Warehouse 13 :||: Silence

Sorry for the delay :) Enjoy.

Chapter 4

:||: Hospital :||:

Veins popped out of Pete's neck like a kinked water hose. His face was red and beaded with sweat and his back arched up and off his hospital bed. Three male nurses were holding his limbs down, but Pete didn't seem to be conscious of what he was doing. His eyes were shut, brow furrowed, lips tightly sealed.

"We need to sedate him!" one of the nurses yelled over Pete's racket. "Jimmy, we can handle him, go get the needle."

Jimmy let go of Pete's feet and, without anything to push his body against, Pete fell down to the bed, continuing to writhe. A female nurse rushed into the room holding a needle. She stuck it in the side of Pete's arm as Jimmy took hold of Pete's feet again.

Myka heard the banging and clanging all the way down the hall and arrived just in time to see Pete's body go limp on the bed. The nurses stepped back, looking at one another with wary expressions. Jimmy turned to leave and noticed her hovering by the door.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but you..." he began.

Myka pulled out her Secret Service badge and showed it to him. "I'm with the Secret Service. This man is my partner."

Jimmy's eyes flitted from the badge to Myka's face. "Oh, you're the partner?" He turned to look at the other nurses and they all seemed to have made a connection.

Myka didn't notice it. Her eyes were on Pete. "Can you update me on his status?"

Jimmy looked out the door behind her. "That woman there is his doctor. Dr. Kern. She will be able to give you the run down."

"Thank you," Myka said. Glancing at Pete, she walked back out of the room and toward the doctor Jimmy had just pointed out to her. "Hello," she said. The doctor was looking at a clipboard and it took a moment before the woman looked up at her. "Hi, my name is Myka... I'm with the Secret Service and Pete..." she pointed to the room where Pete was, "is my partner. Can you give me an update on his status?"

Dr. Kern lowered her clipboard and quickly managed her face, but she didn't fool Myka. She saw the look of pity and regret that skidded through her eyes. The woman handed the clipboard to the nurse behind the counter, whispered something, and then put a consoling hand on Myka's back and led her toward Pete. The woman was a good head or two shorter than Myka, but this gesture, and the fact that the doctor held all the knowledge she needed, made her feel very small. By the time they got to the door of Pete's room, Myka felt like she were ten years old again.

"Agent..."

"Bering," said Myka, quickly. "But, please, call me Myka."

The woman nodded. "Myka, we've been able to deduce two things about your partner. One, he's been poisoned. Two, and this I believe was quite obvious, he doesn't seem to be able to speak." She looked up at Myka seriously. "The poison is unidentifiable. Whatever he came into contact with in Egypt, it is unique to our databases. We have been able to manage it so that it doesn't become worse. However, until we find the source we cannot create an antidote."

"What do you know about the poison?" Myka asked, crossing her arms. Finally, something solid to latch onto. If Artie was right about the curse, then the poison might be the first step to tracing its origins. Fleetingly, Myka thought about the cursed necklace, but she couldn't make any connections quickly enough.

Dr. Kern cleared her throat. "It was airborne when he contracted it," she said. "It was a small dose that is only lethal if left untreated and will cause permanent brain damage if left uncured. The behavior of the poison is not uncommon, particularly due to the fact that you were in Cairo, or the surrounding area, when Agent Lattimer was infected. That area, historically, has been known to have older establishments that release toxins from within its own walls, a sort of defense mechanism for intruders that has grown increasingly unstable over the centuries. Of course, the government in the last fifty years has attempted to tear down these older buildings so as to avoid infecting their own people, but there are still areas that have been left untouched." She unhooked the clipboard at the end of Pete's bed and examined it. "You do understand that the only reason I can tell you this is because of your position within the government?"

Myka nodded.

"The Egyptian government, of course, cannot know you were in a cave in the middle of their desert," said Dr. Kern, lowering her voice. "As the hospital liaison, it would be unwise for me to divulge this information to any non-Warehouse employee."

Myka's eyes widened. "You know about the Warehouse?"

Dr. Kern gave her a single nod. "I know only of it's essentials, and how to contact Artie if there is a suspect situation." She shook her head. "The thing is, if the poison were all that was wrong with Agent Lattimer, I would not have suspected anything. It's the constricting larynx that troubles me."

"How so?" Myka urged.

Dr. Kern walked to Pete's side, and Myka was close at her side. "The poison entered through his nostrils," said Dr. Kern. "He most likely sniffed something that drew the poison out of it's hiding place."

Myka restrained herself from rolling her eyes. "Yeah, that sounds like Pete."

