"The work never ends around here," Dr. Henry Quantos muttered under his breath as he finished sweeping up the mess in the recuperative room Mick Harrison had been in. The blow from the outside walls should have been stopped by this durable exterior panelling meant to stand up to such things, but everything had its weak points. The explosion of the walls bursting into the room, had created a big mess which the good doctor had been cleaning up. Local Perditian workers had already taken away the large chunks of wall and put in a temporary wall-filler, but the dust still had to be swept up. Maybe it wasn't his job, after all, and maybe he had much more important things to do than sweeping. But it gave him a chance to get away from the lab's infirmary and the hospital across the street for a while.
The more-than-middle-aged Canadian doctor was trying not to think about it. The pit in his stomach that had begun when he sent Chance off to Mandelovia to rescue his daughter had become worse over the last few hours for some reason. There was something wrong. He had heard the Vanguardians arriving back at the Complex some time ago, and he knew he should go to meet them, but something held him back. Did he want to hear what they had to tell him? Whatever it was, it would be bad. There was no sound of laughter or joking around as often occurred after other missions. Everyone was far too quiet.
Still, it was strange that Kristofer Schanz had not yet come to him with news of his daughter. That must be it, he realised. His daughter was dead. There was no other explanation. Which was why he now found himself on his knees, carefully sweeping the same spot over and over, afraid to rise and go back to his lab to face the news. He didn't want to hear it.
"Damn," he said under his breath as he looked at the backs of his hands which were covered with wrinkles and veins of blood, "I really have gotten old, haven't I?"
Dr. Quantos finally placed the broom and dustbin onto the bed and slowly rose, his knees making a popping sound as he did so. A
flap-flap-flap sound could be heard in the opposite corner as Mandy began wagging her tail as she saw her master finally get to his feet. She was up in a second and went to lick his open and dusty palm as she made whimpering sound.
"I know, I know, Mandy," he said to her as he petted her and scratched behind her ears, "I really screwed it up this time. You and I were much happier back home, weren't we? Sure, it wasn't as exciting there as it gets here some of the time, but... well, sometimes life throws you a curve-ball."
He found himself suddenly back on Barbara Townsend's front porch in North Vancouver, British Columbia on that day last January as he left for the Caribbean.
A hug.
"Come back to me, sweetheart."A kiss.
"I will."A lie.
Henry Quantos never did return to Barbara as he had planned. Miss X had asked him to stay on at the island for a few days until she was settled in at her new position as chief executive at what soon became known as Vanguard. There would be a transition period as Kit Piper had stepped down from his former position, though he was still very much a part of the company and had several engagements lined up that he would attend in the coming weeks, after which Victoria Xiang would take over full duties.
Henry had kept in close touch with Barbara for several days, calling her and sending e-mails back and forth with her, all the while promising her that he would be back soon. As things kept coming up and as the team needed his attention on a frequent basis more and more, however, those days stretched into weeks, and finally into months. The several phone calls and e-mails with Barbara that had originally been a few times a day now began dwindling to a few times a week, and finally only once every weekend. Like his early failed marriage, his relationship with Barbara was unintentionally put second to his work, and it began to wither just as a plant does when given no water. Finally, as if an epilogue to the brief affair they'd had together, Barbara told him that she had begun seeing another man, and that she could no longer take care of Mandy for him.
And now Henry found himself on a Caribbean island nation which should have been like a permanent vacation for him, but which felt like an exile. Thus he did the only thing he could -- he threw himself into his work and prayed that his Vanguard "family" was all right. If his daughter was dead, then so be it. To all extents and purposes, he was dead in her eyes long ago.
"Come on, girl," he said as he took the leash and clipped it onto the dog's collar, "I'll take you out for a walk."
Dr. Quantos opened the door and sealed it once again with the security lock Grissom Montag had installed for emergencies such as this. If the outer wall was breached, an intruder would still have to get through the final defenses of the security doors. He followed Mandy as she led him back in the direction of his lab, but he stopped suddenly as he realized Mandy had begun moving in the opposite direction.
He looked at the dog and saw her ears flat against her head, which was itself bowed. "Mandy? What's wrong, girl? There's nothing to be afraid of..."
