A Mover and A ShakerTitle: A Mover And A Shaker Author: CimmerianWillow Email: Rating: PG; gen, unless you have a slashy mind and then there are some parts you could probably have fun with; moderate swearing. Disclaimer: I must regretfully borrow these fine folk without permission. Call me a sinner, call me a rebel, but either way, you know I'm your hero. The University of Sydney is also in no way connected with this story. Comments: There are several side issues that are brought up in this story but left unresolved. That was intentional, as they will most likely be covered in separate stories for length and continuity reasons, but I wanted them already introduced. This is the first fic from my Chiaroscuro collection, a group of stories more or less centering on Hobbes. Status: Complete Summary: Darien must find a man paralyzing people with tick venom while Hobbes struggles with keeping his sanity. References: Most of the research used in this story came from The Paralysis Tick of Australia webpage, located here: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~norbertf/, as well as Ulladulla Veterinary Hospital page and the Australian Spiders and Insects page. Many thanks. Archive: Fabulous, just tell me where. Thanks and dedication: To my beta, Castalia, the left hand that knows what my right hand *should* be doing. Well done, my good and faithful servant. "Solitude scares me. It makes me think about love, death, and war. I need distraction from anxious, black thoughts." ----Brigitte Bardot A repeat con named Raymond Petrey professed that the monotony of prison is what makes a convict both secure and insane. Leave him hanging in the outside world and he seeks out insanity to alleviate the insecurity, kicking his feet in search of the ground. I guess I've located my fair share of madness. I found a gland that settles like a London fog over the happiness I glean from the life I've resigned myself to—a life in an Agency that haunts my dreams like a misshapen specter. But not all the madness is unwanted. I found Bobby, or he found me, or more likely we just got thrown together. Hobbes and I, well, we make quite a pair. We both teeter on the brink of lunacy; we both depend on drugs to keep us from taking a giant swan dive into hell. He chows down on pills, the occasional lithium, Zoloft, whatever. I take an armful of counteragent. We're like justified junkies using just what we need to walk the line between normalcy and the ever-calling siren of mindlessness. But Hobbes makes sure my lunacy is always second to his, a twisted display of pride and shame in the malignant tumor that's sunk him to the depths he is today. For mine is mostly chemical; his is mostly emotional. And maybe the final stop on our perpetual journey is the same, but the ride can be a hell of different story. * Darien plucked the cube from the bookshelf and noted the brightly mixed colors. He held it out for Hobbes to see and couldn't resist asking. "A souvenir? To maybe remind you that you aren't as smart as you think you are?" Darien grinned but the barb was poorly received. Hobbes stood rifling through the contents of the tall cabinet beside his TV. He frowned, closed the doors, then reached for his dress jacket lying on the nearby sofa. It was a soft beige, matching his pants and the white open collar dress shirt. Bobby almost always wore something neutral, usually creams but sometimes chocolates. The natural colors flattered his dark features and belied his most unnatural personality—the energy and spontaneity all wrapped up in an unsuspecting, casual beige suit. Darien, as usual, sported his rummage sale chic look. Tennis shoes, sagging corduroy pants and a blue construction shirt. Hobbes feigned a smile and shrugged. "You know, I never could figure it out either," Darien amended, plastering on a weak grin like a too-thin layer of paint. Hobbes had been reserved lately and it was a troubling thing. "Had one growing up that I'd watch Kevin play with. What's the point, right?" "Yeah," Bobby agreed, and the effort seemed to help. "You ready to go?" "Yeah." But Bobby disappeared into the bedroom and came out a moment later sheathing his gun inside its shoulder strap. The phone rang. "Hello?" The other party replied, and Hobbes petrified from head to toe like a stone statue ready for display at the Vatican. Darien edged closer with interest. "Hobbes? Who is it?" Bobby moved liked hardening molasses. With the phone not quite touching his face, his eyes watching Fawkes, his mouth parted to cautiously voice, "Yeah, it's been awhile." It sounded like a woman's voice echoing past the speaker. A woman? Bobby Hobbes was reluctant to talk to a woman? Bobby had his back to Darien now. His voice was low and careful, like he was conspiring. "Yeah, I've been busy. On a case. How did you get my number?" Darien listened. One of the girls from China Town maybe? One of the women he constantly put off, and maybe now she'd gotten his number somehow and he was nervous to talk to her? No, if that were the case, Bobby would make sure Darien knew he had pretty women tracking him down. Maybe it was his ex-wife. Yeah, that could get him pretty flustered. Some frosty water flowed under that bridge. But she had his number already. Whoever it was, it was pretty clear that Darien's presence wasn't helping any, as Hobbes had practically melted into the phone. He turned to go, but like reflex Bobby grabbed his arm. Their eyes met and Darien froze. "Yeah, look, I gotta go to work now. Yeah." Bobby held the phone away, calling, "Sure, of course. Yeah, I'll call you back later." And he hung up. Now that was strange. "You ready?" Bobby asked, already plowing out the door, Darien following on his heels, having sniffed out a new mystery. "So who was on the phone?" he pried as they hurried down the drive. "It doesn't matter." "Sure it does. So who was it?" Darien insisted, as he turned the ignition. "An old girlfriend, an aunt, your mom?" "Will you forget it, kid!" Bobby slammed the car door, effectively halting the conversation. Definitely the antics Bobby used when things were getting too personal. Well, damn, he'd done it again. Darien knew he'd breeched something between them, poked a new whole in the flypaper that served as their relationship. The ride passed in silence, Bobby staring out the window. Darien pulled up to Fish and Game, taking the spot unsubtly marked "Reserved For Robert Hobbes." The battered van was very near dead, like a thirty-year-old pack mule that was still