Honour Thy Children
Chapter 4
A/N: I realize the direction the show was going with Death and The Maiden
but this is fanfiction and as I pointed out in chapter one, AU.
Reviews are very much appreciated and help me decide whether to continue with this story so feel to leave a construcitve and respectful one. I'm not being a prima donna, but Real Life has many a pull on me and is very hard to resist. Fan fiction is my source of relief from the nasty world I live in, but it would be nice for people to tell me if they like the story and any suggestions (constructive) for it.
Also, I'm not sure about the technical elements I'm about to mention, so forgive me. Please keep in mind some of the details are disturbing.
Of course, the flamers can simply go flame one of their own stories.
I forgot to leave a Disclaimer: I own none of the CSI characters.
This chapter is rated M
Even though I know-I suppose I'll show
All my cool and cold-like old Job
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Bullets with Butterfly Wings, Smashing Pumpkins
The Child Exploitation Team had a separate office away from the lab. It was a highly secure area off limits to almost all. Gillespie had sent over a brand new ID card for Nick as well as a new access card.
"It's just to ensure our victims are protected," Nick was told, "and to ensure no one but us has access to the files." Nick stared confused at the detective who smirked, "You don't think we got perverts working for us, Stokes?"
"No...I didn't think so."
Gillespie and his partner, Julia Sobey, smirked and the red-headed lady of about 40 said, "Naive, aren't we? I think you've been spending too much time in the lab."
A snide comeback rested on Nick's lips. After all, he didn't want to make enemies on his first day.
There were no Plexiglas walls here...just white, bare walls with a few posters of local charities.
They lead Nick into a room of cubicles where men and women ranging from ages 21 to 60 sat staring away at screens and talking on phones. The computers faced the door so Nick couldn't see, but the eyes said it all. Blank and detached...the kind of look he had when coming upon a murder scene.
"And here's your area."
Nick sighed as he saw his work station...a typical office cubicle, barren but for a calendar and a desk piled high with discs and files, all familiar and for a reason.
He was not an office guy. He was a field guy. This was going to suck! Nick Stokes was an energetic guy who loved being in the middle of a crime scene, not the guy behind the desk staring at a computer all day.
"You're not happy to be here, are you?" Gillespie leaned against desk and folded his arms.
"No offense," Nick grumbled. "I just like being out and about, not worrying about some boss staring over my shoulder."
"I never stare over anyone's shoulders," Gillespie chuckled.
"Not saying you do," Nick retorted in a defensive manner.
Gillespie looked at him solemnly. "You realize that part of our job is to try and find out who these kids are and rescue them."
"Don't mean to be rude," Nick said, "but that's a rarity."
"It doesn't mean it won't happen."
"You'll be working on Ben Seabird's files," Sobey told him in a sharp tone. "Thought we'd get you started on that one first." Nick nodded and took a seat as Sobey handed him a sheet. "Your user name and password, as you won't be using the one you had as a CSI. You're not a CSI right now; you're a cyber cop."
Gillespie folded his arms and said, "Our job here, Nick, is to identify and rescue victims of online child sexual abuse and exploitation...to investigate and prosecute those who choose to abuse children by possessing, accessing, or distributing images or video of child sexual abuse or making, importing, exporting, or selling child pornography."
"We know Ben Seabird did all this."
"Yes, but we need to document how many he made, what he did, and what other children might be victims of his so we can build the charges against him."
"Not to mention who else he was involved with and pass the information on to other jurisdictions," Sobey told him. "And to monitor his website."
Nick picked up a disc and let a loud sigh. "I gotta watch this crap."
"Yes," Gillespie told him. "Not all day. Part of your job is tracking people who have paid for access to sites using their credit cards, trying to infiltrate news groups by feigning interest in becoming a member, and pretending to be a child so as to lure out pedophiles. We've got some great software available to do it."
Nick nodded. "Great. I get to play pervert." His voice dripped with sarcasm at the irony.
