Beth Childs pushed a glass door open and walked into Tim Horton's at seven o'clock, Monday morning. She stumbled over to the clerk at the counter and muttered a, "Morning," to her. The clerk hurriedly shoved her cell phone into her back pocket and smiled back at Beth.
"What would you like this mornin', dear?" the clerk asked. She pushed a stray hair behind her ear and stared down at the cash register, waiting for Beth's order.
Beth groaned and squinted her eyes at the menu behind the clerk. She only had to pick up donuts for the station twice a month, which usually wasn't enough time to forget everyone's orders, but the past two turns she'd had to pick them up this month she had been on assignment, so Raj had gotten them for her. "Uhhhh…."
The clerk smiled at her politely.
"I'm sorry," Beth said eventually. "I can't remember. Can you just give me a coffee to start with and I'll call my buddies so they can remind me what they want?"
"Sure thing, ma'am." The clerk ran up the price of a coffee and swiped Beth's credit card, handing her a black coffee in return. Beth slumped down into a seat and gulped her coffee, wincing as it burned her tongue. Usually she would blow on it until it was cool, but she thought if she didn't have coffee soon she'd probably pass out. She had been up late reading about the new assignment she was getting, and when she wasn't reading, she was tossing and turning, trying to figure out how she was going to deal with seeing Angie at work the next day.
Beth and Angie had sort of… had a thing, for a little while. It was okay for a few months, but when Art, Beth's boss and best friend, had assigned them to work on the same case, things went downhill. They figured out they didn't have as much in common as they once thought they did, so they ended it. It would have been fine if it really had ended there, but since they still had to work together, they were constantly fighting. Eventually Art assigned Angie in Michigan for a month, and when she returned, Beth to Washington. It worked well, except for the fact that today they'd both be at work, and on a case together. Fortunately there were others on the case with them, and they wouldn't be working in the same space again, but… still.
Beth sighed and leaned her head on the table she was sitting at, one hand on her scalding hot coffee and the other reaching into her pocket to pull out her phone. She just had to call Art to figure out the order again, and even though he would make fun of her for forgetting, it was better than calling Angie, since hers was the only other number Beth had in her phone of someone at the office.
She put the phone up to her ear and waited for the ringing to stop and Art's voice to open with, "Hey dipshit."
She heard a bell from the front of the store and turned around to see one of the most beautiful women she'd ever seen in her life. She had straight brown hair tied into a ponytail and the most adorable bangs she'd ever seen in her life. She looked like she'd just come from a yoga class, even though she obviously hadn't, with her hair looking as good as it did. The woman cleared her throat in the most adorably high voice Beth had ever heard and ordered a dozen donuts: four jelly, five glazed, and four chocolate.
"Hello?" answered a deep voice from Beth's phone.
Beth didn't answer.
"Hello?" the voice repeated. "Beth, is that you?"
"U-uh, yeah, yeah it's me, I just…. Uh, I just…." She found it increasingly difficult to remember what she was going to say with this woman around.
She heard Art sighing on the other end of the phone. "Beth, did you want me for something?"
"Y-yeah! I did, uhm… it was… err….. doughnuts! Doughnuts, yes that's it, what was the order again? It's been a while."
Art sighed again. "Six jelly, three powdered, two chocolate and one glazed, remember?"
"Oh, right, sure I remember that. C-can you, uh, text me that too? Just so I don't…. forget." Beth continued to stare at the woman at the counter, hardly listening to what Art was saying.
Even though she wasn't listening too closely, she could hear Art smiling at his phone. "Is there a cute girl there?"
"W-what? No, nono, never, what are you even talking about? Uh, I gotta go. Bye. See you at work." She clicked 'end call' on the phone and exhaled deeply.
That man knew her all too well.
The woman turned around and sat down at a table parallel to Beth's. Beth stood up and headed over to the counter, smiling at the clerk and pulling out her phone to read Art's text with the order.
