Mad Season

By Vonilyn

hey all! look! another non-echo fic! what's that make? two? ;) justkidding. anyhow, due to the promptings of my beta, ::waves to lylia!::

i've decided to start posting this. the way things are, i plan to give myself two days or so between postings. gotta allow for R/L, now that school's started up again and all that... this is a work in progress, but i'm managing to churn the parts out surprisingly regularly considering my usual. 0:) and besides, according to *someone* who shall remain nameless ::glances accusingly at beta reader:: you guys "NEED" to see this fic... at any rate, fic is fic huh? :)

ANYWAY, hope ya'll like this! lemme know if you do, okay? i'm a feedback-thriver too. :) ask anyone who knows me. :) okay, okay, on with it... :)

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Mad Season 1

By Vonilyn

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(Life according to Darien Fawkes)

Okay, so the average person knows when they've been screwed over pretty well. You'd think I'd be quicker on the uptake as well then, wouldn't you? Especially with this weird gland in my head; I have an even bigger reason - or should that be an extra responsibility? - To expect the
crappy stuff to be aimed directly at me.

Hobbes knew I was screwed. From the very start of this assignment, just as soon as we'd left the Official's office, he'd made that loud and clear. He said it was just too easy. With Bobby Hobbes, though, it's always that same old gag line: if things are quiet wherever you are, it's always *too* quiet. The paranoiac that he is, I'd thought nothing of it; just kept walking away.

The target was some supposed smuggler. The go-between for whatever desperate and wealthy crook needed a thoroughly invisible way of getting something across a border or an ocean. The man had supplies, ships, planes… you name it, he had it stashed somewhere, just waiting to be put to use. At first, I didn't see why we'd been assigned at all; it wasn't exactly something the Agency would even look at under most conditions.

Then I found out that a couple of Agency Feds were involved with the guy. Of course, the Official wanted to know the who, the how, and the why. It was supposed to be on the books as a simple stakeout. Watch the place and see who we knew that went in. On the surface, it sounded like a walk in the park. No real problems. I figured I'd go Quicksilver, eavesdrop,
copy a few computer files maybe. Cake.

If I'd been thinking along the same track as my partner though, rather than silently mocking him, I wouldn't be *running* away now…

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Darien Fawkes, the most annoying ex-con in the world at the moment, had done it again. One minute Hobbes was staring right at him, passing on some pretty vital survival tips. The next, he was talking to himself. Or at least from all outside appearances he was.

"Hey! You haven't been listening to a word I've said have you?" he asked, his eyes searching everywhere, uncomfortable as he tried vainly to see his partner.

"Sure I have Hobbes. But my ears hurt from listening and my butt hurts from just sitting here. I'm gonna go put an end to this whole 'watch and learn' session a little earlier than planned, that's all. You know, if you keep freakin' out like this you'll give yourself a headache," Darien
advised, looking with amusement at the flustered fed. Still smiling at Hobbes, he reached an invisible hand to the door handle and opened it.

"Fawkes! Would you just stay put for once?" Hobbes tried again, reaching quickly for the door. But he wasn't fast enough. With a slight chuckle, Darien had slipped out of the van, letting an unwitting Hobbes close it for him. He pounded on the door once, and Hobbes jumped, startled and now growing angrier. Then Darien slipped away toward their target.

The place was nice, and from the outside it looked like every thief's dream take. The lot wasn't exactly huge or anything, but a Byzantine garden made the place a big, beautiful maze. A wide, pebble path led through it from the front gate on, surrounded by overgrown bonsai trees and fragrant flowers of red and white. Darien quickly climbed the perfectly harmless, gilded fence and followed the path up to the estate. Bamboo grew in rows sporadically along the path, surrounded by the bonsai and sharp leafed ferns every so often. He silently marveled at the
stylish outside décor as he crept toward the house.

