Participants:
| Scene Title | The Space Pharaoh's Tomb |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The second coffin-like container retrieved during the Ferry raid of the Vaccines is opened. A little piece of the past, present and future is inside. |
| Date | April 21, 2010 |
Port Ivory was already a neighborhood in deline before the bomb tore through Midtown and the fallout cloud drove residents out of Staten Island. Situated on the northwestern corner of Staten Island's most criminally active northern shore, Port Ivory is a sprawling region composed of red-brick duplexes that have since become the home of squatters and vagrants looking to find shelter outside of the chaos of the Rookery to the east on the other side of the Martin Luther King Expressway that divides the two northern regions.
As one travels further west into Port Ivory the region becomes more and more industrial, sporting dozens of abandoned warehouses, factories and wharves. The streets here have not been tended since 2006, leaving many of them cracked and split from frost in the winters that have passed, grass growing up between the splits in the concrete and entire parking lots having become overgrown with weeds sprouting up from fissures in the concrete.
The absolute northwestern end of Port Ivory contains the Goethals Bridge on interstate 278 which connects into Newark New Jersey. It is only on the Jersey side of this bridge that a police checkpoint keeps vehicle traffic out of Staten Island and affords a distant police presence that watches nervously into the wilds of Staten Island.
Port Ivory is Staten Island's answer to Eagle Electric, if only because it has abandoned warehouses not far from empty and mostly empty residential zones, and is used occasionally by members of Vanguard, now the Remnant. In that sense, it's exactly like Eagle Electric, and is sometimes used in exactly the same ways.
Two hours after the battle for the vaccine shipment the Ferrymen desperately need for their operations, a small group composed of three terrorists and two 'discontent citizens' are huddled in the apparent safety of one of the dozens of warehouses in Port Ivory's industrial zone. Those that needed doctors- Colette Nichols-Demsky, Tasha Oliver, Magnes Varlane and Odessa Knutson- have already gone on their way to the Garden, where they will find allies. Maeve Buchanan, rescued from the embrace of a computerized sarcophagus, is with them as that group's own '+1,' although whether this is for her health or for the safety of those around her is a bit more nebulous. That's one rescued POW taken care of. That still leaves, presumably, one to go.
One more sarcophagus to open, and operational security forces it to be opened nowhere near the old dispensary that the Remnant calls home. Jensen Raith wouldn't allow it to be opened there. Neither would Eileen Spurling or even Gabriel Gray, whether out of concern for what may be inside, possible GPS tracking or even just keeping the location of their base known only to those who really need to know. Never mind that Colette knows where it is: Just pretend that won't ever be a problem. The walls of the warehouse don't do much to stop the cold, but for the most part, they do keep out the wind and snow, and that's really what matters, even if it's not enough to warrant the removal of winter gear. Raith certainly hasn't taken off his arctic coat, although he's no longer wheelchair-bound, either, the argument for this being that if he's well enough to fire the machine gun, he's well enough to walk on his own. It's a sign that things are gradually returning to normal. Or at least as normal as they can be for a small group of three terrorists and two 'discontent citizens' meeting in an abandoned warehouse is subzero weather to discuss what they should do with the space pharaoh they found in the backyard.
And given that he knows absolutely nothing about the device sitting on the floor in front of him, Raith has valiantly decided to stand a few feet away and let someone else open it. "I'm already injured enough," is his argument in favor of this plan, "I'm not touching it."
Seemingly not afraid of the device or its contents, in fact curious to learn who or what it contains, is Cat. She studies the exterior to see all details noticeable there that they be remembered by such study, and steps forward to manipulate controls for the space pharaoh's chamber. There, on the verge of doing so, she pauses to let any objections which may exist be voiced.
"Are we ready?" the panmnesiac asks.
Helena has come for one purpose; while she's curious about the second containment unit it's not her priority. She's willing to wait though, for an opportune moment to blunder her way into asking - that's pretty much how Helena rolls. It is perhaps conveniently forgotten that she can provide some comfort from the cold, however all present will be shortly reminded as the room becomes at least a little bit more comfortable. People can take off their top layer coats at least.
"As we'll ever be, I suppose." she offers, but it's to the others that she's looking, more or less studying their reactions to the prospect.
