Be Aggressive (Part Two)

After lunch, I broke off from them and headed to the first of my afternoon classes. Along the way, I spotted Laurie in the hallway. I wanted to check in with her, but she was clearly engaged in a conversation with Dr. Garrison.

The last time I'd checked, she'd never made an appointment to go and see him, despite everything we'd all had to deal with lately. While he said he wouldn't make anyone counsel with him, there was always the possibility that he would reach out himself.

So why did she seem so uncomfortable?

I couldn't hear the conversation, not with all of the loud kids in the hall between me and them. The body language of the interaction seemed on the level to me, at least from Dr. Garrison's end of things. Laurie looked like she wanted nothing more than to trade powers with Miss Pryde so she could sink into the wall.

I only caught the last few seconds of things. Dr. Garrison departed, putting a hand on Laurie's shoulder before he did. She flinched, hard.

At that point, I made it over to her, "Hey, you okay?" I asked, surprising her with my presence, "What was that about? What did Dr. Garrison want?"

Laurie looked off in the direction Dr. Garrison had headed off in, her gaze lingering before she said anything, "He heard about what almost happened to me on the mission. He… just wanted to make sure I was alright."

It felt like she was hiding something, but I didn't want to pry.

"If you say so," I told her.

Perhaps she had been speaking to him about something private. It wasn't my business unless it threatened anyone, and Laurie had never given me or anyone else any reason to believe such about her. Just because Jay had wound up being a liability didn't mean I had to extend my paranoia to everyone else around me. Besides, there were enough problems to deal with for the time being without making more.

I walked the rest of the way to my history class with Laurie. There wasn't much to say between us. Upon reaching the room, I was greeted with the sight of a hale and hearty Sofia. I'd been told that she was fine, but it was better for my spirits to see it for myself.

Not a mark on her. No bruises or scars. That seemed to be a hallmark of Josh healing people, since I remembered how well he healed me when I got my guts slashed out. I really needed to hit him up more when I got my ass kicked.

It felt like a load off of my shoulders when I took a seat nearby, my usual seat near Eddie, Sofia, Noriko, and Laurie, "I am so glad to see you up and around," I said to Sofia once I was settled.

I wasn't the only one breathing a sigh of relief. Eddie, for some reason, seemed to visibly relax, "Seriously. Maybe now, he'll chill out. It's been so hard to talk to him all day. Walking on eggshells around this guy."

I gave him a look. Even if I had been in a foul mood, what made him think I'd take out anything on him or my friends? If anything, all I'd done all day was glower, walk around aggressively, and streamline all of my conversations to one-word responses.

I couldn't help it. When bad things happened to me, I just chalked it up to me being an idiot, or not good enough to execute whatever play I had in mind. But the thought of my people getting hurt irked me badly. We all knew the risks, or at least we thought we did, but still...

Sofia smiled at me and put a hand on my arm, "I'm fine, Bellamy. We all are," She said with a reassuring squeeze. It was much appreciated.

"-Physically, at least," Noriko added, a glass-fragile smile on her face, "We've got a lotta bruised feelings... and bruised trust."

I could imagine. Whatever anger I felt, I could admit that it more or less revolved around my sense of self-worth. There wasn't any emotional pain to go with it. Jay wasn't my teammate. He wasn't really my friend. He was theirs. It had hit on a different level for them.

"It'll get handled, guys," I said, "I promise."

For whatever it was worth, it was the only assurance I could give them. Certain debts would be paid. If nothing else, my ego demanded it.

XxX

My boner for revenge demanded progress. I didn't care if Jay and Quire were out of reach. I was going to get them back into reach, and throttle one of them. One guess as to which one I wanted to get my hands on.

To that end, as useless as I was, with only high-school level programming and engineering under my belt, I'd planned to keep tabs on as much of Dr. McCoy's work to dredge up clues as I could. Luckily, he was more than willing to let me in, and told me I was free to come down to his lab after classes to learn and lend a hand when I had the time.

One of my favorite things about Dr. McCoy was that when there was something that needed to be done, he didn't fuck around. When I got down there, he was like a bee buzzing around a hive. He quickly said hello to me and got me situated out of the way.

