Familar Strangers
“Ok, look, you are obviously upset, so, I’d like to make a suggestion. Let’s just both put our guns down and talk about this like grownups. Is that ok with you?” Scott asked, trying to keep her from ether putting a bullet in his head or quaking him into the wall.
“Seriously, who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” She stammered.
It slowly dawned on him this might not be the person he thought it was.
“My name is Scott Riley. I’m a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.”
“Shield? What the heck is that? Where am I? Answer me!”
“OK, calm down, calm down. I’m gonna put my gun away now, and you’re going to do the same thing and we’re gonna go upstairs to my office and have a nice chat. You like coffee? Want some coffee?”
“Coffee? How does someone like you have something as rare and expensive as coffee you can just offer it willy-nilly?”
“Well I have a Keurig and… Wait, what?”
“I don’t have time this, I need to get to Jemma” She started yelling “Jemma! Jemma, honey, it’s me, Skye! Where are you sweetie? OWWW!” The girl who looked like Daisy suddenly had her hand to her head, almost as if in pain. Scott saw his chance.
With a simple movement of his free hand, the gun in her hands flew off as if it had a mind of its own. A second flick caused the machine to slide to the side. Then he held his palm open and thrust forward. While she was still several feet away, this action sent her flying into the back wall, pinning her in place a few inches off the ground.
“Sorry” he said, keeping his hand out “But we’re just not getting anywhere playing Mexican standoff.” He holstered his ICER and waved his other hand, drawing the gun to him.
“How are you doing that? What the fuck are you” she yelled “Jemma! Anyone? Help!”
Her gun flew up into his free hand. He pressed the release, causing the clip to fall to the ground, followed by poping out the chambered round. He then threw it out of the room. He then unholstered his IECR and did the same. Lastly, he then caused the door to swing closed.
At this point the young woman had begun crying. Scott relaxed his left hand and she slid down the few inches from where he’d pinned her.
“What are you?” She sputtered, clearly terrified.
“A Telekinetic” He said matter-of-factly “Now I know you’re not my Daisy. She knows about my powers.”
“That’s what I’ve saying…”
“No, you’ve just been screaming at the top of your lungs. So, if your name isn’t Daisy, what is it?”
“I’m Lt. Skye Simmons of the Strategic Scientific Reserve.”
“SSR?” Scott said puzzled. “Skye… Simmons…”
“So you know who I am, Mr… what was it again?”
“Agent Scott Kenneth Riley of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, at your service.” he said with a small bow.
“wow… Someone really wanted your name to spell SHIELD” she said
“Yeah… we get that a lot.” He said “If I may ask, Lieutenant, this might sound stupid, but what year is it?”
“…2018…” which she pronounced out as ‘Two thousand eighteen’ instead of ‘Twenty Eighteen’ like Daisy normally would.
“OK, that’s right, but, here’s the thing. I know all about the SSR because S.H.I.E.L.D. replaced it; decades ago from my perspective.”
“Replaced?” She said increduisly “What are you talking about? SSR has kept the world safe for more than 70 years. Why would anyone want to replace us?”
“Look, just come upstairs with me, I’ll get you some water and we’ll get this all straightened out and hopefully send you right back to where ever it was you came from and out of my hair.”
“You still haven’t told me where I am, how I got here or how the hell you wave your hands and I get pinned to the wall across a room.”
He stopped and looked at her
“In the order asked;
“This is S.H.I.E.L.D. Station A-12497, it doesn’t have an official name other than that, but I call it ‘The Museum’. This is where lots of our old, decommissioned equipment is stored. My job is to catalog it and keep watch over it. We’ve had issues over the past few years with hardware being stolen. Some creep in a jetpack.
“I’m still working on the details of how you got here, but I’ve got a good idea as to what happened.
“And as for the little magic trick, I’ve got no friggen clue myself, I just can. I’m gifted like that.”
Skye followed Scott upstairs.
When she got to his office, she panicked.
“You ARE CHIMERA!” She yelled and started swinging at him
“Whoa! whoa! whoa! Please don’t make me play pin the wall with the lady again. What’s the matter now?”
“THAT!” she yelled pointing at his desk.
“My Computer?”
“You’re in possession of contraband technology. Work not registered or authorized under the SCRA and the PSSC. When Director Garret gets here looking for me, he’s going to put your ass behind bars forever!”
“Director Garret… as in John Garret?” Scott asked, rubbing his forhead. “oily haired guy… Texas accent… really creepy smile?”
“Yeah. I’m his personal assistant, and you are in BIG trouble…”
This basically confirmed Scott’s theory.
“Skye.” He began, taking a deep breath “Garret isn’t coming. Jemma’s not coming. At least not how you know her. SSR is long gone and nobody is putting me in jail for that.” He said, pointing over his shoulder.
“How the hell can you know that?”
“Let’s see… As far as I’m aware, John Garret died four, close to five years ago. He was also a grade A asshole who got what he deserved. Jemma Simmons is an acquaintance of mine and I happen to know she’s married to her husband, Leo Fitz. You two have never been a couple. If anything, you’re more like sisters.”
“No… No… stop lying to me. Look just please take me to her and I’ll let everything else slide. PLEASE! I need to see her! She’s having our baby and she’s due any day now!”
“OK… I was not expecting that one.” Scott suddenly felt a lot worse about the situation.
He took a step closer to Skye, but she backed away in fear.
