Cherry Blossom: Revisited Chapter 5 - (08/18/2009)
And just think, this isn't even the story most overdue for an update. Since it's been so long, I decided to include links to the previous chapters on my journal, for any who might have forgotten what the story was about, or haven't read any of it, yet. Hope you enjoy it!
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Title: Cherry Blossom: Revisited (chapter 5/?)
Author: That'd be me. *grins* Andrew, Obsidian, call me what you want. But only if it's nice. ;)
Rating: R. And not for the usual reason, either. ;)
Comments: *shakes off writer's block* Nay! You shall not have me forever, foul villain!
Legal Disclaimer: I do not own 'D.E.B.S.', Angela Robinson does. Though if I had my way, there would have been a sequel or two by now. ;)
The sound of the gunshot was almost painfully loud in the confined space of the tunnel, and Lucy could tell that her ears would be ringing for several minutes afterward.
That was really the least of her worries, though. Instincts and reflex caused her to duck a split second before the shot was fired, but even so, it was damned close. She could actually feel the bullet part her hair as it passed by, and a slight sting on her scalp from the friction of its passage told her that she'd dropped to the ground literally at the last possible millisecond. "Hold your fire!" she shouted, pulling back into the tunnel and readying her own gun, just in case. "I'm not one of those... things!"
Seconds went by without a response, and a sinking feeling in her stomach told her that this was probably not Diane, after all. Di would have recognized her voice immediately.
Unless she'd been infected by whatever was loose on the island, too.
Cheerful thought there, Lucy.
She shook her head. She didn't want to think that was what had happened, but whether she liked it or not, she had to recognize that it was a possibility.
"Who are you, then?" She started a bit at the reply; she'd begun to think she wasn't going to get an answer. And it may have sounded weak and tired, but that was not Diane's voice, which was something of a relief. Sort of. "The only people who are supposed to be on this island are the natives, my team, and Black Dragon's people. I don't know you, so you're not on my team, and you sure as hell don't sound like a native, so..."
"I do NOT work for that piece of shit!" Lucy cried indignantly, incensed at the mere suggestion.
"Well, then?"
She was still irritated that this person would even imply such a thing, but she forced herself to calm down and admit that it was a reasonable conclusion when one didn't have all the facts. "I came here to get Diane."
"Do you even have a name?" She heard a quiet hiss as if of pain, and the sound of the woman in the cave repositioning herself. Evidently she was hurt, and Lucy felt the last of her anger drain away. She couldn't really blame the other woman for being snippy if she was in pain. God knew she got cranky herself when she was injured, especially in the field. And in a situation like this...
"I'll tell you that in a minute. First things first, though. If I come in there, will you please not to try and shoot me again? I promise I'm not going to hurt you." She was beginning to have her suspicions on just who the woman in the cave worked for - she sounded young, was obviously armed, and had come to a supervillain's island headquarters with the presumable goal of taking him down, which narrowed the field of possibilities to several law enforcement agencies she'd come into conflict with in the past, with one being the most likely - so revealing her identity was a risk, but it should have been obvious to her that they both had bigger problems at the moment, and might just have to work together to get off the island alive.
Besides... Much as she didn't want to admit it to herself, she wanted to help the unknown woman. Anyone who could go through what she evidently had and maintain her composure enough to deal with the zombies that had followed her down and an unknown such as herself was someone that she wanted to get to know better.
The woman was quiet as she thought it over. "All right," she said finally. "But keep your hands where I can see them, please?"
It actually sounded more like a polite request then a "suggestion", and Lucy felt her eyebrows raise. "Fair enough." Holstering her gun, she walked slowly into the cave, taking care not to make any threatening moves.
The woman had let her gun hand drop to the ground near her leg, evidently too tired to hold it up for long. Her face was drawn tight in pain, the green light of the glow stick making her look even more pale then she was. Her left leg was stretched out ahead of her, and when she shifted position again she made an obvious effort not to move it. Easy enough to tell where she was hurt, then.
She was also gorgeous. Not even the garish chemical light could disguise that.
And sure enough, there on her shirt was the symbol of the DEBS. Just this once, though, she didn't care. She wouldn't even leave a DEB, injured or not, in a place like this. And the blonde certainly seemed like she wouldn't mind leaving. Pale and sweating, there was an air of quiet misery about her, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she tried to get enough oxygen from the stale air of the cave. Her shirt was damp with sweat and clung to her like a second skin, tightly enough to make it obvious that she wasn't wearing a bra, which Lucy wasn't about to complain ab-
"Are you checking me out?" The question, laced with incredulous disbelief, snapped her back to attention.
She was right, Lucy admitted to herself with some chagrin. This really was neither the time nor the place for such things. "Where are you hurt?" she asked, ignoring the question for the time being.
"What did you say your name was?"
Lucy had to restrain her smile. Fair enough, she supposed. "Lucy Diamond."
The blonde stared at her for several seconds, then began to laugh quietly. "Oh, perfect. Perfect!" she muttered, still chortling. "You're alone and injured in hostile territory, so naturally who else would show up but the DEBS arch-enemy? Your luck is certainly operating in rare form today, isn't it?"