Despite the pleasant warming of the room, Gabriel does not shuck his jacket immediately, as if always on the verge of coming and going. He's lowered himself into what seems a comfortable crouch, distanced further from the group with his arms rested upon his knees, his head at a birdish tilt. His gaze swims up towards Cat's face when she speaks, and the only response she's getting from the serial killer, if in fact she's looking for one from his direction, is an arching eyebrow and his expectant stare returned to the case with neutral patience.
Eileen also opts to keep her coat on, not because she's cold in Helena's presence but because she's afraid of what she might find seeping through the material of the clothes she wears beneath it. Arm folded across her midsection as it has been for the past two hours, fingers hooked around her side like claws gloved in soft leather, she observes Cat and the coffin with her back to Gabriel and her attention divided between what's going on inside the warehouse and what's happening immediately outside it.
The owl keeping watch over the helicopter a short distance away still has blood on its talons from its last meal, but in this weather a full belly provides it with very little solace; Eileen won't force it to remain perched on the warehouse's roof indefinitely, not when its feathers are already coated in a fine dusting of glittering silver snow. "Do it."
Well, that makes all five of them with zero objections. Raith's gaze drifted to everyone in turn when they spoke, and now that Eileen has finished, his eyes go back to Cat, perched and ready to 'do it.' Rather than a verbal affirmation, the ex-spy offers instead a light-hearted shrug. "Maybe it contains an Egyptian princess who will make us all immortal out of gratitude," he suggests, "You know, that actually sounds pretty good. Eileen's right, do it."
Sans objections, buttons are pressed, and she stands back to watch what occurs next. Raith's commentary draws a quiet chuckle, to which Cat replies "I'd settle for the keys to making whatever the Institute is up to public and seeing it be dismantled as a result." She ponders as things take place, given the tendency of dead people not to be dead, maybe this is an amalgam of Kazimir Volken and Arthur Petrelli.
Cat may as well have wished for a unicorn, for what she actually gets.
When a simple key sequence is entered on the top of the large molded-plastic case, the vital sign displays begin showing the notice «disengaged» in red, and meters displaying chemical levels and vital signs starts to shut down. The entire case moves much like it did for Odessa, the lid pops up two inches and releases a pressurized hiss along with a venting of warm air that, in Helena's more temperate affect is less visible as steam than it was on the interstate.
With the whirring-click of moving parts, the lid lifts up a foot more and then begins to turn sideways and lift open much like a coffin's lid would, save that it is also sliding on rails to fold beside the thick case's bulk. Clear tubes filled with sedative dangle like veins from the inside of the case, connected to clear glass tubes marked with long chemical names. The wires dangle, and trail down inside of the case to the fair skin of a bare arm, and thorugh the wafting vapors that emit from the container, the silhouette of a woman's form comes into view…
To say she looks well kept would be difficult. It looks as if she was pushed in there straight off the street, complete with long coat and belt, and blonde hair ruffled by wind and dampness. The dampness is gone, likely from snow and other moisture, but it retains the dried and unbrushed look. Well into her thirties, possibly even approaching fourties, the woman is mature, but slender and soft looking. Not built like a soldier, or a fighter, though build can often be manipulative. The resperator over her mouth covers part of her face, as eyes flicker open, blue and bright, but dilated with the sedetives that have only just been turned off by the opening of the transportation coffin.
She begins to move almost immediately, trying to test her arms, lift up to reach for the mask, but the movements are clumsy and slow, easy to stop. But the eyes especially, and the shape of the face around her eyes, tugs on the memory of at least one person nearby. A memory from quite a long time ago.
Gabriel watches the motion of the coffin's mechnical opening, the hiss of pressure and everything else familiar about it that he can watch close up and undistracted this round. Pinehearst wasn't so long ago, in reality, if longer ago for Gabriel, but there are certain things in life you don't forget — he got to watch this process from the inside and the out, and recognises the numb fumble of limbs as the woman inside begins to come to life, and the tangle of wires and tubes her body is connected to.
His knees creak a little as he stands up completely, his jaw severe in the way its set.
Eileen's jaw is hard and her green eyes harder than they'd been when Gabriel appeared on the battlefield in time to draw Magnes' fire and save the lives of whoever he'd have turned his weapon on instead. Without its lid, the interior of the coffin is identical to the incubators used in Rasoul's pregnancy farm in Antananarivo. If she had any doubt about the accuracy of the information that Epstein provided her with, it's dispelled with the stale air from inside the stranger's metal crypt.