Sobey threw a hard stare at him and snapped, "You know what, Stokes? This isn't some petty desk job you've been given. This is hard work, every bit as hard as examining crime scenes. Maybe not as glamorous, but..." Gillespie held up a hand to her and leaned over to whisper a few words. The flash of anger in her brown eyes dissipated and she nodded. "Fine."
"So, for the first while, why don't you document the video of Madison Conway? Then Sobey can show you how to go online as a cyber cop."
Nick winced. "I have to be one of...them." He almost gagged at the thought.
"Gotta play the game."
"Okay." Nick took a deep breath as he picked up the CD of Madison Conway.
Gillespie pulled up a chair and sat beside him. "Before you do that, let me show this great system we got in." As the words "Child Exploitation Tracking System" flashed on the screen, Gillespie told him, "Back in January 2003, some guy named Paul Gillespie, no relation, contacted Bill Gates and asked for help in dealing with the problem of online sexual exploitation. Gates got right on it and voila - a state of the art system to track online child predators. It's been adapted by police forces all over Canada and the UK and now we have it." He smiled at Nick. "We're kind of slow here, but Gillespie felt that the growth of online child pornography was at a point where specialized software was needed to track these perverts."
"Wow," Nick said. "Good for Bill Gates."
"Good for us," Gillespie said. "CETS allows us to communicate with other jurisdictions to share and receive info about child porn on the web. So far worldwide over 400 investigators are using this system."
Nick nodded. He liked the sound of that.
"It will make our job somewhat easier." He stood up and patted Nick on the shoulder. "Sobey will be by to show you what you need to do."
A thought came to Nick as he reached down into one of the boxes brought him. "What do I do with these old ones? Some of these go back to the early 1980s."
"Whoa." Gillespie looked at it. "Well, I think some of them are on Seabird's website anyway."
"That sucks," Nick said. "Most of these kids are in their 40's."
"It doesn't mean they don't deserve justice."
Nick looked up at Gillespie and said with more force in his voice than he realized, "I agree, but they may not want it." Then he set the tapes on the table. "Some wounds are best left alone."
xxXXxx
The first few hours were more tutorial. Sobey went over with him how to manoeuvre through the CETS system. He looked over the script Sobey had given him on how to talk like a pervert. Rubbing his temples, he logged into Seabird's website. He nearly puked at the title, "Sweet ones".
"I've seen worse," Sobey told him, a hard edge to her voice.
"I'm sure you have." He'd never seen a child porn site, but it appeared to be a run of the mill porn site except for the photos of kids. "If I didn't know better, I'd think it was a regular porn site."
"And you would know this by..." Julia flicked a scrutinizing look.
Nick smirked. "I've done a lot of crime scenes involving porn." He noticed her eyes widen and corrected, "I mean consenting adults. In fact I know someone who likes to watch them with his wife."
"Really?!" Julia's face lit up. "And who..."
"Nevermind." Nick wanted to keep Super Dave's secret just that...a secret. "But there's porn and then there's..."
"Garbage!"
"Well, porn is meant for consenting adults, not kids."
Julia was quiet and then said, "You know, the first video I watched involved a dog."
Nick felt his insides coil.
"It looked like my dog and I felt guilty because I felt equally sad for the dog."
"Well," Nick said, "they're just as much victims as kids." He took a deep breath and said, "Well, let's get started." Biting his lip, he clicked the chat room and went in.
And so it went.
The chat rooms appeared to be normal. The perverts talked about everyday life, which in a sense shocked and horrified Nick as he learned some of them were just, well, everyday guys or gals. Although statistics showed most child porn addicts were men, there were women. Nick didn't need a study to tell him women were every bit as capable of conducting lewd acts on kids. Chills ran through him as he chatted away, stating he was married and worked as a producer in a studio and then asked Sobey, "What am I looking for here?"
