboy is talking on the phone as he walks in. He's in his jeans and boots, but apparantly didn't have time to throw on a work-shirt, as he's only wearing a white t-shirt. He notices that Vee is already doing basic first aid on Magnes. "I realize you're in a bad way, but I need to know what happened so I know how to deal with this." he addresses the other male. He walks over and pulls more gauze out and hands it over to Veronica. "Doc's on his way." Len doesn't bother with expression this early in the morning, keeping a rather neutral face.
Magnes yells very loudly when she starts applying alcohol, his bleeding suddenly getting rather fast as the pressure releases, which he tries to slow down with the cloths. "Hurts so much, Veronica, can't you make it stop?" he pleads with an extremely pained look, but tries to focus once Len walks in. "I was standing on a roof across from Old Lucy's, I do that sometimes when I can't sleep. But I saw these two females walking around after curfew, so I thought I'd help. S-she was one of them…" he raises his head to nod in Ashley's direction, then quickly lowers it.
"Huruma showed up, which I didn't think was strange since she used to work at Old Lucy's. Then suddenly someone shoots that woman in the chest, a sniper. The girl who was with her, a lot younger, and blind, the sniper was gonna shoot her too, but I jumped in front to block the shot, and the girl made everything black and white, and turned invisible, I think she was panicking. The person who was shooting, I didn't get a good look at him at all, he came down and I shot at him while I was carrying the body, and he shot me. Huruma went after him and I grabbed the blind girl and got her away. I don't know what happened with Huruma and the shooter, and the blind girl is expecting to find the woman at St. Luke's hospital, but I brought the body here in case you could do something…" he explains, beginning to look sick as he watches his own blood start to pool in the bed.
"It's okay, baby," Veronica says soothingly as she wraps the gauze around the blotting cloths. "I'd give you something to help but the real doctor might want to give you something different and it might conflict, okay?" She returns, pulling off her own splint so that she can use both hands and holding her hands over his to make sure the pressure is enough. She tries to follow the story, but her face clouds with confusion. Looking up at Len with that confused face, she just shrugs. The unspoken words: Did that make any sense to you?
Believe or not, Len is starting to understand the ramblings of Magnes. The infirmary doctor walks in and Len gives him a brief rundown as he takes over for Veronica. "Give him something for the pain, but I need him coherant, at least for now. As the doctor goes to workon the wound, Len nods to Vee, then to Magnes. "Okay. First thing we do is patch you up. Second, I have a team coming to take the girl to the hospital. We cannot have her here. One thing that has to be different now is we cannot bring attention to this place. Next time call for a containment team. Second, I'm going to call for our sketch artist to come in so we can get at least a rough idea of who this was who was shooting at you. Is there anything more that you haven't told us?"
"Well, we suspect Huruma works for Adam Monroe, 'we' being the people I worked with before I came here. Someone implied they might even be lovers or something. So, the fact that she went after the shooter means that the shooter isn't connected with Adam, but since the shooting happened at Old Lucy's it could have something to do with Evolved, since I know lots of Evolved frequent the place." Magnes adds, mostly speculation, but speculation that Len and Veronica may not have known. "Oh, and when I grabbed the blind girl she dropped her cell phone. Since she was a target, it might be good to go back and get the phone before it's too late, maybe learn more about her and this woman." He's been paying attention to his investigative training!
Vee moves away for the doctor to work and gives Magnes a quick kiss on the cheek. "You'll be okay, kid," she tells him. She heads back to a chair in the corner, picking up her sling but holding it in her lap as she watches the doctor work. "Everyone else at Old Lucy's, they are okay? And Huruma, that's the big tall black woman?" she asks, having been there a couple of times.
Len hasn't broken the connection with whomever is on the phone passing information that's being given to them, including instructing someone to go see if they can find a cell phone around Lucy's. Two workers come in and roll the body from the room as the doctor continues to work on Magnes. He begins to stitch after making sure the bullet isn't inside the wound. "While I have you both here, there is some news that I need to share with you both. News that might cause you both to be a tad upset with me for keeping the information from you initially. But, I think you both are grown up enough that you know how our organization works. This information doesn't leave this room, nor escape your lips." his words are mostly directed to Magnes, who has the penchant for letting his mouth run on before his brain. "I need to control the flow of information for now."
