My Side of the Story
Disclaimer: Alias and the characters belong to JJ Abrams and the nice people at Bad Robot. The beginning part of this story was written by them, I've just novelized it here because it adds to the plot. In other words, this is my way of coping, please don't sue.
Author's Note: Watching the first epsiodes of Season Five again, I started thinking that maybe it was Gordon Dean's plan to have Vaughn fake his death - maybe he needs something from him. So, I've started from the beginning of "Prophet Five", novelizing that one from Vaughn's point of view. I've added scenes that we didn't see in the show - stuff I think might have happened that we don't know about yet. The rest of this story will be updated as this season of the show progresses. Kind of my 'missing scenes' interpretation. Hence the tile, 'my side of the story'. Anyway, hope it's at least entertaining if nothing else. Please review- I want to see what people think so I know whether or not to continue doing this after every episode! I'll stop rambling now.
OOOOO
When I came to after the accident, I was seated – rather haphazardly at that – in a steel chair in a whitewashed interrogation room. There was a guard by the door, and a bare table in front of me. It took me a minute to realize that I wasn't restrained. I tried to move, and a shockwave of pain went through my left shoulder. Once the hazy feeling from the pain cleared, I realized it was dislocated.
I looked over at the guard. He glanced at me and went right back to staring at the wall, so I knew trying to get answers from him was out of the question. I set myself to looking around the room, trying to find something that might give me a clue where I was. The last thing I remembered was telling Sydney that my real name wasn't Michael Vaughn, and then hearing shattering glass right by the side of my head.
And then I woke up here.
I looked over at the door on the right side of the room when I heard it open. Another man, probably in his mid-thirties or even his forties, stepped into the room. He had brown hair and wore a tailored suit. He smirked a little as he came in.
"Been hearing about you for a long time," he started. He grabbed the chair from the far side of the room, bringing it over to the table and sitting across from me. "It's nice to finally meet you, Mister Michaux." He paused, smiling a little at the fact that he knew my real name. "You've had a bad day."
"Where's Sydney?" I questioned, not interested in whatever game he was trying to play with me.
"She's in better shape than you," he stated, not answering my question. I knew whomever he worked for orchestrated the accident and pulled me out, and I didn't know if they had Sydney as well. If they did, I had to make sure she was safe before figuring out how to get myself out of here. "Your shoulder's dislocated," the man continued. "We'll take care of that. I, uh…"
He trailed off, looking over to the side of the table. When he came in, he'd set a package down there, wrapped in a brown envelope. He reached for it now, sliding it over to me as he spoke.
"I believe this was intended for you," he stated. I didn't move, and he smiled a little at that. "Oh, come on. Don't tell me you're not curious. Open it."
I reached forward with my good arm, opening the package. There was a silver tape recorder inside. I pressed 'play', and the rather mechanical sound of the Mexican Hat Dance filled the room. I stopped the recording, tossing the tape recorder back on the table.
"Catchy, but dated," I snapped. The other man shook his head a little as he picked the tape recorder up, opening the back panel. He removed the battery, unscrewing the bottom and pulling out a small slip of paper, rolled up tightly to fit into the hidden compartment.
Damn, these guys are good.
"You mind telling me what this says?" he asked, handing the paper to me. I unrolled it, seeing a long sequence of numbers typed onto the paper. It was a code, naturally.
"5-7-3-8-4," I started reading numbers off the sheet, playing stupid for the time being. I knew if the guy had the slightest idea what was going on, he expected just that reaction. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have much of an effect on his mood, which I knew didn't speak very well for me.
"We know what this is about," he interrupted, cutting me off. "We know who sent it. What we don't know is, where's Lehman?"
"Who?" I asked, feigning ignorance. He didn't budge.
"You must be in a lot of pain. Maybe that's why your memory is a bit fuzzy," he stated, nodding a little to the guard by the door, and to a second that entered the room with him. "Why don't we help Mister Michaux out?"
One of the guards circled around behind my chair and grabbed my injured arm. I clenched my teeth, trying to prepare myself for the pain I knew would hit the second he twisted my shoulder.
This is going to hurt.
The guards kept that up for an hour or so, keeping my face pressed against the table and moving my dislocated shoulder around. By the time the guy behind me finished twisting my shoulder, it felt like half my body was on fire with pain.
