Antibodies: Part One

by DuAnn Cowart

"I don't know *why* you're making us do this, Jenny," the man known only as the Doctor muttered, iridescent magenta vest gleaming in the flourescent light of the Carrier's makeshift infirmary. He rolled the sleeve of his black turtleneck up, revealing a bone-thin pale arm covered in burgundy-red track marks.

"Bloody fuckin' hell! It's gonna be harder to find a good vein on your arm than a virgin in Los Angeles!" Jennifer Sparks, Colonel with the British Space Group, leader of the Authority and one hundred year old harridan swore aloud, glaring at him. Her usual union jack tank top was mostly covered by a long white lab coat, and she turned to the other woman standing beside her. "Would you look at that shit?"

Angela Spica, The Engineer, bent low to study the Doctor's thin arm. "Damn," she swore softly. "What the hell have you *done* to yourself?"

Odd red goggles didn't hide the Doctor's scowl. His muddled European accent deepened in irritation. "Next time I need commentary on my personal life I'll be sure to ask you two. In the meantime, just go on, get on with it." He thrust an arm into the air, fist clenched into a tight ball. "Though I can tell you right now if you want a vein you're not gonna get out of there."

The Engineer fixed him with a baleful stare. "We sure as hell aren't getting it anywhere else." She paused, considering. "We can do it, but this is gonna be harder than it looks. The human body is incredibly complex. Gimme just a second here."

Jenny just waved a negligent hand. "Take your time," she answered, turning to a nearby bank of holographic monitors.

Angie nodded absently, gnawing her bottom lip as she considered the problem at hand. Scientific variables and information from the vast memory banks downloaded from both the previous Engineer's works and her own voracious studies raced through her mind as she rapidly scanned through the schematics of the Carrier's medical devices and the details of the human vascular system. Seconds later, she grinned. "I have it."

She cupped her hand, extending it several inches from her face. Without visible effort, about a teaspoon's worth of the silver liquid machinery that replaced her blood oozed out of her skin to pool in the curved palm of her hand. In less time than it took to tell the nanites shifted and hardened to form a tiny octagonal ring with a pointed spike extending from it in a sharp curve. With a smug grin she pulled down a silver attachment from a strange tubular device attached to the Carrier's wall, attaching the small device in her hand to it.

"There," she concluded in a satisfied voice. "That ought to do it."

Shen Li Min, the winged fighter known as Swift, took the device from her teammate's hand. "What did you do to it?" She asked curiously, examining the device carefully.

Angie shrugged, then looked over her shoulder and grinned. "I fixed it," she explained brightly. "Try it now. It ought to work even on the Doctor's mutilated veins."

Shen held the attachment up to the light, examining it. "Looks good to me," she nodded. She smiled, and an air of calm tranquility emanated from her lovely face. "Lean back," she whispered to the Doctor softly. "This won't take long at all."

He eyed the metal device askance. "You sure that thing works?" He asked the Engineer, who just rolled her eyes.

"No. I'm gonna stick you with a defective needle, asshole. Give me a break. How many times have I let you down? We need to draw some of your blood for emergencies and this little beauty right here helps us do it. Trust me and relax."

His gaze flickered between the three women. "Maybe so, but I *still* think this isn't a very good idea." He eyed the device dubiously, but did as she said. With Shen's assistance, he leaned back onto a flat examining table.

"No, doing *that* to yourself," Jenny loomed over him, pointing a tapered finger down at his scarred arm. "Is not a good idea. *This* is a precaution."

Swift continued to gently probe the Doctor's arm, careful of the thickened skin and scars. Finding a good vein, she smiled, and carefully inserted the adapted device. It paused, then began emitting a very slight hum, an indicator that it was functioning properly.

The Engineer lifted her chin, raising a smug eyebrow, then walked away to hop up on a nearby table. "Told you so." She leaned forward, slender legs dangling off the table as she balanced her elbows on her knees, chin cradled in her hands.

"Precaution," The Midnighter stepped out of the shadows. He snorted disdainfully, pretending to ignore the alien apparatus attached to his teammate. "Is *that* what you call all of this nonsense?"

He stood slightly behind Jenny, dark cape tumbling just below his knees. His partner Apollo stood silently behind him, chiseled features split in a huge smile. A faint halo of light surrounded his handsome face. Dark to light, they stood together in sharp counterpoint, complementing each other perfectly.

