"Girl in the Flower Dress"
Hayley was in her bunker, in her bed siting on an Indian position staring at a water bottle in front of her intently
She was wearing jeans and a blue sleeveless top and her hair up in a messy bun.
Suddenly, the water bottle started shaking the longer Hayley stared at it until the alarm of the bus started blaring making her look up.
The water bottle stopping the shaking as she hurriedly walked away from her bunker toward the conference room, looking directly at the big monitor. It was flashing with a red S.H.I.E.L.D. spinning logo
~8~
The team gathered in the conference room, watching the monitor looking at a picture of a man with pyrokinetic powers and looking over his information
"Chan Ho Yin" Coulson began briefing the team "Just a struggling street performer until a few years ago, when Mr. Chan began to exhibit moderate pyrokinetic abilities"
"So what gave him powers?" Fitz asked
"It's still under investigation, but Chan did live near the decommissioned Wan Tai Nuclear Plant when it caught fire" Coulson answered. Hayley hadn't looked up from the files since the briefing started "To our knowledge, no other nearby residents have exhibited similar traits"
"So how did we find out about him?" Simmons asked
"Informants saw him lighting torches in a street show...with his pinkie" May answered
Ward nodded
"Bought it to S.H.I.E.L.D's attention. We told him to keep his abilities under wraps" Coulson told them. Hayley's hand formed a fist, without looking up "He's been on The Index ever since"
"The Index?" Skye repeated questionably
Hayley looked up, bitterly though she tried to hide it, only Coulson noticed "It's a list S.H.I..E.L.D. keeps of people and objects with powers"
"Wait!" Skye exclaimed "What? How many are there? Are you saying there are more people-"
May shook her head. "Not many"
"Well, enough to keep a list" Skye replied
"A short list, meant to protect them" Coulson told them, giving Hayley a meaningful look.
Hayley rolled her eyes with a silent scoff
"Though in rare cases S.H.I.E..L.D. has had to take action" Ward told Skye
"Action against objects or people?" Skye asked. They didn't answer, which was enough answer for Skye to realize they meant both. "Well that's drastic with a side of creepy. How are they monitored? Tapped phone lines, satellite surveillance, body probes in dark, unpleasant places?"
Coulson, May and Ward looked stoic but Simmons grimaced
"Body probes?" Fitz repeated shaking his head "Now, that's ridiculous. S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't do that"
Hayley scoffed loudly, shaking her head and looking away bitterly
Fitz looked at Coulson, confused at Hayley's reaction "We don't do that, do we?"
Hayley looked back at Coulson expectant of his answer, looking sarcastic
Coulson looked at Hayley, but replied to Fitz seriously "The methods vary"
Hayley nodded sarcastically.
Skye looked at Coulson with an 'Are you kidding me?' look
"Mr. Chan was low risk" Coulson explained "He was assigned a case agent who checked in with him every few days" May brought up a feed of a trashed apartment into the monitor, obviously Chan's apartment "That's how we discovered him missing"
Hayley looked at the monitor worriedly
May looked at the agent on video in the monitor, speaking in Cantonese. "Hello Agent Kwan, how are you?"
Agent Kwan spoke in Cantonese "Not as good as I could be"
May looked at the team "Everyone, this is Agent Kwan, Chan Ho Yin's case agent"
Fitz-Simmons and Skye waved at him
May turned to face Agent Kwan "What can you tell us?"
"Not much, I'm afraid" Kwan answered "Chan is a magician, so at first I thought he'd made himself disappear"
"The file says you'd caught him violating his Index Agreement before." Coulson told him
"On two separate occasions" Kwan agreed. "Claimed we were 'hampering his artistic expression'. But last night, he was taken by professionals. The only thing they left behind was this scrap of aluminized material" he raised an evidence bag to the camera so the team could see
Simmons leaned in closer to the monitor looking at it. "Fireproof clothing"
"So, whoever took him knew about his power" Hayley told them frowning, pursing her lips
"Yes, and we think we know why" Kwan told them "Over the last few days tech division discovered a crack into our data stream. It's the same cyber punks who hacked us before" Hayley noticed over the corner of her eye Skye looking down "Somehow, they got in again. It's the Rising Tide" Coulson, May, Fitz, Simmons, Hayley and Ward looked at Skye "Hello? It got real quite. You guys still there?"
