Burnout, part 1

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

Pete and Myka took a redeye flight to St. Louis this morning in order to check up on a gas main explosion under the 83rd precinct police station. At least, it was reported as a gas main explosion; Artie has his doubts. For one thing, six people were burned to a crisp, but there's no sign of a fire beyond that.

For another, Pete and Myka have just reported that they found the remains of a long-dead Warehouse agent handcuffed to a water pipe in the bowels of the station.

"Look, he has a Secret Service star, but his ID and his credentials are dust," says Myka over the Farnsworth.

"I'm sending for the body right... now." Artie taps the last key on the computer keyboard and scoots his chair back over to where the Farnsworth is propped up. "Okay? And meanwhile, what I want you to do is, I want you to get me pictures. Meanwhile, I am going to find who this Agent is..." He marches over to the bookcase by the door and returns with a stack of recent field activity reports. ('Recent' being from the last seventy years or so.) "I'll ID him, and I will find out, if I can, what mission he was on."

"It looks like the blast opened up the wall and somehow... people were fried." Myka shakes her head, frowning. "I mean, could an Artifact cause an explosion like that?"

"Or," interrupts Pete, "Did the explosion release the Artifact, and then burn everybody up?"

"Well, that is a very good question, Pete," says Artie. "A very good question. That's exactly what you have to figure out. Bye." He thumbs the On/Off button and starts shuffling through the stack of reports. "How the hell...?" he mutters to himself. "How in the hell am I gonna figure out who that mysterious Agent is?"

Not from the field reports, that's for damn sure. They're little more than a list of Artifacts retrieved on a given date and who was involved. Not nearly enough information for Artie's purposes. And that means one thing: it's time to go into the stacks.

[Dialogue from Warehouse 13 episode 1x07, "Burnout."]

Comments

[claudiometer]

"Okay, yeah." She fiddles with the dials a bit, and presto, close-up on the tattoo.

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

Which is still utterly illegible. "Yeah, I can't, I can't--could you digitally reconstruct that?"

[claudiometer]

"Couldn't any genius whiz kid?"

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

"Okay, you do that. I'll be in the records room." Artie pulls his jacket off again and slogs back into the stacks. He's got a lot of searching ahead of him, and just his luck it involves heavy lifting as well.

[claudiometer]

...
"'Really brilliant job, Claudia. Love the initiative.' 'Oh, thank you. Thanks, Artie...'"
She can fill in her own praise, when she has to. She just wasn't expecting to have to.
---
It takes some doing, and the tattoo is a pain in the ass to sort out from the charred skin, but eventually, Claudia has enough that she feels comfortable calling details back to Artie.
"Okay, uh, it's an eagle... and an anchor... and... just a circle, I guess."

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

"Could it be a globe?"

[claudiometer]

"Yeah, why not?"
She can't make out quite that much detail, but it makes more sense than a random circle.

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

"Okay, so, eagle, anchor, globe--he's a Marine," realizes Artie. "He's a Marine! That's gonna narrow it down, I mean, there's only like a, a dozen or so agents who were former Marines, so, y'know, we can--" He finally reaches over to slap the On/Off button on the Farnsworth, which has been buzzing insistently for the past ten seconds. "Yeah?"

[k39zzz]

Pete and Myka are both on screen, apparently in a crowded area. "There're more bodies," says Myka. "They're burnt to a crisp again, but there's still no sign of an actual fire."

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

"No fire? Wait a minute..." Artie sits down, rubbing his forehead with the side of his hand as he tries to think. "No fire, okay, so, there was a... there was a Babylonian battery, it was, uh, unearthed and then lost again in 1952, in Texas, not Missouri, but there was also a rumor that Edward Teller was working on a microfission thing, but I don't think that that--"

[k39zzz]

"Well, here's a wrinkle," interrupts Pete. "There's a handprint on each of the bodies. It's the only part not burned. And our only suspect was one of the victims. It's like he was, I dunno, followed from the police station, Artie."

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

"Oh no, not like he was followed," says Artie. "He. Was. Chased. I don't think these deaths are random."

[k39zzz]

"So maybe somebody at the station last night found the Artifact, whatever it is, and used it to settle some old scores?"

[doyousmellfudge_archive]

"Yeah, okay, you know what? You trace the victims, you see if they've got any enemies, then maybe you can get ahead of this guy before he settles more 'scores.' Okay? Bye." Artie switches off the Farnsworth.

"If that's what it was, which I doubt--" he turns to give the holographic corpse a death glare-- "would it have killed you to leave a note?!"