As she was talking to herself, Lucy took the opportunity to move closer. "I told you, I'm not going to hurt you," she said again.
The woman turned to look up at her, and Lucy met her gaze steadily. "I believe you," she said, sounding surprised by the admission.
So was Lucy. She'd meant it, yes, but still... "Who are you, anyway? And how badly are you hurt?"
The woman's lips quirked in amusement for some reason. "My name is Amy. Amy Bradshaw."
It took a few moments for the name to click. "...oh." The famed Perfect Score herself. She allowed herself a brief smile. "Well, Amy, it's nice to meet you. Wish it was under better circumstances."
"So do I. And I hurt my ankle when I fell through that hole back there. I think it's broken."
That sobered her up quickly. This was really one of the worst possible places for an injury like that. Judging by her expression, Amy was keenly aware of that already. "We're going to have to get you out of here, then." The cave, unfortunately, was just that: a cave. She didn't know enough about vulcanology to know how it was formed, but there were no other openings leading to anywhere else. At least, not down there. The tunnel above, though... "We can find something to splint it with when we get back to the surface."
"We?"
"Yes, we. Unless you want to stay down here?"
Amy didn't need anywhere near as much time to think that one over. "We have to find my team," she said as she extended a hand to Lucy.
The blonde gritted her teeth and hissed in pain as Lucy helped her to her feet. "How many of you are there?"
An entirely different kind of pain filled her eyes. "There were four of us, plus two Homeland Security agents. Bobby was.. t-trying to lead them away from me, the heroic idiot..."
Lucy eyed her critically for a moment, then decided that supporting her as she limped along would take too long, and would only inflict more pain on her. "And Bobby would be...?"
"Bobby Matthews." She swallowed hard. "My boyfriend."
Lucy winced. Ouch. That she was able to hold herself together through so much, though... Her respect for Amy jumped up another few notches. "I'm sorry," she said sincerely.
Amy managed a wan smile. "Thanks." She shook her head. "How are we doing this?"
Not minding the change of subject, Lucy gave her a faint smile of her own. "We go back to where you fell through. I left a rope there."
"And how do you suggest that we- Whoa!" Having come to a decision, Lucy simply scooped Amy up into her arms and began carrying her carefully down the narrow tunnel. "You could have warned me," she managed to say once the pain from the sudden movement of her ankle subsided somewhat.
"It wouldn't have helped. You would just have tensed up. Believe me, I know." Oh, did she ever know.
"I'll take your word for it. Diane works for you, huh?"
"Yeah. You guys found her?"
"Uh-huh. She wasn't any happier to be here then we were. Are. What were you thinking, sending her here alone?"
Lucy had been asking herself that same question since they'd left her own headquarters. "I was thinking that we needed to know what Black Dragon was up to out here, and that the fewer people went, the better their chances of remaining undetected. Believe me, if I'd known about any of this..."
"Why come at all? I mean, it's not like you're one of the good guys." A slight pause. "No offense."
"None taken." Honestly, she was surprised that it had taken this long for that question to be asked. "But just because I'm a criminal... Well, that doesn't mean that I don't care. Do you have any idea how many people he and his organization have hurt?"
"Do you have any idea how many people all the weapons you buy and sell have hurt?" Amy challenged. "How many would have died if you'd actually managed to sink Australia? How many suffer from all the other various parts of yoru crime syndicate?"
Actually... she did have an idea. And it kept her up nights, sometimes. "Touché," she said quietly as they reached the hole.
"...sorry," Amy muttered.
"Not your fault you're right." Lucy gingerly set her down on her right leg, leaning her against the wall while she examined the rope. "Still looks stable. You're going to have to hang on to me while I climb."
Amy draped her arms over Lucy's shoulders, clasping her hands together over Lucy's chest. "Let me know if I start choking you."
"Will do." She began hauling them up, all to aware of the way Amy was tensing in pain. All this moving around must have been agonizing, but when she spoke, it was to ask the last thing Lucy would have expected. "You were checking me out before, weren't you?"
"Is this really the time for that?" It wasn't that long of a climb, true, but she still needed to focus. And frankly, the feeling of Amy's body pressing against hers was distracting enough by itself.
Amy made a motion that suggested a shrug without actually moving her arms that far. "Seemed like a more pleasant thing to think about then what might be waiting for us up top."
"When I got here, there wasn't anyone or any thing around," Lucy reassured her.
It didn't quite seem to work. "No one?" Amy asked quietly. "Not even... remains?"
"Well," Lucy began slowly, "there were bodies up there. Not like I'd know one native from another, though."
"But... just natives."
"Yeah." It dawned on her what Amy was trying not to ask. "I didn't see anyone wearing a Homeland Security uniform, though. Your guy might still be alive."
Amy's answer, when it came, was barely a whisper. "That's... kind of what I'm afraid of."
Lucy frowned in confusion. Why would... Oh. She winced.
On this island, there were worse things then death to worry about.
"If that did happen," she said as she hauled them up into the tunnel on the surface, "we won't let him stay that way."