She had gone back to her desk across him his and called out, "You need to encourage them to give you links to videos and photos."
"Some are just talking about their jobs, their lives, and their wives!"
"Yeah," Julia chuckled sardonically. "Who do you think these guys are?"
"I don't know."
"You'd be surprised, Stokes."
Nick then clicked a request. A dialog box came up: ACCESS DENIED, and the screen went blank. "They banned me."
Julia stood up and walked over. "Great. I'll have to work on another IP address, password, and screen name."
"What did I do wrong?"
"You made them suspicious. That's not how you ask them...not point blank."
"Sorry." Nick blinked and stared at the flashing words.
"Don't worry about it." She looked at her watch. "Why don't you go grab some lunch?"
Nick smiled. "Yeah...thanks."
xxXXxx
"Where's Mandy?" Nick looked around the empty Print Lab only to find Sara sitting at the desk.
"She's not in today. She called in sick." Sara's eyebrows knitted together. "And you're looking for her because..."
"Oh... I..." Damn.
Sara smiled and turned back to the screen. "Nevermind." Then she looked at him solemnly. "How did your morning go?"
Nick sighed and crossed his arms. "I feel like bathing in bleach."
"l'lI bet."
"Sara, some of these guys were talking about their wives, their volunteer work..."
"Well did you expect them to be anything but regular people?"
"But they're not. They're perverts."
"Perverts are human, Nick. They just don't behave like ones."
Nick nodded. "I'm just going to..."
"Call Mandy?"
He froze.
"Nick, if anyone isn't going to judge you, it's me." Sara laughed. "You really have nothing to worry about."
"I know. I just want to keep certain parts of my life...private," Nick said and then asked, "But I guess more people know then?"
"Nick, we're scientists. We're trained to see beyond the surface, and there's obvious sparks between you two." Sara smiled. "I like her better than April. She was too perfect."
"Yeah...perfectionist...obsessed with cleanliness...a nag..." Nick looked down. "Well, I'm going to go."
Julia was off with her buddy, Kathy. He heard them chatting about some Facebook game called Farm Town. Nick had watched Mandy play it and surmised that palm trees don't grow on a farm. She told him he needed to chill out. She had left Nick a sheet with his new information on it. Why she called him Texasdude he would never know. It worked. In fact, he got an instant message.
"Got something new, wanna see?'
Nick typed back, "Sure."
"My daughter and I."
Nick clicked on a dialog box and video began to play. Numbness came over him.
"She's about four."
Her hair was black and curly...her eyes dark brown. She had a lollipop in her mouth.
"Made it the other day."
Nick watched the video. It went on for about ten minutes. He monitored it...collected the info. She looked like she was Hispanic.
The last comment from the pervert was, "It was her first time. She did good."
Nick finished his part of the deal. He thanked the jerk. Then went to the washroom and threw up his lunch. When he got back to his desk, a pack of Rolaids was left there with a note saying, "Welcome to the unit!" Unwrapping the foil and slumping back into the chair, he decided to call it a day with the web and move on to the CDs and videos. They'd all been downloaded into the system, and now he had to watch them and log them.
Nick ran a hand over his face. He knew he had to learn how to detach himself. He was scheduled to be on this job for at least several weeks depending on how long it would take for them to find another person or for the person on leave to come back to work.
xxXXxx
"Hey, dude," Mandy's chipper voice greeted him on the cell. It was several days after the job and he'd watched that horrible video of the little girl for clues. He'd made several caps and was studying them.
"Look." Nick rubbed the bridge between his eyes. "I'm tired." It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to Mandy, but he didn't want to be around anyone these days.
"I'm still sick, so no worries."
Nick's ears perked. "What? You got swine flu?"
"I think so."
"Oh man!" Nick groaned. That was all he needed.
There was a tense pause before Mandy asked tentatively, "Your day...it was..."
Nick wanted to laugh. What could he say?
Hi dear, how was your day?
