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[locked to Kate] Not in Division Anymore
Sep. 17th, 2012 02:00 pmAlex flinches when Roan's bullet deflects off the reinforced laminate plastic of Percy's former cage. Of course Division, and more importantly Amanda, wouldn't trust anything less than bullet-resistant material for a cell meant to hold the one man Amanda had to fear above all others after her coup. But still, Alex flinches. It's instinctive, staring down the barrel of a gun, knowing the man with his finger squeezing the trigger is not just a Division-trained assassin, but a Cleaner, Percy's Cleaner, at least as dangerous of any of the Guardians, and right this moment, pissed as hell at Alex for stopping Percy's plan before all of Division was dead.
Roan fires, but Alex is safe, and trapped within the cage. He would probably go in search of a way to get to her, finish the job, but he leaves, and Alex thinks he probably has more important things to do. Like rescue Percy now the job's gone FUBAR and Nikita and Michael are the more immediate threat. Alex's heart is pounding in her chest, and she doesn't have time for that, not right now. She focuses on her breathing, Amanda's lessons coming too easily to mind. Slow, even breaths, get her heart rate down; she doesn't need the candle flame as a focus. If Birkhoff's still talking over comms, Alex doesn't notice, quieting her mind as much as her body. She needs to find a way out.
She's so focused, she doesn't notice the sound of the silo's elevator until after it stops, and by then, Amanda is there in front of her, taunting her from the other side of the cage door. That's calming too, but like a shock of cold water in the way she has to keep her wits whenever she's dealing with Amanda.
Amanda's hand is on the keypad – oh, thank god, Alex is getting out of there – when the world shifts and twists, and then nothing makes sense.
No sign of Amanda, and instead of sitting at the bottom of an abandoned missile silo, Percy's cage is surrounded by jungle.
Have to think, have to think. Amanda. It has to be Amanda. Alex stays calm, easier now than it probably should be; she thinks she's been through this before. It has to be Amanda, drugging her again. If Alex is smart, if she keeps her head, and thinks before she speaks, she'll be all right. Nikita and Michael, Birkhoff and Sean, she has to keep them safe. No names. Nothing that would give them away. It's thoughts of her team that reminds Alex about the earbud. If she's right, and this is a hallucination, the real earbud is gone and won't do her any good.
But.
But she's gotta do something, and if there's a chance, even the smallest chance in the world this isn't one of Amanda's tricks, Alex has to try, has to reach out.
"I thought the terminator was going to get me that time." She keeps her voice light, calling back to her and Birkhoff teasing before she deactivated the poison gas, trusting if he's there, he'll answer, and hoping she'll be able to tell the difference if none of this is real. But there's no answer. No Birkhoff on the other end of the comms to tell her just how lucky she was to have his genius on her side. No Amanda twisting words and prying at her psyche. No Nikita, who she wants to see most of all, even if this is all a dream, because the Nikita in her head is just as protective as the one in the world, and Alex could use that about now, when all she can hear are jungle birds and maybe, if she's not mistaken, distant waves breaking along a shore.
Alex is alone.
Just sitting here isn't going to help anybody, though, and Alex has always been more comfortable doing something rather than waiting for someone else to come and rescue her, even when she needed the rescue. She tries the door - still locked, and she kicks it in a moment of frustration, a grey scuffmark marring the clear plastic.
She knows there can't be anything in this bare bones cell to help get the door open or Percy would have found and used it before going to such devious extremes to make his escape. Okay, so he probably would have. Sometimes Percy was devious just because he was an asshole who wanted to show off all the ways he was better than someone else. But she has something Percy didn't, and while she'd rather have Birkhoff chattering away in her ear while he hacked the lock codes, or Nikita there in front of her working on finding another way, for the moment, she'd make do with the multitool in her pocket. She gets to work, on the door, on the connections between the walls, trying to find a weak point, something she can exploit to make a way out of here.
Roan fires, but Alex is safe, and trapped within the cage. He would probably go in search of a way to get to her, finish the job, but he leaves, and Alex thinks he probably has more important things to do. Like rescue Percy now the job's gone FUBAR and Nikita and Michael are the more immediate threat. Alex's heart is pounding in her chest, and she doesn't have time for that, not right now. She focuses on her breathing, Amanda's lessons coming too easily to mind. Slow, even breaths, get her heart rate down; she doesn't need the candle flame as a focus. If Birkhoff's still talking over comms, Alex doesn't notice, quieting her mind as much as her body. She needs to find a way out.
She's so focused, she doesn't notice the sound of the silo's elevator until after it stops, and by then, Amanda is there in front of her, taunting her from the other side of the cage door. That's calming too, but like a shock of cold water in the way she has to keep her wits whenever she's dealing with Amanda.
Amanda's hand is on the keypad – oh, thank god, Alex is getting out of there – when the world shifts and twists, and then nothing makes sense.
No sign of Amanda, and instead of sitting at the bottom of an abandoned missile silo, Percy's cage is surrounded by jungle.
Have to think, have to think. Amanda. It has to be Amanda. Alex stays calm, easier now than it probably should be; she thinks she's been through this before. It has to be Amanda, drugging her again. If Alex is smart, if she keeps her head, and thinks before she speaks, she'll be all right. Nikita and Michael, Birkhoff and Sean, she has to keep them safe. No names. Nothing that would give them away. It's thoughts of her team that reminds Alex about the earbud. If she's right, and this is a hallucination, the real earbud is gone and won't do her any good.
But.
But she's gotta do something, and if there's a chance, even the smallest chance in the world this isn't one of Amanda's tricks, Alex has to try, has to reach out.
"I thought the terminator was going to get me that time." She keeps her voice light, calling back to her and Birkhoff teasing before she deactivated the poison gas, trusting if he's there, he'll answer, and hoping she'll be able to tell the difference if none of this is real. But there's no answer. No Birkhoff on the other end of the comms to tell her just how lucky she was to have his genius on her side. No Amanda twisting words and prying at her psyche. No Nikita, who she wants to see most of all, even if this is all a dream, because the Nikita in her head is just as protective as the one in the world, and Alex could use that about now, when all she can hear are jungle birds and maybe, if she's not mistaken, distant waves breaking along a shore.
Alex is alone.
Just sitting here isn't going to help anybody, though, and Alex has always been more comfortable doing something rather than waiting for someone else to come and rescue her, even when she needed the rescue. She tries the door - still locked, and she kicks it in a moment of frustration, a grey scuffmark marring the clear plastic.
She knows there can't be anything in this bare bones cell to help get the door open or Percy would have found and used it before going to such devious extremes to make his escape. Okay, so he probably would have. Sometimes Percy was devious just because he was an asshole who wanted to show off all the ways he was better than someone else. But she has something Percy didn't, and while she'd rather have Birkhoff chattering away in her ear while he hacked the lock codes, or Nikita there in front of her working on finding another way, for the moment, she'd make do with the multitool in her pocket. She gets to work, on the door, on the connections between the walls, trying to find a weak point, something she can exploit to make a way out of here.