"After the poison saturated his nostrils, it infected his white blood cells, which, as I'm sure you know, are the immune system. Well, that alone would not mean anything out of the ordinary, but coupled with the laryngitis it makes no sense. White blood cells do not affect someone's vocal chords, unless they are very, very unlucky, and even then the interaction is minimal. What I'm pointing out here, though, is that the poison did not cause the damage to the vocal chords," said Dr. Kern.

"Are you saying you don't know what did?" asked Myka.

Dr. Kern bit her lip. "Believe me when I say that we have run every possible test, Myka. There is no connection between the two, nor is there any physicalexplanation for his laryngitis."

Myka narrowed her eyes and pondered this. "But you dohave a theory, don't you?"

Another single nod. "I believe that the constriction is psychological," said Dr. Kern, lowering her voice again. "Artie can tell you better than I, but there are some very nasty stories, from the Warehouse and beyond, about Egyptian curses. Most theories, the reliable ones anyway, seem to agree that the curse permeates the psychosis, as though it is the brain that convinces the body that something is wrong, rather than physically inflicting the ailment."

Myka crossed her arms. "If I didn't know so much about the Warehouse, I would have said you are off your rocker."

Dr. Kern sighed. "In my line of work, Myka, we don't settle for unexplainable phenomenon, if we can help it, anyway. We will continue to run tests as we see fit, monitor his progress, and look into poisons the Egyptian Center for Disease hasn't thought relevant enough to release data on."

"This was all very helpful," said Myka, shaking Dr. Kern's hand. "I appreciate you keeping me in the loop." She wanted the doctor to stay until she could think of more questions, but she was drawing blanks.

Dr. Kern smiled. "I don't think it would be appropriate to tell his girlfriend any of what I told you," the woman whispered, raising her eyebrows. "But you know that."

Myka gave her a half smile and the doctor left, replacing the clipboard at the end of Pete's bed. Myka pulled up a chair and sat next to him, watching his face act like a statue before her eyes.

"Hi, Pete," she said, whispering hoarsely. She reached up and took his hand and held it between two of hers. She stroked his tough skin for several moments before she could think of anything else to say. "Kelly told me you wanted to talk to me, or see me. I didn't actually talk to her so I don't know exactly." She bit her lip and inhaled deeply, willing the tears to stay locked up in the ducts behind her eyes.

There was some noise outside the door of his room and it made Myka lose concentration. She looked out and watched as a bed was wheeled passed the doors. A younger couple peered inside the room where Myka sat with Pete, completely unashamedly staring in. Myka averted her eyes and looked at Pete again.

"I've made you a list of reasons you need to get better," Myka said, still holding Pete's hand. "Would you like to hear them?"

Pete didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't show any sign of registering Myka's words.

"I'm going to take that as a yes," said Myka, smiling in spite of herself. She sniffed and wiped off a tear that was pooling in her eye. She had to pull herself together. There was still a lot of be done and she couldn't get anything done if she became blubbery.

She closed her eyes and recalled the list that she formulated on the way to the hospital. "Okay, first reason. Pete, you need to get better because we still haven't figured out what happened to Tina. Every mystery that the Warehouse has thrown in our way, we have solved together. So, you can't bail before we figure that out." She gripped his hand more tightly and took deep breaths as she tried to bring her mind back to even ground.

:||: Warehouse :||:

"If it is a Treasure Hunter's curse, it's unlike one I have ever seen," said Artie. He and Leena were fixated on a single frame from the movie captured by Myka's impeccable memory.

"My Ancient Egyptian is a bit rusty," said Claudia, tapping the remote against her palm impatiently. "Care to share what we're looking at?"

"Well, for starters," said Artie, crossing his arms and laying them on his belly, "hieroglyphics are rarely specific. Egyptians used them for story telling in the most figurative sense. When reading glyphs, the interpreter must decide whether a glyph is meant to be semantic, or carry meaning, or whether it is meant to be phonetic and expressing a very specific element. There are enough glyphs that can only be one or another, so it is possible to glean from the surrounding elements how they are to be interpreted."

"Yeah, thanks for that," said Claudia, rolling her eyes. "I meant less specifically, what are we looking at?"

Artie grunted dispassionately. "Essentially, from what I can decipher of the grainy picture, the glyphs all indicate some sort of instruction. Most of these hieroglyphs are meant to be taken literally, but there are characters that imply secrets, or silence. Or perhaps both."

"Claudia, press play again," said Leena. The movie began playing and they watched the glyphs advance along the wall.