"That, or an excuse for them to jab needles in your skin, one or the other. Either one works for me." Their teammate Jack Hawksmoor leaned against a nearby wall, bare arms crossed over his broad black-shirted chest. The inside bend of one elbow bore a small square of gauze, evidence of his earlier participation in the project.

Shen just shook her head, musical voice low and bemused as she kept a close eye on the Doctor's progress. "Jack, you know very well that we did this in StormWatch all the time. It's standard operating procedure to store quantities of our own blood to use if we're injured in battle. Superhuman blood is notoriously difficult to match, and having some on hand could make the difference between life or death if one of us were seriously injured in battle."

Apollo rested a square hand on her shoulder. "I know you're right," he beamed, bright blue eyes crinkling in the corner as he smiled warmly at his partner. "He just doesn't like needles."

"I am not afraid of needles!" The Midnighter protested a little too gruffly, shuffling his heavy-booted feet. "I just don't think all this is necessary-"

"Oh, yes, you are," his partner retorted mildly. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. Nobody *likes* needles. It's just something we have to do."

"What *I* want to know," The Doctor inquired, wincing as abused veins began aching in protest, "Is how the hell did you get a needle through Apollo's thick skin?"

Apollo mock-glared at him, then looked up again in a huge smile. "Already taken care of. Angie did me earlier."

The Engineer raised both hands, palms up, a teasing smile on her face. "Rephrase that, Apollo. Cute as you are, I'm not moving in on anyone's turf. Especially someone bigger than me." She arched a playful eyebrow at the Midnighter.

He just stared at her, expression even more dour than usual. Apollo just winked at her. "Fair enough." He corrected himself with a smile. "I should say, Angie treated a tiny patch of skin," one blunt finger pointed at a bandaged spot on the inside of his left arm, "With anti-solar radiation, just enough to weaken my invulnerability. The rest of me is fine, but this spot was weakened enough to let a needle through. I should be already healed from it, and my blood is safely coded and stored in the Carrier's banks. Anything happens, I'm taken care of."

The Midnighter stared at his partner a moment, then turned to face the Engineer. "Thank you," he muttered awkwardly, the grateful words sounding strange and unfamiliar coming from his lips. "I- we- appreciate-."

"Hey. All in a day's work," she inclined her head modestly. "I've got to be of *some* use in here today anyway, since I can't donate any blood myself. I don't have any left."

Jenny looked up from the monitors she was studying. "Yeah, and we don't exactly need a pint of nanites sittin' around causing trouble."

"I think I saw that episode of Star Trek," Apollo interjected with a small smile.

Jenny crossed her arms. "Look around you. This place makes bloody Star Trek look like a friggin' B movie set."

"Yeah, but Kirk got laid more than you do." The blond giant smiled sweetly at her.

Jenny paused, trying to decide whether to be insulted or amused. ". . . Ah, don't make me go there, Apollo. Please."

"*Please* don't make her go there," Jack groaned, shaking his head emphatically.

Before Apollo could answer, Jenny shook her head, blonde ponytail swinging to the side. "All right, all right. As I was *saying*, children," she glanced down at the monitors to her side, then nudged Shen to begin removing the adapted needle from the Doctor's arm. "Is that in all seriousness, while this," she waved her hand expansively at all the alien medical equipment outfitted and adapted for human use, "Is a very good thing, no, Miss Engineer here doesn't get t'donate to the cause like the rest of you do. We need to put our heads together and come up with some other kind of additional safety measures she can take instead."

The Doctor stood slowly, and his slight form carefully maneuvered the few feet from his cot to a nearby chair. Although in preparation of this donation harder drugs were conspicuously (and uncharacteristically) absent from his system, slight as he was the removal of over a pint of blood had inevitably dizzied him.

Shen was quiet a moment, still pondering the earlier question. "We do need *something* for Angie," she added softly. "What if she were hurt-"

The woman in question looked up, blowing a curly strand out of the curtain of dark hair shrouding her face. "Not gonna happen." She shrugged nonchalantly, slender shoulders rising and falling gracefully. "The nanites can repair any conceivable damage I might sustain. We don't need to worry about anything." The brash words were easily spoken.

