The Asset
"You know, you're late." Ward notes, catching the swinging punching bag as Skye comes down the stairs of the BUS to the cargo hold-turned-training room for their daily sessions.
"I'm tired, from the morning's workout." Skye complains to him. "I thought I was joining SHIELD, not 24 hour fitness."
"It's called relative strength training, starting with the basics." He lectures her as he puts on her padded gloves for the bag. "And next time, you do 15 push-ups for every minute you're late."
"Fine! Mr. Fun-Machine." She snarks at him. "Better than pull-ups. I don't ever want to do another pull-up again." She says dramatically.
"You ever find yourself hanging off the edge of building twenty stories up, you're gonna want to do at least one." He meets her eyes seriously. He corrected her stance and showed her how to jab at the punching bag. She half-heartedly imitated him. "You know the hardest part about boxing?" He asked her.
"Getting punched in the face?" She joked as she did her jab cross.
"Keeping your hands up," Ward told her.
"Why do I even have to do this?" Skye complained as he showed her his stance and his hand positioning and then went back to doing it herself. "I'm sure FitzSimmons' Supervising Officer didn't make them do this muscle stuff." She whined tiredly.
Ward made a face gesturing as he reasoned with her. "You said you wanted to be a field agent like Coulson. Well, if you'd like to switch disciplines . . ." He turned to the scientists in their lab experimenting with their equipment. "Hey Simmons, what did your S.O. give you guys for morning drills?" He asked her.
"Oh, atomistic attribute skills. Yeah, we'd name the uh, mechanical, chemical, thermal-" Skye stared at her, punching the bag with one arm tiredly as Fitz finished Simmons' sentence for her.
"Electrical properties of materials."
"Okay, okay. They made your point." She tells Ward gruffly. He walks back over to her with a patronizing look.
"There will come a moment when you have to commit to this or bail." He tells her as he holds the bag while she punches again. "Every field agent has a defining moment. Ask Coulson. When you have to make the hard call. To either dedicate yourself to this or to curl up in a ball and run."
"How could you run, if you're curled up in a ball?" Skye asks between punches.
"It's my job as your S.O. to make sure you don't die before then," He says as he corrects her wrist again.
"So what was yours, Agent Ward?" Skye asks him as he leans back into the punching bag.
"Ten minutes." He tells her the time limit for her jabs.
"Your defining moment." She pauses when she doesn't get an answer. "Come on, tell me. I want to know." She makes a face at the punching bag. "I could get Coulson to give you some of that truth serum, spill your little heart out to me again." She mocks him and he squints at her.
"You mean my Level One overshare that miraculously got you to cooperate?" He says sarcastically. "I hate to tell you this, Rookie, but we don't have a truth serum." Skye scoffs, her mouth dropping open humorously.
"Changing course, briefing in three." May's voice comes over the intercom.
"Ah, looks like we're on the move." Fitz says from the lab, shrugging off his coat and rushing for the stairs as Simmons follows.
"SHIELD 616 with new orders. Set for Colorado Airfield North."
Everyone convenes upstairs in the lounge area to the left of the control room.
"A few minutes ago, a SHIELD transport was attacked while carrying a Priority Red protected asset off Route 76 near Sterling." Coulson tells the team, reading off his tablet.
"Priority Red." Simmons says nervously while Fitz whistles in astonishment.
"The asset was Canadian physicist, Dr. Franklin Hall, known for his work-" He shows the team his photo and credentials from his tablet.
"Oh, no! Not Frank!" Simmons says heartbroken.
"Dr. Hall!" Fitz blurts out at the same time. "He was our chemical kinetics advisor our second year."
"He's so enthusiastic about science, we just adored him. We can rescue him, can't we?" Simmons asked.
"He's one of ours, so we're gonna try."
"And the attackers?" Ward questioned.
"Invisible." Coulson answered and walked back into the command center.
"Wait, invisible?" Skye lets out an excited laugh, "So cool." She glances at Ward's serious expression and sobers quickly. "But terrible." She finishes quickly.
By the time they get to the crime scene, Skye hasn't had the chance to get May or Coulson alone so she can talk to them about their new case.
"Dr. Hall was an asset?" Skye asks as they walk down the highway. Coulson glances at her before answering.
"One of a few select scientists SHIELD has been protecting, people our enemies would love to get their hands on. We keep them hidden, keep them on the move."
"Which is why Fitz and I were so lucky to have him." Simmons tells them.
"We don't have him anymore." Coulson says grimly.
"And what does priority red mean?" Skye asks.
"It means security should have been . . ." Everyone pauses, staring up at an SUV stuck in a tree. "Heavy." Coulson finishes.
AC and May both interrogate the surviving driver of the semi-truck they'd been transporting Dr. Hall in. He answers their questions but alludes to there being a mole within SHIELD who leaked their route.
Simmons is a bit past the SHIELD agents Crime Scene unit with special equipment she's using and calls back to her partner. "Fitz, what am I seeing here?"
"Well, I'm not wearing the full-spectrum goggles I designed, so . . . no clue." He chuckles as Ward and Skye follow him to see what Simmons found. "Come on, let me have a look." He gestures for her to hand them over but she stops him and Skye from walking further.
"Whoa, whoa, wait! Don't move!" She grabs some dirt and throws it up in the air, but instead of falling to the ground it swirls around as if there's a strong wind.
"What the hell?" Ward mutters and May and Coulson walk up behind them watching curiously.
"I think the electro-static field scanner activated some . . . thing." The bizarrely acting dirt suddenly flew towards Ward and Skye causing them to duck.
"Okay, can we deactivate now?" Coulson asked warily. Simmons starts punching numbers into her spectrometer.
"Have to increase the density." Fitz told her and the dirt blows around in a frenzy making them all duck.
"I tried, Fitz!" She shouts over the noise and he grabs it from her, punching in numbers.
"Fitz!" May warns him as he dirt flies around frantically. He finally maxes it out and the dirt drops to the ground after his spectrometer sparks too high.
Simmons bends down and, with tweezers, picks up what looks like small metal rings welded together with a tiny moving mass in the middle.
"That did all this." She says in amazement. Coulson grabs it from the tweezers, looking more closely at it.
"What is that?" Skye voices what's all on their minds.
"Something big." He answers.
