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Nick smirked as the mission played before his eyes. Yeah, he was stuck here, and yeah, this was the perfect mission he was forced to sit out on. The fact they were all at the Playboy Mansion, in revealing outfits that displayed their sleek bodies, toned from years of training, about killed him.

Still, things could be worse for him. If he had to monitor the video feeds, at least he could focus on the girls. JC was on a mission now as well, but Nick couldn’t care less about that at the moment. Truly, the only other downer was the fact that the southern CIA agent who had quickly become a thorn in his side was on the mission with the girls, too. He was sure Brian would end up taking over the mission eventually, and with what was involved, the government would take it and execute a cover-up. He bet his life on that one. That one simple fact was what really made his skin crawl.

"Heh, at least Emerald's having 'fun time' with Hefner," he commented with a snicker as he stood, now bored at the lack of action. Here he was, in Pearl's laboratory; surely he could find something to interest him more. His eyes scanned the various screens, displaying all the 00-ranking missions of the moment, and if he wanted, he could pull up lower agent assignments as well. The ladies were all on display for him to view with pleasure, and JC was for him to ignore. He grinned; there could be worse things he could be doing then. "And the angels are lovely as always..."

Nick paced around the lab, humming a tune to himself before he started to sing on a whim. "My beautiful woman... B is for beautiful as the sunshine..." He eyed a fedora. No, had to be a weapon for Jay. The man would sleep with the things if it didn't ruin them. "E tells me everything's feeling alright..." He continued to sing, that being something for the moment. Then he saw more intricate items, like a diamond ring. He picked it up to examine. "A-" A laser shot from the "diamond." "-Aaah!" He dropped it back on the time. "A goes to U and me, swinging in time."

That was when he spotted it. A bra, but not just any bra. A fully automated bra he’d heard Diamond say Pearl had been rumored to be creating. According to Jay, of course. He grinned as he picked it up. A D-cup. It had to be for Diamond; who else could it be for? Because of the weaponry, the bra was firm, even without actual breasts filling it. He quickly glanced around. "T is two... I want you!" He put it on over his shirt.

He laughed at his own reflection upon the metal tables. "Uuuuuuu've got me acting like a fooooooooo-" The blonde man danced to the mental beat he had going. No one could see him anyway. He rubbed the bra.

As he did, flashing lights began to go off. Small, tubular devices emerged from where the nipples would be. Within moments, a complete round of angry bullets began firing off around the room. "-oooSHIIIIIIIIIT! Shit! Shitty shitballs! Okay... um... okay, fuck, how the hell do I turn this thing off!?" He aimed his new chest to the other side of the room, away from the computers. If any of those were lost, Pearl would have him slaughtered.

"Fucky fuck. Fuck a duck!" He aimed the chest away as it began to bounce off the metal coated walls. Bouncing bullets were making it worse. They bounced around, lodging in anything that could absorb them. One raced through the fedora; another bounced off the ring and melted, thanks to the miracle chance the laser diamond went off. One hit a picture frame. One grazed the computer desk, and Nick almost had a stroke until he saw it had missed the computer. He shifted down, hoping the floor could take it.

"Niiiick... oh my... down!" Lancy could be heard on the other side of the room, going to the floor as the bra raged out of control. Unfinished, it was now choosing the direction instead of Nick.

"What in the hell’s blazes is going on down here, Carter?!" he heard his superior yell as he, too, dove for the floor to avoid being shot with the firing squad Nick called a bra.

A few more shots rang out, before smoke filtered from the ejected revolver-styled bra nipples, and the device finally shut down. Nick threw it upon the floor, ignoring the damage he had just caused. "Nothing, K, just an incident, but I, um... handled it."

His secretary just grinned widely. "Cross-dressing looks fabulous on you."

"Nick... how... why...?" K shook his head in disgust. "Never mind. I don't want to know."

"K-"

"I never knew you were the type, Nicky."

Nick rolled his eyes at Lancy. This... looked bad. K was going to have him killed one of these days. The younger agent was willing to bet again that it'd be one of the Kentucky cousins who did him in, in the end, rather than Drums.

