He had been in this form too long. It was the shape of a balding, gray-skinned man, the likes of which could be found in bureaucratic offices anywhere in the world, and it was an especially good guise for blending and mingling.

But his taste for nondescript, forgettable forms notwithstanding, Te'Jaerm had been in this one for seven months and twelve days, and it was beginning to itch. He paced back and forth in front of his two technicians. They were solid Breaker partisans, the most loyal that the Proto terrorist leader could rustle up. They were both in female forms at the moment, both having come from especially volatile deep-cover assignments.

"The first rift is closing, sir," one of them said. She leaned over a tangle of equipment, topless, so her useless clothing did not impair her ability to work the equipment. Te'Jaerm viewed her form with annoyance, wishing she could have taken proper protomatter form with proper quicksilver digits and proper Proto dexterity. But that was impossible by the very nature of this mission, so the two terrorists and their leader were required to wear forms they loathed.

The space-pincher, a complex and labyrinthine piece of equipment, was laid out in disarray on the concrete floor of the basement. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, paling in comparison to the arclight brilliance of the inner workings of the device. The other technician tweaked something, just one more of the thousands of minor alterations that kept the whole affair from detonating in their faces, and paused to look up at Te'Jaerm. "We can hold it steady for another ten to fifteen minutes before we'll need to open it again."

Te'Jaerm waved his arm dismissively. "Good. How soon can you set the timer?"

"Immediately, sir. But what about our agent on the inside?"

"If he doesn't do anything stupid, we won't have any problems. Our main issue is that he only understands this operation in vague terms, and his conception of the objectives might just be a little skewed."

"Sir, the timer is ready to set."

"So do it. And then we can get far, far away from here." Te'Jaerm looked wistfully at the staircase and scratched his itchy scalp again. "Finally we will be rid of that quisling slop-pile that calls herself an ambassador."

And then, he thought, maybe I can get a new body.

xxx

Better Days

Chapter 4

Under the Radar

xxx

Interviewer: Ambassador, I'd like to start out by asking the question that's on everyone's mind. Is there any legitimacy to Te'Jaerm's threats?

Te'mee: Te'Jaerm is my groupmate, and there was a time that I could have called him a friend. I was even there when he founded the Breakers...not under that name, of course. Few people know that it began as a peaceful activist group. But for all that I'm aware of Te'Jaerm's failings, solemnity is not one of them. If he claims that he's going to do something, he is going to do it.

Interviewer: So are you afraid for your well-being, and that of other Protos associated with Secretary Bishop and humanity at large?

Te'mee: Yes. Yes, I am.

xxx

The evacuation was going better than Colonel Broyles could have hoped. Running security for a party full of government bigwigs was never easy; only Hollywood celebrities were worse in terms of disobeying security teams' wishes. Still, the fact that Broyles was well-known (and well-respected) helped him greatly in his evacuation of the ballroom.

"Colonel Broyles!"

Broyles turned to find himself face-to-face with none other than Senator Brigham. He kept his face as emotionless as possible, and very consciously removed his hand from the grip of his blaster. Senator Brigham, Broyles found, had a way of making you want to shoot him. This was best dealt with by removing the temptation. "Can I help you, Senator?"

"I need access to the shelter!" Brigham was working up into a well-lathered rage, and if Broyles (and the rest of Fringe Division) was lucky, he'd pop a blood vessel right there. Nobody would notice one fewer politician, would they? "Immediately!"

"What shelter?" Broyles asked. He knew damn well which shelter the other man meant, but he also knew that nobody was supposed to know about it. Of course, every politician worth their salt had an information network the size of a decent block party, and if anyone else had requested access, Broyles wouldn't have made such a fuss. But the aforementioned vein popping was still on the table, and the colonel had no intention of giving Brigham access to anything.

"You know exactly which shelter I mean." Brigham's face contorted. "You're no use." He began to push his way backwards through the outflowing crowd of silk-clad ball-goers, jostling and pushing in the direction that the Ambassador had supposedly gone.

Broyles stepped into the crowd as well. With the adeptness of a longtime MP officer, he sidestepped nimbly through the jostling elbows and stampeding formal wear and caught Senator Brigham by the elbow.

With a surprising show of strength, Brigham yanked his arm away from Broyles's grasp. The Senator turned with a grace that belied his figure and threw a blue-clad young woman (apparently another Senator's daughter) into Broyles's path.

