That evening in the lab, it was a half hour after Claire had left when the phone rang. Thera rolled off the bed and pulled the blankets around her in a warm cape as she slumped across the room. “Bonjour,” she said into the cordless phone, half asleep.

“Thera, is that you? I was expecting the Keep.”

She rubbed her eyes and dipped her fingers in the aquarium to play with the fish. “Claire went home, Darien. What do you need?” She heard him clear his throat.

“I wanted to talk to you, actually,” his voice uncomfortable.

“’Bout what?”

There was a pause on the other line. “Well, if you wanted to tell me anything. Like, about your step-mother,” he said, hoping it would make sense.

She sighed, “Well…I don’t pour my heart out in our conversations, if that’s what you mean-”

“No, what I mean is that it’s okay to be strong Thera, but if you don’t get it out, someday you’re gonna break. I should know, it’s happened to me a couple times.”

After a moment, she shrank down to the concrete floor of the lab on the sudden verge of tears. “I don’t know what to do,” she finally whispered more to herself than to Fawkes. “What do I do when I leave the Agency? Where am I going to go? It’s just me now.”

“Hey, that’s not true, you’ve always got us…”

“Do I? You can only help so much-“

“We do everything we can, you know that. I mean- you haven’t seen us in most life-threatening situations. We work nothing short of miracles in that place.” There was a slight rattle in the background and Thera could picture Darien at his fridge, plucking a beer from the pack, giving it a second thought, then putting it back. “Is there someone there?” over the line he could hear the lab door and its familiar hum.

She gave a quick glance up as a man came through the door. “It’s just the night nurse.”

Darien gripped the phone a little harder as he closed the fridge. His back spasmed in tension and snapped him up into a straight standing position. “Thera, Claire told me that you don’t need them anymore.”

She looked at the orderly with his white lab coat and his little smile as he crossed the lab towards her. “What?” she whispered back into the receiver.

“Thera, nobody’s supposed to be there!”

She pushed up against the cabinets and held the phone away from her ear as the nurse unbuttoned his coat and pulled out a silencer. “Let’s take a trip, Ms. Averough.” Another two agents in white coats entered.

All the while, Fawkes was on the other line in his far off yell, “Thera! Get out! Get out now!”

She whispered, “Come find me, Darien.”

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“I called you Hobbes, not the whole damn cavalry!”

“Oh- so you want your blood on my hands? Well it’s not gonna happen, Fawkes. The only reason they live is the hope that someday they’ll get to kill you!”

Claire entered the lab in a frightened dash, looking at the mess of glass and blood and chemicals that the two agents were standing in the middle of. Many of her Pyrex beakers and microscopes lay overturned or broken in half with dangerous jutting shards. Although it seemed a trick of the shadows, a closer look revealed to her bullet holes in the wall sheetrock. Her eyes opened wide as she approached them, “Ooohh! Of all the places in the Agency, mine always gets trashed! Where is Thera? Is she alright?”

Darien faced her, still impatient from the conversation with Bobby, “No, obviously not alright, but she’s alive- they want her that way.”

Hobbes gripped Fawkes’ leather shoulder, half for attention, half to keep Darien from flying out of the room and down to Chrysalis headquarters. “And this is no time for you to go in Lethal Weapon style. You diggin’ me?”

Keep was looking at him.

(You know he’s right, Darien.)

He relaxed a little under her gaze and slowly stepped away from Hobbes as if to assure him he wasn’t going to split. He was still dressed in yesterday’s clothes that were beginning to stick to his skin. Darien looked at Claire with somber eyes, “What could they do to make her work for them?”

She searched her brain, “Consequences…saying that Chrysalis would hurt all that she cared for. Or, the power of suggestion mixed with sodium memetol, chloral hydrate-“

“Brainwashing?”

“A la Manchurian Candidate?” questioned Hobbes.

“I can’t think of any other way, unless the active gene acts as a type of collar that needs certain medical attention; similar to the quicksilver gland.”

Hobbes shook his hand in front of her, gaining attention. “Even if she’s been brainwashed, and we do get her back, how is she going to recover her memory? It’s not exactly the same thing as amnesia.”

The Keeper held onto Darien’s forearm as she spoke, “Chances are that she’s going to be kept under meds until she appears to have no recollection of…whatever it is that they want her to forget.”

