ask_the_right_questions | Entries tagged with new mexico

[Previously, there was a disagreement. Erik lost.]

Once that had been decided, Erik, Jane and Darcy gathered some more clothes for Thor and doctored a copy of Donald Blake's driving licence to show Thor, using the picture that Darcy took that morning in Isabella's Cafe. Why Jane had Donald's license in the first place? Erik has no idea and doesn't really want to know.

Now, Erik finds himself driving towards the crater for the second time in a day where he'd argued vigorously not to go near the place. Especially after he'd found out just which set of 'Feds' had turned up.

However, he parks up the car in front of the gates they have set up, gets out, and locks it behind him. Even now, having seen it before, it does still kind of impress him just how fast these guys got this city, and it practically is a city, set up. After all, twenty four hours ago, there was absolutely nothing of note here at all.

"Gentlemen," he says to the gate guards.

"I understand that you have this man in custody," he says, showing them the doctored driving licence. "I'd like to request his release."

The guards are unimpressed, but they send word back to their boss, a Sitwell? who decides to hear Erik's request inside the compound, instead of coming to the gate.

He is walked up to what he presumes is their main complex, and is met by Agent Sitwell, who requests that he hand over the Identification card for 'security checks', which, of course, means checking it against various databases. To refuse, would automatically mean he has failed to secure Thor's release, because there is no way they would accept identification based off a single license and image, without cross-checks. On the other hand, the doctored card is a very poor fake, and will probably fail the first check they throw at it. And yet, if he doesn't try, what was the point of coming out here? Why did he waste nearly two hours driving here? So, he hands over the card. The moment he has handed it over, Agent Sitwell vanishes into the depths of the compound.

Twenty seconds later, he is handed the card back, with a quiet "Thank you for your cooperation," from a young agent who retreats inside again rapidly. The card, it seems, has passed any tests, or been scanned for further analysis, such that they no longer need the physical copy. Erik isn't quite sure which is accurate. He hopes it is the former, but suspects that the latter is actually true.

Moments later, Agent Sitwell reappears, at the top of the stairs, followed by Agent Coulson, who seems to be, as he was at the lab, in charge of this little operation.

Coulson reviews a screen to the right of the door as Erik is looking at it, before saying, "His name is Donald Blake?" his face completely neutral.

"Dr Donald Blake," Erik corrects the title earnestly. Some times, a title like Dr or Sir, is all you need to get respect and trust. He doubts that is the case now, but it's worth a try.

"You have dangerous co-workers, Dr Selvig."

It seems Agent Coulson is utterly unmoved by the fact that 'Donald Blake' is a Doctor. Erik must confess a lack of surprise about this. Nothing else has caught him off balance, why would revealing that someone has a doctorate do anything? Time to play a different card, then. One that ought to shock some form of reaction out of these people.

"He was distraught when he found out that you'd taken all of our research. That was years of his life, gone," Erik states. "You can understand how a man can go off like that. A big faceless organisation like yours coming in with their jack-booted thugs and..."

Agent Coulson looks away from the monitor that he had been glancing at, and Erik freezes for a moment under that gaze.

"That's how he put it." He adds, trying desperately to soften the accusation, shift the blame, but still, he was the one who said it to their faces. He was the one who made the accusation, he shouldn't be too surprised if things get a little icy when those kinds of accusations are brought to the table.

Agent Coulson seems willing to let it go, as he has more pressing concerns, "That still doesn't explain how he managed to tear through our security."

Oh, shit! That was not a question he expected, what seems reasonable? Uh? "Steroids! He's a bit of a fitness nut!" Erik exclaims, beginning to gesticulate wildly. To those who know him, this is a sure sign that he's making it up on the spot.

A quiet "Sir" from the operative who returned the card to Erik, interrupts Erik's train of thought and speech. Agent Coulson looks back to the monitor, and pauses for several seconds. Erik has just enough time to start getting worried inside, before Coulson looks back at him

"It says here that he's an MD."

Ah, yes, this. Thank goodness Erik had an entire car journey to work out a decent reply to this one.

"Well he is. Or he was, he, err, switched careers and became a physicist, err, but a brilliant physicist. He's a wonderful man. He's a man in pain." Erik sells it as best he can, pleading with Agent Coulson to see it as he tells it.

Apparently, it works, or else the good agent is playing a game far above the level Erik is working at, because in a few short moments, he finds himself being led to Thor's holding cell.

Okay, so, S.H.I.E.L.D. just swept in and took all their data. All their data. Data which Erik is now willing to accept is potentially viable and interesting. On the other hand, there was a literal blank check in return, but, even so, last nights data, the images etc, based on what they'd got before that, won't be replicated for a long time. That was literally priceless to the scientific community. And S.H.I.E.L.D. just walked in here and took it.

So, with nothing else to do, the three of them find themselves on the roof of the laboratory, looking out over the town.

"Years of research, gone." Jane states.

"They even took my iPod," complains Darcy. Which, in Erik's opinion is the least of their worries at the moment.