"There's an explanation for this, K, and-"

"I DON'T want to know. Somehow, someway, clean this mess up and monitor the cameras like you were assigned to! And if you don't, then I will NOT hold Pearl responsible for what she does to you because of this." K stormed out, confused as to why Nick had even tried on the bra to begin with. 00Carter was one of the best agents he had, but times like this made him question if the blonde was worth the trouble that was always doomed to follow him.

Nick glanced at Lancy, who had picked up the bra and was examining it. "Wow, original design taken from Victoria’s Secret –
not just smart, but lovely fashion sense." He hopped into a chair beside the one Nick was resting in now. The latter’s heart was still thumping crazily after that incident, and he gazed at Lancy. "Ooh, who ya spying on? Squee! Diamond! I'm so watching for you. Oooh, look at that hottie near the grotto. Le sigh, I soooo need a vacay, Nicky."

Agent 008 just released a sigh and watched the screen. It was getting interesting again, and besides, he could clean the lab later. She couldn't get too mad, right?

That question was immediately answered as her face appeared upon the main screen moments later. She was seen playing with an amulet from another camera, which was her own disguised communicator back to HimTak. It was a large, Celtic-styled charm with soft jewels around the edges. The design was a hologram to hide the video screen, and the jewels were truly buttons. She gazed into it on her end of the connection to see Nick, standing there, looking extremely sheepish, with Lancybassy beside him. Both were trying to block the view of the lab, but they couldn't. They couldn't begin to hide the view of her now completely wrecked laboratory. After an assignment that had pulled her away from her gadgets, involving something she thought wasn't rational because she believed firmly there was another, more scientific explanation, and stuck her in stilettos and skimpy outfits, this was the last straw.

That was when Professor Pearl finally snapped.

"Now Kit..." Nick used an old pet name for her, one from before her alias. He definitely had caused whatever had happened.

"What...the... hell... did you DO TO MY LAB?!"

"I can explain..."

"NICK! You know how much my lab, my creative space, my haven, means to me. K has you down in there, I'm betting to watch the feed, and THIS is what happens?!"

"Nick was cross-dressing!" snickered Lancy, who hoped the calm down the top scientist with humor. An elbow slammed against him, directed from his boss, and an evil, icy blue stare came along with it.

Her eyes narrowed. "You did not do what I think you did."

"You still love me..."

"You're pushing it."

"Come on, Pearl!"

"Are you kidding me?! I almost had all the kinks out of the bra, and you just put me back on square one, PLUS almost destroyed my lab, my sanctuary!"

He could see her eyes narrow with anger; frustration was clearly written on her face. Nick hadn't seen her that angry or upset since her first mission with Chasez. "I'm sorry, really, really sorry. I'll have it clean before you get back-"

"I can't believe you did this!"

"Now Professor, Nicky did do it by accident. Who could blame him for cross-dressing...?"

"Stay out of it, Lancy."

The flamboyant and talkative secretary got silent at the sight of the fuming scientist.

"You... are so dead, Nick." She sounded serious, looked furious, but he could see the smile she was trying so hard to hide, the amusement in her eyes. Despite all the anger, she found the image in her mind of what happened funny. He knew it. And she’d also always had a soft spot for him; all the ladies did, except Emerald.

"I dare you to try and prank me again. But I'm sorry, Pearl. Glad you still love me."

She sighed. "You're very lucky. So, any idea what that symbol Emerald sent you was?"

"Not yet."

"Alright." The blonde scientist turned her head, having heard a noise within the halls. "I need to go; I think I hear someone. Bye... 00Dead Meat."

Nick could see her own impish, trademark smirk, and then she disappeared from his screens. He looked around the disaster of a lab and groaned. He was so going to get it for this.


± ± ±


“You just missed all the action back at HQ,” said Pearl, looking up, as Red entered the room. Her expression was one of exasperation, and Red was instantly curious.

“Yeah? So what’d I miss?”