Broyles caught the terrified socialite before she fell to the floor and spun her around behind him. However, the distraction had given Brigham time to rampage through the crowd, throwing people to the floor as he went.

One of the greatest threats to human life during an evacuation, Broyles knew, is trampling. People in a human stampede don't look as closely as they should to what's going on around them, so anyone on the floor is in serious risk. The people escaping currently were quite possibly the least observant crowd Broyles had ever known, and there was a factor in play that was actively encouraging a fatal accident. He hadn't the slightest clue why Brigham was acting the way he was, but Broyles's training had taught him to carefully balance time spent planning and time spent acting.

There was no time to plan, and even less to act. If he didn't do something soon, this panicky crowd was going get someone killed. And so, with an unthinking ease borne of long hours of practice, Broyles drew his gun. His thumb went to the two levers on the grip; he set one to 'stun' and the other to 'wide spread', and began firing into the crowd.

xxx

The Obelisk system, designation 43312, should be deployed at a Fringe event after a brief period of amber encasement. However, the technology of the Obelisks contains sources from [redacted] and [redacted], and if captured by the wrong hands (possible groups include [redacted] and other domestic terrorists, but especially [redacted]) can be used to produce [redacted]. Therefore, only technicians at TS-4 or higher security clearance are even cleared to open the front panel. Only Bishop Dynamic or DoD representatives with TS-8 security clearance or higher are permitted to service the internal [redacted].

xxx

The saferoom in the Bishop residence was better-protected than many parts of the DoD headquarters. Twenty solid feet of nanoweave-reinforced concrete surrounded all sides of the room, with only a single reinforced elevator shaft puncturing the top of the cocoon. The nanoweave was electrically conductive, forming a multi-layered Faraday cage around the saferoom that blocked all electromagnetic waves, from cell phone transmissions to computer-shattering EMP blasts. In short, the bunker could withstand anything up to and including a small nuke without flinching.

Not, of course, that the room's appearance belied any of its fortification. Elizabeth Bishop had her hand here, too, as she did in the rest of the house, and she was not the sort to let evacuees and refugees languish in an improperly decorated saferoom. The room was as subtly and tastefully adorned as the rest of the house; and despite the lack of windows (or, in fact, doors) she had to work with, it looked precisely like any other annex of the mansion. It was small by necessity, but the sofa, armchair, and coffee table were sufficient for a few people to take refuge here. If a larger crowd required the use of the saferoom, they would likely have much more pressing matters at hand than seating accommodations.

When the elevator doors slid open, though, the decoration was the furthest thing from Peter Bishop's mind. All that mattered was the couch in the middle of the room, and the contents of a cabinet stashed behind a false panel in the back of the saferoom.

Ambassador Te'mee stumbled beside him, one amorphous arm resting on Peter's shoulder for support. The rift had gotten stronger on the elevator ride down, and she had taken the most basic shape that was still capable of locomotion: a headless biped, just two arms and legs attached to a stocky torso. In normal circumstances, Peter might have found the time to be alarmed by the degradation of her shape from elegantly artful to pragmatic and rough, but he had been around Protos enough not to let their small quirks bother him. He just guided her to the couch (he had guessed, apparently correctly, that she was also too distracted to form the silvery patches that let her see) and immediately crossed the plush carpet to the back of the room. The only sounds were his footsteps and his own heartbeat, thudding in his ears; voice was another thing that Te'mee didn't have the energy to sustain. Better to be silent than a silvery puddle on the floor.

The false panel at the back of the room slid back to reveal a shelf holding a hammered steel box, with one clear Plexiglas face that revealed a snarl of wires, ribbed conduits, and intricately milled metal parts. There was a single dial on the top, and Peter cranked it to maximum.

Almost immediately, there was a shivery gasp from the couch. Peter walked over with the box and set it down on the coffee table before sitting in the chair.

Quickly, the rapidly degenerating ambassador began to retake her normal shape. First her head, with two lighter silver patches that let her see. Then her arms and legs regained definition, the quicksilver material weaving itself into toned muscle.

"Whoa, whoa, take it easy." Peter leaned over and placed his hand on Te'mee's shoulder. "Don't go for too much detail. It's just me."

Her metamorphosis halted, leaving her with a basic feminine form, but without the intricate rippling detail she used when she was dressed up. "I lost some time there. Memories just don't store the same way when I can't focus. I remember the rift sirens, and then..."

