Chapter 30: Martyrs Need Not Apply

Maggie had always felt a little outshined by the brilliance of her coworkers; what with Daniel living and breathing code, Jacqueline knowing the human brain inside and out, and Ed's seemingly limitless intellect. Their skills were almost incomparable, but Maggie knew her worth. She had vision. Whereas her colleagues worked almost exclusively within their niches of expertise, she knew how it all fit into a bigger picture. She could see how all the moving parts became one machine. That's why Leslie recruited her out of the CIA. He knew she would be in this for the long haul.

He also knew she was willing to make sacrifices. She'd given up any chance she or her son had at a normal life. She'd given up romance, turned her back on people she'd called her friends. She did it all willingly, and maybe she was still that person, but somewhere along the lines something had changed between her and Les.

He'd stopped trusting her. Perhaps he realized she was only willing to sacrifice what she herself could give. She wasn't willing to cut corners or ignore ethics. Les wanted more than that. He didn't want a martyr, he wanted a zealot.

Maggie may have been painting too generous of a picture for herself, but it no longer mattered. Les wasn't the only one to lose faith in their partnership. Once upon a time, she would have told him anything – done anything he asked for the sake of progress – but those times were gone.

That's why when her monitor flashed with red and displayed a series of code, she knew it wasn't a trick. She knew not to be afraid because this was the emergency exit, the final contingency plan coming into effect after so many years of silence. This is how Ed had tried to put the pieces back together after Kirsten's first stitch.

Maggie recognized his signature in the blinking digits. It was strange to say, but seeing the array of numbers almost felt like seeing him again. His mind and his spirit was in every line. He'd been so careful. At the time, she didn't understand what for, but now she knew. Ed had seen Les' betrayal coming for a long time – maybe even from the beginning.

She quickly transferred the data onto one of her burner phones and tore out of the empty lab like the walls were going up in flames. Everything seemed to blur past her until she got into her car and realized that her heartbeat was in her ears. Her hands were shaking slightly, as well, but that had become more and more common over the past few days. Fisher had been right, of course. A human could only survive on paranoia and caffeine for so long.

Breathing deeply, Maggie reminded herself that it was okay. This was Ed – Ed! – and she could trust him. After another moment of stalling, she opened up the phone and found that what had been downloaded was some kind of tracking software, locked onto a location outside the city. There was a sinking feeling in her gut, and her instincts told her who would be waiting for her when she arrived.

The drive out of downtown gave her far too long to be alone with her thoughts, so she did what was quickly becoming her go-to for panic attack inducing situations: call Fisher.

The wavering sound when he picked up told her he was probably in an area with spotty connection.

"What's going on, boss?" he said, faking nonchalance well enough.

"Have you found them?" There was no use pretending she didn't know what he was doing, anymore.

"For Kirsten's sake, I'm going to say I have no clue what you're talking about." That was a no. Maggie swore in French. Fisher sighed. "Hey if I were to know where they are, which I absolutely don't, I would say that they're safe and they're onto something big."

Maggie wasn't sure how to feel about that last part, so she didn't say anything. Instead she admitted, "I'm going to see Daniel Stinger."

There was an indistinguishable noise, and Maggie was pretty sure he'd dropped his phone. "You found him?"

She glanced down at the tracker. "I'm fairly certain, yes."

It wasn't hard to visualize the gob-smacked expression on Fisher's face. His training was probably leading him down at least a dozen different lines of questing, but he simply asked, "Are you going to be okay?"

Maggie swallowed, glad that she was alone in her car and didn't have to maintain a neutral expression. She took a few breaths to ensure that her voice would come out even. "He has answers that I need. I'll feel much better once I have them."

What she didn't say was how dangerously relieved she felt at the possibility of Daniel being alive. It meant she hadn't lost all of her friends. It meant Kirsten wasn't an orphan.

"Okay," Fisher said after a moment, clearly unconvinced. "You know how to reach me."

"Let me know when you find them."

"Still don't know what you're talking about." He said – she could see the grin on his face – and hung up.