"Hi, there, I'd like a dozen doughnuts," she said, reading from the text, "six jelly, three powdered, two chocolate, one glazed, and one dipshit." She looked up at the shocked face of the clerk for a moment before realising what she had said and turning bright red. "Oh! Oh, god, I didn't mean… I'm sorry, my friend… I just… uh, he likes to play with me – but not like that! I'm sorry, just –" She sighed. "Just give me the dozen, please."
The clerk nodded, a suppressed grin obvious on her face. Beth looked down and made a note to kill Art when she got to work.
"You can sit down now if you'd like," the clerk told her. "I'll call you when it's ready."
"Thank you," Beth replied, her face still red. She returned to where she had been sitting before to stare over at the woman across from her. She was smiling at her phone, presumably at a text from someone, with her hand on her cheek. Did she have to be so adorable?
Beth sighed and closed her eyes. What would be a believable excuse to go up and talk to her? Are doughnuts a good subject? She pulled her wallet out of her back pocket in preparation to pay for the doughnuts when, suddenly, an idea struck her. Carefully, she placed a coin on the ground and picked it back up, frowning slightly. She stood up and approached the woman's table, the coin held out in front of her.
"Excuse me, miss, I believe you dropped this," Beth said, her most innocent expression on her face.
The woman furrowed her brow and instinctively patted her purse before smiling and saying, "Oh, really? Thank you, I guess. It's only a dime though, you could have easily have kept that for yourself." Her tone was warm, even if her words weren't.
"Oh, well, like you said, it's only a dime." Beth smiled back at the woman. "I'm Beth, by the way. Beth Childs." She held out her hand to the woman.
"It's nice to meet you, Beth Childs," the woman said, smiling. "I'm Alison Hendrix."
Alison. Alison Hendrix. Never in a million years would Beth have guessed 'Alison' as this woman's name, but it did seem to suit her quite well.
"Alison, huh?" Beth asked as she sat down across from her.
Alison smiled. "Yes… Is there something wrong with my name?"
"No, no, not at all, it's just…. Kinda long, don't you think?"
"It's never seemed long to me..."
"Hmm, well I think it is. Do you mind if I call you Ali? After all, we only have so much time here until our doughnuts are ready."
Alison grinned, the corners of her eyes crinkling in a way that Beth could tell they didn't often do. "Sure you can."
"That's great, Ali."
They sat in silence for a moment until Beth spoke again.
"Now, I know you must get this a lot, but I'm dying to know."
Alison's smile faltered slightly as she brought her hand back up to her cheek. She was obviously trying to say something along the lines of 'yes?' or 'what?' but no sound was coming out of her mouth.
"How do you get so goddamn beautiful?"
Alison let out a sigh of what Beth assumed was relief before laughing and lowering her hand. "Don't be silly, I'm not beautiful."
"Oh, but you are. Were you really not aware of that?"
Alison scoffed at her.
"You know, I bet there are lots of things you aren't aware of, if you didn't know such a simple thing such as your own startling beauty!" She gasped dramatically. "I bet you wouldn't even know if you were being spied on!"
Alison giggled like she knew something Beth didn't. "I'm pretty sure I would know, Beth."
Beth continued with her game. "Oh, but I don't think you would. Here, let me take a look." She offered her hand out to reach for Alison's phone, but Alison just narrowed her eyes at her in faux suspicion. "Come on, Ali, don't you trust me?"
"No," she replied, a laugh bleeding through, ruining the threatening tone she was clearly trying to put on.
"Just trust me, I'm a cop."
This seemed to convince her, as she dug into her purse and pulled out a phone to give to Beth.
Beth muttered nonsense to herself while turning around Alison's phone in her hand until finally saying, "You know what, I think they are spying on you."
Alison grinned before answering, "Oh really? And what do you suggest I do about that?"
