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William Boone immediately tensed at the unexpected noise and pointed his skrill in the direction from which it had originated. He had hoped no one witnessed his argument with the nurse, but apparently he was not that lucky. "Come out where I can see you." He ordered. Condor hissing softly to enhance the threat.
At first the only response he could detect was the soft shuffling of bare feet towards him and the prone form of the nurse by his feet, then the individual stepped into the light. A young man in a hospital robe, he had dark hair and appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Boone was somewhat relieved when he recognized Liam Kincaid, but by no means did he lower his guard or Condor. Instead he unleashed a small and controlled skrill blast that caught Liam completely unawares. The younger man�s eyes widened for a moment, before he slumped to the ground.
Boone grimaced. He'd skrilled two people in not even five minutes, plus three of the sentries and it was starting to drain him, and now he had to deal with Kincaid. After checking him and the nurse over once more to insure that they were all right, he picked Liam up and carried him firefighter style out of the building via the same roundabout way he had entered. The shuttle remained were he�d left it and Boone was greatly relieved to see that the pilot and lookout were both present and accounted for. The dark haired lookout hurried out to help him move Liam into the craft, and Boone thanked him quietly.
"Any problems so far?" The implant asked.
"None." Mitch responded. Then he indicated Liam with a nod of his head. "Any difficulties on your part, sir?"
"He saw me arguing with Clarice, but only briefly." Boone answered. Then he looked to the young woman sitting alertly in the pilot�s seat. "This the same Liam Kincaid you knew?"
"One of them, yeah." Julia said after peering for a moment at Liam, an unfathomable expression covering her face.
"I think we ought to get back now." Mitch said quietly, looking to Boone. "We�re stretching our window as is."
"Agreed. Lets go before the sentries come to and raise the alarm or someone discovers the nurse and that the Major here is among the missing."
* * *
After supervising the loading of Liam Kincaid onto a gurney, Boone started to follow when a petite, slender woman in a doctor�s white lab coat with a determined look on her face placed herself squarely in his path. She folded her arms over her chest and frowned at him.
"Hello, Sara." Boone said wryly, hoping she�d step out of the way or make her point quickly.
"You are exhausted." She said in a low voice, not wishing their conversation to be public.
"I�ll be fine, Dr. Matthews." Boone insisted, but the woman refused to move an inch.
"Like hell you are fine. Unless you get some rest?" she said pausing to take a deep breathe, her voice rising in volume slightly. "Between your skrill blast and the sedative I just gave him, Kincaid is down for the count. Unless you wish to experience the effectiveness of the same sedative I suggest you at least try and get some rest."
Boone saw her determination and sighed his resignation. "Will you at least promise to call me at the first sign of his regaining consciousness? I have some questions I want answers to."
She nodded.
"I guess this is good night then, Dr. Matthews."
"Good night William. Get some rest."
After Boone left, Dr. Matthews noticed that Mitch and Julia had seen the entire exchange.
"Would you really have sedated the Commander?" Julia asked curiously.
The doctor smiled and held up a small syringe filled with a sedative specifically designed to work even on implants. "I don�t make idle threats, and he really does need the sleep."
* * *
William Boone came to strapped firmly into the pilot's seat of a Taelon shuttle. He was not the usual occupant of that position and it combined with his growing confusion. His last memory was of doctors, floating in and out of consciousness in a see of sticky blue fluid, and Sandoval talking to someone near him.
His CVI dutifully informed him that it of the date. Boone could not help blinking in surprise. It had been weeks since his nearly fatal struggle with Ha'gel. It seemed impossible to have lost that amount of time when he was supposed to have a perfect memory.
A thousand potential explanations danced through his mind, but each failed to completely explain how he came to be in a shuttle headed for who-knew-where, wearing a respiration mask and strapped in almost as tightly as he had been he was implanted. Time passed. He used his CVI to recall the last few days before his encounter with Ha'gel, but still failed to come any closer to understanding his situation.
Boone had never been so bored in his entire life. Now he began to understand why prisoners in solitary confinement went insane. To pass time he slept a great deal, escaping into his tangled dreams where he could forget for a time.
It was the proximity alarm that broke him out of his latest reverie. The restraints released and Boone was able to open a channel as he had seen Lili do a thousand times. Despite his CVI's perfect recollection of her movements, he still felt awkward and as if he had somehow usurped the pilot's seat.
"Unknown shuttle, identify yourself." Came over the speakers in Eunioa.
"Unknown shuttle, identify yourself." This time in English before Boone could respond to the first message.
"I'm Commander William Boone." Boone responded after a bit of hesitation.
It seemed to Boone that an eternity came and went before he received a response.
"Commander Boone...we have been expecting you.
* * *
Boone awoke sweating. His CVI even reached into his dreams, fueling them with too clear memories that would not fade with the passage of time. He lay back on his cot, trying to shake off the fear of his solo awakening in the shuttle and the lingering questions that plagued him still. He calmed his breathing but Boone knew from past experience that he would get no more sleep tonight yet he dared not get up for fear of the wrath of Sara Matthews.
Besides, the quiet was a rare respite from the hectic nature of his life now and he welcomed it.
* * *
Liam groaned as he rolled over, his body aching from the skrill blast, and opened his eyes to find himself in a medical facility of some kind. A woman with dark hair and eyes, a doctor, looked at him with concern written across her features.
"I feel terrible." Liam said.
"Hardly surprising considering that in the past twenty-four hours you have been skrilled and dragged here like a set of luggage. My name is Sara Matthews, I�m a doctor and I understand that your name is Liam Kincaid." The doctor informed him.