They take it back to the bus to be examined by Fitz and Simmons in the lab with the others watching over intensely. Coulson is standing next to May as they watch Fitz with his equipment studying the peculiar thing.
"Either someone cracked our COMM system, or Dr. Hall's movements leaked from inside SHIELD." Coulson tells her.
"You think we have a mole?" She asked him and he met her gaze once before they both glanced over at Skye standing over Simmons' shoulder as she and Fitz poked and prodded at the tiny mass.
"I think you should go through the communication logs, rule it out. We'll work the tractor tread that we found on the scene." He tells her. She nods and leaves to go gather them all.
"I can do that, instead of pull-ups." Skye jokes. "I can upload an image of the tread pattern, check to see if there's any sort of-"
"Already done." Ward entered the lab. "Matched it to a 2010 model. Found a list of purchasers within a 500-mile radius, narrowed down to those with priors, financial troubles, or propensity for risk-taking." He told AC and May. "Three suspects." He punched in his findings into he holotable of the lab and showed them on the screen to his C.O.s.
"Who may have sold their construction equipment to the kidnappers." Coulson concludes. "We'll ask."
Ward leaves the room to get ready and Skye turns to AC wanting to lighten the mood. "Hey, so, Ward said a funny thing. He said that you guys don't have a truth serum."
"Did he?" Coulson asked her with his normal deadpan expression on his face. "Ward said that?"
"Yeah." She nodded, looking at him expectantly.
"Interesting." He didn't give her an inch turning and walking out of the lab as well.
"Hey, wait-"
"Hey." May comes back into the lab with a massive binder full of paper, dropping it into Skye's hands.
"Do you want me to bench press this?" She asks the older woman slowly.
"Read it. Every communication out of HQ since they decided to transfer Dr. Hall." She eyes the hacker and Skye sighs, shaking her head at her.
"Hang in there Doc," she mutters to herself as May departs again. "It's gonna be awhile."
Ward and AC interrogate a cowboy who sold his construction equipment to the kidnappers and find out he was paid in gold. They bring it back to the lab for Simmons to scan.
"It looks like this because it's DORe bar. It means it was made at the mine rather than in a refinery." Simmons explains to Coulson. "It's only about 92% pure. The cowboy got cheated a bit." She rambles.
"Can you determine the mine based on the impurities?" Coulson asks her.
"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." Fitz tells him. "We've done that already." He sits down at his computer and looks it up. "It's from the Dacey mine in Tanzania, which is owned by-"
"Quinn Worldwide." He studies the name on the computer before addressing FitzSimmons. "I'm sure you studied the C.E.O. in your chemical engineering classes or saw him on the cover of FORBES - Ian Quinn." Coulson identifies him, walking out of the lab to go give his findings to the rest of the team.
It takes a while but Fitz finally deduces what the tiny object that caused so much destruction was.
"Gravitonium: it's an extremely rare high-atomic numbered element."
"That powers the device." Simmons finishes for him. "So extremely rare that most people didn't believe it existed, much less the theory that an isolated positive charge-"
"Would turn the flow from isotropic-"
"Guys!" Skye interrupts them. "High school dropout here." She admits. "How does the device work again?"
"Well, gravitonium, distorts gravity fields within itself, causing an undulating amorphous shape."
"Which causes these, um . . . wiggly bits here," Fitz points to the screen as they explain to Skye again. "But when an electric current is applied," He gestures with his hands form a ball, "the gravitonium solidifies. And those gravity fields erupt," he shakes his hands quickly and then pulls them apart. "Randomly changing the rules of gravity around it. Well, so now you can imagine what would happen to a big rig at 100 kilometers per hour. Or, uh, well, you could just remember, cause we saw it already didn't we?" He sounds almost excited at the prospect.
"Yeah, and guess which genius published every theory about gravitonium and possible applications years ago?" Simmons asks Skye.
"Dr. Franklin Hall." She nods in understanding.
"Correct. And Dr. Hall attended the University of Cambridge at the same time as Ian Quinn." Fitz says as he types into his computer.
"You know I thought Coulson may be off on this at first." Skye tells them, pushing the fury and pain at the man who shot her - twice - to the side. "Quinn is usually a notoriously good guy. His charity endowment's something like $8 billion. But when I did a second background search on him I discovered his money is made from leeching the Earth of it's resources and now . . ." She sighs trying to let the anger and rage she can still feel in the back of her mind go.
"Looks like he's dug up another." Simmons says agreeing with Skye.
Everyone convenes upstairs in the command center to figure out a plan to rescue him.
"The man's a prisoner and it's up to us to get him out." Coulson says passionately.
"Are you sure about that? How do we know Hall isn't exactly where he wants to be?" Skye asks and the whole room turns to her.
"What?
"You're joking!" Fitz and Simmons are both outraged at her.
"Well, I mean, think about it." She tells the team, glancing around at everyone. "Dr. Hall has dedicated his career looking for this element. And Ian Quinn has traveled the world with his mining operation over the last two decades to have accumulated enough gravitonium that he can hide it on his estate. Quinn kidnapped Hall for a reason, and I doubt it's to torture him or something. What if he took Hall specifically to give him the gravitonium, or even worse, to do something with it for Quinn."
"Now that's a scary thought." May muttered.
"But Dr. Hall knows just how dangerous this element is!"
"Yeah, he wouldn't allow Quinn to manipulate him like that!" Fitz and Simmons both protest.
"Even scarier!" Skye points to the science duo. "If Hall is as noble as you guys say he is, he knows how dangerous this element is - what if he decides to destroy it for the greater good? Imagine just how much Quinn probably has collected and stored underground?"
"He'd sink the island and everyone on it." Ward assumes.
Coulson stares at Skye until she meets his gaze and she seems to read the question in his eyes. She gives him a tiny nod and May, who'd been watching, sighs closing her eyes in frustration at the situation that is coming.
"Well, we don't know Dr. Hall's intentions yet and he's still one of ours. We need to focus on rescuing him and getting him off the estate."
"Right, but we've checked the specs, there's no way into Quinn's compound without a large SHIELD strike force or a man inside." Ward tells them. "He's got neodymium laser fencing surrounding the property."
"They'll never allow a strike force into Malta." Coulson answers him. "Plus this weekend, Quinn Worldwide's got it's annual shareholders gathering. We'd risk global outrage, but-"
"If we go in alone-" May picks up his line of thinking.