He paused at a clearing of sorts, maybe five yards off from the wall of the house, noticing a fountain surrounded by a large pond. Darien walked around the waterhole, carefully watching his surroundings for cameras or other surveillance. There was nothing, just him and the pond. He came to a stop, standing between the water and the house.

"Cute fish…" he muttered, staring at the foot-long goldies in the water. "Why don't mine ever last long enough to get that big?" he quipped with a grin.

Sudden movement closer to the house instantly caught Darien 's attention and the fish were forgotten. An Armani suited thug came around the corner, gun in hand but not aimed anywhere. Darien relaxed at that and was content to stand there and let the thug stare right on around him.
Then, with a sudden jolt to his brain, he realized the man was wearing goggles. It wasn't dark out yet, so night vision goggles didn't make sense to Darien… unless these were that particularly sensitive kind…

"Aww crap," Darien breathed. For once, Hobbes had been right. These guys had been expecting him. Thinking only of escape, Darien took a blind step back and felt his foot contact the water. "Crap! Crap! Crap!" Darien had forgotten about the water. The man in the goggles smiled then, something purely evil, and the gun was up. Darien quickly turned and ran, splashing through the shallow water. His gig was up. Time to leave.

Two more suited, goggled gunmen came rushing at him from the path he'd just been on. Darien turned another direction and found two more waiting for him. He could either charge through them or try and break through a wall of bamboo. Darien stood in the middle of the pond, perfectly still. He didn't have any options. Then he hit on something.

"Let's level the playing field," he reasoned. Darien stood, his hands held harmlessly in the air, trying to calm himself down. If he was gonna do this, he needed to be able to see with his own eyes, not through a Quicksilver filter.

The hired guns got closer and closer. Before they could get too close, Darien charged through the gap to get behind them. As he did, he shook himself free of the silvery skin. The others all turned and rushed on him again to contain him, still partially blind because of the goggles they wore. Fawkes took advantage of the moment and slipped unseen between them in their circle, just out of their range of vision. Since he was no longer invisible to the naked eye, the goggles couldn't differentiate between Darien and the rest of the gunmen.

One of them finally realized that fact and took his goggles off, spotting Darien almost instantly as he did so. He raised the gun and fired. Darien felt a small twinge in the side of his leg, but nothing else. It seemed that the man had just barely grazed him. Darien pushed the nearest, blind, thug toward the one now without thermal imagery. The goggle-less goon stumbled with his partner and Fawkes turned and ran down the path to the gate without looking back.

Not even a moment later his legs froze up as the rest of his body hit the ground, unconscious.

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Hobbes stared at his watch for the sixth time that hour and then glanced up at the digital on the van's dash. Hadn't changed in the last minute…

"Fawkes…" he grumbled irritably. He drummed his fingers across the steering wheel, then looked at his watch again. He looked at the passenger side door. It hadn't opened yet. He noticed the window was open, his mind thinking that just *maybe* there was a slight chance in
hell that Fawkes had managed to pull his tall frame through that without his partner noticing. Yeah, right. Hobbes suddenly took a wild swing with his elbow at the middle of the seat next to him anyway, hoping to hit something besides rotting vinyl. Nothing there.

Bobby's mind began to wander back in time those few hours ago. The Official had given Hobbes an eerie kind of impression when he'd given Fawkes his instructions. And when he'd called Hobbes back into the room once Darien had left, he'd given him a very odd instruction.

He'd said, "Hobbes, I expect you to allow Darien room to … er, perform… as he sees fit on this mission. Whatever happens. He needs to learn the consequences of his own rashness."

Hobbes had given his boss a look then, one that made it clear he planned to argue about that command as soon as he could find his voice again. That was one of the most unsettling things simply because the old coot's voice made it clear that *something* was definitely going to happen, no matter what Hobbes or even Fawkes did about it.