"And then I helped you down here to the safe room." Peter gestured at the room about him. "It's a Faraday cage, but I don't know how much that actually helps. Not all of the energy from a rift is electromagnetic."

"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to help my species survive in this world if we turn to goo every time there's a little soft spot," Te'mee said wryly. "Doesn't seem good for our survival. So, if the Faraday cage around this room doesn't help, then I'm guessing that that box on the table is what's damping the effects of the dimensional breach?"

Peter nodded and pushed it over to her to examine. "My father won't tell me how the Obelisks work. He let me see blueprints, but without any context, neither I nor my scientists have been able to figure out how they work. So I've had them reverse engineering a few things. We don't have the full capabilities of an Obelisk, or in fact anything that can permanently stabilize a vortex like an Obelisk or amber can, but this prototype can soften the energies from the rift a little bit."

"So why not just requisition an Obelisk and bring it down here?"

"Because they don't work that way. That's why we have to use the amber for a few days before we can get one set up. Each breach has its own energy signature, and that's what the Obelisk feeds off of. They need to be 'tuned' before they can be used permanently. That much we've been able to figure out, despite Dad's unwillingness to tell me anything."

Te'mee seemed to relax a little. Peter had gotten good at reading her quirks of body language in the years he'd known her. Still, there was tension in the way she held herself. "Are they going to seal us in here?"

"If worse comes to worst? Maybe." Peter gestured to the mini-bar. "There's actually two weeks' worth of food and water in there, behind the front part with the alcohol. So even if we do get sealed in, we won't get trapped in amber and I'll be just fine. Until a few days pass and we go stir crazy and start trying to climb the walls, anyway."

Te'mee laughed weakly. "Got any board games?"

"Something as crass as board games in one of Mom's creations? Perish the thought."

"Well, happy birthday, Peter."

"I know, right? The sad thing is, I'm not so sure this was a bad thing. You know there's too much politicking in your life when you'd almost rather spend your birthday in a fallout shelter than at your own party."

"Your father was trying to insulate you, though. And I'd've been glad to lure off some of the unsavories, too. But I don't think that someone in your position could have a party without it turning into something like this."

"You're right, you're right." Peter stood up and headed over to the mini-bar. "I guess I don't give Dad enough credit. I love running BD, being on the cutting edge of things, but there's always been a part of me that was frustrated with him for pushing me into the limelight like this. I didn't ask for it, but he didn't ask for his importance either...it just kind of happened."

"I'd argue the second part. Walter chose this crusade for himself. He hasn't let himself become Ahab over it, but it's still an obsession."

Peter pulled out a bottled Mai Tai mix and a glass. "Ahab, huh? I didn't know you were a Herman Melville fan."

Te'mee cocked her head to the side. "Moby Dick was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge."

"Uh, right. I always get them mixed up." Peter swizzled some rum into his glass and brought his drink back to the chair. "You're right, though. Dad complains about the attention sometimes, but I've always known this is right where he wants to be. I'm not sure he could function without some kind of cause. Me, though, I'm not so sure."

"Well, either way, here's to ducking out of a party early." She formed her hand into the likeness of a martini glass again and raised it, but it collapsed almost as soon as it was formed. "Augh..."

"Hey, I told you to take it easy with the details. We can toast later."

Te'mee rubbed her rapidly reforming hand. "Still, the party wasn't a total bust. You seemed pretty interested in that redheaded Fringe agent." She formed a mouth for the express purpose of flashing him a wicked grin.

"Pfft. That's me, the ladykiller."

"Pretty self-deprecating, for the most eligible bachelor in America."

"Wait a minute, who decided that?"

"It was on the TV last ni-" Suddenly, a red light on the rift-blocking box began to blink furiously. Within seconds, Te'mee had reverted back to her basic bipedal form.

"Te'mee! Are you... what am I saying, of course you're not okay." Peter jumped up and began to fiddle with the dials on the device. "Uh, shake your arm once if the rift got stronger, and twice if you think the box is failing."

There was a pause, and Te'mee shook one thick limb once...twice...three times.

"I'm really not sure where to go with that," Peter said, still fiddling with the box.

Then the red light died, and Te'mee lost her shape altogether.

xxx

Cynthia: Dr. Peter Bishop has once again topped the America's Most Eligible Bachelor list. What do you think, ladies?

Rachel: Not going to last long. Every gold-digger on the East Coast is going to get a piece of that. He's not going to hold out on that forever.

