2313-27

Ike looked at their team-leader, not exactly knowing how to tell him about Lou's discovery. The grimness of the disease, the fact that it was man-made, the product of a twisted mind. Undoubtedly. But why? Feeling he needed to know more before he said anything, he hesitated in telling the weary man, what if Lou was wrong? What if it was something else, something not quite as lethal? Maybe it was, after all they didn't have actual proof of anything yet. But the few things he had read on his way down - were exactly right. It fitted like a glove, the fever, the auto-immune reaction, the non significant findings in all tests. Lou was right, and he knew he had to tell Teaspoon.

But right now Ike couldn't trust his own voice, right now he felt like screaming and kicking. He was mad as hell, but there was really nobody to be mad at. "It's tri-S." His voice was absolutely calm, and it surprised him. And the need to talk to Emily surprised him even more. In the midst of all this, all he wanted was to talk to his girl.

"Look it up, or ask Lou, I have some answers to find! Buck you're with me!" Grabbing his friend's arm he dragged him to Teaspoon's office. "Tri-S," he said curtly over his shoulder. "Ask Lou."

"Shhh," he made a sound for Buck to stay quiet, there was no time for words now. Silently he walked over to the metallic shelf, the sparse EA's thrown into the box on the middle shelf. He needed at least five per person to cover his tracks. He found six in there, far too few. "Shit!"

Ike didn't bother to explain, he'd have to do it himself, if one of them did it through five EA's they wouldn't be caught, well probably not. But two on four? The chances of being detected grew by thousand by each missing buffers."Not the HuRec Buck, the Army."

Buck did what he always did when Ike got irritated and edgy, he called for the only solace he knew. The voice on the other end expressing trepidation; "Buck?"

"I need help." He looked over at Ike, the man was still fidgeting with the EA's, placing them on the desk, side by side.

Buck was clearly able to visualize the face of Emily, the worry on it. He smiled. "Yeah, he's being a mule again."

"Hey!" Now it was filled with outright indignity. "That's my man you're talking about!"

Buck decided to let her off the hook; "He's fixing to get looked up with Amanda after the court martial. Won't let me help, oh no, wants to this all by his own. We need to find some answers and he's not being very cooperative right now. In fact he's not talking at all, telling me nothing. See, if he would let me in it'd be the two of us and not...."

The line disconnected and he laughed as Ike looked up at him, totally bewildered. Holding a hand over his EA, like that would prevent Emily from giving him a third degree. In a rather loud manner, as it seemed.

"No Em," Ike responded meekly, glancing up at Buck, eyes narrowing in annoyance, caught in the two-front battle. "Of course I won't - no no no that's not it, I gotta find a - never mind Buck! Of course I will - sure Em, I promise - What? - Oh no you won't! No I don't want you to - Em? Yes I will, you just stay put and let me - sorry, Buck and me handle this - yeah I'll let you know - yeah I know you will. All right, all right, I know - I will - sure - love you - promise- yeah- all right - don't worry - mmmh - hmm -uh huh - mmmh hmmm"

Buck watched how the woman changed the look on his friend's face from a stern concentrated official to a puppy dog being scratched behind its ear. His chuckle made Ike turn his back on him and continue the humming discussion for another few minutes. Buck seated himself behind the desk and plugged the EA's in like he had seen Ike do before. Luckily he was a quick learner. And he had worked for the Army once, during collage. Little had he known then that those dreadful five months of weather charting would come in handy now.

When Ike finally got unleashed, Buck was already tapped into their system. Level 2 and undetected.

At the sound of someone moving in the other room Lou freed herself from Kid's hold. Jumping to her feet, straightening her clothes. Feeling silly for her outburst, silly and guilty. It felt like she was mourning Rachel already, like she had given up.

Teaspoon appeared in the other room, looking at her, motioning for her to step out. Sam appeared right behind him,

Kid rose and checked the monitors, finally nodding his agreement. "She's stable." He moved to open the door for them.

Lou realized they hadn't said a word to Emma either, they had closed themselves in and acted like two selfish brats. They really should be tossed out of the project. Ashamed she tagged along, hating to be the bearer of bad news.

