Up on the third floor, Kate and Will are still searching for the archives. That particular level of the building was lifeless, yet fully furnished and equipped.
All within one second, Will's eyes lit up like lightbulbs and his right arm reached out and grabbed Kate's arm. She jumped as soon as his hand touched her. 'What! What is it?' she retorted.
By looking over in Will's direction, she understood what he was trying to say. Directly to their left was a door with the word Archives bolded in gold, stuck to the window. The two nodded at each other as if to say well done and entered the room.
There were rows and rows of shelves with stacked boxes filling them to their right. To the left was one desk and multiple filing cabinets lining the walls around it. The room seemed like it hadn't been used in a while considering the thin layer of dust and the musky smell it produced, not to mention the slightly discolour made by the light from the one window.
Will walked over to the filing cabinets near the window while Kate made her way to the computer set-up at the desk. It was clearly used for quick searches but to add to their problems, they were locked out. Kate started inputting every single password she could remember the Navy using but made sure not to try too many times or else reception would be alerted.
'Ugh, it's no good. We're locked out' she exclaimed with a sigh.
Without telling herself to, she sat her elbows down onto the desk and buried her face in her hands. All of this stress was getting to her and her patience alone was wearing thin.
Determined to be undefeated in their assignment, Will grabbed a large box from the 2019 Ship Log shelf and dropped it onto the other side of the desk, making Kate's head dart back up.
'Come on, missy. We're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. Besides, the Huntress did say we'd be looking through paperwork' he advised.
To his astonishment, Kate was scowling at him and he couldn't understand why. What had he done wrong this time?
Kate stood from the desk chair, reached over and lifted the lid off of the box. All whilst locked in a stare with Will, neither one daring to look away.
'Two things. Firstly, she's not a psychic. We just got unlucky with the computer and are forced to resort to physical records. And second of all, never call me missy ever again if you value your life, are we clear?'
Similar to a child who knew they'd got off lucky, Will shook his head respectfully. To his relief, Kate looked down at the files and grabbed some out of the box.
Being released from her stare felt like having a heavy dumbbell moved away from your throat before it dropped. He never thought she could be so scary until that one moment. She really has a problem with my trust in the Huntress. Either that or she just doesn't know who to trust right now, he observed.
'Oh, what was the name of that ship again?' Kate asked casually.
'Discovery. The HMS Discovery. I think that's what Gray said.'
* * *
Back at Weller's lab, Gray is rolling around wildly whilst gasping for air. With no control over his reactions, his hands start grabbing his neck and his legs twist inwards from the struggle. Colour starts draining from his face and every part of him tries to shout for the Huntress. All prove useless, but lucky for him she'd already noticed.
'Not good, not good, not good!' she exclaimed as she rushed over, her voice getting louder and louder. She allowed herself to collapse next to him, landing in a kneeling position. She started examining Gray by forcing his mouth open and looking down his throat.
As Gray's mouth was opened, water gushed out and drenched his suit. Cassie finally managed a little squeal, but nothing more. Her jaw hung low and she was pretty much paralysed in fear. Huntress meanwhile gasped and started scans on the water with the sonic.
'Oh, boy. Oh, yep. You are drowning. I am so sorry mate. That's how I died yesterday, so karma is clearly a—'
'Save him!' Cassie interrupted with a powerful yell. She'd clearly gained control of her voice and snapped after hearing the word "drowning".
Huntress looked up at Cassie, stunned. She'd never been interrupted at a moment like this before.
'Can't you see I'm trying?' Huntress rebutted before turning back to Gray, still gagging.
Huntress finished her scans and studied the sonic. 'Yep. That's the thing from the computer and that's the good news.'
Cassie stared down at the Huntress and the struggling Gray and tilted her head. 'What could possibly be the bad news here!?' she sarcastically responded while waving her arms around, tears clearly forming in her eyes and her cheeks burning red.
'Glad you asked. The only way to deter the creature is electricity.'
No sooner had she said electricity was the sonic was placed near Gray's temple and activated.
Clearly by his reaction, Gray was being shocked. Cassie gave a small scream and watched the water in his suit rise in droplets and begin to shudder. Large quantities started floating out of Gray's mouth until his choking ceased.
Huntress stopped shocking Gray and watched the water become one and float like a massive bubble above his chest. Cassie dropped to Gray's right side and checked his pulse. She furiously tried to wake him by tapping his face. 'Hey. Hey, wake up!' she exclaimed with panic.
Meanwhile, the Huntress never moved her attention away from the water and was fixated by its movement. Gravity didn't seem to affect it anymore. More than that, it seemed to pulsate like a heartbeat.
'His ok, just sleeping it off. You really think I'd kill my friend.'
Huntress slowly raised her arm with the sonic firmly in her grasp and stared the water down, like a mortal enemy was before her.
'As for you, don't act like you're a lifeless entity. I know your listening on the other end whoever you are so listen up. My friends and I are out of bounds from here on in. If you ever touch a friend of mine again, you will heavily wish you'd never even thought about it. It's taken a long time, but I can finally say this one more time even though it's a little different. I'm the Huntress, once the Warrior of a Single Tear and I promise you that this planet is defended. Now be a dear. And shove off.'
