Something Pulsing

Connor had tried his guest to keep his guest in decent condition. The clock read that five hours had passed, and the sun was already coming up but he had not closed his eyes for more than a few minutes since the day before the previous. Connor had removed the man's trench coat and ripped his bloodied T-shirt in order to see exactly what injuries he had been dealt. Fortunately apart from a couple of scrapes and cuts, the only real injury was the hole in the back of his neck which Connor had closed up with part of the man's shirt. The man kept going in and out of consciousness and his breathing would not normalise (as much as a chain smoker's breathing could, anyway) so Connor decided on babysitting all morning.

            His phone had rang a couple of times before, but only just felt confident enough to leave the man be for a while. Connor got up and slowly made his way to his office in the back and checked his phone. It rang the moment he picked it up from his desk.

            "Yeah?" He said, not in the mood for pleasantries.

            "I think I know where to find Liz. Want to come along?"

            "No. Well, yeah. I want to get to the bottom of this whole other shadow thing too. And I want a million dollars... Uh, Rand..." Connor was a bit irritated due to lack of sleep and he had no time to deal with anyone at the moment. A pause followed after what he said. "You okay?"

            "Are you okay?" Ed asked. He had picked known Connor long enough to know when his banter was a result from pure cockiness, or from being annoyed.

            "No. Look, meet me at my bar, okay?"

            "Sure." The call went dead, and Connor sighed heavily.

            He placed the phone in his pocket and went back downstairs. The man was sitting upright, holding his neck. His eyes were closed, but Conner knew that he was as conscious as can be.

            By the sound of his footsteps, the man looked up and their eyes met for a moment before he cringed in pain and ducked his head and looked down again. Connor sat down on the chair he had pulled closer much earlier that morning, and held the man's shoulder with his one hand. "You alright?" He then asked.

            "No doctors," the man remarked with a snicker, his wheezing as bad as ever. "Thought you would have called them first thing."

            "No doctors, Ben. Why are you here?"

            Ben looked up and then back down. "What's it been? Nine years? Ten? And you still like to ask the questions. Didn't learn a thi-"

            Connor squeezed his shoulder so hard that he had to stop talking. Connor then let go and put his hand behind Ben's neck, right on the sore area. "No doctors, Ben."

            "So he has learned!" He began to snicker, but coughed instead.

            A while passed then, and Connor let go. The two man stared at each other for a while before smiling and exchanging handshakes. Connor would have hugged him, had he not been injured.

            "Bastard got me right when I least expected," Ben said and ducked his head again.

            "Who? Why are they after you anyway? We made sure we had no tails on our last assignment."

            "No idea. Killed two of my squad before I managed to even get close. Son of a bitch put something in me while it held me up like a rag doll. I managed to get it in the stomach with that knife you gave me -- that's how I got away. Lost the knife, sorry."

            Connor digested what Ben had told him. "This thing was a shadow?"

            "What?"

            "Never mind. Why come here, Ben?"

            "I know a guy, very good with computers. Robert, or something. Anyway, he gave me your whereabouts. I figured this is the best place to lay low while I recuperate and find out who killed my squad."

            "I haven't been with the organisation in years, why me?"

            "You haven't been with the organisation in years," Ben said and shifted his weight so that he could lie down again. Connor leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, awaiting the hour whence Ed would finally arrive.

Safu had just returned from the market and found Laura and JR sparing in the main hall. JR had become much quicker -- dexterity was by far his best trait, though Safu knew he could still out maneuver the younger agent by far. C-Net rolled in and held extended his arms so Safu could hand him the things he bought.

            "Security is slacking down. They are finally getting used to constant activity in this area again," Safu said, catching both Laura and Jr off guard. They stumbled over each other and ended up half on a sofa and half on the ground. "And you two can leave now. I managed to get you an ID card. Do not lose it," Safu instructed JR. "They recognise Agency personnel from the tattoos on our sides, and Laura here is but one face to remember. Lose this, and you lose your way in here. No exceptions."

            JR nodded, got up and retrieved the badge from Safu. He looked at it, shook his head up and down and joined Laura on the couch again. "How can the pope hide this place from the world?" JR asked in thought as he finally got his seat.

            She shrugged and seemed to give it some thought before kissing him on his forehead, getting up and extending her hand. "I think he knows that we are the good guys. I don't think he knows we kill people. Or maybe he doesn't know about this place, period."

            Her answer was short and to JR's liking. He accepted her hands and got up with her. "Where are we going?"

