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RESEARCH TEAM


"Right." Johannes hurried, trying to read as carefully as he could in looking for methods of vaccination -- while trying to read fast as to not waste time poring over. It felt like the whole world was on his shoulders -- could this be stress? His heart was pounding so fast, he wondered whether he was going to have a heart attack at any moment!

Wraith began to comment again, something to do with antibodies. Johannes tried to look for anything related to these terms, until Wraith asked him this:

What else can we do to suppress Einar’s immune response?


……
Scheiße! (s**t!) Verdammt! (Damn!) ¡Carajo! (F***) ¡Maldita sea la madre que parió Audun! (You don't want to know!)



Now what? Johannes may have paid more attention to science than his brother did, but that didn’t mean he knew how to…deal with this.

No matter –thought Johannes– just do what you’ve been doing. Trying to goddamn find something related to whatever they asked of you in these books.

“Uh…” Something. Something. Some--

"...L,lymphocytes...t-ce,cells..."

"Antigens...no, that creates more antibodies…im, immunosuppressant drugs…”


Espeeeeere un momento. (Waaaait a minute)

"Immunosuppressant?" “This! This can be used to suppress Einar’s immune system, yes?” Johannes was relieved – maybe this was the answer! “Granted, it says that there are risks – dangerous ones, such as leaving the system open for more diseases.” Johannes pointed to the book, scrolling down with his finger to some drug names – he didn’t know what the hell they meant nor how he should pronounce them, but he was sure that they were useful.

IN POLAND

So they'd landed, and so they were coming. Audun cocked his gun to prepare to fire it and, just for good measure, he lifted the second gun into his hands as well. He knew that one wouldn't fire at all after what he'd done to it, but the people on the other side of his wire fence probably didn't, and it made him feel a little cooler to be holding two weapons and looking like an action star.

Only he wasn't an action star, he was some insane person in the middle of a city in Poland, and people were going to die here without any retakes.

"It'd be easier to kill me if you would actually come out to where I can see you and you can see me, seeing as neither of us can see through buildings or anything, and this town is in good condition."

Audun took a step forward and pulled the trigger on one of his guns, sending a bullet into the side of a building and giving a more certain pinpoint on his location. He was getting bored of waiting, he wanted them to hurry and come out now, but he also knew that he'd set wires. A stupid man only walks into his own trap once, never twice, before he learns not to do it again.

And Audun wasn't stupid.

"The more you hide the less time Einar has to live, you know. I'm pretty sure that by now he's not even worth saving, what with all the internal damages he's suffered. The NK-VB2 can be a real b***h."

Mokoyis was making some comments to Rodney, along the lines of 'keep the plane running and ready to take off as soon as everyone is back inside' and when she turned around both recruits were off the plane. Their enthusiasim was enviable, but it was going to get them both killed. With a small sigh she grabbed her bow and quiver of arrows and followed them out carefully just in time to hear the first shot.

She jumped back and had her bow raised in a matter of seconds. His taunting voice rang in her ears as she tried to keep her temper. She surveyed the town trying to see where the wayward men had gone, and slowly lowered her bow as she stepped out off the plane's stairs. No use standing there and being an easy target.

At a quick sprint she made her way to one of the buildings and pressed herself against it. She could see Alberto and Lai now. Another quick sprint and and she caught up with them. "You are both going to get yourselves killed," she told them in a conversational tone looking pointedly at Lai's bleeding hand, knowing it was really only luck that had kept her unscathed thus far. And the way things were going, she was next.

RESEARCH TEAM

The book snapped shut at that moment. Immunosuppressants. It was perfect. "That's brilliant, Johannes. We must take that risk right now; if we don't, Einar will die anyways and won't have any time to catch other diseases." He had walked over to the blonde man, peering over his shoulder and his finger running down the page. Johannes finger did not stop until it had reached the bottom, but Wraith's eyes were frozen on a word somewhere in the middle.

Opiods. For once, something didn't have to be impossible.

He had never known why there were so many blue poppies around the complex. He figured it was due to Shee; blue was an unusual colour for any flower, and although he had checked when he had seen their alarming numbers and found they were native to the Himalayas, their sheer magnitude was still astounding.