"Everyone's alright, except me and her, and maybe the shooter if Huruma got to him, we were outside. And yeah, she's the tall black woman." Magnes stares over at Len with an even sicker expression, anxiety suddenly washing over him. "Yeah?"
Veronica's eyes move from the needle stitching up Magnes to Len's face. Her brows rise with curiosity. Mad at Len? It's hard to imagine him doing anything to make her angry with him. She doesn't say anything, just watches and waits.
There's no good way to drop this bomb. It's one thing to work the public in general, but when you have to make marks of those who work for you, it's that much more difficult to do the reveal. "I don't really know how to say this except to let you both know that we'll be extracting Agent Dahl from Phoenix in the next few days." Len watches them both for reactions.
"What?" Magnes is so confused he momentarily forgets the pain of needles through flesh, just staring at Len with a mouth-open look. "I don't understand."
The words Len uses don't escape Veronica's notice. "Agent Dahl," she repeats. "She's still an agent. Always was an agent. Never stopped working for us as an agent…" she murmurs. Some part of her knew. There's no way that Minea would have given her and Len those papers in case everything went bad with the Company if she was planning on leaving for real. The fact she didn't kill Magnes or Carrie. "We're going in to Phoenix to get her out? So they don't realize she was a plant?"
"Pinehearst is all but dead. That was our goal in sending her in. There's no reason for her to be there now. She was undercover. Now that the job is done, she's ready to be pulled back in. I'm waiting for additional word from her on how she wants to do this, but she's sent word that she's ready to come back. Depending on how many eyes are on her, we may need to send some of you in to pull her out." Len is talking to Magnes now. "I'm told you're ready for field work. Well, you were until tonight." The doc finishes his stitching and nods. "He'll be okay in a few days." He washes everything up and heads out, leaving the agents to themselves. "I need to know from you if you want to be in on this assignment."
"I think some of my friends may be involved in Phoenix, so that might not be the best thing for my cover, but, I'm in." Magnes agrees, for whatever reason, trying to control his breathing so the stitches don't hurt too much. "I've gotta get used to the fact that eventually I'm gonna cross paths with my friends, since so many of them are Evolved."
Veronica takes a deep breath. Is it possible she'll cross paths with Brian? Not something she's looking forward to, but she wants to help Minea get out. "Whatever you need, boss," she says with a nod. "Have you been in contact with her? How is she?" she asks, about her friend. "She wasn't hurt in the Pinehearst thing at all?"
Len shakes his head. "All I know is that she's ready to come back." He doesn't mention how he's been in contact with her. He glances at Magnes and nods. "We'll try not to put you at risk, but the nature of our business is risky. We'll do our best. Stay here tonight, and get some rest. I'll let you both know when we're going to move once I get a plan formulated. It may not even take that much. Once she's back, we'll make sure everyone is brought into the loop." He turns to walk out. "Good work tonight, Varlane. Or should I say Agent Varlane?" He gives Magnes one of his trademark grins. To Veronica, "Thanks for the call." With that, he turns and slips out of the infirmary.
"Ah?" is the only thing Magnes manages to say, clearly surprised as a wide smile forms on his face. Agent! "Varlane, Magnes Varlane." he says with a bit of humor in his tone, which will probably be the only refuge he has before the nightmares start in a few hours. "I'll see the therapist when I wake up."
Veronica heads to one of the clean cots and lies back down. "I'll stay with you," she says simply, not giving any reason for it. Of course, she was asleep in the infirmary when he came in, so maybe no explanation is needed. "Wake me if you need anything, all right?"
"Alright." Magnes agrees moving to carefully lay down so he can get some rest and let the stitches settle in. "Thanks, Veronica."
Here come the nightmares.