            "Have you ever been in Italy, let alone Rome, before? Exactly!"

Ed arrived about a half hour later, and parked behind Connor's porsche. His beard had grown out a bit more than usual and his hair had gone uncut for a couple of weeks; although it was still short, looked messy. He walked up to the backdoor and entered the pub, where he found Connor as well as his guest, Ben, asleep on the chair, and the couch respectively. Ed took a few steps toward Connor, who shot awake and drew one of his firearms on Ed with blinding speed. Ed really started to like that 3-weapon holster of his -- it seemed to work for all occasions.

            "Good, you came," Connor breathed and put his gun away, them beckoned so Ed could sit on one of the other chairs nearby.

            "Who's this?" Ed asked as he pulled the chair closer and sat down.

            "An old friend of mine, Ben. We were both part of a ghost squad."

            Ed nodded. He knew that Connor had done time with the navy and the FBI, and a couple of both their branches, but the governments had done a good job on the ghost part. Even the Agency had records, albeit next to nothing, that could be pulled up if one knew where to look. "What's wrong with him?"

            "His injuries matches the MO of the Shadow. It had tried to get his thoughts or whatever, before Ben escaped. The rest of his squad wasn't so lucky."

            "We took care of it."

            "Yeah I know. Which means he had to get injured before last night, or this was the doing of the other one."

            "You used to know each other, did you have contact?"

            "No. Said he got my whereabouts from some guy named Robert. What?"

            "Nothing," Ed replied. By the mention of the name, Ed's eyes widened though he knew that it couldn't have been him as the shadow got to him too while in holding. "Is his injuries treatable?"

            "More than," Connor replied and leaned forward. He lifted the torn shirt up a bit so Ed could see the man's scars.

            Ben jumped up and launched Ed over the chair. Ed rolled over backwards and got up but was caught slightly off guard as Ben managed to grab him by his neck. Ed was faster, though, and had his pistol aimed at Ben's head, from below his chin. When he felt the cold of the weapon, he froze in place, his wheezing ever present.

            "Hey your eyes," Connor remarked as Ben let go slowly of Ed's neck and backed away. "They go just like his. Or did, anyway, while you raged just now except it was gold instead of purple."

            Ed still had his pistol aimed at the man as he sat down, ducked his head and cringed in sudden pain. Only after a couple of seconds did he holster his weapon again and picked the chair up from the ground.

            "Sorry," Ben said in-between coughs. "Fuck, I think I'm bleeding again." He looked up and saw that Ed was merely staring at him. "Man of few words? Quite the opposite of our mutual friend there."

            "Your eyes pulsed," Ed said. "Tell me why."

            "What the hell are you talking about?" Ben asked with a snicker.

            "Whenever Ed gets really mad, or when he's in a really bad place, his eyes will get all purple - as much as dark brown eyes can, anyway. Yours just did that."

            "Bollocks," Ben replied and laid back down. "I don't believe in that chaos theory, sci-fi bullshit and you know that. First with the shadow talk, then of pulsing eyes. What do you want?"

            Ed glanced at Connor, then back at Ben, who coughed once more as he shifted back into sleep while still mumbling on about sci-fi bullshit.

C-Net had just finished adding a bunch of algorithms to the iPad which was docked near Elizabeth's brother. There was another table opposite him which seemed to have nothing on it at first glance, but just as C-Net tapped a last button, a suit appeared on the table. It was an exo-skeletal shock trooper suit; heavily modified from the battle suit Ian would usually wear in extreme operations.

            "It looks bad," Ian remarked as he entered the lab. "Like, I know I'm not as fussy about looks as Ed is and I know I like my stuff menacing, but I can't really wear that outdoors."

            "This combat suit is fully functional and able to withstand outdoor conditions," C-Net said flatly.

            "I meant, I hope that's not the final build," Ian said. C-Net's understanding or lack thereof, of humour still got him every time.

            "This is what your old suit looks like when upgraded to 450% of its normal capability in size, strength, and maneuverability. This seems to be the only way I can get the nanite to work at present. Testing is still underway."

            "Good."

            "Commander, I do advise you not to go out on extreme field assignments any time soon, though."

            "Why?"

            "To purchase a suit such as this would require me to go through a lot of red tape, and we might get discovered, also we do not have the required funds at present. As far as government impunity and funding could take the remains of the Agency. I had to use your suit."

            Ian shook his head and nodded. He then waved as he turned and walked out the door.