"Damnit, kid! Of all the assignments to leave the mic…" he complained, the worry creeping in to his voice. He swiveled back toward the back of the truck, waiting for the back doors to open and reveal his partner. Fawkes had gone in nearly two hours ago. Hobbes knew the kid should
have gone all crazy by now if he'd kept out of sight this long.

It was a set-up. He knew it then and he most assuredly recognized it now. And he had no fucking clue what he was supposed to do about it.

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Darien woke up with an incredible pain in his head. It felt strangely like someone had turned up the bass on a really loud stereo in his head. Slowly, he opened his eyes, feeling the dull ache at the base of his skull increase from the blinding bright light. Ignoring it, he tried to remember what had happened. It didn't take him long to realize that he wasn't at home in bed, and he certainly wasn't in the Agency's lab. He was on a padded table, and from what he could tell, strapped down. He tried the bonds on his arms. They left him hardly any room to move. Oh this was not good…

Dropping his head, frustrated, back onto the padded table, Darien let his attention return to his pounding head. It was a familiar sensation for the most part, as unpleasant as it may have been. He couldn't help wondering if he'd been invisible long enough to have triggered the madness. It didn't make sense though, because he swore he hadn't been invisible for even fifteen minutes at the most before he'd gotten caught. Darien looked down at his wrist, twisting in the cuffs to try and see the snake that would tell him if he'd pressed his luck too much in that maximum-of-fifteen-minutes time span. But the tattoo was still green; his system hadn't built up enough Quicksilver to bring out the madness.

The knot that had formed in his stomach tightened like a vice. He realized he didn't know much about his current situation. He knew where he *wasn't*, though that didn't do him any good. He wasn't in the lab. He wasn't tied down for his safety or the safety of whoever else was around him. Besides, at the moment, there wasn't even a bottle he could break in this empty room. And he hadn't just woken up from being knocked out by a good dose of the Counteragent.

"Then what the hell is going on?!" he growled, jerking again on his restraints. That homing device the Agency had tried to get him to wear would sure be appreciated right about now.

Somewhere in his head, Darien swore he could hear Bobby Hobbes' cocky voice saying 'I told you so.'

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Hobbes watched the truck drive by and stared at the empty seat next to him. Dilemmas…

His last call to The Agency had been fruitless. As soon as he'd mentioned how long Darien had been gone, the Official had hung up on him.

"Okay, so there's this little problem here… I follow the car, or I wait for the partner who I've been ordered to basically ignore…" Bobby muttered to himself.

Now, after seeing the suspicious Explorer drive away from the target's address, he thought about making a second call. Then he snorted wryly, realizing how stupid that'd be. His cell phone bill was going to be high enough, thank you.

"Well, Partner, once again *you* have gotten us into the mess and *I'm* gonna have to go save our fat from the fryer…" Bobby Hobbes, Agent Extrodinaire, gave a long-suffering sigh and started up the department-issued, trashed up old van, pulling it out of the alley to follow the truck.

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Darien was making an extra effort to stay awake in the boredom of lying down in a completely uninteresting room. He found he could easily shut out the over-bright lights after the first hour of consciousness. Whatever it was they had shot him with earlier, the side effects of instantaneous unconsciousness was a lagging desire to just roll over and go back to sleep. A desire that he fought as much as he was able.

Fawkes had gotten to the point of singing his own, loud, obnoxious, totally out-of-the-blue theme song, when a door creaked open behind him. Freezing instantly, his mouth stopping mid-word, Darien almost went Quicksilver, but then realized that whoever was there obviously was
expecting to find a body on the table; visible or not, he knew one was there. Giving a mental shrug, Darien assumed one of his more frustrated looks (which at the moment was far from impossible) and waited.

A thirty-somethingish man walked into Darien's view a moment later. He had a very professional manner, despite his jeans and baggy turtle-neck sweater. His dark hair was cropped short, fringed with the *slightest* touch of gray. So either the guy aged really well, or his work was harder than he let it on to be on paper.