“Oh, just 00Carter running amok with my prototype of Diamond’s new laser bra and completely destroying my laboratory.”

Red gasped, her mouth falling open before twitching a little at the corners. “Are you serious?”

“Wish I wasn’t. No wonder they used to call him Kaos.”

Red giggled. “That I would like to have seen.”

“Me too. I only witnessed the aftermath.”

“Aw… sorry about your lab,” Red offered. She was sympathetic, but not as much as she was amused by the idea of Nick wreaking havoc in an armed bra.

Wondering what else had been going on at HimTak while she had been playing her new role as “Muffin” at the Playboy Mansion, Red soon retreated to the privacy of one of the lavish bathrooms and held her right hand up before her face. On her middle finger was a platinum ring set with what appeared to be a large ruby. All she had to do was slip the ring off, tap a tiny button hidden on the inside of the band, and the stone became a communicator. Everything was tinted red as she squinted into the center of the smooth gem, but she could still see the headquarters. A careful twist of the ring toggled her view to that of the surveillance camera mounted in her medical ward.

She felt an unexpected rush of emotions as she peered through the scarlet stone at the familiar quarters, empty without her there. First, there was longing… the wishful hope that she could finish her business here and return to Nevada soon. She wasn’t cut out for missions that involved her prancing around in corsets and bunny ears; she much preferred scrubs. But then, there was dread… the frightful memory of the blood-spattered scrubs she’d donned last, the turmoil that had surrounded the empty table the camera was focused upon. Its stainless steel surface had been scrubbed clean, sterilized, so that it gleamed in the fluorescent light. But she would never forget the body that had last lain upon it… nor what had come out of it.

The mission had been successful in distracting her, but now, she let her mind run away with its recollection of the nightmarish incident that had brought them here.


Bree wailed as the next contraction came. Red urged, “Push!” and looked between the laboring woman’s legs as the crown of a head appeared. She was thankful it wasn’t breach. The fetus slid out a little at a time, its smooth scalp coated with blood and vernix. The skin beneath appeared bluish-gray, and Red felt a rush of concern that it was suffocating. “One more big push, Bree,” she coached.

The mother screamed as she put the last of her strength into expelling the fetus, and her offspring slid out into Red Jewel’s gloved hands. When the red-haired doctor looked down at what she was holding, her mouth fell open.

Then she, too, began to scream.

The skin was dusky blue, almost purple, and slimy with the contents of its placenta. There was no hair on its body, not even lanugo; its slick scalp was perfectly bald. It was that smooth head that horrified her the most, to the point where she nearly dropped it out of shock.

The cranium was shaped like a light bulb and massively oversized, more disproportionate than that of any baby she’d delivered. Hydrocephalus, she might have guessed, if it were a normal baby. This was not a normal baby. Not by any means. It might have passed for one at first – a hydrocephalus baby suffering from oxygen deprivation – had it not been for the face.

That face would haunt her for the rest of her life.

There were no eyebrows, no lashes, only eyes. Large, bulging, slanted eyes, with lids that flickered open and shut horizontally rather than vertically. When they were open, they revealed two convex pools of liquid black, without the slightest trace of white sclera or colored iris. The corneas formed a translucent film, like that of a puddle of oil, with faint swirls of color on top. She could see her reflection when she gazed into them; her own eyes were wide, her face ashen.

Below the eyes were two mere slits – nostrils, though there was no protruding nose. A small, lipless mouth gaped open below those, and it uttered a frightful cry. Not the sharp wail of a newborn baby, but a sound more like that of a hissing cat, mixed with a shrill screech for which she had no comparison. She’d heard nothing like it before. It was not of this world.

In her arms, the creature writhed and stretched its limbs: two arms, two legs, but with only three digits per hand and three webbed toes attached to the feet.

Within her, her instincts were fighting each other. Fear gave her the compulsion to fling the slimy, unearthly creature away from her, like she might a giant slug. Yet, oddly enough, from somewhere deep inside her, her maternal instincts tugged at her heart and compelled her to hold onto it. In the moment, she wasn’t capable of rational thought, but later, she would realize that it was the way the creature was reaching up to her with its floppy limbs, crying, that kept her hands cupped beneath its bulbous head. It was not a human baby… but, somehow, a baby just the same.

