Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated M. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

Chapter 2 - If You Can make It Through Wednesday

I

They called it an interstate, but it was a ribbon of concrete supported by massive columns like a overpass across the length of Long Island. At the moment, the speed limit was 35 due to road construction that had no visible workmen in sight

"It started a month ago," Max said. She was driving, Mike had the passenger seat, and Dennis as in the back. "The first company that got hit was an outfit called Global Sutler Services . They do defense contracting for the US and for other countries as well. Mostly logistics, supply chain management, things like that. They can rent you an air tanker to refuel your air force planes in flight, and they can deliver supplies - fuel, ammo, spares, to wherever it's needed. About a week after that, it was a company that does financial services. And there's been another defense contractor hit, this time an outfit that hires out bodyguards for VIPs - ambassadors and so forth, in conflict zones."

"Doesn't our government have its own people for that?," Mike asked.

"You'd think," she said. " But actually we subcontract a lot of that out. The Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA...they all use private contractors for one thing or another. Hired guns, basically."

"War is a business now," Dennis added. "These are the guys with the business plan.'.

"Anyway,", max continued, " they all got hit with the same malware, and it's a destructive little bitch. There's an executable called Mister Shiny, and if it gets in your system, you're basically hosed. It steals data, and uploads it to the hacker, but it also wipes a lot of data, and you end up doing a lot of reformatting and restoring.

"With forensic analysis, it's possible to look at computer code and get an idea of the language of the person who wrote it. The thinking is that Mister Shiny was written by a Russian speaker, and since two of the victim companies did defense contracting, Shelby thinks that Mister Shiny may be a Russian intelligence operation."

"But you said that one of the companies was financial services," Mike replied.

"Yeah, well, the Russians have been caught gathering information about the financial sector. In the event of war, they might try to conduct cyber attacks to disrupt the economy. Besides, this outfit did payroll services for other companies, including some defense contractors. But here's my problem. Spies try to remain undetected. Secrets are a lot more useful and valuable if no one knows they've been stolen. Mister Shiny does massive damage. It doesn't just collect information and then quietly report back. You know it's there because the whole system goes down. Besides, Russian speaker doesn't automatically mean Russian spies. There are black market web sites in Russia that offer exploit kits and malware. You can now buy military grade cyber weapons online along with your internet porn. We live in a creepy world. *

"Anyway," she concluded, "We call this guy Mr Shiny. Of course, we don't know that it's just one guy. For that matter, we don't even know that it's a guy."

"So there's been another attack," Mike said.

"Right," Dennis piped up. "This time, it's a major software company. Rhyolite Cyber Systems. RCS does work for the Pentagon, but I'm not sure exactly what."

"You think it's Russians?" Mike asked.

"I don't know," Dennis replied. "It's hard to know who does anything in cyberspace, so people tend to blame their old familiar enemies. It's easy, and maybe it's even comforting. As long as the old enemies are out there, they can believe that nothing has really changed. It's hard to get correct attribution. Almost as hard as letting your old enemies go.

In the silence that followed, Mike wondered if Dennis had been talking strictly about cyber attacks, or if was also referring to someone they knew.

II

They found RCS in a row of commercial buildings along the expressway where a business district transitioned into rows of suburban houses. This wasn't the concrete canyons of Manhattan, and there were actual green spaces near the building, and parking was in an open lot behind it, not in a garage underground.

They were met in the lobby by a thin, pale man with wire rimmed glasses, shoulder length black hair, and a beard. ""I'm Zack Coleman. I'm the one who called you."

"What happened?" Dennis asked."

"It happened a little after 9:30 this morning," Coleman replied. Everything went down all at once. It was like someone threw a switch. Everything crashed. We've obviously got some kind of malwarein the system. We have no idea how it got in. I'm pretty sure we're looking at restoring everything from backups."

"9:30?," Max asked. "What time did you call us?".

"About 1:00"

"Why the delay?"

"We were attempting to contact Mr Rickard," Coleman explained. He and Mr Marloth are co-owners of the company. Mr Marloth is in Europe right now on vacation, and he said to contact Mr Rickard immediately. He's the real expert on coding and programming."

"And have you contacted Mr Rickard?," Mike asked.

"We haven't reached him. He didn't come in to work this morning. We've been leaving messages, but he hasn't called back. We don't understand what's happened, and we're very concerned .He's normally available, and very good about answering and returning calls.

"You do realize that it's possible to call us, and still keep trying to reach your boss," Mike said.