Jack's eyes flickered red, and he stared at her a very long time. "Don't believe that even for a minute," he warned bleakly. "No matter how good we are, shit happens to everyone."

Angie met his gaze, then looked away, unable to bear the weight of painful memory in his dark eyes. Jack swallowed, then turned to look at Jenny, expression dark and heavy. "We need *something*, Jenny," his voice deepened, and their leader saw in his face remembrances of others lost. "We need backup measures for each and every member of this team. Not just this, either- we need more protective measures than we've been taking. We're damn lucky to have gotten this far without getting hurt."

"We're working on it," Jenny assured him, pale eyes softening as she shared his pain. Neither spoke, and the silence held reams of meaning. Jenny closed her eyes and whispered, very softly, "It won't happen again, Jack. Believe me on this."

The others were still, watching the interchange between the two, each deciphering in his or her own way the textured depths of meaning the conversation held. "It'd better not," Jack finally growled, a dark rumble low in his chest. "I'm serious on this one, Jenny."

"So am I," she replied in an equally grave tone, blue eyes fixed on his red. "I'm not that toerag Bendix, Jack. I'm not gonna let any of that happen to us."

"I think I understand how Jack feels," Shen murmured. Hawksmoor spun to look at her, surprise wide in his alien eyes. She inclined her head. "Things are going too well for us. In this lifestyle, we're conditioned to expect turmoil and upheaval, losses and pain. Over the last few months we've barely even broken a fingernail between us. How long can we expect this to continue?

The Midnighter threw back his head and groaned. "Damn, don't say that," he muttered. "Swift, do you know how many potentialities for death and destruction play through my head every day? Millions of them, every minute of every day. It's hell. Can you even imagine what it's like to extrapolate every moment of the future with every waking thought? You don't want to, trust me."

Angie pursed her lips. "As always, Midnighter, thanks ever so much for that dark little glimpse into your psyche."

Jenny shook her head, then addressed their issues in turn. "Don't borrow trouble, Shen. Angie, shut the hell up. And Midnighter-"

"Yes?"

"We all know your head is a bloody untidy place, but don't invite pissing contests about how bad you've got it. None of us grew up in pink houses with white picket fences."

The black clad figure stiffened. "I'm just saying it's pointless to worry about what might happen. What's going to happen is-"

"//////. . .is. . .\\\\\\"

Reality bent, then instantly snapped back into place.

Jenny shook her head, then addressed their issues in turn. "Don't borrow trouble, Shen. Angie, shut the hell up. And Midnighter-"

"Yes?"

"We all know your head is a bloody untidy place, but don't invite pissing contests about how bad you've got it. None of us grew up in pink houses with white picket fences."

The black clad figure stiffened. "I'm just saying it's pointless to worry about what might happen. What's going to happen is that-"

The Midnighter broke off in mid-sentence.

There was an opaque instant of silence before the Engineer stiffened. The Doctor made a small cry, and the Midnighter blinked once, but kept his composure. The rest of the team was unaffected.

Jenny Sparks noted her teammates' reactions and snapped "What just happened here?"

"What the fuck?" Angie murmured, raising a hand to her head. She rubbed her temples slowly, tilting her head to the side. The echoes of thousand different sensations, foreign and familiar at the same time, tingled just outside the range of her perception. A mercurial sheath of silver began seeping unbidden out of her pores, sensing her unease and unconsciously covering her in a protective layer of nanites. Inside her body, the effect was the same. Nanites poured over her internal organs, supplementing her natural strength, succoring her through whatever mysterious danger presented itself. She barely even noticed- the reaction had become instinctive.

Angie looked up at her teammates. "Did any of you feel that?" she asked slowly, throat suddenly dry and constricting despite the sudden influx of soothing nanites.

"Feel what?" Shen asked softly, avian eyes suddenly wide and alert.

"I don't know," Angie answered honestly, rubbing the bridge of her nose with an argent hand. "Something just happened- I don't-"

Suddenly, Jack was beside her. She blinked rapidly- she hadn't even seen him appear. "What's wrong?" He asked casually, too casually. He gently grasped her elbow to steady her. "Are you all right?"

She nodded slowly. "I'm fine." Despite the assurances, she still leaned into his arm.