Filing out of the room she looked at Sam and Teaspoon, hoping they had come to tell her she was wrong, that they knew what Rachel was suffering from, that she was wrong. But both men looked at her, expectantly. She cringed, searching for the right words, a possible way to make what she had to say sound more hopeful. The door closed behind Kid and Emma; and Lou started her briefing. She told them everything she knew, knowing it wasn't nearly enough. But it was all she had to offer.

Sam nodded, "I know, he's down with Buck in the communication center, breaking every secrecy law there is, I suppose."

Emma puffed; "Ain't there another way around this? We gotta let HuRec know! Maybe they have a cure, somebody's got to!"

"What I wanna know is how she got it?" Kid asked. "Who the hell did this to her?"

Sam glanced at him briefly, the MeGlu stick still in his mouth. Sam was chewing on it, as always when deep in thoughts. Pensively he looked around the crowd, his eyes pausing on Lou. "Any ideas?"

"The Army or HuRec probably," Lou admitted. "I can't see any other having neither the knowledge or the technology."

"There's only one way to find out," Teaspoon intervened, "Sam get in touch with HuRec and tell them what's going on. Their reactions to the news will tell us plenty. I'll speak to Erbach."

"He's an old friend o'mine, he might know and I still have some clout with him. In the meantime, Kid get Noah! Emma please, some food?"

"How many sicko's do you want in this place?" Teaspoon smirked, "he can't fry bacon if his life depended on it."

"Bacon? Teaspoon, for crying out loud, you know what Rachel said about your bacon diet! An' I happen to agree."

They all looked inside the room, hoping Rachel would rise and give Teaspoon a very stern lecture on the health hazards of consumption of animal fats. It didn't happen.

"You ain't getting no bacon Teaspoon, I'll see to that," Emma promised. "Now everybody scoot, do what needs to be done, we'll work this through. Nobody's dying while I'm around. You hear?"

Buck eyed through the electronic documents, flashing swiftly through them, search engines working, spitting out more and more. Nothing that was relevant so far, nothing at all. They'd been at it for hours. And still nothing. It seemed useless, and time was running out. Rachel wouldn't stand the heavy medicating for much longer, her body had worn out all its reserves by now. And HuRec didn't even believe them! They had blatantly denied their request for evacuation, yet again. It was a denial of everything HuRec claimed to be, it was sacrilegious.

His scanning paused at one word and he looked at it, not quite understanding why; "COL WPL, IA- sentence 1108/08 - R454A." He looked at the line more closely, wondering what it had to do with his search? Absolutely nothing as it seemed. Who the hell was colonel WPL and why should he care?

"Ike, this search is not working! I get all kind of damned stuff in here, we'll be sitting here for years!"

Buck sighed and let the document of the sentencing show on the wall. As expected there was nothing much that would help. Colonel WPL had been sentenced for engagement in the black-market. Well he wasn't the first and not the last to do so. So why the big deal and why was the document sealed? Flicking onto the sentence stared at the image that formed on the wall.

"What the hell does that mean? Cloning of what? Allegations?" Ike's tone was slightly irritated.

But Buck had already skipped ahead, feverishly skimming thorough the HuRec dB for "Gen-0". What he found made him catch his breath. The list was incredibly long, name after name popped up, with signs attached. Signs he couldn't decipher. But there it was, a small dB all on its own. The name, date and year of birth, and those signs.

"Ike," Buck let out before flicking the image up onto the wall. "What's this about?"

Ike looked at the list on the wall, his eyes narrowing as they took in the long string of names. Then Buck watched as he took over, Emily's name popping up first, followed by Buck's own, Kid's, Lou's and Teaspoon's. Buck closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them up he saw another name emerge on the screen; Ike's.

There was a long pause while they both stared uncomprehensively to the screen, then Ike threw a glance in his direction and there; last on their list of names appeared the one of Longley himself.

The door behind them opened but neither of them turned. Buck found name after name on the list, old friends, parents and classmates. Most of the names he thought of appeared on the screen, followed by different signs.

He had an odd hollow feeling in his stomach, the more names he found, the more relief he felt. Maybe it was just a list of citizens having gotten misfiled? Then one name was missing and he knew that wasn't it. And it seemed nobody of the age over fifty was on the list at all.

Guiltily they looked at each other, for a moment they had ventured off, driven by curiosity.

"Not really," Buck admitted, "I just found something really strange, it involves must of us somehow, ain't exactly sure what it is but Longley's there too and..."

