Chapter Twenty-One

A/N: 2,000 reads! Gah!!! Thank you so much!!

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As the elevator raced down to who knew where and Grant fixed his hair, I decided to do a scan of the areas now that we were under ground.

"Holy crap. Grant, come look at this," I said, motioning to my scanner. It showed miles of passageways with multiple levels, like a life-sized ant hill. We'd stumbled on a secret base.

"You better not touch my hair again or— oh boy. This is big," he said, taking the scanner from my hands for a closer look.

"What do we do?" I asked.

"Our jobs." Grant put the scanner away. "We go down there and observe everything, we don't get caught, and then we decide what the appropriate course of action should be."

"Alright," I said, "But we might be kinda hard pressed to go unnoticed."

"We'll deal with it. That's what we were trained to do."

"What if someone's waiting for us when we get off the elevator?"

"Then we'll deal with them too."

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Fortunately, there was no one waiting when we got off the elevator. By some miracle we had managed to come all the way down here unnoticed. We quickly stashed our parkas and other long-term survival gear in an air vent by the elevator and found a few spare uniforms in a closet, keeping our tactical gear hidden underneath lab coats.

"Alright, let's start to the left," said Ward, "There are some weird fluctuations coming from that direction."

I nodded and we headed off, careful to blend in. We walked deeper and deeper into the secret base, trying to look as confident and busy as possible, and no one gave us a second glance. I was having a lot of fun, my heart hammering out of my chest, but we still hadn't found anything of interest.

Finally, Grant managed to steal the pass of one of the scientists we passed. We immediately used it to break into the nearest high-security room.

We were not disappointed.

All around us were gadgets and scientists and orbs. It looked like an evil lair straight out of a Bond movie.

"C'mon," said Grant, motioning for me to follow him as he moved off to the right to inspect the nearest table.

Grant started picking up anything in sight, inspecting it while trying to listen to any nearby conversations. I decided to try a different tactic.

I straightened my back and lifted my nose slightly in the air, then marched haughtily towards the nearest scientist.

"Give me an update," I demanded, trying to ignore Grant's Are you stupid? glare.

""Well, uh, we got a positive result from our final testing phase. Localized technology disruption was possible at all locations. When we join up the orbs world wide, we should be able to cause power outages and pandemonium anywhere we want, any time we want," answered the scientist.

I tried not to gulp. "Any problems?"

"Well, unfortunately, yes. Our technology combined with the alien technology is in high demand, and several orbs have been stolen by unseen thieves."

"I see two right here."

My head snapped up at the voice of the newcomer, and I was face to face with the girl Grant and I had caught in Costa Rica.

"Crap," I muttered, frozen in place.

"Crap is right," she said, a smile slowly spreading across her face, "Especially now that you know what we're doing with the orbs. We can't very well let you leave to tell the world about us. But first, I'm going to make you tell me all about SHIELD."

I wish I could say I fearlessly looked her in the eye and laughed, but honestly, I was scared. The way she looked at me left no doubt in my mind that she was planning to torture every last secret out of me, and then some. Fortunately, Grant stepped in before anyone could notice my shaking hands.

"Yeah, that's not happening," he said, wrapping one hand around my waist and pulling me towards the wall with him. That way we'd only have enemies in a 180 degree area instead of 360.

"You're right. I can see now that it'd be much more effective if I tortured her to get you to talk," she said to Grant. Then, to a few soldiers who were filing through the door, "Take them alive."

As the soldiers began moving towards us and Grant and I dropped into fighting positions, I remembered myself. I was a SHIELD agent. Fighting, I could do.

I smiled.

"Why the hell are you smiling?" asked Grant.

"Because this is exactly like something out of my spy novels."

I heard Grant scoff as he launched himself at the nearest soldier. I did the same, feeling like a total ninja as I punched and kicked my way through anyone who came close.

Grant and I worked together perfectly. We were finally kicking ass as a team.

We made pretty quick work of the few soldiers in the room, managing to bar the door before any more could get in. The scientists and he girl had left the room when the fighting started, so Grant and I were more or less alone in the room.