"The gardens. We need some poppies."

Wraith had begun talking in her ear in low, hushed tones, and she knew at once what he wanted to discuss. The contingency plan. She had begun to brighten, buoyed by the news from Poland and the realization in the library that they were so close to finding a solution. She had almost convinced herself that it wouldn't be necessary. But Wraith knew better; he always knew better. And he was always so prepared for anything.

She nodded with finality as their quiet conversation came to an end, and motioned Johannes over tentatively. "I don't think we need to be here anymore. Let's go over to the atrium and wait. After we get some poppies, of course. Bring that book, too, just in case."

IN POLAND

He could hear them talking, he could see them moving. Not because his eyesight was amazing, that's just ridiculous to think about, but he knew where they were because of how the wires moved and reacted to every motion the group from LOTUS performed. He had set them up just for that reason, well the actual reason was to cause harm, but they also served as something of a motion detector.

Audun was no fool, he knew he'd been cornered now. The whispers the others had were a clear indication that they meant to leave with him dead or not leave at all and, if the Norwegian had anything to do with this all, the option in his choice would be the latter over the former. There was no way he was going to let himself die like this, not without at least taking down one more person. He was pretty sure that girl he'd hit at the beginning....she had been strange, but . . . it didn't matter. There was no time to dwell on things now, he needed to get in position to take down all those that came in his way. Both guns were raised up to eye level once more, as they'd been lowered while he milled around waiting for something, and he released a deep and loud sigh.

Only to have a bullet come whizzing past his face and into the wall beside him. The noise startled him as much as his bullet into the wall had started Lai and Alberto, but he didn't call out in the way other man had done, instead he jumped to the side and cocked the gun that could fire. His eyes narrowed as he tried to focus more on where the bullet had come from, though he didn't have to try too hard - a woman's cry of pain came shortly after the bullet had gone off and from the way the voices reacted now he figured that they'd found more of his wires.

The sun was going down, it would be impossible to see them all now. Sure they could shoot the wires out and hope for the best, some of them having already snapped from shots, but would they find the right ones to get rid of? Not fast enough to save themselves most likely, not with one of them injured in a way that required their voices to becoming lower and hushed, so Audun could feel some relief.

Relief?

That word was so strange to the Norwegian man that he almost balked at his own use of it, daring his brain to try it one more time. There was never a need to feel relieved for Audun, never a time when he'd felt his back pressed against a wall. Death was something that happened every day and sometimes it just came when you didn't think your time was up. Death was probably the only relief he would ever feel either, though it wouldn't be from living or anything of that sort, it would be because he was tired of Einar doing things without him. Odd, he'd rather die then let his best friend live happily.

He was just selfish like that.

- ---

"Everything okay?"

Lai looked at the Native American woman, his brow pressed with worry as she and the Nicaraguan man tried in what appeared to be vain to stop the bleeding that poured from the woman's hand and stomach. They had been moving quietly while trying to cut down the strings when Mokyois had missed one in her search, the bulk of her weight sending the razor strings into her flesh at a sheering force. Mokyois'd started to bleed heavily the moment of impact, her cry having alerted Audun to their position moments before. She was silent now as they applied more pressure to the wound, both man and woman nodding as if to indicate there was no time left for them to worry. The sun was setting and Audun was getting bolder. The time to act was at hand.

Alberto stared blankly into the muzzle of the Jericho pistol, a thin drop of sweat running down his cheek and dropping off at his chin. His heart was probably in his stomach now as Audun stepped closer and touched the tip of the gun on the man's chin, the metal feeling burning hot despite how cold it actually was. Inwardly the man started saying any type of prayer that could come to his mind, a Hail Mary or anything else religious enough to hopefully save his soul and send him off to the right place, and as Audun's trigger finger moved to squeeze down he slammed his eyes shut.

Only. . .the gun didn't go off.

But Lai's rifle did.

". . . what?"

