I thought I'd seen it all. In a hundred years of living in Section, I honestly didn't believe anything could shock me. But Nikita did. And she was completely unaware of it.

She strode from van access after what had been, according to Jason, a hellacious mission. Nikita had been held and tortured. And with Michael dead - at least to everyone's assumption - I knew there'd been no one to pull her out of the grip of Black Friday. She'd escaped on her own.

Yeah, I'd been at the farm, training recruits with potential. It wasn't munitions, but it wasn't cancellation, either, and I really was starting to enjoy the relative freedom. My superiors weren't holding that metaphorical "sword of Damocles" over my head, and it felt good to be able to take a deep breath without a shudder of fear in it.

Then, Section called all of us back - all except Michael, who couldn't be reached and was presumed dead. I know the kid, and I'm sure he's alive, somewhere. He's free, though, and I think after what Nikita pulled, he wouldn't come back for her - not this time. Damn. Who knew she was so good at fooling people? I mean, I saw how she carried off the Adrian mission, and I was proud of her - so damned proud! I guess it never occurred to me that her gift for fooling people would extend to me. I'm just an old fool who's been alive too long.

When I saw Nikita walk through the main hall, I wished I'd died a long time ago. Like I said before - I thought I'd seen it all. But never - NEVER! - had I seen anything like this.

Nikita was covered, head to toe, in live cockroaches. They were swarming all over her, and she was oblivious to them. I kept shaking my head, trying to clear what I thought was a horrible hallucination. The roaches were still there. And Nikita was still blissfully unmindful of them.

I closed down the workstation and went straight to Comm. "Jason!" I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

He looked up, and his face was ashen, his eyes bugged out like Birkoff's always did whenever Michael used to ask him to do something against regulations. "You saw her?" was all I could ask.

Jason nodded slowly, uncertainly, as if he was having trouble processing simple sentences. Then he spoke, a hushed whisper. "She... she had..." He couldn't finish his sentence - god, how he reminded me of Birkoff sometimes!

I finished the sentence for him. "She was covered in roaches."

Jason's eyes went even wider, and he nodded, still speechless. Finally, though, he found his voice. "Walter, what in the hell is going on?"

I had no words of wisdom for him. I suspected that Nikita had been subjected to some kind of chemical alteration that transferred itself to the people with whom she'd come in contact. Somehow, that chemical made Nikita's worst fears visible to everyone. She was wearing her own nightmare.

~ ~ ~

Okay. It's been a week since Nikita came back from Black Friday. The cockroaches are thinning - they're morphing into rats now. It has to be chemicals inducing hallucinations in the rest of us. I still don't know what the point of it was, but I think the worst of it's over now. I've got my Sugar back, such as she is, through the rats. I wish I could say that life is sweet, but there's still one of my friends unaccounted for. I hope he's not suffering. I hope he's happy and carefree. Yeah, and flying pink dodo birds will do a tango across my worktable. We need him back again. This place is falling apart, and without Michael, nothing can stop it from crashing down around our ears.

I guess it's time to call in a few favors. Michael is the only one who can make sense out of all this. If nothing else, maybe he won't see the cockroaches. Or the rats. Or whatever the hell else gives Nikita the heeby-jeebies. And if Michael does see them, I don't think it'll matter to him. He's seen worse in his life, especially where Nikita's concerned. Rats are nothing compared to a tortured soul with no hope of redemption. I just hope Michael has enough fight left in him to pull himself and Nikita out of the nightmare. Otherwise, all of us will go under...

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