The compassionate thing to do would be to offer the other woman her hand and clasp her other around her arm. Cat is closer. She also suspects that Cat won't be trembling when she does it.
Unlike Eileen, Raith was spared the sights if what happened in Madagascar, even if he did hear about it. Hearing it is never the same as seeing it, and the sight of the sarcophagus doesn't have nearly as strong an effect on him as it does on Eileen. It's what's inside that gives him pause, forces him to briefly wracked his brain in search of data about something that seems so familiar and yet so strange and new. But it's only a moment, and just like that, he realizes the full gravity of what he sees. A face from long ago that had not crossed his mind for some time.
Altough he isn't trembling like Eileen is, neither is he moving to help the woman leave what was, until just moments ago, her entire world. It's only rarely that something catches Raith so off-guard that he is literally clueless as to how he should react, but this has been a day for strange, new things. It's up to Cat, or possibly Helena, or even more unlikely, Gabriel, to be the good Samaritan for now.
She lets her eyes wander over the other persons present, gauging reactions from them, then back to the woman within the opened container as she returns to consciousness. Cat hasn't seen any of this technology before, only heard the stories from people who did. The occupant, also, is unknown to her. A pause happens, of some momentary duration, before she extends a hand to help the rescuee out of the small metal and pharmacological prison. "You're safe now," she quietly assures.
Here's hoping there's no psychometric or other skin-contact based ability which would come back to haunt her in play.
Helena looks at everyone for a moment, guaging reactions, and then she's moving to the other side of the woman to take her arm and offer support if she'll allow. "Could one of you get a blanket?" she asks, seeming inclined to try and get the woman seated as promptly as possible. Yeah, Helena's predictable.
Gaining awareness is taking some time, but with the help of a woman with a perfect memory, the blonde woman gets sat up, hand pulling the mask down off her face fully, before she looks around. No sign of an odd reaction to touch, but such a universe that they live in, anything is possible. Instead, her eyes blink, obviously trying to clear. "Thank you," she says in a soft voice, English much better than Raith would remember in the past, accent nearly unidentifiable.
It's Helena's assistance that causes the first pause, a tilt of her head, and then a tightening of her jaw. "I appreciate your help, but I would have been fine." For some reason, she's pulling away from Helena specifically, anger in her eyes, reaching to try and detatch various wires so she can begin to get out.
The older blonde woman still has no name, either in Raith's mind, or in anyone else, but as she starts to get up her blinking eyes move somemore— first to stop on Gabriel Gray and freeze for an instant (after all, he's shown in the news, though more around November) and then— "Michael?" Oddly enough, that would be directed at Jensen Raith, who definitely is not known as Michael to anyone else here.
"He's not Michael." This is simply stated, voice gaining echo from the distance Gabriel has put between himself and the others. There's a hint of impatience in it, dsmissive — clearly shrugging off the notion that the woman has true recognition for the Remnant leader as opposed to a scattered, incoherent figment of her imagination. As if in explanation, he adds, to the wider room, "Pinehearst gave good drugs too," his tone wry as he turns his back in a meandering kind of pace, aiming a circular trajectory around the warehouse.
Eileen's reluctance to leave the warehouse and make the trek back to the helicopter for the blanket Helena asks after manifests in a faint pull at the corners of her mouth, but she does not refuse the blonde's request. Turns instead and steps into shadow, the echo produced by her booted feet ringing in the warehouse's rafters as she heads out the rear doors and disappears from view.
"You're half-right, Gabe. I'm not Michael," Raith says in reply to Gabriel's own reply to the woman's question, "At least not anymore." Only then does Raith move from his spot, a quick glance given to Eileen as she departs their company to get a blanket from the helicopter while he steps forward to the device he was reluctant to approach before (likely for fear that it might explode). "But a long time ago," he adds, kneeling down next to the coffin and its occupant, "I was. Michael Moon, but anymore. Jensen Raith, now. Surprise." A subtle, not-terribly creative joke that likely only he understands: The French word for 'surprise' being, perhaps oddly, 'surprise.' He is not funny in two languages, now.
Her head tilts when the released woman recognizes Raith as someone else, and Raith admits to being someone else. Michael Moon. Cat studies him for some seconds before turning back to the woman, asking quietly "We don't really know who you are, or why they put you in there." She glances over at Helena, then back again, perhaps wondering at the angry expression, but doesn't pursue it.