The silence that followed left Maggie feeling heavy, so she tried to get her thoughts in order. Black Berry had to be connected to Marta Rodriguez, somehow. The timing of it all was too suspicious: she appears in a stitch the same time as this mysterious figure in a wheelchair? Black Berry made an attempt on Kirsten's life a few months after Marta had made an attempt on Maggie's? It couldn't be a coincidence. The two things that didn't add up were what Black Berry had against the Stitchers Program and if she was working with Marta, why try to kill Kirsten when Marta had wanted to protect her?

Maggie's skin was beginning to itch with anticipation by the time she pulled into the warehouse complex. The tracker was directing her to the last of six buildings, all looking to have been abandoned for years. Reaching into the back seat, she pulled out her bulkier Kevlar vest and fastened it around herself, then grabbed her gun and the tacker and got out of the car.

She wasn't dumb enough to treat this like a regular bust. Daniel had been laying low for more than a decade, hiding like a rabbit in a burrow. If she went in guns-a-blazing, he'd scatter. She needed to be careful. The hangar doors to the warehouse were locked, not that she would have been able to open them by herself, anyway. She fancied a shattered window as her entrance, briefly regretting not changing into more accommodating shoes before going on this witch hunt.

Still, she hit the floor without a sound, creeping into the center of the open hangar. The tracker showed she was in exactly the right spot, but there was nothing here. Something akin to despair unfurled in her chest. Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe this wasn't leading her to Daniel. Maybe it hadn't even come from Ed, but it must have.

She looked up at the overlapping catwalks, then toward the rear of the warehouse. There had to be something here, she just wasn't looking in the right place. Pacing in a circle, she studied the few materials around her: several storage crates, a forklift that was definitely no longer functional, a rusty maintenance door. That would do. Surprisingly, the door unlatched easily. She couldn't have been the first person here in years.

The stairwell was unlit, so Maggie crouched and used the wall to guide her descent. About ten steps down she could make out voices and froze.

"I really don't think this is a good idea." The man sounded familiar but she didn't recognize his voice immediately. "That message sounded more like a threat than an invitation. How can you be sure it came from Ed Clark?"

The mention of Ed stole the breath from her lungs, and the answering voice nearly knocked her back.

"I know, I know, Liam. You're going to have to trust me on this." Daniel said, sounding like he was struggling with something. "Ed wants me back in Oregon for some reason. We have to look into it."

There's a crash followed by a string of curses, and Maggie took the opportunity to shift closer down the stairs. She could see them now, Liam Granger and Daniel – looking like a hollow, unkempt version of himself. A toppled data tower lay between them.

Liam sighed, bending down, "Would you please let me help you with that?"

"You don't know what you're doing." Dan huffed.

"We've been working together for how long? Four years? I've picked up a thing or two."

"We aren't working together, you just feel indebted to me for some ridiculous reason."

"Hey, you could have sent me away, but you accepted my help." Liam righted the tower and removed a series of hard drives, handing them to Daniel. "Because you know you need it."

He only grunted, stuffing the drives into a backpack. "We need to get moving. It's a long drive."

Rising on her feet, Maggie stepped out of the shadows, gun at her side but clearly visible. The men jolted, though none of them reached for a weapon, which put her at a further advantage.

"I think you can tolerate a small delay, Daniel." She said coolly, though her heart was rattling against her ribcage.

Her former colleague could only blink at her, as if he didn't trust his own eyes. A thought in the back of her mind wondered what he was seeing. Did she look tired? Haunted? Could he tell how many times she'd imagined this meeting over the past sixteen years?

The shock gave way to the animalistic terror that Maggie had predicted. "Mags? You're here? You… you have a gun." His eyes widened as if he'd just noticed it.

"Just being careful." She said.

"Sure you are." Liam muttered, looking more annoyed than afraid, but he was smart enough not to move.

Daniel, on the other hand, was trembling. "How did you find us?"

Maggie swallowed. "Ed."

He nodded like she'd answered a basic math question. "Yes, yes, yes, yes. That makes sense. So it's true, it was Ed's signal. Good."

He disappeared inside of himself, his eyes buzzing around the room, not focusing on anything for too long. He turned his back to her, which sort of flabbergasted her considering she had a gun.

"What are you doing, Daniel?" She spoke slowly.

