Resurrection - Chapter 6
The disclaimer still applies, in case reminding said copyright owners needs to be said again.
Now, I'm not certain that anyone is reading this, but just in case someone is, I'm deliberately providing a serious cliffy. So there!
Chapter 6
It seemed to Skye like hours, and in truth, it probably was. She hadn’t kept track of the time so she really didn’t know, it was dark in the bay, so it might still be daylight outside. It didn’t matter.
She cycled between looking at her laptop, searching this and that but not truly with any goal or mission in mind. She walked briefly into her former life, breaking across the barrier and into the Dark Web. She felt at home there, but it wasn’t family. They were friends, depending upon how broadly that word is defined, but they weren’t family. In truth she’d never met any of them in person, so they remained just names, in most cases probably avatars or aliases, hiding in the shadow world while sharing some common anarchist viewpoints.
Every now and then she pulled out her SHIELD badge, fingering the embossing on the metal, reading the few words of the logo, and wondering how much longer it would be hers. She valued it too much, and she knew that, but it was, at the moment, the only tangible thing she had that proclaimed that her life had value. It was, rightly or wrongly, her claim of membership in the human race, though given her status as an 0-8-4 even that might be doubtful.
She removed it again, looking at the simply metal medallion. I’m going to lose this. The organization can’t allow free thinking. There is no room for empathy or kindness. I’ve finally found a family...and it’s all going to be taken away from me. I’ll be just like Miles, cast adrift in some remote corner of the world, left to my own devices but without any hope. Hell, I probably won’t even get my van back.
She felt the tears rising again, surprised there was still enough liquid in her body to create them. She’d tried to honor the values she’d somehow accumulated during her tumultuous childhood, and it had all been for naught.
* * * *
May walked into Coulson’s office, finding him deep in thought. When he looked up she could easily see the lines of pain etched into his expression. “Were you listening?” he asked, hardly looking up.
May said nothing at first, closing the door and taking the three steps that made it possible for her to take a seat across from him. She looked around, maybe searching for words since she clearly wasn’t observing objects in the room. Finally, she spoke. “Yes.”
“So...you know. You know it all. Do you think she was wrong?”
The question hung in the air, actually displacing most of the atmosphere within the room. The air was replaced with something much different, an ether of sorts that forced all the other gases out. Whatever it was, it effectively cut off all conversation. And so they sat.
* * * * *
“If you get close enough can you detect any forces that she projects,” Triplett asked.
“I think so,” Simmons replied. “It might depend upon what she’s putting out. If it was purely electrical in nature then that’s pretty easy. But, if I could somehow get a sensor actually on her body, in contact with her skin, then I could match up her words and actions against her GSR and relate that to her EDR. That would give me...what?”
“Sorry, I don’t know what those are.”
“Oh. So sorry. GSR is galvanic skin response. EDR is electrodermal response. Together they measure how the skin conducts electricity. They change a lot, when people are under stress. They are a couple of the more primitive elements in a lie detector machine.”
“Okay. I know a little bit about that.”
“So, as I was saying, if I could get something actually on her skin I could see what those are doing while she’s responded. That would give me the ability to measure and graph her psycho galvanic reflex, and then I could tell for certain.”
“So…you’d need to place electrodes on her body for that?”
Simmons smiled. “No. I could get them from almost anything. If we could get her to hold something in her hand, a...a...coffee cup or whatever, I could plant receptors on that object and get the readings I need.”
* * * * *
Finally Coulson broke the silence, and though he spoke softly the sound seemed like thunder against the silence of the room. “Well, now you know that she knows.” Slowly May nodded. “Does that change anything? Does what she said make sense?”
May had retreated deep within her protective shell, controlling her rage as she always did. But this time it was different. She was neither mad nor offended, and the lack of definition to her emotions made it even harder to respond. She was left with no track to follow for the train seemed to have left all the existing trackage behind and struck out across a barren plain devoid of reference points. She, or rather her emotions, were in uncharted territory.
When she didn’t respond, Coulson decided to continue. “When I first allowed Skye to stay on board, you cautioned me that it was a bad idea. I understood your concerns, and they weren’t without merit. The problems you saw, and anticipated, have clearly developed. Skye isn’t like any of us. Although she’s joined up, she still different...but I don’t believe she’s keeping secrets any more. In fact, I think she’s really an open book.”