"Would you tell us as much as you can about who you are, and how you came to this moment?"
Helena is likewise baffled by the stranger's anger toward her, to the point where she puts her hands up and backs away, letting them down to rest at her sides. She says nothing, since Cat more or less supplied all the right questions, and waits in silence for the woman to speak and Eileen to return.
There are a lot of little reactions that people who pay attention to detail would notice. The mention of Pinehearst earns a sharp glance at the Midtown Man, and the unfunny words coming out of Michael Moon or— Jensen Raith's mouth, and she tumbles the rest of the way out of the coffin and looks around at all of them, then angerly at Raith. She growls something in French, a couple curses including him disappearing into the night and never even giving her his real name.
"You're working with Phoenix." Some people find Phoenix to be a good thing, but apparently not her. "And at least one of you knows about Pinehearst." Two P names, and they have a connection, though most people shouldn't know of it unless they were there, or happen to have specific contacts.
"I don't know what all you've been working with them on, I don't even know what this coffin I got stuffed into was," though she doesn't seem overly worried about it considering… "But if you helped bomb Pinehearst, then you helped murder our daughters."
Gabriel's brow crinkles in a show of confusion at the revelation both from Raith's mouth, and this one. However, his focus remains on the Remnant leader even as the woman talks, and there's a slightly wicked curve of a smirk that hooks the corner of his mouth up. He doesn't speak, but does mouth one word in his direction: oops. It will surprise no one that whatever sympathy might be appropriate for the moment is a quality Gabriel is clean out of, but he has been especially brisk with Raith as of late.
When Eileen reemerges, it's with a blanket in her arms sewn from rough gray wool with flecks of darker material woven throughout — the kind of blanket that children squirm away from and protest in shrill howls when their mothers attempt to tuck them in at night. The stranger, however, is a grown woman and if she has any complaints about the blanket's coarseness the Englishwoman isn't going to hear them. It's the only one that they have.
She misses the revelation by mere moments, and although she senses that something about the atmosphere in the warehouse has changed since she stepped out of it, she doesn't ask any questions unless you want to count an inquisitive look steered at the back of Raith's head as she approaches.
"A lot of people died at Pinehearst," Raith says, "But when you compare that to the alternative?" A half shrug, a half head cock, a half dismissive look with eyes downcast. "Lesser of two evils. Although it would have been really, really nice if there hadn't been an explosion." This time, Raith's glance, his glare, is anything but dismissive. Harsh, angry, and directed at both Cat and Helena. But it's short-lived: He won't ever forget Russia, or Antarctica, or even just two hours and some change ago in New York, New York. "And now, here you are, emerging from a tiny prison and faced with ugly truths. You remember when you asked me what my work was, and I told you it was complicated. Bienvenue dans mon monde, bébé." Welcome to my world, babe. "Sorry about the mess."
She doesn't seem bothered by the anger, or the topic of explosions. Cat's eyes move between the woman and Raith, then back again. "You were at Pinehearst," she begins, "and you know what happened at Pinehearst, so you haven't been in this thing so very long. You weren't kept in this and moved from there without being awakened at least once," she calculates. "Do you remember what Arthur Petrelli was using you for? What the Institute wants with you?"
Moments later, another question is tacked on, one spoken in as positive a way as she can phrase. "Who are your daughters?" No conceding them being dead.
"Yeah, a lot of people died at Pinehearst," she says with a angry glare, though then she looks away and begins pulling the last of the leads off of her arm and under the coat, to free herself some. Finally she takes a moment to look at the box she'd been shoved into some time ago. "He was doing me a favor." That was often how he would have worded things, wasn't it? Make it seem like working with him was your idea, and the best for everyone… "Let me see my daughters, after I was lead to believe they'd died soon after they were born. I don't know what those men wanted with me, but I'm sure I would have found out once I got there."
So many children taken from their parents in the past, even.
There's a long glance at Raith. "My name was Lorraine, in case you've forgotten— Monsieur Complexe. Not that you stuck around long enough to even find out I was pregnant." Such is the days of a globe trotting CIA Agent? The bird telepath may have missed a lot of what Lorraine had said, but she came back in time for her to look at Cat and add, "And our daughters names were Julie and Liette Fournier."
