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A New War #15:
Sentinels and Guides
by Lianne Burwell
July 1999
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Harrison Blackwood was drifting in a comfortable haze. It was soft and 
dark, and the only thing that he noticed was the sound. It was like a 
comfortable roar, filling the air around him. For a moment, the 
conversation of two students wondering what was going on caught his 
attention, then disappeared into the roar. The sound of a cop jogging up 
a set of stairs: there, then gone. The world was made of sound and sound 
was the only thing that was real, but it was elusive, always just out of 
the grasp of his comprehension.

Then out of the ocean of noise, one sound, one voice began to grow 
louder. He couldn't understand what it was saying, but the tone soothed 
him, distracted him from the other sounds that threatened to overwhelm 
him again. As time passed -- he couldn't tell how long -- words became 
clearer. He could recognize his name in what the voice was saying.

Then there was a pressure, the first physical sensation he'd felt in... 
Eons, it seemed. He could feel something touching him in the darkness, 
pressing against his hand. The pressure built and built, until -- without 
warning -- it turned sharp and painful, making him cry out in protest.

"Damnit, Harrison, don't do this to me!" he heard clearly all of the 
sudden.

Harrison blinked, suddenly blinded by the weak afternoon sunlight coming 
through the window. He could now recognize the sharp pain as being Paul's 
fingernails digging into the sensitive flesh on the inside of his wrist.

"Paul?" he said, his voice feeling rusty. "What happened?"

"You blanked out on me again, worse than any time before. I've been 
trying to get you do respond for nearly ten minutes!"

Harrison looked at Paul's face, trying to understand. Sure, he'd blanked 
out a couple times in the last few days, but that had just been for a few 
seconds. It was just the stress of everything that had been happening. 
But his lover looked closer to panic than he'd ever seen before. Paul 
never panicked. Not even in the face of overwhelming odds. Not even in 
the face of his own imminent death. But now Paul almost looked like he 
was the verge of tears. It wasn't a good look for him.

Harrison raised a gentle hand to cup Paul's cheek, and they stood there 
for a moment, ignoring their audience.

Then he let his hand drop. "I don't understand?" he said plaintively.

"You zoned," a new voice said. He turned to find Ellison's partner -- 
Sandburg, his memory promptly supplied -- staring at him with a gleam in 
his eye. "It happens if you focus too hard on one sense. Which one was 
it?"

"I don't understand," Harrison repeated. The detective leaning against 
the wall near the door snorted.

"Let me spell it out for you, then," Sandburg said, pushing the hair out 
of his face. "In primitive societies, there was a class of warrior set 
apart by natural abilities. Their senses -- all five -- were enhanced to 
what would now be called super-human levels. In modern terms," Sandburg 
stared into his eyes, "being able to see a gunman on a distant rooftop, 
even with the sun in their eyes." Harrison flinched. "Being able to hear 
a conversation in a different room." Harrison flinched again.

"I thought so," Sandburg said. "What were you listening to?"

Harrison glanced at Paul, who just looked confused. "The person from 
forensics was saying that the bullets shot at us were made of something 
he didn't recognize. Some sort of ceramic."

Paul's eyes narrowed at that, but Sandburg just nodded. "Right. So you 
were so focused on what you were listening to that the rest of your 
senses turned off. You need to learn to keep your attention split so that 
it doesn't happen again."

"And if it does?" Harrison asked, suddenly having a vision of himself 
locked in a psych ward.

"That's why every Sentinel has a Guide," Sandburg replied.

"And what is a guide?" Paul said impatiently. Harrison could sympathize. 
He was beginning to wonder what language the young man was talking in, 
since it didn't make a hell of a lot of sense as English.

"Every Sentinel has a partner, a Guide. The Guide's job is to keep his or 
her Sentinel centered and focused without zoning out. We also help them 
to hone their abilities and use them to the best effect."

"We?" Paul said, picking up on the one word instantly.

"We," Sandburg said with a nod. "As in you and I."

"You're a Guide?" Harrison glanced over at the detective. "His?" he said, 
with a nod towards Ellison. It would certainly explain why the man felt 
so... familiar. The moment Ellison had first come through the door, he'd 
felt a... kinship with the man. Almost as if they knew each other. He'd 
also felt an instant anger when he'd been so familiar with Paul, but he'd 
squashed that down quickly.

Sandburg glanced over at the man briefly, then nodded. "Jim's my 
Sentinel," he confirmed. "I met him while working on my Ph.D. I was 
researching Sentinels, and his senses had just come back on-line. Long 
story," he said quickly, before Harrison could ask. "Don't ask. And 
definitely don't tell. We've already been targeted by a rogue CIA agent 
who figured it out, and we really don't want that to happen again."

Harrison shuddered slightly. "Understood," he said. While he'd worked 
with the military on the Blackwood Project, he wasn't sure just how far 
he would trust the brass. If alien technology made them salivate, so what 
would a man who could hear through walls and see for miles make them do? 
A Sentinel would be the perfect spy, the perfect assassin. He was sure 
that Ellison didn't want to be 'recruited' any more than he did.

"Can I ask a few questions?"