“She didn’t come up through the academy. She’s never had the formal training. Honestly, there’s little we could have taught her about data mining that she doesn’t already know. Professor Weaver even asked if she could come back to SciTech to teach on a regular basis.”
“But that isn’t why she doesn’t seem to fit in. Ever since the beginning of SHIELD was have dealt with an unbroken string of evil. If there’s a bad guy out there who wants to control the world or wrest control of a country using a weapon of mass destruction we’ve met him. Along the way we’ve lost too much of our ability to deal with anyone else. We tend to assume the worst in people, and since that turns out to be true far too often, it’s become our standard.”
He paused, collecting his thoughts and thinking of different ways to present the problem.
“Way back when the military discovered something interesting. Maybe they got it from somebody else...I have no idea, but I learned it from them. It’s pretty simple.”
“If you want to be mad at somebody, call them by their last name. If you don’t want to get mad, call them by their first name.” He smiled. “Sounds stupid, right?” For the first time May actually acknowledged his words, nodding slightly, curious where he was going.
“The reason that works is because we can depersonalize last names. We can’t do that as easily with first names. It’s easy to get mad at Simmons, but it’s far more difficult to do that with Jemma. First names are somehow individuals; last names aren’t.”
“I don’t think about that principle very often, but sometimes I use it unconsciously. When we first met Hannah Hutchins I introduced myself as Phil Coulson and you as Melinda May. I didn’t really do that deliberately, but I know now why I used those names. Just before we went in Skye complained about how that poor scared women might respond to seeing us. Skye was right.”
“So, without thinking, I used our first names. I wanted her to see us as people, not threatening agents from a big, scary secret agency. I don’t know if it worked. That doesn’t matter now. My point is this.”
“With the exception of the few times when you’ve addressed me as Phil, nobody on this bus ever talks to each other informally. It’s always ‘May’ or “Agent May.’ It’s always been ‘Ward’ or ‘Fitz’...or ‘Fitzsimmons.’ It’s never Jemma, unless it was Fitz talking. We only use ‘Skye’ because she doesn’t have another name. I’ve even told her that I don’t like being called Phil,” he sighed.
“I think Skye is right, about a lot of things. She’s done more than her share since I pulled her out of her van. The mistakes she’s made are understandable, but when things get ugly she doesn’t flinch. We owe her an acknowledgment of that.”
“I just spent two months putting SHIELD back together again. I dedicated a few hours to trying to put SciTech back together. How much time have I spent on putting this team back together?”
May looked him, her face revealing nothing. “So...we do nothing?”
“No. We have lots of things to do. We let her proceed tomorrow. Let’s see what she can develop with Susan. My gut says the woman isn’t a threat any more. Let’s find out, and if we can do that without her ever knowing she was being tested, so much the better. She’s been locked up long enough if she doesn’t pose a risk.”
“And the rest?”
“That’s up to you, Melinda. She’ll keep your secrets. She understands a lot more than we give her credit for. She could have said whatever she wanted while she was at SciTech, but she didn’t. I’ve checked. Weaver said she never leaked a single word, and she was present when Skye got confronted one of those times.”
“She wants to be your friend. She wants you to know she respects you, and she’s more than willing to give you whatever space you need. You don’t need to become pals. She’s not asking for that.”
“Personally, I’m not going to tell you what to do. That’s entirely up to you. But if it were me, I’d acknowledge her when she reaches out to you. You live in very different worlds, but your home, here on the bus, is a place where you can be off the clock. Just think about it, okay?”
At first May didn’t respond, but Coulson didn’t think that was a bad thing. May held in a lot of secrets, and she’d just found out that Skye had, albeit inadvertently, hacked her way into her most secret files. She just wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
* * * * *
Skye had pretty well cried herself out, but the pain hadn’t gone away. She was more or less reconciled to the idea that her days as an agent of SHIELD were over. It hurt, because she finally had found the family she’d never had. And so…she sat, waiting for the shoe to drop.
* * * * *
Coulson entered the lab, watching silently for a moment as Simmons worked on her current project, trying this and that to see how the pieces would go together. Presently she looked up and noticed he was there.