expected to carry a full load. So it was in the shop, and Darien offered to cart them around in his black LTD. A Saturday, so not many people at the Agency. Not that there ever were many people, other than the suits that appeared from nowhere when need be, inevitably botched a simple assignment, and then receded back into the brood of Agency gorillas. The light filtered through the dusty blinds of The Official's office, falling across the four men. "You want us to what?" "If this Agency could afford it I'd get you a hearing aid, Agent Fawkes." Hobbes leaned back, circumspect. "What do we need ticks for? Are we on another wildlife assignment like the monkey thing?" "I hate ticks. They're nothing but bulimic spiders." "You aren't recovering ticks," The Official explained, looking slightly irritated. "You're going to find the toxin that they produce." "Why?" The Official waved a hand and Eberts took over, like shifting gears, and the verbal Ping-Pong began. "The University of Technology Sydney, or UTS, has been developing a vaccine for the paralysis caused by certain types of ticks found predominantly in Australia." "So what? That's a good thing, right?" "Yes it is. However, six months ago UTS was burglarized and the toxin samples and most of the main research documentation was stolen, including vital amino acid sequencing and DNA information used to isolated individual genes of the toxin." "Who'd wanna steal stuff like that? And for what?" It seemed pretty stupid to Darien, but most of what this Agency did seemed stupid. "The toxin is difficult to extract and purify, and therefore large amounts of individual genes take a lot of time and resources to collect." "And no one did anything?" Bobby leaned forward, tugging at his pants, which slid up to reveal most of his boots. Darien mentally sighed with a small relief at Bobby's growing interest in the meeting. If Hobbes could get into the case then nothing was terribly wrong. "The project is highly under funded." "Kinda like this Agency," Darien quipped, and The Official snorted in capitulation. "This month three people developed a strange kind of progressive paralysis and all three died within a week after the symptoms showed up." Eberts handed Darien a folder, which Hobbes intercepted. Eberts looked a bit miffed, but continued. "By the time anyone connected the illnesses, the third man Martin Wincill, who was a former professor at UTS, died and was unable to give us any leads. We ran a check however, and found out that one of the last people to visit him was a man named Steve Bull, although that name proved to be phony." "So you think this Bull guy is paralyzing people with some kind of tick venom?" "That's right." Darien laughed out loud. "What is it with these people? God, who thinks up this stuff?" "Evil knows no logic, friend," Hobbes offered. The two exchanged a glance and Bobby shrugged. He just put the bad guys away; it wasn't his job to evaluate their methods. "Listen, kid. People are dying some very slow and painful deaths out there. You think it's funny, okay. But you'd just better get out there and stop it. And before anyone else figures out what's going on." Darien sobered slightly. "You got a picture of the guy?" "Nope." "Terrific. Let's go, kid." Bobby stood and headed out, Darien swaggering behind. "I still hate ticks." * "You were his maid, is that right, Miss Haggerty?" "Yes, I was," Miss Haggerty answered, with a melancholy smile. "For ten years, bless his soul. A most kind man." Hobbes regarded the seventy-odd year old woman tidying up the seating area. Small and fragile. Darien was obviously already taken with her gentle, unimposing manner. She'd brought them tea and cookies like they were there for a bridge game. Hobbes made a mental note to gripe at the kid later for judging people on appearances again. The old lady could have been in on it, maybe hired some nut to bump off the old slave driver with poison. "Did you ever see the man that visited Mr. Wincill in the week before he got sick?" Hobbes queried, while Darien stuffed down ginger snaps and tea that Hobbes concluded could've been poisoned. He'd have to remember to gripe at Darien about that later, too. "Oh yes, he was a real gentlemen, Doctor Bull was." "Doctor?" "Oh yes, he made a special visit to drop off a new diabetes medicine for Mr. Wincill." "Did he?" Hobbes stood up. "Miss Haggerty, do you think you could describe him to a sketch artist?" "Why, yes, I think so. Whatever for?" "We'll explain on the way. If you'll just come with us." * "Well, here it is." Darien tossed the sketch down in front of Hobbes and joined him at the table. Bobby looked at it for several seconds and his brows went up. The pointed nose and fat bottom lip looked awfully familiar. "I know this guy from somewhere." "Huh?" Fawkes made a dubious face. Bobby was fabricating links again. "Hobbes, you can't possibly know him. He flew in from Australia. And don't tell me you've been to Australia." "No, I've seen him somewhere before. I know him from…" Hobbes stared at the picture. "Give me a pencil, Fawkes." "Why?" "Just give it here." Bobby snatched the pencil from Darien's hand and proceeded to add his own additions to the drawing. "Hey, that's our only copy of that!" Bobby scribbled a beard on the man and then sketched in a pair of glasses. He grinned. "I knew it! I worked with this guy at the bureau." "You what?" "Yeah, this is him. Only his name wasn't Bull it was Taylor. Roger Taylor. He was a great undercover guy. Yeah, he was bounced for being crooked. Looks like he's out of jail now. I'm surprised you don't know him, too." "Can we ever get off the Darien, ex-con thing? Look, why is this guy poisoning people?" "Let's find him and ask. And who says I haven't been to Australia?" * Darien exited his car and digested the building's exterior. Hobbes had brought them to a restaurant. A nice one at that. The name Boulevard was painted in calligraphy across the window. "And why are we here?" "Because this is where his old girlfriend works now. I checked." "Hobbes, that was years ago." Bobby stopped in the doorway and cocked one omnipotent eyebrow. "Yeah, well that shows how much you know about love, kid. They were bananas over each other." He poked Darien's chest for emphasis. "Yeah, you'd know all about being nuts about someone. I'll bring the ice-cream and we'll all sit down to a sundae." "Watch it, hotshot." Bobby pushed him into the restaurant. "They said she was in on his shady dealings and that he covered for her