Sparks turned to the others, snapping, "What, then? Doctor, report!"

The young man just looked up at her, jaw gaping slightly. "I don't know. It was like something. . . tingled for a second, and then was gone. I . . . can't place it." He was quiet a moment longer, searching deep inside himself for the advice of the voices of other shamans that lived in his head, the voice that alternately guided his life and tormented his soul.

The voices in his head were screaming, he knew, but he couldn't hear or understand a word they said.

"Shit," he muttered. He touched his face and winced. The vein in his forehead throbbed, each pulse an echo of the pain in his skull.

"Head hurt?" Apollo asked solicitously, placing a square hand on the smaller man's back to support him.

"Like you wouldn't believe." The Doctor's usually lilting voice was dull and flat.

"Don't bet on that," Angie swallowed tightly. "Mine feels like it's about to explode." She stumbled, and Jack tightened his grip on her arm.

"I've got something for that," The Doctor grinned weakly, pulling a small amber colored bottle of tablets out of one of the pouches on his leather belt.

Jenny put her hands on her hips. "What th' bloody hell do you think you're doing?"

He moved slowly, uncapping the bottle with some effort. "I need to talk to the other Doctors, and I'm as sober now as I've been in a while. I can't make the connection inside myself without these," his fingers shook as he grasped the small bottle, dumping out several small bright yellow tablets into a gloved hand. He tossed two small yellow capsules in his mouth and swallowed them dry. "They'll help me work better."

"Lucky bastard." Angie eyed them a bit wistfully, then consciously ordered certain nanites to specific pain centers of her brain in order to attack the offending neurons causing the explosions of agony behind her eyes. Relief was instantaneous.

Stepping away from Hawksmoor, The Engineer stood up, drawing a deep breath of air. It was easier this time, and she slowly drew the nanites away to allow her own flesh to handle the task of naturally controlling her body. It was all too easy, she'd learned, to allow the liquid machinery to handle the most simple of bodily functions. It took great will power to remain as human as possible when the very blood that flowed through her body was composed of liquid machinery.

"I don't know," Angie answered truthfully. "Weird shit like this has been happening to me more and more often as the nanites incorporate themselves more fully into my biology. I've been *really* sensitive to environmental changes, especially after that business with that Lovecraftian reject last month."

"I remember." Jenny's expression darkened, remembering how close they'd all come to destruction. She herself had barely escaped death after expending the last of her rapidly fading life's energy to electrocute the alien brain of the monster that had threatened her world.

She had very nearly died. She would have, she knew, without that final epic battle. She was, after all, the Spirit of the Twentieth Century. She hadn't expected to live past the that last fateful moment of the millennium.

Fortunately, something had interrupted to change that fate. She'd somehow found the strength to reach out to the alien brain and draw the energy back within herself, and that last desperate action had made all the difference. Whether it was the electrical surges pulsing back through her body or some other force, she didn't know, but something had acted to give her back her life.

Things hadn't been the same ever since. Now that the century of her birth had passed, she barely possessed a fraction of the astounding power she'd wielded all her life, but that hadn't stopped her from commanding her team with even more fervor than ever.

She was alive, and could still protect her world, and by all that was holy she wouldn't waste this chance. Drawing in a deep breath, she forcibly returned herself to the present.

"Anybody else have a clue what the hell just happened?" She barked impatiently. She personally hadn't felt a thing, but prolonged exposure to the extranormal had taught her never to discount anything out of the ordinary, no matter how small.

Apollo shook his head. "I don't know what you're all talking about," he admitted ruefully. "I . . . didn't feel a thing."

"Nor did I," Shen answered, wings outstretched, fine white feathers fluffed as she instinctively prepared for danger. She spun on one bare heel, calling down more holographic schematics to scan the monitor for any sign of wrongdoing. Upon first glance there was none.

Jenny turned to the remaining members of her team. "Jack? Midnighter? Anything?"

Hawksmoor's rugged features quirked in a frown. "What's going on here?" He cast an anxious glance at the others. "Nothing. I don't know what the hell you're all talking about."

"Neither do I," Jenny admitted. "Midnighter?"

The dark man was silent a moment, then looked up. His customary black mask shadowed his face, but uncharacteristic confusion colored his words. "I. . .don't know."