Audun's gaze turned away from the Nicaraguan man and over towards the Russian, his eyes spinning quickly as they started to flash in and out with dark and white. He had no idea what had just occurred, nor did he know about the hole that sprouted just below his collar bone on his left side. Audun probably didn't even feel the pain that came afterward, instead only sputtering out his little surprise and looking over towards Lai. A thin trickle of blood spilled from his mouth and nose as he shivered slightly and, his eyes still locked onto Lai's face, the Norwegian man fell backwards and onto the ground. The pistol in his hand clattered at his side.

The Russian man was panting heavily as he lowered the gun, his whole body shaking with the aftershocks and recoil that firing such a weapon produced, and as his lower jaw slowly shook itself open it took all he could manage to not scream loudly at what he'd just done. Audun was dead ont he ground, Alberto was safe and sound, but Lai had fired a weapon on someone and actually taken their life.

He couldn't hold the vials as they got into the plane, his hands shaking so badly that the tubes rolled about his grasp like a ball on the ground. Alberto gingerly took the blood from Lai and handed it to Rodney, seemingly the only person in the whole little group to come out looking the same way they had when they had taken off, and for a moment there was nothing but silence. It was a heavy silence that hung about like a film, one that suffocated the air and made breathing almost difficult, but as the roar of the plane's engines started to signify their return the group of four (and one body) shook into the reality of their situation.

Lai had killed a man with his own hands, but it was to save the life of the one he loved. Epione was dead, shot down at the beginning of the trip but Audun, so perhaps Lai's actions could have been considered revenge as well, but it didn't make the weight the Russian felt in his chest any different. Audun was dead and Lai had killed him, end of story.

What would he say to Einar when they returned? That thought ran his blood cold, hadn't the Norwegian man asked that they keep Audun alive? The two had been best friends for so long, even with Einar actually coming to kill Audun and Audun shooting Einar and starting all of this trouble, so how would Einar take the news that Lai had shot and killed him?

There was no more time for idle thoughts as the plane started to roll down the path towards a take off, the cabin swaying violently as it attempted a hold on the foreign soil before launching itself into the sky. There was going to be a long ride back to LOTUS, enough time for all the people on board to think about what they would say, what they would do. Alberto worried for, Mokyois thought about what she would have to tell the others in regards to the motionless body at her feet, and Lai. . . thought about Einar.

Would they get there in time. . .?

Lokiari had administered the "cure" that had been brought back from Poland through the makeshift IV they had hastily hooked up to the battered Einar. Shee was standing, resolute should the time come, by her brother, both steely-eyed and in that rare moment, it was clear why they were the leaders of LOTUS.

Einar's breathing had not improved, but it had not worsened either. The recruits had been shooed out of the room by Mokoyis, and when Lokiari determined that Einar was stable enough to be moved, he had been transferred to the room that served as the infirmary, it's doors barred and the only key with Wraith.

It was Wraith, not Shee, who breathed a sigh of relief as Einar's eyelids fluttered open and he groaned, regaining consciousness, even thought it was Shee who had spent nights sleepless and dark-eyed waiting for the man to wake up. The relief was short-lived as Einar, in a state of grogginess and delirium, struck out and hit Shee full in the mouth, sending her sprawling. Shee looked no worse for it; there was remarkably little swelling. Einar, on the other hand, sported a fresh black eye for days after.

Einar was still confined to the infirmary, although the doors had been unlocked and he was now allowed visitors. The room was dotted with small, fragile, white saxifrage blossoms, which were always fresh and in full bloom. The flowers and Einar were the constants of the room; sometimes the man would be sleeping, at others, he would be sitting, sullenly hurling curses into the despondent walls.

The matter of Eponine was unsettled. As the recruits silently revealed her body, slumped in the jet, Eknephias had been the one who had walked in and gently picked her up, carrying the girl in her too-large overcoat away from the cold, metal hangar. The leaders of LOTUS had been completely silent on the topic of Eponine thereafter.

And that was how it had ended, Einar's excursion into Norway and his meeting with his past. He had, perhaps, gained something like closure from the ordeal, but it had cost him his freedom. Wraith, livid, had confined the Norwegian man to the LOTUS base indefinitely, and suspended his abilities to take part in missions. So Einar sat, in the infirmary, harsh angles surrounded by the dewy velvet petals of saxifrage. And Eponine lay, somewhere in the depths of the white marble building, her mechanical eyes shut.

fin