The Gemini Chronicles Chapter 6
Series: AMTBR
Title: The Gemini Chronicles
Summary: Torchwood and UNIT deal with aliens. So does the Gemini team... but they also deal with demons. Witches, ex-demons, genetically-altered humans, they all can find a home here.
Primary fandoms: Charmed, Whoniverse
Primary universe: S2U
Chapter 6 - Organic Intelligence: They came in together the next morning. They also came in late. Caleb didn’t say a word, though he was curious. Maybe the counseling and the memory rewrite had been good for them. Still, Turner better not hurt her like Trevaine did, or I’ll kill him. With that decided, Caleb went back to work finishing up a report.
Paula knew what her friend was thinking; he’d gotten out of the habit of building mental walls in his Marine years, she noted with mild disapproval. Time was he’d have been able to keep her - and any other psychics - out of all but his loudest thoughts. She’d have to get him back into shape on that. But what he was thinking amused her. She didn’t need protecting, though it meant a lot that she knew he was willing to step into the protector’s role.
Cole felt Caleb’s eyes on him and thought he knew why. Paula and Caleb were close enough that the other man had probably heard all about Micah Trevaine. He had no intention of pulling anything similar - he knew how it felt to have your heart ripped out too, after all. Maybe that was what drew him to Paula now, that mutual understanding. But maybe he shouldn’t analyze it too much. He was happy again, wasn’t that enough?
They were all still lost in their own thoughts when Daniel Morgan showed up. “Hey, you guys. Look, I think I’ve got something that’s up your alley.”
The three private detectives turned, and Daniel suddenly found himself wondering just what was going on with this group. He hadn’t become a detective without being observant, and he could see that the dynamics around here were changing. He noted the way Paula and Cole stood closer than before, and hid a smile. He didn’t know what had happened in England, but he was glad Paula seemed to be over it.
“So?” the redhead in question asked. “What’s the case?”
“Disappearances. Only they’re old, cold cases.”
“OK, why are we interested?”
He handed her the crime scene photos. “Because their bodies have been found. Completely preserved. There’s still one person who disappeared the same way and hasn’t yet been found. Magdalene Quinn, age 24, who disappeared in 1986.”
“That’s a good reason to be interested,” Cole observed.
“So are we thinking” Caleb trailed off when he realized he should be a little more discreet in front of Daniel.
“Well, I’ll let you three get to it,” the detective said, walking out of the office. Paula turned to Caleb.
“You were saying?”
“Are we thinking magical or alien?” the ex-Marine finished.
“I can think of a few demons who keep prisoners for long periods,” Cole said, leaning against a desk. “But the bodies wouldn’t be perfect.”
“You’re thinking of the Spider Demon?” Paula asked.
“Yeah. But then the bodies would be aged and they’d all be witches or otherwise magical. These people they all seem normal.”
“Which doesn’t mean anything. So we can’t rule out either,” Caleb concluded.
“Where would the fun be in that?” Paula quipped. Caleb and Cole groaned. Sometimes they didn’t know what to do about their crazy redhead.
~ ~ ~
Three days later, they hadn’t gotten anywhere. The victims had absolutely no connection, escept that they all had good academic records. And that was hardly anything useful. Paula couldn’t shake the feeling that Magdalene Quinn was still alive, and that they could still save her. But time was running out. She knew that. She couldn’t have said how, it was just an instinct. Over the years, she’d learned to trust those instincts.
Caleb watched Paula with increasing wariness. He’d known her longer than Cole, so even if his old friend and the ex-demon were an item now, he was still the expert on the redhead. And when she was in this mindset, things tended to get messy. He knew her instincts were usually right - he could still remember a Magic School teacher who’d turned out to be in the employ of the Source - but she was driving herself crazy over this. “You know, you’re not always right, Paula. We don’t know that she’s even still alive; it may be that all we can do is find her killers.”
“Then we’ll do that,” she snapped. “And I think we’ve still got a chance. Have I ever been wrong yet?”
“No, but you’re reminding me of this NCIS agent I met once when a guy in my unit was drug-running.”
“I did my first undercover job with an NCIS agent, so I’ll take that as a compliment. Now get back to work, will you?”
