Chapter Fourteen

Ward and I went straight back to our hotel room after the cafe, and as soon as he shut the door I punched him in the arm.

"What was that for?" he asked, looking at me like I was crazy.

"The girl in the cafe. Don't get too cocky," I said simply, turning around to go into the next room.

"Oh come on. I got the information we needed. Besides," he said, coming to stand in front of me and leaning in, "You have to admit I'm pretty good looking."

I did have to admit that, but not out loud. The whole point of this was to keep his ego from blowing up.

So, instead of agreeing, I said "eh" and shrugged my shoulders as I pushed past him into the next room.

Grant looked shell shocked, but I didn't wait for his reaction before moving on. We had more important things to deal with.

"So," I said, "What did the people in the antique shop say?"

I saw Grant shake his head, then he turned to answer my question.

"They didn't say much that I could use. Mostly they were discussing the blue glow the girl in the coffee shop told us about. But it sounded like the guy wanted to go out to the caves for himself with another group to look for the source. My guess is that group is the source of the chatter that SHIELD picked up on. We might have to be careful when we head out to those caves tomorrow."

"Alright, obvious question here, do you think it's another one of those orbs that we found in Costa Rica?" I asked.

"I mean, it fits the description. But either way we're going to have to be on guard. Whoever that girl you took out was might have friends here in Narsaq."

"I knew we should've insisted that headquarters told us what they found out from her. What if she gave up important information that could help us now?"

"Well, we're just going to have to deal with it," said Grant, crossing his arms, "That's our job."

"What? Going into situations without the information we need because the top brass is being stupid?"

"No. Getting the job done no matter the obstacles."

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.

"Whatever," I said, going to get ready for bed, "Sounds like we're going to have a long couple of days."

"Especially since we have to camp," Ward reminded me.

Ugh. I hate camping.

****************

As I was laying in bed, trying to fall asleep, I kept thinking about the mission waiting for us tomorrow. If the blue orb was anything like the one in Costa Rica, none of our tech was going to be of any use. I resolved to wake up early (insanely early, like earlier than Grant) and sneak down to the antique shop again to pick up anything and everything that could be of some use to us in the field.

****************

It had been so hard to sneak out without waking up Grant! He was such a light sleeper! Thankfully, I had somehow managed to do it, and I had gotten back from the antique store just as he was waking up. I had found and old camera, an old pair of binoculars (can you believe they even put tech in those now?), an old compass, and, just because you never knew what you might need, an old sowing kit. I had told the lady my husband was an antique lover, and I wanted to surprise him. She helped me find everything I needed.

The best part: Ward knew nothing.

Immediately after he woke up, we had headed out into the hills with all our camping gear to find the cave the girl in the coffee shop had mentioned.

"How much farther?" I asked Ward, yelling over the wind as we hiked. We'd been walking for three hours and still hadn't seen any sign of what we were looking for.

"Hopefully not far," he called back.

"Great! Thanks!" He didn't respond.

Finally, after walking for another thirty minutes, we found the cave we'd been looking for.

"The girl in he coffee shop was right so far," said Grant, "No blue light yet."

"Should we go in and check things out or wait until night time?" I asked.

"You tell me," said Ward, turning to me, "You're the one who's supposed to be learning how to be an agent. What would you do?"

"Oh. Uh, well, I think we should go in. Let's scope it out now, while it's light and there's no glow. It can't hurt, and maybe we'll walk in and stumble on something like the orb in Costa Rica without ever having to camp."

Grant grinned. "Good call."

We stashed our camping gear in some bushes and headed in. It was a fairly wide, tall cave at the opening, meaning we didn't have to stoop or use flashlights. Thankfully it was also a straight shot back, meaning no twisting passages to worry about.

"You know Ward," I said, deciding to share some of my thoughts with him, "I still think I made the right call, since checking out the cave for ourselves can't hurt. But if it's this nice, open, non-confusing cave, why hasn't anyone found anything in it before us? It sounds like plenty of people have been looking."

"I was thinking the same thing Slater. We gotta watch our step."

We slowly crept farther into the cave, shining our lights on everything until we got to the very back. We found nothing.

"That's annoying weird," I said as we headed back out to make camp.

"No kidding. Either we just got punked by that coffee shop girl, or something is very off in this place."

We decided to set up camp at the base of the opposite hill. It gave us cover from potential weather, and it was hidden enough that if anyone else came along they wouldn't be able to see us.

We sat huddled outside the tent in our parkas and blankets. I turned to Ward.

"So what now?" I asked.

"We wait."

****************

Turns out, I'm not that great at waiting. We'd been sitting in silence for almost an hour, and I was losing it. What kind of super-human patience did Grant have?

"Is this normal for you?" I asked.

"Is what normal?"