"SHIELD can disavow us, claim ignorance."
"Without a man inside, it's impossible." May protests. "Unless you're immune to pulse laser emissions." She says sarcastically. Skye pulls out her phone and starts typing as she leans against the left doorway of the command center listening to their disheartening efforts to think of ideas.
"If we had a monkey," Fitz starts and Skye automatically rolls her eyes fondly. "We could get in."
"Ugh, Fitz!" Simmons starts.
"If we had a small monkey, he could slip through the sensors and disable the fence's power source with his adorable little hands." Fitz smiles at the team.
"I could go in." Skye says nonchalantly as she continues typing into her phone.
"Drop me in the hills outside of Valletta." Ward starts ignoring Skye's offer. "I'll spend a few weeks establishing a cover, gathering intel-"
"Hall doesn't have a few weeks." Coulson tells him but May is staring at Skye. She can feel the pilot's gaze on her but she continues typing into her phone, already setting up her plan.
"And to restate, any agent of SHIELD caught on Maltese soil can be shot to death with bullets-"
"Yeah," Fitz nods at Simmons' nervous words.
"Legally."
"Not me." Skye stands up straight, glancing at the team. "I can go in."
"Skye, this is serious." Ward scolds her.
"Wait," Coulson cuts him off. He steps closer to her. "What are you saying?" He stares at her and she can read the underlying question in his eyes.
"Well, I'm not an agent of SHIELD, so I can go in without breaking all of these stupid rules." She still taps on her phone.
"International laws," Simmons corrects her.
"This isn't something the Rising Tide can hack, Skye." Ward talks down to her and Skye takes a breath, trying to calm her ever-growing anger.
"Did you hear the deadly laser part?" Fitz asks her, his head in his hands in exasperation. "Without a brave monkey-"
"You said you could go in with a man inside." Skye tries to persuade the team.
"And you want to be that man?" May asks her, Skye can read the silent message in May's eyes as well and nods to her slowly.
"FitzSimmons loved the guy, and he needs help." She gestures to the scientists. "I might be wrong and they could be torturing him, or worse," she eyes Ward and glances at Coulson before typing into her phone once more. "Making him do strength-training." She jokes.
"But you don't have the background or clearance or experience with any of this." Ward tells her firmly.
"I know." She tells him lightly. "But I've got an invitation." She shows them her phone where she'd hacked her way into Quinn Worldwide server and had them send her an invite to the shareholder's party. She glances down at the screen on her phone as the team stares at her in awe. "Well, technically it's an E-vite." She says flippantly.
Ward corners Coulson upstairs after the team meeting.
"I understand your concern, but we don't have a lot of options here."
"Hey, I'm impressed." He says in a low tone. "She just wrangled an invitation on her phone using insider back-channel voodoo in minutes. But sending her in with no training, you're taking a huge risk. I know Director Fury felt he owed you after you sacrificed yourself."
"And my card collection." Coulson snarks as he walks from his room to his connecting office.
"He gave you some autonomy, but Skye on a covert op?"
"Are you worried about her safety or her loyalty?"
"Both. The Rising Tide is the reason she got an invite. Who knows how many protocols she violated."
"That's her job - ignore protocol, find connections and back doors that nobody else can see. Something else is bothering you." Coulson reads Ward easily as he straightens his desk and the younger agent sighs, pacing a few steps before turning back to Coulson.
"She's holding back, sir. She says she wants to be an agent, but she won't commit. She doesn't listen, makes jokes."
"Were you hard on her?"
"Sure, I tried playing nice too." Ward insists. "I need a new strategy."
"Try no strategy." Coulson says coming around his desk and leaning against it to speak with him. "Stop thinking like an operative and start thinking like a person. Maybe Skye will let that person help her."
"Help her what?"
"Help her think like an operative." Coulson finishes gently.
It's not long that Ward has to practice that advice with Skye when he trains her in disarming someone with a gun. He holds a practice one to her head in the cargo bay-turned-training room.
"Now again, slowly, what's first?" She grabs his hand with the gun and swings it up so she can pull herself into his chest. "And then?" He asks.
She relaxes into his chest smiling to herself. "Then, things are moving too quickly. I'm a proper Southern girl, you'll make me untidy." She drawls in a Southern accent teasing him.
Ward sighs using his other hand to show her what to do next. "Twist the thumb, palm the barrel." He pushes her out of his arms frustratedly. "You're gonna die and leave us hanging out to dry, you know that? You're going in with no self-defense skills-"
"I've got a few tricks up my sleeve." She protests.
"You need muscle memory, fundamentals, the tools to turn yourself-"
"Into a whole bag of tools?" She interrupts him flippantly.
He shakes his head in irritation at her. "How did you learn computer science without committing yourself to it?"
"C.S. comes naturally to me." She tells him then hesitates - she knows what her line of thinking will take them. "I'm sorry I'm not naturally whatever you are."
He walks towards her his frustration clear on his face. "You think this came naturally to me? I had a brother who beat the crap out of me - me and my little brother, for nothing, for eating a piece of his birthday cake." He stops in front of her, keeping his eyes locked on her so she understood the severity of his words. "I had to learn to protect us, the way I am trying to protect you." He sighs. "That was my moment. You asked." He says quietly.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to push." She says remorsefully. "But I did manage to take this." Skye waves the practice gun she'd slipped from him, teasingly.
He grabs it from her with an eye-roll and steps back. "Getting the gun is one thing. Pulling the trigger - that is another." He raises the gun to her head again. "Now, again, slowly. What's first?"
After an hour or so of practice everyone meets back in the command center to go over the plan.
"Skye will walk in the front door. The only external access point to Quinn's underground facility is from a beach cove. A two-man extraction team could slip in there, but it's not easy. FitzSimmons." Coulson nods to them to speak their piece for the briefing.
"The perimeter is surrounded by a 20-foot-high neodymium laser grid. Touch it and you're toast." Fitz says.
"Dead toast." Coulson mutters. "The only way to disable the grid is to crack the system and trigger a reboot. This would give the team three seconds to cross. Of course, Quinn's too smart to allow any wireless access on his property."
"That's where I come in." Skye says.
"Yes," Simmons steps up and shows her a makeup compact. "Working compact - holds up under x-ray."