"Damn right we won't," Amy replied seriously, a look of quiet gratitude for Lucy's understanding on her face.
She leaned Amy against the wall of the tunnel. "You stay put. I'm going to look for something we can splint that ankle with."
"Where would I go?"
"Like I haven't seen you DEBS just poof into thin air before."
Amy closed her eyes, resting her head against the cool stone of the wall. "Believe me, if that was an option, we'd be long gone already."
"No doubt." Amy didn't move as she headed for the tunnel's entrance. "And as to your earlier question... Yes."
Amy frowned. "Yes, what?"
A hint of amusement entered Lucy's voice. "Yes, I was checking you out."
Amy's eyes flew open, but Lucy was already gone.
**********************************************
Janet felt like she was going to throw up.
Her arm was throbbing where the thing had bitten her, and she felt hot and itchy all over. She'd tried to just write it off as the effects of running through a jungle on a tropical island, but after a while that just wasn't enough to explain it.
And she could barely breathe. Even when they stopped to rest, having succeeded in at least temporarily losing the pursuing hordes, she was all but doubled over, inhaler clutched tightly in her fist. She'd never had an asthma attack like this in her entire life. Even on the rare occasions when it was too serious for anything but a trip to the emergency room, it hadn't felt like this. Because this didn't feel that severe, was the thing. Her inhalers should have been taking care of it by themselves.
They just... weren't.
It felt almost like they'd been watered down, or something. They did alleviate her symptoms - at least, the breathing-related ones - but only for a little while. Her medication did not... wear off, like that.
Or at least, it shouldn't have been.
A sudden, sharp throb from her arm distracted her from her thoughts. When they'd all scattered after the helicopter's explosion, she'd ended up with Dominique and Gordon as they charged off into the jungle. After a while, they'd managed to get a hold of Max, and altered course to rendevous with her and Diane. Amy and Bobby were nowhere to be found, and weren't answering their comms. She didn't want to think about why.
She wanted to think even less, however, about the look of horror Diane had given her when she's spotted the wound on her arm. She didn't want to worry anyone, but reluctantly had to concede that the virus proceeded unchecked, she could easily become a danger to her friends. So she didn't try to stop her when Diane pointed out that she'd been bitten.
"You're sure that's all it takes?" Max asked for what Janet thought was the third time.
Diane seemed to understand perfectly, though. "Yes. I had a chance to review some of Black Dragon's research before things went all to hell, and this virus seems to behave like a bloodborne pathogen. You can't become infected through casual contact, thank the Lord, but it can pass through membranes like those of your eyes, so don't touch them or any open wounds if you have come into contact with it. And it is found in their bodily fluids, so don't let them bleed on you, drool on you, or especially bite you."
"Why am I having so much trouble breathing?" Janet asked as she took another hit from her inhaler. She almost wished Max had never asked anything. Ignorance certainly seemed to be bliss, she decided as she learned one disturbing fact after another. But if there was something in all this that would help her friends, then she'd put up with being scared.
Diane frowned. "I don't know," she admitted. "None of the test subjects I read about had asthma, so there's no telling how that would affect things. Later stages did include fluid in the lungs, but you're nowhere near that badly off yet."
"Where is his lab?" Max asked, expression unreadable. Janet hoped she wasn't blaming herself for this. After all, there wasn't anything else that she - or anyone, really - could have done.
"Inside the volcano. He somehow dug out enough tunnels to set up an entire base in there."
"So if he did have a cure, that's where it would be?"
Diane hesitated. "In theory, yes. But I never saw any signs that-"
"But you didn't see everything, did you?" Max interrupted.
"No," Diane admitted. "But something like that would have-"
"He may be crazy and evil, but Black Dragon doesn't strike me as being stupid. There's no way he'd play around with something as deadly as this in his own base without making sure that he, at least, would have a cure available should something go wrong."
And that, Janet had to admit with a rising sense of hope, made a lot of sense. Diane seemed to agree, as she shrugged and said, "That does sound reasonable. And there would also be more weapons and steel doors that lock there, as well."
"Then I say we haul rear over there as fast as we can, before those things catch up with us again," Gordon piped up.
"Sounds like a plan," Max agreed. "Let's move, people."
"Got room for one more?"
The new voice startled them all, but Janet noticed that Diane's expression shifted from surprise to overjoyed relief as she whirled to face the speaker as he emerged from behind a tree. "Scud! Where's Lucy? Is she close? Is she safe? When did you get here?" She launched each question at him without giving him a chance to actually answer any of them. He smiled in amusement, which disappeared as soon as he noticed that every weapon in the group was now aimed squarely at him.
**********************************************
The main problem with a tropical island, Lucy decided, was that the trees didn't exactly produce the straight branches that would work best for a splint. They all seemed to curve and twist, making them less then helpful. And while the branches on a palm tree might be straight, they were also far too flexible to be of any good.
It took her a while, but she finally found a stick that she thought would be good enough. It wasn't entirely straight, but she believed the slight curve would actually follow that of Amy's leg.
On her way back, she decided that this would be as good a time as any to check in with Scud. Keeping an eye - and ear - out for any unwanted company, she activated her comm. "Scud, come in."
