Chapter Nine: Kate and the Magus
.
"Anyone, and I mean anyone, know when the air conditioners are getting fixed?" Tony is standing on his desk, glaring around at the personnel scattered around the bullpen. "Come on! Who invented windows that don't open? Oh, don't glare at me, Balboa, we don't all have a wind mage on our team acting as our own personal air coolers!"
Kate stands under him, staring up and wondering if she's ever before met people quite this strange. "What are you doing, DiNozzo?"
He transfers his glare down to her. "It's hot as hell in here, Kate. And since Gibbs decided to hire a human instead of someone even remotely magical…"
Kate snorts and drops her bag, going to sit down and almost sprawling over McGee, who is, for some reason, tucked under her desk. Jumping almost a foot, she shrieks, "McGee! You have two minutes to tell me what you're doing under there or else, magic or no magic, I swear I'll—"
McGee shoots up, belting his head on the desk on his way out, face flushing bright red. "Agent Todd! I'm… I'm upgrading the computer network and, uh…"
Kate scowls deeper at him. "Time's up," she growls, very Gibbslike in this moment, grabbing McGee's ear and dragging him up.
"No, I wasn't looking up your skirt. I swear. Ow! Ow! Ow!" He wriggles in her grip, looking at her plaintively. She hears DiNozzo hop down from his desk with a thump, sniggering. "I wasn't looking—I wasn't—ow!"
"Boss!" Tony announces behind them. "Whatever you think you're looking at, it's exactly what you're looking at. And, frankly, it's a little disturbing. Why's the Norfolk probie here looking up Kate's bits?" Kate turns to face them, releasing McGee, who rubs his ear sheepishly.
"There a reason you're under Agent Todd's desk, McGee?" Gibbs asks, raising an eyebrow at him.
McGee stammers, helplessly, and it's like he never left them to begin with. "Uh… the contractors, they won't wire the network until the air conditioning's fixed. It's a union thing so…"
"Yeah, it's hot as balls in here. I don't blame them." DiNozzo fans his face, huffing. "You know, we could trade Kate for the wind mage from Balboa's team, throw in McGeek as extra incentive."
"Vampires don't overheat, DiNozzo," Gibbs says, still watching McGee carefully. Kate feels a small spark of concern light up in her belly at that look. "And we need McGee."
"Well geez, thanks, Gibbs," Kate says. It's her turn to huff as Tony waggles his tongue at her. Ass. "Good to be appreciated."
"Is there a problem, Boss?" McGee asks nervously, shuffling his feet.
"We've been requested. Kidnapping. Specifically asked for you, Tim."
"Why do they want McSqueaky? He's grass green." DiNozzo looks slightly put out by the request.
Gibbs pulls his gun out of his desk, slamming the drawer shut. "Girl missing is a golem. Kate, you and Tim, go check out the house. Now."
Kate sees McGee's face pale and groans inwardly. She can already tell this is going to be a bad one.
.
.
"You think she's going to be okay?" Kate asks, looking down at the photo of the missing child they've been given as they walk up the path to her front door. "She's beautiful."
McGee doesn't meet her eyes. "She is beautiful." She notes how he avoids her question and grips the photo tightly. The girl looks up at her, smiling happily in her school uniform. The ribbons tying her blonde hair back in a neat ponytail are blue with ducks, carefully fashioned into a bow. They remind her of the ribbons her own mom used to tie their hair back with.
"She's loved," she says gently, eyeing the younger agent for a reaction. "Look at how carefully her hair is done. My mom used to brush mine and my sister's hair for hours…" She trails off, seeing a dark light flicker deep within McGee's eyes.
He presses the doorbell sharply, flipping a file open on one hand. "Says here she was adopted when she was a baby after being found abandoned," he says, something savage and angry in his otherwise steady voice. "She's blind since creation, eleven years of age. Does well at school, plays the piano, loves to sing. There's no one home."