“I’m fitting one of our tablets with sensor pads. We have a plan, and if that works I should be able to monitor her physiological responses, and that will tell us if she’s still radiating anything dangerous to those around her.”
Coulson smiled. “That sounds great.”
“I just wish Fitz was here,” she added. “He’s really great with this….” She stopped midsentence, realizing what she’d just said. Even though she was trying hard, the lab just wasn’t the same without him around.
Coulson looked down for a moment, and then returned her gaze. “He is here,” he said, tapping his heart. “He’s here inside each one of us. We just have to let him in...or out...now and then. Maybe some day he’ll be able to return in the flesh, but for now he’s still with us.”
Simmons nodded, knowing he was right, but a good argument with Fitz would have done her a world of good nonetheless.
“Do you know where Skye is?” It sounded like an utterly innocent question.
“No. I thought she was up in the lounge. Isn’t she?” Coulson shook his head slightly, and then walked out into the cargo bay. It’s the only place she would go.
* * * * *
The knock on the window signaled the beginning of the end, and Skye instinctively reached for the control. “Mind if I join you?”
Even though she’d had played through this confrontation many times, but now it just seemed overwhelming. “Ah...sure...Agent Coulson. I’ll try to make it easy,” she added, reaching beside her to pick up her badge case. Coulson opened the door and slid onto the seat.
“Here,” she said, handing him the badge.
“What’s this?”
“It’s my badge.”
Coulson stopped for a moment, completely mystified. Then her actions made perfect sense. “Skye, I think maybe you and I aren’t on the same page.” Before he could continue Skye interrupted.
“I understand. I...I just wish...I wish you could trust me. But...I know I’ve done too many things...I’ve broken that trust too many times. I’m sorry. I guess May was right...I’m not a very good team player.”
“Are you done?” he said softly and completely without any hint of sarcasm or snark. Skye just stared. “I hope so, because we’ve got some important things to do. The most important is that you hop out of here and come join me and the team in the lab. We have some things to go over, and I’ve put them off for far too long.”
Skye wasn’t remotely certain what he meant, and her best hope that it wouldn’t become a public shaming. God, he’s going to drum me out of the corps like the old days, cut the badges off my uniform and the whole nine yards. Can’t I just go quietly?
to be continued
Now, I'm not certain that anyone is reading this, but just in case someone is, I'm deliberately providing a serious cliffy. So there!
Chapter 6
It seemed to Skye like hours, and in truth, it probably was. She hadn’t kept track of the time so she really didn’t know, it was dark in the bay, so it might still be daylight outside. It didn’t matter.
She cycled between looking at her laptop, searching this and that but not truly with any goal or mission in mind. She walked briefly into her former life, breaking across the barrier and into the Dark Web. She felt at home there, but it wasn’t family. They were friends, depending upon how broadly that word is defined, but they weren’t family. In truth she’d never met any of them in person, so they remained just names, in most cases probably avatars or aliases, hiding in the shadow world while sharing some common anarchist viewpoints.
Every now and then she pulled out her SHIELD badge, fingering the embossing on the metal, reading the few words of the logo, and wondering how much longer it would be hers. She valued it too much, and she knew that, but it was, at the moment, the only tangible thing she had that proclaimed that her life had value. It was, rightly or wrongly, her claim of membership in the human race, though given her status as an 0-8-4 even that might be doubtful.
She removed it again, looking at the simply metal medallion. I’m going to lose this. The organization can’t allow free thinking. There is no room for empathy or kindness. I’ve finally found a family...and it’s all going to be taken away from me. I’ll be just like Miles, cast adrift in some remote corner of the world, left to my own devices but without any hope. Hell, I probably won’t even get my van back.
She felt the tears rising again, surprised there was still enough liquid in her body to create them. She’d tried to honor the values she’d somehow accumulated during her tumultuous childhood, and it had all been for naught.
* * * *
May walked into Coulson’s office, finding him deep in thought. When he looked up she could easily see the lines of pain etched into his expression. “Were you listening?” he asked, hardly looking up.
May said nothing at first, closing the door and taking the three steps that made it possible for her to take a seat across from him. She looked around, maybe searching for words since she clearly wasn’t observing objects in the room. Finally, she spoke. “Yes.”
“So...you know. You know it all. Do you think she was wrong?”
