Hey, guys! I have another chapter for you! Thank you to every one of you that has sent in a review! They're really helping me, and I hope that it shows in my writing as well!
Anyway, enjoy the chapter!
UPDATE (28/09/2015): So, I decided to come back and edit this chapter, because it was missing some stuff that I needed to include for the plot. I know, I should've just put them in in the first place, but yeah. Just minor changes, really, but they're important. So enjoy!
Every government agency is trained to face a threat. Usually some half-crazed terrorist trying to get revenge on the US, or a full-on crazy rights activist trying to expose government agencies and prove that they really weren't working for the good of the US as a whole – just for those in power. No one had ever really thought of defending against a teenager.
Especially since said teenager was making his way straight over to the head's office, every single worker in that branch of the CIA just sitting there and staring at him in what could be considered awe, but was probably horror or some sort of exaggerated concern for the boy. Nobody even began to move until he'd reached the only lift that could access the floor of the main office, and by then he'd already walked into the metal box, the doors closing behind him. The agents who had arrived to stop him had resorted to slamming on the 'up' button of the elevator in an attempt to get it to come back and pick them up, but it was too late. They were already gone.
Moments later, two teenage girls began running through the offices. Considering the agents had accidentally allowed a teenager to pass through just moments before, they were far more alert this time, someone getting up to stop the girls before they could get any further. The two girls looked bewildered when they were faced with the female agent that had decided to stop them. She was slim, with dark, almost black hair, and eyes that were almost as dark; she glared ever so slightly at the two girls that stood before her.
"What are you doing in here?" she demanded. "This is a government building, not a playground."
Chrissy almost huffed at the condescending tone in the woman's voice – how dare she speak to them like that – but Sabina placed a hand on her arm, sending the other teen a warning look, before turning back to address the woman. "You wouldn't have happened to see a guy pass through here not too long ago?" she asked. "Blonde hair, brown eyes, looks as if he could murder someone?"
The woman blinked at the question, not expecting anything like that, before raising an eyebrow at the two girls. "Does it have anything to do with you?"
"Uh… kinda?" Chrissy answered, a sheepish grin on her face.
"Where did he go?" Sabina demanded, frowning a little.
By the time the alarm had been sounded that there was an intruder in the building (because the agents had been stunned into shock until after Sabina and Chrissy had left the room with that agent), Alex had already reached the floor that contained the Director's office… Or was it the Assistant Director?
The elevator ride had brought him up to the corridor of the sixth or seventh floor of the building – not the top floor, just in case the Director (or Assistant Director) needed to make a hasty exit – and Alex walked out into a corridor.
The floors of the corridor were a thin, dark blue carpet; the walls were a lightly lighter shade of blue; and the corridor ran to both the left and the right. At one end there seemed to be doors on either side of the corridor until it reached some sort of bullpen, where a couple of people seemed to be working. To the left, there was also a corridor of doors, but at the end it turned right and seemed to head elsewhere.
Curiosity won over, of course, and Alex decided to head left and follow the corridor.
The blonde's eyes darted from side to side as he made his way down. He'd given up on trying not to look too suspicious – he was a teenager walking in a federal building, he was bound to look out of place there, and he was pretty sure by now that every other agent was on the lookout for him because every one of the agents in that office had caught a glimpse of his face.
His eyes scanned over each door that he passed. There was no name or number on each of them; the doors were just there, almost blending into the wall, each with a silver handle. There wasn't even anything special about this place. It looked like a regular corridor for regular offices of a regular company. Maybe that's what they're trying to do – make everything in here seem normal so they don't look like the CIA, he thought in passing. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that the doors seemed like they wanted to melt into the walls, he would've actually thought that he'd entered an office instead of a CIA building in San Francisco.
When he reached the end of the corridor, he turned right and followed it on, realising it looked pretty much the same as the rest of the corridor.
Alex was just starting to get suspicious about the fact that he hadn't seen a single person on his walk along the corridor – not even a secretary on her way back from passing on a message or bringing up lunch or anything like that – when he saw it. The blonde narrowed his eyes when he spotted the door to the room, which happened to be just after another turn in the corridor. It seemed to be a solid metal door, painted a dark blue to match the walls of the rest of the floor, and had a window on the wall beside it that looked out of the building to the street below. In fact, the only thing that gave it away as being a door was the silver handle on it. Other than that, it blended in pretty well. It was situated at the very end of the corridor, with no corridor beyond it – just an office. Maybe a large office, but it was still an office.