"Doc," a deep voice said from the direction of his lab. Mandy struggled with the leash and finally pulled away from Henry's grasp so quickly that he couldn't grab it again before she went scurrying down the corridor, her tail between her legs. Henry looked up to see the silhouette of a huge figure in a black leather bomber jacket, the ceiling light blocked as his shadow fell across Henry's face.
"Grimm!" Dr. Quantos realized. His heart had begun beating suddenly faster before he'd recognized him as the Vanguardian. Even without a glimpse of his unusual face Grimm was an intimidating bastard. "I thought I'd heard you fellows get back. So what's the word? Was the mission successful?"
Grimm was silent for a moment as if considering his words more carefully than he usually did. "Doc, I don't have good news for you. Maybe you'd better take a seat in your lab or somethin'."
"All right," he replied as he passed the figure, a puzzled look on his face as he noted the bundle Grimm held in his arms. A bundle which, as Henry sat down on a stool by a table, the Vanguardian laid down on one of his collapsible metal examination tables. Henry looked at it once again and then back at Grimm's inscrutable face. "I suppose Kristofer must be returning the
Stormloader to its hangar?"
The huge Vanguardian sat down on the stool opposite him, still silent. Finally he spoke, "There was a tragedy in Mandelovia, Doc."
Henry Quantos tried to retain his stoic expression but failed horribly. He put a hand over his mouth and did his best to speak without choking, "Oh God... was it my d-daughter?"
"General D'goon is a real bastard," Grimm went on as if not having heard him. "Though I guess you should know that already, havin' worked there for years an' all."
Dr. Quantos' eyes kept straying to the bundle laying on the examination table behind Grimm. He frowned as he tried to figure out why the shape seemed so familiar...
"Even after we'd taken out those Strikeforce thugs and saved his worthless hide, he didn't seem satisfied with letting us leave in peace. Gave us three hours to get outta Dodge."
Now that he thought about it, the bundle on the table had made a bit of a
flopping sound as it was placed there. A sound like a side of beef wrapped in cloth, or...
"But Chance was nowhere to be found. Velo told me later he'd been on a mission of his own, somethin' about finding your daughter. Well, it was a relief when he finally showed up, strolling outta the Presidential Palace carryin' some kind of device. And you'll never guess who was walkin' next to 'im, Doc..."
"What..." Quantos found himself saying, his voice barely a whisper, his mind in a daze, "...what's in that bundle, Grimm...?"
"It was Pete! We couldn't believe it. I mean, I'd only met the guy a couple'a times before whatever happened to him happened to him, y'know? But there he was. Chance had some words with D'goon then. And the General didn't look happy. Still, he let him go after Chance said somethin' to him. I don't know what it was -- he never mentioned it to any of us."
"Grimm..." Quantos said again, his voice to hoarse to be heard, "Grimm... what's in that bundle...?"
"So Chance came strollin' back to us, a funny expression on his face. Kind of like a feelin' of triumph, y'know? But mixed in with that was tragedy. Or a mystery left unsolved, I guess. Somethin' like that. Chance said that everything was copacetic. We were good to go. And after the mess we'd left there we were more than happy to do so."
Henry couldn't speak any longer, his throat gone dry, his eyes locked onto the wrapped bundle on the examination table. It was strangely long, yet it wasn't solid like a piece of wood...
"We headed out, Velo flying us on a course south over the Adriatic towards the Mediterreanan. We were plannin' on heading straight back here to figure out our next move. Everyone was just jokin' around -- typical post-mission stuff, y'know? Chance was fairly silent, though, just lookin' at this techno-gizmo on his lap. The guy must'a picked it up somewhere along the way, I guess. We never did figure out what it was. I guess you would'a come in handy then, Doc. You're a lot more familiar with Mandelovian tech than anyone else outside the country. Anyways, we figured the first part was over. We were home free."
What the hell was in that bundle? It wasn't -- it couldn't be a -- no... oh, no... oh, God, no...