The question hung in the air, actually displacing most of the atmosphere within the room. The air was replaced with something much different, an ether of sorts that forced all the other gases out. Whatever it was, it effectively cut off all conversation. And so they sat.
* * * * *
“If you get close enough can you detect any forces that she projects,” Triplett asked.
“I think so,” Simmons replied. “It might depend upon what she’s putting out. If it was purely electrical in nature then that’s pretty easy. But, if I could somehow get a sensor actually on her body, in contact with her skin, then I could match up her words and actions against her GSR and relate that to her EDR. That would give me...what?”
“Sorry, I don’t know what those are.”
“Oh. So sorry. GSR is galvanic skin response. EDR is electrodermal response. Together they measure how the skin conducts electricity. They change a lot, when people are under stress. They are a couple of the more primitive elements in a lie detector machine.”
“Okay. I know a little bit about that.”
“So, as I was saying, if I could get something actually on her skin I could see what those are doing while she’s responded. That would give me the ability to measure and graph her psycho galvanic reflex, and then I could tell for certain.”
“So…you’d need to place electrodes on her body for that?”
Simmons smiled. “No. I could get them from almost anything. If we could get her to hold something in her hand, a...a...coffee cup or whatever, I could plant receptors on that object and get the readings I need.”
* * * * *
Finally Coulson broke the silence, and though he spoke softly the sound seemed like thunder against the silence of the room. “Well, now you know that she knows.” Slowly May nodded. “Does that change anything? Does what she said make sense?”
May had retreated deep within her protective shell, controlling her rage as she always did. But this time it was different. She was neither mad nor offended, and the lack of definition to her emotions made it even harder to respond. She was left with no track to follow for the train seemed to have left all the existing trackage behind and struck out across a barren plain devoid of reference points. She, or rather her emotions, were in uncharted territory.
When she didn’t respond, Coulson decided to continue. “When I first allowed Skye to stay on board, you cautioned me that it was a bad idea. I understood your concerns, and they weren’t without merit. The problems you saw, and anticipated, have clearly developed. Skye isn’t like any of us. Although she’s joined up, she still different...but I don’t believe she’s keeping secrets any more. In fact, I think she’s really an open book.”
“She didn’t come up through the academy. She’s never had the formal training. Honestly, there’s little we could have taught her about data mining that she doesn’t already know. Professor Weaver even asked if she could come back to SciTech to teach on a regular basis.”
“But that isn’t why she doesn’t seem to fit in. Ever since the beginning of SHIELD was have dealt with an unbroken string of evil. If there’s a bad guy out there who wants to control the world or wrest control of a country using a weapon of mass destruction we’ve met him. Along the way we’ve lost too much of our ability to deal with anyone else. We tend to assume the worst in people, and since that turns out to be true far too often, it’s become our standard.”
He paused, collecting his thoughts and thinking of different ways to present the problem.
“Way back when the military discovered something interesting. Maybe they got it from somebody else...I have no idea, but I learned it from them. It’s pretty simple.”
“If you want to be mad at somebody, call them by their last name. If you don’t want to get mad, call them by their first name.” He smiled. “Sounds stupid, right?” For the first time May actually acknowledged his words, nodding slightly, curious where he was going.
“The reason that works is because we can depersonalize last names. We can’t do that as easily with first names. It’s easy to get mad at Simmons, but it’s far more difficult to do that with Jemma. First names are somehow individuals; last names aren’t.”
“I don’t think about that principle very often, but sometimes I use it unconsciously. When we first met Hannah Hutchins I introduced myself as Phil Coulson and you as Melinda May. I didn’t really do that deliberately, but I know now why I used those names. Just before we went in Skye complained about how that poor scared women might respond to seeing us. Skye was right.”
“So, without thinking, I used our first names. I wanted her to see us as people, not threatening agents from a big, scary secret agency. I don’t know if it worked. That doesn’t matter now. My point is this.”
“With the exception of the few times when you’ve addressed me as Phil, nobody on this bus ever talks to each other informally. It’s always ‘May’ or “Agent May.’ It’s always been ‘Ward’ or ‘Fitz’...or ‘Fitzsimmons.’ It’s never Jemma, unless it was Fitz talking. We only use ‘Skye’ because she doesn’t have another name. I’ve even told her that I don’t like being called Phil,” he sighed.