"Yeah, boss?" His voice sounded oddly tense, but given the situation, she could hardly blame him. "Where are you?"
"Near that cave I told you about." Her lips briefly quirked into a smile. "I even made a new friend," she said lightly.
"Well, if she knows the people who are currently holding me at gunpoint, do you think she could be convinced to ask them to aim their weapons elsewhere?"
She blinked, then clapped a hand over her eyes and shook her head. It shouldn't have been a surprise, she knew. They were federal agents in an unbelievable situation, and someone they didn't know just appeared out of the jungle? Hell, Amy herself would have killed her if she hadn't been fast enough to dodge. "I'm heading back to her now." She dropped her hand and resumed her trek. "What were you thinking, walking up to a group of no doubt trigger happy feds?"
"They haven't actually shot me, yet. And that was where Diane was."
Lucy felt a wave of relief. "She's all right?"
"Aside from a few scrapes and bruises, yeah. Problem is, she said enough to clue them in to who I am... and who you are."
Ah. That would do it, all right. "Well, hang on another minute or two, and we'll see if we can't get this cleared up."
"Oh, believe me, I'm not going anywhere."
Despite the anxiety and impatience she must have been feeling, Amy had indeed remained exactly where she'd been left. "I was wondering when you'd get back," she said softly, almost listlessly.
Lucy silently berated herself for leaving the obviously traumatized woman alone with nothing but her dark thoughts to keep her company. "Sorry. The foliage on this island sucks. I did finally find something, though. And Scud seems to have found your friends."
As she'd hoped, that perked Amy up visibly. "Are they all right?"
"I think so. Well enough to hold him at gunpoint, anyway."
Amy blinked, then snorted. "Then Max is okay, at least."
That certainly jibed with what she'd heard of Max Brewer. "Think you could call them off?"
Amy sighed. "My comm's smashed."
Lucy reached into a pocket and pulled out a small earpiece. "I have a spare you can use."
"Thanks." Amy gave her a small smile. "You're going to have to change the frequency for me, though. Don't think my hands are steady enough right now."
That must have been hard to admit, so Lucy said nothing about it. "To what?" she asked, setting the branch down and hunting through her pockets until she found the tiny tool kit that held what she'd need.
"10459 kilohertz."
"Uh-huh... All right... Almost... Okay, there we go." She closed it up and handed it to Amy, who put it in her ear while Lucy pulled her shirt over her head, leaving her in a white tank top, which was wet enough from sweat to show her lacy bra, if one was looking closely enough.
Evidently, at least for a few moments, Amy was. "Um..."
Lucy grinned. "Need something to use to make the splint, and I'm fresh out of gauze."
Tearing her gaze off of Lucy - who just grinned wider - she locked her eyes on the tunnel wall as she activated the comm. "Max, are you there? Can anybody hear me?"
She winced, and Lucy could dimly hear what must have been a loud burst of static that thankfully subsided quickly enough. "Yeah, I'm okay. Um, sort of. Look, could you stop aiming your guns at that poor guy there?" A pause. "Yeah, I know who he is. His boss is right here with me." Another pause. "No, she's... No. I... Max! She is NOT holding me hostage! She- Fuck!" She went white with pain as Lucy began splinting her leg. "No... No, Max, that was... Yeah, I know what it must have sounded like. Look, Bobby and I..." She closed her eyes, a tear winging its way down her cheek. "Bobby and I were chased to this cave. It had a gate at the entrance, and he closed it once I was inside, then made sure I couldn't reopen it to stop him from trying to lead them away. I don't know exactly what... Anyway, some of them must have stuck around, because they started battering at the gate. I started heading deeper into the tunnel, but the floor gave way and I fell down into another tunnel, braking my ankle in the process. Lucy hauled my sorry ass out, and is currently putting a splint on it. That's what you heard. Now, I say we all get the hell off of this damned island, and there's no damn way that- Shit!"
"Sorry," Lucy said quietly.
"There's no damned way that we're leaving without them," Amy rasped, clearing her throat before speaking again. "So just put your guns down so we can all cooperate. Our respective careers really don't mean a damn thing here, and you know it."
It occurred to Lucy that Amy hadn't sounded like she was being interrupted once during that little speech. Evidently, her team had been too affected by her words to even speak up.
She knew how they felt.
"Okay. Thank you."
"Your friend certainly sounds like an amazing woman," Scud said, and Lucy realized that since the comms favored by the DEBS were integrated into their watches and the tiny speakers were surprisingly powerful, he must have heard both sides of that conversation, unlike her.
She'd heard enough, though. "That she is," she agreed softly as she finished securing the splint. "That she is."
Amy's cheeks tinged faintly red. "They're heading this way," she told Lucy. "Black Dragon's lab is supposedly inside the volcano somewhere."
"And this gated and guarded tunnel leads back into the mountain," Lucy noted.
"Good," Amy said as Lucy helped her up, putting one of her arms around her shoulders to help support her weight. "I don't think I'd be able to walk all that far."
"I could always carry you again," Lucy offered with a half-grin.
Amy's cheeks turned a bit more red, and she didn't respond.