I was useless as far as a pair of hands went, but I served a purpose as a sounding board. It turned out that Dr. McCoy tended to ramble, even when he was all by himself. Having someone around who would actually speak back kept him grounded, in a way.

When he was on and in the flow of things, it felt like I was sitting in on a lecture from how he spoke. Sometimes I felt like I should have been taking notes.

"At first, I thought this was part of the neural network that poor Brigade's collective brains were fused into, but I was incorrect in my original assumption," Dr. McCoy said, "Though it is a neural device, it is meant for instruction and control. It's alien in origin."

That made sense, given I could have sworn I saw a UFO of some sort exfiltrate the bad guys off of the battlefield when we fought them near the Canadian border.

"What kind of aliens?" I asked automatically.

At that, Dr. McCoy frowned and paused in his tasks to address me, "Unfortunately, Agent Brand was unable to identify the origin. Only that it was not of this earth."

Upon her mention, I vividly remembered the testy lady with the green hair that we were stuck with on a mission a few months ago, "I can't believe she's willing to talk to any of us after the Breakworld thing. She didn't seem to like us very much."

"Well... she has," Dr. McCoy said, somewhat cagily I noticed, "I have been in regular contact with her since that unfortunate incident."

Something about the way he said that left me feeling suspicious, "What do you mean you have regular contact with Agent Brand?" Slowly, the implication of the statement started to dawn on me, and Dr. McCoy's expression, sheepish, yet satisfied, only served to confirm things, "Oh... come on! You're fucking the mean S.W.O.R.D. lady? I mean, good for you, but you can do better!"

Gross. And not because Agent Brand wasn't good-looking. I mean, I guess she was. I didn't pay too much attention to that, mostly because her overall demeanor was just nasty. I felt like it would have been easier trying to get affection from a rattlesnake.

Dr. McCoy tried to defend his... girlfriend? I didn't know what they defined themselves as relationship-wise, "She's really not that bad," He said.

"Wow, what a glowing endorsement," I shot back with a grin.

Despite my snarky remarks, he didn't need to justify anything to me or anyone else. He was a grown man and could do what he wanted. I did, however, reserve the right to mess with him about it. Dr. McCoy was a blue-furred half-man half-whatever-the-fuck. He'd dealt with worse than a teenager's half-baked remarks about a person whose personality traits he was already well aware of.

Besides, with his intellect and snark, he could ether me in a moment's notice if he really wanted to. Like, just obliterate my whole sense of self in one fell swoop. Luckily, for my sake, he liked me.

Dr. McCoy summoned me over and pointed out an odd-looking device. One side of it was smooth and seemed to camouflage in with whatever surface it was against. The other side looked like it was meant to stab into whatever it was applied to in order to remain in place.

It looked like removing it from wherever it was placed would tear some stuff out. Important stuff. Vital stuff. Then again, if he got it from Brigade, it wasn't like it would matter, "Mister Marcher, did you see one of these on anyone else?"

I looked at the device closely. Honestly, we hadn't been looking. We hadn't even known to look or had thought to.

"Someone's controlling these guys, huh?" I said. Probably the Dr. Roekel guy I'd heard about before.

Dr. McCoy nodded, "It would make sense for Brigade. His mental makeup is quite unstable, to be polite about it. I'm not sure if any others would have it, but I would keep an eye out during any future interactions. Check around the back of the neck."

I didn't think we'd get the chance. Besides, it wasn't like most of the others had the back of their necks covered by either a suit, their clothing, their hair, or whatever. I would make sure to keep it in mind, even though my more pressing concern during a subsequent run-in would likely be keeping them from killing me or any of my friends.

If only we could go after them, instead of just waiting to see if they would do anything else. Being reactionary was how people got hurt. Defending was all about minimizing damage. That, in of itself, implied that damage would be inflicted.

I wanted us to press. But we needed details on what we were dealing with. After a while, I started to cobble together an idea, "Dr. McCoy, we couldn't track Jay… but they just took Quire, so do you think-?"

Dr. McCoy adjusted his glasses as he wandered over to where he kept Brigade's brain, "Perhaps whatever was done to keep Jay from appearing on Cerebra hasn't been enacted with Quentin yet. Which means..."

I needed a psychic, and I needed one ASAP. It was time to try and take the initiative.