"Just tell us what we want to know," the man interrogating me stated. "I'm tired of playing these games."
"Quitter," I spat. The guard tightened his grip, and I jerked with the pain, almost screaming again. "Ow," I muttered through clenched teeth.
"Are you really going to hold you until we kill you?" the other man asked. I wanted to say 'if that's what it takes', but I couldn't get the words out past the pain in my shoulder. "I can respect that. Seems Mister Michaux needs a little incentive. Go down the hallway to his fiancé. Bring her in." He paused. "Just her finger." The guard let go of me.
"Leave her out of this," I snapped.
"And that's up to you, isn't it?" the man asked. He looked up at the guard behind me. "The one with the ring." He started heading for the door. I took a second to catch my breath, trying to shake off the ache in my arm. "Kind of poetic, don't you think?"
"Stop," I said finally. The guard froze. "The message. It's in code. I need a pencil."
That bought me a little time. The interrogation paused for a moment while the guy went to find a pencil somewhere. He brought it back, laying out the paper in front of me and setting the pencil on the table beside it.
I didn't move.
"Is there a problem?" he asked.
"I can't write," I said honestly. "Would you mind setting my shoulder?" I figured with everything else this guy knew about me, he already knew I was left-handed, and that I could hope to write clearly with my left shoulder dislocated. The man circled the table, grabbing my shoulder and snapping it back into place. I cried out at the shock of pain, taking just a second to get my bearings before hitting the man in the face.
He fell back. I grabbed the back of his head, slamming his face into the edge of the table and then kneeing him in the stomach. He fell back into the corner. The guard came at me. He was a lot easier to get a hold of than the other guy, and I slammed him facedown on the table. I grabbed the nice, sharp pencil, leveling it at his eye.
"Where's Sydney?" I demanded. "Where is she? Answer me!"
"She escaped!" the guard finally replied.
Thought so.
I threw him back into the corner of the room, kicking him in the face. I knew that there would be more guards on the way soon. Going out the door was out of the question – I had to get the hell away from here and I had to do it now. I didn't have enough energy for a fight, and I was betting they knew that.
Luckily, there was a vent in the ceiling.
I knocked the panel to the side, hauling myself into the air vent. I crawled through the duct until I was pretty sure there was a good distance between the guards and me. I jumped out another vent, finding I was on either the second or third floor of the building. I didn't have time to look for a better way out – I was going to have to jump.
I popped the screen out one of the windows easily enough, jumping out and falling into a dumpster. The fall still hurt like hell, despite the slight cushion the pile of trash offered me. Still, I got right to my feet and took off running.
OOOOO
The first thing I did once I was sure no one was following me was find a payphone. I figured the guard was telling me the truth, that Sydney had escaped capture somehow, but I had to be sure she was all right. I dialed her cell phone, and she picked up almost immediately.
"Hello?" she asked.
"Sydney, you okay?" I asked.
"Thank god," she said with a sigh, sounding more than a little relieved to hear my voice on the other end. "I'm fine – hang on." She was silent for a moment, and I figured she was going somewhere she could talk. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," I said.
"Where are you?" she asked.
"Look, I know you have questions," I replied, not telling her where I was. I didn't know exactly what was going on at APO, but considering my evident extraction by some other agency; I knew they'd be looking at everything. And, frankly, there were quite a few things I had to answer for. I couldn't have them knowing where I was.
"About a million of them," Sydney replied.
"I'll tell you everything as soon as I can, but Sydney, no one can know you're talking to me," I insisted. "I need my father's watch. You need to get it to me. Do you remember the dead drop we used to contact Vesina? The lockers?" I questioned.
"Of course I do," she started. There was a pause. "I don't know."
"Syd, please, I need you to do this for me," I pleaded. I knew there wasn't a whole lot of time – I needed to get somewhere with all of this before these people found me again.
"I need to think about it," Sydney replied before she hung up the phone. I sighed, not moving for a moment and silently begging her to trust me on this. Finally, I hung up the payphone and started off.
