Chapter 28: Where They May

STEVEN

What am I doing here?

Steve let the question rattle around his sleep deprived brain. HE could practically feel the nanobots that made up CHAD scrambling around through his thoughts and memories, sending out electrical pulses, communicating, trying desperately to help him puzzle out just what the hell was going on.

The longer Steve Jinks went on living with the AI in his head, the more personality she developed, and it was beginning to feel more and more like he was two people, sharing one body. CHAD and Steve both wondered if the same thing was happening with the other Agents and their AIs.

"He's waiting for an answer, Steven." CHAD chided him after a long moment.

"I'm sorry?" Steve shook his head, trying to buy himself a few more seconds.

CHAD sighed heavily, and Steve had to make an effort to stop her from rolling their eyes.

"I asked, Agent Jinks, if you had any idea why you are here today," Valda gestured to the room around them, the bored looking Regents seeming to begin to wonder the same thing.

There was a clock in the room. It was gradually slowing, CHAD noted. The batteries would need to be changed soon.

"Maybe you could tell me," Those weren't his words, though they were said with his mouth, through his voice, they originated in another mind, "Because, as far as I know, Agent's don't normally get dragged out of deep cover, risking the entire operation, without some kind of reason."

Valda's answering smile was sharp and fake, "While you're right, Agent Jinks, you and your team seem to have found yourselves in, what the lawyers would call, extenuating circumstances."

There was a sudden tumult in Steve's stomach, a shock up his spinal cord that settled as a lump in his throat, a split second before CHAD chirped suspiciously, "That's not quite the truth, now is it?"

CHAD wanted to call him a liar and watch his reaction, but Steve knew they needed to tread a bit more carefully with this man. There was a snake like coldness in his eyes, a watery gleam that set Steve's neck hair on end.

"I don't really understand, Sir," Steve smiled, tilting his head slightly, "Maybe you could explain to me just how my team has made themselves a target of this board?"

"I can't discuss you the other Agent's with you-,"

"Then how about just me then?" Steve interrupted, "What have I done to land me in this chair? Is it something I can clear up quickly? I don't know if you understand the magnitude of the case we are working on."

"Why don't you enlighten me then, Agent?"

CHAD wanted to wipe that stupid little smirk off of his face, a sentiment she and Jinks shared, "I'm sorry, sir, but most of what we do is classified."

"I assure you, Agent Jinks, I have the clearance to know about all you've done-,"

"If that were true," Steve interrupted, "Then you would already know all about what we were doing and why. And if that were the case this whole meeting would be either a charade or a waste of time. So which is it, Regent Valda, are you trying to play a game or are you just wasting our time?"

Valda's eyes were ice turned steel, his smile a twitch away from being a sneer.

So he doesn't know as much as he's pretending.

That was helpful information, but not near enough to get a good enough handle on the situation he and his team were in.

Valda elected to ignore Steve's challenge, "Tell me about your partner."

"Claudia? She's never really in the field with me-,"

"Tell me about Sally Stukowski."

Steve's heart stuttered, but in his panicked lapse, CHAD seized control of their body and the situation, so the pause was imperceptible.

"Sally Stukowski was Walter Sykes' foster sister. He was already a teenager when she was brought into their parent's house, but they still were very close. So we hypothesized that she was using both the police system to work for her brother, and her brother's own connections to advance her own career in the force as quickly as she has."

"And?" Valda tilted his head towards them, giving a small impatient gesture with his hand, "Has this hypothesis become fact?"

"Yes and no." CHAD was treading carefully, analyzing every facial twitch, every breath, controlling every minute muscle in Steve's body.

Lying was impossible for the Agent. Having always had the ability to see through every layer of deception, he never learned to adapt and use them for himself. CHAD never stopped learning. There were a hundred tells to a liar in the face alone, blinking too much or not enough, eye contact, fidgeting, twitching… there was a balance to be held.

"Walter Sykes uses his sister under the guise of helping her. He, or one of his cronies, feeds her information on crimes in the city. Usually against rivals or those who step out of line. After all it would be suspicious if members of the Brotherhood never got pinched." CHAD shrugged, "She doesn't even know he's using her. And now we've grown close, and I'm supposed to meet her family, including Sykes, this weekend for a barbeque. That is," she allowed with a smirk, "If my team and I are not still being court martialed."

"Well," Valda fixed the papers on his table, "Perhaps we will be fortunate enough to get to the bottom of this fiasco of a mission and you and your team can get back to the good work you've been doing."

