Bonding
A few hours later, as the sun was lowering itself in the distance, they’d found a secluded back roads area nearer to Baltimore to pull over.
“When the car is plugged into Zephyr Zero” Scott explained with himself, Daisy and Fitz standing around a computer in the car’s open trunk “this system doubles as an extra black box. It will take me a while, but I should get an idea of the status of the computers.”
The plane’s diagnostic data appeared on screen.
“Or it could take two seconds. Recognized that?” He asked Fitz
“An EM spike. Right around the time the machine when off”
“So it both brought us here and disabled the plane” Daisy clued in.
“Our only option is going to have to be a remote rolling reboot of each system. Any other options on restart on that plane require a person at the breaker panel and a ground power connection. Just hope the batteries have enough of a charge.”
Skye and Jemma were sitting on a log nearby.
“You’ve been quiet for a while now” Jemma said.
Skye put her hands up to her head again in obvious pain. “Director Garret was like a father to me. He always wanted my opinion on things. He even walked me down the aisle at my wedding. But he was going to court marshal me, toss me in the stockade for the rest of my life and kill the rest of you, all without a second thought. After you’ve all been so nice to me, he wouldn’t let me get a word in edge wise.” She started to cry a little.
Jemma gave her a pat on the back.
“I know you’re not… you know… her, but, having you here. It helps. It reminds me I have to get back to my Jemma. It gives me a reason to keep going. Thank you.”
Daisy walked over and sat on Skye’s other side.
“The boys have some crazy plan, something to do a rocket and some wire.” She said pointing to Scott and Fitz deep in the trunk pulling on stuff, before noticing Skye snillfing.
“You ok?” she asked.
“No. I thought I’d be happy to be back but, honestly, I’m terrifed. Everything seems so wrong. Can I tell you guys something? I’ve done a lot of thinking as we were riding around and… when we find my Jemma, if she’s OK with it… I think… I think I want us… I want us to go home with you guys. I don’t want to stay here anymore. I don’t want my child living in a world like this. Something is really wrong and it scares me.”
“Our world isn’t all flowers and puppy dogs.” Jemma told her.
“People we thought were friends have tried to kill us multiple times.” Daisy added.
“I just want a place where my family is going to be safe. We’ll just go there and hide. You’ll never hear from us again.”
“Why hide? Why not stay with us?” Jemma asked
“Wouldn’t people confuse me with Daisy?”
“Let’s just say I know how to play with government records. I’ve outright deleted people, including myself, a few times. Doing the reverse shouldn’t be too hard.”
An idea suddenly popped into Daisy’s head. It was a strange idea. Didn’t make much sense. But gut feelings tend not to make sense.
“Maybe even, you know, possibly… If you want… give myself…” Daisy said as she put her arm around Skye. “…a sister?”
Skye looked at the other girl. Daisy just smiled
“You mean that?” Skye said, eyes wide, “You really mean that?”
“Dear sister of mine, would I lie to you?” Daisy said
Skye’s eyes light up and she gave Daisy a hug.
“I guess you really are twins now…” Jemma added.
“Yeah…” Daisy said “My long lost, identical twin sister Skye. Since all records of my birth were scrubbed and my parents aren’t around to say otherwise, who’s left to say I don’t have a sister…?”
Skye was crying like Niagara Falls at this point.
“Thank you.” She said to Daisy.
“Hey, I’m sure you’d have done the same thing for me. I’ll even make you the older twin if you want.”
“You don’t have to do that much for me.” Skye said, taking a deep breath.
They heard a crash coming from the car.
“We better go see what those two are up to.” Jemma said.
The girls walked back to where Fitz and Scott were dragging a heavy spool of cable from the back of the car towards what looked like a bottle rocket.
“Guys, we have some news…” Daisy said. “Skye wants to come back with us. And… I’ve offered to make her my sister.”
Skye then walked up to Scott “So… You keep your hands off my sister!” she said, poking him in the chest. “Sorry, I just always wanted a real family and…”
“No problem…” He and Fitz returned to what they were doing. “I would recommend you guys get in the car now. Once we set this off, they’re going to know where we are and we’ll need to leave in a hurry.”
Jemma, Daisy and Skye climbed into the back seat.
Scott and Fitz joined them a few moments later.
“If there is one thing Director Fury instilled in me, it’s ‘be prepared.” Scott explained before launching into a poor imitation of the former director “Scott, my boy, you never know what a mission is going to throw at you. Consider every option and be prepared for every eventuality.”
“That rocket will drag that cable into the air.” Fitz added “the cable will work as a short wave radio antenna that we can broadcast commands to the Zephyr with.”
“Unless” Scott continued “they’ve dropped heavy ordinance on it, which I highly doubt they got close enough to do. Ready?”
Fitz nodded
“3… 2… 1…” He slammed the enter key on the computer he was holding. This was immediately followed by a hiss and a whistle as the sky rocket launched.
“Signal broadcasting, we have contact… commands are running…” A loud “thwack” was heard as the cable snapped taught. “And we’re done! Let’s go!”
Scott put the car in drive and they raced away.
“We get anything back?”Scott asked
“Looks like one video file.” He opened it. It was footage from a camera mounted on the underside of the plane. He could the tank from before rolling towards the plane. Suddenly, the sides of the screen began to glow, and almost instantly, there was no tank.
“Scott?” Fitz asked, handing the computer over his shoulder to show the girls. “What the bloody hell do you attach to that jet?”
“I added a few party pieces from the archives… A Destroyer Gun. Or two. or four.”