Chapter 22
"We have the person responsible for the defective vaccines, Sir." Steve said as soon as Fury answered his phone. "What would you like us to do with him?"
"What? Someone was…" Fury waved for Maria, who was passing in the hall, to join him as he switched the phone to speaker once he checked and made sure he didn't hear Jasper's bell. "Are you saying this was deliberate?"
"I'm afraid so." Steve looked at the doctor, who was backed into a corner with Tony glaring at him, and Bruce looking like he might let his green altered out at any moment in anger over what the man had done.
"Someone… Was this aimed at Shield?" Fury demanded, his anger swiftly mounting.
"No, Sir. Like we told you yesterday, the CEO's in debt to the Maggia. He's been cutting funding and reducing pay to try to keep things afloat. One of the doctors working on the vaccines got angry over having his pay cut, and he sabotaged the shots out of some attempt to get even. It wasn't directed at anyone. He didn't have a clue where the shots would go. He just wanted people to get sick and the CEO to be destroyed by the fallout."
"He…. Get him in here now. I've lost one of my level 8 senior agents thanks to him, I have over 300 people sick, and I've been forced to lock down every Shield installation. Get him in here and he's going to see sick!" Fury couldn't believe this. All of those people sick and maybe dying, and Victoria…. Thinking it was some sort of accident was bad enough, but to find out that it was deliberate, due to a grudge….
Maria shook her head as Fury ended the call. "Sir…" But she stopped, not sure of what to say. That many people sick, Victoria dying the way she had, and all because someone was mad at their boss?
"Someone deliberately killed Victoria?" Jasper was in the doorway, looking pale once more, and Fury didn't know how he had got there without him hearing the ringing of the bell.
"If Rogers and company are right, he wasn't targeting anyone specifically." Fury said. "He just wanted to make people sick."
"He did more than make Victoria sick. He killed her." And the way that she died, Jasper felt like throwing up just thinking about it. Had she felt anything, had she known what was happening? He just hoped she had been unconscious or in a coma at the last, and had been spared that. "Director…."
"We'll deal with him. Did you need something?"
"Oh." Jasper remembered what he had came to alert Fury about. The shock about the shots had almost caused it to slip his mind. "I just got a call from a friend who works at one at the Cube. John and his man Triplett were there when you put Shield into lockdown. Well, John managed to get out somehow, They don't have a clue how, and they don't know where he is."
"Just perfect. Please tell me he wasn't showing signs of the flu!" Fury growled. The last think they needed was an infected agent on the loose.
"No, but he was taking the situation with Victoria badly. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't going to try to head there." Jasper said.
Just perfect. Garrett taking off to check on his frienemy/substitute sister, or whatever explained the relationship he had with Victoria. Fury picked up the phone and dialed Coulson for the millionth time since this had started. Maybe he would get lucky. Maybe he would finally answer.
Coulson checked the cart as he wheeled it down the hallway. A large pot full of some sort of watered down oatmeal cooked on the BUS, a stack of bowls, spoons, and a dish of ice cream for Victoria, with a scattering of sprinkles on top. Someone was probably going to have to do some dishes soon. A day now of feeding sick people, and they were getting close to running out of clean things.
Before he could think about who would be put on dish duty, he heard a loud pounding, that sounded like it was coming from one of the main doors. He pulled his gun, and leaving the cart there, he cautiously headed towards the door. He didn't know why someone who was attacking them would be announcing themselves by knocking on the door, but with all of the agents there so sick, he wasn't taking chances.
"Phil!" Garrett shouted as soon as he spotted the other agent.
"John? What are you doing here?" Coulson demanded. No, he didn't have paperwork that was three months late in hand, or a notice that said IRS on the front. We're on lock-down. No one in or out. If you need something…"
"All of Shield is on lock-down. I was lucky to find a way out of the Cube." Phil looked frazzled. Was that a bad sign or was it to be expected after two days of taking care of sick people.
"Fury locked down all of Shield? What's going on?"
"The mess with the shots. He put everything on lock-down until they're sure of what's going on. Phil, what about Vic?" Part of him didn't want to hear the answer, was afraid of what he might hear, l, but he had escaped a lock-down of a Shield facility to know for sure. "Is she…. Is she dead?"
"Dead?" Coulson looked at Garrett in confusion. Was he sick with the flu, suffering a fever and possibly delusions? "No, she's not dead. She's asleep in her office. Are you feeling alright?"
"Asleep? She's…. Fury heard you and that little hacker over the phone, talking about her. Fever of 106.2. Dying. Fury heard one of you say she was dying."
"What?" Coulson thought back to what Skye had said when they got her out of the vent, and he realized how Fury might have heard it.
"Fury's been calling every doctor that he could find, to try to find a way to help. Phil, they said that they thought that she was suffering a cytokine storm, that a fever that high would have fried her brain. They said there was nothing that could be done, that death would probably be more merciful."
"What?" Oh, he had to find his phone and call Fury.
"They've been planning her funeral! Fury already bought her coffin, and I think Jasper's got a tombstone order in."
"What?" That seemed to be one of the few things that Coulson could say. A coffin and a tombstone? Shouldn't they have a body before they started making purchases like that? "She's asleep!"
"Asleep?"
"Fast asleep. Fever's still running around 101, and Agent Simmons is keeping her lightly sedated for the moment, but she's stable and getting better."
"101. Stable." Garrett felt himself sagging with relief. But then another fear hit. The fever, had it been high enough to cause brain damage? "Phil, open the door!"
"You couldn't see her even if I did. Simmons has her isolated for the moment to protect her from any additional germs. Because of the fever going so high, she's going to be at risk for a secondary infection like pneumonia for awhile. I'm not even allowed in."
Pneumonia. Protect her from getting pneumonia. That was good. But…. "Has she been awake at all? Did it seem like, well, like she was Vic or…."
"She's sick with the flu and was miserable with a fever, but she somehow managed to stay at least semi-conscious until Simmons sedated her. A fever that probably would have caused most people to go into a coma. Does that sound like something's wrong with her brain? How many people has Fury told about what he thought?"
"Hill, Jasper, and then Jasper told Felix, and Felix told me." And who else had those two told? He had heard wild speculation about Victoria's funeral circulating all over the Cube. "I think pretty much everyone in Shield knows by now."
Everyone in Shield. He definitely had to find his phone and call Fury. "Stay here. I've got to take food upstairs. I'll see if Simmons or Skye can do something." Maybe they could send a picture or something that would satisfy John for the moment.
John was still examining the pictures on his phone when Coulson came back. Victoria looked pale and almost tiny, wrapped in those cooling blankets, with an IV dripping into her arm, but she was breathing. She was alive after what he had expected. "I'm going to have to join a monastery. Do you know any good monasteries that are hiring?"
I liked the interaction Garrett and Victoria had in End of the Beginning and wanted to use that in this, so I'm going with no Hydra or a different Hydra in this.