"Well, since I am a cop, I'd suggest you give me your number and I can put it into the system to see if your phone is one of the ones that the government tracks. Would that be okay? And then I could call you afterwards to tell you the report?" Beth raised her eyebrows and grinned, her tongue between her teeth.
Alison just shook her head and looked down at her hands on the table before raising her head and saying, "Yeah, sure." She smiled at Beth, her hands shifting a cross around her neck between them.
Beth raised her sleeve and pulled a pen out of her pocket, giving it to Alison to write with. "Write small, the guys at the station will give me shit if they find out I got a cute girl's number when I got the doughnuts."
Alison just smirked as she wrote her number on Beth's arm in small script. Each number had a looping grace to it that Beth couldn't help but fall in love with.
"So you'll call me with the results of my privacy later?" Alison asked, grinning coyly.
"Oh, of course," Beth replied, a smile breaking through her words. "Definitely."
"Good."
They stared at each other for a moment until the clerk knocked on the counter, attracting their attention.
"Your doughnuts are ready, madams."
"Thank you," said Alison. Beth just nodded. They each grabbed their own box and smiled at each other.
"It was very nice meeting you, Beth."
"You too, Ali. I'll call you?"
"Please do." Alison pushed the glass door open and walked out.
"Will do," Beth whispered to herself. "Will do."
By the time Beth arrived at the station it was nearing 8:30. She hurried out of her car, doughnuts in hand, and shuffled into the office. It was packed with boxes and "out of order" signs, which didn't worry her. She shuffled past the boxes to the back door, labeled "DO NOT ENTER" and shoved her free hand onto the doorknob. It beeped a confirmation that her handprint was authorised before clicking open.
"Beth!" yelled Art, a frown apparent on his face.
"Sorry, sorry, I know I'm late, but I have the do-"
"No, that's not what I need right now, the job is happening a little sooner than expected." He gripped her forearm and led her to his office, grabbing the doughnuts and setting them on a table before shutting and locking the door to his office. Raj, Angie, Cosima, and Helena were already there, looking incredibly bored.
"What's happening in here?" asked Beth.
"The job is today instead of Friday," Cosima explained.
"What?"
"Apparently, dude. But don't worry about it, Raj and I have all the technology down, it's basically just the actual physical part that we need to complete now."
"Which is pretty much the whole job, Cosima."
"I guess if you look at it that way…"
"Quiet!" yelled Art. The room was silenced almost instantly. "We have to get to work. Is everyone familiar with the case we have today?" He looked around the room for someone to raise their hand and say they were confused, but it seemed like no one was going to. "Okay then, so bas-" He stopped suddenly and sighed. "What is it Helena?"
The rest of the room turned their heads to see Helena raising her hand and kicking her feet under the chair she was sitting on.
"I am confused."
Art sighed again. "On what? You were here the whole time."
Helena shifted her eyes before admitting, "I was not listening."
Art closed his eyes and inhaled, looking an awful lot like he was counting to ten and back. "Okay then, we'll go over it again. Helena, the job was to find and implement the 'magic bullet,' remember?"
"Magic bullet?" she said, clearly confused.
"Where have you been the past few months? That's all we've been talking about!"
"I do not listen very often."
Art looked like he wanted to bang his head on his desk until his brain burst.
"Fine. For a long time, since the American President Kennedy was shot in the 1960's, I believe, people have been wondering about a 'magic bullet,' that dissolves after being shot and leaves no evidence in the body. Are you with me so far?"
Helena nodded.
"Well recently the CIA developed a bullet that does exactly that. Then when they were transporting it to a different location we stole it, remember?"
Helena nodded again.
"So here's where our case starts – last week the government stole it back. They still think we don't know that it's gone, which is why we have to do this today before they're alerted that we're aware. Basically we break into the safe house that it's being guarded at, steal it back, find the formula, and destroy the evidence. Your job is just to take out the muscle in the house, but there shouldn't be much of that so we're sending you in alone."