Have successfully ambushed the muse. Will work on getting her to help me get some other updates written shortly. Am v.v. sorry about lack of updates prior to this.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Title: Cherry Blossom: Revisited (chapter 5/?)
Author: That'd be me. *grins* Andrew, Obsidian, call me what you want. But only if it's nice. ;)
Rating: R. And not for the usual reason, either. ;)
Comments: *shakes off writer's block* Nay! You shall not have me forever, foul villain!
Legal Disclaimer: I do not own 'D.E.B.S.', Angela Robinson does. Though if I had my way, there would have been a sequel or two by now. ;)
The sound of the gunshot was almost painfully loud in the confined space of the tunnel, and Lucy could tell that her ears would be ringing for several minutes afterward.
That was really the least of her worries, though. Instincts and reflex caused her to duck a split second before the shot was fired, but even so, it was damned close. She could actually feel the bullet part her hair as it passed by, and a slight sting on her scalp from the friction of its passage told her that she'd dropped to the ground literally at the last possible millisecond. "Hold your fire!" she shouted, pulling back into the tunnel and readying her own gun, just in case. "I'm not one of those... things!"
Seconds went by without a response, and a sinking feeling in her stomach told her that this was probably not Diane, after all. Di would have recognized her voice immediately.
Unless she'd been infected by whatever was loose on the island, too.
Cheerful thought there, Lucy.
She shook her head. She didn't want to think that was what had happened, but whether she liked it or not, she had to recognize that it was a possibility.
"Who are you, then?" She started a bit at the reply; she'd begun to think she wasn't going to get an answer. And it may have sounded weak and tired, but that was not Diane's voice, which was something of a relief. Sort of. "The only people who are supposed to be on this island are the natives, my team, and Black Dragon's people. I don't know you, so you're not on my team, and you sure as hell don't sound like a native, so..."
"I do NOT work for that piece of shit!" Lucy cried indignantly, incensed at the mere suggestion.
"Well, then?"
She was still irritated that this person would even imply such a thing, but she forced herself to calm down and admit that it was a reasonable conclusion when one didn't have all the facts. "I came here to get Diane."
"Do you even have a name?" She heard a quiet hiss as if of pain, and the sound of the woman in the cave repositioning herself. Evidently she was hurt, and Lucy felt the last of her anger drain away. She couldn't really blame the other woman for being snippy if she was in pain. God knew she got cranky herself when she was injured, especially in the field. And in a situation like this...
"I'll tell you that in a minute. First things first, though. If I come in there, will you please not to try and shoot me again? I promise I'm not going to hurt you." She was beginning to have her suspicions on just who the woman in the cave worked for - she sounded young, was obviously armed, and had come to a supervillain's island headquarters with the presumable goal of taking him down, which narrowed the field of possibilities to several law enforcement agencies she'd come into conflict with in the past, with one being the most likely - so revealing her identity was a risk, but it should have been obvious to her that they both had bigger problems at the moment, and might just have to work together to get off the island alive.
Besides... Much as she didn't want to admit it to herself, she wanted to help the unknown woman. Anyone who could go through what she evidently had and maintain her composure enough to deal with the zombies that had followed her down and an unknown such as herself was someone that she wanted to get to know better.
The woman was quiet as she thought it over. "All right," she said finally. "But keep your hands where I can see them, please?"
It actually sounded more like a polite request then a "suggestion", and Lucy felt her eyebrows raise. "Fair enough." Holstering her gun, she walked slowly into the cave, taking care not to make any threatening moves.
The woman had let her gun hand drop to the ground near her leg, evidently too tired to hold it up for long. Her face was drawn tight in pain, the green light of the glow stick making her look even more pale then she was. Her left leg was stretched out ahead of her, and when she shifted position again she made an obvious effort not to move it. Easy enough to tell where she was hurt, then.
She was also gorgeous. Not even the garish chemical light could disguise that.
And sure enough, there on her shirt was the symbol of the DEBS. Just this once, though, she didn't care. She wouldn't even leave a DEB, injured or not, in a place like this. And the blonde certainly seemed like she wouldn't mind leaving. Pale and sweating, there was an air of quiet misery about her, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she tried to get enough oxygen from the stale air of the cave. Her shirt was damp with sweat and clung to her like a second skin, tightly enough to make it obvious that she wasn't wearing a bra, which Lucy wasn't about to complain ab-
"Are you checking me out?" The question, laced with incredulous disbelief, snapped her back to attention.
She was right, Lucy admitted to herself with some chagrin. This really was neither the time nor the place for such things. "Where are you hurt?" she asked, ignoring the question for the time being.
"What did you say your name was?"
Lucy had to restrain her smile. Fair enough, she supposed. "Lucy Diamond."
The blonde stared at her for several seconds, then began to laugh quietly. "Oh, perfect. Perfect!" she muttered, still chortling. "You're alone and injured in hostile territory, so naturally who else would show up but the DEBS arch-enemy? Your luck is certainly operating in rare form today, isn't it?"
As she was talking to herself, Lucy took the opportunity to move closer. "I told you, I'm not going to hurt you," she said again.