Linda: Nah, not this guy. I'm getting kind of a Tim McCabe vibe from him. You know, that guy did a bunch of hit movies, everyone was trying to figure out which starlet he'd hook up with, and he ends up marrying one of the animators who did the CGI for Fatal Justice. Right out of nowhere.

Cynthia: But Dr. Bishop isn't in movies, so if you're right, it'll be even more unexpected.

xxx

The sound of blaster fire was the last thing Agent Olivia Dunham expected during a routine evacuation.

She was stationed out by the doors where she had entered the building, watching confused partygoers stream into the garden. She dropped into a fairly mindless routine of directing human traffic, rerouting wayward socialites toward the next checkpoint in the planned evacuation schedule.

And then there was a shout, a confused yelp or two, and the sound of a Fringe issue stun blaster, and the crowd broke into a run. Fortunately, the way out was spacious and well-marked; none of the government officials in attendance wandered into Elizabeth Bishop's prized chrysanthemums.

Olivia elbowed her way into the onrushing tide with a tenacity borne of desperation. She had no way of knowing what was happening inside the house, but if there was an altercation she was needed.

Fortunately, the same 'cop presence' that had gained her easy access to the party in the first place helped her avoid the flood of panicked people here. They didn't exactly part like the Red Sea at her approach, but she never needed to elbow anyone twice.

Her step faltered when she cleared into the ballroom to find Colonel Broyles, stunner in hand, calmly taking fire on unarmed civilians. From what Olivia could see, he was using a wide spread shot to take down as many people as possible as quickly as possible. About twenty people, all of whom had been behind him in line, succumbed to the ultrasonic difference tone and fell to the ground.

On instinct, Olivia drew her own stunner with a blurringly quick twitch of her arm and pointed it dead center at her boss' head. She took two steps through the discarded martini glasses and upturned chairs to get a better target. "Sir."

He turned to face her with a flash of fear in his eyes. "Agent Dunham. Holster your weapon, I need you to..."

A door, far across the ballroom, slammed shut. Olivia's aim shifted to it briefly, just long enough for her to catch a glimpse of shadow moving right in the hallway beyond. "Sir, you just stunned a crowd of unarmed, innocent civilians."

"They were going to stampede." He frowned. "Listen, Dunham, that's not important. You need to find Senator Brigham. Something's wrong with him, he's trying to get to the saferoom, and he's getting away. GO."

Olivia took a few seconds to churn through the clipped explanation. Her stunner barrel didn't move an inch from Broyles' head while she thought, but when her instincts had time to catch up to the current situation, she holstered her weapon. "Yes, sir."

As she hustled to the back of the room, Olivia tried to make more sense of the situation. Her trust and loyalty for Broyles outweighed the strangeness of the situation for the time being, but she couldn't ignore Broyles's methods. Stunning a crowd of civilians was an odd and dangerous move, despite the threat posed by overcrowding.

The door that the Senator (or what Broyles had told her was the Senator) had gone through turned out to be the employee's entrance into the kitchen, a wide door that swung both ways for easy transit carrying trays of food. Olivia kicked it open and slipped past it before it swung back the other direction, rocking on its hinges.

The kitchen was empty; Olivia guessed that the staff had another evacuation route, to keep the ballroom exit mostly clear. Various pots and pans were still out. Some of them were still on the stove, bubbling away, and Olivia turned off one of these that looked like a fire hazard. It wasn't hard to discern where Brigham had gone off to—the emergency exit at the far end of the kitchen was still swinging open.

The emergency exit led to an underground corridor, a dimly-lit concrete sarcophagus that shared its space with exposed plumbing and wiring conduits. Since the hallway ran in a straight line, Olivia could finally see the back of her quarry. It was definitely Brigham; the man had a distinctive profile to be sure. She thumbed the switches on her blaster and took aim, remarking briefly on the irony that she was about to do what she had just been judging Broyles for doing, and pulled the trigger.

A shimmering ball of air, like a moving mirage, leapt through the space between Olivia and Brigham. It slammed into his back, puffing out like a dust cloud, and there was a flash of silver on the back of Brigham's head. He staggered, but kept running, flashing one terrified glance over his shoulder at Olivia before the silver patch on his head turned back into bald skin and receding hair.

Olivia dropped the pistol to her side again and focused her efforts on running instead of shooting. Brigham ran surprisingly fast for a sedentary politician, but it was difficult to trump the expertise of a woman who was trained as a predator.