Cole watched them, deciding not to get into the fight. Caleb and Paula would calm down eventually, and it would happen faster if they got something. So he continued to look through the files, hoping for some clue they’d missed. It occurred to him, as he looked through the Quinn file again, that it was both a tragedy and a blessing that the woman had no one to miss her. Magdalene Quinn was an only child of only children. Her parents and three of her grandparents were dead; the remaining grandmother was in a Connecticut nursing home, suffering from dementia. If they didn’t find her in time, there’d be no one to tell, and if they did, she wouldn’t lose two decades. Because if they found her alive, Cole was willing to bet she would still be 24, considering what had happened to the other victims.
That was when he noticed something - where she’d disappeared from. Frowning, he looked over the other files. He’d been right. “Guys, listen to this. All of the vics disappeared near subway stops - all near a station that was abandoned just before the first one disappeared.”
Paula came over to where he was sitting, peering over his shoulder at the papers. “You’re right. Come on, let’s go.”
“Paula, it might just be - ” Caleb began, stopping when Paula glared at him.
“It’s the only lead we’ve got. I know you’ve got issues with going underground, Cal, but we need to go. So let’s roll.”
~ ~ ~
It wasn’t the going underground that bothered Caleb. It was how narrow the damn tunnels were. He was claustrophobic, and enclosed areas that were also dark were even worse. Even the Corps hadn’t knocked the phobia out of him. His Marine training had, however, taught him to handle the fear, and it was that he fell back on when they climbed into the tunnel.
They’d gone down an abandoned entrance, Paula using mild mind control to make sure no one noticed them. Jedi Mind Trick, Caleb had commented, earning a grin from Paula and a confused frown from Cole. When this was over, Caleb decided, he was really going to have to work on the ex-demon’s pop culture knowledge. Honestly, who didn’t know about Star Wars?
He was jerked out his musings by the faint whirring sound of machinery, a sound that was definitely out of place in an old subway tunnel. “Hello,” Paula murmured, sounding pleased. “Nice call, Turner.”
Cole shrugged. “Lucky break.”
Following the sound, they came up to a locked metal door. There was no keyhole that Caleb could see, and he wasn’t sure how they’d get in. Would orbing or shimmering work when neither Cole nor Paula knew what lay on the other side? He was pretty sure it would be difficult if not impossible under the circumstances. But Paula was studying the door with narrowed eyes, her expression saying that she had a plan.
Smirking, his friend pulled out a pen. He frowned. OK, he knew Paula was good, but what was a pen going to do? He hadn’t seen much of her since Magic School though - maybe the pen was more than it appeared.
It certainly was. She clicked it, but instead of the pen point coming out, a blue light shone into the crack between door and wall. Another type of whirring was heard, followed by a click as the door opened. “Brilliant. No deadlock seal,” Paula said happily.
“What the hell is that thing?” Cole asked, echoing Caleb’s thoughts.
“Sonic pen,” Paula replied carelessly as she walked through the now-open doorway. “The Doctor had it lying around. Sarah Jane Smith’s got a sonic lipstick, this isn’t half as odd.”
“Sarah Jane? She was one of the other companions, right?” Caleb asked.
“Yeah. Come on, there’s no time to talk, boys.” And with that she disappeared into the hallway behind the door, Caleb and Cole exchanged exasperated looks before following her. She was right, Caleb knew, it was just annoying when she was in this kind of mood. He almost thought he preferred the bitchy version from earlier. Almost.
They walked down the corridor in silence, all senses on alert. There was nothing save for the incessant whirring and a faint blue light, but that was enough to make them edgy. These things, whatever they were - and at this point Caleb would have laid a hefty wager that they were dealing with an alien threat rather than a supernatural one - had already been responsible for several deaths. Caution never hurt anyone. With that thought in mind, his hand slipped inside his jacket to rest on the butt of the Glock he wore holstered at his hip. Just in case.