What does that mean? Steve panicked quietly, fearing they had seen through CHAD's words as he would have.

He's just fishing for a reason to take over this operation, a reason to pull us out, a reason for jeopardizing years and millions of dollars of work. He's just fishing. CHAD assured him as a nameless agent lead him from his seat.

"Oh, one last thing to consider, Agent Jinks," Valda reached out, stopping his progress with a hand on his shoulder, "Should this matter b resolved and you are allowed to return to your work, there will need to be sacrifices and those caught in the crossfire… well, what can I say but warn you not to become too involved. This is, after all, a mission."

Cold dread settled in the pit of Steve's chest as he was lead through the double doors. Pete was there, waiting with his own armed guard. He tried to rise, calling to his friend, but the agent shoved him back into his seat and the hallway grew between them.

Could you warn him? Steve asked, Prepare him somehow?

They jammed the network when they replaced Agent Donovan. CHAD said forlornly, We are all on our own.

PETER

"You're an alcoholic."

Pete flinched, "Recovered. I'm six years sober coming up."

"Right," Valda nodded, seeming to consult his notes for a moment, "But then again there is that saying, isn't there? Once an addict…"

Pete's eyes narrowed, "I don't know what you're implying, Sir, but I am too motivated to fall off the wagon now."

"How's your pain management coming along?" Valda asked, "Have you had to call your sponsor?"

Pete's fist clenched on his thigh, "I haven't needed any pain killers since that first week. I'm all patched up now, and Doc says it was like I was never shot."

"I'm glad to hear it." Valda's sentiment was so false it was almost laughable, "Now on to the tougher questions. You were hired by a group of mercenaries belonging to the Brotherhood, correct?"

"Yes, Myka and I were supposed to infiltrate MacPherson's ranks. And we figured my background as a Marine would appeal to the private security outfit owned by the Brotherhood."

"But that didn't last very long, did it?" Valda flipped through his papers again, making Pete nervous.

It's just your reports he's reading, calm down. SARA tried to sooth him, but her voice held an edge to it. He only knows what we've already told him. Stay calm.

"Tell me about this Amanda Martin. How did you come to be her body guard?"

"I prevented an attempted assault on her person while she was with some friends at a club I was hired to work at."

"Hired by whom?"

"MacPherson's security team. I was to keep the college kids in line while they spent their money and got too wasted to stand. I saw Ms. Martin accept a drink from a man that had been spiked. With the help of SARA I-,"

"I'm sorry, who is Sarah?" Valda interrupted the flow of story once more.

He's trying to fluster you, SARA informed him, That's why he brought up the alcohol and why he keeps cutting you off.

Pete knew that already, or, at least, he suspected. But it was nice for the super computer that lived in his head to confirm it for him. She had been so quiet since Fargo started poking around Claudia's computers. The AI didn't seem to like him very much and didn't want to log anything he would read.\

"S-A-R-A," Pete spelled with exaggerated slowness, "Self Actuated Robotic Awareness, but SARA is easier. She's the AI Tesla and Farnsworth stuck in my ear. SARA helped me find a way out of the club, so I was able to reach Amanda just in time, however, her security team didn't wait for the whole story before they scooped me up. They brought me before Nate Watkins, who decided to reassign me to guard only Ms. Martin."

"And why was that?" Valda didn't even give him a moment to breathe.

"I didn't know it at the time, I thought she was only a local celebrity of sorts, a starlit, it wasn't until later that all the pieces fell into place."

"Was that before or after you took a bullet for her?"

Lie. SARA prompted.

"Before. Ms. Martin and I spent a lot of time together, and she let it slip one day that her father was an important man, that he was heavily involved in the local politics, healthcare even lawyers. That's when I remembered that MacPherson's file linked him to each of these entities in Univille."

"And what excactly is your relationship with Amanda Martin now?" his voice dripped in honey, a lulling trap.

"I'm still undercover as her personal body guard." An electrical warning zipped through Pete, tasting like copper on his tongue.

"Perhaps I should reword," Valda gave a long suffering look to the seven regents taking notes at their table, "Do you believe you may be compromised do to your feelings for MacPherson's daughter?"

"No," he answered, knowing it came out too fast, he needed a recovery and quickly, "In fact, we noticed the target's developing feelings for me and decided to use it to our advantage, possibly flipping her against her father if it comes to light that she knows more about her father's business than she is letting on. And since I saved his daughters life, MacPherson has met with me personally, offering me anything I may need in recovery and inviting me to continue to guard his daughter."