Kate tilts her head in what she knows is a Gibbs-like fashion. It's rubbing off on her. "Are you okay?"
McGee flashes her a strange look. "Aside from the fact there's no one home and we need to get in to help find this girl?" His voice gets louder as he speaks, cracking at the end.
"Sandy," Kate states.
"What?"
She stares him dead in the eyes, not backing down. "Her name is Sandy. Are you okay?"
He looks at the photo in her hand, mouth twisting. "I know her name. It's Sandy, she's eleven years old, and she was thrown in the trash like a broken TV when she was a baby because whoever made her, made her blind. And no one will buy a blind golem."
Kate stares at him, breathless. His face is raw with pain, old memories still stinging. "Tim…"
It's not enough. Her wordless sympathy, her shocked pity, none of it is useful to him. He's shaking his head at her, examining the door and surrounds. "I don't want to talk. I just want to find her, before someone who can't see beyond the fact that she was made and not born does."
Kate takes a breath, pushing her concern aside. "Window is open on the top floor. Boost me?"
.
.
"Where's McGee?" Tony murmurs to her, sidling up as they watch Gibbs speak to the girl's parents. The father's head hangs low, beaten. The mother stares at Gibbs with a lost, hopeful expression, eyes red-rimmed with tears. Human, both of them. Humans who had taken in a lost girl and raised her as their own.
"Helping Abby try and hack into the father's computer," Kate replies. "Do you think he's okay?"
They both know who she's referring to.
Tony shrugs. "He'll handle it. Gibbs wouldn't have let him in if he didn't think he could cope—" Whatever Tony is about to say is cut off by the father's cell ringing frantically on the table. His head shoots up, eyes glazing as he stares at the mobile.
"Put it on speaker," Gibbs barks, waving them over. "DiNozzo, get your ass down to the lab, get them tracing this." Tony vanishes. "Kate, here." He thrusts a notepad at her. She nods, ready.
The phone is answered.
"Hello?" the father asks, his voice trembling.
The voice that responds is computerized. Robotic. It says: "Call the feds off or you'll never see the child again. We want ten thousand, wired to us, or she will die."
The father looks up at Kate, eyes panicked. She shakes her head at him, begging him not to draw attention to them. "I want you to release her immediately," he manages to fumble out, still staring at Kate. "I can give you half the money now, the rest when she's home safe."
"Not going to happen."
Kate can see him losing control. The mother's eyes well up with silent tears. "Why?" he cries. "Because she's already dead? You listen to me, you let her go right now or it's over!"
"Such a clever creature, isn't she?" the voice monotones. "Plays the piano. Gifted, I hear. You don't need eyes to play the piano… but you sure as hell need ears!"
A scream echoes out of the phone's handset, the parents' faces draining of colour.
"Sandy!" gasps her mother, standing and looking frantically from Kate to Gibbs for help.
"Gibbs!" Kate says. He twitches slightly towards her, gaze locked on the phone. They're losing control of the call.
The voice continues: "One little tap. Monaural. Then the other ear, pop! Total silence and darkness forever. Final offer. Don't risk it."
The line goes dead, the father's mouth opening and closing uselessly.
"Gibbs!" Kate repeats, hand shaking her pen against the page.
Gibbs finally turns to her, eyes wolfish. "Go see if McGee traced the call. Now! We're running out of time."
.
.
McGee is playing and replaying the call when they get down to the lab, face still. "Total silence and darkness forever," the voice intones once more as he begins it again.
Abby is pacing, biting her lip. She spins to face Kate as they walk in, holding a bright pink backpack. "Kate! I've tried everything! Tracking spells, health charms, tracing the call, voice recognition. We even tried to pull background noise, we have nothing!"
The voice is drilling into Kate's head, echoing endlessly. "Such a clever creature, isn't she?"
McGee hits the repeat button.
"Final offer." Tap.
"Let her go right now or it's over!" Tap.
"Darkness forever." Tap.