Harrison blinked, and returned his attention to Sandburg. "What sort of 
questions?" he asked.

"Well, I started out doing my Ph.D. on Sentinels, but dumped that as too 
dangerous. But I'm still studying them, more to help Jim. You can have a 
copy of my research," he said in an aside to Paul.

"Me? Why?"

"Well, you're his Guide. It might help you."

"I am?"

"Aren't you? You did pretty good bringing him out of his zone-out."

"That doesn't necessarily mean anything, Mr. Sandburg," Paul said, 
shaking his head.

"Hey, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck..." Sandburg said 
with a shrug of his shoulders.

Paul looked at Harrison and they both shook their heads. This was 
starting to get surreal. Of course, in the last few weeks he'd been 
attacked by aliens, met a man who was more cat than human and had his 
long-dead lover return from the grave, so to speak. Maybe 'starting' 
wasn't the right word to use.

"So what were the questions?" Harrison finally asked, breaking the 
silence.

"What? Oh, right. Um... When did your Sentinel abilities come on-line?" 
Blair said, sitting down and pulling over a pen and piece of paper.

Harrison shrugged. "I don't know. It's not like they weren't there one 
moment, but were the next."

"Well, when did you have your first zone-out?"

Harrison glanced over at Paul, running through the 'blackouts' that Paul 
had been so worried about. "That I know of? Two days ago."

"And what happened to cause it?" Sandburg was moving more and more into a 
scientist tone of voice, one that Harrison remembered well.

"Paul walked into the room, and..."

"And?"

"I could hear his heart beating," Harrison said, feeling a little 
embarrassed. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Ellison 
looked interested, while Debi and Suzanne just looked confused.

"And you'd never noticed that before?" Sandburg said in surprise.

"Well, considering we thought he'd been dead for the last seven, eight 
years, no."

"Huh?" Sandburg said, dropping completely out of his scientist mindset.

"Long story," Paul said with a small smile, echoing Sandburg's comment 
from earlier. "Don't ask."

Sandburg chuckled. "I hear you, man. Okay... Most Sentinels, according to 
my research, develop their abilities through periods of solitude. Jim's 
came out during his time in Peru. He repressed them when he got back to 
the states, but they came out again while he was alone on a stakeout at a 
wood-mill outside of town. Alex's senses came out while she was in 
solitary confinement in prison. Ben was raised in the arctic in an under-
populated area. Do you have any similar experiences?"

Harrison smiled faintly at that. "After Paul died, I moved into a family 
cabin in the middle of the woods. Didn't want to see anyone, talk to 
anyone. Then, a couple weeks ago, Debi showed up and dragged me back into 
the real world. Suddenly, everything was louder, brighter and stank. I 
just thought it was the sudden change from woodlands to city."

Ellison snickered; a sympathetic sound. "Been there, done that," was all 
he said in explanation, obviously willing to let his partner take the lead 
for the time being.

"Okay," Sandburg said, writing quickly. "That matches the pattern I've 
seen. Instinct to protect?"

"Yes," Paul said before Harrison could open his mouth.

"Check. When did you two become lovers?"

Harrison choked, and Paul turned red. "What?" Harrison said.

"Lovers. Every Sentinel-Guide pair I've come across in my studies have 
been lovers."

Harrison glanced over at Paul, then sighed. "Ten years ago."

Suddenly, Sandburg looked excited. "Mutual attraction from the moment you 
met?"

"Yes," Harrison said, and Paul echoed him.

"Oh, man, this is incredible. Most pairs become lovers *after* the senses 
come on-line. Of course every pairing I've come across didn't meet until 
afterwards anyway. You two were bonded before? And separated when they 
did?" He was scribbling even faster than before.

Harrison was starting to get frustrated. He was a little unsure if being 
grilled by this young man was necessarily any better than being grilled 
by the military. "Listen, this is all very interesting, but isn't a 
shooting slightly higher in priority?"

At least Sandburg had the grace to look embarrassed at that. "Right. 
Sorry. Jim?"

The look Ellison turned on his partner was equal parts fond and 
exasperated. "Well, the shooter is no doubt long gone," he said, "and 
you've all given your statements. You can head off, if you like. Just..."

Paul held up his hand. "Let me guess. Don't leave town."

Ellison grinned at that. "You took the words right out of my mouth, 
Colonel."

"Don't worry, we know the drill. You have our hotel and room number. 
We'll see you later."

Once they were all downstairs and squeezed into the rental car, Harrison 
turned to Paul. "Back to the hotel?" he asked as they drove away from the 
university.

"No."

Scully leaned forward from the back seat. "You just told Ellison that we 
were going back to our hotel and that he could reach us there."

Paul shot her a withering look. "If they found us at the university, they 
can find us at the hotel easily. It wouldn't be safe to go back there."

"So what do we do?"

Everyone looked at Paul expectantly, Harrison included. No one doubted 
for a moment that the ex-military man was the right person to make the 
decisions for the group.

Paul frowned at the steering wheel for a moment. "We haven't heard 
anything from Kincaid or the others. Until we do..."