"Desert rose, to match your complexion." Fitz says and Skye tries not to smirk at him. "But wait, what's this." He mockingly asks her and shows her the blinking red lights in the mirror of the open compact. "A readout, okay? Turns green if you're in close enough proximity to a computer to gain wireless access."
"When it does, you just drop this nearby and walk out. We'll do the rest, easy as pie." Simmons finishes.
"Or it will be, if you stick to the plan." Ward says darkly and Skye takes a breath eyeing him before taking the compact from the science duo.
"Got it. Plan, green, drop, walk . . . pie." She nods to them.
Coulson steps away from the holotable with a tablet, typing into it and May intercepts him.
"I don't want to question your orders, sir."
"Good." He says brightly trying to cut off what he knows is coming and walks around her.
"But I've already seen far more combat than I bargained for." She says over his shoulder. "This two-man extraction team? It's exactly the kind of action I was hoping to avoid."
He turns to face her with a sigh. "That's why you're not on it." He tells her.
May gives him a look. "Specialist work is much different than field work, believe me." She says warningly. "When was the last time you-"
"Hall's one of ours and he's in trouble." Coulson cuts her off. "I need two men to get him out. Ward makes one." They stare at each other until May breaks, glancing away. "So that's why I'm going in. You forget, I saw plenty of action with the Avengers." He walks away from her to the holotable.
May stands there shaking her head. "And you died." She says to herself.
"Alright team, suit up." Coulson tells them.
They put their plans into action and Skye arrives at Quinn's estate in a taxi. She's dressed in a pretty magenta dress that falls mid-thigh and with a nice scoop neckline paired with gold sandal heels. When she walks through the doors she takes the chance to sip on champagne and eat an hors d'oeuvre.
An older gentleman in a navy colored suit surprises her from behind. "Who are you?" He speaks with a heavy accent and another younger man rushes up.
"Oh, apologies for his manners. He knows very little English."
"Oh, that, uh, that's - what, whatever." She stutters, caught off guard. She offers her hand and introduces herself to the older man. "Skye."
"Qasim Zaghlul."
"Big fan." Skye says impressed. "You built half of Dubai, including the Arabian blade. I love that building, it's super sci-fi. Where's your wife . . ." She waits as May relays the correct information through her COMS unit. "Nadrah?"
"Twin sons." May says.
"Staying at home with the boys?" Skye asks with a smile.
"How she doing?" Fitz appears in the command center with popcorn as they all hover over the holotable, listening through Skye's COMS.
"She's good." Simmons and May both say impressed.
"The pleasure is mine." Skye is saying. She turns away from the men trying to remember the last time she was this party three years ago and can't help basking as a party-goer. "I could get used to this, people." She addresses the team. "It's like SIRI if it worked." She turns her head and see Quinn. "Skipper to Bravo. I got eyes on top dog. The eagle is landing on it." She drawls through her coms playfully.
"What are you doing?" Simmons asks nervously from the command center.
"Sorry, I don't - I don't know. I see Quinn. I'm gonna go talk to him." She gets rid of her food and walks over to hear the tail-end of his conversation with his partners.
"I mean, that and it's effect on the industrial average." He says. Quinn is dressed in a slick grey suit and his hair combed back perfectly and Skye refuses to let her mask slip as she chuckles along with his partners.
"Yeah, right?" She asks the guy she's standing next to, drawing Quinn's attention. She tilts her head flirtatiously, tamping down the raw fury that courses through her at the sight of him, and smiles. "Ian Quinn. I'm your last-minute party crasher. Skye."
She offers her hand and he furrows his brows but smiles. "Oh, wow." He chuckles shaking her hand. "Great to meet you. This is Skye." He gestures to her as he introduces her to the rest of his group. "She's a member for the Rising Tide. They're a group of hackers." She gives them a tiny wave, nervously. "They've gotten some pretty big secrets out to the public."
"I prefer the term "hacktavist." I'm glad you've heard of our site." She tells him.
"I read it. We think very much alike - more freedom of information, less government infringing on everyone's rights - I'm a fan." He says passionately..
"That explains the invite. This is a tough party to get into." She scowls playfully at him.
"Not as hard to get into as the encrypted back channel you contacted us through to request the invite." Quinn is impressed with her.
"That's sort of where I live." Skye brags lightly with a tiny smile.
"You've gotta show me how you did that - I mean if you sign on." He said.
Skye blinks in surprise, barely remembering what's coming next. "Sign what, now?"
"I've been known to turn a few black hats into white hats, not just for vulnerability analysis, but for very creative thinking."
"A-are you offering me a job?" Skye asks Quinn and he smiles chuckling.
"Well, I didn't invite you here for your pretty face." He says. "I didn't know you had a pretty face. Yes, I want to hire you, before someone else snatches you up." He tells her and nods his head at the rest of the group before leaving for the small podium.
"That seemed to go well." May says through the coms.
"Yeah, it did." Skye answers slowly and May can practically read the disgust through her tone. She frowns down at the holotable thoughtfully.
"Many of you shareholders have been with us for years, and I see a few new names here, but I want to thank you all for traveling so far to this beautiful country - and, well, slumming it at Shaba Tal-Banar." Quinn begins his speech and draws a few laughs from the audience. "This country where we are allowed to pursue progress and profit without the stranglehold of regulations that are now choking our world. The United States government, The E.U., The DRTC, SHEILD - these are just a few of the institutions that are guilty of halting the development of new technology for anyone - except themselves. We dare defy them with a new idea." As Quinn spoke, Ward and Coulson were arriving on the beach. "They steal in and swoop it up from under us. But not today. You are all aware of what Quinn Worldwide has been able to do with basic minerals, let alone uranium or plutonium, despite these unjust restrictions that weight the scales in the other guys' favor." Skye began to inch her way through the crowd towards the mansion to try and find a computer as he continued speaking. "Well, today, I'm introducing something new. An element that will balance those scales, and I mean that quite literally. Imagine if you could control gravity. If instead of drilling for oil, it instead rose up to greet you. Imagine if you could move a super tanker's worth of cargo with a swipe of your hand. Well, we will do this, and more."
Back on the beach, Coulson is trying to profile Hall's state of mind. "This might have been a traumatic experience for Dr. Hall." He tells Ward. "He may not be the same when we find him, Ward. I'll talk him down. We don't want your personality to set him on edge."
"Great time for humor, sir." Ward snarks back. "My people skills are the least of our problems if Skye can't get us in."