"What do y'mean you don't bloody know? Did y'feel something, or didn't you?" Their leader's London accent grew thicker as it always did when she was annoyed.

"I don't *know*," The Midnighter repeated through gritted teeth. "I felt . . . something. A sense of deja vu, maybe something more. My computer," he tapped his leather clad skull, ". . . skipped a few calculations, missed a few projections. I can't explain it. It might be nothing, but . . . it . . . shouldn't have happened."

Jenny arched a pale blonde brow. "Sounds like somethin' to me." She turned to face the Engineer and the Doctor, who were now standing side by side, murmuring to each other in hushed tones.

"Hey, Brain Trust. What's happening?"

Angie sighed. Turning away from the Doctor, she addressed their team leader in the same voice she'd used to deliver scientific papers in what seemed another lifetime ago. "It could be a quirk, but the Doctor felt *something* too, and it seems the Midnighter did, too." She arched eyebrows at the Midnighter, who nodded reluctantly.

She looked up at Jenny, bright green eyes wide and curious. "I felt something . . . I don't know. . . *shift*?" She pronounced the last word as a question. "I wish I could be more definitive, but without hard data, I just can't, but *something* happened."

The Doctor leaned forward, fingers steepled at his chin. "I need to . . . go commune with the Others," he murmured softly. "I need to go be still."

"You mean y're high," Jenny translated, lips pursed thin in annoyance. "And you need to crash."

"Of course I'm high," the Doctor answered dreamily. "How do you expect me to hallucinate if I'm not?" With that, he staggered across the room and crawled onto an examining table, curling into fetal position. Within seconds he was comatose.

Jenny just stared at him. "Ask a stupid question," she murmured to herself. She exhaled sharply, then pivoted to the others. "All right. Plans?"

Angie spoke up. "I want to go talk to the Carrier about what happened, see if she felt anything. Maybe she'll have some record of what happened back there, if anything. If I felt it, she probably should have, too."

Shen motioned to the holographic schematics. "I don't see anything here," one slender hand waved at the heavy colored squares of light. "But this console is just connected to basic life support and medical. If there were something seriously wrong we wouldn't be able to tell from here, anyway."

Angie nodded, chin darting up and down. "Right. So we're gonna go check it out." She turned to Jenny. "That all right with you?"

"Fine," Jenny agreed, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "Take Jack with you, and the two of you be ready to brief us on anything you find in an hour or so."

"Aye-aye, Captain," Angie saluted, falling in step beside Jack, who was already padding towards the door. They exited the room side by side, the metal clinking of the Engineer's boots contrasting sharply with the more muffled clicks of Hawksmoor's steps as the Carrier's floor impacted with alien metal and human flesh. The sounds of their murmured conversation echoed down the empty hall.

The Midnighter stole an anxious glance at the medical equipment, then looked back at the door. "Perhaps I should go with them-"

"But you haven't given blood yet," Shen waved a new needle in the air. "And if something *is* wrong, I would really feel better if this were taken care of."

The Midnighter involuntarily took a step backwards. "Really, that isn't necessary. I mean-"

Jenny sighed, running her hand through stray strands of pale hair that had escaped her ponytail. "You mean you'll lay down and let her stick you like a man, then y' can join them later. I want to talk to you more about this later, but this needs to be done." Ignoring Midnighter's crestfallen face, Jenny turned to Shen. "Is everyone else through here?"

"He's the last," Shen answered quietly, watching as the Midnighter sulkily removed his omnipresent black leather trenchcoat. The sleeve caught over his bristled gauntlet, and the stocky man swore under his breath.

"Right then," Sparks nodded, a dark expression clouding her face. "Shen, Midnighter, the two of you meet in the Central Bridge as soon as you get done here. Apollo, come with me. I'm gonna call Christine and Jackson just to make sure everything's all right back home, and I want you with me."

The Midnighter glowered at them both, but reluctantly took his place at the table. Apollo sidled over to his partner, touching his shoulder. "It's really not that bad, you know," he spoke gentle assurances. "If you relax it doesn't hurt as bad. This will all be over soon."

Jenny paused by the door. She stared into space, expression unreadable. "I hope so, Apollo," she murmured softly. "I really do. But somehow I've got a bad feelin' that this is just the beginning."

[next part]

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