"Wait," she says, darting forward and knocking McGee's hand away. "Once more, play it again. The father's lines." McGee frowns at her, and the call begins to replay again without him even looking at the screen.
"Hello? I want you to release her immediately. I can give you half the money now, the rest when she's home safe. Why? Because she's already dead? You listen to me, you let her go right now or it's over!"
"Sandy!" the mother's voice cuts in, anguished.
"He never says her name," Kate states, mind racing. "Not once does he call her Sandy or refer to her as his daughter. Not once."
Abby's eyes are wide. "What does that mean, Kate? You don't think… not her dad…"
McGee comes to life next to her, fingers frantically flashing over the keys. "Call Gibbs," he instructs sharply. Kate stares at him, having never heard such an authoritative tone from him before. "I was wrong."
"When were you wrong?" Abby queries, looking from the computer to McGee. "Timmy?"
McGee looks almost as fierce as Gibbs on a rampage. "I said that no one would buy a blind golem. Guess they will if she's pretty enough. He sold her, Kate. That man, her father, sold her and organised the call to throw us off his trail!"
.
.
Kate and Tony sit in the bullpen, silently waiting for Gibbs to appear. They've hit dead ends at every turn, and things are starting to look bleak.
"When I'm a mother, I'm never letting my kids out of my sight," Kate tells him, restlessly shredding a piece of paper.
Tony looks up at her with a wide grin that doesn't reach his eyes. "Yeah, how do you plan on doing that?"
"GPS locator strapped to the ankle. Audio and video surveillance built into their clothes."
He smirks again. "No, I meant the part about becoming a mother."
She wonders if it's possible to glare at someone hard enough to bore a hole into their head. She doubts it, but tries anyway.
"Excuse me?" says a grating voice behind them. Kate turns and finds a tall man wearing military robes standing to attention by the entrance to the bullpen. "I'm looking for Special Agent Timothy McGee?"
Kate stands to shake his hand, but she's beaten by DiNozzo. "I'm very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo," he says excitedly, adding as an afterthought, "this is Agent Todd." Kate stands, smiling thinly until she gets the stranger's measure. "Agent McGee is working on a case at the moment. Is there something we can do to help you?"
The mage peers over a pair of narrow-rimmed glasses at DiNozzo, moustache twitching. Kate almost smiles at the way the man towers over him. "No, no… no. I only require Timothy. He requested my assistance with a kidnapping."
"You're a Magus?" Kate asks, stepping past DiNozzo to shake the man's hand. A military mage? Why would McGee need a military mage?
"Admiral Magus, actually," the man corrects. "If we are to be proper about things."
She amends her thought: why would McGee need an Admiral Magus?
"Dad!" comes a startled voice. Tony turns to look at McGee on the stairs, blanches, and does a double take between the Admiral Magus and the young agent. "I didn't expect you so soon!"
"Dad?" Tony mouths at her, widening his eyes comically. She shrugs back, just as lost as he is.
"Thom," the man says, nodding at the agent with his expression unchanged. "Take me to your superior. Of course, I hurried. If you are correct, the child is quickly running out of time."
"Thom?" Tony mouths again, bouncing on his heels gleefully.
"Of course," McGee repeats. "I'll take you to Gibbs. Agent Gibbs. Special Agent… this way."
Tony sidles over to her as the two men climb the staircase without looking back at them. "Our little probie is all grown up and keeping secrets from us, Kate."
Kate thinks of the darkness in McGee's eyes as he talks about the missing child. "He's welcome to them," she says quietly, seeing something haunted cross Tony's expression. "Some things are better off unknown."
.
.
The Admiral Magus smooths the map on the table of the conference room, narrow finger tracing the surface. "If she truly has been sold on the black market, there is a few places she may be. Fortunately, if the people who have her regularly move products such as her, they are unlikely to be too careful in their operation. Not many people bother with the freedom of clay-men."
"Products such as her?" Gibbs repeats with a growl in his voice.