Erik thinks for a moment, before inquiring, "What about the backups?" It's not his lab, he doesn't know what their backup procedures were.

"They took our backups. They took the backups of our backups, they were, extremely thorough," is Jane's dejected reply. Oh, okay.

"Just downloaded, like, thirty songs onto there," says Darcy.

"Could you please stop with your iPod?" Jane nearly explodes at Darcy, before asking, "Who are these people?"

Erik considers his reply, "I knew this scientist. A pioneer in gamma radiation. S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up and um, he wasn't heard from again." Not the nicest statement to hear, given their situation.

"They're not gonna do that to us." Jane insists. "I'm gonna get everything back."

"um er please," Erik stutters. "Let me contact one of my colleagues, he's had some dealings with these people before. I'll email him and, maybe he can help."

"They took your laptop too." says Darcy.

A despairing look is shared between the three of them, before they realise, hang on, the Library has computers and an internet connection. It's at the other end of town, so Erik and Jane jump in the van and head down there, while Darcy gathers something for lunch for the lot of them.

It takes Erik a little while to get the wording of the e-mail right, but finally, he's happy that it will be accepted at face value as being true, without giving away just how dangerous a position they could be in.

As he walks back out, he passes a trolley with recently returned stock, that hasn't been placed back on the shelves. He notices The Giant Slayer on there, and picks it up, memories of a childhood playing games in these worlds bringing a smile to his face. Then he notices another, Myths and Legends from Around the World. He flips it open, and finds the section on the Norse myths. Glancing through it, produces pages on the Bifrost, and Thor, from who's name Thursday is derived.

It's ridiculous, it's children's stories, but that's exactly the point, this is the same story the Thor guy is talking about. He decides to take it out, to prove the point to Jane.

Except, she's not there. What the hell? I specifically told her to wait there and not leave the van are his first thoughts when he sees it gone. He takes a good look round, to check it's not parked up some way down the road, although why Jane would do that is beyond him anyway. With no other options open to him, he sets off to walk back to the lab, where Darcy should have been getting some lunch stuff ready, if she wasn't doing something impulsive and stupid as well.

Fortunately for Erik, she was being sensible, and had lunch laid out for three when he walked back in, late.

"Where've you two been?" she demands when he walks in.

"Did you hear the van? It's just me," he replies, placing the book on the table before continuing, "I'm hoping she's gone off to get some supplies to start rebuilding her equipment, but..." he tails off.

They dig in to lunch without Jane, in the end. After lunch, they flick through the book, but don't really notice what they are looking at.

As night comes in, vast thunderstorm gathers overhead. It destroys any and all cell phone signal they had, which was minimal in the first place. When it eases up, and phone signal returns, Erik finds a message from Jane waiting for him.

"Hi Erik, it's me, don't worry, I'm fine, but um, just in case you don't hear from me in the next hour, just, come by the crater site and, try and find me, okay? I did exactly what you told me not to. I'm sorry, so sorry, bye." She doesn't sound fine, despite what she says, and the rain will surely have soaked her to the skin, so Erik and Darcy head out to persuade someone to loan them a car to drive to the crater.

They pick up Jane and the van and head back to the lab. Due to them being separated, Darcy having to drive the car back, while Erik drives the van, Jane waits to tell them what happened until they are back at the lab.

One recap later. Jane wants them to go and get Thor.

Erik, though, is having none of it. "He committed a crime. He's in jail!"

"I can't just leave him there." Jane continues to insist.

"Why?" comes Erik's sharp reply. Darcy, bored by the continuing argument, is looking through the Myths and Legends book again.

"You didn't see what I saw."

Maybe he didn't, but he's heard her tell it several times over now, just to make sure he's got all the details correct in his head.

Darcy gasps, "Look, it's Mjolnir." She still mangles the pronunciation, but it's better than last time. Jane, frustrated by the interruption, moves around to look, she saw The Hammer at the crater, even if it was through the plastic sheeting and rain.

When she sees what Darcy's been looking through, she's quiet for a moment, before asking Erik (because it's obviously a Library book, and he'd been the one to enter the Library) "Where'd you find this?"

"The children's section," Erik concedes. It's not technically true, but it would have been had the book not just been returned. "I just wanted to show you how silly his story was."

Jane gets rather animated at that. "But you're the one who's always pushing me to chase down every possibility, every alternative."

Erik hadn't quite expected her to pull that one out of the bag. "I'm talking about science, not magic."

Darcy, realising she's not going to get any more reading done for the moment, with these two arguing, removes her glasses.

Again, Jane ripostes. "Well, magic's just science we don't understand yet. Arthur C. Clarke."

Arthur C. Clarke, the author. That quote is used in so many contexts, often where it's not relevant. Here though? "Who wrote science fiction." are all the words Erik can gather to defend his position.

"A precursor to science fact!" Jane yells back at him.

"In some cases, yes." Erik concedes. Although it's clear he doesn't think that's the case here.

Jane continues to attack, "Well, if there is an Einstein-rosen bridge, then there's something on the other side. And advanced beings could have crossed it." A perfectly well reasoned argument.