“Is there something that you have that can flush out the drugs?” Darien asked.

Her eyes knitted down in thought, “Well, I can give you a mild anti-peptide, but to permanently wash out any drugs, she needs water, antibiotics, a few days time…”

“Okay, we’ll take that for now-“

Bobby reclaimed his grip on Fawkes’ shoulder. “Hold it, hold it! Now let’s cover the facts here: She could be brainwashed, she could be blackmailed, and she could be on a leash. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that the situation calls for a backup plan.”

Darien looked at him with frustration and his arms flew up in the air, making Bobby step backwards in surprise. “What are you talking about? We do what we do -no matter what it is- and then we get the hell out! There never is a backup plan!”

Hobbes shooed him out the door with the capped syringe that Claire handed him, “You think I’m just here to get in your way, Fawkes? I’m just saying that we need some extra men.”

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From her vision, Thera could only see waves of blurred color; shapes that moved slowly. There was a poke in the elbow of her already sore arm.

(A needle?)

Her head rolled on the pillow and her muscles couldn’t move from their lax state. She felt a cold hand on her forehead. It wasn’t comforting at all. Neither was the voice; though it tried to be.

(Liars, all liars-)

“It’s alright Thera, you’re home now.” It began to soothe into a sound like liquid.

As she drifted away, the voices were constant, merging with her thoughts.

“You’re home now. This is where you belong. We are here-

(-for you. Born again. That’s what you are. Reborn unto us. You define Chrysalis. And your past is nothing. No more. Not your mother. Not your friends. Your family is gone. Never were. Chrysalis has freed you from the web of lies…and we are the only ones you can trust.)

Thera fell deep into the string of the convincing thoughts.

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A voice ignited over the speaker on his desk, “Mr. Stark? He’s coming in.”

Thera was standing next to the desk and staring out the window at the rising sun over the skyscrapers, her back to the door.

“Ms. Averough, I’d like you to meet Agent Fawkes,” Stark said to the empty room. A black eye matching his stiff suit as he smiled. Even the battery couldn’t be hidden in quicksilver vision, and Fawkes guessed it was from Thera at the lab, putting up a fight. Stark also had a large bandage on his left hand that was beginning to seep blood through the top layer of gauze.

(Hobbes would be proud.)

As he shed his quicksilver in a fall of snow, Darien watched her as she turned. She was wearing a dark green suit and a black huckapoo, the same style that he had so many of in his own closet. In addition to the black boots, Thera was truly an agent that he’d never seen. Even at 20 years of age (which he still wasn’t quite sure of), he thought she could easily pass for a sister of Alex. But this wasn’t the Thera he knew.

(Since when do they require agents to dress badass?)

“He doesn’t look like one of ours,” she replied after eyeing him.

“No, he’s not, but he’s an asset to our corporation. We’ve been trying to convince Mr. Fawkes that our agency is the best for his interest, but he’s…tenacious.”

“That’s too bad, you’d like it here,” she said, and turned back to the window without interest.

Darien approached her quickly, “Thera, honey, you gotta snap outta this-” he stopped when he saw her look over her shoulder and touch the concealed gun at her waist. “Look, I don’t know what they’ve told you or done to you, but you’ve got to trust me, Thera.”

She turned to looked at him with curiosity, her eyes strangely clouded, “Have we met before?”

(How does he know my name?)

“Yes!” he grasped the answer like a lifeline, speaking fast. “You were in the museum when the terrorist bomb went off. You stayed with me while the rescue crews searched for us. A-a-and you told me about how you were there to see your photos at the amateur exhibit with your stepmother!”

Thera’s features softened a little and Darien took another step forward. “Thera! You’ve got to remember your stepmother! You told me she died protecting you!”

Stark stood up from his chair, “Lies, Thera. You have never met this man before.”

Darien tried to cut him off, talking fast; “You spent an entire month at my beside in the hospital, you winded Hobbes in defense training, and you helped Claire modify the counteragent- do you remember what you told me? When I was in the hospital?”

In her eyes, something broke, the clouds now became a thin mist. She made the mistake of looking at Stark with his shiner.

“Is there something wrong, Ms. Averough?” he was studying her, daring her to remember.

Fawkes held his breath as she replied, “I was just curious as to why he’s still alive if he’s unwilling to join us?” Thera pulled out her Walther P-99 from its holster and pressed it against his temple, her eyes settling back into their ominous slits.