"Yeah, I think I found out why we had the honor of monitoring him, found notice of his court martial and..."

"Don't know, there is some mentioning of HuRec and, hold on, something called ICC and 'Gen 0'?" Buck looked over to Ike inviting him to jump in at any moment and offer some explanation.

"Damned," Teaspoon cursed, "ICC? That institute, boys, is one of the darkest chapters in human history. Search their files, every one of them. I'll get Amanda on it too. I think we're finally onto something here."

They watched him stepping out of the small room. Closing the door behind him. Buck remain staring pensively at the closed door. Teaspoon must be fooling himself, there was no way they would have the time to go though all the millions of files in a world wide institute, they'd never make it. "What's ICC Ike?"

Buck turned to watch his friend by the desk, for a moment hoping Ike had accidentally found the documents they needed, That was their only hope, stumbling over it accidentally. "What?"

Ike finally looked up at him, like to see if he was ready for what he had to say.

"Excuse me?" Buck asked, feeling like he was part of some strange sci-fi story, "I don't understand? They tried cloning and it didn't work like expected, right? Back in 2000, why do it all over again? Human clones turned up everything but what they expected, I remember reading about it. And what has this to do with anything?"

"We clone animals all the time Buck, heck we restored hundreds of breeds like that. And I think the human cloning went wrong for other reasons than the biological. You know when you love yourself to that extent that you get to have yourself as your own son or daughter, well it's bound to have some severe psychological reverberations, right? That's why it was banned, from the get go. But of course, somebody had to brake even that law. And ICC had the equipment and the knowledge, the leap from animals to humans was merely moral, what was there to stop them?"

Buck looked at Ike, seldom had he ever heard such a long stream of words come out of him. The talkativeness baffled him almost as much as the words that came out of him. "And Longley?"

"He left before the showdown, he deserted to the Army," Ike replied thoughtfully. "Gosh, I wonder how those people that were cloned feel? Can you imagine, having been alive before? You think they know that? You think they make the same choices and mistakes they did before?"

"Ike," Buck shook his head, "let's leave them alone and find the ICC dB. Let's just follow Longley's lead."

His eyes flew open. For a moment he felt totally disoriented, not recognizing the voice, or where he was at.

He finally recognized Kid's voice from behind the door. With a groan he dragged his weary legs over the bed and posted his aching feet on the floor. "Is she worse?"

"I'm up, just give me a minute." Resting the aching head on his palms he tried to concentrate and make the splitting headache disappear with mere power of will. It had been days he had been deprived of well needed sleep. And now Kid came to wake him up when he just had found some rest. "Jesus Christ," he moaned, "couldn't this have waited for a few hours?" He felt instantly irritated, mad at the Kid for waking him up, mad at him for not being as much help as he would be if he was an actual physician, mad that he had so little help now that he needed it the most. Wishing at least Rachel would be there to help him, she would have known more that a bloody vet!

He rose, afraid where his thought would bring him if he let them wander. Or where this rage he felt building up inside at the thought of his inadequacy right now would eventually lead him. He hadn't felt this angry for so long, he had learned how to master the rage. But now it seemed all the hard learned lessons were gone. Now he felt like exploding.

Kid was instantly on his guard by the tone of his voice. Noah noticed the tensing of the jaw-line, the altered posture. Noah knew he was being unfair, he knew it, but he needed to let the steam out. And Kid seemed to be there to take it.

"Lou found some evidence that Rachel's got Tri-S," Kid said curtly and turned to walk back to the sickbay.

His blatant dismissal enraged Noah even more. The way he turned his back and walked out told Noah it was Kid's payback for the harsh words on his status as a mere vet. His backside spoke of superiority, plain and simple. Noah knew and he wouldn't let him forget the incident. He desperately searched the dB but noting came up. How the hell was it spelled? What the hell was it?

Kid opened the door and Noah launched himself to grab onto him. "Can't find it!"

Kid smiled in her direction and Noah felt the blood disappear from his head. The two of them, smiling at each other, while the woman he loved....
Something snapped in him, he just couldn't take it any longer. His fist closed around Kid's collar and he shoved him up against the wall. But he couldn't find any words. He never heard the door to the inner room open and Lou rush out. He only felt somebody tug at his shirt. He must have turned and accidentally hit her, she stepped back and a hand flew up to her chest. Her face expressing surprise and pain. The realization of hurting Lou stalled him for a moment, he had never intended to hurt her. Next he knew Kid's fist landed hard on his torso, sending him stumbling backwards.