Meanwhile, Skye quickly makes her way towards where she remembers Quinn's office is but finds the doors with no handle or actual locking mechanism on it. She tries to push it through.
"It's locked, but there's no lock." She tells the team through her coms.
"Eh, check for a keypad." Fitz guesses.
"Nothing," she tells him then pauses, "what, you can hack a keypad?" She asks skeptically.
"No, not over the phone." He mutters.
"Is there a reception desk?" May asks and Skye begins to remember how the next few minutes will play out.
"Okay, yeah." She says and walks over there. "Now, what do I do?" She mutters to herself.
"What are you trying to do?" Quinn appears behind her with a suspicious look on his face. Skye thinks quickly.
"Where do you work?" She asks him, slipping her phone from her purse and he frowns at her.
"Um, excuse me?"
"I mean where's your office? Do you have a wireless router in there with your computers or anything? I'm trying to call my partner to talk to him about your job offer but I can't get a signal anywhere on your property." She gestures with her phone in her hand.
"That's for a good reason." He says condescendingly.
"No, I totally understand that." Skye said waving her other hand in the air innocently. "You don't want people stealing your trade secrets or anything and I'll admit, originally I came here thinking I could poke around, see if you have any deep dark secrets I could expose, but I like your style." She swallows down her disgust and anger as she talks. "I think I could be on board with working for you. I just want to call my partner, think of moving him out here with me or something."
"Partner?" Quinn asks intrigued.
"Yeah, Miles and I have hooked up a few times but he's one of the best hackers out there and he taught me everything he knows - we've been inseparable ever since. I think if I can get him on board, he'd be willing to meet with you. And, be honest, if you want to hire me, you'd want to hire more than one hacker, wouldn't you?" She asked him with a coy tilt of her head, pretending to flirt with him.
He stared down at her, clearly interested, before nodding. "That sounds like a pretty good offer," he says. "I'm a bit more concerned with the fact that you wanted to spy on my operations here."
Skye starts laughing. "Trust me, I'm not a spy. And can you really blame me? You're philanthropy is great and all but if anyone did choose to go looking into your businesses, what would they really find?" She asks him, narrowing her eyes at him playfully.
He looks amused at her. "I like you, you're sharp and you're witty. Kinda like me." Skye has to force herself not to grimace. He leans over the receptionist's desk and presses a button hidden underneath the cup of pens. The doors down the hall swing open and he nods his head at her, indicating he wants Skye to follow him.
"I have to admit, when I heard "partner" I assumed boyfriend was somewhere in that title."
"Oh, no. Recently single actually." Skye tells him as he escorts her into his office looking around impressed. "This is nice. My office had less space, more wheels." She tells him. "Wow, a view of the ocean and the pool."
"Not a bad place to do business."
The rest of the team on the BUS are still listening in awe that Skye distracted Quinn and got into his office.
"Got the dispatch leaking Hall's location, user's an alias." May tells the science duo.
"Oh, can you trace the DHCP server-"
"Trace is running, but it'll take time." May answers Fitz's question. "Our girl?"
"I thought she was done for but she's just sweet-talked her way into Quinn's office." Simmons sounds impressed and May looks up in surprise as well.
"How'd she manage that?"
"She probably just used her, um, uh . . ." The women looked up at Fitz sharply as he had his hands in front of his chest, gesturing exactly what he thought Skye had used to convince Quinn into his office. Fitz stuttered trying to find another word but couldn't. "Uh . . . uh . . . ah, boobs." Fitz hung his head bashfully as May rolled her eyes.
"Ugh, that's the only explanation?" Simmons asks him.
Skye was speaking again and the three of them all froze as they heard her mention SHIELD.
"You do know that SHIELD is circling Malta, right?"
"I do." He said warily. "The question is how do you?" She raises an eyebrow at him, trying to let him make his own assumptions. "They got to you didn't they?" He squints at her then shakes his head. "Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?"
"SHIELD picked me up in L.A. I helped them in a crisis and now they want to recruit me."
"Of course they did, what about your partner?"
"He's stayed off their radar so far - he's kind of my failsafe if I want out, but I've been playing along. Talk about insider info - I have a bunk on their plane."
"What is she doing?" Fitz hisses to the other two women on the BUS and May has a tiny smile on her face.
"She's playing him." She explains softly. "She's giving him just enough truth to lull him into a false sense of security."
"I've been gathering intel." Skye is saying. "Biding my time, until I could become useful. I thought this qualified."
"Why would they trust you with a covert operation like this?" Quinn asks her.
"Something about SHIELD not breaking international laws. They had no other options whereas, I like to keep mine open." Skye cocks her head flirtatiously smiling at him. "I think this the perfect opportunity for me to jump ship and have my partner come with me."
Meanwhile, still on the beach, Coulson and Ward finally make it up the hill and see a sign with radioactive symbols drawn on it. Coulson grabs some dirt from the ground and throws it into the air. The laser fence activates and fries it. The two agents exchange a worried look.
"Next patrol any minute now." Ward says.
"Skye is in Quinn's office but she hasn't got the chance to look for a signal yet." May's voice comes through their coms.
Ward looks alarmed. "Abort is not an option but if she's compromised-"
"She's still our only way in to get to Dr. Hall."
"And we're their only way out." Ward concludes. They hear voices and duck down behind some bushes.
Skye fiddles with her purse on the couch in Quinn's office. "So you're saying they wanted to rope me in because I pose a genuine threat."
"Yes, and fit their profile."
"Profile?" Skye asks him.
"Sure. You're a criminal, you have a warrant somewhere."
Skye chuckles. "Hell no." He looks surprised at that. "I only get caught if I want to." She tells him and he nods his head, impressed.
"Alright, well you have a specialized skill set."
"I try to stay humble but fail."
"No family." He assumes and she cocks an eyebrow at him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit a nerve," he apologizes and steps closer, leaning over the couch, "but that is what these people do - SHIELD. They prey on fear, and loneliness and desperation, and then they offer a home to those who have no one else to turn to. I can offer you something better." He tells her.
Back on the beach, the patrol walk right by Coulson and Ward's bush and they jump out, quickly taking the guards out. Coulson tries to disassemble one of their guns and can't quite unlock the magazine from the barrel.
