YAY FOR UPDATES. :D Not much to say about this one, other than this: If you get the reference, could you get me a Cornetto if you're going to the shop?
15th of April, 2012. Scotland
Darren McDonald had walked into work the next morning like a man with a guilty secret. And that was mostly because he was a man with a guilty secret – one that could also get him killed. Or worse.
So, no pressure then.
He had left Maria's apartment late at night, after she had gone through exactly what his job was in her little scheme, what not to do, what it meant for everyone in the entire sodding world if he did them and ended with a happy, bright note that he knew where she lived if he ever needed her, and kissed him on the cheek as he left. It'd felt warm afterwards, even when he was in the cold and her door had shut behind him.
Now he sat in his new office – an old, dusty place down the corridor from his old one. Nobody had seemed to mind him taking it (He noticed rather sourly that no one wanted to pay much attention to him anymore) It didn't have the view, but it had a blind on the door which was good enough for him – he'd pulled it down as far as it would go without springing back up again as though he could hide from the Abstergo and the things he was doing. They had eyes everywhere, he knew; it wasn't the most comforting of thoughts.
He eyed the clock on the bottom of his laptop screen nervously. It informed him it was two minutes past twelve, and his stomach did a flip.
Four minutes past twelve was when the plan began. Four minutes past twelve was when McDonald would receive an email – from the Assassins. His involvement in this whole scheme would officially begin. And McDonald was scared. Shit scared. He thought he couldn't be more scared than he was when the whole fucking place nearly blew up, but that was nothing compared to this. And all to help some guy he'd only heard of who'd landed himself in five centuries ago.
Three minutes past twelve.
Shit. He could run out of the office now – down the hallway and crawl crying into Vidic's office and tell him everything and watch as Maria was dragged away to god knows where and he could be happy and have a cup of tea in the midst of all this evil and wait for all this to blow over.
A part of him didn't like that.
The laptop chimed. He had a new email. Four minutes past twelve on the dot. Grimacing in fear, he opened it – all it had were a few documents and a small message:
"Attached to this email are documents resembling communications between you and TORCHWOOD HQ discussing money transactions. We presume our agent has told you what to do with them. If you have any further questions, contact her. Presume from this moment onwards you are being watched for your own safety. This email will self destruct once the documents are saved to your hard drive.
Tread carefully."
It wasn't signed. Were you expecting it to be? McDonald asked himself. His fingers moved so that the cursor hovered over the documents attached, and it changed into a little hand, quite willing to make a move that could throw McDonald into a career choice he hadn't hoped for.
Did he have a choice?
Hell no.
He clicked. The email disappeared as though it had never been there, and a new item arrived in his inbox. He clicked again, and firstly he found an email sent by himself to TORCHWOOD HQ listing everything that was wrong with his TORCHWOOD. And he found that every single one of them had indeed been faulty before Abstergo swept in and did some spring cleaning. The computer network, their weaponry, their database – all of them faulty or hadn't been working at all.
Christ, how did they know?
He scrolled down to see the reply from HQ. Apparently, they hadn't been willing to grant the funding for every mishap, but seventy percent of them were going to be funded – and the total cost reached a tidy number just under a billion. They also informed McDonald that they would grant him a further million to use if anything were to fault again in the next five years, and that the money would be in their offshore bank account in the next week.
The email was dated for two days time. The date Maria had told him to show the emails to Vidic.
'Bloody hell,' McDonald found himself muttering aloud. These Assassins were clearly a bunch of resourceful buggers.
He suddenly felt a lot more positive about his involvement in this plot. A lot more positive indeed. Grinning to himself, he reached for the cup of tea he'd made himself while waiting for the email to arrive, and realised three things in quick succession:
One: He'd had to make the tea himself, not Hastings.
Two: Hastings would still have to come and collect the mug afterwards.
Three: His other job was to notify Crane and Hastings that help was on the way – and to be sneaky about it.
There was no way he could tell him to his face. He told himself that it was because Hastings wouldn't believe him – not that he wasn't brave enough to look that poor bastard in the face and know that those bruises were his fault. Pfft. Course not.
But if he could get a message to him…?
As his mind wondered, his fingers began to toy with the paper doily between cup and saucer while his mouth was occupied with chewing a biro. It was only when he bit down on it too hard which led to ink flooding into his mouth was he inspired.
Shaun had been put back on tea duty – going around the offices, taking orders and picking up empty cups – and as the trolley rattled along down the corridor, his thoughts strayed to Rebecca. Would she be OK? Would Vidic's guards think twice about treating her nicely again?
He didn't want to think about it. But he couldn't help himself. Grimacing as his abused ribs protested the effort, he reached over and opened the door of one of the older offices – McDonald's new one. As Shaun stepped in, he thought to himself that the bastard should count himself lucky he wasn't in there – he would've happily beaten him to a pulp. Comforted with the thought, he nodded sombrely to himself, pushed his cracked glasses up the bridge of his nose and picked up the cup and saucer left on the desk. He swore quietly as the doily in between the two fell out and dropped onto the floor, and grunted as he stooped to pick it back up.
He stopped in surprise.
There was writing on it, scribbled in almost unreadable handwriting:
HASTINGS:
"Her elk lay poised in shadow on nothing to help epiphanies weave a yacht."
'What the…?' Shaun placed the doily on the table and bent over it, pushing his glasses back up his nose. It wasn't just any random rubbish – it was meant for him, but what the hell did it mean? It had to be a code, surely it had to be a code – maybe from the Assassins. But if it had been, Shaun would've cracked it minutes ago. He was well trained in their methods of code breakdown.
Unless it wasn't from them.
He might be looking at the answer in plain sight.
And if it was in plain sight, then it was either someone playing it wisely or someone genuinely stupid.
This was McDonald's office.
Shaun went with the latter.
Grabbing a pen from the desk (Which he noted in disgust was broken and coated with spit) he extended his middle finger and began to write on its side, frowning at the message on the doily.
What he did was simple; he took the first letter from each word. And he ended up with something that made a strange and unpleasant feeling rise up in him:
HELP IS ON THE WAY.
And that feeling was suspicion. It had to be from McDonald – no one could be so stupid to use the first letters of a word for a code – but why was he telling him help was on the way? Frowning, he found himself picking up the doily as though touching it might bring him an answer, and he found raised marks on the side the message was on.
There was writing on the other side.
ASK THE RECEPTIONIST.
Well that didn't help matters at all. And Shaun really had to get a move on. Frowning deeply, he stuffed the doily in his back pocket, rubbed away the writing on his finger and came out of the room holding the cup and saucer, trying to ignore the horrible question on his mind that asked – is this a trap?
A year or so of writing Crack!Fics with your best friend do rather help when constructing sentences that make no sense. :L Next chapter'll be up soon, and its a cracker. Review and I'll ROCK YOUR WORLD. ;D