He didn't turn back to her, instead began rooting through a mountain of papers on a desk beside Liam.

"We're going home." He said distantly, shoving a folder into his backpack.

Maggie readjusted her hand around the gun. "Not without answering some questions, you're not."

Liam glared at her murderously. Daniel whipped around, mouth gaping. "Are you here to arrest us?"

He sounded so timid, so unlike the Daniel she remembered. The contrast felt like a punch to the stomach.

She sighed. "No, Dan, I'm not. Les doesn't know I'm here."

He relaxed a bit, looking at her curiously. "What makes you think I can answer your questions?"

"Back in Phase One," Maggie said, giving the words as much emphasis as they deserved, "Les confided in me because I was loyal to the project."

"So was I." he tensed.

"But you were also loyal to him. You believed in him; you trusted him more than anyone – more than me, more than Ed." More than Jac, she thought, but no, that was too far. "There's things I know he told you that he intentionally hid from me."

Daniel avoided her eyes like she was going to turn him to stone. "This is about Emily, isn't it?"

Her neutral expression faltered. "Emily?"

They didn't need to go into further detail. There was only one girl with that name that mattered.

Dan stayed starring at the floor, so Liam filled in. "Daniel and I have been working on a theory that connects Emily to this psycho that's going after Kirsten."

Maggie had half the mid to holster her gun, but she didn't. "I'm listening."

0o0o0o0

Fisher was stiff and grumpy from the drive, but sitting in the diner had calmed some of his nerves. It reminded him of his parents' bakery – though it was a bit gimmicky in his unbiased opinion. His was in civilian clothes since this wasn't a sanctioned assignment and it was nice not to have everyone eyeing him like they expected a burglar to be summoned by his presence. He counted down the seconds on his watch until it was half passed the hour. Camille called on the dot.

"What have you got for me?" he said.

"Well hello to you too, Fishy."

He grumbled into the phone, but smiled a little, glad to hear her voice after a few days of radio silence. "Hi, Camille. What have you got for me?"

"That's better. We made it to the house. This place has seen better days but someone's clearly been taking care of it for the last sixteen years."

"Probably Ed Clark, yeah?"

"Bingo. We found a locked door that leads to the basement. Fish, the whole thing is filled to the brim with old files."

"Files of what?" he said, reaching into his jacket pocket for a notepad and pen.

"They're all marked for Phase One. We figure it's from the earlier stages of the Stitchers Program. Here's where it gets creepy: there's thousands of files here on different kids, all between the ages of eight and twelve, all being pulled from the foster system."

"The hell?" Fisher gaped, trying to keep his voice down.

"I know! It gets weirder. The majority of these kids were marked with inconclusive results. Cam and Linus looked over those that weren't and said the data was similar to their first stitch tests: subjects report experiencing blurry images, vague sounds, nothing really useful." She paused to give him time to absorb all that. "Then there's this unnamed test subject: age nine, female, pulled from Minneapolis. She went through more tests than any other kid."

"And?"

"Looks like they were prepping her for the real thing, to stitch."

"What happened?" Grave silence answered him. "Camille, what happened?"

She swallowed audibly. "It just says subject terminated."

Chills shot through Fisher's body. He couldn't believe this. Maggie wouldn't have let… he knew she'd killed before but… children?

"You're sure?" He pressed. He trusted Camille but this was almost too much.

"I swear Fisher. We've scoured the basement for more files on her but that's it."

Fisher laid his head in his hand, pressing against his temples. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That this mystery subject could have been Black Berry? It would make her about the right age."

"Yeah."

"But it said she was… terminated."

"I know, I know, but this wouldn't be the first time corporate goons have filed false papers to cover their tracks."

He could tell Camille was skeptical, and if he were in a better state he'd probably side with her, but he couldn't give up on Maggie without solid proof. He knew she was troubled, but she wasn't evil.

"It's possible." Camille admitted. "There's something I don't get, though."

"What's that?"

"Kirsten said that Maggie suspected Ed Clark's death and Jacqueline Stinger's death were connected. But Jacqueline died almost two decades ago. Black Berry – if she is who we think she is – would have only been nine years old. There's no way it could have been her."