It didn’t take long to find the source of the blue light. They turned a corner and found themselves in a large room, empty except for one thing. This was a tall cylinder about twice Cole’s - the tallest of them - height, made of glass or something else transparent. It was filled with a glowing blue liquid, inside of which floated a nude young woman, her dark brown hair drifting around her face, her eyes closed, tubes hooked up to her and to the cylinder. There were a few machines connected to the cylinder, but nothing else.
“That’s Quinn,” Cole said, sounding slightly sick. “What the hell did they do to her?”
Caleb didn’t know, but he too felt sick just looking at her there. She had a delicate, pretty face, and held like this, she looked every bit as helpless as she was. Whatever had happened, this was horrible. Almost unconsciously he stepped forward, fingertips brushing the glass. “We need to get her out.”
“She is our energy source,” said a voice. The three Gemini members turned to face the speaker. He - the voice sounded male, anyway - was a tall humanoid with shimmery, pale blue skin dressed in a flowing white robe. He would have looked non-threatening except for the total coldness in his solid black eyes - oh, and the gun he held in his hand, aimed at Caleb, who stood the closest to the woman.
“What?” Paula snapped.
“She powers our camp,” the alien explained patiently. “She will be the one to power our weapon.”
“And just what is this weapon going to do?” Cole wanted to know.
The alien smiled cruelly. “Make this planet fit for the Alteri and get rid of human parasites.”
Oh, Caleb thought. So we’ve walked into a take-over-the-world plot. Just great. He was still touching his gun and wondered if he could get it out fast enough. The alien continued to speak. “The other were weak, incapable of more than keeping us going. This one is strong. It is almost a pity that powering the weapon will destroy her - we would have liked to have the use of her for longer.”
Something snapped in Caleb then and he decided to take his chances. Whipping out his gun, he fired at the bastard’s forehead. He was too focused to notice just how fast he’d moved, much faster than was natural. The alien went down, and then Caleb turned to the cylinder. He took careful aim at the bottom, below Magdalene, and fired again. The bullet impacted, hairline cracks spreading from the hole. A moment later, the whole thing shattered. Magdalene tumbled out and Caleb lunged to catch her. She was limp in his arms, still unconscious, and Caleb was shocked at how protective he felt already of her.
“Nice, Cal, though I’m not sure” Paula trailed off as the whirring stopped and screams of rage could be heard. “Oh, shit. Guys, we’ve got incoming!”
They did. About a dozen more of the aliens came running down the corridor, guns pointed. Without even glancing at each other, Cole, Caleb, and Paula fought back. Gunshots echoed against the walls, energy balls flashed through the air, and several aliens simply dropped dead, clutching their heads. Paula nearly got hit by a laser bolt - the damn aliens would have to have laser guns - but Cole knocked her out of the way in time. One of the aliens tried to throw a knife at Caleb, or rather at the woman lying beside him, but Paula threw one of her own, throwing it off course.
The aliens - Alteri, Paula reminded herself, fixing the name in her mind - were pissed off, but they weren’t very good fighters, and it didn’t take long to take them down. Surveying the bodies, Paula said, “We really need zat guns.”
“What are those?” Cole asked.
“SGC has them - that’s an Air Force program. One shot stuns, two shots kill, and the third shot makes the body disappear.”
“Can we talk about this later? We should probably get out of here before she wakes up,” Caleb said.
They went back to the office, putting Magdalene in the makeshift infirmary - after putting her in some of Paula’s clothes. Caleb had taken a field medic’s course as a Marine, so Paula and Cole left him to do what he could for the woman. They couldn’t take her to a hospital, too risky, so they’d have to do everything here.
“Caleb seems pretty attached to her,” Cole observed.
“Yeah, noticed that,” Paula agreed. “I also noticed that he’s got a new power. Super-speed. I don’t think he’s realized it yet.”
“As I said, he’s caught up with Quinn. Any idea why?”
“Not really, it’s not like him.”
“Figured. So, what are we going to do about her?”
“I She’s about twenty years out of her time, Cole. I was thinking we could offer her a job.”
“She doesn’t have any useful skills. She’s a normal woman - just out of her time.”
“So was River Song.”
“Who?”
“She and I were with the Doctor together. She was just an archaeology student, and the Doctor showed her how much there was to the world. I’m going to make the offer. What happens next is up to her.”