At this stage, Gabriel says nothing, mouthed silently or otherwise. The look he does cross towards Eileen is full of conspiracy, amusement tremoring through the vague and tenuous link they share that the owl outside is both privvy and ignorant to. She got back just~ in~ time~. His eyes roll upwards at the notion of Arthur Petrelli's brand of favours, continuing his sauntering peripheral trek around the warehouse, and then that name comes up—
Another glance to Eileen, to see the expressions written on her face this time, as opposed to Raith's.
If Eileen's face could be described in one word, it would be: cautious. She can hide her reaction to this piece of news from the other people in the warehouse, including Raith's old flame, but the link she and Gabriel share isn't something she can sever at will. The line running between them suddenly goes taut, and the emotions traveling along it develop a sharp quality that's matched by her very precise movements as she offers Lorraine the blanket.
"Any promises made to you were false," she says, speaking up for the first time since she suggested Cat open the coffin, and in comparison to what Gabriel can sense her voice is considerably softer than her physically dispassionate demeanor. "Liette Fournier is with us."
All things consider, Raith appears to be taking the news that he has not one, but two daughters quite well. He appears to be taking the news that Liette, the girl which has created so much friction within the Ferrymen, is one of them just as well. "With us, and quite well, not for Uncle Sam's lack of trying to change that," Raith adds. It's a calculated strategy, perhaps, not attempting to touch Lorraine in any way. After Raith-knows how many years, her opinion of the ex-spy is likely not the highest. "The world is not the same place it used to be. They used to call us heroes, the men in power, when we did what they told us to. Now, they call us terrorists, because we refuse to do what they ask. They put women into laboratories to harvest their babies like grain, and we're the terrorists because we object to it? How is this a favor?"
Her facial features remain calm, though her brows do lift some as she glances from Lorraine to Raith, then to Eileen when she speaks, and back again. The voice is matter-of-fact in tone when Cat speaks. "You mean, I take it, the favor from Arthur was to see your daughters, and presumably he did deliver on that. But perhaps you might consider the other angle, that such things are not favors, but common decency. Arthur had no such quality. One of the reasons Pinehearst was attacked was his having injected unwilling experimental subjects with a lethal substance intended to fool the issuers of a contract he couldn't complete. It killed the people it was given to, caused them to break down completely at the cellular level." It's a good bit to take in, Cat realizes, so she allows a few beats for her words to be at least partly absorbed, but she isn't done.
"Your other daughter is in the hands of the Institute, the people who had you in this tank. They aren't decent people either, your destination was most likely to some secret place for use as a guinea pig. You likely have an SLC ability, given the use of the tank you're in, but they may simply have wished to keep you under sedation." She pauses again here, making eye contact with Lorraine.
"It's a lot to take in, and there's more, you may well not believe us. We can understand that. As to our credibility, well, consider this: you're in a tank. I don't believe you've been formally charged with any crime related to an SLC ability, or consented in any way to being an experimental subject."
What the tiny woman said may well have changed everything about the anger of a mother who thought she was coping only to find out she wasn't. It turns to shock and surprise, more shock than Lorraine'd shown when she found out the would-be secret agent man who fathered her children had a different name than the one she'd spent many months cursing while her body grew rounder. It's the very fact that…
"Liette's alive?"
Why yes, and it would seem there's more where that came from, as she looks at Raith, then at Cat, a font of knowledge and background. At first she might be skeptical, but she glances back at the tank again. Common decency to see her children, which had been denied her for so long… Whether he'd attempted to touch on that sentimental young woman who worked at the French Embassy all those years ago, Raith achieved something as she steps a little closer to him, still in her boots made for walking in the snow. "Believe me Michael— Jensen, whatever your name is, if I could have taken them out of there myself, I would have, but I'd just found them. They…" The box was taking her to be experimented on. "Can I see her?"
There's some exasperation bubbling beneath Eileen's surface when Cat launches into her explanation that's gone by the time Lorraine is asking about Liette. The girl's mother wouldn't know it, but the difference between the way Cat shares information and the way Eileen does is so stark that the latter has a hard time forcing her lips into a shape that looks like it's trying for a smile but lacks the energy. Whether Cat is generous and Eileen withholding or Eileen prudent and Cat reckless depends on who you ask. It's clear, however, which side she herself comes down on. "We can arrange a meeting as soon as we have you looked at by one of our people," she says. "As a mother, I'm sure you understand the need for precaution."