"We kept thinking he'd call back."

"I was told," Max said, "that you do classified work for the Defense Department."

"Yes, that's correct."

"Then you should have called us immediately," she said. "In fact, you're legally required to call us immediately if a system containing classified material is compromised."

Coleman was looking decidedly nervous. "We wanted to find Mr Rickard first."

"We want to see your system," Max said "Now."

Coleman started walking toward the elevator at the back of the lobby. Dennis looked over at Max and mouthed What the fuck?.

"What sort of work do you do for the Pentagon?," Mike asked.

"Lots of stuff.," Coleman answered. "We do software for semiautonomous UAVs,, military electronic warfare systems, and some black programs...I'm not sure what I can tell you about those. That's classified Top Secret or better. We do some work in the civilian sector as well, but our work for the government is most of the company's business. Software for human resources, and we actually provide a lot of personnel management software to the government. On the civilian end, we're starting to branch out into social media. We've got a new social networking service called Missive Link that's growing rapidly."

Coleman led them to the elevators, and then a room on the third floor with a computer terminals, and racks of complicated equipment. Well, Mike thought, he might not be able to unravel a computer worm, but he could make himself useful in other ways. As Max and Dennis began unpacking their laptops and setting up to begin their work, Coleman turned to leave. Mike followed him out into the hall, and said "I'd like to ask a few questions. The owners, Rickard and Marloth, can I get their first names?"

"Of course," Coleman replied. Mr Adrian Marloth, is in Europe right now on vacation. Mr Jason Rickard is his partner."

"When was the last time anyone heard from Mr Rickard?," Mike asked.

"I spoke to him shortly before he left the office yesterday at 2:00.," Coleman said. "He cancelled his appointments and left early. He told his secretary that it was some sort of personal business."

"And no one has heard from him since? He hasn't come in to work today or answered his phone? Does he have a family?"

"I believe he's divorced," Coleman said.

"Children?," Mike asked.

"I believe they have a son. Sixteen, and his mother has custody."

"Has it occurred to anyone," Mike said "to actually go out to his house and check and see if he's OK?"

"We were going to do that. We've been on the phone with Mr Marloth."

"All day? Maybe we should go check on him.," Mike said.

"We can have someone out there shortly," Coleman said.

"We'll save you the trouble," Mike said, irritably. "Give me his address."

Mike wrote down the address Coleman gave him, walked back into the data center, and shut the door behind him. "Coleman says no one has bothered to go check on Rickard all day long," he said. "I can go out to his house and see if he's there. Coleman gave me the address."

Max looked up from the monitor in front of her. "They don't check on him, and they take their sweet time calling us. Kind of makes you wonder."

"Whoa," Dennis said, sitting up suddenly. "Looks like Mr Shiny just activated an email program. And we've got mail. One message. No subject line. No attachments."

"Ok, let's have a look," Max said.

The message, when opened, consisted of a pair of numbers. 40.738602 -74.134798.

"Map coordinates," Max said, in a tone that might have been a question.

"Looks like," Dennis replied. "And it looks local"

Max took out her phone. "I'm calling Shelby," she said. Getting through to Shelby only took a few moments. 'Sir, Max Hardy. I'm at RCS with Mike Weston and Dennis Fuchida. It's definitely the Mr Shiny malware, but this time, it spat out a set of map coordinates. Local, we think." She read off the numbers. "Also, one of the owners is missing. No one has seen him since yesterday, and he isn't answering his phone. " Mike handed her Rickard's address. "Jason Rickard. He has a partner who's out of the country right now." A long pause, while she waited, apparently on hold. "He's checking to see where this place is," she said. More waiting . "OK, where do you want us? Right. We'll meet them, but it's a really long drive. Yeah, there a lot big enough behind the building. I'll call you as soon as we know something."

She turned to Mike. "He says the coordinates are the location of a building in Newark. It's a factory. He's sending a chopper to pick us up, and HRT is going to meet us there. . He's also sending a couple of agents out to Rickard's house to see if he's there, and if he's OK. Dennis, he wants you here on this Mr Shiny malware.. See if you can find out how it got in."

"It's a really long drive," Mike said, grinning, as they rode the elevator downstairs.

"It actually is, you know. They'd be waiting for a us a long time."

"Yeah. Well, it's nice to be partnered up with someone who can actually get Shelby to shake a chopper loose so she doesn't have to deal with afternoon traffic."

She gave him a crooked smile. "Time is a factor, or I wouldn't have mentioned it. This could be an important lead."