Title: The Gemini Chronicles
Summary: Torchwood and UNIT deal with aliens. So does the Gemini team... but they also deal with demons. Witches, ex-demons, genetically-altered humans, they all can find a home here.
Primary fandoms: Charmed, Whoniverse
Primary universe: S2U
Chapter 6 - Organic Intelligence: They came in together the next morning. They also came in late. Caleb didn’t say a word, though he was curious. Maybe the counseling and the memory rewrite had been good for them. Still, Turner better not hurt her like Trevaine did, or I’ll kill him. With that decided, Caleb went back to work finishing up a report.
Paula knew what her friend was thinking; he’d gotten out of the habit of building mental walls in his Marine years, she noted with mild disapproval. Time was he’d have been able to keep her - and any other psychics - out of all but his loudest thoughts. She’d have to get him back into shape on that. But what he was thinking amused her. She didn’t need protecting, though it meant a lot that she knew he was willing to step into the protector’s role.
Cole felt Caleb’s eyes on him and thought he knew why. Paula and Caleb were close enough that the other man had probably heard all about Micah Trevaine. He had no intention of pulling anything similar - he knew how it felt to have your heart ripped out too, after all. Maybe that was what drew him to Paula now, that mutual understanding. But maybe he shouldn’t analyze it too much. He was happy again, wasn’t that enough?
They were all still lost in their own thoughts when Daniel Morgan showed up. “Hey, you guys. Look, I think I’ve got something that’s up your alley.”
The three private detectives turned, and Daniel suddenly found himself wondering just what was going on with this group. He hadn’t become a detective without being observant, and he could see that the dynamics around here were changing. He noted the way Paula and Cole stood closer than before, and hid a smile. He didn’t know what had happened in England, but he was glad Paula seemed to be over it.
“So?” the redhead in question asked. “What’s the case?”
“Disappearances. Only they’re old, cold cases.”
“OK, why are we interested?”
He handed her the crime scene photos. “Because their bodies have been found. Completely preserved. There’s still one person who disappeared the same way and hasn’t yet been found. Magdalene Quinn, age 24, who disappeared in 1986.”
“That’s a good reason to be interested,” Cole observed.
“So are we thinking” Caleb trailed off when he realized he should be a little more discreet in front of Daniel.
“Well, I’ll let you three get to it,” the detective said, walking out of the office. Paula turned to Caleb.
“You were saying?”
“Are we thinking magical or alien?” the ex-Marine finished.
“I can think of a few demons who keep prisoners for long periods,” Cole said, leaning against a desk. “But the bodies wouldn’t be perfect.”
“You’re thinking of the Spider Demon?” Paula asked.
“Yeah. But then the bodies would be aged and they’d all be witches or otherwise magical. These people they all seem normal.”
“Which doesn’t mean anything. So we can’t rule out either,” Caleb concluded.
“Where would the fun be in that?” Paula quipped. Caleb and Cole groaned. Sometimes they didn’t know what to do about their crazy redhead.
~ ~ ~
Three days later, they hadn’t gotten anywhere. The victims had absolutely no connection, escept that they all had good academic records. And that was hardly anything useful. Paula couldn’t shake the feeling that Magdalene Quinn was still alive, and that they could still save her. But time was running out. She knew that. She couldn’t have said how, it was just an instinct. Over the years, she’d learned to trust those instincts.
Caleb watched Paula with increasing wariness. He’d known her longer than Cole, so even if his old friend and the ex-demon were an item now, he was still the expert on the redhead. And when she was in this mindset, things tended to get messy. He knew her instincts were usually right - he could still remember a Magic School teacher who’d turned out to be in the employ of the Source - but she was driving herself crazy over this. “You know, you’re not always right, Paula. We don’t know that she’s even still alive; it may be that all we can do is find her killers.”
“Then we’ll do that,” she snapped. “And I think we’ve still got a chance. Have I ever been wrong yet?”
“No, but you’re reminding me of this NCIS agent I met once when a guy in my unit was drug-running.”
“I did my first undercover job with an NCIS agent, so I’ll take that as a compliment. Now get back to work, will you?”