Oh fine. I watched a four year old girl being raped by her father, but other than that it was peachy.
"It went," he responded flatly.
"Well, anyway, I called to say goodnight."
"It's only seven o'clock."
"I got an early shift in the morning, if I live long enough to see it." Mandy sounded tired through her sunshiny personality.
Nick sighed, "Alright. Well have a good rest."
"You too."
Nick wandered into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He reached in and pulled out a bottle of Advil PM. He took it while he was nursing some repetitive strain injuries that woke him at night with pain.
Physically, he wasn't in pain. Emotionally, he was mess.
I'm not going to make it through this. I'm not going to sit everyday and watch kids being raped. I can't do this. I won't do this.
Nick picked up his cell and called Catherine, but it went immediately to voice mail, so he hung up.
It was no use complaining. He'd have to just do it. The last time he dreaded going to work was when he worked at the school cafeteria and had to report to a bitch of a boss named Debbie.
As he lay in bed with an arm slung over his eyes, images invaded his thoughts...the little girl, the look on her face...there were no words for Nick to describe it, however, there was a gleam of resonance there.
She looked how he felt almost thirty years ago.
As he watched the video, he fought to not type some voracious response to the pervert. Nick would have loved to have jumped into the video, smashed her father to bits, blown his head off with his gun, and then taken the little girl away from the whole place.
As his emotions swelled, his mind immediately sought refuge in a safe haven called 'science'. It rhymed off clues of the room. That it didn't look like a bedroom...it looked more like a hotel or motel room with its formalized setting of table and windows with flower-patterned curtains. The effects of the Advil PM took over and enveloped him in sleep, but it was dream filled.
"Nicholas, are you okay?"
He nodded, listless. His mother's hand felt cool and soft on his forehead. He was slumped over stirring his cornflakes aimlessly. Nick was unable to formulate a sentence as to what happened the night before. His young mind searched for them, but they seemed to be hiding in a cave somewhere. He didn't want his parents to know what a rotten, horrible kid he'd been the night before.
"Jill, you should take Nick to the doctor."
"He's scheduled for his tonsils on Friday, Bill."
"Yes, but if he's got a fever, they'll delay it."
His mother ran a hand through his hair, "C'mon, honey, let's get you back to bed."
He looked up at his mother. "Mom, can I... can I sleep in your bed tonight?"
She eyed his dad who smiled, "I don't see any harm in that, Jill. I'm going to be in the study for most of the evening anyway."
Nick felt himself being shuffled upstairs where he curled into his mother's back and slept soundly. He awoke once to feel his dad crawl in and whisper to his mother that it was okay to 'let the boy stay with us given the circumstances.'
He fell back asleep with a small smile on his face, his world a bliss of security content. His secret safe. They'd never know. They didn't have to know. Nick knew his mom and dad would stop loving him if he told them his dirty, little secret.
In a flash, Nick awoke feeling as if his body was on fire. He stared around nervously. His chest felt tight. His body ached, his stomach cramped up, and soon he made a trip to the washroom that left him weak and clammy. He grabbed some more Advil and swallowed them, then crawled back to bed, literally.
He made the call and reported it, then reported it to HR as required under the new H1N1 rules. "Don`t bring it here." was all he was told.
Next, he called Mandy. "Did you feel this awful?"
"I still feel awful. Do you want me to come over? They say you can't catch H1N1 again."
Nick ran a hand over his face and stared in despair around his cluttered room with clothes piling up and coffee cups lined up on his desk...some growing mould. "I just...got...stuff....to get done." He closed his eyes and mumbled, "Too tired."
"Say no more."
xxXXxx
Hacking, he awoke and saw Mandy set a bottle of water by his bed. Then she reached over and stroked his forehead gently. He noticed the dirty dishes were gone and his laundry neatly piled in baskets waiting to be put into their respective drawers. However, Mandy knew he was anal about what went where, which is he, he surmised, they were still in the white baskets. He wasn't an obsessive compulsive as Riley once accused him; it was more the security of not worrying where things were.