OOOO
I was hoping it wouldn't take Sydney long to think over what I asked her to do. That, and I hoped that she would just trust me long enough to explain all of this, rather than hand me over to APO or whoever else had called an investigation by now. I was able to figure out that I'd been out for about two and a half days, so I knew things couldn't be too out of hand yet, but they'd sure get that way, and fast.
So, by that afternoon, I was at the lockers I asked Sydney to use to get me the watch. I went inside, keeping to the shadows just in case. I went to the locker, opening it.
Empty.
Dammit.
I sighed, shaking my head a little and closing the locker. I couldn't meet with Lehman without the watch – he'd never tell me a thing. If Sydney didn't at least trust me enough to give it to me, I was at a loss.
"You looking for this?" My head snapped up, and I looked over to see Sydney. She stepped up beside me, holding the watch up for me to see. "I want the truth. Start with your name."
"Andre Michaux," I answered. "I'll tell you the rest on the way."
OOOOO
Sydney and I walked to another building on the other side of town – the place that Lehman's note wanted me to meet him. Luckily, the code he used to contact me was fairly basic – I was able to make sense of it even without writing it out somewhere. I figured at least there was one thing the people interrogating me hadn't counted on that ended up working out in my benefit. As we made our way to the room where the meet would actually take place, I started explaining.
"Seven years ago, a woman came to me. Said that her father had been involved in a project – something people had gone to great lengths to cover up," I started. "She said my father was part of it. She said it was called Prophet Five."
"Your father was an agent," Sydney started, obviously confused.
"Before he joined the CIA," I clarified. "She said his name was Michaux, that he was a mathematician." The two of us got into one of the freight elevators, heading for the top floor. "The day you walked into the CIA, you described a mission to secure a device made by a man named Mueller. The same man I was told had originated the Prophet Five project. Now, this was my first proof that this woman's story was true.
"But, whatever it was, my father was running away from it. He changed his identity, he changed mine. I was eighteen months old at the time," I continued. "This man we're meeting, James Lehman. Renee and I have been trying to find him for years. We believe he worked with our fathers."
"Renee who? Who is this woman?" Sydney asked. I took a breath, knowing this one was going to get me in trouble.
"Renee Rienne," I answered. Sydney gave me one of her 'what the hell were you thinking' looks.
"Vaughn," she started, chiding me for working with someone near the top of the CIA's most-wanted list. Before I could say anything to defend the fact that I was working with her, the elevator lurched to a stop. I hit the button a couple of times, trying to get it to start working. After a moment, it shook and started down again.
It stopped in the basement. I moved in front of Sydney, not sure what was happening and wanting to be between her and whatever might be on the other side of the door. It slid open, and I was greeted by the beam of a flashlight in my face.
"The watch. Show it to me," a man's voice said from somewhere behind the light. I held up my father's watch, and the flashlight clicked off. When my vision cleared after a moment, I realized that the older man standing here with us must be Lehman. "You were supposed to come alone."
"Whatever you say to me, she can hear," I replied. Lehman seemed to consider that for a moment, and then nodded a little.
"Follow me." He led us further into the basement room; somewhere that I imagined no one had visited in a very long time. Everything was covered in rust, and there wasn't a whole lot of light until Lehman went to a breaker box, flipping the switch and illuminating the room. "Before I start, you should know, your father did everything he could to protect you from this."
"Mister Lehman, I want to know about Prophet Five," I stated, not listening to any of his warnings. I knew my father didn't want me in the middle of this, but it was way too late for that. The only thing I could hope for now was some kind of an answer about all of this.
"I was a cryptologist," Lehman began, sensing my frustration. "A specialist in patterns. Working for the Pentagon. In 1972, a private foundation recruited me, along with others. Scientists, linguists; the best and the brightest. That's where I met your father."
"What was the objective?" I asked.
"We were given one page of the book. The Profecta Chinque. The Fifth Prophet," Lehman continued. "The fifteenth century text that supposedly had been written in an unbreakable code."
"They wanted you to break the code," Sydney threw in. Lehman nodded. "Were you successful?"
"After years, yes," Lehman answered. "It referred to proteins, amino acids, nucleotides. It seemed to be some sort of advanced genetics five hundred years ahead of its time. Just a few days after we turned in our report, your father contacted me. He told me what was happening to the others. Accidents, car crashes, fires, heart attacks, strokes; all people involved with the project. So I followed your father's advice. Changed my name. I disappeared."
