❀❀❀ ⓒⓗⓐⓟⓣⓔⓡ ⓔⓛⓔⓥⓔⓝ ❀❀❀

      ┅ Ⓑ ┅    

◆ MILES ◆

After grabbing a shirt from the lockers in the training rooms, I run back down to Will's office to get the latest vial. Third drawer on the right. I find it in its usual package and pull it out, but the other contents of the drawer catch my attention and I find myself reaching for the picture in there and some files.

The picture is of him and Gemma, dated a year ago, precisely on her birthday. They're both posing with the birthday cake in front of them and drinks in their hands and they both look happy, the happiest I've ever seen Will is when he's around her. When this is all over I'm going to make it my personal responsibility to get my friend to grow some balls and confess to the girl.

I pull out another file, immediately recognizing the name on it: Emily Davies.

It was an old case, one of the earliest missions we were sent on when we were just twenty three, three years ago, and that case was a disaster.

"Miles! Miles!" Will frantically called for me. "Do something, help her!"

I was pulling him to his feet, urging him to get up and save himself before we all die in here.

"Will, she's gone. I'm so sorry but we have to go, we have to go now!" I told him.

"I can't," he fell to his knees after he had gotten up. "I can't. I promised her father I'd get back his girl safely. I promised him, Miles! You have to help me-

"Will, look around! We have to leave, come on," I pulled him to his feet again and he reluctantly let go of the girl. Everywhere around us was open gunfire, we had walked into a trap and by the looks of it; no one was getting out alive.

"Miles! Watch out!" I was pushed to the side as a bullet snapped by and pierced Will's shoulder. I had my protective bullet proof vest on, he didn't.

He knew that if he hadn't pushed me away I wouldn't have been badly affected, neither of us would have.

He knew that, yet he still pushed me away and took a bullet for me.

We lost so many, Will himself almost died that night, and he still tortures and blames himself for the death of the little girl, Emily. It wasn't his fault; X8 are the only ones to blame for it all, and for the situation we're in right now.

I shake my head to clear my thoughts, no point to dwell on events of the past now, then I pick up the item I came here to get and leave. I find Luke waiting at the labs at the headquarters of ISIA, even though he's not part of The Agency, everyone here has accepted his presence and they treat him as one of our own... mostly.

"Finally!" he exclaims as soon as I walk in. "The place is a mess, what's going on? They told me the hospital is under lockdown and I can't reach Will."

"It's bad," I lean against the door, holding my laptop in one hand and rubbing my temple anxiously with the other. And then I proceed to tell him a summarized version of the latest events as I gather a few other items I might need from the lab.

"Now I need to go back, examine the body and compare a sample to the ones I've previously worked on, let's hope we get a match," I tell him, not that he was responding anyway.

The guy was in shock and I can't blame him, I've just dropped a load of bad news in the span of five minutes. He opens his mouth to speak, then snaps it shut with a sigh. Then with a little more success he manages to say something that I don't quite catch, his voice was barely audible. He walks to the nearest chair and plops himself down.

"Hey," I walk to him and snap my fingers in front of his face. "Luke!" I say a little louder and his eyes jerk up to mine. "We don't have time to waste, Will doesn't have time. I know it's a lot to process but I need your help right now."

He nods, "yeah, sure. Let's go."

✿

The street in front of the locked hospital entrance was swarming with news-reporters.

'As you can see, the Grace Valley's main door is shut as well as the A&E doors, we cannot reach anyone on the inside, it's the same hospital where the kidnapped girl was staying, we dont know if this is related to her or not,' a reporter was documenting. 'We are still awaiting someone from the inside to talk to us. Is this an attack? An epidemic? A malfunction? What are they keeping from us?-"

"Fuck this shit! Why are they here now?" I curse as we quickly divert our direction to a back entrance.

"You think they'd miss this?" Luke replies, motioning around. "But how did they know anyway?"

"I don't know, someone else can deal with the media, my plate is fucking full."

The back door wasn't guarded, simply because it required three different sets of passwords and an access card that only those who worked in the hospital or was part of The Agency had.