"This. Sitting for hours in complete and total silence."

"Well, considering I do most missions on my own, it'd be pretty weird if I wasn't silent."

I sighed in frustration. "Well, you're not alone now, so let's talk about something. I'm getting bored."

"You want to talk about getting bored?"

"What? No! Well, actually, sure if there's nothing else to talk about, but it's not my first choice."

"Ok, well, what's your first choice?"

"Literally anything else."

I saw Grant shake his head. I expected him to give in and say something, but he didn't. I rolled my eyes. I guess I was going to have to so the hard work with this conversation.

I was tempted to ask about his family again, but I didn't for two reasons. First, I didn't think that would exactly spark a lasting conversation. Second, Grant and I were slowly but surely becoming friends, and I felt that pushing too hard with that topic would bring a quick (and potentially permanent) halt to all the progress we'd made.

I decided to just start talking and see where I went.

"Ok, you can chime in at any time here," I said, giving Ward a pointed look. He didn't respond, so I kept talking, "There's this TV show I'm obsessed with, and I think the official Hardest Thing about being an agent is that I never know where I'm going to be when it's on, so I never know if I'll be able to watch it."

I could see Grant rolling his eyes at my chosen topic, but he wasn't outright stopping me, so I continued.

"I mean, fortunately, I was still at the academy for the duration of this last season, so I got to see everything right as it aired. And the new season hasn't started, so I'm not missing anything yet. But still, what am I going to do if you and I are out here, camping in the middle of nowhere while my show's on?"

I thought for a minute, going silent. Ward probably thought I was done talking, but nope! I had a super power: rambling.

"Is the Quinjet we've been using ours? Like, is it only used by you and I or do other people use it too?" I asked. Grant took a minute to respond.

"It's used by other people. We don't have our own personal Quinjet."

"Well, when you say it like that. Do we always use the same Quinjet?"

"No."

I went on like that for a couple hours, talking to Grant about everything. About my favorite TV show, my favorite books, my favorite movies, occasionally throwing in some questions for Grant to answer. Finally, it started to get dark.

Within minutes of the sun setting completely behind on of the hills, a blue glow started coming from the cave.

"Seriously, that's annoying," I said as Ward and I stood up, "What the heck could be glowing blue in that cave? We searched everything!"

"I know. Let's go find out."

We left our camp where it was, ditching our blankets and parkas for clothes that didn't rustle when you moved. We crept over to the cave, keeping an eye out for anyone who might heading for the same thing we were headed for.

Once we'd made it inside the cave we paused in the entrance behind some rocks, looking out at the hills to see if we noticed anything.

"Doesn't look like anyone's out there," said Ward.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"It still feels like something's going to go wrong," added Ward.

"Yeah."

"Well, there's nothing we can do about that but be on alert. Let's head in."

Slowly but surely we made our way deep into the cave, walking towards the source of the glowing blue light. I quickly checked my scanner and found that it was already getting a static-y readout, just like in Costa Rica.

Eventually, we got to the end of the cave. And guess what? There was a raised rock in the middle of the end of the cave, like a pedestal, and a perfectly round, glowing blue orb was sitting on top of it. Like seriously, where did that come from?

"Ok, that definitely wasn't here before, right?" I asked Grant. I wanted to double check that I wasn't hallucinating.

"No, that definitely wasn't here before. It looks exactly like the one we found in Costa Rica, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. What do you think, should I pick it up like I did with the last one?"

Grant sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't want to move it without trying to figure out more about it. What if this location has something to do with it's power?"

"Well, let's take some pictures and then we can move it."

"We can't take pictures, this thing shorts our all tech," said Ward. I had been waiting for him to say that.

"Well then, it's a good thing I came prepared," I said, pulling out the antique camera I had bought earlier that morning. I moved around the orb and started taking pictures, making sure to get one of the look on Ward's face.

Once I was done, I pulled on a glove and moved closer to the orb.

"Anything else?" I asked. I wanted to make sure we didn't need anything more before I picked up the orb.

"Uh... I don't think so. That was pretty smart. Good job."

"Thanks," I said, absolutely beaming.

"But we need to be careful now. What if picking up the orb sets something off?"

"Like in Indiana Jones?" I asked.

Grant nodded. "Or, if the glow stops when you pick it up, it might tell someone we're here when we don't want them to know."

"Like that guy in the antique shop."

"Bingo. Let's wait and -"

CRASH!

Grant and I froze. The sound had come from somewhere in the cave behind us. We stood perfectly still, listening, but didn't hear anything else.

After a minute, Grant gestured for me to come over to where he was standing. Together we crouched behind a large rock, just out of sight of the rest of the tunnel.

"What do you think that was?" I whispered.

"I don't know," he whispered back, "But I don't think we're alone in here anymore."