SNIP

----------------A short time later---------------------

Turning into the gate house that led to the compound, Dante brought the car to a stop and wound down the window. “These guys have Warp but haven’t invented electric windows yet?” He moaned as he wound the handle that dropped the glass so he could talk to the guards. “Electric windows? That just sounds dangerous,” the man in the seat beside him said. “Why would you want electricity replacing glass?”

“Um, I’ll tell you later,” Dante said and leaned out slightly. “Hi!” he said to the man approaching him, and hooked his thumb back in Natasha’s direction. “We caught one of those Fedrats that stole the car in the city, the other one is still loose. We’re bringing her in for questioning, and she’s got the blotch, so don’t come too close.”

Cadet Knight

The man took a step back and instantly brought up a mask to his face. Walking backward he waved the car through. “Dante I don’t think this is going to work,” Natasha said as the car rolled completely unencumbered through the gates.

“It’ll work, trust me,” Dante replied calmly. “This plan fits like a glove. We’re already through phase one and they didn’t even blink.” As he drove the car into the compound, he turned it towards the main building. “Now if I was a super important document about keeping part of the population sick, and a cure for that population, where would I be?” He said to no one in particular. “I’d be in the most important looking building in the place. There.” Spying a park next to the door, he steered for it.

“Well how are we going to get through the doors,” she said the car rolled to a stop.

“It’s okay, I got it all figured out,” Dante said confidently as he put the parking brake on and turned off the engine. “In three, two, one,” and he pointed at the main entrance.

“Come on. Hurry up,” a man said in a full bio-suit suddenly at the doors in question flagging the occupants in the car into the building. “We cleared the halls and you have a straight path to the labs,” he yelled rolling his arm forward as if trying to make Dante and Natasha move faster.

“Like a glove.” Dante turned and smiled at Natasha. “Okay baby, time to work your magic.”

“You don’t know how much I hate you at times,” she muttered under her breath.

Natasha Daye Cadet

Getting out of the car he stepped to the back door and opened it, leaning in slightly with one hand taking hold of Natasha’s shoulder, the other he held in front of his face so that his fingers just rested under his eyes. “Like a glove,” he whispered, wiggling his fingers as if he was indeed wearing a glove.

“I am never going to live this down am I,” she rolled her eyes. Dante was everything everyone saw him as: brilliant, dedicated, loyal, honest, and fair. Dante also had another side that was fun and humorous. Only those closest to him got to see the side that wasn’t perfect cadet with a shining future. Right now, Dante was the cocky, a little too self-assured, and completely over confident man Natasha was madly in love with.

Guiding Nat’s shoulder and head so she was able to get out of the car and stand up without banging her head on the frame yet again, Dante turned around and walked her towards the door, the man that they had come with stopping beside the man who had greeted them and began to sign authorizations and clearance details for them.

“Now you worry about not banging my head off the side of the car,” she said in a low tone. “Maybe if you had it would knock this headache out of my head.” Although she rarely got headaches, right now this one was turning into a doozey.

“Nat that thing is spreading,” he told her, looking at a purple blotch on her neck that hadn’t been there when they had gotten into the car. “Maybe this thing is spreading faster than they said? Do you think it evolves?”

“What,” she said letting out a small groan as they walked. “I dunno but slow down. It doesn’t need to be a sprint,” Natasha sounded like she had just run the three mile PT qualification. Thinking about what Dante said the increase in the intensity of the headache and the difficulty breathing with exertion was starting to make more sense. “That is mutate and no,” she said in a highly unconvincing tone. The answer was probably yes but there was no point in telling this to Dante. He would just pretend to ignore it to not stress her out and Natasha was try to convince Dante he was wrong not to stress him out. It was ridiculous to belabor a point both of them knew was correct so she said nothing past a curt reply.

“We gotta get you to that lab and find this cure.” His skin was tingling and itching, but he was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to catch it. He never got sick, having a girlfriend who insisted on checking symptoms and probing where things shouldn’t be probed had encouraged him to develop an iron clad immune system.

“This way!” Another man in a hazmat suit met them as they walked past an intersection, and he joined the two as they walked. In his hand was what passed on this world for a tricorder and he was busy scanning them both. “Oh man, she’s got it good. We’re going to have to give her the new vaccine and do a memory wipe before she goes back to the Federation. I just hope it works out better than when we tried to do it to that liaison guy that was here last week. I mean who knew that putting the decimal in the wrong spot would wipe forty years from his memory banks? That ones gonna be hard to explain.”

On Nat’s shoulder, she would be able to feel Dante’s grip tighten.

Cadet Dante Knight

“Take her to the holding cell in B block first,” an officer walked up and lifted Nat’s chin to look at her neck. “There was two of them. She is probably going to pretend that she had no idea where he is but holding the vaccine for a couple of hours will change her mind. Won’t it sweetheart?”

Natasha might have felt sick but she was not delirious. “Probably not,” she shrugged with a smile. “I am stubborn as a mule and right now I am thinking how the crap will hit the fan when you have to roll my body out to the Federation if I drop dead. You know we have a sub-dermal tracking beacon only detected by medical scanners right. Tends to record all the vitals so if we drop dead they can tell us why and retrieve the body. So let’s do the couple of hour thing. It will just tell the Federation what this crazy bug is and how you withheld treatment even though we sent you cases of medical supplies.”

The man stared at Nat and in any other situation might have given her a strong backhand but it was clear people wanted as little contact with each other as possible. “Get her to the lab and remove that tracking beacon off her and the other guy in there. Then dump the bodies anywhere,” he growled taking a step back.

Natasha walked next to Dante as they went down several halls and took several turns. It was just a fluke that she seemed to pick it up before Dante but Nat was starting to realize this was airborne and without any natural antibodies to this, she and Dante were going to get sick. Reaching to her side, she grabbed Dante’s shirt and knotted her fingers into the material as she stopped walking. “I think I,” she managed to get out before leaning over and vomiting all over the floor.

Once she started to vomit, Natasha did not stop until nothing was left. Letting out a moan she used the back of her hand to wipe off her mouth. Looking up at Dante she let out a small groaning chuckle. “You know how you know someone loves you? They hold your hair back when you puke. I also want you to know…this is probably whatever bug is floating around on the surface and not a sign I am pregnant.” The bit of humor was to try and make sure Dante stayed in the correct headspace. He would worry about anyone on his team but Natasha was more than just some cadet assigned to his group.

Natasha Daye CMO