"You're a complicated bunch," Luke mutters as I enter the last pass code.

Once we're inside, I thrust my laptop and papers in his arms, "the labs are on the third floor, set the place and I'll call you as soon as I examine the body, I want you to run the details I'll give you in the database, let me know if you get a match. And here," I pull out a spare phone I grabbed on our way out of The Agency, and hand it to him. "Your phone won't work, but this one will."

"Like I said, complicated bunch but you have impressive gadgets," he comments. "What about Will?"

"What about him?"

"Is he alright?"

"I honestly don't know Luke," I sigh. "We'll get started on an antidote and then check up on him okay?"

"Yeah, okay," he nods and takes the stairs two at a time and I head the other direction.

✿

"Sir!" I heard someone call as I hastily put on a protective gear before entering the examination room where Jennet's, now dead, body was. "Doctor Shaw, wait."

I turn around to find one of the doctors running towards me, with some sheets in hand. He comes to a stop before me, and pauses to catch a breath before speaking, "We've tested them all," he waves the paper in front of my face for emphasis. "They were all negative; no one caught it except for the fiancé, David, and Agent William Terrell. They tested positive."

Just what I wanted to hear. 

Fucking fantastic. 

I'm thrilled.

"What about the other tests I asked for? The biopsies and such, are they done?" I ask.

"Mostly, yes," he hands me the papers and I quickly scan them.

"Great, could you please deliver them to Doctor Lucas Kessler, he's in the labs upstairs."

.

.

I examine the body; some notes I write, some I record, all the while trying not to have a breakdown at the sight. If the circumstances were different and I wasn't racing against time to save my best friend, maybe then I would've had a mental breakdown, maybe even a fit of anger and a whole lot of sorrow over the loss of an innocent life to something so cruel. But this was no time for overwhelming emotions, I was just panic ridden as I frantically scribbled down some notes, trying not to look at the body for too long or imagine it being someone else's. Having gathered enough information, I hurry back upstairs to Luke, feeling relieved to be out of that room.

✿

"There's a match!" Luke exclaims. "Just not quite ... exact? Come here Milo, look at this."

I look at the screen; the strand we got was indeed similar to one I've worked on before, meaning there is a readymade antidote and cure. But this was a modified form of it, meaning that the antidote needs to be modified as well.

"It'll take some time," I say. "But definitely not as much time as it would if we were starting from scratch. Let's get this-

I was interrupted by my ringing cellphone. It was Gerard; the world's loveliest boss.

"Shaw, where are you? I was told you're here at the hospital," he starts.

"I'm in the labs," I inform him.

"Good, meet me in the meeting rooms downstairs in two minutes."

Are you fucking kidding me? A meeting. Now?

"But-

"No buts, this is urgent. Now!" he doesn't give me another chance to speak as he hangs up.

I really, really hate the entire world right now.

"He's called a meeting," I tell Luke. "A fucking meeting in this chaos."

"His voice was audible through the phone," he replies. "I heard him. Go check what's the urgent matter and come back so we can finish this, I don't want to mess your work up if I do it alone."

"You're coming with me anyway," I say. "If you see me reaching for my gun, I want you to stop me before I kill Gerard, okay?" 

He looks at me like I'm joking. I wasn't... at least not entirely. 

"I'm not part of The Agency, I can't attend your meetings," he reasons.

"Yeah, but you're working with me on this so your presence is valid. Anyway, who cares? Let's go and get this over with." 

✿

So there was a meeting. A full on proper meeting with people, senior agents that only appear in critical situations, around a table looking calm and collected with cups of coffee in front of them, as if this was just another normal day at work. 

It was like having a meeting with sixteen Gerards. The joy is indescribable.

Or was it just me, was I overreacting? I certainly don't think so.

"What exactly are we looking at here?" one of them spoke.

Thankfully, I did drag Luke along, who would occasionally elbow me, not so lightly, to remind me that the sentence for homicide is fifteen plus years and it's not worth it. I can't kill Gerard.

"A possible worldwide epidemic," I put as much emphasis on each word as I could, hoping I could get the message across.