He shook his head. "Damn, we can't risk leading our pursuers back to 
Vincent and his people. They wouldn't be able to fight back. We need to 
find someplace to loose ourselves until we hear from the others. A 
reasonably large city with an airport with flights to as many places as 
possible. From Cascade, the closest appropriate city would be..." Paul's 
eyes narrowed as though he were consulting a mental map.

"Seacouver," Suzanne supplied for him.

"Right. First step, though, is to get rid of this car and rent a new one 
using false papers. Harrison, you still have the ones Mulder's friends 
sent with Debi and Scully?"

Harrison patted his pocket. "You did say to bring them with us," he said 
mildly.

"Good. I hope no one left anything at the hotel that they didn't want to 
lose, because we are *not* going back," Paul said firmly.

"What about Ellison?" Scully asked again, still sounding a little 
horrified that they were running out on a police investigation; no doubt 
because she was used to being on the other side of the investigation.

"Do *you* want to try to explain things to him? Do you really think that 
the Cascade PD can protect us? If so, we can always leave you here, Agent 
Scully."

That statement was met with dead silence. Scully slumped back in her 
seat. She obviously still wasn't comfortable with the idea, but she 
couldn't deny that he was right. They *weren't* safe in Cascade.

Paul checked to make sure that they weren't being followed, then turned 
the car towards the city limits, heading north towards Seacouver. 
Harrison leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

It had been one hell of a day, and it wasn't over yet.

Two hours later, after switching cars, they heard the report about a 
firebombing at a Cascade motel.

* * * * *

Jim stood back and watched as the bomb squad checked for any more bombs. 
Uniformed officers redirected traffic and kept the curious from getting 
to close to the site. The motel had been evacuated, as had nearby 
businesses.

Blair stood next to him, resting a hand on his arm. "Were they in there?" 
he asked softly, his hand moving in a soothing stroking motion. Jim 
covered the strong hand with his own, reassuring himself that his lover 
was right there, not dead like he'd been before. Losing Blair was a 
nightmare he'd been through before, and every time they investigated a 
killing or near-killing, he found himself reaching out to reassure himself 
that Blair wasn't gone again. He wondered how Blackwood had managed to 
survive for years with *his* guide gone. Jim knew he wasn't strong enough 
to do that himself.

He shook his head. "The blaze was hot, but there'd still be some scent 
left behind if flesh had burned. No one was in there when it went off. 
The manager didn't see them come back either."

"So where are they?"

Jim scanned the crowd automatically, not really expecting to see 
Ironhorse or the others. "Probably long gone," he finally replied. "I 
would bet they left town right from the university."

"So how do we find out where they went?" Blair asked expectantly. Jim 
just shook his head.

"We don't," he said. Blair stared at him in disbelief. "Someone wants 
them dead," Jim explained. "Someone who has guns that fire bullets made 
of materials that bullets aren't made *from*. Someone who sets bombs that 
aren't made from standard materials." He sniffed deliberately, and once 
more nearly choked from the scent of a chemical he didn't recognize. 
"What it adds up to, I don't know. But I do know that the Cascade PD 
isn't equipped for this."

The bomb squad had finished, and the forensics team -- this time directed 
by Cassie Welles, unfortunately -- moved in. Most of the team went to 
work at once, sifting through the rubble for evidence. Cassie, however, 
was too busy questioning the motel manager. Finally Jim had to redirect 
her with a not so subtle hint that she should be doing her own job. The 
manager shot him a grateful look, then headed back to his office at the 
undamaged end of the building.

"So who do you think is behind this?" Blair asked in the truck when they 
were finally able to leave the scene to head back to the PD to write the 
reports.

Jim considered the question carefully. "The government, maybe," he 
finally said. "Or maybe something the Colonel was involved with. 
Ironhorse was involved in a lot of top-secret missions when I knew him, 
and if even his lover thought he was dead for nearly a decade..." his 
voice trailed off as he considered that possibility.

"Then maybe some government agency had him in something so deep cover that 
they're willing to kill him to keep it a secret?" Blair said in 
disbelief. But there was a hesitant tone to his voice. They'd come up 
against too many rogue operations in the last few years to put that 
completely outside the realm of possibilities.

But there was still the conversation he'd overheard. The one about 
aliens. He didn't believe it for a moment, but...

He didn't mention that to Blair, though.

"Why don't you give Jack Kelso a call," he suggested instead. "See if he 
can find out anything about what Ironhorse was involved in. And have him 
check on Agent Scully and Harrison Blackwood as well."

Blair grinned at him. "Good idea, Jim," he said. "If there *is* anything 
not kosher going on, he'd be able to find out."

They lapsed into silence after that. Jim concentrated on the traffic 
while Blair scribbled in one of his ever-present notebooks. The 
suggestion had been genuine, but Jim wasn't sure that anything would come 
of it. His instincts said that he wouldn't see Ironhorse again. At least, 
not in Cascade.

And while his instinct was to reject the idea of aliens, the strange 
ceramic bullets and the unfamiliar chemical at the motel made him wonder.

And what he was wondering made him *very* uncomfortable.

TO BE CONTINUED

(Damnit, Paul, that was *not* in the plans! Damn characters think they 
own the story. And yes, I know Alex is still bleeding. Next time.)