"Wait," said Angie, "why are we only taking four of us in?"
"We don't want to alert them by having our entire staff on this case, Deangelis. We also have other customers to care for, and we can't just abandon them for one job. We'll have nearly a quarter of the staff on technical support, but Helena, Sarah, and Beth should be enough to actually go in. Understand?"
Angie nodded. "Wait, come to think of it, where is Sarah?"
"Bathroom."
"Ah."
"Okay then, does everyone understand their roles? Helena, you're just taking out the human security they'll have set up, but remember, this is a no-kill job, so as not to attract even more attention, so just knock them out, okay?"
Helena nodded.
"Niehaus and Singh, you're in charge of the main tech. You'll have tons of backup here at the office, but I want you two to be the ones to take out the power for that grid section, then retract energy from their backup generator to shut off their precautions more quickly. Good?"
Cosima and Raj nodded.
"Deangelis, you'll be outside in the car reporting back to us. You'll also need to report immediately if there is any sign of the CIA bringing in backup so we can get you guys out of there."
Angie nodded.
Sarah walked into the room then, wiping her hands on her sweater. Helena grinned and patted to the seat next to her for Sarah to sit down in.
Art waited until she was properly seated next to her sister before continuing. "Sarah, you'll be there as backup, remember?"
"Yeah," she replied.
"If anything happens to Childs, you'll be there to finish the job. Same with Helena or Deangelis. We're hoping to not have to use you except for a little extra muscle, but the business we're in demands people like you."
She nodded.
"Childs," Art began, turning to face Beth. "You're going to actually be collecting the bullet. We don't believe that they've transported the formula yet, so there won't be anything but the bullet to get. There'll probably be some lasers around the bullet and a few guys, but when Cosima and Raj take out the power and Helena takes out the guys, there won't be anything but bulletproof glass to worry about."
"'Kay," said Beth.
"Remember, bulletproof glass isn't really bulletproof. So while you're busy getting to the bullet, Helena and Sarah will shoot the glass in one spot until it weakens a little, and when you get there you'll weaken it some more with a, well, uh, it's basically a teeny tiny flamethrower, I guess, only much hotter."
"Badass!"
"Yeah, badass," he repeated. "Then you remove the glass you've 'broken' through and get the bullet. Is that clear?"
"Yup."
"Good. You all get in the van, okay?"
Everyone shuffled out of the room to the back door, where they loaded up with their guns, bulletproof vests, and, in Beth's case, a 'teeny tiny flamethrower.' Their vests were already loaded with anything they might need to fight off anyone, (courtesy of the IT guys) so they were pretty much good to go. Cosima and Raj's computer things were already in the van, and now all they had to do was drive there.
Oh, and get back a magic bullet.
Easy peasy.
"Ready?" Sarah asked. Beth didn't know exactly whom she was asking, and she had a feeling that Sarah didn't know either.
"Yeah," Beth replied.
"Okay Beth, get in through the front door, I've got the plans of the house here on the computer, and it says the quickest way to the bullet should be through the ducts," said Cosima.
"Wait, ducts as in air ducts?" Beth asked.
"Yeah… what other ducts are there?"
"Cosima, they're air ducts. They're literally only made to support air."
"Come on, Beth, you aren't that heavy either. Get up to the roof and find a loose shingle, there should be an opening to the ducts there."
"What? How do you know this? Why would they have that?"
"I have absolutely no idea, but hey, this is why we don't work for the government."
Beth scoffed. "You're damn right about that."
"Once you're in the air ducts," Cosima continued, "you should be able to find your way using the communicator. If we just put this chip on you…"
Beth felt Cosima shove a plastic chip into her bra, not seeming to hear the protests from her.
"There you go! If we put that in, we'll be able to see where you are. You have your ear piece in?"
Beth brought her hand up to her ear before confirming, "Yup."