A look of panic washed over everyone.

"Have you encountered this certain thing in your researches before? Gerard briefly explained what you have been assigned to do for the past few years, working in secret on producing neutralizers."

'Assigned to do.' Yeah sure.

I walk to the other end of the room, facing everyone and begin explaining. "It's a genetically altered form of one I've already seen, the incubation and prodrome periods have been significantly reduced. This one was engineered to express a filovirus protein; which explains its hemorrhagic presentation."

"We don't speak stethoscope Miles! What does this mean?" Gerard asks what everyone was thinking. "In English," he adds.

My bad.

"Normally, the time between exposure and death is an average of 12 to 24 days but this new strain has reduced it, based on some hasty calculations I've made I'd say it's been reduced to just four days, probably less... we don't have much time to carry out precise tests. The body of the infected, however, stops responding to any medications 24 hours before death, and  if my calculations are right with this modified strain then that leaves them with only an average of 48 hours."

"And what was that other thing about flavorless proteins?" someone else asks.

"Flavorless?" I meet Luke's gaze across the room, he was the only one in here who understood what I was talking about and right now he was trying hard not to laugh. "Have you ever attended a biology class in your life?" I couldn't help but say. 

Gerard looked mortified that I was speaking in this manner to 'my seniors', or as he would say, without any manners.

"Anyway," Luke coughs to divert everyone's attention from the sudden tension in the room. "Never mind the medical details. Milo- Miles and I will take care of that."

"You do have a vaccine for this right?" the only woman in the room asks. Her name was Beatrice I think. She seemed like the female counterpart of Gerard; old, wrinkly, thinks she's intimidating and doesn't like to be disobeyed. Overall, intolerable.

"Not this strain, no," I reply.

"And this person, the one who's been helping you, didn't send anything about this?"

I can only tolerate so much stupid questions. With a lot of effort not to roll my eyes at her, I reply "Obviously, they didn't."

A knock on the door interrupts their flow of questions.

"Ah, Doctor Norman," Gerard beams as a man enters the room. The room erupts in a series of greets and exchanged laughs as they welcome Doctor Norman in. Like they've all gathered here for a tea party with Doctor fucking Norman and not to discuss a possible lethal virus outbreak.

Like my best friend is not dying three floors down.

Like I'm not so close to pull out my hair in frustration.

"We're wasting time!" I whisper to Luke. "I can't believe what they're doing right now!"

Gerard approaches Luke and I with Doctor Norman following closely behind. The bald man wears nothing about his personality on his face, his unblinking blue eyes were watching me curiously as they approached. He was dressed formally in a fancy suit, and clearly he was a well-known person among this crowd, he walked in an authoritative manner that seemed to intimidate even Gerard.

"Doctor Norman, this is Agent Miles Shaw, he's a chief medical examiner and the one with most information regarding the case, he's also Agent William's working partner, the sick agent," Gerard introduces. I put on a fake smile and shake hands with the man. "Miles this is-

"And I'm Lucas Kessler," Luke interrupts Gerard, having him not shown any interest in his presence at all. "Not part of The Agency but a doctor at Saint Luke's Hospital."

This seems to have piqued Norman's interest. "Oh? Do you happen to be related to the owner of the hospital, Doctor Raymond Kessler?"

"He's my father actually," he replies proudly and Gerard looks outraged and devastated to have missed being the one to introduce Luke in the first place if he had known that his important guest would be interested.

"Fascinating," Norman nods. He looks impressed. "We sure should have a talk some time, after we deal with the situation at hand."

At least he acknowledged the existence of a fucking situation.

"As I was saying," Gerard clears his throat. "This is Doctor Norman Coombs," he continues his previously interrupted introduction. He levels his gaze at me as he speaks, "Doctor Norman works with the IMC and has dealt with similar situations of pandemic outbreaks before and he will be the one in charge of this case," he looks at Norman as he continues, "I might have forgot to mention but Agent Miles is currently off The Agency and is discontinued from work until further notice."

Oh for fucking fuck's sake I should've killed Gerard when I had the chance ten minutes ago. 