Cole watched them, deciding not to get into the fight. Caleb and Paula would calm down eventually, and it would happen faster if they got something. So he continued to look through the files, hoping for some clue they’d missed. It occurred to him, as he looked through the Quinn file again, that it was both a tragedy and a blessing that the woman had no one to miss her. Magdalene Quinn was an only child of only children. Her parents and three of her grandparents were dead; the remaining grandmother was in a Connecticut nursing home, suffering from dementia. If they didn’t find her in time, there’d be no one to tell, and if they did, she wouldn’t lose two decades. Because if they found her alive, Cole was willing to bet she would still be 24, considering what had happened to the other victims.
That was when he noticed something - where she’d disappeared from. Frowning, he looked over the other files. He’d been right. “Guys, listen to this. All of the vics disappeared near subway stops - all near a station that was abandoned just before the first one disappeared.”
Paula came over to where he was sitting, peering over his shoulder at the papers. “You’re right. Come on, let’s go.”
“Paula, it might just be - ” Caleb began, stopping when Paula glared at him.
“It’s the only lead we’ve got. I know you’ve got issues with going underground, Cal, but we need to go. So let’s roll.”
~ ~ ~
It wasn’t the going underground that bothered Caleb. It was how narrow the damn tunnels were. He was claustrophobic, and enclosed areas that were also dark were even worse. Even the Corps hadn’t knocked the phobia out of him. His Marine training had, however, taught him to handle the fear, and it was that he fell back on when they climbed into the tunnel.
They’d gone down an abandoned entrance, Paula using mild mind control to make sure no one noticed them. Jedi Mind Trick, Caleb had commented, earning a grin from Paula and a confused frown from Cole. When this was over, Caleb decided, he was really going to have to work on the ex-demon’s pop culture knowledge. Honestly, who didn’t know about Star Wars?
He was jerked out his musings by the faint whirring sound of machinery, a sound that was definitely out of place in an old subway tunnel. “Hello,” Paula murmured, sounding pleased. “Nice call, Turner.”
Cole shrugged. “Lucky break.”
Following the sound, they came up to a locked metal door. There was no keyhole that Caleb could see, and he wasn’t sure how they’d get in. Would orbing or shimmering work when neither Cole nor Paula knew what lay on the other side? He was pretty sure it would be difficult if not impossible under the circumstances. But Paula was studying the door with narrowed eyes, her expression saying that she had a plan.
Smirking, his friend pulled out a pen. He frowned. OK, he knew Paula was good, but what was a pen going to do? He hadn’t seen much of her since Magic School though - maybe the pen was more than it appeared.
It certainly was. She clicked it, but instead of the pen point coming out, a blue light shone into the crack between door and wall. Another type of whirring was heard, followed by a click as the door opened. “Brilliant. No deadlock seal,” Paula said happily.
“What the hell is that thing?” Cole asked, echoing Caleb’s thoughts.
“Sonic pen,” Paula replied carelessly as she walked through the now-open doorway. “The Doctor had it lying around. Sarah Jane Smith’s got a sonic lipstick, this isn’t half as odd.”
“Sarah Jane? She was one of the other companions, right?” Caleb asked.
“Yeah. Come on, there’s no time to talk, boys.” And with that she disappeared into the hallway behind the door, Caleb and Cole exchanged exasperated looks before following her. She was right, Caleb knew, it was just annoying when she was in this kind of mood. He almost thought he preferred the bitchy version from earlier. Almost.
They walked down the corridor in silence, all senses on alert. There was nothing save for the incessant whirring and a faint blue light, but that was enough to make them edgy. These things, whatever they were - and at this point Caleb would have laid a hefty wager that they were dealing with an alien threat rather than a supernatural one - had already been responsible for several deaths. Caution never hurt anyone. With that thought in mind, his hand slipped inside his jacket to rest on the butt of the Glock he wore holstered at his hip. Just in case.
It didn’t take long to find the source of the blue light. They turned a corner and found themselves in a large room, empty except for one thing. This was a tall cylinder about twice Cole’s - the tallest of them - height, made of glass or something else transparent. It was filled with a glowing blue liquid, inside of which floated a nude young woman, her dark brown hair drifting around her face, her eyes closed, tubes hooked up to her and to the cylinder. There were a few machines connected to the cylinder, but nothing else.