The woman turned to look up at her, and Lucy met her gaze steadily. "I believe you," she said, sounding surprised by the admission.
So was Lucy. She'd meant it, yes, but still... "Who are you, anyway? And how badly are you hurt?"
The woman's lips quirked in amusement for some reason. "My name is Amy. Amy Bradshaw."
It took a few moments for the name to click. "...oh." The famed Perfect Score herself. She allowed herself a brief smile. "Well, Amy, it's nice to meet you. Wish it was under better circumstances."
"So do I. And I hurt my ankle when I fell through that hole back there. I think it's broken."
That sobered her up quickly. This was really one of the worst possible places for an injury like that. Judging by her expression, Amy was keenly aware of that already. "We're going to have to get you out of here, then." The cave, unfortunately, was just that: a cave. She didn't know enough about vulcanology to know how it was formed, but there were no other openings leading to anywhere else. At least, not down there. The tunnel above, though... "We can find something to splint it with when we get back to the surface."
"We?"
"Yes, we. Unless you want to stay down here?"
Amy didn't need anywhere near as much time to think that one over. "We have to find my team," she said as she extended a hand to Lucy.
The blonde gritted her teeth and hissed in pain as Lucy helped her to her feet. "How many of you are there?"
An entirely different kind of pain filled her eyes. "There were four of us, plus two Homeland Security agents. Bobby was.. t-trying to lead them away from me, the heroic idiot..."
Lucy eyed her critically for a moment, then decided that supporting her as she limped along would take too long, and would only inflict more pain on her. "And Bobby would be...?"
"Bobby Matthews." She swallowed hard. "My boyfriend."
Lucy winced. Ouch. That she was able to hold herself together through so much, though... Her respect for Amy jumped up another few notches. "I'm sorry," she said sincerely.
Amy managed a wan smile. "Thanks." She shook her head. "How are we doing this?"
Not minding the change of subject, Lucy gave her a faint smile of her own. "We go back to where you fell through. I left a rope there."
"And how do you suggest that we- Whoa!" Having come to a decision, Lucy simply scooped Amy up into her arms and began carrying her carefully down the narrow tunnel. "You could have warned me," she managed to say once the pain from the sudden movement of her ankle subsided somewhat.
"It wouldn't have helped. You would just have tensed up. Believe me, I know." Oh, did she ever know.
"I'll take your word for it. Diane works for you, huh?"
"Yeah. You guys found her?"
"Uh-huh. She wasn't any happier to be here then we were. Are. What were you thinking, sending her here alone?"
Lucy had been asking herself that same question since they'd left her own headquarters. "I was thinking that we needed to know what Black Dragon was up to out here, and that the fewer people went, the better their chances of remaining undetected. Believe me, if I'd known about any of this..."
"Why come at all? I mean, it's not like you're one of the good guys." A slight pause. "No offense."
"None taken." Honestly, she was surprised that it had taken this long for that question to be asked. "But just because I'm a criminal... Well, that doesn't mean that I don't care. Do you have any idea how many people he and his organization have hurt?"
"Do you have any idea how many people all the weapons you buy and sell have hurt?" Amy challenged. "How many would have died if you'd actually managed to sink Australia? How many suffer from all the other various parts of yoru crime syndicate?"
Actually... she did have an idea. And it kept her up nights, sometimes. "Touché," she said quietly as they reached the hole.
"...sorry," Amy muttered.
"Not your fault you're right." Lucy gingerly set her down on her right leg, leaning her against the wall while she examined the rope. "Still looks stable. You're going to have to hang on to me while I climb."
Amy draped her arms over Lucy's shoulders, clasping her hands together over Lucy's chest. "Let me know if I start choking you."
"Will do." She began hauling them up, all to aware of the way Amy was tensing in pain. All this moving around must have been agonizing, but when she spoke, it was to ask the last thing Lucy would have expected. "You were checking me out before, weren't you?"
"Is this really the time for that?" It wasn't that long of a climb, true, but she still needed to focus. And frankly, the feeling of Amy's body pressing against hers was distracting enough by itself.
Amy made a motion that suggested a shrug without actually moving her arms that far. "Seemed like a more pleasant thing to think about then what might be waiting for us up top."
"When I got here, there wasn't anyone or any thing around," Lucy reassured her.
It didn't quite seem to work. "No one?" Amy asked quietly. "Not even... remains?"
"Well," Lucy began slowly, "there were bodies up there. Not like I'd know one native from another, though."
"But... just natives."
"Yeah." It dawned on her what Amy was trying not to ask. "I didn't see anyone wearing a Homeland Security uniform, though. Your guy might still be alive."
Amy's answer, when it came, was barely a whisper. "That's... kind of what I'm afraid of."
Lucy frowned in confusion. Why would... Oh. She winced.
On this island, there were worse things then death to worry about.
"If that did happen," she said as she hauled them up into the tunnel on the surface, "we won't let him stay that way."
"Damn right we won't," Amy replied seriously, a look of quiet gratitude for Lucy's understanding on her face.
She leaned Amy against the wall of the tunnel. "You stay put. I'm going to look for something we can splint that ankle with."