It felt like she’d been holding it for minutes, but really, her mind was in warp speed; it had only been a few seconds. Dimly, she became aware of the reactions of the others in the background. Gasps. Then screams. Loudest of all was a male scream, that of the husband, Jim.

That scream was what triggered the others into action. Jay pushed the husband down into a chair before he could pass out; his knees buckled as he collapsed into it, but still, he was hysterical. Emerald pulled on a pair of latex gloves and took the creature from Red’s arms. “The mother,” she said in a low voice that was still sharp enough to divert Red’s attention.

Red wondered where she was going to take the creature, what she was going to do with it. She wondered what it even was, though somewhere in the back of her mind, she already knew. But there was no time for such questions. On the stainless steel table before her, the mother was fading fast.

“Jim? What’s wrong? What’s… what’s wrong with my baby? Is my… baby alright?” She’d been asking the questions for as long as Jim had been screaming, but no one had been able to answer. Only now did Red hear how breathy her voice was and realize she was going downhill.

The rush of adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream allowed her doctor’s instincts to take over, and she sprang into action again, pulling her stethoscope from her shoulders to listen to the young woman’s chest. Just as she had suspected, the breath sounds were weak; the woman’s lungs were suddenly filling with fluid.

There had not been time to set up monitors when she’d brought Bree in, but now, she hurried to clip a pulse ox monitor to the index finger of one of the woman’s hands, which were shaking uncontrollably with shock. She attached leads to her heaving chest, only to watch as the EKG waves measuring her heartbeat peaked and plummeted erratically.

The woman began to hemorrhage then, expelling what was left of the placenta in a surge of blood. Red nearly slipped in the fresh puddle on the tiled floor as she fumbled for her surgical tools. At the head of the table, Bree’s eyes rolled back into her head, exposing only the blank stares of their whites. The blips of the heart monitor increased in their frequency, sounding with such lightning speed that, to the human ear, they seemed to merge into a single tone. And then, they did become one, a piercing, endless whine, as the new mother’s heartbeat accelerated to a rate beyond its limit and suddenly stopped.

The cardiac arrest eased the gushing of blood from her body, but it was too late to save her. Already, nearly half of her blood volume was on the floor. Red suctioned and sutured and tried to resuscitate, but the effort was in vain.

At a quarter till midnight, she pronounced Breanna Kimble dead and stripped the blood-soaked gloves from her quivering hands. Then, leaving Jay to deal with the distraught husband and Emerald, the offspring, she retreated to her office, barricaded the door, and broke down into hysterical sobs.


The memory of that night left Red tremulous, her eyes filled with fresh tears. She had lost patients in med school, witnessed plenty of odd cases during her time at HimTak, but she would never get over what she had seen that night. The only bit of relief she could find in it was that the mother, Bree, had not seen what she’d given birth to before she crashed, and that her widowed husband, Jim, would not remember. Only Jay and Emerald remained witnesses to the traumatic birth of the extraterrestrial.

Red, like they, had given her statement to the FBI agents who had arrived two days later to observe the live specimen and autopsy the mother. They were not just any FBI agents, she quickly realized, but members of a special department, a secret sector of the government reserved for the unexplainable. They investigated unsolved mysteries, paranormal activity, events beyond the civilian realm of understanding. They told her very little besides that, but she deduced that K had been right in bringing them onto the case, along with his charming CIA cousin. Agents Mulder and Scully seemed to know what they were talking about; they appeared to understand far more than she did, that was for sure.

She felt she had no business being in LA on this mission, but although she had protested along with the other girls, a part of her was glad she had been sent along. It was a welcomed reprieve from the medical wing she looked in on at HimTak, where the sight of the alien baby, the smell of the mother’s blood on the floor, and the sounds of her husband’s screams would haunt her for a long time to come.


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