"Pause," said Artie, standing quickly. "Now this, this right here..." he pointed at the screen. "See how all of these symbols, the Sa, the Udjat, the Shen, yes, especially the Shen, all of these symbols surround the image of the child?"

"I'll take your word for it," said Claudia, watching closely.

"Oh gosh," said Leena, standing up. "That's not just any child."

"No, it certainly isn't," said Artie. He looked pleased that Leena was seeing what he was seeing.

"The single finger to the mouth," said Leena, pointing at the grainy, yet distinguishable, picture. "That is a graphical interpretation of Harpocrates."

"Harp-who now?" asked Claudia.

"Harpocrates," said Artie. "The child Horus. The god of silence."

"But that was not so in Egypt," said Leena, curiously. "The Greeks mistook the image of the child Horus as a hush of silence, rather than its symbolism as a child. I mean, Harpocrates is considered late Greek mythology."

"These caves weren't discovered until the late 1700s, by Warehouse 10, and we haven't ventured through its doors since its initial discovery," said Artie. "There is no doubt that this is a depiction of the Greek god, not the Egyptian god."

"What the hell would the Greeks be doing, building a cave in the middle of..." Claudia began.

Artie was shaking his head. "The Greeks have always had a huge presence in Egypt. The existence of a Greek cave in Egypt is unheard of, and certainly the Warehouse agents who discovered this cave did not figure it out, but it is not unrealistic. In the last 50-some years their presence has seriously diminished, but historically they've settled all over the country."

"So, let me see if I'm understanding this..." said Claudia, walking around the screen so that she could see Artie's and Leena's faces. "A tomb built by the Greeks contains Egyptian hieroglyphics and was probably built around 1700?"

Artie waved his hands frantically and made a face that suggested Claudia had gotten it all wrong. "In early, B.C. Greece, hieroglyphs were known solely as symbolic, sacred writings, but it is little known that the Greeks who lived with Egyptians were quite often taken as slaves and trained to be sent into the pyramids or caves after the burial of a king to carve these hieroglyphs into the walls. It is a well kept secret, and for good reason."

"And what reason might that be?" asked Claudia. She was lost, totally lost, as to where all this information was leading. But she knew, as well as any of them, that Artie wouldn't be able to process anything until he laid out all of the finer details. His process could be dreary and cumbersome, but when followed through he generally came out with phenomenal conclusions.

"Had the Grecians known that their own were being enslaved by the Egyptians, there would have been much more animosity between the two nations than already existed," said Leena, calmly. "They got along just well enough to keep trading open and moving between the countries and across the Mediterranean in general. The Greeks were and are a very proud people and did not condone the forced servitude that the Egyptians have been known for throughout all of their history."

"So, come modern times," said Artie, pacing around the cramped office again, "or at least in the last thousand years, the Grecians must have built down into the earth, because that was the only place that the Egyptians could be kept out of their own piece of culture?" He stopped short and raised a finger. "No!" He spun around wearing a manic smile on his face that worried Claudia. "There is no culture in this cave. There was nothing that Myka showed us that would indicate the proud Grecian heritage." He plucked the remote out of Claudia's grip and rewound the movie, pointing at the screen, though at nothing in particular, as he did so. "I saw it…I saw it…" He let out a cry and played the movie again. Pete and Myka had just exited the unintentional tomb. "Look on the wall behind Pete as he grabs the torch."

The wall behind Pete was covered in a mural, depicting a myriad of what appeared to be persons in bondage. The walls were so aged that it couldn't quite be clear who the figures were, but Artie pointed out the symbols of oppression and slavery and it was not contested that this was a mural of slavery.

"This isn't a tomb," said Artie, "this was a death trap and a weapon against a greedy people." He turned to face Claudia and Leena. "The Grecians must have lured some of their oppressors into the tomb, trapped them in the sanctuary, and set up that last room as an explanation for anyone who found the tomb later…"

"…knowing full well that only an Egyptian would know to what it was referring to exactly," Leena finished.

"Precisely," said Artie. He sat down heavily in his chair and it slid back. He folded his hands behind his head and stared at Claudia, as though he'd just solved the whole puzzle.

"Artie…" said Claudia, holding out an arm in confusion. "What does this have to do with Pete?"

"Where's the Farnsworth? I need to call Myka."

:||: Hospital :||:

Myka had stood up from Pete's bedside when the Farnsworth began to buzz. She was facing the wall, giving herself a hushed pep talk to keep herself together, arms tightly crossed and just seconds away from pacing. She pulled the Farnsworth out of her back pocket and popped it open, moving at the same time to the door of Pete's room and pulling it shut.