to keep her out of the joint. A real timid lady. Jail would have eaten her alive." Darien just stared at him. "What? You know about guys who melt through walls and I'm not allowed to know about former coworkers? I've still got connections to the bureau." Bobby scanned the dining area and, seeing what he wanted, didn't wait to be seated. "There," he declared, and hauled Darien to one of the back booths. "I'm not sitting in smoking, Hobbes," Fawkes protested. "Second hand smoke is the worst. And it'll stink up my clothes. I can't wash this jacket, you know. It's part suede." "Will you just chill?" Bobby thrust a menu in his face. "Here she comes." "Good evening." She smiled pleasantly, which to Hobbes was just more proof of humanity's inherent capacity for deceit, and asked, "Are you ready to order?" Bobby elbowed Darien. "Oh, uh, how about…uh…" "He'll take the lobster. I'd like the ribs…" Hobbes leaned forward, touching her on the arm with a conspiratorial wink and added, "with maybe a lead on where I can find Roger Taylor." She paled and backed up with what Bobby termed "jackrabbit syndrome". Tensing with shock a second before bolting. But he had a firm hold on her arm so that couldn't happen. "Easy, lady." Hobbes assumed control, keeping the conversation level. "We can do this one of two ways: I cuff you and drag you out, or you tell your boss your Uncle JoJo just croaked and you gotta go. Now which is it?" It didn't take long to make up her mind. She wilted under the cocoa stare and agreed to leave quietly. Hobbes pummeled her with so many questions, legal technicalities and threats that the lady broke down in tears after a few seconds and told them where Taylor was currently staying. * "Well, here we are." "Murderers are really moving up in the world," Hobbes deduced, looking over the snazzy hotel. The FBI hadn't even put him up in joints like this. Steps leading up to the main revolving doors, a mirror and marble exterior, doormen and valets… Darien checked the slip of paper. "Yep, this is it. The Bugby Hotel under the name of John Smith. Now that's original." "It's smart," Hobbes rationalized, scaling the Roman front steps. "You know how many Smiths there are in this city's phonebook alone? Like, thirty pages." "And you know this how?" "Will you forget about it?" They crossed the gray marble tiling and entered the ornately trimmed gold elevator. "What room number?" "204," Darien answered, mashing the second floor button. A moment of silence passed before…"Did you actually count the pages of Smiths in the phone book?" Bobby glared at him. The elevator stopped and they ambled down the lengthy hallway, perusing door numbers. "This is the room," Fawkes declared. He moved to one side. "You ready Curly?" "Just waiting on you, little Larry." "How you wanna play it?" Bobby smirked. "Just watch." "Hey wait!" Darien grabbed his partner's arm to keep him from knocking. "Let me cuff 'em this time." "Cuff him?" "Yeah. You never let me cuff the perps." Darien smirked. "You've got all these control issues, Bobby." Hobbes wasn't amused. "I don't trust you with handcuffs. I've had previous detrimental experiences with giving you new toys." Darien feigned innocence. Was Hobbes still sore about that? "Alright, here ya go." Hobbes conceded and handed over the metal rings. He knocked lightly on the door and a moment later a muffled voice asked, "What is it?" "There's a package here from a Miss Linda Carver, sir," Bobby droned in a little boy voice that made Darien almost burst out laughing. The door cracked open just enough for Hobbes to muscle his way in, gun already halfway up Taylor's nose. "How do you like your new gift? Shiny, ain't it?" "What's the meaning of this?!" Taylor demanded as Bobby propelled him against the wall. "Easy, pal. Federal Agents." Hobbes held his wrists while Darien slapped on the cuffs and sighed. Damn, but it felt good to do that after all the times it had been done to him. "Frisk him, kid," Bobby reminded, as he set to tearing up the room. Darien had only reached the front coat pockets when he felt a lump. "And what have we got here?" He produced a large syringe, capped and filled with a clear liquid. "Hey look Hobbesy, and it isn't even my birthday." "Some of your poison to go, huh? What do you do, poke them in the back when they aren't looking?" "I don’t know what you're talking about." Bobby held up a bottle he pulled from under the bed. "Or maybe sneak in while they're sleeping and make sure they don't wake up by using a little chloroform, eh? Then stick 'em?" Bobby ransacked some drawers and extracted a large metal box. "And I bet you got a whole stash of that stuff in here, don’t ya?" He broke the locks and the lid popped up. Sure enough, there were a half dozen vials of liquid, some of them tinted with color—red, tan, blue—and several needles. "Well," Darien held up his syringe, twisting the thick plastic cap. It must have been some kind of break-proof glass, because Hobbes had slammed Taylor into the wall and it wasn't even cracked. "How would you like your own medicine? No one will know what happened to you either." "Cool it, Fawkes," Bobby warned, "before you poke me with that thing. I've had enough needles in me for a lifetime." Darien shrugged and handed the vial to Hobbes, who included it with the others in the case. That's when Taylor fell over. "What the heck?" Bobby turned to the thud to see his perp thrashing on the floor. "I think he's having a seizure or something." "Or passing a kidney stone." Taylor rolled around on the carpet, writhing and trembling while Darien and Hobbes just watched, unsure of what to do. Bobby leaned down for a closer look. He'd heard people sometimes swallowed their tongues during a seizure, and that would be hard to explain to the boss. And then it happened. "SHIT!" Hobbes yanked the large needle from his thigh and Taylor took a flying lunge through the window, handcuffs on the floor and the syringe he'd miraculously produced now in Bobby's hand. Darien ran to the window to see Taylor limping away with a bum leg, John Wilkes Booth all over again. It didn't matter, though. The squealing of tires, a thud, a cry, and the ex-agent was dead, bashed head-on by a car as he stumbled into the street. Darien dropped to Bobby's side, looking at the trace of blood that stained the cream suit from the needle's entrance wound. "Oh damn. Oh crap." "Damn it, Fawkes! When you frisk somebody you don't just stop after the first thing you find! How the hell did you ever survive