“I think Skye is right, about a lot of things. She’s done more than her share since I pulled her out of her van. The mistakes she’s made are understandable, but when things get ugly she doesn’t flinch. We owe her an acknowledgment of that.”
“I just spent two months putting SHIELD back together again. I dedicated a few hours to trying to put SciTech back together. How much time have I spent on putting this team back together?”
May looked him, her face revealing nothing. “So...we do nothing?”
“No. We have lots of things to do. We let her proceed tomorrow. Let’s see what she can develop with Susan. My gut says the woman isn’t a threat any more. Let’s find out, and if we can do that without her ever knowing she was being tested, so much the better. She’s been locked up long enough if she doesn’t pose a risk.”
“And the rest?”
“That’s up to you, Melinda. She’ll keep your secrets. She understands a lot more than we give her credit for. She could have said whatever she wanted while she was at SciTech, but she didn’t. I’ve checked. Weaver said she never leaked a single word, and she was present when Skye got confronted one of those times.”
“She wants to be your friend. She wants you to know she respects you, and she’s more than willing to give you whatever space you need. You don’t need to become pals. She’s not asking for that.”
“Personally, I’m not going to tell you what to do. That’s entirely up to you. But if it were me, I’d acknowledge her when she reaches out to you. You live in very different worlds, but your home, here on the bus, is a place where you can be off the clock. Just think about it, okay?”
At first May didn’t respond, but Coulson didn’t think that was a bad thing. May held in a lot of secrets, and she’d just found out that Skye had, albeit inadvertently, hacked her way into her most secret files. She just wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
* * * * *
Skye had pretty well cried herself out, but the pain hadn’t gone away. She was more or less reconciled to the idea that her days as an agent of SHIELD were over. It hurt, because she finally had found the family she’d never had. And so…she sat, waiting for the shoe to drop.
* * * * *
Coulson entered the lab, watching silently for a moment as Simmons worked on her current project, trying this and that to see how the pieces would go together. Presently she looked up and noticed he was there.
“I’m fitting one of our tablets with sensor pads. We have a plan, and if that works I should be able to monitor her physiological responses, and that will tell us if she’s still radiating anything dangerous to those around her.”
Coulson smiled. “That sounds great.”
“I just wish Fitz was here,” she added. “He’s really great with this….” She stopped midsentence, realizing what she’d just said. Even though she was trying hard, the lab just wasn’t the same without him around.
Coulson looked down for a moment, and then returned her gaze. “He is here,” he said, tapping his heart. “He’s here inside each one of us. We just have to let him in...or out...now and then. Maybe some day he’ll be able to return in the flesh, but for now he’s still with us.”
Simmons nodded, knowing he was right, but a good argument with Fitz would have done her a world of good nonetheless.
“Do you know where Skye is?” It sounded like an utterly innocent question.
“No. I thought she was up in the lounge. Isn’t she?” Coulson shook his head slightly, and then walked out into the cargo bay. It’s the only place she would go.
* * * * *
The knock on the window signaled the beginning of the end, and Skye instinctively reached for the control. “Mind if I join you?”
Even though she’d had played through this confrontation many times, but now it just seemed overwhelming. “Ah...sure...Agent Coulson. I’ll try to make it easy,” she added, reaching beside her to pick up her badge case. Coulson opened the door and slid onto the seat.
“Here,” she said, handing him the badge.
“What’s this?”
“It’s my badge.”
Coulson stopped for a moment, completely mystified. Then her actions made perfect sense. “Skye, I think maybe you and I aren’t on the same page.” Before he could continue Skye interrupted.
“I understand. I...I just wish...I wish you could trust me. But...I know I’ve done too many things...I’ve broken that trust too many times. I’m sorry. I guess May was right...I’m not a very good team player.”
“Are you done?” he said softly and completely without any hint of sarcasm or snark. Skye just stared. “I hope so, because we’ve got some important things to do. The most important is that you hop out of here and come join me and the team in the lab. We have some things to go over, and I’ve put them off for far too long.”
Skye wasn’t remotely certain what he meant, and her best hope that it wouldn’t become a public shaming. God, he’s going to drum me out of the corps like the old days, cut the badges off my uniform and the whole nine yards. Can’t I just go quietly?
to be continued