"You have me at a disadvantage." Liam said. He tried to sit up too quickly until the pain in his head and body forced him to take his actions more slowly. "You seem to know more about me, much more, and I only know your name and that you are a doctor."
"I don�t have all of the answers, Mr. Kincaid." Sara walked over to a table and pulled a global out of a drawer. She opened it and called up a specific file before handing it to Liam.
Displayed on the screen was an image of a triple helix DNA strand.
Liam paled instantly. Sara noted this and continued. "Since you recognize this, I assume I can cross off 'Taelons did this to you and you did not know' from my list of possible explanations."
"The Taelons had nothing whatsoever to do with my DNA." Liam said quietly, handing the global back to Sara.
"Really? Then that is a story I�d like to hear, but I would appreciate it if you�d refrain from telling it until Commander Boone arrives."
* * *
Liam was surprised to see not only William Boone entering the cramped medical facility, but Mitch and Julia as well.
"Augur scoured the Taelon database after your arrest, but it was as if your entire squad simply vanished off the face of the Earth. He said he�d keep looking, but then I was arrested and I was not able to find out what happened to either him or Doors." Liam said sadly.
"Vanished off the face of the Earth?" Julia snorted. "Actually that is pretty much what happened."
"Ms. Cook can fill you in on the details of her story later, Major." Boone said as he glanced at Dr. Matthews. Liam could not help but notice the peculiar emphasis the former protector placed on the rank. "What you can do in the interim is tell me your real name and how you came to have Taelon elements in your DNA."
Both Julia and Mitch gasped. "You told me that what you were hiding was big? Julia whispered.
Dr. Matthews cut in. "I told you he does not have Taelon DNA. Quite a number of similarities are present, but there is also a distinct difference." She glared at Boone. "Next time you paraphrase my findings, don�t change the conclusion."
Liam spoke up to head off the argument he could see about to brew between Boone and Matthews. "Liam is my real name, the one my mother gave me. As for my real last name, well it would have to be Beckett."
Boone kept waiting, Liam�s eyes were fixed on his face as though the younger man expected him to react to the information. When the Commander did not, Liam sighed. Of course it wouldn�t mean much to Boone, Beckett was a fairly common name. Without breaking eye contact with Boone, Liam continued.
"My mother was Lieutenant Siobhan Beckett."
Julia, Mitch and Sara appeared confused by the significance of this revelation, especially as Boone�s jaw dropped in shock.
"That�s impossible!" Boone hissed at Liam.
"Remember Ha�gel?"
Suddenly the missing pieces clicked into place in Boone�s mind, though it took a while to explain everything to the others. It took longer for the facts to sink in, particularly Liam�s exact age.
"If I had a million years to think about it, I never would have even thought of that one." Julia commented as she and Mitch got up to leave.
Dr. Matthews excused herself leaving Boone and Liam alone to talk.
"I imagine you have some questions of your own to ask." Boone said conversationally.
Liam nodded. "How�d you pull a Jonathan Doors and where are we?"
"We are not on Earth and that�s all you need to know for now." Boone began. "As for my �pulling a Jonathan Doors,?I�m not entirely sure how I got from the blue tank to waking up in the shuttle, though I�m fairly sure Sandoval had a hand in it. I remember the fight with Ha�gel, your father, and the blue tank. After that, nothing. From what you told me about the Park altering Beckett�s CVI, I suppose it is entirely possible mine was tampered with in a similar manner. Then again I could simply have been unconscious. I really don�t know. All I am sure of was waking up in that shuttle. I was picked up and taken to the same facility you were in." He sighed. "At first I was told that I had been sent at Da�an�s orders. They even showed me clips of my own funeral. Not all of it as I later discovered from conversations with the others. Anyway, certain things seemed wrong and out of line with what I was being told, then one night I overheard a conversation and pieced together what was really going on. That hospital is, for lack of a better term, a processing center run by a dissident faction of Taelons. If things had gone as planned I�d have been carefully conditioned into joining their side. They have some laudable goals, such as an abhorrence of the Motivational Imperative, but they believe the ends justify the means. A handful of the other patients and I stole a shuttle and intercepted a convoy. We used the supplies to come and set up shop here."
"Periodically we raid the hospital to retrieve prisoners and gather intelligence and supplies. We have a contact who facilitates in that."
"The nurse?" Liam asked. After Boone nodded, he pressed on. "Why did you skrill me, and I�m assuming it was your contact who left the book in my room?"
"It was a way of getting you to be more suspicious without jeopardizing our contact. Suspicious people notice the incongruities that others gloss over. As for why I skrilled you, I�m sorry but it was necessary. Sandoval�s people have devised a new CVI that records and transmits everything the implanted individual sees and hears."
"You mean like a human camcorder?" Liam asked, horrified.
"Pretty much. You can see the security problems in that so, we drug or stun newcomers until Dr. Matthews can remove the transmitter from the CVI. No transmission, no problem."
"That must have been what Tate and Vosser were preparing to do to me." Liam mused. "What now?"
"You have two choices. One, we send you to a place where you can wait until we can return you to Earth, or, " Boone took a deep breathe, "you can join us. With your more recent knowledge of the Taelons you would be a real asset."
"I�m surprised you are willing to trust me." Liam commented.
"Mitch gave you a good recommendation, even Julia sort of did. The big one for me was that Da�an trusted you without a CVI. This is not an easy fight, even compared to being a double agent but I hope you�ll decided to join us, Liam."
"Where do I sign up?" Liam asked.
Boone smiled.