"Hello Mr. Fawkes," the man greeted with a worldly accent. Darien couldn't place it at first; it was either British or Australian. Whatever he was, his calm demeanor wasn't helping Darien any at all.

"Who the hell are you?" Darien snapped, very unsettled by the fact that this guy already knew his name. It just confirmed the theory that his invisible ass had been expected.

"I'm Mr. Pierson. Consider me your Keeper for the time being," the man replied casually. He stepped toward Darien and carefully looked at the snake tattoo.

"I'm fine," Darien informed him, the anger still in his voice as he tried to turn his wrist so the other man couldn't see. Pierson looked him in the eyes, a very appraising look on his face. He raised an eyebrow at Darien's behavior but said nothing. He didn't move away either.

"You're not from the Agency," Fawkes looked back at him, part question, part accusation in his words.

"The Agency doesn't matter anymore, Mr. Fawkes."

Darien's blood ran cold at the man's finalizing tone. "Like hell it doesn't. What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. What the Agency does or doesn't do no longer concerns you. Someone else has paid for the Gland and you now work for them."

"What? No. No! That's bullshit! Kev- No, The Agency put time and money…" Darien began. His brain was on one track and one track only: They had sold the gland that was still in his head and Darien Fawkes was screwed.

"That may be the case, but as soon as the buyers get here, you and the Gland won't be going back," Pierson interrupted calmly.

"You can't just dig the gland out and pass it around… One, you'd kill me; Two, the thing'd be worthless…" Fawkes shot back at him, incredulous. He wasn't buying into this. He glared, instant and obvious hatred on his face as he narrowed his eyes at this 'Mr. Pierson' con.

"They're buying the whole deal, including you. Think of it as…well, as just switching employers, really. I know how this all works, and now so do they. They aren't interested in the Gland so much as what it can do for them. Which is good news for you in a way; no more scientists poking around in your brain trying to figure out what makes it tick. Or so I've been led to believe… At any rate, it's really not that bad of a set-up, Fawkes. You'll just have to learn to live with it," Pierson had a stern edge to his voice that left no room for argument. Darien was struck momentarily dumb by the realization. He stared at Pierson, wide-eyed and slack jawed.

Darien felt his face grow hot. He liked having his own apartment, his own stuff, his right to bitch and moan and complain at whatever assignments he got stuck with. Hell, he even liked having a psycho secret agent partner like Hobbes. The idea of being *sold* alone was enough to piss him off, now add to that the betrayal, then the loss of everything familiar… things weren't looking too good. The idea of suddenly losing all that he had managed to gain in the past few months, to be packed off at the drop of a hat, without being consulted first, without warning…
Even if the Official wasn't going to give him a choice on the assignment in the long run, he at least always asked first. Life with The Agency may suck, but at least he was living under the *pretense* of having freedom.

"No, no, no, no, no. Wait, wait. Me? They 'sold' me?" his voice faltered slightly, "They can't do that… There's no way- No. Way. That The Agency would sell *me*…" Darien stammered, suddenly reviewing his value to that particular branch of government. He was the Quicksilver Wunderkund, sure. Without him, they wouldn't have the Gland… the thing in his head was the only record of Kevin Fawkes' years of research, the last link to their army of invisible soldier boys… there was no way they'd *sell* that knowledge to anyone. Not even to their own government. But that aside, no government group, even one as shadowy as The Agency, would ever stoop to actually selling another human being, a US citizen at that... "They couldn't."

A shrewd smile crept onto Pierson's face. Darien's wondering stopped then, because he knew that look. It was one of pride, the aftermath of a successful job. It was the look of having emptied the cookie jar just to let someone else get caught with the last one. It was one Darien Fawkes had worn once or twice in his lifetime… Darien cursed silently as he realized what Mr. Pierson was really up to.

"I never said that 'they' did, Mr. Fawkes," Pierson assured him.

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End Part one
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