Lieutenant - Daughter of the Captain

Chapter 18.0 - Solutions

Hours and hours of testing device after device that was designed to emit radio waves, radiation, vibrational patterns, electromagnetic pulses, anything and everything that they could think of.

Nothing worked.

Their last-ditch effort was sound waves, but they had major doubts.

Tony handed her a normal, everyday speaker, and pressed play.

ACDC made the others occupying the room roll their eyes.

Carter could only shake her head, reaching for Steve's hand for some relief from the world. For hours upon end she's had to be completely open, feeling everything, so they could find something to help her.

By now her throat was sore and splotchy, her eyes were swollen, and her cheeks were cramping. She was sweating with the effort it took to stay focused, and her body shook with sobs she was constantly stifling.

Steve gripped her hand tightly, pulling her closer as she cried once more, this time in relief.

"Maybe a stronger frequency, even one we can't hear," Banner said, taking a piece of sonar equipment and rolling it over to her, seeming frazzled and desperate as he avoided Steve's eye contact. He continuously glanced at the girl, hating the fact that they had to put her through this.

He set it to a frequency just outside the human hearing range, and nodded to signal he was ready.

Steve pulled away from Carter, waiting until she gave him a nod to drop her hand.

Her brows scrunched, and she failed to suppress a sob so gut-wrenching, the men in the room had to look away.

Banner immediately turned on the machine. They heard nothing, but watched as Carter's face contorted in pain.

"Turn it off, turn it off!" She wailed, as if trying to shout above loud music.
Her hands covered her ears, but as soon as Banner turned the dial, she began to relax.

"You could hear it?" Steve asked when he approached to grab her hand again. She nodded, pressing a hand to her pounding forehead.

The men in the room all exchanged a look.

"Banner change the frequency, and play it at half volume," Stark said, coming closer to them now.

This went on for another ten minutes or so, raising the frequency every time in an attempt to find one that didn't hurt her. But they were running out of options. They had to resort to YouTube videos, because the sonar didn't emit frequencies that high.

It wasn't until they reached forty-five thousand Hz that they saw an improvement.

Beyond even a Dog's hearing range.

"Tha-that's okay, that's different," Carter assured them quickly, allowing them to keep the tone going. Still, they tried the next one, going up by one hundred.

This time, she was able to open her eyes.

And she gasped.

Tony held his phone out directly in front of him, and her. The video showed a large number and nothing else.

But her attention was caught by the way the air seemed to move around the phone. It was eerily similar to the waves she saw coming at her, but when the two types of waves came into contact, the smaller ones coming from the phone seemed to dissolve into the other ones.

"Try the next one..." she whispered, watching as the waves stopped. It was aggressive, the way the world could simply flood back into her, but she knew it was worth it.