"What's changed now? Why did you contact us?" I questioned, confused. If he'd been safe and hidden somewhere, why come forward now?
"Over the years, I've developed sources, leads as to where the book might be stored. But all of my attempts at recovery have failed," he answered.
"You have another lead," Sydney finished for him. There was a pause.
"These people, whoever they are – when they know you're onto it, they'll stop at nothing to silence you," Lehman warned. I jumped in before he could say anything more to try and talk Sydney and I out of this.
"I'll contact you when I have the book."
OOOOO
That night, before we could even leave to track down the book, I got a call. Sydney and I had a hotel room under an alias – there was no way anyone should have been able to track it. Still, the front desk rang up to our room a little after one AM, telling me that I had a phone call in the lobby. The caller had specifically asked for me to come downstairs to take the call.
So, leaving Sydney asleep in the room, I went down to the front desk. The attendant gave me the phone and some privacy. I didn't know who the hell could be calling in the middle of the night, but something just didn't seem right, and I couldn't just leave it alone.
"Hello?" I answered.
"You're going to a lot of trouble to track down information you have no business knowing," a male voice said on the other end of the line. I didn't recognize the voice, and it didn't sound like it had been altered. Even so, I had no way of finding out who it was – I didn't have any gear with me that would have allowed me to trace the call or even record his voice.
"Who is this?" I questioned.
"Allow me to explain the situation to you, Mister Vaughn," the man replied. "You are trying to steal something that belongs to me. Something you do not want to get involved with."
"I'm hanging up now," I stated.
"Do that and you will both be dead before you can get back to your hotel room." I froze in mid-motion, moving my hand away from the base of the phone. "Thank you." There was a pause. "Now, you have something I need, and for that I am willing to cut you a deal."
"What deal?" I asked quietly, my eyes scanning the lobby and looking for anyone that might be suspicious. Obviously the guy on the phone could see me, and probably had more than one other person here watching Sydney and me.
"Get the book. Take it to the meet Lehman suggests. My team will intercept you there and retrieve the book from you," the man explained.
"Why even let me get it in the first place if you're just going to take it back?" I questioned.
"Because when my team retrieves the book, you and Mister Lehman will be executed." I had to try not to laugh.
"And how exactly is that a 'deal'?" I hissed.
"Lehman will be killed, but you will be wearing squibs and my man will shoot blanks at you. You will be transported to a nearby medical facility where I will have already replaced the staff with my operatives. They will clean you up under the pretense of performing surgery, and give you a reasonable dose of sodium morphate. Once we've established that you are, in fact, dead, you will be extracted and revived."
"You want Sydney to believe I'm dead," I realized, fighting to keep from raising my voice in anger.
"I want to save the woman you love from certain death, Mister Vaughn," the man replied, not losing his patient tone despite my anger. "Surely you understand by now the resources I have access to. We will leave Sydney, and everyone else, believing you are dead, and extract you to a secure facility in a separate location. There, you will give me what I need from you. Prophet Five will remain contained, and Sydney will be spared."
"You're insane if you think I'm agreeing to this," I snapped.
"Am I?" he asked. "Think it over, Mister Vaughn. I will give you until the night after you retrieve the manuscript. You'll know how to contact me when you check out tomorrow. If you refuse, I will see to it that Sydney Bristow is killed in your place. And, believe me, it won't be quick."
With that, he hung up.
I felt sick.
I didn't know who these people were, how they were able to track us like this, but I knew that we didn't stand a chance going up against them. If we could get the book and get it to Lehman, there was still a chance that everything would work out, though. If I told Sydney what was going on or found some way to fool these people, we could still pull this off.
Agreeing to this psycho's demands was out of the question. I didn't know what he wanted from me, and I didn't have any guarantee that he was telling me the truth in the first place. Even if his whole speech about 'squibs' and his man 'shooting blanks' was true, even if he meant it about the sodium morphate, I didn't have any proof he wouldn't just leave me for dead.
Of course, I didn't have any way of knowing that he wouldn't kill Sydney if I didn't do what he said.
For the moment, however, I was resigned not to go along with it. Sydney and I would get the book and contact Lehman, and then we would go from there.