"This was your idea, then?"

"It was a collaboration with my team."

"And the Colonel? He supported this little plan of yours?"

Pete couldn't very well say that Artie knew nothing of the plan, that would make him look bad. But Pete felt like an outright lie would be seen through by this scheming little man.

"Colonel Nielson supports us, encourages us to make our own decisions when we are in the field. When we are so deep undercover and out there alone except our AI's and partners, we can't pause to ask permission for every move we make."

"Of course not," Valda smiled, "I just hope you and your team have made the right decisions.

CLAUDIA

"Perhaps you can explain to me, Ms. Donovan, how someone with your… background has made it this far."

"I don't think I know what you mean," Claudia's voice was dangerous. She had been scared before, scared for her family, for her life, for her job. As time went on, however, she became furious.

"You were expelled from three different schools, bounced around several foster homes, ended up in juvenile hall until you were eighteen and then you were moved to a mental health facility." Valda listed each of these things as if they were terrible charges being brought against her.

"I didn't have a great start but I did with it what I could."

"Your twin brother had the very same start as you, did he not? And yet Agent Ashmore seems well adjusted. Graduating at sixteen and holding four degrees. Why is it that Joshua seems to be excelling where you are floundering?"

Breathe, Claud, breathe. ERIN whispered softly in her ear, Don't let him get under your skin. Breathe.

"How is your mental health?"

"Oh just peachy," She made the sneer sound almost sincere, but she couldn't help herself, she was too high strung and full of angry anxiety, "I find that these bi monthly kidnappings are just the thing every paranoid schizophrenic needs to reassure them it isn't all just in their head."

"Paranoid schizophrenia, that was the diagnosis given to you by the doctors at The Meadows, correct?" he began to flip through the pages on his table.

Damn it, "As a way to cover up what they did to my family."

"Yes, here it is, 'Paranoid behavior with obsessive thinking and delusions of grandeur.'" It was your belief that members of Manifestus specifically targeted and killed your parents and older sister, correct?"

"It wasn't a belief, I saw it happen." She ground her teeth together, "I hid under my bed so I wouldn't have to go to school. Josh had gone early with friends to play and I pretended to go with him. I heard the door bang open. Yelling, gun shots… Clair was screaming and then there was silence."

"Your parents died in a car accident," Valda spoke with a tone of condescension that had Claudia snapping back to the present with anger boiling in her veins, "That's the official police and coroner's report."

"It was a cover up, Monterey is the headquarters for Manifestus, that whole town is corrupt." Claudia crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head, she wasn't going to have this argument again. People had been questioning her story for her entire life, she was done.

"I just don't know how we can believe you Claudia, if you are lying about this tragic life event, how can we trust your word on anything you say about the mission you are on?"

"What are you talking about?" his tone was making her feel sick suddenly.

"Well, you have asserted that you witnessed your parents and sisters murder, but we know that can't possibly be true, because your sister is here in the city."

"What?" her voice sounded small in her ears.

"Yes, we know about Clair," Valda shook his head, "We haven't recovered much from your heavily encrypted files, but we've seen some of Agent Jinks and Agent Bering's feeds and we ran into a Clair Donovan, did a bit of facial approximation recognition and its her. Now, how does a dead woman end up in this city, I wonder. I for one would like to ask her."

Emily Lake's friend Clair, ERIN guessed, That's who they are talking about.

Claudia tried to recall the woman's face, but she had always been so preoccupied with Myka and Emily, everyone else was a generic blob. Could she really be her sister? Was this all a trick to make her feel crazy? Was it all just a coincidence?

She couldn't afford the racing thoughts now, she needed to think of her team, her family. They needed her to be calm and in control. Drawing on years of shutting down around foster parents, doctors and juvie guards, she forced herself to take a breath and shrugged. "Look, all I ever said was I heard gunshots and then the police were telling me my parents and sister were dead. It was them who said she was dead and I took them on their word. If this woman is my sister as you say she is, I haven't spoken to her, though I would like to."

"So you still stand by your statement that it was Manifestus that killed your parents?" Valda seemed amused.

"I do." She could still remember thirteen year old Clair terrified, pleading with her parents that something was wrong, there was someone making her uncomfortable. Their hushed fearful whispers about a man named Thomas Gentry coming after them. It wasn't until she repeated the name to a police officer that she found out he was the heir apparent for the Manifestus mob.

"Are you mentally stable?" Valda was growing frustrated.