"Where would I go?"
"Like I haven't seen you DEBS just poof into thin air before."
Amy closed her eyes, resting her head against the cool stone of the wall. "Believe me, if that was an option, we'd be long gone already."
"No doubt." Amy didn't move as she headed for the tunnel's entrance. "And as to your earlier question... Yes."
Amy frowned. "Yes, what?"
A hint of amusement entered Lucy's voice. "Yes, I was checking you out."
Amy's eyes flew open, but Lucy was already gone.
**********************************************
Janet felt like she was going to throw up.
Her arm was throbbing where the thing had bitten her, and she felt hot and itchy all over. She'd tried to just write it off as the effects of running through a jungle on a tropical island, but after a while that just wasn't enough to explain it.
And she could barely breathe. Even when they stopped to rest, having succeeded in at least temporarily losing the pursuing hordes, she was all but doubled over, inhaler clutched tightly in her fist. She'd never had an asthma attack like this in her entire life. Even on the rare occasions when it was too serious for anything but a trip to the emergency room, it hadn't felt like this. Because this didn't feel that severe, was the thing. Her inhalers should have been taking care of it by themselves.
They just... weren't.
It felt almost like they'd been watered down, or something. They did alleviate her symptoms - at least, the breathing-related ones - but only for a little while. Her medication did not... wear off, like that.
Or at least, it shouldn't have been.
A sudden, sharp throb from her arm distracted her from her thoughts. When they'd all scattered after the helicopter's explosion, she'd ended up with Dominique and Gordon as they charged off into the jungle. After a while, they'd managed to get a hold of Max, and altered course to rendevous with her and Diane. Amy and Bobby were nowhere to be found, and weren't answering their comms. She didn't want to think about why.
She wanted to think even less, however, about the look of horror Diane had given her when she's spotted the wound on her arm. She didn't want to worry anyone, but reluctantly had to concede that the virus proceeded unchecked, she could easily become a danger to her friends. So she didn't try to stop her when Diane pointed out that she'd been bitten.
"You're sure that's all it takes?" Max asked for what Janet thought was the third time.
Diane seemed to understand perfectly, though. "Yes. I had a chance to review some of Black Dragon's research before things went all to hell, and this virus seems to behave like a bloodborne pathogen. You can't become infected through casual contact, thank the Lord, but it can pass through membranes like those of your eyes, so don't touch them or any open wounds if you have come into contact with it. And it is found in their bodily fluids, so don't let them bleed on you, drool on you, or especially bite you."
"Why am I having so much trouble breathing?" Janet asked as she took another hit from her inhaler. She almost wished Max had never asked anything. Ignorance certainly seemed to be bliss, she decided as she learned one disturbing fact after another. But if there was something in all this that would help her friends, then she'd put up with being scared.
Diane frowned. "I don't know," she admitted. "None of the test subjects I read about had asthma, so there's no telling how that would affect things. Later stages did include fluid in the lungs, but you're nowhere near that badly off yet."
"Where is his lab?" Max asked, expression unreadable. Janet hoped she wasn't blaming herself for this. After all, there wasn't anything else that she - or anyone, really - could have done.
"Inside the volcano. He somehow dug out enough tunnels to set up an entire base in there."
"So if he did have a cure, that's where it would be?"
Diane hesitated. "In theory, yes. But I never saw any signs that-"
"But you didn't see everything, did you?" Max interrupted.
"No," Diane admitted. "But something like that would have-"
"He may be crazy and evil, but Black Dragon doesn't strike me as being stupid. There's no way he'd play around with something as deadly as this in his own base without making sure that he, at least, would have a cure available should something go wrong."
And that, Janet had to admit with a rising sense of hope, made a lot of sense. Diane seemed to agree, as she shrugged and said, "That does sound reasonable. And there would also be more weapons and steel doors that lock there, as well."
"Then I say we haul rear over there as fast as we can, before those things catch up with us again," Gordon piped up.
"Sounds like a plan," Max agreed. "Let's move, people."
"Got room for one more?"
The new voice startled them all, but Janet noticed that Diane's expression shifted from surprise to overjoyed relief as she whirled to face the speaker as he emerged from behind a tree. "Scud! Where's Lucy? Is she close? Is she safe? When did you get here?" She launched each question at him without giving him a chance to actually answer any of them. He smiled in amusement, which disappeared as soon as he noticed that every weapon in the group was now aimed squarely at him.
**********************************************
The main problem with a tropical island, Lucy decided, was that the trees didn't exactly produce the straight branches that would work best for a splint. They all seemed to curve and twist, making them less then helpful. And while the branches on a palm tree might be straight, they were also far too flexible to be of any good.
It took her a while, but she finally found a stick that she thought would be good enough. It wasn't entirely straight, but she believed the slight curve would actually follow that of Amy's leg.
On her way back, she decided that this would be as good a time as any to check in with Scud. Keeping an eye - and ear - out for any unwanted company, she activated her comm. "Scud, come in."
"Yeah, boss?" His voice sounded oddly tense, but given the situation, she could hardly blame him. "Where are you?"
