Living in America, part 7
Warehouse 13, South Dakota
2003
The office - Artie’s, Rebecca supposed, though part of her was still expecting Charlie to come in and tell them all to get back to work any moment - filled with an awkward silence on the heels of Claudia’s outburst. Finally, Jack said, “You two have met before?”
“I was only a kid, but I remember the face. He was at the college the day - he was going to recommend Joshua for a grant!” Claudia glared at Artie. “I guess you left out the part about the top secret, off-the-grid warehouse full of madcap?”
“I - you...” Artie floundered for a moment, then glared back at Claudia. “You had no business knowing about the Warehouse then, and you definitely have no business being here now. How did you even--”
“Oh, I have all the business in the world here. Unfinished business, you might say. And you can unbunch your pants as to how I got here, dude, they read me in.”
“They read you in? How did they read you in?”
“I believe you’re the one who mentioned a retired agent coming back to reminisce,” Rebecca pointed out, “though this is hardly something I would do just to relive old memories.”
Artie looked from her to Jack and back again; after a few moments, his eyes widened. “My God, you’re - you’re Jack and Rebecca?”
“I didn’t realise we were famous.”
“Two Warehouse agents who made it out without getting killed, misplaced, or driven permanently insane in the line of duty? If this place had a training video, the entire thing would be Gus telling people to do what you two did. It’s an honor to meet you, it really is.”
“What, did you think I dragged my grandparents on a joy ride to the Badlands?” Claudia said. “I don’t even know who my grandparents were - not from personal experience, anyway. Otherwise we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation, and now that we’re done with the meet and greet, I have a few words for you about my brother.”
Artie sighed. “Kid, that was a long time ago, that stuff. Joshua’s death was--”
“He’s not dead,” Claudia and Jack said in unison.
“He - what else could he be?”
“If I don’t miss my guess,” Rebecca said, “you’ve been in this line of work for quite some time. Am I correct?”
Artie nodded and sat down in a desk chair. “Mrs. Frederic brought me on board in ‘69.”
“Then I would hope you’re aware, by now, that when it comes to Artifacts, there’s often more than meets the eye. Jack and Claudia know significantly more about the situation than I do, but I’ve heard enough to think that you let two people down when you were first dealing with this. For one thing, what kept you from asking more questions at the time?”
“Actually, don’t answer that,” Claudia said. “I don’t want to hear it, I just want to bring Joshua home. You got six years of sitting on your ass and not taking advantage of your mondo resources to make up for, buddy.”
“I--” Artie looked among them, and sighed. “Am not going to find an ally in this room, am I.”
“If you were, I kinda doubt they would have driven me out here.”
“All right, fine, I’ll hear you out. Supposing for a moment that Joshua’s not dead - and I’m not saying you’ve convinced me yet - then where is he?”
Jack shrugged. “He got himself stuck somewhere, I can tell you that much,” he said. “And it looks like undoing that is going to be pretty damn difficult.”
“Of course it’s going to be difficult. Joshua must have put a lot of work into getting that damn thing to work in the first place - that’s not the sort of thing you can just undo in a snap.”
“More to the point, I don’t think you can undo it without the compass,” Rebecca said. “We had a look at the other Artifacts that belonged to Rheticus while we were waiting, and every single one of them had a secret panel.”
“Great, so you get here and it turns out to be a wild goose chase.” Artie turned to his computer, poking viciously at a few buttons. “The compass--”
“Disappeared with Joshua,” Claudia said. “Got the memo, Obi-Wan. But maybe, just maybe, there’s something in this Pandora’s Box that could get us to where he is, especially alongside everything else that’s still in his lab?”
“Actually, Pandora’s box wouldn’t do much--”
Rebecca sighed. “Artie. A little focus would be nice, please.”
“...Right. Everything’s still in the lab, you say?”
Claudia nodded. “The whole setup, other than the compass. No idea why nobody’s cleaned it out yet, but I’m not gonna argue.”