"Myka, Myka…" said Artie, hastily.

"Yes, Artie, I'm here. What's up?" she said, trying to concentrate her attention fully on her mentor.

"We've made a couple of discoveries. Are you alone?" Artie asked.

"Yes," said Myka. "I mean, Pete's here, but he's sedated."

"How is he?" Claudia's head popped into view and Myka saw Artie's hand try and push her face away. "Good grief, Artie. It's Pete! Don't you want to know how Pete's doing?"

"I do, I do. But if we don't move quickly, we won't be able to acquire an antidote fast enough," said Artie, regaining the spot in front of the Farnsworth camera and fixing his glasses. Myka waited impatiently for him to continue. "First of all, the cave you and Pete entered was not, as we originally believed, an Egyptian tomb. It was built by Greek slaves to lure Egyptians into, trap, torture, and ultimately murder."

Myka's breath caught in her throat. "So that cavernous room we were in…that really was an unintentional tomb?"

"Unintentional for the Egyptians trapped there, yes. Not unintentional for the Grecians who built it with the plan of trapping them there." His breathing was labored. "The last room that you were in…that was a story of the Greek slaves and a curse to anyone who defiled the sanctuary ."

"Defiled?" said Myka, numbly. She felt her lips tingle. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Artie. "I am sure it curses something else, but there is not enough of the wall for me to decipher."

"Why are you sure it curses something else?" said Myka.

Leena tilted the Farnsworth toward herself. "The room was shaped like a triangle, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Myka. "Pete said that it was like that on the map at the cave's entrance, too."

"No cave was ever built with a three-wall room," said Leena. "It just wasn't done."

"What are you saying?" said Myka. "That there is another room there? Or that it caved in?"

"I think that there is another wall, at the very least, that the wall that Pete pricked his finger on opens up," said Leena. "Whether there is another room beyond, I cannot be certain."

"Honestly, I don't know much about the Greek culture in Egypt," said Myka, "so there isn't much I can offer…" She thought quickly for a moment, scanning her memory for something useful. "But if the Greeks built it to look like an Egyptian tomb, then I'd guess that they included very Egyptian elements to the structure, in which case there is most certainly a room behind that wall. I didn't know, however, that rooms are never four walls. Are you sure that is Egyptian?"

Leena nodded. "It isn't just Egyptian, it's structural. Caves are significantly less stable when rooms are included that have less than four walls."

Myka's brain began to work double time. "If that's true, then perhaps there was treasure hidden beyond," she said.

"That is very likely," said Artie, pulling the Farnsworth back to face him. "I need you to go back to Egypt with me, Myka."

Myka felt her eyes bog out of her head. "You've got to be kidding me, Artie. Look at Pete!" She turned the Farnsworth to show a sedated Pete, harnessed onto his bed. "They have to strap him in because he keeps having fits." She turned the Farnsworth back on her face. "Besides, he asked for me. He might have something important to tell me."

"I'm sorry, Myka, I know you care about Pete's well-being, but this is more important in terms of finding a cure," said Artie, impatiently. "Whatever Pete might have to tell you, it can wait until we get back."

"What if it can't? What if I don't get that chance?" said Myka. She felt like she was panicking, but she couldn't help it. Leaving Pete at this stage…without knowing what he wanted to say to her, without getting the opportunity at least once more to tell him…

But what was it that she wanted to tell him? Did she really just want to blurt out her feelings for him? She knew that he had been trying to tell her something about Kelly all week. Whether it was to ask her opinion on if he should tell the woman the secret of their job or something less serious, she couldn't be sure, and she was trying desperately to avoid that conversation. Knowing that he felt so seriously about Kelly made her less inclined to interject, throw her own feelings into the mix so that she faced rejection and an awkward work-relationship as well as forcing Pete to make a decision over two women he cared about. Whether they were romantic or not, Pete cared about Myka, she knew this. But did he think about her the way she thought about him?

This thought froze Myka and she didn't hear anything Artie was saying.

"Sorry, Artie, what was that?" she said, scratching her head.

Artie let out a long, exasperated sigh. "I said, you have four hours to spend at the hospital. I need to make a couple arrangements, then I will pick you up on the way to the airport."

"All right," said Myka. It was better than nothing.

"Four hours. OK?" said Artie.

"I got it," said Myka. She shut the Farnsworth and turned to face Pete.

The tension in his face had eased, as though the sedation had given way to rest and he was sleeping peacefully now. She thought the list of reasons she'd made, the reasons Pete had to get better. They all seemed pointless now. Except for one.