"Damn. I'm a little rusty I guess." He looks up at Ward who in turn, grabs the gun from Coulson and tosses it into the laser fence which disintegrates it. "Guys, clock's ticking, where's Skye?" Coulson asks through the coms.
Quinn is still trying to convince Skye to work with him. "If you stay with us, there's no secrets, no lies, no agenda. You're free to do what you do, without big brother watching over you. But first," Quinn walks around the couch to sit down next to her, "you have to tell me exactly what agenda SHIELD sent you in here with."
Skye scoffs at him. "Come on, Ian. I can call you Ian, right?" He nods. "You know exactly what they want me to do." She opens her purse and takes out the makeup compact, opening it and looking at the mirror. She pretends to check her complexion as she watches the red blinking lights switch to green. She sets the compact down on the table then turns back to him.
"And what is that?" He asks her expectantly.
Skye rolled her eyes. "They wanted me to bat my eyes, see if I could get you talking about your college buddy, Dr. Franklin Hall."
"Hall." He growled.
Back on the BUS there's a dinging sound and Simmons straightens as May spins around anxiously. "We're in!"
"She's done it!" Simmons says excitedly. Fitz looks up from his snacking as May turns to him.
"Fitz, you're up."
"Oh, Mother of all things. Move, move, move!" He yells as he rushes around the holotable and begins typing furiously.
On the beach, Coulson and Ward glance at one of the unconscious guards' radios blare to life.
"We have a man down! Hostiles on the east ridge!"
Shots are fired and Coulson and Ward both duck as they wait impatiently for Fitz to reset Quinn's system so they can jump past the laser grid.
"We need a reset here, Fitz!" Coulson says through his coms. More shots are fired connecting with the laser fence. "Fitz!"
"Saying his name repeatedly does not promote productivity!" Simmons tells Coulson nervously.
"Okay, go!" Fitz tells them.
"Or maybe it does." Simmons murmurs.
Coulson runs through as the laser grid disappears but Ward is stuck behind a bush. "System rebooting in two . . . one . . . now!" Fitz counts down and Ward jumps past it, just in time. They race up the steps to the estate.
"I'll look for Dr. Hall down in the lab." Coulson says.
"I'll get Skye." Ward tells him and they split off in different directions.
Quinn shakes his head back in his office. "No, you can't be the only angle. SHIELD is thorough enough to know about me and my exploits. It takes more than a pretty face to disarm me." He tells Skye.
Guards walk through a side door to Quinn's office. "Sir, we have a security breach." Quinn stands up in alarm and Skye slowly stands too, collecting her purse.
"Oh, the timing on that was perfect." She smiles widely at them, reaching for her compact but Quinn grabs it from her, opening it and seeing the flashing light. He sighs in frustration and breaks it easily. He turns to his three guards and Skye moves quickly.
As Quinn turns back around after drawing a gun from his bald guard, Skye grabs his wrist, twisting it hard so that he cries out in pain, dropping it into her free hand and twirls around him, throwing her elbow into the back of his head so he stumbles forward. His bald guard however, throws his fist and manages to cuff her ear, dislodging her coms. She kicks out at his knee and knocks him to the floor with a yelp and backs away towards the balcony. The guard struggles to his feet and looks at her impressed.
"Kid's got balls." He growls to Quinn.
"Thanks, but . . . yuck." She looks at him disgustedly.
Meanwhile, Coulson finds the underground lab where Dr. Hall is typing into a computer system much like the team's holotable.
"Dr. Hall. Agent Coulson." He introduces himself quickly. "We have an exit strategy."
"SHIELD?" Hall asks not looking at him.
"Yes, sir." Coulson confirms. "Let's get you out of here."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Coulson, but I'm right where I'm supposed to be." Hall tells him.
Coulson sighs. "I'll be honest, this might have come up in our talks but our strategy did not take into consideration you saying that."
Back on the BUS, May is finally concluding the trace on the DHCP server that leaked out Hall's location.
Alias Identified
Camera Memory Loading
Video pops up showing May that Hall leaked his own location onto the web for Quinn to find specifically. Hall had wanted to be kidnapped and taken by Ian Quinn.
"Oh no." She murmurs to herself.
"Look," Coulson tries talking to Dr. Hall even as he continues typing into his computer table. "I don't know what Quinn is promising you, but-"
"An opportunity." Hall answers easily. Behind the glass in a separate open room is a similar looking device that held the tiny dime-sized mass of gravitonium that was originally found at the crime scene but on a much larger scale with much more gravitonium.
"We can't let Quinn have control of this!" Coulson gestures to the element. "It's too dangerous!"
"We can't let anyone have control of this!" Hall tells Coulson. "That's why I'm here - to bury it at the bottom of the ocean, with him."
Three massive circular bars surrounding the gravitonium begin to spin, the smallest and innermost one picking up speed first as it circles diagonally, the second one spinning opposite of the first diagonally and a bit slower, and the outermost bar much slower than the other two but circling vertically. The bars' speed up and electric bolts seem to emanate from the bars into the gravitonium, making it react.
May's voice echoes through Coulson's coms as she relays what he's already figured out. "Coulson. The leak came from-"
"Dr. Hall." He finishes for her. "Yeah, I'm getting that."
"All the petitions and embargoes in the world couldn't stop Ian. He grows more powerful every day. And then I get word he's found this." Coulson turns from the massive device and gravitonium to Dr. Hall. The room begins to shake as the gravitonium is activated. "I'm sorry, Mr. Coulson. I had to make a choice." He presses something on the table and the innermost bar of the device is shooting thousands of volts of electricity into the gravitonium. The room shakes even more and cupboards fly open, dropping hundreds of containers and glass and lab equipment onto the floor, breaking and shattering.
"Something tells me that wasn't the "off" button." Coulson manages to shout as the laws of gravity are defied and he's lifted up off his feet and thrown to the side, knocked out from the force he was thrown into the wall. When he comes to, he's behind a metal table on it's side with blood across his temple. "Guys," he talks into his coms. "We need to talk."
May is walking down the stairs of the BUS and sighs in relief in hearing his voice. "Lost you for a minute." She tells him as she steps into the lab. "We're aware of the problem, sir. Hall wanted to Quinn to kidnap him?"
"Yeah, why would he do that?" Fitz asks, his accent thickening with his frustration as he hovers over his computer.
"What is wrong with him?" Simmons asks anxiously.