The Magus looks up, eyeing him with a cool gaze. "My apologies. I worked with the original task force assigned during the Emancipation of Artificially Constructed Sentience. It led to a level of… detachment."
Kate is disgusted. "You raised a golem child," she snaps. "What level of detachment does that allow?" She's glad that McGee is back down in Abby's lab.
"I raised two golems, actually," the Magus tells her. "Your point is irrelevant, Agent Todd. My son has never been in the position of losing his freedom. And with my craftsmanship, he never will be. I was never sloppy."
Gibbs slams his hand on the table. "Sloppy. You call a missing child sloppy? Bah, we're wasting time!"
The Magus sneers. "Since creating an artificial—since raising golems to life was outlawed, the price of young golems with malleable minds has skyrocketed. Those with the ability to do such complex magic are carefully kept under observation. They will not kill the girl. Even flawed, she is highly valuable in today's market. And removing her free-will sigil will take time."
"Then, where is she?" Gibbs snarls, and this time they can all hear the wolf.
The Magus traces his finger in several circles on the map, leaving a glowing trail behind it. "These are black spots. Tracing magic will not work there. They're hot-zones for illegal markets, you'll find her in one of them." He taps at two of the dozen or so circles around the DC area map, changing the gold glow to a green. "These zones are most likely, we have reports of similar products being shifted from them in the past."
Gibbs studies the zones, then turns and strides out without a word. Tony bolts after him, wasting no time with McGee's father. Kate nods carefully at the cold man. "Thank you for your help, Admiral Magus."
The first expression she's seen on his face flickers onto it, his mouth twitching slightly under the grey hair of his moustache. "Of course. Give my regards to Thom. I do hope you retrieve the child. Slavery in these modern times is a barbaric concept."
Kate hesitates before asking, "Why do you call him Thom?"
The man's moustache twitches with displeasure. "It was the name I presented him with. He chose to leave it behind, along with his past. Perhaps for the best." And with that, he's gone, sweeping out of the room with a rustle of robes, leaving behind a trace of cigar smoke and the vague sense of suppressed power.
.
.
Sandy is in the furthest pen, chained like an animal. Kate takes one look at the sightless eyes staring up at her filled with fear, and her heart breaks. "Sandy? My name's Kate. I'm an NCIS agent. You're safe now." Around her, there's the sounds of a dozen children crying, agents trying to soothe them, chains being cut. Kate wants to gather the little girl in her arms and carry her out of this hellhole, unable to easily lift the weight of even a child golem. She has to settle for simply taking her hand and hoping that no-one notices that her eyes are watering.
The atmosphere in the bullpen later that night is tense as every agent who had assisted with rescuing the golem children fills out endless reports on the conditions they'd been found in.
Tony leans over her desk and peers at her report. "Not one of those children was under nine," he says softly, looking grieved.
"Creating golems was outlawed eight years ago," she says, crossing out a misspelled word. "That's why they took them—they're the last children of their kind. Collector's items." They both look up at McGee typing busily at the spare desk. Kate wonders what it's like to see the end of your species coming. She can't imagine how that must feel.
McGee stands, grabbing his bag and walking towards them. "Alright, my report's done so I'll be heading back to Norfolk." Kate tries to say something to him, something to soothe the misery in his eyes, and just can't quite find the words. "I'll take that as a thank you," he continues with a frown.
"McGee, where do you think you're going?" Gibbs walks into the bullpen, voice peeved.
"Uhm… Norfolk?"
"Nope," Gibbs continues, and throws a NCIS cap at him. "Good news. You've been promoted to a full-time agent. You're mine now." He nods at their newest agent, and strides towards the stairs without another word.
McGee snaps his mouth shut. "That's incredible! Wow! Guys, did you hear?" He turns and sees the identical grins on his partner's face, widening his eyes.
"You know what this means?" Tony says to Kate.
Kate leans forward and slaps McGee's shoulder. "Oh yes," she says, and smiles. "You're all ours now, probie."