"Good thing, too. Because I know how you love riding in helicopters. And I don't want to with the traffic either."

III

A vacant lot behind the RCS building was large enough to land one of the Bureau's Bell 460 helicopters. By the time it arrived, the custodial staff had found a key to the back gate of the chain link fence that surrounded the facility. Max was quiet on the way, lost in the view. She loved riding in helicopters, and the view, even with the low, gray layer of overcast was gorgeous. They crossed Long Island and the Upper Bay to Newark Airport, where vans loaded with HRT agents were assembled in a vast parking lot at the northeast corner close to the interstate. A car was waiting for them along with the vans, and they headed up the interstate towards the Passaic River.

Their destination was located an industrial area located in a bend of the Passaic River. It was a block of ancient two story brick buildings with no signs to indicate what sort of industry had once existed here. Whatever it was, it had left long ago. The razor wire atop the rusting chain link fence was bright and silvery in the afternoon light. It was the only part of this place that looked new and well kept. Most of the first floor windows were boarded up, their glass having been shattered long ago by vandals. The bolt cutters from the SWAT truck made short work of the padlocked chains on the fence, and Mike, Max, and the heavily armed HRT operators began exploring the buildings.

There were three buildings all told, facing three different streets. The largest building faced Lawton Avenue, with a row of chemical storage tanks across the street that belonged to a plastics company. Mike, Max, and four HRT men took that building, while smaller groups of agents took the two smaller buildings tucked in behind it.

"So what are we supposed to find here?" Mike asked, as they approached the building.

"I'm not sure," Max said, "But I'm starting to think we should have gotten a tetanus booster first."

One of the HRT men tested the door and found it locked. "You want me to go get something to break it down with?" he asked. Mike surveyed the door, and motioned the HRT man out of the way. Mike proceeded to kick the door in, turned to Max and made an "after you" gesture with his hand. "I'm back." he mouthed. She gave a slight shake of her head and stepped inside.

The late afternoon light coming through the few remaining filthy windows did little to dispel the gloom. The door Mike had kicked in was next to a larger roll up door, and the area looked like it had been used for storage, and maybe for loading and unloading trucks A metal barrel in the corner of the room looked like it might have been used as a fireplace for the homeless. A cat, probably feral, fled into the shadows. There was a smell of urine. The local homeless population had used this place for more than just warmth.

But though whatever trucks or forklifts had used this place were gone, one vehicle remained. A dark blue BMW C Class sat in the middle of the room.

"So that's what we're supposed to find," Mike.

"Call the others," Max said to one of the HRT men, and stepped cautiously towards the car.

There was no one inside, but they could see what looked like a carry case for a laptop sitting in the rear floorboard. Max reached down and opened the latch for the trunk. There was nothing inside.

"You guys check that end of the building," Mike said to one of the HRT operators, and pointed to a corridor leading out of the loading bay they were in. "Max and I will check the down there." He nodded towards a hallway on the opposite side of the room. "Get the others, and tell them to start searching upstairs."

As the HRT operators fanned out, Mike took out a pocket LED flashlight and walked cautiously toward the door, Max followed, and moment later a second beam of light from her flashlight began sweeping the area ahead. The room beyond might have held machinery. There were red lines painted here and there on the wooden floor, perhaps to indicate access paths between machines or shelves. The whole area was an other study in urban decay. There was refuse, dust, and empty cardboard boxes a few of which contained heaps of rags. Mikes flashlight bean swept across a bare spot on the wall below a couple of plastic conduits. An electrical box had been ripped out, perhaps by scavengers looking for metal to sell.

"I think this is the way the world ends," Mike remarked.

"Not with a bang, but with a No Trespassing sign, " Max replied.

On the other side of the cavernous room, an area had been partitioned off with flimsy wooden walls. A door on one side said NURSE. Mike tested the door, and found it was unlocked. Inside he found a small office space and the remains of a wooden desk that had been smashed, perhaps for firewood. and beyond it an exam room.

"You smell something?" Max asked.

"Yeah," Mike replied. "Bleach, I think."

Max stepped to the exam room door and opened it. She froze for a moment, and then gasped.

"Mike!"

He rushed to the door, and shone the beam of his flashlight inside. There was an exam table, and a man lying on it. His head had been shaved, and what looked like an incison ran the circumference of his head just above his eyes. The sheet beneath him was soaked in dried blood, which had come from the wound around his head. More blood had run down onto the concrete floor. He checked for a pulse, knowing he would not find one. He walked out through the nurse's office. "In here!," he yelled. "We've got a body!"