"Then the hovercraft just started rockin' back an' forth. None'a us could figure out what was goin' on until I saw Chance. His eyes were buggin' out as I saw that weird device press into his stomach towards the wall. We tried to get it off'a him, but it's real hard to get much leverage in an aircraft when it's buckin like some kind of bronco. Finally Pete started shoutin' something about getting the door open. Chance was starin' at him like he was tryin' to get him to read his mind or something. We just did it. We got the door open, and would'a thrown the thing out of it if it hadn't been lodged in Chance's stomach. The chief just motioned for us to toss him out with it -- none'a us knew what the hell we were dealin' with, here, but a mere fall from the air wasn't gonna hurt Chance. At least not for long."
Henry tried to speak again as he raised his arm to point at the bundle. His eyes reflected the Avatar of Death in them as horrific realization suddenly came to him. Still, though, there was a chance, wasn't there? There was always a chance that it was something else... that it wasn't as bad as it looked... a one-in-a-million chance...
"We got him out. But just as suddenly..." Grimm stopped speaking for a moment. "He must'a known something we didn't, y'know, Doc? He must'a known that the thing was gonna blow an' kill almost everyone in the hovercraft. It's all I can figure right now. I jumped out after him, but there wasn't anything I could really do by then. After the others landed, Velo had a word with the General. Better him than me, I guess. I would'a done the obvious thing if I'd been in his place, even though D'goon said it wasn't him that did it. The rest of us looked around Mandelov Square for somethin', but..."
The Avatar of Death rose from the stool and went over to the bundle. With a tug, he let it unroll onto the exam table. "This was all we found of 'im."
Dr. Henry Quantos had seen death many times over his career. He'd used cadavers in medical school and had held dying men in his arms before. But it had always been easy to impersonalize all of it before.
"It's strange, Doc," Grimm went on, "I saw something in his eyes when we were talking on the way to the Palace after we'd arrived. Somethin' about his eyes seemed darker than usual. It was like... it was like I could see what would happen to..." He stopped himself suddenly. "Well, that's not important. Not any more."
Dr. Quantos looked at the decapitated arm. It had been muscular in life but now looked flaccid and grey. Yet the identity of its owner was unmistakeable. Henry found that his throat was still parched as he tried to speak and gave up trying.
"I'm sorry, Doc," Grimm said. "I know you knew 'im longer than any of us." The Vanguardian turned after a long pause and walked back to the door. He stopped then and turned around again. "Almost forgot. After all the action was over someone realized Pete was gone. We figured he must've gone back to his spirit form again when Chance died, I guess. We never got the whole story behind that, either. Oh, and Velo wrote this for you." He pulled out a piece of paper from a jacket pocket. "Hope it helps."
Henry took the note and read it as Grimm left. It said:
quote:
"Chance told me that he couldn't find out exactly what happened to your daughter, but that she's no longer in Mandelovia. Sorry, but that's all I know. --Kristogar Velo."
If Dr. Henry Quantos had been his usual self, he would've reacted in the most natural way possible and given in to the grief that he should've felt. But beyond the sheer horror of the knowledge of what occurred in Mandelovia to the young man most like a son to him and the mystery of the fate of his daughter which seemed never to be solved, he could feel nothing. He was just numb. He had sent Chance on that mission to find his daughter. It was his fault Chance was dead...
*************
Grimm walked along the corridors in the Complex, the heavy bundle finally lifted from his arms. Yet the burden of leadership that Chance had left him in his death and Danny's absence laid heavy on him in the wake of recent events.
He made his way into the office, where he knew no one was to be found. And he sat down on an old couch in the dark.
"Grimm?" a soft voice said from the open door.
"In here, Shirley."
"I just heard about Chance," she said. "I'm sorry... for all of you. I-I guess I really didn't know him too well. He always seemed so... reserved around me." A pause. "Grimm, I don't know if Henry said anything about it to you, but... Mick is gone."
"....What?" Grimm replied. He could hear the urgency in her voice though she tried to keep calm.
"It happened not long before you guys got back. He just broke in here and took Mick away. It was Naecken, Grimm. Naecken was here!"
The man who was the current leader of Vanguard in Daniel Hearn's absence got up quickly from the couch and went over to the girl, holding her by the shoulders as he looked at her.
"Shirley, are you sure? Are you sure it was Naecken?"
"Grimm, I've been with the team since almost the beginning, and I'd recognize that devil from a mile away. It was him. I'd stake my life on it."
"Fuck." The fool's mission in Antarctica had suddenly taken on a new urgency...