"Don't touch her!" Kid growled and grabbed him hard, trying to push him to the floor. He knew by the grip that Kid was not joshing, he was mad as hell. In pure defense Noah struck out again. Kid flew back and the door opened, the glass in the frame wavering of the impact. Kid's grip on his upper arm never leaving, dragging him along in the fall.

Lou hollered for help in the moment his knuckle hit Kid's jaw, sending his head crashing into the wall on the opposite side. The grip finally gone. But he had no time to recollect himself before another blow was delivered. Blinding him and sending darts of pain to the root of his skull.

When Kid elbowed him hard, Noah responded promptly. He held nothing back, he let all his frustration out with the hard blows. There was nothing clean about the fight, it was dirty and cruel. And he felt no pain whatsoever, all he felt was a rage so strong it blinded him.

He was dimly aware of more people on the floor, arms trying to hold him back. Almost choking him. A liberating rush when he was able to free himself and plant a series of hard jabs under Kid's jaw, his knuckles starting to protest. Pain filtering in through his rage. He held Kid pinned to the floor, a warning flashing through his mind as the man under him wheezed and fought for air. A warning that he had to let go, some deep rooted instinct telling him he had to stop.

Lou stood back and watched, not believing her eyes. The fight before her had been animalistic, like they both were out for each others' blood. She had never seen anything like it. And those awful sounds, the the low explosive contacts of knuckles against flesh. The blood springing from Kid's nose at the contact, the sound when heads crashed against walls. Those muffled groans. The guttural warnings. She knew these men and she had never expected them to act like this, like wild animals. No worse, like murdering maniacs.

Jimmy released his grip on Noah's neck; "That outta hold him for a while." He flipped Noah over and laid him down at Kid's side. "I thought he was gonna kill you! What the hell did you do to get him that mad? You all right? I mean, you're not gonna drop dead on me are you?"

Kid obviously had some trouble collecting himself, trying to sit up only resulted in him crashing back to the floor with a groan. His nose was bleeding profusely and his left cheek was turning bluish, he winced when he opened and shut his right fist. His chest heaving as he fought for air. Then he leaned his head up against the wall and shut his eyes.

"Someone, please get me some ice or something," Teaspoon finally shattered the silence of the crowd at the top of the stairs.

"I'll get it," Amanda said and pushed her way through the stunned group. "You didn't overdo it now, did you?" she asked Jimmy over her shoulder.

"Nah," Jimmy said and kneeled by Noah's side. "He'll be coming around soon, us protors have our ways."

"Nice work, son," Teaspoon admitted with a crooked grin. "I always thought it'd be you in a fight Jimmy, never these two!"

Noah moved and Jimmy put a hand on his shoulder to hold him down. But his head popped up and he looked around the gathered members, seemingly surprised to see them all there.

Noah looked at Jimmy like he had no idea what the former was talking about. But then his eyes fell on Kid and the whole truth seemed to dawn on him. He groaned and let his head fall back. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes; "Geez Kid, you look awful!"

Lou watched them both, wondering what would have happened if Jimmy and Teaspoon hadn't been there to stop the fight. Would they have killed each other? She knew they were both more than capable, the way they had gone after each other had proved that. The rage they both had manifested was brutal. So totally unexpected. She knew by the look on the faces of the others that they had all seen it, the brutality. Something they had not expected to find, not in Kid or Noah. It was just Jimmy that seemed unfazed.

Her legs started shaking and she slid down to sit up against the wall. She truly knew next to nothing about the men she was working with. She embraced herself to stop trembling.

|Prologue||Chapter 1||Chapter 2||Chapter 3||Chapter 4||Chapter 5||Chapter 6||Chapter 7||Chapter 8||Chapter 9||Chapter 10|
|Chapter11||Chapter 12||Chapter 13||Chapter 14*||Chapter 15||Chapter 16||Chapter 17||Chapter 18||Chapter 19||Chapter 20*|
|Chapter 21||Chapter 22||Chapter 23||Chapter 24||Chapter 25||Chapter 26||Chapter 27||Chapter 28|