The only problem was that in front of that door stood two guards, both of whom were definitely taller than Alex, bulkier than Alex, and most likely stronger than Alex. Alex knew he'd fought tough enemies before, but not any twice his size, and definitely not when both of them were likely to be smart and strong. He knew that he had the luck of the devil, but Alex wasn't stupid enough to take his chances with these two, and he knew he'd lose right away. Plus, he was kind of in "enemy territory" – if he got pulverised right there, there was no way he'd get out of it without there being some questioning about his behaviour, and then Liz and Ed would be called…
All in all, he concluded, it would be a very tiring and troublesome process, and it wasn't worth the effort. He might as well hand himself in to the FBI and claim to be some sort of serial killer or something along those lines.
He'd have to think of a different way to get in.
The blonde slowly began to move backwards, keeping an eye out for people behind him and anyone else that could have seen him. It was as he was moving backwards that he saw it.
One of the office doors that he passed was left ever so slightly ajar, and Alex quickly noted that the office was on the same side that the Director's office would most definitely have windows on. He'd be able to get a clear view of the office just by looking out of the window…
If this room even had any windows.
Checking around once more to see whether anyone was watching, Alex carefully slid into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar as he'd found it so as to not raise any suspicion. Once he was sure about the door, he turned to get a good look at the room.
The inside of the room wasn't that much different from the corridor – blue carpeted floors, with slightly lighter blue walls. It just had more in it than the corridor did. Along the wall with the door were two black leather couches, both of them a little bit worn; in the corner stood a bookshelf, although there didn't seem to be all that many books on it; the wall opposite the door had a very large window with some vertical blinds pulled over it (hey, guess what colour the blinds were?); and in front of the window was a large wooden desk and a black leather swivelling office chair. On top of the desk was a regular desktop computer – probably one of those old Dell computer systems with Windows 7 on it, or something like that – and a pile of important-looking papers.
Alex raised an eyebrow slightly. "Well, this is boring," he muttered to himself, before making his way over to the window. As he passed, his eyes darted over to the papers on the desk, and he had a brief look over them – paperwork about cases… more paperwork… – before deeming them unimportant and taking a peek through the blinds.
The windows faced out onto the main street. Great. Alex really needed an audience for what he was thinking of doing. He pushed the blinds aside a little more so that he could get a better look at what was outside, and noticed a latch just in front of him. He smirked.
Okay, so he wouldn't need to break any windows. Good.
He pressed the button on the latch and twisted it, a satisfied grin settling on his face when the window swung outwards. Okay, so it wasn't that much of a gap, but it was still enough for him to squeeze through, definitely. After all, he wasn't that bulky. Plus, from what he could see, there was a small ledge just outside the window that he would just about to fit his feet on, so he'd be okay, right? He'd done this before. Granted, it was a couple of years ago, but he had.
Alex took one last glance behind him, before climbing onto the windowsill and beginning to pull himself out of the window, using the top of the window as a means of hauling himself up and out whilst using the ledge as a foothold. It was a few minutes or so before he finally managed to get himself fully out of the window, hanging onto the top of the window whilst his feet were on the ledge.
Oh wait… He hadn't even looked to see which direction the office was.
Smart move, Alex.
He looked over to his right, seeing the turn in the corridor from the outside (and also the small window, through which he was able to see the guards that were posted outside the office – fantastic) and took a deep breath. Considering the window he'd climbed out of opened to the right, he would have to swing around it to be able to make his way to the office. Which is exactly what he did.
And then his foot slipped.
The blonde yelped as his foot slipped off the ledge, and he gripped onto the window, hoping to whatever deity was up there, if there even was a deity, that he wouldn't fall to his death. Not now. Not from six stories up. That would be cruel after all he'd lived through.