~8~
In the conference Hayley, Ward, May, Fitz and Simmons watch Skye trace the hacker of the Rising Tide on a tablet above the monitor. Everyone had thought she did it and now she was proving she didn't by tracking down the responsible.
Hayley was watching very closely at Skye for any tell of her lying though her mind wasn't in it, she was still thinking about Mr. Chan
Coulson walked in "How close are we?"
"Almost there" Skye answered
"She's identified the remote access Trojan and the infected endpoint" Fitz told them
Simmons nodded "Yeah, and is searching for a TCP to correlate the hypertext with signature information and then..."
Fitz said "Bob's your uncle" at the same time Simmons said "Voila!"
Coulson looked at Ward. "You get any of that?"
"Only the uncle part" Ward answered
"We got our origin" Skye told them putting up a map on the table monitor "Austin, Texas"
"You got a name?" Coulson asked
"Just the café our hacker worked out of, but I'm in the system." Skye told them "I'm going to check to see if any credit card charges from that day match up with any known hackers. We got a hit"
Skye typed in her tablet, finding something and putting up the hacker's information on the screen
"Miles Lydon, not Skye" Fitz told them "that's to all our relief"
Hayley, who had been watching Skye closely noticed her reaction "You know him?" She asked calmly
"Every hacker in the world knows him" Skye answered
"Not just the hacker world" Simmons told them "He infiltrated the Kremlin"
"Yeah, the picture of, uh, Putin shirtless on horseback" Fitz said smiling "That was his hack" Simmons giggled
"It was also his hack that got Chan kidnapped" Hayley narrowed her eyes, straightening up, looking upset
May picked up a tablet, typing.
"May, set a course for Austin" Coulson told her
"Just did" May replied
"What about Chan?" Skye asked
"Kwan's got a S.H.I.E.L.D. team on the ground" Coulson told them "Our best bet is to chase this thing from the other end. Find Mr. Lydon, bring him in, see what he knows"
Hayley nodded and walked away before Coulson stopped her
~8~
The team was now in Austin, Texas
Hayley was walking around a sidewalk, listening to Skye and the others over her ear comm "Just left the cafe where Miles logged in. Cashier said she hasn't seen him in over a week"
Ward was near Skye, across the street of the cafe "I may have eyes on him"
Hayley was at the end of the street, looking around and noticing Miles a few feet away of Ward having spotted him
"He's gonna run, Ward" Hayley warned them. As soon as she said so, Miles started to run, but Ward had been ready for it and followed Miles, running.
"Heading east on 5th street" Ward called out over his ear comm. Hayley looked around and started running the opposite direction, wanting to be in his way "Target is now in a sliver Jetta" Hayley slowed down having turned around in a corner and squinted her eyes, noticing said car having just passed. She took a deep breath through her nose and stared forward intently, noticing a S.H.I.E.L.D SVU following him closely
"I got him" Coulson told them.
Hayley narrowed her eyes, starting walking forward as the red lights turned green on Miles way, forcing cars to start moving and blocking Miles from continuing driving. Her eyes looked directly at Miles' car, breathing deeply through her mouth and staring at it over the distance when suddenly someone crashed with her making her lose Miles from her sight and when she looked up, she noticed all the lights were still green and all the cars trying to go in at once, but she managed to lose Miles successfully.