in prison?!" "I didn't think the guy would be carrying more than one! What's the point?!" "Maybe he was about to go out and poke a coupla more guys, how should I know!" Hobbes did have a point. And it had pierced him in the leg. "Jeez, Bobby, he really stuck you with that thing." And indeed the syringe was empty. * Bob Ross said, "Everybody needs a friend." And in a world where you paint happy trees all day, that's probably true. But you don't learn the real importance of friendship until people are regularly hiding in said happy trees waiting to shoot you, infect you, or seduce into the wilderness of evil and death. I think Oscar Wilde pegged the agent game better when he said, "A true friend stabs you in the front." I really screwed this one up. I've been shafted in the back more times than I care to admit, but at least Hobbes knocks me around face to face. I know where I stand and he's never let me down when it mattered. And I think I've proven my loyalty to him. So yeah, maybe we all need a friend. But the buddy thing has problems of its own. I don't know what's worse, being let down, or letting a buddy down. Either way, it sure is a bitch. * "How you doin' Hobbesy?" It had been near two days since the incident with Taylor, and despite Darien's fears Hobbes had shown no ill effects. None that Bobby was admitting to anyway, but…"You look tired." "I'm fine. How many times do I have to tell you that?" Hobbes scowled, sounding more drained than annoyed. Driving the newly rejuvenated van seemed to be occupying all his energy. After a long night of rest, Hobbes should have been in top form. "Well, if you'd let us stop by the Keep and see if she's made anymore progress—" "We're trying to hunt down a killer here Fawkes! Do I look sick? Worry about the case. All we did was kill the messenger." "The Official said Taylor was a medic in the army. Maybe he was working on his own." Darien studied Bobby's driving. He was sluggish changing between the gas and the brake pedals. He rubbed his leg and shook it like it was asleep, eyes narrowing just a hair. Bobby shook his head confidently, hand still working his leg. "Nah, a guy like that can use a drug, but he can't make it." "So where do we look next? The Official hasn't had any luck getting info from Down Under." The first day had been spent backtracking Taylor's activities and it was slow moving and tiring. They'd grilled the girlfriend for an hour and managed to trace him back through two hotels and three taxi services. "Time to check out the airport taxi service. Heck, maybe we'll get to…" Bobby's voice drained and he looked confused, staring at his feet. "Hobbes?" Darien looked, too, but all he saw was a steel-tipped boot. "Crap." "Hobbes, what is it?" Bobby never looked panicked, but his normally grave expression intensified. Darien glanced up to realize that they were cruising down a steep hill going fifty and picking up speed. Despite the red light just ahead. "Uh, hey, Hobbes, you uh, you wanna stop the van? Hobbes!" But Bobby's leg was a dead weight on the gas. "Aw, crap, this is not good!" "What?! Oh God, Bobby watch out!" Darien threw up his hands and waited for the smashing of cars and the shattering of his bones. With the squealing of tires he was thrown headfirst into the dashboard… "You mind, Fawkes? This is kind of uncomfortable here." Darien cracked one eye. No shattered glass. No terrible pain. Just a bump on the head. Hobbes was hunched over, holding down the break pedal with his hand, his leg thrown off the gas. Darien put the van into park and helped his partner sit up. "Bobby, what the hell happened?" Bobby shook his head, poking his legs. The tendons flexed in his neck, his face strained, but nothing happened. "I…. I don't know." He looked at Darien, the panic tingeing the eyes of his deceptively controlled face. " Fawkes…I can't move my legs." * "How's he doing Keepy?" Hobbes lay in the dentist chair, looking bored and fidgety; Claire was at her desk peering through a microscope. "How do you think I'm doin'?" Bobby scoffed back, "I can't move my legs." "What's wrong with him?" The Keeper swiveled around, having learned that Darien was the kind of person who required eye contact when talking. "From what I can tell, Hobbes was injected with a type of neurotoxin synthesized from the poison of the Ixodes holocyclus, the type of tick venom that was stolen. Probably the same kind that the other three men were injected with. I won't know until I get the blood work I requested from the Wincill autopsy." "Am I gonna die like those other guys?" Claire stood and walked to the dentist chair, her clipboard snug to her chest. She managed her usual watery but none-the-less comforting smile "Well, we know something they didn't. We know what's wrong with you. Sort of." "So what is wrong with him?" Darien glanced at Hobbes long enough to decide he looked significantly worse than his last visit. "Why can't you just give him some anitvenom or something? Don't they make it in some kind of powder you just mix up and inject? That's what they gave Kevin." "The antivenom is prepared from dogs hyperimmunised against the venom. I tried it but for some reason it hasn't been working, and I'm already up to 30ml. The toxin that Agent Hobbes was infected with seems to share some of the basic properties, but it's been impossible to treat." "How come?" "The toxin was altered…" She sighed, her mind shopping for an easy analogy. "Like when patients are treated for the flu repeatedly, and it mutates to adapt as a harsher strain. Only this is a toxin that's been scientifically enhanced to a more potent type." "So what's gonna happen to him? What happened to those other guys?" "Besides that they all died," Bobby vapidly added. "I won't know until I see the reports on Wincill and the others. But Bobby is already showing signs consistent with a normal tick bite of this variety. Increased respiration, dilated pupils…vomiting." Darien straightened with alarm. "An effect of the chemoreceptor region of the medulla," The Keeper explained. "He'll start going paralyzed one section of his body at a time." Bobby just shrugged. The older agent's nonchalance wasn't enough to stop Darien from swooping down on him with concern, though. The Keeper was right. Bobby's eyes had dilated until just a ring of chocolate rimmed each vast pupil. His normally honey toned face had degraded to a blanched cream, the skin billowed purple below his eyes with a mild quiver of hands. "How come it took so long to make him