Chapter Text
Vera doesn’t believe what she’s seeing.
It’s a dream, a hallucination, a result of too many glasses of Sherry, Terrill and Darryl’s moonshine. Or, it’s a nightmare, because only in nightmares would her mind tease her with the possibility the flashing light and incessant chirping are real.
But then Ezra’s shouting into the comms, and soon Mike is too.
They see it. They hear it. So, either it’s real, or it’s a group hallucination, and Vera doesn’t know enough about that kind of stuff to make a decision.
Right now, Vera is tentatively siding with this being real.
Carolina’s alive.
After years of radio silence, years of mourning and healing and starting to sort of forget—but not totally, Vera would never ever forget her friends or Freelancer—after years of nothing, here’s something.
“Oh. My. God!” Vera screams into comms, only adding to the mess of ecstatic voices. “Oh, my god.”
“She’s still out there!” Ezra yells over comms. There’s an explosion, followed by a grunt. “Should we—ow!—should we call off the stealth mission?”
This mission hasn’t been stealth since it started, but Vera will never admit that.
“I would like to go home so we can call Carolina, please,” Mike pitches in. He yells as the sound of bullets hitting metal flood the comms.
“Yeah, yeah, call it off!” Vera says. Instead of running back to base, she lowers herself into a crouching position.
Vera’s a little fucking dizzy, but like, the good kind of dizzy. Sure, it’s a distress signal. Meaning Agent Carolina is probably in distress.
Logically, you gotta be alive to be in distress.
At least this is what Vera believes as she pushes herself to her feet and switches to the channel only she and Sherry share. She’s grinning so hard, she’s surprised she can even speak.
“Hey, where are you going, sweet cheeks?” Sherry chides.
“She isn’t dead!” Vera crows. One of the best sentences she’s ever uttered, in her opinion. Sherry’s silent for a moment before responding.
“Who isn’t dead?” she asks.
“Agent Carolina!” Vera says.
“What?!”
“She’s alive!” Vera yells as she reaches their base.
Ezra and Mike are already inside as she bursts inside, reaching up to yank her helmet—still shrieking glorious tidings of Carolina’s distress. Before she pulls it off, she says,
“Get your ass over here, we have some phone calls to make!”
“Phone ca—” Sherry’s voice is cut off as Vera removes her helmet.
“You know, we can’t actually, uh, call Agent Carolina,” Ezra points out as they make their way down the hall towards the computer.
After much debate, Ezra and Sherry rigged up a new computer, one with a comms system that worked about 60% of the time. They think. They aren’t really sure, what with no one to reach out too. And when they shot random messages into the void, no one ever answered. It is what it is, and even with wonky means of communication, there’s at least a sliver of hope for rescue.
“No shit, Ezra, it’s just a figure of speech.” Vera rolls her eyes.
The three of them cram themselves into the computer room, Vera at the desk, Ezra and Mike hanging on the back of her chair.
“Can you reach her?” Ezra asks.
“I’m gonna fucking try,” Vera retorts.
By the time everything is ready to go, Sherry, Terrill and Darryl are there, watching with baited breath as Vera reaches over to press the Button. The Button that will, in theory, open up communication between them and Agent Carolina—more specifically, her helmet.
“Agent Carolina?” Vera squawks. She coughs. Shakes her head. Repeats. “Agent Carolina! This is Agent Ohio of Project Freelancer. I have Agents Idaho and Iowa with me, as well as—” Vera pauses, unsure if she should disclose Sherry and the others are technically Innies. Nah. “As well as three other allies. You, uh, wouldn’t know them. At all. Agent Carolina, if you hear me, please respond!”
There are thirty-two agonizing seconds of radio silence.
Then,
“Ohio?”