“Look,” he said, trying to figure what to do with his hands before putting them in his pockets to show he wouldn’t use his powers again “I want to make this crystal clear; I am not your enemy. I do not want to hurt you, not in the least bit. Right now, I want nothing more than to get you home, to get you back to your wife and your child. BUT, until I can figure out how to do that you need to calm down and listen to me. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded.
“I want you to listen to me very carefully, please.” Scott continued “Things are not what they seem. You need to throw every preconceived notion out the window, and I mean all of them. Something, I’m not sure what, has gone terribly, terribly wrong, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fixable.”
“Why can’t I just call her?” Skye asked
“Because the person you know isn’t going to answer. Look, tell you what, I know a way to prove everything.”
He walked over to his desk and played back the security camera footage from earlier of himself, Mack and Daisy unloading the machine together.
“That’s me?” She said, confused.
“THAT is S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Daisy Johnson, a… well… she’s a friend of mine.”
“But that’s me, but I don’t remember this.”
“Because it happened to a ‘you’ that isn’t you…”
“SPEAK ENGLISH” Skye snapped.
“The Many-Worlds Theory of reality. Parallel dimensions existing together. Other worlds. The Omniverse. The idea that everything one could possibly think of, no matter how out there, is happening, has happened and will happen.”
Scott picked up a nearby book, a copy of “Ready Player One”.
“See this book? It’s a work of fiction. But you want to know what? Somewhere out there is a version of Earth where its events are playing out right now.”
Skye didn’t understand anything he was saying. “You sure you didn’t get loose from a nut house?”
“No one calls them that anymore.” He said, slamming the book down on the desk “Let’s put this in simple terms; Skye… You’re attracted to other women, correct?”
The girl nodded.
“JUST other women?” he asked
“Yeah..? I fail to see where this is going.”
“Just hear me out. Hypothetically, have you ever, at any time, thought about kissing a boy or found a male in any way attractive?”
“No way” She said with a grossed out look on her face. “I’ve known I’m a homosexual since I was a little kid.”
“What if I told you that through one of the most accepted general understandings of the nature of existence, is that somewhere out there is a version of you who finds me irresistibly attractive. There’s another version of you who is married to some guy with three kids and a house in the suburbs and who has never held a gun in her life. Hell, by the simple law of probability, there’s got to be a few versions of you who are guys.”
She tilted her head in confusion.
“The idea is that at every decision, every action, results in a split in reality. One new world for each possible outcome of the presented choice to occur in, along with the further effect of those choices. It could be as simple as a flip of a coin or as complex as a reality with completely different laws of physics. If you can think of it, it’s out there somewhere.”
“Wow” she said, mind officially blown. “So what does this have to do with me?”
“At some point in the past, our two worlds split off, your world going down one path, mine going down another. Skye, this is not the world you know. This is not the history you know. This is another Earth. You are in a different universe, parallel to the one you know, similar to the one you know but not the same. That woman on the screen is technically the same person as you, but she leads a different life than you do, has a different history. She has walked down a different path. I’ve known her for about five years now and to my knowledge she’s never dated a girl. Hell, I’ve met a few of her ex-boyfriends. One was an OK guy but the others were all dicks.”
“Isn’t that kinda? Being guys I mean they…?”
“Its slang, it means they were jerks.”
“Oh…”
“It’s the same for everyone. I would dare say even worse for some people you know. They probably don’t even exist here, and there are people here who don’t exist where you live. Hell, I might not exist there. Or I could be a girl. Or two people. Beauty of the concept, really.”
Scott started working on his computer, digging through the archives, looking for any hints on what to do with his new guest.
“Make yourself at home,” He told her “but if you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it.”
Instead, Skye plopped on the couch in tears.
“I’m never gonna see her again, am I? Never gonna hold her. Hold our baby. Hear it call me mommy…”
Scott got up and walked over to her.
“I wouldn’t say that.” he said, sitting down next to her and putting his hand on her shoulder. “Look, I know some folks who are pretty resourceful with what others would deem the impossible. I’m gonna give them a call and we will see what we come up with.” He offered his hand to help her up “I promise you will see your Jemma again, even if we have to move heaven and earth to do so. Come on let’s get you someplace comfortable.”
He led the frightened young solider down to an old office space a few rooms down the hall from his. He’d been using it to store old furniture and there were some big comfy chairs in there.
“Here,” Scott said as he put down a glass of water on a table next to her. “There’s a fountain in the hall if you want more.”
He returned to his office and activated the video com system, trying to call back to base
The link connected and he was greeted with the faces of Coulson along with Melinda May.
“Agent Riley? Is something wrong?” May asked
“Sirs, I’ve got an issue with the package… Not only is it an 0-8-4, it brought a friend. I’m going to need your crew here yesterday. I am way out my league on this. I don’t know what in God’s name I am doing.”
“Why?” Coulson asked
“ I know all you guys been through. Loki, Garret, Ward, zombie ward, the ghosts, the framework, time travel but you’re not going to believe me without seeing this for yourselves....”
“Surprise us.” she replied
“OK, the machine that Mack and Daisy brought lit up, threw lighting around like Thor, and now I’m stuck babysitting a quantum duplicate of Daisy from a parallel universe and I don’t have the slightest clue how to send her home…”
The agents looked at each other for a few moments before Coulson replied “Well… that’s new…”