The rest of the building yielded nothing. The dead man's wallet was designed to hold a phone as well as money and cards. The phone was gone, but there was nearly $2,000 in cash, assorted credit cards, and a driver's license proclaiming him to be Jason Rickard. In life he had sandy brown hair. Whoever had operated on him had shaved his head. His incision had been covered over with what looked like surgical glue.

"They must have used the bleach to clean up their surgical instruments when they were done," Mike said. He stared wordlessly for a moment at the incision across the dead man's forehead like piece of mad science from a Frankenstein movie. "What the hell was this? Freelance brain surgery?"

"I don't know," Max replied. "But I think it blows Shelby's theory about Russian intelligence pretty much out of the water. We're not looking for a spy. We're looking for a complete whack job."

The discovery of Rickard's body brought more agents, police, and a medical examiner. It also brought Shelby himself. Max and Mike were standing outside when he arrived. Max was checking the time, thinking that she would have to call Gwen and warn her they would be late. She was about to reach for her phone, when Shelby walked up. "Didn't expect to see you here, Weston," he said to Mike.

"I rode along," Mike said.

"So I see," Shelby replied.

"The guys I sent to his house called in," Shelby said. His house was broken into. Pretty sophisticated job. There were surveillance cameras, and they were remotely monitored, but the landlines were cut, and it looks like they used a signal jammer. Once they got inside, they wiped the recording equipment. We have no idea who, or how many. The security company says they lost the signal at 2:27pm. We're not sure what they took. The hard drive is missing out of his desktop. My sense of it is that someone sent in a sweep team to go through the place and remove evidence. The question is evidence of what?"

"Someone took his phone," Mike said. They left a laptop. We think the phone may have had pictures on it or video that could have identified the killer. We'll have to get his phone records and find out what calls he made prior to his death."

"The ME thinks the time of death was around 10:00pm," Max said." He left work about 2:00pm yesterday. We don't know yet where he went or who he saw. RCS took their sweet time calling us about the hack and checking on Rickard's whereabouts. There's a guy there named Coleman that Mike and I want to talk to. And Dennis is still there.

"It looks like someone basically took the whole top of his skull off," she continued, "and then glued it back on. They did something to his brain. They may have actually removed it."

"Go talk to Coleman," Shelby said. "And see what Fuchida has found out about this hack."

IV

On the way back to the airport, Max called Gwen and made apologies for the fact that they would likely be late. "You said it would be like old times," she said.

"Little did I know," Mike replied. "Do you think he knew his killer?"

"I think someone lured him to some sort of meeting, we don't know what for, and then he got taken," Max said. "Yes, I think he did know his killer. And this break in at his house looks bad. He'd been dead over twelve hours when those security cameras went dark. If whoever killed him broke into his house, they took their time doing it. On the other hand, he'd been missing long enough for people at RCS to wonder what was up. And they took their time calling us."

"Maybe someone at RCS was involved," Mike said.

"Maybe. But someone sent us the coordinates to find Rickard's body. It's like someone was sending RCS a message. I definitely want to talk to Marloth when he gets back from his trip. If this maniac has some sort of a beef with RCS, then he could be next." She sighed. "I hate we're going to be late getting to Gwen's. I know we have a job to do, but sometimes...It's like I need little pieces of normal to hang on to. "

Mike looked over at her. "You've got me."

She smiled. "I know. And that means everything."

V

They found Dennis where they had left him, staring at the monitor, a can of Diet Dr Pepper and a small, half eaten bag of tortilla chips on the desk. Dennis had found a vending machine somewhere. "This is going to be a stone bitch to trace," he said. "Mr Shiny did a number on the event logs and the command history. As for this email we got, I'm guessing it'll trace back to a zombie PC. This dude may have control of a bot net somewhere."

Max studied the monitor in front of Dennis. "Can it be traced?," she asked.

"I don't know yet"

Mike heard someone behind him, and turned to see Coleman enter the room.

"I wanted to tell you that Mr Marloth will be back tomorrow. His flight is due at 3:30pm.," Coleman said.

"Yeah?," Mike said sharply. " Well while you were talking to Mr Marloth on the phone this morning and not checking to see what happened to Rickard, he was laying dead in an abandoned factory. Someone sawed his skull open."

"I had no idea..." Coleman said. "We had paged him, and left messages. I assumed he'd call back. Look, please understand. I was carrying out Mr Marloth's orders. He wanted to reach Mr Rickard before calling the FBI."

