Work Text:
The more Woods thought about it as he drove down the Interstate, the more he realized this all started the day of the smoke bomb.
The day had started so…normal. Blissfully normal. It felt good to walk into work and not be expecting another disaster. But then the power went out. Then Matt smelled the smoke. And things just spiralled from there. Woods gripped the steering wheel tighter in aggravation as he recalled that day. On how quickly things escalated from there.
“Woods Woods Woods…I’ll go upstairs, all right? I’ll run upstairs and get everyone out. You’re gonna run and you’re gonna get some gas masks from out here and clear everyone out of the downstairs. Meet me outside.”
It sounded simple enough. Too bad it was anything but.
Sam had followed Woods to the back of Blue Base as Matt raced up the stairs. It took some digging, but they found the masks and immediately put them on, grabbing everyone that came their way and herding them towards the front door. Woods had propped the back door open at one point when the smoke was just too thick, hoping to clear visibility as best he could. It did nothing, however. The entire office was obscured from view. The small light on his cell phone only made it harder to see, like turning on your brights in a fog on the highway. Woods had mentally tallied every employee as they were shuffled out the door.
‘Mike... Kevin... Bailey… Shenelle…’
When they were satisfied everyone had been cleared, they headed quickly for the front door, lifting the gas masks and breathing in much-needed fresh air. They immediately met with Kevin, who informed them that he’d already called the authorities and they were on their way. It was then that they began to do a head count…and realized they were a man short.
“Kevin, where’s Matt.” Kevin looked at Woods, gesturing back to the building.
“He didn’t come out.”
“Hey didn’t come out? He went upstairs!” Realization hit Kevin at that moment as his eyes widened, looking back to the front office door. Woods growled in annoyance as he slid the mask back over his face, running back to the front door without hesitation.
He could hear Sam on his heels but said nothing as the pair ran inside and bounded up the staircase. He stopped, however, when he heard her suddenly gasp and stumble. He turned in a panic, finding her kneeling down on the stairs. She waved it off, telling him she was okay. Between the smell of the smoke and the visibility, she had stumbled, but was okay, ready to keep going. He nodded in agreement, the two clearing the landing and shining their lights in every direction as they shouted for their boss.
“Matt! Matt, where are you? Dammit, where is he?”
The vault was closed. He wasn’t in Sam’s office or their new briefing room. The only room left unchecked was the conference room. God…the smoke seemed worse here. Woods coughed despite the mask, shining his cellphone light in every crevice of the room as he shouted for Matt. He found nothing. That is, until his foot kicked into something on the floor. When he looked down, his heart hit his chest.
“He’s on the ground! Sam, he’s on the ground!” The pair rushed over, Woods kneeling to inspect Matt. He was breathing, thank God. But he was out cold. Woods began shaking him, lightly tapping his face as he did. “Matt…come on, buddy. You gotta wake up. Come on…” Relief flooded Woods as Matt flinched at the contact, slowly coming to. The unconscious haze was quickly replaced with a wince of pain, however, as he reached up to grab his head and groan, falling back to the floor, slowly fading back to sleep.
“No no no…no you don’t.” Woods pulled Matt up to a sitting position, ripping off his mask and sliding it over his boss’ head. It was then that he felt how easily the mask slid across Matt’s head. How wet the back of his hair was. “Dammit, he’s bleeding.”
“Oh God…”
“Sam, drop the rig. Help me get him up.” She quickly complied, helping Woods to pull Matt up to a sitting position so they could slowly ease him to his feet. The man was dead weight in their arms, still struggling with consciousness as they pulled him to his feet, each wrapping an arm around their shoulders. One step forward and Matt swayed in their grip, groaning as he began to sag again before Woods shook him as hard as he could while holding him upright. “Hey hey hey!” Woods said loudly, hoping the shouting and shaking would jar him awake enough to get out the door. “Come on, shake it off. There ya go…one foot in front of the other…” Progress was slow, but they made it to the window beside the door. It was then that movement froze as the smoke outside the room suddenly tinged with a deep red.
“Woods, I think someone’s in here!” Sam was right. And he knew who it was.
‘You sonofa…’
He started toward the door in a blind rage, but he barely made it half a step before he felt the arm around his neck grow heavier. Gritting his teeth in anger Woods hung back, pulling Matt upright again as they waited for the phantom to vanish from sight. They had to let him go. Matt was the priority. The pair waited a few beats before daring to walk out of the room and downstairs. It was slow going, the pair stumbling several times as they helped Matt down them. The closer that they got to the bottom the easier it was to see the outside light brightening the smoke around them. A few more steps and they were out the door. Everyone was in a panic when they saw Matt, the pair gently depositing him on the pavement. Bailey quickly took off her overshirt and folded it, kneeling to place it under Matt’s blood-soaked head as Woods sat down, coughing as he sucked in deep breaths of fresh air.