“Then maybe we can salvage the situation after all. Between Joshua’s supplementary materials and something to step in for the compass, we might be able to get through to him. Maybe. I’m not making any promises, and I’m definitely not driving across the state at this hour--”
“But we need to--”
“He’s got a point, Claud,” Jack said. “By the time we got back to Sioux Falls, none of us would be in any state to do anything useful. Besides, you’ll like the B&B.”
Claudia sighed. “All right, fine. Anyway, that gives me a chance to find out why you guys don’t bother with career days.”
“Absolutely not,” Artie snapped. “We don’t hire sixteen-year-olds.”
“Why not? What, do you think I won’t be useful? You want me to hack in here and prove otherwise? I totally could, you know.”
“Because this job is far too dangerous for us to go around dragging minors into it, however willing you might be. Go home, go to college, and maybe if you still want to do the work in six years--”
“Four.”
Artie blinked. “Four?”
“I was in sixth grade when you met me, dude. Four.”
“Four years, then. If you still want to do it in four years, then we’ll talk. I’m going to Leena’s before I miss dinner.”
As Artie headed out of the office, Jack said, “We didn’t think this through very well. The car’s still by the back door.”
Rebecca frowned. “I’m not sure I want to try those stairs going up, either.”
“Let’s go out here and I’ll bring the car around, then.”
They headed out the office’s front door, and Jack started up the hill to get the car. Claudia picked up the rugby ball that had nearly hit her on their arrival and said, “You know, it’s too bad you guys weren’t in the foster care gig when you were doing this job. Best Take Your Daughter to Work Day ever.”
“Claudia...” Rebecca sighed. “Try not to hate me for saying this, but Artie’s right about one thing. You shouldn’t pin all of your hopes on working here.”
“Why not? I’d think they would like someone being excited to walk on. Besides, you liked working here, didn’t you?”
“Yes and no. Jack enjoyed it far more than I did; I couldn’t avoid thinking of all the ways it could go wrong, and often did. There was more than one occasion where one of us would have died had the other not been there. This place - it uses you up, and it’s very rare that people make it out of the job alive and sane.”
“If you and Jack are the stars of the hypothetical training video, I can imagine.” Claudia tossed the ball from one hand to the other, then blinked at it. “Wow. This thing packs a punch.”
“I’m sure it does. Anyway - if this turns out to be what your heart is set on doing, I wouldn’t dream of stopping you. You do need to explore your other options, though. Besides, I’m sure that by now, you need a college education to join the Secret Service.”
“Just about everything needs a college degree these days. Makes you wonder how people ever got anything done before there were colleges.” Claudia sighed. “I just wish some of those places would give me a damn answer already. They take much longer, I’m gonna think they don’t want a kid hanging around with everyone who’s worried about where their next beer is coming from.”
“You’re far too bright for all of them to turn you down, Claudia. And no matter where you go, we’ll be there for you every step of the way.”
“Hopefully Joshua will, too.”
“Provided we can get him out, I’m sure he will be.” Before Rebecca could add anything else, Jack pulled up in the car; she let the conversation drop as they got in, sure that, one way or another, the next day would answer many of their questions.
St. Louis, Missouri
1962
A surge of panic swept through Rebecca - at least, she was fairly certain it was that and not electricity, but she imagined she could be forgiven for confusing the two if she were wrong. They’d found the Artifact they had come to chase, all right, but now it appeared to be killing Jack, and he didn’t look like he was going to be of much help in securing it.
Fortunately, her common sense - which, as it often did in situations like this, sounded rather like Gus - didn’t take long to kick in: First and foremost, don’t panic. Panicking won’t help you solve the situation at hand, and may in fact result in you getting hurt as well as allowing the crisis to continue.
Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing that she’d nearly memorised the orientation speech after all. She took a deep breath and thought through the facts she had at her disposal, only keeping an eye on Jack in order to make sure there wasn’t any rogue lightning coming her way.