"Good, we'll be able to talk to you. I wouldn't suggest speaking back, so you don't get caught, but whatever floats your boat, man."
Sarah sighed. "Cos, you're a bloody idiot, Beth isn't gonna go an' talk into her ear piece in such a delicate situation. Are ya, Beth?"
Beth shook her head no and took a deep breath. "Ready?"
"Ready as we'll ever be," Raj replied. Sarah, Helena, and Beth stepped out of the van and started walking to the house.
"Right then," began Sarah, "I'll stick with Helena and you go find that loose shingle Cos was goin' on about, alrigh'?"
Beth just nodded as Helena and Sarah slipped off to the front door.
Beth stared up at the house. It looked nearly three stories high, with no way of getting in. She wondered how in the hell she was going to get up without being heard by the people inside. Her suction cup grippers were effective, but awfully noisy. (She also wondered why the hell they were doing this in broad daylight, but she reasoned Art would point out how there were no surrounding buildings or people, and it would "throw them off guard." Pfft. Fuckin' Art.)
"Hey, Cosima?" she called into her earpiece.
She heard a swivel of a chair before Cosima answered. "Yeah? What's up?"
"Can you make some noise? Like construction noise or something? Anything to distract them from the suction noises of me crawling up the wall."
"Sure thing, dude. Raj?"
"On it," a voice, presumably Raj, replied. In less than thirty seconds echoes of nails being hammered in, jackhammers, and rowdy yells echoed through the block. Beth ducked down as a man walked over to peer out the window, probably looking for the source of the noise, and walk back from the window and shrug. She exhaled and began climbing up the wall.
–
Apparently, wall climbing is a lot harder in the day when the sun beats down on you. By the time Beth got up the top, she was about ready to die of heat stroke. All she wanted was to lie down, but she had to find the loose shingle. Crawling over the roof, very carefully, for a few minutes eventually left her to find the loose shingle, which she removed, revealing a part of a vent. She pulled on the vent, gripping so hard that her knuckles turned white, until the remaining shingles around the vent began to fall off. In a few minutes, the vent was removed and she could see into the beginning of an air duct.
After the job is done, I should seriously consider quitting, she thought. She sucked in a deep breath and lowered herself into the air duct.
Inside the duct wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. It was dark, sure, but it didn't smell all that bad.
"Beth? Are you in? It's Cosima. If you're in press on the chip I left you."
Beth rolled her eyes. You put it in my bra! She pressed the chip anyway, trying to ignore how awkward she felt.
"Good, okay, I want you to go forward for a few feet, is that good?"
Beth began moving.
"Right, in a little while there will be a path in the ducts, I want you to go to the left. After that you keep going straight until you hit a vent, okay?"
Beth pressed the chip.
"Good. It's going good. You're almost to the fork now – just go – okay, you got it, you got it, now keep going straight."
Beth wanted to tell Cosima to shut up, but she couldn't talk without blowing her cover. But if Helena and Sarah had beat up all the guys, then maybe she could talk a little…
"Cosima," she whispered, "I know where I'm going you don't need to-"
"Hello there."
Wait.
Beth froze. That was not Cosima's voice. That wasn't Raj's or Angie's or Helena's or even Sarah's voice, either. That was not a voice she knew. That was not a good voice.
The hand gripping her calf was also not good.
"Alright, I have you in custody, if you move I may be forced to shoot you, so don't. Just turn around calmly, if you can," said the voice.
Beth sat up on her knees and put her hands up, knowing full well that she might be at gunpoint.
"Okay, okay, I'm turning around," said Beth. "There's nothing in my hands, and I'm totally surrendering."
"Good," said the voice. "Now come on, turn around."
Beth finished turning to face the person, but when she saw who it was, she almost wished she hadn't.
"Jesus Fuck, you've got to be kidding me." She put her hands down. "Alison, it's you?"
"Oh, bother," said Alison.
"Motherfucking shit," said Beth.