"We have to destroy the lab," he said.

"Say no more." I smiled and pulled some of the explosives we'd brought from a secure pouch on my belt.

"Perfect."

"Here," I said, passing them to Grant, "You set these up. I'm going to get the soldiers out of the blast room."

"Seriously?" asked Grant.

"Yeah... why?"

"They're the bad guys."

"Yes, and we're the good guys, which means we save lives regardless."

Grant looked at me thoughtfully, then shrugged. "I'm not going to stop you."

I rolled my eyes and started dragging the unconscious soldiers into a blast-proof test room off the main lab. Like he could stop me. Pft.

"Almost done?" I asked Grant once I'd finished.

"Yeah. Go pull whatever you can off the computers and by the time you're finished I will be, too."

"Have you thought about how we're going to get out of here?" I asked.

"I'm a little busy with explosives at the moment, but we're probably just gonna have to fight our way out."

"Hmm..." I said, scanning the room while the files downloaded.

Suddenly, I was struck with a brilliant idea as my eyes landed on the air vent grate.

"Grant, what if we went through the vents? Like where we stashed our gear?"

"Like in a stereotypical spy movie?"

"Like in a sticky situation where your partner has a brilliant idea."

Grant snorted. "You're not my partner, you're my trainee. But the vents might not be a terrible idea."

"They're a great idea." He didn't respond, probably because he was focused on setting a bomb.

"Alright, it's set," he finally announced, "Let's go."

Grant pulled the cover off the vent and went first. I climbed in, and I'll admit, it was a little tight. Thankfully, neither of us was claustrophobic.

The bomb was set to a switch that Grant had, so we didn't need to worry about he explosion going off while we were still in the vents, but we did need to get safely away and blow the place up before someone could disarm the bomb.

The vents were an absolute maze, but by some miracle, Grant got us back to the elevator we came down in and all of our long-term gear.

"Finally. Let's get out of here," said Grant.

By some miracle, we actually made it to the elevator without being attacked.

Once we got back to ground level I made a beeline for the door, but Grant was still by the elevator.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Setting charges on the elevator."

"Why?"

"Because then no one can follow us back up..."

"... So they can't follow us! Nice!"

"Uh-huh. And then no one can escape before we call SHIELD back here to pick all of them up along with us."

I had to give it to Grant, sometimes he had some seriously brilliant ideas.

But I'd never say that out loud.

"Alright, let's get clear," said Grant. We walked until we were safely out of the blast zone of the shed, then Grant flipped the switch.

BOOM!

The shed went up in a big, beautiful explosion.

"Woah," I said, unable to stop the smile slowly spreading on my face.

"Yeah. Let's get out of here," said Grant, pulling out the SAT phone.

I watched the bright fires of the explosion be put out by the icy Siberian winds as I waited for Grant to talk to the Quinjet pilot. I didn't hear anything for a while, then Grant threw down the phone.

"Dammit!" he yelled.

"What? What's wrong?" I asked, trying to calm him down. He was pacing back and forth, anxiously running his hands through his hair.

"The orbs must've been activated in the explosion. The phone's not working."

"What?" I exclaimed. Now it was my turn to panic.

"We'll have to walk towards friendly territory and hope the phone starts working once we're far enough away from here," he said.

"Grant! It's below freezing! Friendly territory is Finland or the embassy in Moscow, both of which are extremely far away! We are not prepared for this! I don't know if anyone could do this without dying!"

"We'll make it work."

"But-"

"Samantha, we don't have another option. We have to make it work. We're SHIELD agents, we'll find a way to survive. It's what we do."

I shook my head, trying to get ahold of myself as Grant pulled out his compass. I'd memorized some emergency stats, and Finland was closest, but it was still almost 2,000 miles away. It would take us months to get there, and we'd probably die first, but Grant was right. We didn't have another option.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready," I answered, trying to give the most confident nod I could. We set out into the cold wind and icy plains, and I promised myself not to go anywhere below freezing ever again if we survived this.