Stark walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. “That won’t be necessary, my dear. Agent Fawkes will be put into holding until proper information has been received from his superior. And when you’re done, go and talk to Dr. Canelli.” Three other agents entered the room and surrounded Darien.

She holstered her gun, “Fine. Let’s go.”

Midway through the quarantine level, they stopped short in front of a glass door. Darien was still talking. “-then you remember Hobbes, right? Bobby Hobbes? My partner? He’s the short, little bald guy, you know, the one who fights like that guy in the Matrix and needs a vacation?”

Thera rolled her eyes and turned to one of the guards, “Open it.”

As he approached the keypad, Thera crossed her arm over her waist and pulled out a stun gun, electrocuting one agent and did a classic Bobby Hobbes roundabout on the other at her side. She heard a slight crack as her foot collided with the agent’s neck and collarbone. Darien seized his chance and quicksilvered; an invisible ram that pummeled the last agent into the far wall.

Thera was now standing among the fallen men in silence. After a moment, she dropped the stun gun and was engulfed in her own vision of dizziness, fighting back vomit that gurgled at the bottom of her throat. She regained her footing and said to the glass doors; “I need help Darien, this isn’t who I am.”

He was standing behind her, thinking.

(Stark never said my first name.)

“Do you remember what you told me?” thousands of light, twinkling notes echoed in the room as the quicksilver shed and floated to the floor.

She turned around and stared at his face, sudden flashes of pictures before her eyes. The museum, the explosion that pulsed in the room; sending paintings and people flying. Then there was darkness, the feel of Darien’s face, the sweaty button of the detonator, the excited squeal Claire had made when the concentrated counteragent was born, the enormous warehouse that she and Bobby had sparred in. One was of her, from Bobby’s point of view, leaning over Darien with a hand on his face, whispering: “That you understood me, what was wrong with me.”

He nodded solemnly and took her hand, “And I’m going to fix it. Now lead the way.” As their shadows ran down the hallway, another door opened by itself and they disappeared.

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“Always me, in the van, waiting for him to get his ass kicked, and then call me for help,” he muttered. “Bobby Hobbes would make a rescue in record time, I tell you that!” Just then, the backdoor of the van opened and the two piled inside.

Darien slapped his shoulder, “Petal to the metal, Hobbes.”

“Yeah, ‘bout time,” he quipped, throwing the van into gear. “I was tearing the precious hairs out of my head waiting for you.” The vehicle fishtailed out of the parking lot and swerved onto the nearest highway back to the downtown precinct. Thera collapsed against the surveillance equipment and closed her eyes, blocking her dancing vision that tempted her to black out. Well on their way, Hobbes called to the back of the van, “How is she?”

Fawkes took out the syringe from his coat pocket, “She’ll be fine. Just a mild case of brainwashing.” Thera shrank away

(Needles)

until he said, “It’s okay. The Keep told me to give you this to help your memory.”

She took off her jacket and rolled up her sleeve, watching him administer the antibiotics. “I really did want to kill you, up until you mentioned my stepmother. Then I had to convince Stark…for a moment, I thought I gave it all away.”

Darien looked up, “What made you remember?”

She pulled on her jacket and looked him in the eye, her original softness finally showing through, the mist was thinning. “At first I wasn’t sure, and all of a sudden I had this feeling that I could trust you; that I have trusted you before. That everything you mentioned to me was familiar. Like I knew who Bobby and Claire were, I just didn’t have their faces to match their names. And there was something else-”

“Here we are kiddies,” Hobbes announced. His van rebounded against the curb as he turned off the ignition before the transmission blew out.

Darien took her hand, regaining her attention. “What?”

Thera looked down, hiding her eyes. “I don’t remember.”

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Bobby was standing with Claire in front of the gurney that served as Thera’s bed for the last month. “Well, one way to keep Chrysalis out of your hair is to make him disinterested. In other words, reverse the action of the gene; making it become dormant.”

Thera looked at her tentatively as Claire administered a saline IV with a fast drip, “I would go back to normal.”

“The other option is agency protection,” added Hobbes. The mechanical hum of the lab door followed Darien’s arrival.

She bit her lip, “I don’t know…I need to think about it.”