sick?" "The serum is slow acting. In dogs it sometimes takes up to a week for signs to show." "I'm not a dog." Bobby protested. "No, but you show all the signs." "Funny." Darien sat up. "You know, that's pretty smart." "What is?" "You poison a guy with some kinda weird venom that no one can treat, but that doesn't make them sick until days after your gone. I mean, who's gonna prove that the guy didn't just get bitten on a camping trip?" "I don't think Wincill went camping very often." "I'm gonna go talk to the girlfriend again." "Okay kid. Get tough with her. Your partner is countin' on ya here!" * "Hobbes did not kill your boyfriend, Miss Carver. He died because he frolicked out in front of a car. After he'd just poisoned my partner." Carver sat silent, the dim evening light filtering through a window, throwing the shadow of iron bars over her immobile form. "Okay, look. My partner is slowly going paralyzed, and whether you care or not your boyfriend is a murderer who did this to him." She sat in the interrogation room, haggard and afraid, but now resentful, brown hair falling into sagging eyes. "Alright, let's try this a different way. If you don't start talking, I'm gonna have you brought up as an accessory to three very tragic murders, four if my partner drinks the old ice cocktail while I'm trying to badger info out of you. They say you avoided jail the first time around. Well let me tell you lady, it ain't a nice place to stay. Now talk." She finally looked up, the familiar threat of jail again rousing her to speak. "I told you everything I know the last time you questioned me." Darien sighed. She was telling the truth, and they were cornered at a dead end. He had a guard bring her some coffee and left. "Damn." He slammed the main holding door open so hard the glass cracked. It was a nice sound to someone so frustrated. The cell phone, which he'd borrowed from Hobbes, rang in his pocket to the tune of a cavalry charge. "Yeah?" It was Eberts riding to the rescue. "The maid of Mr. Wincill called. She says she found something you should see." "Okay, I'm on it." Darien drove again to the Wincill house and was escorted inside by a smiling Miss Haggerty. The interior was dimly lit by the evening sun, no lights on. The furniture and Mr. Wincill's other belongings were being prepped for removal or storage. The couch and sofa were covered with white sheets already collecting dust, the lamps and books packed into brown boxes. The walls were stripped bare. "Here it is," she explained, handing Darien a stack of papers. He leafed through them. "Miss Haggerty, how did you overlook these for the last two days?" "Well," she began, "I was looking through Mr. Wincill's things and I remembered the strong box he kept in his safe. I found the package of documents there." The papers implicated him in a scandal at a university in France where he had worked before Sydney. A job he'd quit before being fired for using snake venom in experiments on lab animals. And at Sydney he'd started up a similar practice with a man named Kline. "Do you know this other man mentioned? Doctor Kline?" There were letters to each other about the research, and they didn't end until…six months ago. Just before the university was robbed. "No, I'm afraid I don't." She smiled like she was made of sugar. Maybe Hobbes was right. Maybe she was in on it. Darien shook his head. God, did he need a new partner. * "Why's it so cold in here, Claire? We finally get that bigger air conditioning budget?" The Keeper sat bundled in a large coat, with Hobbes still in his short sleeves, laid out like a slab of cold meat on the chair. "Hey, Keep, you're freezing him. The poor guy's shivering." Darien noticed Hobbes fidgeted even in his sleep. At least his face did. The round eyes busily scanned for intruders under dark lids. The purple and blue lights from the lab cast their murky lighting over the chair and his otherwise catatonic form. "Can't help it," she replied, "Research with infected dogs and children shows that lower temperatures slow the tick venom and aid in recovery." Darien frowned his disapproval. He rubbed Bobby's clammy arm and roused him from his nap. Bobby didn't look good; his eyes seemed waxy. But he smiled. "Hey, kid, what's new?" "Here ya go, buddy. I picked up some Indian victuals this time." Darien spread the takeout on a tray that he settled on Bobby's lap. "Wow, me bringing you food is starting to be a regular occurrence. I never realized I'd be a caterer when I signed on." "You didn't sign on. You were drafted. Thanks, but I'm not really hungry." The agent glanced around nervously. "You have to be hungry. It's just the disease, right Keep? She said you might lose your appetite. Here, eat up." Bobby's face was rough with stubble. He'd need a shave soon. Darien watched his dilapidated partner pick up the fork and immediately noticed something wrong. "You're right handed." "No kidding." "You're eating with your left hand. Don't tell me…" "Yep, Bobby Hobbes, down to a single arm. And not even the one I can use, damn it." "Christ. When did it go offline?" "'Bout four hours ago. And my electrician hasn't found the problem yet." Bobby glanced at Claire. Darien grinned. "Bet she still flips the right fuses though." The Keeper chose to play oblivious to both of them. "Cute, kid. How come I've got all these symptoms but I can't be treated." Claire whirled her chair around looking frustrated. "When you have the flu," she began impatiently, "you have certain symptoms. Congestion, nausea, fever. When you have pneumonia you have those same symptoms, only more of them and worse. You can't treat pneumonia the same way you treat the flu." "Okay, okay. Damn." Hobbes returned to the mountain-moving struggle that was eating. Darien couldn't help but grin at the sight of Bobby trying to scrape up rice using a clumsy left hand. It was pitifully humorous, and clear that Hobbes was less than ambidextrous. "You need some help?" "No!" Bobby shot back with a sharp look. "I'll starve to death before I have someone feed me." Darien sobered. "Hobbes, come on, I don't mind," he insisted, wrenching the fork from Bobby's hand. "No, I said!" Bobby knocked the fork across the room where it jingled to a stop at The Keeper's feet. "I'm done. Take it away." Darien set the tray on a nearby cart and cast a worried look at The Keeper. She shook her head. "So where you been all day, kid? You've been gone six hours." Just like nothing had happened, here was imperturbable Hobbes once again, with