“He was in there,” Sam said, staring down at Matt in concern. “The phantom or Nelson or whatever. He did this.”
“Is he gone?” Bailey asked.
“I don’t know. But oh God…the RSD...it was in the conference room!” Sam turned back toward the office as she started to pull her gas mask back on, to which Woods quickly stood and grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?”
“We can’t let him get what’s on there.”
“He could still be inside!”
“But the serum…”
“No one else is getting hurt, dammit!” Sam turned, the tone of fear in Woods’ voice causing her to pause. “Sam, please.” Her face softened, nodding to her friend reluctantly.
“Okay. Okay, I won’t.”
That had to have been where it had all started. Woods couldn’t trace the downfall of Project 863 to anything else.
* * *
It had grown dark outside by the time that they’d left the hospital. Matt had been discharged with a concussion and stitches to remember the trip by. He walked between Sam and Woods back to Sam’s car, an ice pack pressed to the back of his head. He looked rough, but he mostly looked pissed. Who could blame him? He got cracked in the head and his business was doused with some chemical or smoke bomb or something. Woods planned to check the air vents later, but right then, Matt was insistent that they go back to the studio and inspect the damage.
“Look, I’m not allowed to go to sleep for a few hours anyway,” he grumbled. “I might as well make sure my business is still standing.” Didn’t Matt ever slow down? It was times like this that Woods thought his boss was a machine that just kept going. He probably never slept anyway; just made a whirring noise and then shut down for a reboot.
Blue Base looked unassuming from the outside. But when they went inside, they could still smell the strange scent the smoke had left behind. The building looked unscathed; nothing trashed or tossed around after they had evacuated. Even when they went upstairs, they found the vault still sealed and the contents safe. But just as Sam had feared, the RSD was on, and zeroed in on the next coordinates they needed to hit. They had lost an entire day; there was no way they would beat him to the location. And it turned out that Woods was right. They arrived to find a busted open concrete hole, the contents empty. The only thing that helped them out was the broken cover that pointed at Deb and Wes.
Woods couldn’t help but feel that if they could have gotten to the location first, if they could have gone back in to find what he was after, they could have cut him off. But he couldn’t risk anyone else getting hurt. Looking back on it, he wondered if that risk would have been worth it. If he’d seen this coming, he would have gone back inside himself. One risky venture back into Blue Base against the lives of everyone in the Valley…dammit, they should have gone back in.
* * *
Two months passed without incident. They worked from home several days each week following the aftermath of Matt’s concussion. The doctor had warned him that he would suffer from concussion-related migraines for three-to-six months, and spells of mild to severe vertigo for one to three months. The migraines were a pressing issue as of late. They weren’t working in the office as much anyway due to COVID, but their boss being down for the count due to his recovery had them working from home even more. It was because of one of those migraines that they missed yet another important moment, unaware that a radioactive spike had gone off in the valley. Again, they missed an entire day, not catching this alert until it was too late.
They investigated but were absolutely confused by everything that they found. Serum spills, strong plant growth (and death,) a strange blue barrel that really shouldn’t have been there…it had to have been the Phantom, but what was he doing? It was while they were on their way back to the office that the email came in on Woods’ phone. It was from John Doe, stating he was sent to help them despite Deb’s warnings to the contrary. The discussion about the email was extensive between the team: Was it real? Was it fake? Was it just a trap? They didn’t know, but they knew how to find out.
They were all on the same page to set up fake coordinates for “John Doe.” They felt strongly that it had to be a set-up, so they decided to play the player. A fake stone slab, a fake location, and a tracker to plant on his car while he was distracted.
Everything was going according to plan when they got there. Everyone got into position, laughter and jokes over snacks passed back and forth over the walkie-talkies…it was all falling in line. But it was when Matt hit the parking lot that things went sideways. They heard the car alarm, and heard Matt asking if the Phantom could hear it. But that was when communication stopped. They briefly heard a static-filled mumble from their boss seconds before a thud, and then nothing. Woods tried repeatedly to get him to answer but was only greeted with silence. It was as the Phantom started to run back toward the car that Woods made a last-minute decision. He clipped the walkie to his pants and turned to Sam.
“Stay here.”
“What…no, don’t go out there. Don’t you…Woods!” He didn’t bother to stop as she shouted after him. He pushed his way through and around the foliage until he cleared the parking lot, immediately scanning the area for Matt. Woods’ blood ran cold as he saw his boss on the ground behind the Phantom’s car, the Phantom slowly walking him.
“Hey!”
The phantom turned sharply at the sound of Woods’ voice. For a split second he seemed ready to step toward him, ready to take on Spellbound’s prop master. But rationale seemed to get the better of him and he quickly turned, running at top speed, abandoning his vehicle. Woods almost followed but again, thought better of it. As with the smoke bomb, Matt was the priority right now. He ran to his boss’ side, easing him up. Matt groaned as he returned to consciousness, leaning heavily on Woods as the man lifted him up to his feet.