"You'd have to ask my doctors about that."

"I assure you I will." The Regent began to pace, "You have heavily encrypted your computers, reprogramed the AI's given to you by the Warehouse and steadfastly refused to allow another computer tech to go through your files. Why should we trust you when you are being so secretive with us?"

"Because that's my job," Claudia finally snapped, "Maybe the Regents have forgotten that they sent us in here and told us to keep it a secret from everyone."

"Not from us!" he growled slamming his hands down on the table.

"I work for a classified team," she grew more self assured and calm while the Regent seemed to be losing his patience. "We only answer to Artie, and he only answers to Kosan. So unless you are secretly Regent Kosan, you don't get to know everything."

"I am here under direct order from Kosan," he argued.

"To do what?"

Valda shut down.

"Excuse me for saying this, Regent, but the only reason our team is even compromised is because the Warehouse 11 team found out about us from someone in Warehouse 1 and decided to stick their nose over here, were stupid about it and got murdered. Now, if I was the commander of that team, or say, the Regent in charge of that Warehouse, I would be really embarrassed if my team compromised the biggest mission to date and ended up getting people killed. And I would have to ask how he learned such sensitive information and why he thought he should pass it along to his lead commander."

Valda's face turned red.

Gotcha. "You wouldn't happen to know who the Regent of Warehouse 11 is?" Claudia knew, had long ago hacked her way into every other Warehouse database, but even if she hadn't, it wouldn't take a big leap to guess that Valda, the first Regent to appear right after the Warehouse 11 team, belonged there, "Because I think he should be answering a few questions as well."

"That'll be enough for now, Agent Donovan," He waved impatiently and before she could protest two agents were on either side of her, lifting her from her seat and taking her out the door.

She refused to kick or scream or resist in any way, she just smiled and winked at the Regent as the doors closed between them.

MYKA

"I'm sorry," Valda's sharp voice cracked in the room, "Are we boring you, Detective?"

Myka refocused her eyes from where they had wandered, "Honestly? Yes, and since you've kept me awake for over forty eight hours I'm having a little difficulty paying close attention to your grandstanding."

Myka guessed she had to be the last one they called to question. She didn't know how long she had been in the Warehouse, but she had been fed four times, and the seven Regents sitting in judgement looked worn and bored with this show as much as she.

"So if you would just skip the intimidation I'm sure worked just wonderfully on the rest of my team and get straight to the questions, well we all would be just grateful to get back to our jobs."

"You scored the best overall out of your entire team in training, and yet you were given perhaps the most mundane task, why is that?"

"I have no idea," Myka admitted, but gave no further information.

He head was pounding, her nose and ears were still sporadically bleeding, and the silence that filled her with MARLE's absence was crushing. She had seen Vanessa a few times, and was informed Tesla and Farnsworth were to arrive shortly, but no one would admit her to be seen by them until after her debriefing.

They don't want me to have MARLE, she guessed. Her AI could connect her to the rest of her team, to the outside world. They needed her isolated.

"For someone who wants to get this over with, you seem very reluctant to answer any of my questions, Detective."

"I can't very well answer questions I don't know the answer to, can I? I was given an assignment and I did it."

"How about an easier question, one only you would know the answer to," Valda paced with his hands behind his back, stopping suddenly to look at Myka, "Are you compromised?"

"What?" her heart was in her throat. Yes, yes, yes, compromised.

She had to shake the intrusive thoughts, she had been awake too long.

Valda took that as a denial, "Really? Because in your file it says you have a 2% corruptibility score, the highest out of your team. But we know why that is. Sam Martino."

"Sam?" Myka blinked, "What does Sam have to do with this?" had those rumors followed her all the way here? She herself had almost forgot the accusations brought against her by members of her police department.

"Come on Detective, we know he was a member of Manifestus. He worked for the west coast mob, cleaned up their mess. Now you either knew about this and didn't care or else you too were involved in his criminal activities. Those are the two good options really, the third being that you really didn't know. That would mean you were too dense to see when your own self-proclaimed best friend was involved in a mob. If that were the case, how could we possibly expect you to sniff out mob activity here?"

"Sam wasn't part of Manifestus." Myka shook her head in defiance, this couldn't have possibly happened to her twice.

"Oh, but he was," Valda insisted, "And I guess that means we have our answer. Detective Martino had been a member of Manifestus since college, and when you two became partners, you stepped on someone's toes and he was ordered to take you out. He refused and died for it. So, at least you seem to garner loyalty from mobsters."

