Regrets, part 3

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

Artie's Office
Warehouse 13
South Dakota

"Uh, so, uh--Pete saw his father, but you didn't, right?"

"Yeah." Myka's face on the Farnsworth's screen looks unnerved. "But I should probably mention that I saw Sam, earlier."

Pete turns to Myka with a frown. "What? Why didn't you say anything?"

"Well, y'know, Sam's dead, and your father's dead--I mean, you can understand my reticence, right?"

"You're both hallucinating??" Artie leans close to the Farnsworth. "And when were you gonna mention that to me?"

"Well, we just did," says Myka with a little shrug. The lights above the two agents flicker and there's a rumble of what might be thunder.

"What--what was that?"

"Tropical storm Inez."

...awww, crap. "Uh... you didn't say that there was a storm."

"Why is that important?" asks Pete.

Artie pinches the bridge of his nose. "How many times do I have to tell you about electrical energy? It can crank up the intensity of an Artifact, I don't know, tenfold? And if an Artifact is causing these hallucinations, then a powerful electrical charge can make these visions seem absolutely real."

"Well, they seem pretty real now."

"Alright, listen. You're gonna have to stay in constant contact, you got that? Constant. I don't care if you have nothing to report. Every hour you're gonna call me, alright? And meanwhile you're gonna find out everything, everything about these inmates who killed themselves. Start with the last one, Lee Donaldson..."

---

They did, as it happens, have something to report roughly forty-five minutes later. The prison's on-site ME had turned up dead shortly after talking to Pete and Myka. He had a personal tape recorder on which he was transcribing the autopsy report, but it quickly devolved into him shouting at what he believed to be the ghost of his patient, accompanied by a high-pitched static whine. The field agents sent a recording of the latter to Artie to analyze.

"It's ten thousand cycles per second," says Artie to the Farnsworth as he runs said recording through a spectrum analysis. "It could be the electrical interference that any natural material makes when it vibrates."

"Okay, so where does it come from?" asks Myka.

"Well, any number of minerals or heavy metals, or it could be an artifact that contains both... just give me a second, just one s--ahh." He calls up a recording of a quartz crystal humming as a current is run through it. "Yeah, okay, does that sound familiar?"

"That's it."

bangbangbang

"So, Artie," says Pete, "we're looking for some kind of mineral Artifact that causes hallucinations?"

bang - bang - bang, bangbangbang

"...is that banging--do you hear a...?" Artie looks up, distractedly. Where is that sound coming from? "Yeah, you do that, you do that, but I..."

bangbangbang, bang - bang - bang, bangbangbang

"Artie? Hello, what--?"

bangbangbang, bang - bang - bang, bangbangbang

"No, I'm okay, I'm okay, I just..." Artie picks up the Farnsworth and moves slowly across the office, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise. Somewhere up above... the rafters, maybe? A vibration carried from elsewhere in the building?

bangbangbang, bang - bang - bang, bangbangbang

"Y'know what, Artie? We got it," says Myka. "Uh, thanks, we'll call you later."

"Yeah, alright--" Artie thumbs the On/Off button without looking away from the ceiling.

bangbangbang, bang - bang - bang, bangbangbang

There's definitely a pattern to it. Groups of three, fast, then slow, then fast again.

bangbangbang, bang - bang - bang, bangbangbang

"S...O... SOS??"

Artie bolts for the windows. Somewhere in the Warehouse, someone is calling for help. There's only one person out there who could be doing that.

"CLAUDIA!"

[Dialogue from Warehouse 13 episode 1x10, "Regrets."]

Comments

[claudiometer]

"...ohmygod."
This is officially the DUMBEST THING CLAUDIA HAS EVER DONE. And that includes busting Joshua out of limbo.

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

"--alright, it's a truck."

A truck with a radio antenna sticking up. "Oh, wait, wait--" Artie climbs up on its sideboard and, with a bit of effort, manages to wrench the antenna off.

(The crossbow doesn't have any ammo. He has to improvise.)

[claudiometer]

"Come on, come on!"
Claudia does not want to die today, kthx.

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

"Okay, hang on--" Wind the rope around the end of the antenna, slot the antenna into the crossbow, roll out the carpet near the base of Claudia's pillar...

[claudiometer]

"Hey, what's that for, to get rid of the body?"
Refuge In Sarcasm! (Because she needs a change of pace from Refuge In Panic.)

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

"No, but that's a good backup plan if this doesn't work..."

[claudiometer]

"What do you mean, if it doesn't work? I don't think I'm gonna like this..."

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

Artie holds the antenna-turned-crossbow-bolt high in the air while scuffing his feet on the carpet as hard as he can. The air and shelves around him crackle with purple-white lightning.

"Yeah, old girl!" he shouts to the rafters. "Come and get me!"

[claudiometer]

"Artie, no, don't do it, please, Artie..."
Taunting the Warehouse is probably a Bad Idea, right now.

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

And, at last, the lightning reaches the antenna, crackling down its length, down the rope, and into the floor. Artie lifts the crossbow and takes careful aim at Claudia.

[claudiometer]

"Oh God I hope you're a good shot please Artie please be good at this."
Who needs more than one sentence when they're panicking and someone's about to fire a crossbow at them?

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

Well, he's missing his glasses, and isn't exactly an expert at the crossbow, but it's Robin Hood's crossbow, and should fire true. Right?

"Just--don't--move--!"

[claudiometer]

ONE HOPES.
"OKAY I promise I'll be good from now on!"

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

twingg - thok.

The antenna embeds itself in the rear tire of the bicycle.

"Grab it!" calls Artie as he runs to get the final piece of his plan--an inflatable life raft from the Doña Paz.

[claudiometer]

"okay I'm--"
We did mention that moving thing is kiiiiiinda difficult at the moment, right? Because it is. But she manages to pry one hand loose long enough to let it reattach to the antenna.
"Got it!"
And then, before she has any real time to process it, the magnetic field is gone. which is great, except now there's nothing holding her up here.
SHE DOESN'T WANT TO DIE FALLING, EITHER. So yeah, there's screaming.

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

In the few seconds it takes her to grab the antenna, Artie rolls out the deflated life raft.

In the half-second between her grabbing it and the field dropping, he pulls the cord to inflate the raft.

And as she's falling, he gives the raft a shove to the left so Claudia will land on it rather than next to it.

[claudiometer]

She plops right into the life raft - definitely a softer landing than all that crap she'd attracted would've been.
And being back on solid ground makes it less the 'oh god oh god we're all gonna die' kind of adrenaline rush, and more the kind where you start laughing. "Artimus Maximus! That was awesome!"

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

Artie's smiling a bit himself. "Yeah, it kind of was awesome, wasn't it? Now let's get you out of here..." He helps her to her feet and off of the raft. "You've gotta take that off," he says, nodding at the coat. "Right away. Now. now."

[claudiometer]

"Okay, yeah."
No, Artie, she's gonna leave it on and get stuck to everything ever all over again. Really. (First thing to go is the goggles, since there's nothing like discontinuing a circuit.)