There was almost an accident ahead with a big truck almost hitting a bus, forcing Coulson to stop his SVU from almost crashing. The bus and the big truck's tires scratching the concrete forcedly stopping the truck and the bus at the same time before they could hit each other
Coulson looked around past the cars, sighing "I lost him" he looked at the vehicles stopping at the same time and looked around, worriedly and knowingly
Hayley sighed closing her eyes, feeling something wet from her nose, cleaning it up suddenly feeling very tired
"Follow Skye" Hayley told them over her ear comm, leaning against a wall "Something's up with her. I noticed as soon as Miles showed up as the hacker. I don't know if it's female intuition or my profiling skills but I feel Skye knows Miles more than she let on"
There was silence over the other end of the line until May spoke, deadly serious "I got it"
~8~
May had followed Skye because of Hayley's reading on her, knowing the profiler must have been right and fortunately she was right. May had found Skye hooking up with Miles and called Coulson to tell him and the team to meet them there
Fitz and Simmons were working at the computers on Miles home.
Coulson was looking through paperwork
Miles was siting on a chair on another room and Skye on the living room. Skye was looking at the team guiltily
May was standing nearby Miles, keeping an eye on both hackers
Hayley and Ward were looking through Miles' belongings. Hayley seemed tired
"I know how this looks" Skye broke the silence
Coulson held up a finger, silencing her still looking at some files
Skye looked down in shame
Coulson turned to face Skye "How long have you two been in contact?"
"I contacted him once, the day I joined to tell him I was okay and once earlier today" Skye told them
"When you tipped off an active suspect?" Coulson asked
"No, it's not like that" Skye shook her head "Miles and I... We met when we were both a little screwed up. Scratch that. He was a little screwed up, I was a lot. But we looked after one another. That's why I warned him, not because we're working together on this, but because we're...friends" Coulson didn't answer, looking at her with a blank expression "I'm really sorry"
Skye looked at them apologetically but Coulson continued with his black expression
"Noted" Coulson told her "If not you, then who is Mr. Lydon working with?"
"No one" Skye told them, scoffing "He's an idealist, believes in freedom of information"
Hayley paused and looked over her shoulder at Miles intently with narrowed eyes
"That information cost a man his freedom and you sabotaged our attempts to remedy that." Coulson told her
"No, I came here to find out what Miles knows about Chan." Skye told them
"And?" Coulson asked
Skye pursed her lips "Nothing. Miles is a dead end. He's harmless"
Hayley stared at Miles "We'll see" she murmured.
Coulson turned away
Skye looked at his back, speaking faster worriedly "Really, I was gonna find out everything I could to try to help. I just... I felt like I couldn't tell you guys everything"
"We know" Coulson told her, tense "That's why Collins told us to follow you and May did" Skye looked down "Seems that wasn't a dead end"
Coulson walked away
Skye looked at Hayley and Ward.
Ward didn't look at her, continuing leafing through the papers belonging to Miles.
Hayley was looking at Miles over Skye's shoulder, trying to profile him
Behind them, Fitz turned to face Simmons, whispering "Why would Skye do this to us for him? I thought she was our friend"
Simmons glanced at Skye, "I think she is, Fitz. But he's just obviously more than that"
"Yeah, but we've been through so much together and she didn't even tell us that she has a guy" Fitz told her
"Well, who knows what they've been through together" Simmons told her
Fitz looked away, turning back to work on the computer
Hayley had been listening to them, biting her bottom lip walking away toward May holding some of Miles' papers on her hands, ignoring Skye as she looked at Hayley hopefully. Hayley sighed mentally to herself 'And here I trusted you. I should have known, people I start trusting always betray me'
"The classified information you stole from us who did you give it to?" May was questioning Miles when she neared them
"It's information" Miles shrugged "It has a life of its own"
"What happened to Mr. Chan?" May asked
"I don't know who that is" Miles told them "So why don't you tell me"
Noise from the other side of the room made them look, watching Ward moving some of his stuff.
Miles scoffed softly "So, are you guys just going to destroy all my stuff?"
"Yes" Hayley replied simply, tilting her head aside
Coulson walked closer to May, Hayley and Miles "Anything?"
May shook her head.