Slowly, he managed to pull himself back up onto the landing more properly, wincing when he realised that he'd grazed his shin against the edge of the ledge, but once he got both feet back on that landing, he took a deep breath and relaxed. Okay, that was step one down. Next step – actually make it to the office window.
Alex's eyes scanned his environment, and in his scanning he realise that there was a tiny ledge above him, just high enough for him to reach without straining his arms, and that the ledge led all the way around the building, meaning that he'd be able to use it as a hand-hold as he scaled across. He also made the mistake of looking down, and nearly slipped off the ledge again. He took a deep breath, before slowly unlatching his fingers from the windows and sliding them up the wall until they hit the upper ledge, and grabbed hold quickly, steadying himself before beginning to make his way across the ledge to the office.
"This is crazy."
Sabina just rolled her eyes at Chrissy – for what felt like the fiftieth time – as they stood in the lift going up, the box silent save for the three humans breathing and Chrissy constantly whining about how "stupid" or "crazy" this was.
"Need I remind you that this is your friend?" the agent – who had introduced herself as Agent Louise Bright (which Chrissy had found ironic considering how dark her hair and eyes were) – quipped, sending Chrissy a simple glance with a raised eyebrow.
"A friend that I barely associate with," Chrissy interjected. "…Okay, I associate with him a lot. But I didn't know he was so crazy. I only ever see the sane side of him. And the scary side. But mainly the sane side."
"Unfortunately, we don't always see the sane side of you, Chrissy," Sabina pointed out, smirking at the huff she received from the younger girl.
It was a few more minutes before they reached the seventh floor – the floor that they assumed that Alex would be on, considering the girls had told the agent that he was looking for the Director, or Assistant Director, and that was the floor that they were on. When they stepped out into the corridor, they looked both ways.
Which way did he go?
"I'll go to the right, you two girls go to the left," the agent commanded, before leaving the girls to follow her instructions, not even waiting to hear a suggestion or argument from them. The two girls shared a glance and sighed, before heading to the left and following the corridor down.
As they headed down the corridor, Sabina was talking about something as they walked – maybe explaining something about Alex? – when Chrissy saw it.
The office door that was slightly ajar.
Which she found odd, because of all the doors she had seen, this was the only one that was left even the slightest bit open. The rest were all shut, probably locked as well. So as Sabina walked ahead, continuing to talk, Chrissy decided to investigate, pushing the door open further so that she could see what was going on inside. She spotted the open window before she even felt the breeze.
"What the heck?" She made her way over to the window, poking her head out of it and looking down to see if anything was there, and then to the left… before looking to the right. "Oh my– Alex?!"
The blonde nearly lost his footing again – for what was probably the fourth or fifth time now (wow, he was really out of shape) – when he heard the yell, and he risked turning his head back, his eyes widening when he spotted Chrissy.
"Chrissy?!"
"What are you even doing over there?! Are you crazy?!"
Alex actually seemed to hesitate, thinking about it. "It's not as if you haven't done this before!"
"Oh please – I've only climbed up to your bedroom window! This is a building seven stories high!"
Alex just scoffed, before turning his head and beginning to move along the wall again, making his way over to the office. He was nearly at the corner now, with that tiny window that allowed him to see the guards standing at the door to the office.
"Alex! No! You stop right there! Are you stupid?!"
"I'm not stupid, Chrissy! Just let me do my thing!"
"Alex, you'll fall and go ker-splat on the pavement!"
"Sidewalk, Chrissy; sidewalk."
"Pavement, sidewalk, whatever okay? Just know that you're going to fall and get hurt and die!"
"No I won't, Chrissy," Alex replied, sounding bored. Although how he could sound bored whilst doing something as crazy as this, Chrissy had no idea.
"Oh, and how do you know?" she yelled out of the window. She knew that people were staring now – how could a teenager scaling a building whilst his best friend was yelling at him not attract attention? It was practically impossible. Soon enough, all of the news helicopters would arrive with that whole "Breaking News!" headline and she'd be on TV and in so much trouble when she got home…
"Because I've done this before!" Alex called back, just as he reached the corner. "Trust me, Chrissy! I'll be fine!"
Chrissy just shook her head slowly as she watched him. "Crazy. Freaking crazy. Why the heck am I even friends with him?"
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