A/N: I am soooooooo sorry that I haven't written in a while. I've been on this crazy trip halfway across the country, changed time-zones completely, and went back to a place that I never thought I would have to go again in my life. Safe to say, I'm exhausted. And I'm not even home yet!
I do have a message that I've been asked to pass on. I got a PM from amycahill555, and she said that she won't be able to get on for a while.
Anyways, on to the story. I think at the most there will be one more chapter after this one, plus the epilogue, and then I'm going to go on to the next in the series. Read on!
Amy walked towards the briefing room. She was all dressed, prosthetics and everything. Her stomach was churning with butterflies, and she was anxious not to mess up. If she messed up, it could mean Dan and Nellie's lives.
She reached the conference room. This was where all of the briefings took place, and it was, to be frank and honest, awesome beyond belief. Although, Amy was starting to realize, everything in the madrigal headquarters tended to be awesome.
Sitting in the room was a huge table. It's surface looked like it was made of pure obsidian, black and glossy. Sitting on it was a remote, that was a square the size of your palm, and touch screen. It controlled the table.
See, what the table did was it sent out jets of light. Those jets connected to a screen on the ceiling, and the light colors fluctuated to create images, and those images came together to create whatever the controller wanted. It was very useful for case briefings, or creating scenarios (If you've ever seen Bones, picture the thing Angela has in her office, except a whole heck of a lot bigger.)
The room was lined with glass, which could turn foggy at the press of a button concealing whatever was going on in the room at the time. This was all in the interests of keeping confidential information, well, confidential. The glass could also be drawn on with special markers, which was useful for the agents that didn't like using the scenario table.
There were about fifteen chairs set all around the table. The number was big, but that was necessary with some of the missions that went out. Amy had been a bit disappointed to find out that the chairs were just chairs, and did nothing out of the usual.
There were three people already in the room. Fiske, Tech, and a guy that looked like a male super model. His hair was a mixture of blonde and brown. It was short and spiked, as if the person who had done it had gone a little trigger happy with the gel. He was wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a red tie. His face had highly defined cheek bones, and then tapered down into a chin so pointed, Amy could have stuck some meat and pineapple and called it a shish-kabob. Amy assumed that this was Ian.
Instantly two people in the room looked up. And almost immediately following their looking up, both of them gasped. These two were Fiske and Ian, and they were both very impressed with what the disguise department had done. Tech, who had not looked up immediately, because he was fiddling with a brief case on his lap, looked up after a few minutes.
" Hi Amy." He said absently, taking in her new look with a short glance. (Ian privately thought that one glance would never be enough, for either the new Amy, or the real one.)
" Hey Tech!" She said quietly. Due to yet another Madrigal invention disguised in the prosthetics, her voice changed, and where the statement had started warm and well meant, it came out cold and offensive.
" I see the voice modulator is working." Tech noted absent mindedly, still working with whatever was in his brief case.
" You look amazing Amy," Ian said in slight wonder. Then he seemed to realize what his statement implied. " Not that you didn't already, but I'm saying that your makeup looks great, not that I was looking, it's just…."
He blushed, deciding to stop while he had some dignity left. Amy gave a bemused smile, and Fiske laughed outright. Tech looked up, but seemed to decide that the situation didn't merit his opinions.
" You look lovely, Amy." Fiske said, standing up and looking her up and down.
" Thank you Uncle Fiske." Amy said quietly. She was used to blending in, and not being noticed. Now that she looked like a super model, that was hardly possible, but old habits die hard.
" Shouldn't we get on with the briefing?" Everyone looked over at Tech, who had looked up from his briefcase.
" Yes, lets," said Fiske, going back to his chair. Amy went and sat next to Ian. Tech was at the end of the table, the control in his hand, and Fiske sat across from Ian and Amy. Tech started talking.
" You will be taken there in a limo, as is appropriate for your alias'. You will enter the building here," he said, pointing to the map, " and will be staying in the party room for a while. We think that the best time for you to leave is going to be during the speech that Neilson will give. You two will have to stay in character that entire time.
" You two will, of course, be wearing earpieces. You'll be connected to Tech the entire time. He will be our voice in your ear. The earpiece we're giving you is an ultra-sensitive microphone, and we will be able to hear you and everything going on around you."
He handed Ian a pair of sleek, stylish black glasses.
" These will be our eyes. Wear them at all times." Ian nodded, and put the glasses on.
" Amy, your camera is a bit more obscure. Since it would look suspicious if both of you were wearing glasses, yours is going to be your necklace. It's styled after a 'choker' as I'm told they're called, meaning it will be tight around your neck, so the chances of you losing it are minimal.
" Basically you just need to get in, get the information we need, and get out. Don't try to go after Dan and Nellie tonight. You don't have the firepower. Speaking of it, you need your weapons."
He pulled out a second brief case, and opened it to reveal a variety of different guns. Amy and Ian knew how to use all of them, and Amy immediately recognized her favorite, the laser gun the size of her palm. It could cut through solid diamond, and be obscured very easily.
" Amy, you'll be using this one," he handed her the laser, " and this one." He handed her a regular gun. She immediately strapped it to her thigh, where she had a concealed holster. There was also a knife and a tranquilizer in the holster. Back-ups in case the others didn't work.
" Ian, you're going to be using the same." Ian concealed his guns, and then waited for further instructions. Once a Lucian, always a Lucian.
" I wish you guys the best of luck. You have all of the standard equipment, plus what we've given you tonight. I hope you make it out in one piece." The finality of Tech's statement was what made it real for Amy. She was going on a mission. And she might not come back.
A/N: Now, see, if I were going to be mean, I would leave it there, but I feel like I need some type of plot advancement, so I'll go on. Plus, you know. I'm in a car, going across country, and my Kindle just died.
Amy sat in the limo, nervous beyond belief. This was it. The ETA of the limo to the mansion was about five minutes. Five agonizing minutes of sitting and pondering all of the horrible fates that could meet them that night.
Ian seemed to notice just how nervous she was.
" Don't worry, Amy. We'll be fine. Just remember, we have to stay in character. If they find out who we really are, it's all over."
Amy nodded. She and Ian were going to the party as the children of a millionaire, a possible donor to the Vesper cause. Their alias' were supposed to be Emily and Shawn Cole. Once they got to the mansion, they would have to call each other their designated names. Even harder, they would have to keep up the character that came with the name.
The five minutes crawled by, agonizingly slowly. Terrible thoughts of what would happen would enter Amy's mind, only to be forcibly banished. What drove Amy crazier than anything else, was that Ian appeared completely calm.
Finally, the limo pulled up in front of the mansion. And it was a HUGE mansion. Amy knew that it must have hundreds of rooms, and that more than a few of them would contain things that would make your hair curl.
"You ready for this?" Ian asked Amy.
"No." She stated simply. Then she opened the door, and stepped into the glimmering, bejeweled, glorified headquarters of evil.
A/N: I expect that once I get the hang of the series, I'll start coming up with some truly awesome spy gadgets. Till then, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to stick with the stuff that pops to mind, which is what I did with this chapter.
I think that I'm going to go straight into the next chapter. I also think that said chapter will be the last one before we're caught up. Then there's the epilogue, and this story is DONE! It's not that I want it to end, I just have so many things swirling around in my head that I could do later in the series, and I want to get on with it. So, I'm going to end this extremely long authors note, and get on with the next chapter!