A/N: Reviews are helpful and appreciated. Enjoy! :)
A slow heavy hand drew the pencil over the scratch pad as it lay nestled in a pile of crumpled papers, each bearing a single number. Flakes and dustings of graphite flurried as the tip slowly swirled a six into life. Alexandra gave a choked sounding cough as the OTC drugs went down her throat and acid threatened to come up. She pushed the pad away with an exhausted and disgusted moan. It had seen times of day written on it for a few days now. Alex was trying to space her meds out so she didn't run out before she was out of the woods. Each day she dragged herself from the cool of the bathroom tiles to get some air at the window. She almost laughed to imagine expanding that misery to include a trip to the store.
It was time again. She didn't want to move, but her daily trip to the window helped her feel less helpless. Kind of ironic when she thought about the way she got there. Alex put her hand on the glass block wall and the other on the floor slowly levering herself out of prone lump on tile position. She bit back a sob and rocked herself into a kind of crawling motion. She had tried to stand at one point but bruises showed just how far it had been to fall. A whimpering crawl across rugs thrown over dark wooden floors had been her best choice.
Grant landed on the fire escape landing. He looked around before climbing up several steps and sitting down. "Here," he announced.
"Grand Grant," Birkhoff announced tiredly, wiping a bit of sleep from his eyes. "You have the thermal up?". He suddenly straightened in his chair as Amanda came by. He silently cursed his luck as she paused behind him. He tried to be subtle about knocking his Xena doll off the desk.
Grant leaned forward and placed the tiny thermal imager against the glass. " In place."
Birkhoff read the image. "One warm body….. Coming at you," he said in a slightly panicky voice.
Amanda's fingertips pressed tightly into his shoulder as she leaned in. "I want visual."
"Camera," Birkhoff yelped.
Grant drew his gun smoothly and flicked on his camera. If this really was Nikita, he would be legendary for taking her out. He smiled grimly and raised his weapon. The window creaked open. A pallid set of fingers slid out and grasped the grating of the fire escape. A woman dragged herself out.
Grant's lip curled and nose wrinkled at the sour smell of sweat rising from this woman. Her lank hair obscured her face, but no one who had ever been flattened on the mat by Nikita Mears herself could mistake this wreck for Nikita. The muzzle followed the woman but she didn't even look up.
"Junkie," Birkhoff scoffed. "Ew," he added as she began vomiting thinly through the grating of the fire escape. He startled as Amanda leaned in to watch intently. "Even if we can't see the face, it's pretty obvious that the junkie is not Nikita and I doubt Nikki would shack up with a strung out kid like that."
"True," Amanda purred out. She looked down at Birkhoff. "Move Grant on but send this address to my computer. I may want to look this young lady up later for a project in the future.". She smiled like a crocodile. " Carry on."
Birkhoff heaved a sigh of relief as she stalked out before cringing anew at the sight of Alex emptying her stomach again. "Oh for Pete's sake. Grant clear out and head to the next address.". He clicked off the visual link and went to get a red bull to clear the acid taste in his own mouth. He turned back briefly to rescue Xena with a muttered apology.
Grant aimed the weapon at the junkie in disgust.. He could blow her away and call a cleaner. He could say she saw him. Was she worth the trouble of an unsanctioned kill? Raised (for lack of a better word) by a junkie he was sorely tempted to remove this maggot from the world. He mouthed 'Bang' and waited for her to press herself back into her hole.
Alexandra pushed through and dragged the window closed. For a half a moment she swore she saw shoes but she shook her head sobbing. Hallucinating. Terrific. She dragged a shirt from the bakers rack and curled around it. The scent of the other woman clung lightly to the fabric. Alex tried to take a measure of the other woman's strength. She swallowed hard as she felt the room lurch. It was time to take up residence in the bathroom again.
Nikita moved forward in the line with a lurch. Facial recognition software constantly marched forward and got smarter, but there were ways to fool it. The surest way with the software in the airport she was passing through was simply to take one's face fifteen degrees off true.
To accomplish this angle, maintain it, and raise no suspicion was the trifecta. Nikita had done so by feigning an illness that left half her body, especially her neck weak. A little dye, a little aging make-up, some acting and Nikita became Rose Cho who was having no trouble travelling. That was good because she would have enough trouble when she got where she was going.
Nikita was dead. She would need more money and resources to stay in her undead state. Thankfully, years of spy work had given her tools and opportunities to turn to a brief and (hopefully) very lucrative life of crime. One job and she would go back to kick Vlad's ass and save Alex from him and herself.