"Quinn built a gravity generator, like the one we found but bigger." Coulson answers. "Hall knew Quinn would need him to control it's raw power, but Hall just wanted to unleash it." He struggles to his feet still dazed from the blow to his head and his body.
"The one we found was 2.5 centimeters in diameter - it stopped a semi. How big are we talking?" Simmons asks Coulson.
"Twelve feet." He answers. "It'll definitely take down the entire compound."
"No, it'll do more than that." Fitz mumbles.
"It'll sink the place." Simmons says frantically.
"Work a solution," Coulson says, still crouching behind the table. "I'll disconnect the power before things get . . . crazy." He stands up and sees that he's standing on a wall of the room. The computer table Hall had been working on had been nailed to the floor but all the equipment and papers and glass that had fallen out of the cupboards were lying on the wall as if it was the ground.
Hall is staggering around, adapting quickly to the new gravity of the room with Coulson's gun in his hand.
It must've fallen out of my holster when gravity stopped working and he'd grabbed it, Coulson assumes.
"They can't help you." Hall tells Coulson. "Soon, it'll reach an exponential acceleration state." Hall says as he finds a bottle of whiskey and a scratched but still intact glass lying on the ceiling and picks them up, righting a chair as well so he can sit down, all while holding Coulson's gun. "I'm sorry." He apologizes to Coulson sincerely.
"My team's here - good people." Coulson tries to appeal to Hall.
"Sworn to protect all mankind?" The older scientist asks. "That's what I'm doing, I promise, making things right." He opens the whiskey and pours it into the glass. The liquid looks strange as it seems to arc wide into the glass. Hall chuckles as he takes a sip, just as gravity seems to be shifting in the room again.
Coulson falls into the wall while Hall stands up and begins to walk up the ceiling and onto the upright back wall.
Meanwhile, Skye holds the gun up to Quinn's head, his guards lingering behind him have their own guns pointed at her while the bald one still stands off to the side with his hands raised.
"Don't you get it?" Quinn asks her with his hands out as if trying to placate her. "SHIELD's against everything you stand for. They're Big Brother."
"Maybe, but they're the nice big brother who stands up for his helpless little brother when he's getting beat up because he ate a piece of cake that he wasn't - you know, you kidnapped a person!" She rambles, trying to remember when Ward was going to come.
"I set him free!" Quinn protests. "I saved him! And I could've saved you!" He says disappointedly. Skye tightens her grip on the gun, thinking quickly.
If she shot him now, all his money that was funding the Centipede Project and Garrett as the Clairvoyant with his Cybertek investments would just disappear. She could stop him from coming after her in the future right now . . . but that wasn't the plan and she had to allow things to play out as close to her original timeline as possible so as not to disrupt anything too soon, no matter how much rage and anger she could feel just waiting to burst out at the man who shot her.
Ward entered the estate looking at all the rooms and misleading hallways. "This place is massive." He muttered. "Where am I heading?" He asks.
"Southwest corner." May answers as she looks at the map on the screen in the lab. "Ward, tell me you've got things covered on the ground." The ground shakes and Ward looks down in surprise as she continues talking. "I can't do a damn thing from out here."
"I'm working on it." He says as the ground begins to shake again.
Quinn and his guards stumble forward and Skye backs away from them towards the open balcony door. "What are they doing?" Quinn shouts at Skye but she just smirks at him. "You have to talk, you have no other way out of this! You're expendable to SHIELD! They sent you in here with nothing! Do you even have what it takes to pull the trigger?" He asks her smugly.
The anger that was just bubbling on the surface whites out her vision for just a second and Skye's lips tighten into a thin smile. She walks towards him, her eyes darken threateningly at him and he looks startled at the sheer amount of hatred shining from her almost black eyes now.
"You have no idea what I'm capable of." Her voice is complete ice as a chill seems to seep through his bones at her cold words. "You're nothing but a pawn." She says condescendingly. "Tell your boss, I'm coming for him. And there's nothing he can do to stop me." Her tone is dead serious and Quinn can't help it as a shiver runs through him.
Then suddenly she shoots the gun twice. Quinn collapses with a scream as blood covers his right shoulder. Skye whirls around darting out of her heels onto the balcony and jumping over the edge into the pool.
"Get her!" Quinn shouts at them, still clutching his bleeding shoulder with his opposite hand. They start for the balcony but the entire estate shakes again and they're all knocked to the floor.
Quinn stares at the pens on the ground that seem to hover in the air, before slowly following the normal rules of gravity. He sighs. "Hall. We need to evacuate." He tells his guards. "Get the chopper. Now!" He yells at them.
Meanwhile, Dr. Hall is still holding Coulson at gunpoint anchored to the wall by the strange gravity, explaining himself to the SHIELD agent.
"All I had to do to get access to Quinn's lab was drop little clues, create a puzzle for him to solve. Quinn likes to feel smart." Hall explained to Coulson.
"So you leaked your location. Why not try reasoning with him?" Coulson asked.
"You can't reason with an addict." Hall sneered at him. "And he's addicted to exploiting opportunities. He never gives a thought to the friends, ecosystems, future generations left ruined in his wake."
"Like Agents Fitz and Simmons, your former students? I've got them in my ear right now telling me you're not a bad guy. We could've worked with you on this." Coulson says as the gravitonium reacts again and the gravity in the room shifts again, knocking Coulson off his feet and causing Hall to stumble.
"SHIELD?" Hall is surprised at Coulson's words. "SHIELD is just as guilty of the same thing - experimentation without thought of consequence! Your search for an unlimited power source brought an alien invasion." Hall accuses Coulson and the agent nods, sighing.
"Fair point." He admits thinking of the parallels between SHIELD and HYDRA and starts to get to his feet as Hall staggers closer.
"This element is far too powerful for you, for him, for anyone! I don't have to tell you that." The room shakes again. "You're feeling it now!"
Up above ground, Skye is sprinting through the estate trying to remember her steps to find Ward but ends up circling around the back across the patio steps that are esconced in water. But she's too late, Quinn's thugs show up and she turns, running in the opposite direction only to find more. She's thinking quickly but remembers Ward is just around the corner. She struggles as two grab her from behind but a third man approaches her by the front. She kicks her leg back but it doesn't do much since she ditched her heels.