The look that Cat receives from Raith is much more withering than the one Eileen gives to her. Which is perhaps best illustrates, however, is the difference in the way all of them share information. Cat tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth all at once, Eileen is more reserved, and Raith mixes bits of truth with outright lies as the situation demands. For now, however, he doesn't offer any words. A glance back at Eileen, and then to Lorraine, followed by a light shrug as if to say, 'C'est la vie. What can I do?'
She doesn't seem affected by the expressions from either Raith or Eileen, in Cat's head she was speaking to draw attention on things she sees as already obvious from the woman's ties to Pinehearst, to focus her thinking as regards Arthur and favors in support of Raith's own statement, and to bolster Eileen's claim about them having Liette by pointing out both the situation Lorraine was found in and the presence of the other daughter there.
In Cat's head the task is completed: Lorraine no longer seems at all hostile or distrusting of them. She's moved on, to brainstorming out ways of resolving their dilemma legally. If somehow it can be arranged that Liette's situation enters the press along with the story of being reunited with her biological parents, drawing attention and making a feel-good story, will the Institute dare to try opposing it and risk exposing their role in keeping them separated? Is there anything in Lorraine's background which could be used to derail such an attempt and make her look bad to the public? Raith as the father… his record is clear and should still be as far as she knows.
This is going to take a bit of time spent thinking and gathering information. Right now she's just thinking, and it's evident by her expression.
"Of course," Lorraine says quietly, running her fingers through her knotted hair as she directs her eyes back to the coffin which had once contained her, in more ways than one. "I was apart from them for most of their life, and again for almost a year— a few more days won't hurt anything." And it might be better than the time they'd have spent apart otherwise? Dump that this place may be, it seems to have given her back something she thought was lost, and now that she's not angry over the assumed death of her children… she's a lot calmer and more collected than before.
"Petrelli didn't want them to know I was their mother— so Liette will only know me as her nurse, Lori. I can at least tell one of them…" There's a pause as her eyes wander, mind likely travelling. "If possible, Jensen, I'd like to make a phone call." She seems to assume he must have some pull in this organization. He is International Man of Mystery.
For now, all eyes are on Lorraine, Gabriel outside their periphery which might be why he so deliberately stood apart from the group and this reveal. By the time anyone might consider glancing back to where he had been standing, they'll notice that, quite suddenly, he no longer is, as if vanished. It won't be the first graceless exit from a situation in which he is no longer required, such as the rescue of Harlow's daughter, and it won't be the last.
Eileen doesn't have to look to be made aware of Gabriel's departure. She feels it the same way she feels the cold prickling at the exposed skin on the back of her neck or the slow, desperate ache in her gut where she exacerbated her previous injury. One needs to be remedied while the other requires tolerance, and it's up to the reader to determine which is which.
Cat is thinking. Raith is being his wearisome self. She simply lapses into silence and turns her thoughts toward sleep.
"A phone call," Raith says, repeating the subject of Lorraine's request, "Perhaps. It depends on what you intend to say. I also have to talk to Wireless before you connect, make sure that the Institute can't trace the call. Make sure they can't follow it back to Liette." That's the carrot Raith has elected to use to convince the Frenchwoman to abide by their rules, it would seem: She won't do anything that might endanger her child. "The delay will be useful. I know a wonderful French doctor. And you look like you might appreciate a cigarette." Raith knows he would really appreciate a cigar. And a vicodin.
Her thought process goes on, until Raith speaks and sends it down another track. A wonderful French doctor. Given the connection to Liette, it raises in her mind a question not yet asked, one she opts to hold back for the present. Does Lorraine know Doctor Jean Luis? How the hell does the coincidence happen that a woman who bore two daughters named Julie and Liette has had them fall into the hands of a man who lost his own daughter, Juliette, to what she believes was Shanti virus, along with the girl it was named for? Experience says this wasn't coincidence at all. But she doesn't speak of it. Yet. She has work to do still.
"Helena," Cat quietly says, moving toward the weather and warm maker, "we should be going. Got to secure the craft, and get back." A few samples of vaccine are taken with them, both perhaps interested in testing to learn just what's in it, then they're out the door.
In due time the helicopter is landed, secured, and covered the way Raith told her before the operation began, the way she saw it when they boarded.
They might even manage to boat back across the river before curfew.