C. Adams - Version 2.0

“This looks like something out of a science fiction show I used to watch,” Brian commented as he looked around. “The place where they stored all the files of information and evidence on conspiracies they were covering up.”

“Oh, I know what show you mean! It does!” Birdie agreed, then looked to Agent Kale to see if she understood. But the agent’s face was expressionless and unamused, glaring a bit at her. The smile dropped from Birdie’s face. “Sorry.”

Kale turned toward her comm. “I need a weapon’s expert in O.S,” she spoke. “Anyone who can be spared. Preferably Maverick,” she added.

A moment passed in silence, and then a scratchy voice sounded over the speaker, “I hear you finally want a piece of ol’ Mav.” Laughter could be heard on the other end. Kale swiped a hand down her face. “What can I do you for, Agent Kale?”

“I need someone to take a look at the Defectors’ weapons that were confiscated today. There may be some sort of modifications that can slow regeneration.”

“Sounds like we’ll need forensics then, too. No weapon’s gonna slow down our re-gen time. Not unless it’s biological.”

“Then assemble a team, Maverick,” she replied. “I’ve got agents down and we don’t have time for it.”

“I’ll get it set up. Be there within the hour. Just make sure I have clearance this time, will ya?”

“You’ll be cleared. Kale out.” She seemed glad for the discussion to be over with. She looked to Birdie, “Do you need a break?”

“Um…” she hesitated.

“I need coffee,” Kale told her. “I should eat, but I need coffee. And it looks like we’ve got some time.”

“I know a place,” Brian raised his hand.

“There’s only one place,” Kale shook her head.

“Oh. Oh yeah.”

“How long do we need to do this underground thing for?” Birdie asked as they sat down with their coffee in the cafe that she’d been in earlier that day. It was strange knowing it was underground. She was grateful though, at least, that the windows were covered in copper-colored blinds, hiding that there was nothing but more evidence that they weren’t top-side. Her claustrophobia was starting to kick in a little.

“I’ll be advised when the media is finished. Military is sent here on top-secret orders for clean-up.”

“How will they explain the plane being here?” Birdie asked.

“Emergency landing, most likely. They’ll tell the public that the plane was flying to Fort Myers, encountered technical problems, and crashed here. None of us can be top-side for it. It’s an exposure risk if there’s anyone out there that could recognize one of us.”

“Just think,” Brian chimed in, “If you were home watching the five o’clock news and you saw me walking around in the background,” he smirked.

“Yeah,” Birdie shook her head. “I’d fly out here in a heartbeat, just to make sure I wasn’t crazy.”

“Exactly,” Kale replied. “We’ll have to stay under until the wreckage and bodies are cleared. It could be days.”

“Oh,” Birdie looked down into her mug of coffee.

Brian appraised his sister from where he sat beside her. Her suddenly tense form was a clear warning of what could come. He put a hand on her back, even though he knew she didn’t like accepting this kind of comfort. Brian wasn’t the kind of guy that followed rules that didn’t make sense to him. “Hey, it’s totally okay,” he told her. “It’s like an ecosystem down here. There’s fresh air.” He looked over at Kale who had a brow raised in question. “She’s claustrophobic,” he explained quietly.

“I am not,” she retorted. “I’m just…”

“You start to panic in confined spaces. You’re claustrophobic, Birdie,” Brian repeated.

“I can handle it.”

“You can handle it in small doses. But not knowing how long you’ll be in one, you start to freak out.”

“Are you trying to get me to punch you in the face, right now?” she looked at him incredulously.

Brian smirked, “Better angry than scared.”

“I’m not scared,” she pushed him.

“You don’t let yourself show it, but you are so.”

“You can feel free to shut the hell up, any time now, Brian,” she glared at him, and he raised his hands in surrender. “Seriously,” she looked over at Kale, “It’s not that big a deal.” She looked back down at her coffee, trying to fight off the feeling of embarrassment. “I’m going to use the restroom,” she told them as she got up from the table.

Once Birdie disappeared behind the bathroom door, Kale noticed that Brian seemed to regret having given her a hard time. He folded his hands around the warmth of his mug and peered into it. “I was just trying to get her to focus her attention on something else,” he said. Kale wasn’t sure if he was thinking out loud, or explaining it to her. “To keep her from getting panicked,” he continued. “I mean, I’m not claustrophobic, but being down here makes me feel that way after a while.” He looked up at her with an awkward half-smile. “I imagine everyone does.”

“I don’t,” Kale replied, raising her brows. “I find it rather comforting, actually.”

“Comforting,” Brian looked at her from the side, skeptically.

“It’s safer under here,” she argued, neither of them seeing Birdie coming back from the restroom now. “The bomb on the plane, for instance, wouldn’t have been able to penetrate this level. Also, there’s no reason to fear being in this particular confined area. It’s larger than most cities, for one. Its construction is pure genius; not requiring electricity in order to function. In fact, there are several backup energy sources that keep it running. It’s highly unlikely that they would ever all fail.”

“Highly unlikely doesn’t mean impossible,” Birdie said as she sat back down at the table with them.

“One way to get over an irrational fear is to—”

“It’s not irrational ,” Birdie interrupted Kale.

Kale raised a brow at this. “On the contrary, an irrational fear is a fear that an individual experiences that doesn’t necessarily have any basis behind it.”

“But it does,” she argued. “And it’s not really a fear. If I fear anything, it’s the possibility of suffocation.”

“That is also irrational,” Kale replied. “For us, anyway.”

“I don’t care that it couldn’t permanently kill me,” Birdie retorted. “And I especially don’t like the fact that I could die on multiple occasions from the same thing. Oh… oh god,” a slightly horrified look plastered her face. “What if there are… people out there; Proprietors that haven’t been kept track of, and they died and were buried, and they woke up in their grave, only to suffocate and die and wake up again and again…”

“Whoa there, sis,” Brian put his hand on her shoulder. “That imagination. Sometimes it surprises me that you’re not the writer in this family.”

“Regeneration can’t process without oxygen,” Kale told her. “We’ve had to exhume bodies in the past. Our bodies don’t begin regeneration until the oxygen levels in the surrounding environment are normal or higher.”

“So, the same would happen for drowning, or being burned to…” Birdie’s eyes grew wide and she looked over to Brian. “We… we had you cremated!” she nearly shouted, then looked back to Kale. “We can come back from that ?”

“Actually, no,” Kale looked back and forth between the two of them. “You signed off for him to be cremated. But he never got that far.”

“I have his ashes… I mean I had…”

“Funny thing about a lot of those places,” Kale told her, “Is they don’t mind ‘donating a body to science’ for the right price. What you had was beach sand mixed with fireplace ash and some crushed animal bones. You are correct, however.”