The piece of newspaper concerning one of the recent burn victims suggested that the Spine drove people to lash out against those they hated; how a museum curator could find that many people to hate, she wasn’t sure, but it did speak to her likely safety. On the other hand, if the thing overwhelmed Jack and drove him out of the house... well, she was just going to have to keep that from happening.
If someone dies as a result of Artifact exposure, her common sense reminded her, that’s the end of the line. No, don’t ask about the ones that bring people back to life, they’re far more trouble than they’re worth. But if you can neutralize the Artifact before someone affected by it dies, odds are very good that they’ll pull through sooner or later.
The Spine usually detached itself from someone when they died, according to everything Phyllis had found - but there was that ‘hand of God’ business that she hadn’t been able to unravel. That implied there was some force of nature that the Turks hadn’t had under their control, that was unreliable enough that they hesitated to kill off all their best soldiers with the Spine, and that didn’t prevent the Spine from working in the future, only detached it from its present carrier.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rebecca noticed storm clouds gathering outside; from there, everything fell into place. “Of course,” she said to herself, before digging their usual Tesla out of her handbag. Even one gun that shot lightning was going to be quite a bit more reliable than waiting for the thunderstorm to reach them and do the heavy lifting.
She could only hope that two would be enough.
Do not hesitate to shoot your partner, if it proves necessary. There’s a reason we carry weapons that only stun people, and none of us are immune to the things we’re hunting down.
“Yes, Gus, but did you ever think I’d need to electrocute my partner?” Rebecca sighed, and started keeping a closer eye on Jack; hitting him from the front didn’t strike her as the best way to shut down the Spine, not when it was attached to his back. It quickly became apparent that she was going to have to fire both Teslas at once, if she wanted the opportunity to use them both; under the circumstances, she didn’t much feel like waiting to see if one had any effect by itself.
She made sure both Teslas were turned up as far as they could go, and when Jack staggered away from her and toward the front door, she took aim and fired.
On a good day, she needed both hands on the Tesla to keep the kick from knocking her over; with one in each hand, she didn’t stand a chance of staying upright, but she was prepared enough for that possibility that she didn’t hurt herself. When she got up, she found that the tactic had at least worked; Jack was lying on the floor, worryingly still - but more importantly, the Spine had left him be and was scuttling across the floor.
That presented another problem. Rebecca certainly wasn’t about to pick it up with her bare hands, both in case it was still carrying a charge and because she didn’t want to encourage it to latch onto her, but she needed to get it into the neutralizer canister somehow. On top of that, she didn’t feel comfortable breaking eye contact with the thing; it had been nowhere in sight when they entered the house, and she didn’t want it disappearing again.
After a moment’s thought, she grabbed a place mat from the dining room table, opened the canister, and set to hunting down the Spine. It took her a few minutes, but she managed to scoop it up in the place mat; rather than try to shake it loose, she dunked the place mat in the neutralizer as well, closed the canister and ducked away from the particularly intense flurry of sparks.
When the sparks died down, she made her way over to Jack, and was quite relieved to find he still had a pulse. That alone couldn’t calm all of her fears, but she had done everything she could; whatever happened next, it was out of her control.
After what seemed like an eternity, Jack stirred, rolling onto his side. “Ugh. Becks? I don’t feel so good.”
Rebecca laughed, sure she sounded hysterical and equally sure she didn’t care at the moment. “After what you’ve just been through, I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“We at least get the Artifact, after all that trouble?”
“Oh, we have it, all right. We should - I hope you can stand, since there’s no way I can haul you out of here by myself. We should go back to the hotel; you can call Charlie on the way and tell him we’ve got it. All things considered, I’d rather not drive back tonight.”
Jack smiled, and tried to sit up; he got halfway there, leaning heavily on his elbows, before he stopped. “Probably a good idea. I don’t think I’m going much of anywhere in a hurry, at least not under my own power.”
“I never said I wouldn’t help, Jack.” At any other time, the statement might have carried some venom, but Rebecca was far too relieved that Jack had survived to be very angry with him.