Brigham took a left turn down a small side corridor as Olivia gained on him. He stripped off his tuxedo jacket and threw it behind him, hoping to trip her, but she just jumped over it, turned on a dime, and followed him down the smaller hallway.

This one was a little nicer, with actual paint on the concrete walls, and arrows marked "SAFEROOM." There was an elevator at the end of the hall, incongruously paneled in rich mahogany, and another pathway leading right.

Brigham reached the elevator and reared his arm back, unleashing a punch at the door. The wooden façade split and the metal warped under the force, but Olivia caught up with him before he could take another punch.

She twisted to the side as she approached and barreled into him with her shoulder at full speed. The first thing she noticed was that he was a lot heavier and more solid than he should have been; although he still fell sprawling to the ground, a hit like that should have sent him flying. The second thing she noticed was that he seemed to flex as he hit her, moving in the way no human should. That confirmed a suspicion that she'd been nursing since she saw the back of his head flash silver.

"Stay on the ground!" She touched her earpiece. "Broyles!"

A slightly tinny voice sounded in her ear, notes of strain and tension evident despite the lack of fidelity. "Dunham? Did you catch him?"

Brigham managed to get up on his elbows before Olivia shot him again. His skin turned silver and he slumped to the ground. "He's a Proto."

There was silence on the other end of the line, and Brigham—or the thing that wore his face—gave off a metallic groan. Finally, Broyles responded with a muffled curse. "Get him out the nearest exit. Lincoln says something's wrong with the rift readings and we don't want to lose our only suspect."

"Yes, sir." Olivia reached down and grabbed the shapeshifter's arm. "Alright, you're coming with me."

Suddenly, the arm fell off and melted into a puddle of silvery goo. Brigham reformed into his normal, humanoid self, sans one arm. He just tilted his head at her and bolted down the corridor again toward the exit.

Olivia had to step carefully around the arm goop to get good friction, costing her precious seconds. She hadn't known that Protos taking a solid form could shed limbs like that; it was something she'd have to mention to the anti-terrorism people if they didn't know already. She hit her stride quickly and spun around the corner to chase down the terrorist.

Whether it was the reduced weight or the fact that he was no longer concerned about breaking cover, Brigham was a bit faster this time, and Olivia had to drive herself even harder to keep up with him. She didn't even try stunning him again; although she could shoot on the run better than any of her fellow agents, she didn't have the stamina to aim well and run at top speed simultaneously. Besides, the stunner hadn't had much of an effect before.

Brigham burst through the door to the outside, and Olivia caught it before it slammed shut. The door opened to part of the backyard, a cobblestone-lined path leading to a guest house bigger than most suburban homes. Hedges surrounded the whole complex, and there was an abandoned guard tower at the corner where two of the hedges met. This was a visitors' garden instead of a showy one like out front; as such, it was more open, and the foliage tended towards live oak trees instead of bushes. Still, the hedges were solid enough, and the meandering paths prevented quick travel from one point to another.

That is, unless you cut through the plants. Brigham had clearly had the same idea, and leapt into a small planter of flowers, clearing it in a few steps. Olivia chose a different path, mostly staying to the cobblestones where she could get more traction, only cutting through grass and other easily traversed plants.

She caught up with him as he was trying to beat his way through the hedge. She kicked him in the back of the kneecap and kneed him in the head as he went down, leaving him to fall into the hedge in a sitting position.

"Somehow, I don't think you were just here to eat the deviled eggs," Olivia said as she thumbed her pistol to a more lethal setting. "So why don't we just take a trip back to HQ to figure out what you're really up to?"

The man-who-wasn't-Brigham simply looked at her with a predatory blankness. Parts of his body were shifting back to liquid silver at random, soaking through his tuxedo shirt and reforming with the shirt embedded in the fake flesh. He seemed to be concentrating fairly hard on holding himself together. "I already finished what I was 'up to'—distracting you from the Ambassador."

"Distracting—" Olivia was interrupted by an explosion to the south, outside the grounds of the mansion. A wave of shining yellow light passed through the area, only milliseconds before a blast wave threw Olivia off her feet. The yellow light seemed to make Brigham dissolve as it passed through him, solid limbs turning to drops, then to droplets, then vapor, then nothing.

Olivia stood up and dusted herself off. She dimly heard Broyles saying something in her ear, but all she could do was stare at the ground where the terrorist had been moments before.