"Oh, Jane!" Erik exclaims. With the exception of the evidence they have collected, which is by no means conclusive in any way, the evidence appears to favour the concept that such things are not possible, or only so on a microscopic scale.

Darcy chooses this moment to weigh in with her thoughts. "A primitive culture like the Vikings might have worshipped them as deities." Well, isn't that political science study useful! No one would have thought of that!

Jane takes a small moment to realise Darcy's agreeing with her, before saying, "Yes, yes, exactly!" Half a second later, she adds a "Thank you," to Darcy.

"mm hmm" Darcy finishes.

Erik, double teamed upon and beaten, sighs and says no more.

After last nights events, Erik and the girls headed back to the, well, building is probably the nicest word for it, that Jane is using as a base for her research. There, they set the computers to collecting and analysing data that the sensors had been storing up, before crashing for the night.

When they awoke in the morning, they got to analysing the data, and studying the images that the various sensors and cameras that had been running had taken. There was one image in particular that made them realise just what they might have left at the hospital.

Then, of course, they had found the guy again, brought him back, gave him some decent clothes and had some interesting discussions with him over food, as well as finding some clear cultural clashes (and doing their best to smooth them over with the locals). Then Thor, as the giant fellow seems to call himself, hears the locals discussion about a 'satellite' and takes off.

All the while, Erik has been studying Thor exceptionally carefully. And, as it happens, doubts about the man are starting to surface. Doubts he had last night, doubts that are not being eased by the way 'Thor' is talking. Or walking. In the middle of the road. Like he's never seen a car before. Also, concern for the way Jane is looking at him. Jane is the daughter of his best friend, virtually family, as far as he's concerned. Indeed, in many ways, his research group are his family. The family he never otherwise had. Or wanted? Certainly never had.

So, he interjects, before Jane does something, that would, in his opinion, be stupid, even dangerous. He manages to, in a few, surprisingly few, even, sentences, talk her out of taking the this 'Thor' to the crater site. He won't deny the crater is interesting, and sort of wishes they had seen it last night, so they could have gotten some readings, but they did have more important things to deal with. Thanks Darcy!

So, Thor says farewell, and they depart, though not before another slight cultural clash is met in the way Thor says farewell. Certainly he can carry himself like a prince, when he wants to, Erik won't deny him that, and finds himself bowing in return.

"Alright, back to work," says Erik. Because otherwise, he had this horrible feeling that Jane and Thor would wait for the other to depart first.

He knows he was right when Jane delays letting Thor out of her line of sight for as long as possible.

However, as they walk back up the hill to their home, they see a surprising amount of activity going on in the place, given they locked it up when they took Thor to the diner. Then a black flat-bedded truck drives right in front of them clearly carrying equipment.

"Hey. That's my stuff!" cries Jane as it drives away.

"What the hell is going on here?" she says as she storms into what was once her laboratory, but was currently being disassembled at a remarkable rate. Erik and Darcy are left hurrying in her wake to keep up.

"So, Jane, you really think you've got something?"
'Despite all the previous false starts?' is the unspoken question.

"Yes," comes the voice from the other end of the phone.

"Ok, I'll be there in a week." Erik replies. He needed to check up on her soon, anyway, so it makes sense to do it now, out of term time, when there are no undergrad students to lecture.

*************

The flight from Richmond to Albuquerque had taken most of the day, and then Jane showed up in, well, it can only really be described as a tooled up camper van. That was when Erik started to have some concerns about what she was studying out here. It took them the rest of the day to get back to Puente Antiguo, where Jane had based herself for this field study. When she said that there was another event expected tonight, well, that's exactly what they were there to study. So into the desert, away from the town lights they headed.

So, out in the desert, waiting for a seemingly ridiculous event to occur. Standing through the sunroof of a camper van packed to bursting with high-tech equipment. The anticipated time comes, and passes, seemingly without incident.

"Wait for it." Jane tells them. Except, the predicted moment has been and gone, so they're waiting for nothing, now.

Indeed, when Darcy asks to turn on the radio, the moment seems to be gone, despite Jane's insistence that it's not.

But, Erik's job is to see that funding money is being well spent, which, a failed event doesn't really help, so, maybe it's time to bring her down slightly. "Jane, you can't keep doing this."

"The last seventeen have been predictable to the second," insists Jane, dropping back to check her notebook.

"Jane, you're an astrophysicist, not some storm chaser." Even as Jane calls up the images of the previous events on her computer, that they've already been over on the phone, the reason Erik's out here in the first place.

"I'm telling you, there's a connection between these atmospheric disturbances and my research. Erik, I wouldn't have asked you to fly out here, if I wasn't absolutely sure." says Jane, sighing.

"Jane, I think you want to see this." Ok, what's Darcy seen? Time to look in the mirrors.

You know, "What's that?" is probably exactly the right question to be asking at the moment, Jane. Back up through the sunroof to get a better look.

"I thought you said it was a subtle aurora?" Erik murmured.