“Ugh…so dizzy…”
Another concussion-related dizzy spell. Geez, would this never end?
They’d been compromised. There was no way they could plant the tracker now; either the Phantom might have come back and chosen to get violent, or he would have had the brains to search the vehicle as it was obvious at that point that it had been a trap. Matt didn’t even argue that logic as they helped him back to the vehicle. He was too dizzy and obviously felt too defeated to care. They’d missed another chance. This guy was getting the better of them at every turn and there seemed no way to take back the advantage. The only thing that they could do for the moment was move forward, going through more coordinates on the RSD. They’d thought that over time, they could corner the bastard and take back what he’d stolen. But for now, they continued to move forward.
The trio found a new set of coordinates on the RSD to visit and made the trip. It was a small and rickety old building, almost appearing to have been constructed on the fly. A secret facility? A storage area? It was hard to tell. To the casual eye it looked like any other abandoned building with Syntec logos and stickers scattered around, a camera hanging nearby, and several old photographs that showed this facility in its heyday. Woods thought that they had hit the jackpot with the hidden stash of serum that they found in the wall, but the real jackpot was found with the VHS player in the corner. An old and almost infomercial-style recording played on the TV when they turned the machine on, revealing pending testing for Pegasus. Well...pending at the time of the video, at any rate.
“This thing reads like a bad 90s employee training video,” Matt said with a chuckle. The humor left, however, as the video’s outro rolled to a stop and revealed the address of the location the video was discussing.
“Wait...that’s the address...”
“Finally, we’re getting ahead,” Sam said with a sigh.
“I say we go now.”
Matt turned to Woods as he spoke. “Now?”
“Why not? This is the closest we’ve been to getting ahead of this guy. Plus, we just found close to five hundred...maybe over five hundred...milliliters of serum. We’re on a roll!”
Matt nodded in agreement, looking over at the huge box they had just uncovered. “Good point. We’re already geared up so...let’s go.”
If only Woods had known then what they knew now.
* * *
Geez...this place looked more like a post-apocalyptic bunker than a science lab. Abandoned steamer trunks and cabinets, disheveled cots set up almost like firehouse sleeping quarters, old lab coats and lanyards hung about in various places. But it was everything else that made them all cringe. The lighting, the mesh on the walls that in some places covered up what could only be fingernail scratches and random scribbles of writing, some of which were words of pleading. Of begging for help that never came. Nothing about this place felt scientific. It felt like a torture chamber. That feeling was only exacerbated when they walked into what looked like a vault straight out of the first World War. Rickety shelves, old-school equipment…Woods chuckled as he realized he was practically waiting for the air raid sirens to sound.
"Something doesn't feel right." Woods agreed with Matt. From the second they walked in, that place had felt ominous. Nothing about it felt like a friendly workplace environment people would volunteer to test at. From the underground and secretive feel of the place to the old radios and TV setup… and the device in the corner Matt was looking at had to be serum. But why? What was the real purpose of this place? But as Woods pressed the VCR button, Matt screaming at him not to, he had realized what the point was. And as the door slammed shut, the loud siren and bright lights flooding their senses, they saw the serum device come to life.
A trap. It was a trap for Deb that they'd foolishly stumbled into.
'On a roll huh? On a roll, my ass...'
Everyone was trying to think of a solution. A way out. The panic only grew for all of them as the timer counted down. When it ended and the device in the corner mixed and activated, the change was slow. An arid smell filled the air, but nothing that would be alarming to anyone who didn’t know how deadly this stuff was. Matt hit the ground first. Sam shrieked in concern as Woods rushed over, but he barely made it a few steps before hitting his knees, his vertigo swaying the room violently. Sound muffled, his vision blurred. He could make out the distant thump that he assumed was Sam collapsing as well. Woods tried to shout for his friends but found no sound forming. The last thing he remembered was the genuine fear of death as his head hit the ground, darkness overtaking him.
So, this was how he died. In his twenties, on the cold floor of a long-forgotten lab.
He had no idea how long they had been out. When he came to, he found Sam sitting up beside Matt. Their boss was still unconscious, another wound to the back of his head causing blood to coat the lab coat that Sam had apparently grabbed to put pressure on it. The second Woods tried to stand and assist them, the wave of nausea hit so powerfully that he doubled over, hand bracing against the wall as he tried to steady himself. He felt like death. God, what had that serum done to them?