a rubber persona that Darien could bounce off of all day long and never get anywhere. He explained the situation with Wincill's maid. "I asked The Official to fax the university and see what pops up on this guy Kline. I've got a good feeling he's the guy we need. But he said it might take a day or so for them to get back to us. Something about someone being on vacation…" "Great. I'll just lay around here and petrify while some shmuck tans in the Bahamas. Why can't I ever get a vacation?" Darien shrugged apologetically. Claire looked up from her desk, a curious expression on her face. She stared at Bobby for a minute and then seemed to get an idea. "I'm going to go see The Official," she abruptly announced, and the metal door rumbled open and shut behind her. "That was weird." "Not much here isn't. Oh, I stopped by your apartment to check it out like you asked. You had a message from your sister…" Bobby tensed. Forbidden territory. Well, too bad. "She sounded like she really wanted to see you." "Anything else?" Cold, clipped answer. Uninterested. "Yeah, she was the one who called you that other time wasn't she?" Bobby's eyes narrowed. "Anyone ever tell you you're too damn smart? That'll get you killed in some circles." "So will being too dumb. She didn't have your phone number?" "Obviously she did," Hobbes spat back, and the words echoed a different time in Darien's head. His mind skimmed over the last several months with Hobbes. Before the IQ serum, before the ex-wife embarrassment, even before that Lawson creep. A voice popped up of an old blind man. A man and an episode in his life he’d tried to forget. He didn’t think much about Scarborough when he could help it. The madness that had almost made him kill Hobbes was a thing best left in the attic, dangling with the skeletons of previous misadventures. But it wasn’t his personal experience with the old seer that he was recalling. It was the words that he’d uttered to Hobbes, which had set the paranoid little man on his toes. “I see a girl. Your sister. Oh, she beat you. Beat you till you sobbed.” The way Hobbes had brushed it off, he’d never given it much afterthought. But Darien should have known better. He prided himself on being a judge of character, whatever his partner thought about his naiveté. What Bobby said and did and what reality was where two very different things. Bobby was a man of closed doors, a mental conundrum that rivaled the complexity of the Winchester Mansion. Hallways that lead nowhere and doors that opened into the brisk California air. "So, you gonna give her a visit after this is all over?" "I'll be dead when this is over, how can I?" "The Keeper will come through, she always does. And stop changing the subject." "Will you just forget about it? She's my sister, not yours. If I wanna see her I'll see her. I don't need you butting in." "Well, I just know you had some rough times and all. I mean, you know, what Scarborough said…" "Scarborough was a fruity old man! Didn't I tell you he was full of crap? Now forget it." Damn. "Okay." Bobby closed himself off and that was it. But something was wrong, and it wasn't the lack of appetite, the dark rimmed eyes, or the way his body still managed to tremble even when it couldn't be arbitrarily moved. He looked shattered, like a person does when their nerves have cracked and they can't focus on anything any longer. It left a sick feeling in Darien's gut. * Now, Hobbes and I have an understanding. I know that he brandishes a plethora of carefully crafted machismo masks, complete with conceit, cynicism, and emotional detachment. And he knows I know that they're mostly masks, and that he's just a lonely, insecure kinda guy who's built more walls than the Chinese. But I can't ever call him on it to help him when he really needs help because, like I said, we've got an understanding. And by then it's too late. The male ego is a vicious cycle. * "It itches! Come on!" "Bobby, I'm never going to get my research done if you don't stop interrupting me." "But it's driving me crazy here!" "Use your frequent flyer miles, you'll get a discount for that." Darien smirked, but Hobbes was too preoccupied to retort. "Fawkes! Will you please come scratch my nose?" Darien laughed and sat next to the reclined Hobbes on the dentist chair. "I got it, partner. Here?" he asked, scratching the bone of Bobby's nose. "Ah, yes, thank you," Hobbes replied, and shot The Keeper an indignant look when she turned to watch the spectacle. "You won't think it's so funny after the tenth time," she warned. "Your nose itch that much?" "It isn't just his nose," she deadpanned, and Darien leaned back with a knowing laugh. Hobbes looked like he wanted to object but didn't say anything. Early last night Hobbes had lost the use of his left arm. He'd been in the Keep alone again, except for the guard stationed outside, and Claire said he was fairly miserable when she arrived. He hadn't slept. In fact, Darien only knew what was relayed to him about Bobby's condition. Hobbes himself had said very little to Darien about any of the pain caused by the toxin disrupting his body. But he did seem to tell Claire—the cramping of his immobile limbs that sometimes felt like they were engulfed in Greek fire, how he couldn't breathe intermittently at night, and how he felt so tired he could barely turn his head but couldn't sleep. It was odd to see Hobbes with anything other than a clean-shaven face. Darien knuckled his cheek playfully. "You want a free shave, partner? You're looking pretty scary." Bobby's countenance sagged. "Maybe later." Okay. "Yeah, sure. So how you comin' Keep?" "Not good. I've got to have a sample of the original compound, and what was left in the syringe isn't enough to work with." "What about all those vials we gave you?" "Oh, they were poisons alright, but I have no idea what is in each vial. The one you gave me was more like snake venom. And even with the right sample I'll have to do extensive work. Analyzing and comparing the new toxin to the antitoxin developed for the original venom. In the meantime, Hobbes is only going to get worse." Darien glanced at Bobby, but the bald agent was staring blankly at the floor. "*Worse*? What could be worse than going totally paralyzed?" "There's a big possibility that his brain will hemorrhage, just like the others." "He'll die?" "It looks like a possibility." "Fantastic," Hobbes droned, eyelids fluttering, "and here I was worried that I'd have to spend the rest of my life a paraplegic." Darien