"The I was only following orders defense didn't work at Nuremberg, and it won't work in Federal court if we decide you're obstructing," Mike said. "You might keep that in mind. Do you know of anyone who might have had a motive?"

"The only people I can think of who might have wanted to hurt him are Islamic extremists."

"Islamic extremists," Max said, doubtfully.

"Yes," Coleman replied. "I said earlier that we have a social media service called Missive Link. We've had problems with terrorists using their Missive Link pages to spread propaganda, or to recruit. Any time we become aware of something like that, we take the page down and close the person's account.. We recently took down several pages that were being used by extremists in ways that violate our terms of service. It's possible that the terrorists retaliated. Executives of other social media companies have been threatened for taking down terrorist web pages."**

"Have you received any kind of specific threat?," Mike asked. "Because if you have, you haven't said a word to us about it."

"There has been no specific threat, but I can't imagine anyone else who would have done something like this.," Coleman replied.

"We'll be conducting more interviews with you staff," Max said

"We'll give you our full cooperation," Coleman replied.

"You damn well better.," Mike said sharply. "Wait outside."

After Coleman left the room, Mike said "Islamic extremists my ass".

"This wasn't Russians, " Max replied. "Or Chinese. Or any kind of terrorist we've ever heard of."

VI

They didn't get to Gwen's until eight that evening. Before they left RCS Mike had hit the same break room vending machine where Dennis had got his tortilla chips, but tortilla chips and an oatmeal cookie weren't much for a long day, and smelling Gwen's cooking, he was keenly aware that he had brought an appetite. He asked Gwen if there was anything he could do. Max was already heading for Ryan Jr's crib.

As he set out silverware and plates, he looked over at Max, sitting on the couch, with Ryan Jr cradled in her arms, and two of them looking contentedly at each other. Max was asking him if he had been a good boy today. He didn't answer, but she seemed pretty sure that in fact he had been.. Little pieces of normal, Max had said. Maybe she had something there. Max had become his new normal, and he could no longer imagine life without her. Could he imagine her holding their child? That would be a huge change. No, not yet. But maybe he could imagine a day when he would be able to imagine it.

"So how was it?," Gwen asked, as she opened a bottle of wine.

"How was what?," Mike asked. He had been lost in thought.

"Your first day back on full duty," Gwen said.

"It's hump day. You know how it is If you can make it through Wednesday, the rest of the week is downhill from there."

VII

Later than evening, Mike returned from brushing his teeth to find Max sitting up in bed, a glum expression on her face, her Kindle in her lap. She wasn't paying attention to the Kindle. Her focus might have been on the TV set on top of the chest of drawers on the opposite wall, but that seemed unlikely, since it was turned off.

He got in bed nest to her. "You OK?"

"Yeah."

"So what's wrong?"

"I was thinking, today. While I was keeping Ryan Junior"

"About?"

"About Ryan. How proud he'd be. And that he never got to see him."

"He'd be proud of you, too. How you helped everyone through it. How you were there for Gwen. And for me."

She nodded sadly. "Sometimes I think...what if he's still out there, and he can't find his way home?"

"We've talked about this. He'd come home."

"There was no body."

"There were a lot rocks, and a lot of currents. They actually released water from the reservoir to lower the level before they could start the search, because they didn't know. So there's no telling how far downstream..."

"I know," she said sharply. "But he was different that night. On the way back, after he escaped. Sometimes I think..."

"Think what?" he asked, when she hesitated.

"That it was like he'd made up his mind about something."

"Maybe he'd made up his mind that he needed to change. And he did need to change." He hesitated, afraid of how she'd react. "Maybe it's time you talked to someone.

"I'm not crazy!"

"I didn't say you were." Mike sat up, and put a hand o her shoulder. "I don't think you are. You're not crazy, you're grieving. I know a thing or two about that. We both do. It takes time. It's like a deep stab wound, which is something else I know a little bit about. It doesn't just heal up over night. It hurts for a long, long time, and even after you think it's healed all the way up you can still feel it sometimes.

"Just think about what I've said," he continued. "Give it a few days, think it over. Ok?"

"Ok," she nodded. "I'll think about it. I'm sorry."

"Don't be"

"Hold me," she said, and sank into his arms. " I think I need a little piece of normal."

Musical Interlude: Aviary by Ego Likeness

* Yes, this is all real. And don't bother asking for a URL.

**Yes, this too is real. As of this writing, none of these threats have been carried out