* * *
The months that followed were difficult. All of them were sick to varying degrees. Matt not only dealt with the effects of the serum, but also another head injury on the tail of a concussion that had just started to heal. This caused the symptoms to resurface. Sam was dealing with constant migraines and spells of blacking out. Woods found that the clinical term for his issue was known as Hyperemesis, a typical pregnancy symptom, where nausea and vomiting are so consistent and fierce that they interfere with everyday life and can sometimes lead to hospitalization. But the hospitals couldn’t have helped anyway. The doctors hadn’t known what the cause of it was for any of them. But they knew. Their immediate hospitalization after the 911 call that day at Location Three proved useful for Matt’s injury, but fruitless when it came to their newfound serum exposure. Their blood samples were being sent to a lab that was God knows where and would take ages for them to analyze and most likely, with no real result. It was then that they decided to escape the hospital together. Doctors could never understand what was brewing in their system. There was no point in drawing out their stay.
If only Matt had allowed them to go in and back him up when they found that serum bomb all those months later. They all would have been stabilized, not just him. They couldn’t have known that would happen, however. But you know…hindsight…
* * *
They should have seen it coming. But in truth, the changes were slow. From his wardrobe to his demeanour, Nelson emerging through their boss was so subtle that while they knew something was wrong, they could never have predicted it would be this. Besides, with Sam and Woods still felt off from the serum exposure; they weren't exactly clear headed to catch the change. It didn't stop the anger or the guilt when Nelson took off that mask.
Woods should have known. He should have somehow seen this coming. If they had not been exposed to the serum, they wouldn't have stayed so sick. Or if they had least been in that U-Haul truck with Matt, they could have been in better shape to stop this all from happening. They would have been there for more of the investigation. They would have been with Matt and Bailey the day they found the police car. They would have known about the Cypher. Or the hard drive in the server. Getting there late due one being too dizzy to drive and one with their head perpetually buried in the toilet had kept them out of so much. And as a result, the endgame was altered.
They were left bound on the floor of Blue Base. Bailey was separated from them, and escorted out by Ben. They knew why. They knew what was going to happen. But by the time they had gotten loose, gotten to Mike, and tracked down the location, they were too late. They were halfway from the car to the Spire when they watched the pulse radiate outwards from its peak, spreading across the valley as if a shockwave from a bomb. It blew through them and for a second Woods' stomach bottomed out in fear, waiting for the inevitable conversion. But it never came. He looked at Sam, who clearly still had her faculties as well.
"I... did it work?" Woods shrugged at Sam's question. Maybe it hadn't. Maybe Nelson failed. But as the hatch opened and Bailey crawled out, walking toward them with blank eyes at a snails' pace, as people in cars along the road came to a stop and got out to do the same thing, the fear returned. It had worked.
The city was under Nelson's control. And they were mindlessly marching straight toward Sam and Woods.
"Car," Woods ordered stretching an arm out in front of Sam and backing them up and away from the gathering horde. "Now!"
They barely made it to the car before people had surrounded it from every direction. As Sam turned the ignition the car began rocking with the force of the bodies shaking and pounding on it.
"Drive!"
"Where's Bailey?" Sam's voice was panicked. "I don't wanna hit Bailey!"
"Sam, just go!" Sam put the car in reverse, easing back as fast as she dared to avoid injuring anyone while pushing through the crowd. At one point the pounding horde managed to crash through the back passenger window, eliciting a scream from Sam as she put the car in drive and floored the gas. People were flung from the car from every direction, unable to hold on as the car sped down the road. Neither of them breathed until they were a safe distance away, the last of the mind-controlled group on the hill a distant vision in the rearview.
Sam pulled over after a while to let Woods drive; she was too shaken to focus on it. They had tried to reach out to everyone on their contact lists that was in the area, but none of them would answer. They turned their phones off and drove in silence, processing what had happened. The Spire had activated. Everyone was under Nelson’s control. Everyone but the two of them. Serum in their system, but not stabilized. Ready for control, but not able to be controlled. As a result, they were the only two people in the valley that had escaped the blast. They were alone.
They toyed with the idea of going back to the studio, disassembling Mega Desk, and loading it into Matt’s van before fleeing the city. But reality quickly set in. Nelson had control of Matt. He’d be using him to monitor the studio, its alarm systems, everything. The second their fobs hit any door Nelson would be on them.
So, there it was: no friends, no family, no Deb. They’d been cut off from everyone. They were all that was left.
Even as they drove through town, they saw no traces of life. Abandoned cards on the road, restaurants with half-eaten meals left to rot...the place was a ghost town. The silence around them was deafening. Woods just kept driving until they reached the first ATM they could find to drain all their money from their accounts, quickly making for the state line. And as Woods crossed it, Sam turned to him.
"Where do we go?”
“I don’t know.” Woods wished that he had a better answer. “As far away from California as we can.”
“But that was our home.” Woods glanced into the rearview mirror as Sam spoke, looking at the disappearing Welcome sign for California as they sped down the interstate. His chest burned with a mix of rage, sadness, guilt, and grief, as he responded.
“Not anymore.”