walked around the glass divider and leaned against the wall, swearing softly. The Keeper joined him, touched his shoulder. "There's one other thing." He stared at her in disbelief. "Something else?" "Something that might happen faster than the internal hemorrhaging. Hobbes' mental condition is starting to deteriorate." "What do you mean? He looked okay to me. Just a little down, but who wouldn't be in his case?" "The frustration, the boredom. I think it might be more than he can handle. Bobby is a strong man with an efficient mind, but that mind also has a low stamina. He's like a fighter that has to win in the first round or he loses his strength. Gets tired." "His mind is out of shape." "Something like that. That's why I'm worried about him if this goes on much longer. So how about you? Any progress?" "All I can do is wait for The Official's info from Australia." "Hey, kid!" The younger partner hastened to the chair. "Yeah, Bobby?" "Do me a favor before you go, huh?" Darien managed a smile. "Sure, Bobby, what is it?" "Scratch my damn kneecap." The ex-thief laughed and scrubbed the offending kneecap thoroughly. Hobbes grinned in thanks, but it wasn't even one of his authentic fake grins. Then he looked all around the Keep. Definitely too skittish, even for Hobbes. "Hobbes, are you sure you're doing okay? You look…you look pretty edgy. You need some kind of medication?" "Damn it, kid!" Bobby suddenly fumed. "I don't need any medication! I'm not some temperature gauge that you can control just by giving me some stupid pill!" "Okay, okay. Look, I thought, well, I've got this small spare TV at the apartment. I thought it might help you pass the time." Genuine concern always did weird things to Hobbes. He either rudely brushed it off, or he melted into a pile of Bobby Butter. He exhaled and his head rested back. "Thanks kid. But don't worry about it." Darien sighed as well, fatigued from days of running amok, tracking and interrogating people, tired from stressing over the condition of his partner. He settled in next to Hobbes and let out a long breath. "I remember the second stretch I spent in the pen. Bored as hell. I'd think about slitting my wrists to get sent to the infirmary sometimes, just for a change of scenery. And I'd read articles about these guys who were sent to Devil's Island way back when the French still sent thieves like me there. They went nuts from the isolation, the hopelessness and boredom." "Fawkes…" Bobby made a frustrated face, but Darien could tell it was from being unable to move. So Darien patted his arm instead. "I'm not gonna go nuts, alright? I promise. Give me some credit, huh?" "Okay Hobbesy," Darien nodded. "But that's a promise." Bobby nodded his assurances as The Official came barreling through the Keep door like a hippo with a purpose, waving a file. "Fawkes, just got word on the former Professor Kline. He retired a year ago, and a month ago told friends he was moving to the USA." "Do you know where he is?" "Here's the printout on him. That's for you to find out." Darien took the folder but The Official lumbered out before he could ask anymore questions. He leafed through the documents long enough to find a picture of Kline. The statistics page said he was in his sixties, but he looked seventy. A tired looking, eagle eyed old man with olive skin. Darien looked at Hobbes. "I'm gonna give this a once over. Get some sleep." Darien didn't make it to the door. "Hey, Fawkes?" The ex-thief turned around, and Bobby resembled a shy young child as he said, "I could help you. What's it say?" Darien smiled and pulled up a chair. * Agent Fawkes sat outside the clinic, gingerly sipping coffee. While reviewing the medical history portion of the file with Hobbes, they'd noticed that Professor Kline had had a kidney removed a year ago and suffered partial failure of the other. Hobbes, in his usual round about way, stumbled upon a very important lead. "How's he pee with no kidneys?" Whereupon The Keeper explained the process of dialysis, and the actual function of the kidneys to filter poison. It was just legwork from then on, and Darien had done enough of that to make him a pro. There were only a few clinics that performed dialysis in the city, and it was a simple matter to show a picture of Kline around and discover which one he'd been seeing. Although under a different name, he'd been coming to this one three times a week for three weeks. Darien waited until the end of the appointment to waylay the old man. He stopped him on his way to the car, a few Agency backup men tagging along. Which was okay with Darien—he was accustomed to having a person watching his back, and it took any three normal Agency boys to equal Hobbes. "Mr. Kline?" he asked congenially. "Congratulations, you just won an all expense paid trip to The Agency of your choice." Kline looked surprised for only a moment. Then he smiled with an old wrinkled face that made Darien shiver a little, like seeing a revenant from another mission. He knew Kline wasn't as old as he looked, but the dialysis must have worn him down. "So why did you kill those guys?" Kline leaned on one of the Agency suits swarming around him. "I was only the hired muscle, brain muscle, so to speak." "What?" Kline motioned to the car, where Darien helped him get into the backseat. "Let us say word of my research has reached certain…interested parties. They commissioned me to run certain tests, for which I used Mr. Taylor's unique skills." "Tests? So who hired you?" Kline smiled. "Such privileged information. You should know better, young man." "Okay, well, you know what? Screw who hired you. All I care about is a cure for my partner. Now you can either give me some kind of antivenom or tell me how to make it, or I'm gonna rip out your other kidney." "Alright, alright, calm down. Take me to my home, and I will get you what you need." Kline instructed them to a small rundown house out in the suburbs, where he rooted out boxes and papers that he relinquished to Darien. "This what a person needs to make the serum?" "All the DNA and amino acid sequencing required to make the original toxin, and the research results for the new antivenom." Darien held up a cream tube. "What's this?" "A sample of the antibodies from my tests on animals." Darien handed the things to one of The Agents. "You lose this stuff and I'll kick your ass." Then he turned back to Kline. "Why did you kill Wincill? Wasn't he your partner?" "He was the only person who worked with me on my research at