“That’s Quinn,” Cole said, sounding slightly sick. “What the hell did they do to her?”
Caleb didn’t know, but he too felt sick just looking at her there. She had a delicate, pretty face, and held like this, she looked every bit as helpless as she was. Whatever had happened, this was horrible. Almost unconsciously he stepped forward, fingertips brushing the glass. “We need to get her out.”
“She is our energy source,” said a voice. The three Gemini members turned to face the speaker. He - the voice sounded male, anyway - was a tall humanoid with shimmery, pale blue skin dressed in a flowing white robe. He would have looked non-threatening except for the total coldness in his solid black eyes - oh, and the gun he held in his hand, aimed at Caleb, who stood the closest to the woman.
“What?” Paula snapped.
“She powers our camp,” the alien explained patiently. “She will be the one to power our weapon.”
“And just what is this weapon going to do?” Cole wanted to know.
The alien smiled cruelly. “Make this planet fit for the Alteri and get rid of human parasites.”
Oh, Caleb thought. So we’ve walked into a take-over-the-world plot. Just great. He was still touching his gun and wondered if he could get it out fast enough. The alien continued to speak. “The other were weak, incapable of more than keeping us going. This one is strong. It is almost a pity that powering the weapon will destroy her - we would have liked to have the use of her for longer.”
Something snapped in Caleb then and he decided to take his chances. Whipping out his gun, he fired at the bastard’s forehead. He was too focused to notice just how fast he’d moved, much faster than was natural. The alien went down, and then Caleb turned to the cylinder. He took careful aim at the bottom, below Magdalene, and fired again. The bullet impacted, hairline cracks spreading from the hole. A moment later, the whole thing shattered. Magdalene tumbled out and Caleb lunged to catch her. She was limp in his arms, still unconscious, and Caleb was shocked at how protective he felt already of her.
“Nice, Cal, though I’m not sure” Paula trailed off as the whirring stopped and screams of rage could be heard. “Oh, shit. Guys, we’ve got incoming!”
They did. About a dozen more of the aliens came running down the corridor, guns pointed. Without even glancing at each other, Cole, Caleb, and Paula fought back. Gunshots echoed against the walls, energy balls flashed through the air, and several aliens simply dropped dead, clutching their heads. Paula nearly got hit by a laser bolt - the damn aliens would have to have laser guns - but Cole knocked her out of the way in time. One of the aliens tried to throw a knife at Caleb, or rather at the woman lying beside him, but Paula threw one of her own, throwing it off course.
The aliens - Alteri, Paula reminded herself, fixing the name in her mind - were pissed off, but they weren’t very good fighters, and it didn’t take long to take them down. Surveying the bodies, Paula said, “We really need zat guns.”
“What are those?” Cole asked.
“SGC has them - that’s an Air Force program. One shot stuns, two shots kill, and the third shot makes the body disappear.”
“Can we talk about this later? We should probably get out of here before she wakes up,” Caleb said.
They went back to the office, putting Magdalene in the makeshift infirmary - after putting her in some of Paula’s clothes. Caleb had taken a field medic’s course as a Marine, so Paula and Cole left him to do what he could for the woman. They couldn’t take her to a hospital, too risky, so they’d have to do everything here.
“Caleb seems pretty attached to her,” Cole observed.
“Yeah, noticed that,” Paula agreed. “I also noticed that he’s got a new power. Super-speed. I don’t think he’s realized it yet.”
“As I said, he’s caught up with Quinn. Any idea why?”
“Not really, it’s not like him.”
“Figured. So, what are we going to do about her?”
“I She’s about twenty years out of her time, Cole. I was thinking we could offer her a job.”
“She doesn’t have any useful skills. She’s a normal woman - just out of her time.”
“So was River Song.”
“Who?”
“She and I were with the Doctor together. She was just an archaeology student, and the Doctor showed her how much there was to the world. I’m going to make the offer. What happens next is up to her.”