"Near that cave I told you about." Her lips briefly quirked into a smile. "I even made a new friend," she said lightly.
"Well, if she knows the people who are currently holding me at gunpoint, do you think she could be convinced to ask them to aim their weapons elsewhere?"
She blinked, then clapped a hand over her eyes and shook her head. It shouldn't have been a surprise, she knew. They were federal agents in an unbelievable situation, and someone they didn't know just appeared out of the jungle? Hell, Amy herself would have killed her if she hadn't been fast enough to dodge. "I'm heading back to her now." She dropped her hand and resumed her trek. "What were you thinking, walking up to a group of no doubt trigger happy feds?"
"They haven't actually shot me, yet. And that was where Diane was."
Lucy felt a wave of relief. "She's all right?"
"Aside from a few scrapes and bruises, yeah. Problem is, she said enough to clue them in to who I am... and who you are."
Ah. That would do it, all right. "Well, hang on another minute or two, and we'll see if we can't get this cleared up."
"Oh, believe me, I'm not going anywhere."
Despite the anxiety and impatience she must have been feeling, Amy had indeed remained exactly where she'd been left. "I was wondering when you'd get back," she said softly, almost listlessly.
Lucy silently berated herself for leaving the obviously traumatized woman alone with nothing but her dark thoughts to keep her company. "Sorry. The foliage on this island sucks. I did finally find something, though. And Scud seems to have found your friends."
As she'd hoped, that perked Amy up visibly. "Are they all right?"
"I think so. Well enough to hold him at gunpoint, anyway."
Amy blinked, then snorted. "Then Max is okay, at least."
That certainly jibed with what she'd heard of Max Brewer. "Think you could call them off?"
Amy sighed. "My comm's smashed."
Lucy reached into a pocket and pulled out a small earpiece. "I have a spare you can use."
"Thanks." Amy gave her a small smile. "You're going to have to change the frequency for me, though. Don't think my hands are steady enough right now."
That must have been hard to admit, so Lucy said nothing about it. "To what?" she asked, setting the branch down and hunting through her pockets until she found the tiny tool kit that held what she'd need.
"10459 kilohertz."
"Uh-huh... All right... Almost... Okay, there we go." She closed it up and handed it to Amy, who put it in her ear while Lucy pulled her shirt over her head, leaving her in a white tank top, which was wet enough from sweat to show her lacy bra, if one was looking closely enough.
Evidently, at least for a few moments, Amy was. "Um..."
Lucy grinned. "Need something to use to make the splint, and I'm fresh out of gauze."
Tearing her gaze off of Lucy - who just grinned wider - she locked her eyes on the tunnel wall as she activated the comm. "Max, are you there? Can anybody hear me?"
She winced, and Lucy could dimly hear what must have been a loud burst of static that thankfully subsided quickly enough. "Yeah, I'm okay. Um, sort of. Look, could you stop aiming your guns at that poor guy there?" A pause. "Yeah, I know who he is. His boss is right here with me." Another pause. "No, she's... No. I... Max! She is NOT holding me hostage! She- Fuck!" She went white with pain as Lucy began splinting her leg. "No... No, Max, that was... Yeah, I know what it must have sounded like. Look, Bobby and I..." She closed her eyes, a tear winging its way down her cheek. "Bobby and I were chased to this cave. It had a gate at the entrance, and he closed it once I was inside, then made sure I couldn't reopen it to stop him from trying to lead them away. I don't know exactly what... Anyway, some of them must have stuck around, because they started battering at the gate. I started heading deeper into the tunnel, but the floor gave way and I fell down into another tunnel, braking my ankle in the process. Lucy hauled my sorry ass out, and is currently putting a splint on it. That's what you heard. Now, I say we all get the hell off of this damned island, and there's no damn way that- Shit!"
"Sorry," Lucy said quietly.
"There's no damned way that we're leaving without them," Amy rasped, clearing her throat before speaking again. "So just put your guns down so we can all cooperate. Our respective careers really don't mean a damn thing here, and you know it."
It occurred to Lucy that Amy hadn't sounded like she was being interrupted once during that little speech. Evidently, her team had been too affected by her words to even speak up.
She knew how they felt.
"Okay. Thank you."
"Your friend certainly sounds like an amazing woman," Scud said, and Lucy realized that since the comms favored by the DEBS were integrated into their watches and the tiny speakers were surprisingly powerful, he must have heard both sides of that conversation, unlike her.
She'd heard enough, though. "That she is," she agreed softly as she finished securing the splint. "That she is."
Amy's cheeks tinged faintly red. "They're heading this way," she told Lucy. "Black Dragon's lab is supposedly inside the volcano somewhere."
"And this gated and guarded tunnel leads back into the mountain," Lucy noted.
"Good," Amy said as Lucy helped her up, putting one of her arms around her shoulders to help support her weight. "I don't think I'd be able to walk all that far."
"I could always carry you again," Lucy offered with a half-grin.
Amy's cheeks turned a bit more red, and she didn't respond.
Have successfully ambushed the muse. Will work on getting her to help me get some other updates written shortly. Am v.v. sorry about lack of updates prior to this.