The sonic is activated and the entity starts going wild. The water bubbles and boils in place, then it begins to evaporate into steam. Eventually, the whole thing breaks down into steam which disperses.
To the right of the Huntress, Gray begins to sit up while cradling his head with his right arm as the left loosened his silver tie from around his neck and removed it allowing him to breath better. She turned around and looked down at him.
'You ok? You got into more trouble than I expected within five minutes.'
He turned his head to face her and to the Huntress' absolute surprise, he was smiling. 'All good. But, that was cutting it bloody close there. I could have died, Huntress!'
'But you didn't! Look at the silver lining here!' she quickly argued back.
'Silver lining!? I was attacked by a speck of water! I nearly drowned!'
'Like I said, still alive. Right here. Bit of thanks warranted'
Gray was about to continue the debate when he remembered. He turned around to his right and looked at Cassie, stunned with an expression which looked stuck. Huntress noticed Gray's altered attention and finally noticed the paralysed Cassie for herself. 'Oh right. Sorry, I forgot you were here. Oops, I mean, I'll stop talking now.'
Gray turned his head to Huntress again for a moment to add to her comment, 'Good plan.'
Cassie kept her shock-frozen face the same but turned to look at the Huntress more closely, then Gray.
'You two aren't building inspectors, are you?'
* * *
While the scene in the lab was playing out, Kate and Will had made progress with the search for the files on the Discovery. They'd narrowed it down to a select few boxes and already found the launch order for the ship, but nothing on its design or build.
'This is what it's like in the Navy with their files? I can see why people don't bother' Kate thought aloud while flipping through a folder on what she guessed was the wrong ship. It never specified every involved ship until the end, which was beyond stupid in her opinion.
Will gave a long sigh and threw another useless file back into a box. 'Well we know it was launched from a warehouse down by the docks in a barely used section of the shipyard. We know that it was sent to the mysterious black spot in the Atlantic and never returned. That black spot is apparently still there. Seems like anything more than that isn't kept here.'
Kate breathed out heavily and leant back in the desk chair, throwing her hands back behind her head. 'Anything more would be kept at the place where it was manufactured.' Kate responded with a weak voice. It was clear that her attention span was depleted and the lack of discovery bored her, quite literally.
Still standing, Will stretched and straightened his posture. 'Well, all we can do now is head over to the Huntress and Gray. That warehouse is our next stop'
'Agreed' she quickly answered, taking that comment as a queue to stand up and prepare to leave immediately. She walked around to the front of the desk and started heading to the door.
As she raised her head to look at the door itself, she was stopped dead in her tracks. Will noticed and looked over in response. Leaning on the door-arch was Weller, with a sly grin on her face.
'My apologies, Kate Stewart.'
Weller walked into the room and flicked her finger while pointing behind her. As she did so, the door slammed shut behind her. 'This is where you stay. Now, give me the documents.'
Kate moves her eyes into the direction of the leather bag slung over her right shoulder in a quick moment, then back to Weller.
Instinct kicked in and Kate's foot started sliding backwards in an attempt to move away. Behind her, Will is eyeing the globe sitting on the desk and was preparing himself to grab and throw it.
In one single snapped movement, Weller turns to Will with eyes so piercing that they could have burnt through his skull. 'I don't think so.'
Weller flicks her hand again, this time in the direction of the window in front of her. In response, Will starts flying backwards towards the window. He manages to grab one of the filing cabinets in time and changes his trajectory, hitting the wall instead.
With him out of the way, Weller focuses once again on Kate, who took the time to move further backwards and away from his crazy, powered woman. Weller shows no signs of being disturbed, or even happy. Such a grin, yet when looked upon it felt empty. A sight near indescribable.
Weller tilts her head whilst watching Kate and flicks her wrist once again, this time to her left but more downward. This propels Kate to her right and ends with her being stopped by the wooden desk and her head hitting the edge.
She struggles to move and the room starts to spin. Her head felt very warm and her right hand stayed clutched to the bag, even though she wanted to grab her wounded head badly.
All of a sudden, she heard approaching footsteps in front of her. She knew it was Weller, but she was helpless. She couldn't reach her gun, she couldn't move, she couldn't even see Weller for an attempt to grab her.
With no other option, Kate started to haul herself underneath the wooden desk. She grasped the desk chair on the other side and managed to move her feet to the sides in attempt to make herself unmovable. She considered the fact that Weller would throw the desk, but it was a chance she had to take.
With a loud crash, she heard Weller scream followed by a small shockwave in front of her. She couldn't help but panic and try her hardest to unblur her vision.
Out of nowhere, the desk chair moved backwards and someone yanked her to her feet. She gasped loudly and tried to escape from their grasp with all the energy she could muster.
'Kate, Kate, it's me! Will!' Will shouted while shaking her shoulders and holding her upright. She was struggling so much whilst barely able to stand. He could tell that she couldn't stand on her own much longer.
She gave a massive sigh of relief and relaxed the tension in her body. Will wrapped her right arm around his shoulders and started running out of the room with her, glancing back every now and then. Behind him, the large metal shelves had been pushed down and now leant against the desk. Beneath the last one was Weller, not trapped but unconscious with a small cut on her forehead.
With strong determination, Will continued dragging Kate out of the room and hurried to the elevator at the end of the hall.