“Neither did I, Becks, don’t lose your cool. What should we do about...” He waved a hand in the direction of the stairs, as best he could.
“The curator?” Rebecca sighed. “I don’t know that there’s much more we can do. We have no way of knowing if he took the Spine out of the exhibit to use it or if, as you said earlier, it stole him - and considering the state of the house even when we got here, someone’s going to assume it was a robbery gone bad.”
“True. Either way, I think it’s safe to say the poor guy didn’t know what he was getting into. In that case, let’s get out of here before anyone decides to start asking questions.”
Jack managed to stand under his own power, but Rebecca still had to help him out to the car; rather than try to get him into a restaurant in that condition, she pulled into a drive-in. After they placed their orders with the carhop, Jack pulled out the Farnsworth and said, “Dark Vault,” as soon as Charlie answered the call.
“That bad, huh?”
“Let’s put it this way,” Rebecca said. “You know how Gus and Mrs. Frederic always say you shouldn’t destroy an Artifact if you can absolutely help it?”
“Hard to forget, after twenty-five years of hearing it.”
“I’m tempted to destroy this thing anyway. If it were ever to get out of the containment fields, who knows how much chaos it could cause. It’s a nasty piece of work.”
“It’ll be in good company, then,” Charlie said. “If we can keep Caligula’s laurels in check, I think we can handle this thing. By the way, Mrs. Frederic says there’s a Tesla missing from the inventory. You two know anything about that?”
“I have it,” Jack said, looking and sounding extremely sheepish. “Turned out we needed two to catch this thing, though, so she can glare at me all she wants, but I don’t regret it.”
“We’re driving back tomorrow,” Rebecca said. “There’s a storm rolling in, and we wouldn’t be of any use to you by the time we got there, if we left now.”
“Good. Take the time to work on your case report.” Charlie shut off the Farnsworth before either of them could protest; fortunately, the carhop came back with their dinner not long afterward.
They left St. Louis early the next morning, and got back to the Warehouse at twilight. Rebecca wanted nothing more than to go to her room in the B&B and relax, but Jack - who was, at least, walking under his own power again - insisted she come to his room first, on the grounds that he had something for her.
“I don’t know what you could possibly have that can’t wait until tomorrow,” she said, staying as close to the door as possible. Unfortunately, that left her without anywhere to sit but the bed. so she remained standing for the moment.
“It’s already waited a month, Becks.” Jack rooted through his desk, clearly looking for something, though Rebecca couldn’t imagine what. “And I don’t want to lose the chance again - aha! So, no, it really can’t wait until tomorrow.”
“What on earth are you talking...” Rebecca trailed off when she saw what Jack had turned around with - a small jewelry box, of a size that could only hold a ring.
“You’ll have to forgive me for not kneeling, after yesterday, but rest assured I’m kneeling in spirit.” He opened the box, turned it to face her, and said, “Rebecca Grace St. Clair, will you marry me?”
Rebecca sat down on the bed. “I - Jack - really?”
“Would I use your full name for once in my life if I didn’t mean it? I had the ring made last month, but I thought I was going to die yesterday without having put it to use. I can’t tell you how much I would’ve regretted that, Becks.”
“Don’t worry. I can imagine.” Rebecca took the ring out of the box and examined it. “I will, on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“We leave the Warehouse. Both of us - I know you love the job, but I don’t know if I could bear it if I lost you to the work. Yesterday was bad enough.”
Jack sighed. “Can we at least stick around long enough to have the wedding here?”
“That or come back for it, but I don’t see how else we’d get Gus and Phyllis there. Not to mention, Tom’s said before he wants to see the place - assuming I can talk Mrs. Frederic into letting me give him a tour, what better time would there be?”
“Very true. And between your degree and my good looks and charm, I’m sure we can come up with some way to pass for normal civilians.” He sat down on the bed next to her. “So, is that a yes?”
Rebecca put on the ring and smiled. “I don’t know, what do you and your vibes have to say about it?”