the institute, up until I was hired to cultivate the tick venom. He wanted out, and was the only one who might have known who was behind the killings. Annihilating him was personal. I always did think he was a stuffy bastard. The others, well, they were just pointed at by the hand of God." Kline smiled his jaundiced smile. "Make sure they spell my name right in the papers." * "Hey buddy! How you doin'?" Darien all but skipped into the Keep. "I can't move." Hobbes answered, a troubled look broiling in his sable eyes. Darien grinned. "Guess that toxin never did reach your mouth." "Fawkes, I can't move!" Bobby shouted. "I can't move, damn it!" "Bobby?" Darien shook his arm, a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Hey it's okay. I found the guy and he had all the specs to work from." But Hobbes wasn't listening. "DO SOMETHING!" "Uh…" Darien glanced around. "Claire!" The Keeper was already scurrying around the lab grabbing containers. "I told you this would happen," she quibbled, filling a syringe. "Then do something, smarty-pants! Give him some meds or something!" "Don't worry," she consoled. "It'll only take me a couple of hours to get the serum together." * Bobby Hobbes woke up to a world full of smog, and the foghorn of a lighthouse bellowing warnings in his head. His scalp itched, tingled. He tried rubbing his temple but his arm was lethargic, heavy. It ached, and a prickling sensation shot from the fingertips to the shoulders. He forced it into motion, like wheels of a giant clock churning back to life, creaking and stubborn. That's when he sat up in a start, the ache stabbing through his entire body and climaxing in one hell of a head rush. "Easy, partner." A familiar hand steadied his shoulder. "No rugby just yet." "Fawkes?" "You feel okay?" "Yeah, what…" Darien grinned like the Cheshire Cat. "I can move?" "Yep." The taller agent stepped back and Hobbes swung his legs off the bed in one giant effort. They were stiff with disuse and ached when moved. But move they did! Bobby looked up and tried to say something, but his brain was working faster than his mouth again. "We were right." "You found the Kline guy? Where is he?" Darien turned with an accusatory glare to The Official, who was standing off the side next to Eberts, attempting to go unobserved. The heavy man shrugged. "He's dead. Our guys let him go to the bathroom and he came out with a bullet in his brain. No leads yet." "Taylor getting run down by a car, Kline biting the bullet…Anymore on why those three guys were poisoned?" "Wincill was personal, the other two we don't know." Bobby frowned, his mind already mulling over the case, ready to start back up. That was the last thing Darien felt like doing. "So, you ready to walk out of this room and have some fun? As in, not working on this God damn case anymore." Darien's smile was contagious, and despite Bobby's lingering incredulity his face split with a grin like a rainbow. Having fun was what Bobby Hobbes was about! Until his legs gave out. Hobbes toppled over, grabbing onto the nearest object, which happened to be The Keeper, who backed up into Eberts, who stumbled into The Official, knocking them all to the ground in a tangled mass of appendages. With the exception of The Official, whose bulk kept him stationary. Bobby stuttered a flustered apology as Claire scurried to a stand and straightened her skirt, unflappable as always, and Eberts made the appropriate indignant remarks. Darien laughed and grabbed Bobby's hand to help him up. "Guess the gears are a little rusty." Bobby worked his knee joints and after a minute he was walking perfectly again. The Official was delighted of course—one could tell by how he fatherly clamped them both on a shoulder. "Well, why don't you boys start with a tour of my office so we can get this case closed?" Bobby made an unhappy face. The last thing he wanted was to stay in The Agency any longer than it took to get to the exit. But with an encouraging look from Darien he nodded. The Official hadn't wanted to see them for much. Darien asked for some days off, which were granted, Hobbes naturally assuming the vacation meant him as well. "You've been lying around for a week already and you want more time off?" But a reproachful look from the invisible wonder boy was enough to bend the corpulent head man. Outside, the sun was brighter than Bobby had remembered it being. Its heat felt invigorating against his skin, amalgamating with the cool of the breeze to form an intoxicating mental high. He inhaled deeply, smelling the bakery down the street, the exhaust from cars, and the summer air all at once. The adrenaline coursed through his blood and he wanted to sprint like a boy down the street, maybe run all the way home, and work out his sore limbs. But Darien had other ideas. He was already climbing inside the van. "So, Hobbesy, what's it feel like to be mobile again?" "Like rising from the dead, kid. I tell you, it makes me a hell of a lot more appreciative of the all the people who go through life in wheelchairs or completely paralyzed." "I know the feeling." Bobby smiled and stood outside of the van for a few more seconds, letting the zephyrs kiss his balding head. "You gettin' in?" Darien called through the rolled down window. "Yeah." Bobby opened the creaky cream door. "It's a beautiful day, Fawkes. What do you say we go shoot some hoops or play a little volleyball at the beach?" Darien grinned, a memory peeking around the back of his mind of a vivacious Bobby Hobbes holding a football, insisting how only "infirmed people" stayed indoors when the whole world lay outside to play in. And they'd have fun while they could, damn it. That was at least one thing he'd learned from working at The Agency. Worry about the world, and obligations, and glands, and even sisters some other day, when you're being forced to. For now, seize the day. He nodded at his blithesome partner and smiled. "Anything you wanna do Hobbes. It is a beautiful day." * Epilogue: "Deep roots are not reached by frost." J.R.R. Tolkien said that. Maybe I've become as rooted to this ramshackle agency as Bacal and the mangrove trees were to Key Largo Island. Maybe that's why I can't even get away when I try. Not that I wouldn't chuck this place at a moment's notice. Believe me I would. Honestly. But if you make lemonade out of the lemons, then, hell, you've at least got something to drink, right? Maybe after a good game of basketball on a sizzling summer day? I always did like lemonade. Denouement ~CW