Redback Widow V I Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. [16]

Orientation: Part One

I sighed, hearing clicking behind me. "What is it this time? Spiders? Aliens? Alien Spiders?" I questioned, turning around. My eyes landed on an ugly son-of-a-bitch coming straight toward me.

"Nope! It's worse! It's somehow worse!" I booked it down the corridor, running through the wall to find Yo-Yo and Jemma.

"What sucks a human dry?" Yo-Yo questioned.

"Aliens," I let out a sigh of relief at seeing our boys.

"Mack," I went over, hugging him briefly.

"I'm glad to see you too, but I'm not glad we're here," he said.

"Aliens," Jemma questioned.

"Yep," he confirmed.

"Probably the ugly sons-of-bitches I saw in the hall," I said.

"Coulson's ninety-nine percent sure we're in space," he said.

"Not again. Alright. Any idea which part of space we're in?" Jemma asked.

"Uh, outer?" Coulson offered.

"And you saw an alien?" Yo-Yo asked.

"No. We saw what they can do," he said.

"So we have no idea what kind of creature these people are trying to get away from," Jemma said.

"Question I'm asking is, who locked them in?"

-

"It's stupid. Just stupid," Mack muttered.

"Alright, I get it," Coulson said.

"Loo, I'm just saying, what good is it having a state-of-the-art robotic hand if you don't have it on you when you're kidnapped by Martians?" Mack exclaimed.

"Looks like he's got both hands to me," I pointed out from where I was leaned on a cabinet.

"Ah, that's his civvy hand. It's just a prosthetic without all the cool doodads. It should've been a hook. At least you can stab things with a hook," Mack objected.

"Thought I was gonna be arrested," he objected.

"Wait, you brought the civvy hand?" I asked.

"If I had brought my other hand, the authorities would've confiscated it. Prison's bad enough without being down an appendage," he said.

"First rule of Boy Scouts is always be prepared," Mack objected.

"How were we supposed to prepare for this, Mack?" Jemma asked as Coulson gave me a look that screamed Please control your boyfriend. 

"I don't know. I mean, we gotta be prepared for everything, apparently. Look, not a day ago, I was trapped inside a-a computer-generated mind prison, and now--you know what? You know what, Coulson? I'm out. I'm out. We get through this, I am packing it in," Mack said.

"Sorry, Mack. You already quit years ago," he said.

"Yeah, well, I didn't quit hard enough. Look, I am not comfortable at the pace at which we deal with new trials and tribulations," Mack said.

"Believe it or not, Mack, this isn't new for me. I've been hurled through space by a monolith before. Best we can do is keep our heads and apply the scientific method," Jemma said.

"That's right. Learn what we can about our circumstances. So, are these people human?" he asked.

"Humanoid, at least," she replied. "Means we aren't the first ones here. That's good."

"Is it? We don't exactly want to follow in their footsteps," I commented.

"They've got no IDs. Fury never said anything about a deep-space outpost being developed, did he?" she asked.