Plus he was forgetful, so he liked having order in his house.
"Thanks."He sat up and took a sip. "You didn't have to come over...not when you have it."
"I'm fine, did you go to the doctor to get Tamiflu?"
"No, I'll ride it out." Nick answered.
"Masochist." Mandy shook her head.
"No, there are other people who need it more than me." He said sipping the water and setting it back on the table.
Shaking her head in frustration, she sat on the edge of the bed. "I came to talk to you about something." Her face looked serious under her glasses.
Uh oh!
"You wanna dump me when I'm sick." His heart thumped under his phlegm-filled chest.
She snorted. "No, I have to go to New York to see my parents." Her eyes filled with tears. "I...uh, my father has colon cancer."
"Babe!" Nick reached out and took her into his arms. "I'm sorry." He rubbed her back gently and soothingly.
She smiled faintly into his shoulder. "They caught it early, so he'll be okay. But my mom needs me. She's falling apart."
"Yeah, you're the only daughter." Nick rubbed her back. "You talked to the lab?"
"Yeah...I'm getting six weeks so..." Mandy wiped a tear from her eye, "I've banked some sick time over the years, so I'm combining it with my vacation time."
Nick leaned back against the stack of pillows and sighed. "I know why you gotta go, but I just wish you were staying here for...obvious reasons."
Mandy nodded sympathetically and then asked, "You got Skype?"
"Yeah."
"We'll talk online." She leaned over and kissed him soundly, stirring energy between them. Nick gently pulled her into the bed.
"Don't you have the flu?" She smiled through their kisses.
"Honey, you can chop my limbs off and I'd still wanna make love to you," he growled. His hands slid eagerly into her creamy white, silk blouse and undid the clasp as he sensed her hands reach for his boxer briefs and pull them down.
With her on top rocking and squeezing with every stroke, they climaxed with an intensity born of depravation of days without intimacy since...days which Nick had found empty and filled with pain.
Intrusive thoughts and images seemed to drift, and with studied control he pushed them out. He was experienced at not allowing the graphic horror of his job to infiltrate the more pleasurable moments of his life. His hands worked double duty, pulling her hard against him as he bucked upwards before reaching around and working her into frenzy with a few buttons he knew by instinct to press at just the right moment.
His work paid off as he sensed her body tightening around him allowing him to lose control as bliss washed over him like cool spring rain.
She slumped over him and rested her head on his chest. Nick inhaled the sweaty smell from her hair and rubbed her clammy back as she regrouped.
"You okay?" he whispered, both arms enclosed around her.
"Not bad for a sick guy," she mumbled with a giggle into his chest.
"Told you I could do this." Nick laughed as he kissed the top of her head and then pulled her tighter. He didn't want her to go, but knew she didn't have a choice. He asked the dreaded question. "What time is your flight?"
"Tomorrow morning at 10 a.m." Mandy looked up. "I brought my suitcase over, so I can stay here tonight and then head out."
Nick sighed and smiled. "I'll try to let you sleep tonight."
Mandy smiled crookedly, slid off her glasses, and kissed him again.
xxXXxx
A scream awoke him. He sat up in bed, grasping the sheets. He looked around and saw trees waving through his windows. The scream wasn't outside. It was in his mind, but it tore through him every bit as much as if it were right in his bed.
Nick looked down at Mandy's naked, sleeping form and trembled. He didn't want her to go, but how could he tell her? What excuse could he give? He could not give voice to the images dancing around his head...images of victims intermingling...past and present victims with the same vacant look on their faces as innocence was being robbed of them slowly.
He sank back down and spooned her to him. No, he couldn't tell her. She had an obligation far more important than him.
Therefore, Nick concluded he would have to simply suck up the daily horror shows for the next few weeks or longer and hope his sanity would stay intact.