“You do that. But make it fast because you got until this evening,” said Hobbes. He stood close to Claire and nudged her, nodding in Darien’s direction.

“I’ll decide by then,” Thera nodded and looked past them in time to see Darien walking back down the hallway before the door closed, and finally Bobby heading after him.

“Hey, Fawkes!” he yelled at him in the dim corridor. But the obvious was spoken as Darien disappeared around the corner.

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On the agency’s roof, Claire handed her a business card, “This is the number of a friend of mine, and he’s classified, just right for your situation. If you have any medical problems or questions, he’s the one you can go to for help.”

“Remember, we still have a rematch. Your day will come, missy,” said Hobbes, elbowing her.

Thera shoved the card into her pocket and smiled, hugging them separately. “Thank you, you two. You’ve given me more help than I could ever ask for.” She turned and walked towards the helicopter, biting her lip and trying not to take a second glance back for Darien.

“Take care of yourself, hon,” Bobby called after her, and Claire stood by him in her trademark blue lab coat, waving. The sun was setting along the coast and casting the sky in a warm tint of orange that turned red farther in the east. A warm wind seemed to push at her back, encouraging her towards the helicopter.

(Is this the right thing to do?)

“Thera!”Fawkes was running across the platform, past Claire and Hobbes. “Wait.” He caught her before the doors of the cabin and stood over her.

“There you are,” she said without much emotion, avoiding his eyes by looking out beyond the skyscrapers and shoe-laced highways. She was still in her green suit and it stood out against the white concrete sandblast of the landing platform.

He couldn’t say anything, just pinned her to the spot by her arms so he could think. Only until the helicopter blades started turning above their heads did Darien begin to get desperate. “The Keep said that she wasn’t sure of the long-term effects.”

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

Their coats began to flap in the wind as the blades picked up speed. “You realize…if you do this, we can’t help you anymore, you can’t see us, can’t-” he cut himself short. “No contact. Do you really want that?”

She looked at him in her softness and the voice he remembered from the museum, waiting for the rescue crew. All the noises drowned out until nothing but two feet of space existed in the world between them both. “I know that this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Like I’ve been waiting for it all my life. It’s brought me to you and to everyone at the Agency. It’s made me a better person and that’s something I don’t want to get rid of. I’ve become what I’ve always wanted to be.”

(Which is an agent.)

He shook his head, “You can always come back, for the gene therapy.”

She let out a small, good-natured laugh, “Trust me, if I change my mind, this is the first place I’ll come to.”

(All the women in my life leave me.)

Thera took his hand, turning serious. “Tell me that you know how much you mean to me.”

He looked her dead in the eye, “After all we’ve been through; you’re going to leave.”

She started to cry, her hair floating about her in the wind as it rose up to dance with the spinning blades. She whispered, but he could hear her voice in his head; “All you have to do is tell me to stay.”

The words almost spilled from his mouth, but he realized that she was right. It was her intention to work for another agency in the future. Doing the same that he was, and Stark was foretelling the inevitable. She had become a successful government experiment that worked for the greater good. Out there in Thera’s imminent life as an agent seemed more comforting to Darien than to have her back inside the lab at the Agency as the ordinary girl that the world had too many of. He allowed the words out of his throat, “No…this is the best for you.”

Her tears ran down his shoulder as she hugged him and turned away quickly to hoist herself into the chopper and close the door. Pressing her fingertips against the glass, she faded back into the shadows of the cabin until the sunset reflected a flash of orange that made him stagger back. Film strips were playing in front of him like bittersweet memories. He saw Steve McQueen hug Candice Bergen for the last time, and then sent her away so the Chinese army wouldn’t capture her. He saw Rachel Weiz being taken away by Imhotep in front of the helpless Brendan Fraser to be sacrificed at Hamunaptra. He saw Thera Averough fly away from Darien Fawkes so that Chrysalis couldn’t find her.

It was the past replaying again when he walked away and shadow of the helicopter left the building.

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One slick actor named Stephen Baldwin said that; “The future is just like heaven. Everyone exalts it, but nobody wants to go there right now.” Well, the future is heaven. As I see it, the gland is out of my head, Chrysalis is long run into the ground, Claire gets all of the fully-paid, state-of-the-art lab equipment her little scientist heart desires, and Hobbes has a job that pays him six figures. That’s a great future, but to me and to Thera, it just doesn’t get here fast enough.