Myka let out a short burst of hysterical laughter, "I'm sorry. This is all so fucking ridiculous. If Sam was a part of Manifestus he was the worst mobster that ever lived. I saw him cry when he accidently ran over a bunny!"

"I assure you, Detective, we have undeniable-,"

"It's Agent, by the way," she cut him off. "You keep saying detective, but I handed my shield in before I left Colorado and have since become an Agent, or didn't you know? I know that our team is a little above your pay grade."

She knew she was pushing her luck, but if he was trying so hard he had to pull her old partner out to try and trip her up, he knew nothing about Helena. They were both safe, for the time being at least.

"Tell me about your girlfriend."

"My what?" Myka paled, thinking she had hoped too soon.

"Emily Lake, isn't it?" Valda tilted his head, "The woman you left to fuck in the middle of a debriefing?"

"Yes," she swallowed, "Though I wouldn't call her my girlfriend. She is a font of information, however." Myka was scrambling, searching for a foothold to keep them away from her, "Or at least, I hoped she was. We were informed that a Warehouse Agent had been killed, and Emily owns a club very popular with Brotherhood men who love to talk. I was hoping she had heard something. She didn't know anything, but that's not to say she might not be useful in the future, I need to keep her trailing after me somehow."

"So you slept with her? I'm sorry, I fail to see how-,"

"It's what I was told to do, that was my assignment, sleep my way up the ladder." Myka's words tasted like poison in her mouth, reducing her and Helena's relationship down to being an assignment felt… wrong.

"Your assignment was to seduce information out of people?"

"You have my file, don't you?"

"I do, though it doesn't say you had to sleep with random bar tenders." He pretended to read it over, "I think the idea was for you to worm your way into the heart of one of the Brotherhoods more prominent figures."

"Look, Regent Valda, no offense, but you have no idea what you're talking about." Myka rose to her feet, "My team and I have been working this mission from day one, you can't just swoop in and try to understand everything when you don't really have much to go off of. We are secret agents, Regent, most of what we do every day won't be in any file. When this city falls no one will know our names. You guys wanted plausible deniability if this all went south, you can't come in in the nineth inning and expect to change how we've been running it from the beginning. We were given a mission, and we intend to finish it."

"Oh it will be finished," Valda assured her, "The question only remains now who will be there to see it to the end. I think I got enough information from you, Agent. You may go."

As if I wasn't already leaving. Myka thought as she walked out the double doors and right into a white lab coat clad man.

"Are you ready to have your brain poked and prodded?"

Myka pulled back and blinked, trying to understand the sudden shift in everything around her. She hadn't expected she would make it out the door when she stood up, she kept expecting someone to grab her and put the bag back over her head.

"I'm sorry?"

"You're Agent Bering, I'm Nikola Tesla, we have met before," he shone a bright light in her eyes, "Are you having memory difficulties, Agent? That could be a symptom…"

"Would people stop doing that," she blinked and shoved the light away, "I remember who you are, I just… wasn't expecting you here."

"Let's go look at that brain of yours shall we? You're not claustrophobic are you?" he asked as he led her further away from the room of regents.

A fully furnished and stocked medical wing now sat in a corner of the Warehouse where there had once been dust and paper filled shelves, looking shiny and clean and mostly chrome.

"It's good to see they haven't been idle in setting this place up," Myka nodded to her surroundings.

"Yes, yes, I'm only fortunate this is the first place the decided to start, the rest of the building looks much the same as before I'm afraid." Nikola sighed, "But Vanessa has always seen further ahead then any of these other short sighted fools. I should have seen you much sooner, we have no idea what is going on in that bot infested head of yours. Here, take this."

"What is it?" Myka took the pill he produced, time was jumping funny for her again now that the adrenaline had passed.

"It'll help you stay still for the MRI," he assured.

Myka didn't bother pointing out that it wasn't really an answer and just took the pill.

She closed her eyes and floated away briefly and arms wrapped around her as her knees gave out, "Whoa, that was fast." She tried to complain, but it sounded like garbeled nonsense.

"Shush now, just let go and sleep agent," Nikola's voice echoed down to her from far away, "It's best if you think of happy thougths as you drift away. And when you wake, you'll be good as new. Sleep now Myka."

His voice changed, lilted, became beautiful.

"Helena," she sighed happily, the feeling of fingers brushing back her hair lulling her. She could smell the woman all around her, see her smile, her beautiful eyes. She filled with peace and serenity. And she let go.