Ward appears behind them and within minutes, all three are down in the surrounding water and in a dump on the patio steps. Skye sighs, stepping over to him and reaching out and grabbing his vest as she sways on her bare feet in sheer emotional exhaustion.
"Are you hurt?" Ward asks her and Skye shakes her head. "Just follow my orders, I'll get us out of here." He tells her and she nods at him.
Back in the lab, the gravity shifts in the room again and the gun goes flying loose. Both men grab for it and Hall reaches it first, but Coulson punches him and takes it back. They're standing on the glass of the window that leads to the gravitonium as they face off once more.
"I see the future, Mr. Coulson." Hall tells him, resigned to his fate. "And it's a catastrophe."
"I just see a lot of people in trouble." Coulson says and reaches up towards a large silver cord and tears it away from the monitor. "Nothing!" He says loudly for the coms. "FitzSimmons, I tried to cut the power - it's still going."
"Find a catalyst!" FitzSimmons answer together. "Something to create a chemical reaction in the core." Simmons finishes explaining.
"It's not too late to do the right thing." Coulson tells Hall. "Help me find a catalyst-"
"I am doing the right thing." Hall insists. "A completely selfless act. I know that history doesn't celebrate what didn't happen, they'll call this a tragedy. They won't understand the good I did here." He says looking through the window to the wild element beneath him. Coulson lifts his gaze and meets Skye's and Ward's eyes through the locked lab door window.
"Killing innocent people?" Coulson questions angrily.
"Saving millions." Hall protests quietly. "We have to live with the choices we make, but sometimes we have to die with them, too.
Coulson stares at him for a long minute before nodding. "I understand. You made a hard call." Hall nod. "And now, I have to make mine." Coulson shoots at the window below his feet and jumps up at the last second to hang from a loose cord while Hall falls through the shattered glass and into the gravitonium which swallows him whole. His body acts as the catalyst and gravity rights itself within the lab.
Ward and Skye unlock the door and come rushing through to make sure AC is fine and he stands up again, staring at the gravity generator slowing down.
He's panting as they all stand in front of the now shattered window as the gravity generator finally stops and the gravitonium just hovers there in the middle a writhing metal-colored mass.
"Say it back to me." Coulson is saying back on the BUS in his office speaking to someone through video chat.
"Deepest level of the fridge, unmarked vault, no access granted." An agent specifies Coulson's orders.
"And no recorded entry, I don't want it listed. I don't want it flagged for the slingshot. Anyone finds out - you're responsible . . . and suffering." Coulson threatens. "Understood?"
"Yes, sir." The agent answers.
"That's what Hall would've wanted." Coulson murmurs as he turns the video chat off. He grabs the gun lying on his desk as he tries to disassemble it. "I used to have this down. Should be just muscle memory." He mutters to himself.
"You're making a habit of it, sir." May says from behind him, leaning against the doorway.
"Trying," He says to the gun. "Guess I am a little rusty."
"Of these close calls, I mean. I don't enjoy running back end." She tells him. He sighs and turns to her.
"You want off the plane? Go ahead."
"I want in." She steps forward. "Reporting for combat, next time it's up."
"You committed to the cause or just watching my back?" Coulson asks her.
"Same thing." She gives him the tiniest of grins. "And you are a little rusty." She says as she walks away.
May finds Skye in the cockpit, sitting in the co-pilot's seat her knees pulled up to her chest, dressed as if she's going to go train with Ward. May sits down without a word, waiting patiently as she begins flipping switches and pressing buttons.
"In six months, Ian Quinn is going to shoot me twice in the stomach because he answers to someone else, someone who is trying to figure out what kind of drug brought Coulson back to life and he wants to use it in the Centipede serum." Skye says but May doesn't stop fiddling with the dials and dashboard in front of her. "For the next year, nearly all the cases we take on are going to be connected to John Garrett trying to create a super soldier serum that can save his life and make him invincible. I didn't kill Quinn, but I shot him twice in the shoulder. Thought I could slow them down if only just a little bit. I know I could've saved Dr. Hall and stopped the gravitonium from sinking the entire island. But I had to make a choice, let him live, and have him acting as a wildcard in the long run or letting him make the sacrifice he was trying to make in the first place."
She falls silent, chewing on her lip and May sighs, turning to look at the girl in front of her.
"You don't have to explain to me about making the hard choice, Skye. Been there, done that already." She said focusing on the controls again. "But I understand you wanting to talk to someone, about everything."
Skye hesitates. "Is that an invitation or a warning?" She asks lightly. May meets her gaze with one of her non-expressions and Skye can't help giving her a small smile. "Thanks, May."
"Go make nice with Ward." May says in a low voice and Skye bites back a grin.
"Yes, ma'am."
"And don't call me ma'am." She rolls her eyes.
"You got it."
Skye heads down and hangs up the punching bag in the cargo bay-turned-training room. She wraps her hands and starts practicing her jab cross that Ward had been teaching her. She's there for about twenty minutes, having already worked up a sweat when Ward comes out of the lounge area of the second floor and sees her practicing. He walks down the stairs slowly, watching her form.
"You and your brothers, where'd you grow up?" Skye asks him when he's on her level.
"Massachusetts, mostly." He answers.
"A house?" Comes the next question between punches.
"You didn't?" His brow furrows at the thought.
She pauses, glancing over at him as she steadies the bag. "One house. The Brodys." She walks over to her water, panting and takes a long drink. "I was nine." She tells him. "Sent me back to St. Agnes after a month. Said I wasn't a good fit."
"Foster parents." Ward assumes. "Your first?"
"My third." She corrects him and turns as he steps closer. "I had heard it before but, this time was different . . ."
"Cause you wanted them to like you."
She nods, glancing up at him. "Bad." She says seriously. She considers how much more to say then sighs. "I called her "Mom" once . . . tried it out." She fidgets with her gloves then stills. "Guess it wasn't a good fit." She says lightly and walks back to the punching bag. She throws a couple of punches before meeting his eyes again. "Hoping for something and losing it hurts more than never hoping for anything." She tells him sadly.
"We won't turn our back." Ward says as he braces the punching bag for her.
"Doesn't matter." Skye practically whispers. "I made my choice." She says still throwing her jabs. "I want this. Bad." Her next punch is powerful and he looks down at her in surprise before bracing it more strongly. "And I know there's a truth serum." She says seriously.
"Whatever you say, Rookie." Ward teases.