"I don't have to talk to you" Miles told them
Coulson looked at May and Hayley "Take him in" May and Hayley exchanged a look, the latter handcuffing Miles and pulling him up from his seat leading him toward the door, May following behind. Coulson turned to Ward and Fitz-Simmons "Gather all the evidence and secure the prisoners. We got what we were looking for here. We're going to Hong Kong"
Hayley and May led Miles out, leaving
Coulson and Fitz-Simmons gathered the evidence following Hayley and May out, leaving.
Ward handcuffing Skye and leading her away
~8~
The team was now on the bus on their way to Hong Honk, Skye and Miles were placed on the same interrogation room, knowing if Miles didn't talk to any of the team, he would to Skye
They were on the lab going through Miles' stuff while hearing the conversation/argument between Skye and Miles.
Ward turned off the screen where they were watching the video feed. "Guy's hiding behind platitudes. He's dirty. I can feel it"
Hayley nodded in agreement
Simmons sighed "Scrubbed clean, actually" she told them "Nothing much on him. He's got no family records, his apartment is under an alias and he plays a lot of 'Minecraft' where he runs a rather nasty mob"
"Is it-is it zombie?" Fitz asked curiously
"Zombie pigmen" Simmons told him
Hayley frowned at them "Lets keep looking, shall we?"
Simmons and Fitz nodded in agreement
~8~
Fitz-Simmons and Hayley had found some information and now the team was gonna confront Miles about it.
Hayley walked inside the interrogation room, closing the door behind her.
Skye sat up straight but Hayley didn't even look at her.
Hayley walked closer to the table between them and looked at Miles, nodding at Skye "She's been defending you. Saying you're a stand up guy" she pulled up a file and placed it on the table "I know otherwise since I laid my eyes on you. But, I'm giving you a chance to come up clean yourself" she tapped the file a couple of times, smirking slightly at Miles "Or I have no problem on telling her myself"
Miles glanced at Skye, looking at Hayley defiantly "I don't have to listen to you"
Hayley smirked, knowing that would be his answer as she had the file already open, "There goes your chance" she smirked at him without humor. She grabbed some pieces of paper from the file, turning to Skye "Your boy toy here made a few deposits in the days following the leak" she laid out several checks on the table in front of Skye "All said...it's about a million dollars"
Skye looked up from the papers at Miles, suspiciously "What?"
"Real stand up guy" Hayley told her sarcastically
Miles looked at Skye, pleadingly "I can explain-"
Skye interrupted him "Did you sell information?" Miles didn't answer, looking down "Miles? Yes or no?" Miles stayed silent, still "Did you?!"
"Yes" Miles finally answered "but-"
Skye struggled angrily against her handcuffs "Oh! You are so dead! What the hell were you thinking?"
Hayley raised an eyebrow curiously
"It was a million dollars!" Miles told her. "A million dollars. It would change my life, our lives" Hayley rolled her eyes, looking at Skye's reaction. Skye was shaking her head incredulously "And that woman was harmless. I looked into it"
"No one with good intentions pays that kind of money for information" Skye pointed out "Did you ever think about that?"
"Of course I did. I never would have done it if I thought-"
"Who is the woman you referred to?" Hayley interrupted, frowning at him
"A fan of the Rising Tide, some rich girl in a flower dress" Miles answered "She knew all about me, said I had a gift. She thought people like us deserved more"
"Oh, you deserve more" Skye told him
"She pointed me to a Chinese S.H.I.E.L.D. feed" Miles told them "Wanted me to crack it"
"You thought that was harmless?" Hayley asked skeptically
"I checked the data stream," Miles told them, looking at Skye "It didn't seem like anything you and I hadn't already put out there, Skye. And I traced the account where the money came from to make sure it wasn't some evil corporation. It was just an Eco-Research lab. Otherwise, I would never-"
Hayley leaned closer, interested "Ecological research?"
Miles nodded, "Yeah, insects, some study with centipedes" Hayley reacted silently, looking at Skye who was already looking at her. They exchanged a knowing look "What's more harmless than that?"
Hayley didn't answer, straightening up and walking away without another word. They were getting closer