"What does that mean?" Luke questions.

"It means that Miles is going to pass on the case, his reports and examination to Doctor Norman and he will no longer interfere." 

I wasn't surprised by this but I was furious.

"But I have this under control," I reply as calmly as I could manage. "And if it wasn't for the call of this meeting I would've been closer to finding a cure, I don't see why you're doing this?" and then I add hastily, "with all due respect to you sir and Doctor Norman of course."

"Miles I understand your concern over your friend and that you'd want to deal with this yourself but if we go on with this argument we're only wasting time, time that William doesn't have, so if you could please hand over your reports to Doctor Norman so he could proceed with his testing before we lose someone else."

He was right just about one thing, we're wasting time.

"Alright then, here's my report," I clear my throat. "The disease is highly pathogenic and contagious, upon examination of patient beta, assuming that Jennet was in fact patient zero, it was found that the pulmonary sac was filled with blood, along with severe pulmonary congestion in the lungs, necrosis of the kidney, liver was in bad condition; possibly autolysis, engorged spleen and her eyes were jaundiced. We don't know when exactly she became infected so the mean survival time is not accurate but I believe it's a four-day period. Good luck Doctor Norman, I hope you remember everything I said," Everyone was staring at me like I've lost my mind; I shoot Gerard a look of disgust and walk out of the room before anyone gets the chance to respond.

Luke follows shortly behind, barely controlling his laughter.

"You almost gave Gerard a cardiac arrest," he comments. "Honestly, how do you and Will manage to not get kicked out with this attitude?"

I snort at that, "Because they need us and they know it."

✿

We were back at the labs and Luke looks mildly surprised that I'm not packing my bags and fleeing after what just happened.

"I'm already temporary suspended from work and I know they will not completely debar me, so what's the worst that can happen now? Besides, did you really think I was going to hand over Will's life just so that Gerard and fucking showcase his bullshitted authority and impress some well-known doctor friend of his?"

Putting it that way may lead others to think that The Agency is corrupted and runs for power, but it's far from that.

When ISIA was first created a decade ago, it's only aim was to take down a terrorist organization that had just begun to spread its criminal activity internationally. It was decided that forces from all over the world should align together and form one strong coalition to stand in the face of that growing criminal organization, which was then named X8. ISIA secretly began picking certain individuals from different countries and putting them under various tests to prove their efficiency.

William and I got in differently though. We weren't chosen like the others; we kind of forced our way in. Well... to be more accurate, I hacked their system and Will punched someone's face and then we were accepted. Which resulted in either utmost respect or hate from others, depends on how you viewed it.

But that was a long time ago; we were all young and confused back then, each individual thought of themselves as a superhero, sought out to save the world, and we worked extra hard to prove ourselves in all the wrong ways. We worked against each other, rather than together. We were all selfish, bitter and competitive until we realized that we were put together to work together, that we were all serving the same mandate at the end and that we were all special and strong and worthy.

The Agency then grew to be the largest criminal police organization, with linked headquarters and safe houses in almost every country across the globe. We have authority and jurisdiction over any police force, in any country. But over time, ISIA became infiltrated with those who were just covetous for the position and power, their aim was not to help, but to rise in ranks until they were far at the top that no one would dare question their felonious actions. Although they are not the majority, they still pose a threat towards the agency as a whole. The greater part of The Agency, though, is filled with people who would die for each other, male and female all the same, everyone is treated as family and more.

Gerard falls somewhere in the middle; he wants to do good but his greed for supremacy sometimes overpowers that, and he appears like the asshole person he is. It makes him seem like he's forever fighting an internal battle of good and evil and maybe this explains his aggressive behavior towards everyone.

"Earth to Miles," Luke calls, bringing me out of my thoughts. "We have work to do before your boss kicks us both off the face of this planet."

✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿

A/N

Thank you to anyone who takes their time to read, comment and vote. It really means a lot so thanks a million guys!! ♥ 

I think Miles wasn't getting enough screen time so voila! A just-Milo chapter. I hope it was a good one.

Opinions? :)

3.12.17