Fisher rubbed his knuckle methodically along his lower lip. He'd had a similar suspicion, but dismissed it because of the time frame. He had tried looking into Jacqueline Stinger's death, but it was on lock down. Even his inside guy couldn't get access to it. That boded poorly, adding another suspect to the already difficult list of people going after Stitchers personnel.

Camille said quickly, "I have to go, they're looking for me. I'll call you tomorrow when I explained everything to them and then you can come to the house."

She hung up abruptly and Fisher deflated a little bit. Her intel hadn't done much to confirm or deny any of his theories, just tease more questions.

0o0o0o0

The men before her had every right to look fearful. Maggie was trembling, which wasn't really a good sign for someone holding a gun.

"Les told us the experiment left Emily brain dead." She seethed, her words molten.

Daniel threw up placating hands. "I know. I understand Maggie. That's what he told everyone."

"But not you." Her nostrils flared and her finger twitched around the trigger.

He cowered – not in fear, it seemed, but shame, "No. Not me. I knew the truth."

Her peripheral vision was turning black. "So this whole time, Les has kept her locked away like some prisoner?"

"A patient." Daniel coaxed. "She's sick. Her mind… it's destroyed."

"But she's alive! She's been alive and suffering all these years and you never once thought to tell any of us? We never would have stood for that Daniel."

Water pooled in his eyes. "We were so close." His lip quaked. "I thought if we just tried one more time, it would be worth it. Everything would have been worth it."

Sick understanding twisted her gut. There was no warmth in her eyes as she looked at Daniel Stinger.

"Until he started threatening Kirsten."

Daniel collapsed in a sobbing heap. Liam glanced at Maggie, then her gun, and rose his hands so that they were visible. He moved slowly to Daniel's side, not touching him but making his presence know, trying to comfort him.

This enraged Maggie more than anything. This man had lied to her, to all of them. She knew where her faults lay, knew where she was to blame, but everything he'd just told her was Daniel's fault.

"What's this theory of yours, then?" she addressed Liam.

He shot her a spiteful look. "We think Emily was working with Marta Rodriguez to eliminate the leaders of the Stitchers Program."

Maggie nodded. That she could comprehend. That she could deal with. "Do you know what facility she was sent to? Emily – did Les tell you?"

"No." Daniel moaned, stilling heaving on the floor.

A remote place in Maggie's heart stung to see her friend in this state, but she ignored it. "I can't confirm it, but I believe Marta helped Emily escape from that facility shortly after she was revived."

Liam shook his head. "What I don't understand is if Marta and Emily were working together, why did Emily go after Kirsten? Marta wanted to protect her."

"That could have been a set up. Or Emily has motives that she didn't share with Marta."

The puzzle pieces were beginning to fall into place. Maggie could do this. It was just a game, like the ones she and Ben and Ed would play on the weekends. All she had to do was focus.

She turned to Daniel. "Ed Clark messaged you. I tracked the signal. What was it?"

Finally, Daniel ceased his gut-wrenching sobs and looked at her. "He said it's time to go home."

Home. It was something Maggie hadn't felt in years. Liam said, "We need to leave now if we're going to make it."

"You'll never make it by car." Maggie was already heading toward the stairs. "Follow me."

0o0o0o0

Fisher probably wouldn't have paid the woman any mind if she hadn't locked eyes with him and froze. She stood still as a statue in the doorway of the diner, the tin bell above the entrance swaying over her like it was waiting. Matted blonde hair stuck out in every direction but it was her eyes, her wide grey eyes that gave her away.

She sprinted out of the store and out of the parking lot. Fisher's instincts took control of his body as he leapt out of his booth and out the door.

"Stop!" he screamed, reaching for his gun as he rounded the corner.

She was gone. People looked at him frantically and he realized he didn't look like a detective. He looked like a madman with a gun.

Swearing, he ran back to his car and called Camille. She answered on the third ring, clearly against her better judgement.

"Dude," she hissed, "not now."

"Change of plans. I'm coming right now."

"No, no, bad idea –"

"She's here." He barked, "Call the local authorities. Stay inside the house. I'm on my way."